Chapter 427: Butchers

Despite this new occurrence, not much had changed, and even the shopkeeper who had reported me had returned to his previous script. It was as if the crime I had committed had already been forgotten, although I was still left in the jail cell awaiting my so-called appointment with the warden.

It was reaching a point where I thought that maybe they had forgotten about me, as I had proceeded to explore most of the town through a [Sub-Core] at this point, with not much to show for it. Vee was facing similar problems, but we hadn't exactly covered everything yet.

I eventually decided that if the warden didn't appear within the next hour, I would stage a jailbreak and see if that would move the situation forward. However, about halfway through my deadline, the warden finally appeared. I was expecting to get interrogated or something similar, but instead, I was seized and escorted out of my cell to a new location by the warden and his accomplices.

"Hello? Can someone tell me what's going on?" I tried asking, only to be ignored.

If I tried to resist, I'd get shouted at to "stay in line," but otherwise, they refused to interact with me. I was honestly growing a bit impatient with this treatment, but I wanted to see where exactly I was being taken.

If not for this shrunken space messing with my rift, I would've started exploring all the hidden nooks and crannies already.

Both Vee and I had limited access to our [Dimension Magic], which was probably making this whole situation harder than it needed to be. We had even considered opening up a [Rift Door] and throwing the people inside to quarantine them, but it seemed impossible to stabilize the space while inside the snow globe.

Anyway, I also had Vee begging me not to ruin it and to see where this led, as it was the closest thing we had to a clue, so I continued to play along. If this led nowhere, then I could always try my prison break in the next cycle when the town inevitably reset itself.

Vee was also following us, scuttling along the ceiling while in a shrunken state. Our destination seemed to be in the basement, as we kept heading down through locked doors and staircases, yet at some point, I realized we were no longer under the guard house but under the town itself. My realization, however, was short-lived, as after the next set of doors was opened, the smell of flesh and decay struck me like a brick.

Inside looked like a butchery on a scale like never before, except the meat on display wasn't animals—it was people! Lined up in cages were what looked like humans, except misshapen and malformed. They didn't even react to their situation, even when someone was cutting into them.

"What the heck is going on here!?" Vee cried out in horror.

"You tell me?" I secretly replied back telepathically.

But before Vee could respond, one of the workers, perhaps even the man in charge, spoke up to the warden with a grin plastered on his face.

"It's about time since we added some new meat to the mix! This batch has already started getting stale. I prefer it when they've got a bit of a fight left in them."

The warden frowned. "Unlike you, I don't take pleasure in this. But without it, the people would starve."

"Yes, yes. We've got to keep the people of Moonscar happy. They can all thank the lord that they are all so prosperous," the worker replied, directing some of his helpers to grab me.

"Okay… this is even more messed up than I realized," Vee's voice echoed in my head. "I did some poking around, and there's like big giant vats… I think they are growing meat-people here!"

"So rather than growing crops, they're growing meat?" I asked.

"It looks like it. I guess that explains how they are surviving in an effectively perpetual winter. Gods… This is horrific. I'm so glad they refused to accept my money for a meal."

"I know you used to be a human, but you are a spider monster now. It's probably fine if you eat it."

"Yes… It's awfully hypocritical of me, I mean, I even admitted to surviving off of some dwarves who attacked me back in the day. But this just feels… Wrong on so many levels. And besides, forget about me, these are humans we are talking about! You can't just eat your own kind, that leads to all sorts of strange and taboo things!"

I partially agreed with her, as for myself, eating another slime was basically the ultimate delicacy. Yet, I knew that wasn't the same case with pretty much the majority of other species. It was no wonder so many people looked down at slimes in disgust if that was normal for them, and maybe that was why I wasn't taking this situation as badly as Vee was.

Yet all of that had to take a backseat now, as my ruse was rapidly running out of time. At this point, I'd been handed over, and the warden and his men had left. I was being strapped up and restrained to a table, and judging by the marks left on it, I was about to be butchered.

"So… Can I fight back finally? Because I'm literally on the chopping block right now."

"Oh gods, yes, kill them all, they aren't even people anymore!" Vee shouted.

That was all I needed to hear, and I immediately melted through the restraints. The man in charge immediately went for my head with a massive cleaver, but his blade sliced clean through it while leaving no visible wound. I grinned back at him and then summoned forth my slime and an army of tendrils.

"I've always wanted to do that!"

"You wanted your head lobbed off?" Vee asked in disbelief.

"Why spend the effort to prevent an attack when I can just let it slide straight through me. If it doesn't hit a core, it's meaningless, but I'd always been worried about losing the slime after it was cut off, but now, thanks to [Slime Puppetry], that's no longer an issue!"

"Look, I'm happy for you, but can we please focus on the crazy cannibals?"

"You really need to learn to multitask better. I've already captured their leader and started destroying the cages."

I'd done exactly that, although despite freeing the people, they didn't move. Judging by the lack of any reaction from their eyes, they might not even be classified as "people" at this stage, possibly even brain-dead and without even a hint of consciousness.

Or a soul?

[Soul Sight] gave me a very strange reading on them, even beating the citizens of Moonscar. Despite looking and feeling like humans, I could've sworn they were closer to undead from what I was reading off them. Perhaps, in some twisted way, this was an attempt to create endless food for the people.

