A cold cell. Nothing but darkness until the flickering light in the palm of an officer's hand, flames, accompanied by a second officer, illuminated the gray, dingy walls. The air was putrid, filled with the scent of death and faint, echoing cries.
Noland, alone and cuffed, his magic unable to bend the bars or do anything useful with his hands behind his back, stood up.
"Your sentence will be carried out," the officer stated through the heavy mask before opening the cell. "With me, prisoner."
"We didn't do anything," Noland pleaded as he stepped out, the secondary officer grabbing both arms painfully. "We just wanted to check out the sewer!"
"You were caught with an unknown substance and a restricted chemical," the officer coldly replied as he was roughly shoved forward. "Leave your words for the judge."
Gulping, Noland complied and followed the officer's rough guidance. His legs were shaking. The cells held pale, rotting corpses or frail, starved people slouched over as the flames danced, revealing each horror one by one. Pitiful moans and pleas for help echoed as they passed.
"Why haven't these people been released?" Noland whispered, eyes wide with horror. One had chunks removed from his arm, blood-stained lips, and a maddened grin.
"W-Where am I going- really?!"
Panic started to rise in his voice as he tried to stop, but the officer tightened his grip and shoved him forward more forcefully.
"Where am I going?!"
"To the judge," the officer, illuminating the room, stated monotonously. Clearly, nothing in these cells fazed him. A man who had seen it all—perhaps too often and too many times to care anymore.
Noland's heart was lurching in his chest. His breath hitched as the officer pushed the door open into a more regal, clean hallway. He still had no idea where he was, but the environment gave him some clues.
Carpets, clean and untarnished. Pipes lined the ceiling but didn't leak, nor did the lights flicker. The walls were clean. Still gray and lifeless—but clean.
'Is this really the courthouse?' Noland thought, gulping as he heard the doors behind him. 'Or a noble's manor?'
Just the heavy clunk of the closing metal door gave him brief relief. His gaze darted apprehensively across the hall to two more officers, except their uniforms had golden trim. Their faces, as usual, were obscured by masks.
Another sharp metallic thud snapped Noland's head around as shrill screams reverberated through the hallway.
"I'm not going to be eaten! Let me go!"
Between two officers, thrashing and throwing her bodyweight around, Jade screamed, "Noland! Noland, run!"
Noland's eyes tracked the blood streaming down her forehead. As usual, she didn't know when to quit. One of the guards had most likely given her a whack or maybe she got it during their capture.
Her wild thrashing slowed as she stared at Noland, her expression overtaken with fear and growing shades of confusion. He stood there, stunned, watching the blood trickle down her face. His chest and limbs felt cold.
'Fear...' Noland thought, breathing shakily. 'Yeah, I'm scared shitless... But I can't admit it, not now. We fucked up and now we're going to die. Eaten by everyone we once knew!'
Jade finally recognized the look in his eyes. Tears began to stream down her face as she gritted her teeth, sobs starting to emerge.
"Enough," a gold-trimmed officer stated with an amused edge. "You both will stand before the judge and face banishment, imprisonment, or..."
His head turned slowly toward Jade, who instinctively flinched, and his tone became mocking.
"Execution."
"W-Where's Lucky?" Noland asked, his voice shaking.
The officer's head slowly turned. Noland's vision narrowed under his gaze, with Jade's whimper cementing itself in his mind, as the officer gave a cold answer:
"Executed."
----------------------------
Gasping for air, Lucky's eyes went wide, blinded by a light hovering above his face. His body was in agony. He remembered feeling himself being torn apart and thought he was surely going to die. Yet here he was, gasping painfully under an intense yellow light.
"You are... awake," an old voice croaked, followed by a high-pitched metallic ping. "Very unfortunate for you, I must say."
"Where am I?" Lucky rasped, each word hurting like sandpaper down his throat. His eyes darted around, unable to see the man but he felt multiple straps pinning him down.
"My clinic," a calm, eerie voice replied. "It is thanks to me that you are alive and your body restored. Be thankful."
"Thank you," Lucky breathed out, but an uneasy feeling gripped him. Though he could move his left arm and other injured parts again, he knew he wasn't free.