"Oh gods, please tell me you didn't just try to justify ethical cannibalism?" Vee suddenly asked, perhaps from getting a good read on my thoughts and feelings through our bond.

"I'm not justifying anything!" I quickly denied. "I'm just saying that I can maybe piece together the events that led to this. Imagine if people could eat dungeon monsters. Wouldn't that be an easy way to get food? I'd love to spawn in slimes for myself."

"Dungeons are different… I mean, if you become a slime queen, are you going to eat your own children?"

"Uh…"

"Answer the question, Syl!"

"I'll admit the thought had crossed my mind as a way to quickly accumulate slime trait levels. I already tried it once with [Sub-Cores], but it didn't work."

"I hope that was just an intrusive thought and not something you were actually going to do."

"I guess it would depend on whether they are a dumb slime or something like you and me? I'd hope they were at least on par with a goblin."

Vee paused. "I hadn't even considered that… I just assumed they would be talking slimes like you, something kind of like Sylbera and the others."

I shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea, I'd like to hope they are, and then I could create a sort of new race like Keldenar. But I'm not exactly planning on picking the slime queen evolution until I have literally no other options. I'd much rather pick something like time slime next."

"You and the bloody time slime… I swear…"

We kinda dropped the conversation there; it had been a rather weird one while I was busy destroying all the equipment, opening cages, and capturing the workers. Yet none of the meat humans were reacting, and when I finally saw the vats that Vee spoke of, in which they were grown, I sort of got a clearer picture.

It looked like some horrific combination of an alchemy lab and a butchery, with a strange meat slurry slowly growing into humanoid shapes. I never thought I'd see the day that a necromancer seemed like the more sensible option for dark practices.

"I mean, at least a necromancer only animates skeletons and zombies and stuff. This is just downright creepy," Vee replied.

Seeing the vats, even I didn't want to taste them, and as a slime I would eat quite literally anything. However, this strange, almost meat slime gave me the creeps, and I wanted nothing to do with it, so instead I settled on some good old [Corrosive Magic] to start destroying it.

Yet when Vee and I started destroying this accursed equipment, the workers erupted into a rage.

"How dare you!"

"You're killing us!"

"Think of the children up above!"

"You've doomed everyone!"

They continued to fight and scream in their tentacle restraints, as if they were seeing the worst catastrophe of their lives. Their struggles eventually became horrendous, and that was when we realized that their bodies had begun to change.

As if their skin was only a disguise, it began to tear and rip apart as their limbs began to elongate and their bones began to snap and creak. With guttural cries, their forms had entirely changed, and I understood that we were witnessing them becoming something like an in-between to the wendigos we'd fought before.

However, their transformations were only partial, and they lacked the strength and, more importantly, enough of the cursed energy to fuel the wendigos' vigor. However, after fighting so many of them, I'd sort of figured out a way to vaguely sense and measure it, so I could tell that their bodies had somehow accumulated the energy, and now that they had changed, it was slowly starting to grow.

"This makes more sense…" Vee said. "No wonder they seemed to appear from nowhere, they were already here!"

As if Vee's sudden declaration were the final trigger, even down here we heard the sounds of chaos from up above, and I confirmed it by taking a look through a [Sub-Core]: the attack on the city had begun again.

"Shit… Did we actually accomplish anything?" Vee asked in frustration.

"Well, we know this place exists now. Maybe we could try sabotaging it without revealing ourselves and preventing them from transforming."

"I suppose… Actually, I wonder if someone transforming is what triggers this? Kind of like a patient zero sort of thing."

"So these people turning caused others to turn?" I asked, gesturing to the half-wendigos I had captured.

"Like a fuse igniting others. I'm not sure, I'm just guessing."

"If you're right, then what about taking them out before they can transform? Would that stop it?"

"Maybe? Again, I was spitballing ideas. Also, how would you even know who's who in the first place?"

"I can sort of sense the energy in them. We know these guys are all cursed for sure, so I could use them as my guinea pigs to confirm the energy in their untransformed state. From there, maybe we can preemptively nip this problem in the bud?"

Vee nodded. "It's the best sounding plan we've come up with so far."

I sighed and glanced up. "But first… We need to clean up the town again."

"Ugh… Don't remind me. I swear if we don't beat this before we reach a dozen loops, I'm going to complain."

"To whom? Keldenar? He just showed us the location."

"Maybe I'll tell Mother about it. Say this labyrinth is terrible."

I gave a bit of a dry chuckle at that response. "If you promised to learn some more magic, she might actually listen to you."

"I might genuinely do that if push comes to shove!" Vee threatened. "Anyway, let's finish up and get to the next cycle already."

I agreed, and after disposing of the half-wendigos, we looked for an exit. We could've taken the path through the barracks, but it looked like there were other access points to this horrible underground butchery lab. The first one we found actually led to one of the largest eating establishments, and I could sense the queasiness radiating from Vee, who had no doubt tried to eat here earlier.

As if to recover from this, she practically threw herself at the nearest monster, beginning to rip and tear through them while screaming various profanities and curses. I soon joined her, although I was still struggling with some unresolved thoughts of my own.

What exactly is the history behind this place? Does it actually serve a purpose like the demon one? Or is this all just the machinations of some twisted labyrinth master? I suppose only time will tell…