Despite the go-happy nature he always showed Jade and Noland, he was always analyzing and questioning things mentally. He just avoided it with them to keep spirits up and not be 'that guy' always butting in.
Even with their operation, he tried to voice concerns but held back, fearing it would annoy them- or worse, get him cut out entirely. All the times he saw them annoyed with his questions… at least, that's how it felt.
But in this moment, he was alone, and the alarm bells were ringing furiously in his head.
"So... what will happen to me now?" Lucky asked nervously, his voice still raspy.
"You will stay here for the time being. Those pills you took had a peculiar effect on your body. I must learn."
The light was finally removed from his face. The old man came into view- sunken eyes, a long crooked nose, sparse strands of hair falling from his scalp, and speckled skin. His lips cracked when he spoke with a grey underline- same as his teeth. Strangely, though, he also looked young, perhaps not even in his thirties, yet something had torn away at his health.
"You cannot see it, but the straps are reserved for upper-city citizens- carved with ancient runes to restrict mana flow."
"Why? I have almost no mana. I'm from the pier!"
"Indeed. I am aware. After all, I was the witness to your delivery... and theirs."
"Delivery? Our births?" Lucky's head twitched, trying to get a better view, but failed. All he heard was the echoing of the man moving and the faint ping of metal on metal.
"Birth? Perhaps. After a certain time we stopped separating babies born naturally from those created artificially. It was rather pointless. We tried all known combinations."
"What? Some of us were artificially created? Like- like the meat we eat?"
The man's head entered Lucky's field of vision again, eyes locking with an intrigued look.
"Yes. Like the meat you eat." A sharp metallic rasp followed, like a blade brushing against a sharpener.
"S-So what are you going to do with me?" Lucky asked, chest tightening. 'Something's really wrong.'
"Aren't I going to face a judge?! Where's Jade and Noland?!"
"You've been declared executed. Thanks to Fenrik, those two will most likely be banished instead of turned into sustenance. Such a waste for a city starved of resources."
"I'm not dead!"
"No," the doctor chuckled, amused. "But you will wish you were."
Lucky's breath hitched, his entire body freezing as a long, thin metallic spoon came into view. He started thrashing, fear gripping his chest.
"Please don't! This is fucked up! I'll tell you anything! Everything!"
Tapping the instrument against Lucky's forehead, the man drawled as if bored but clearly enjoying the monologue.
"In ancient times there used to be these jobs called farmers. Books explained how they killed animals, even those treated like pets, and butchered them. How could they do such things to creatures they raised?"
"It only took me a few times to figure it out. The sensation dulls, you compartmentalize it... and eventually you don't feel guilt anymore."
"Instead," the man's cracked lips twisted into a smile. The instrument traced down Lucky's forehead toward his eye socket. Lucky tried to pull away, but the cold metal pressed under it. "You feel curiosity. Excitement."
"You sick fuck! Get off me!" Lucky cursed, his voice cracking in fear. Adrenaline surged through him, but the restraints held firm. Sharp cracks echoed as he struggled against the metal.
"You see, bordering the Chemical Sea, there isn't much value except for one unique product. Some chemicals you and your friends on the pier gather. Others must be alchemized with raw materials to create it. Metallum Animatum."
"We feed it to infants at birth," he continued, watching Lucky's horror as if it were a play. "Through our lives it grows. And when we die it is harvested."
"What do you do with it? We have nothing...?" Lucky whispered, horrified but unable to look away. The metal still pressed under his eye.
The doctor chuckled. "That is not for you to know. But what I will tell you is that what you took permanently increased your mana. Stronger than those in the upper city. Can you guess how valuable that is to us?"
"I-I-There isn't any more! We brought it all with us!"
"Haha... So you tried to steal a stabilization for fun, yes? No, no, no... Let us enjoy our time together."
Lucky's slow breathing turned to shrieks, and then to screams, as the doctor began his work.
"Don't worry. You won't die," the man murmured through the violent sounds of thrashing and screams. "We will put you to good use in the city once I am finished."