Chapter 76 - State Of Ouranos Citadel

"Jojo, I'm amazed that you haven't retaliated against the new crazy director. What prevented you from doing so?" said one of the cheeky adult Aiseirighians, his voice was tight and it seemed like he was a close acquaintance of the person he talked with only a territorial line in-between.

"Shut up!" Jojo shouted, with a deep voice that could make children cry. He slammed his fist against the debris near him. "my hand has been itchy since this morning, don't make me use your face to scratch it. If not only for that Ferrakhian, you wouldn't be munching on that bread."

"Bleh, I admit it is astounding. That girl single handedly created an economy and enticed the folks to scavenge up and down underground in this fucked up place, what was her name again?"

"Ragoni."

"Yeah, she is a non cultivator too, we could invite her to our gang after this stupid trial ends! Might rendezvous with others to overthrow some society for once, the new director did all of the hard work for us! Hahaha!"

The tall demon smirked. "You sure like to blabber everything even with a Yelper staring behind your ass."

"What do you mean? Those Calamities are just guard dogs, we can talk shit however we want—"

The wingless ground wyvern chomped the cheeky thug's upper torso, eventually eating his whole body as the territorial glow disappeared.

"Ignorant trash. Bet this was the new director's intention in one way or another, filtering the garbage."

Every territory's owner had the responsibility of connecting with their neighbors, helping the circulation of food and looted amenities in the market for bartering. With Ragoni's territory as the center of the market flow, she and the surrounding area were the busiest district of them all.

"Ragoni! The south district dug a basement full of wine and they were sending some of them here in exchange for 40 strawberry cakes!" shouted one of the nerdy tanomobi, trying to hold off his neighbor who was transferring numerous boxes of wine to the edge of their territory.

"What am I? A pastry chef?" replied the young Ferrakhian as the small wings on her head began to frown together with her annoyed face and baggy eyes.

"Hahaha, you sure do look like one. Let's split the wine later with Cule."

"I'm producing bread at the rate of ten per twenty minutes. That alone should tell you that there will be no cuts or splits on those goodies. One bread, that is all you will get, and no, you, that prostitute, and I aren't even someone close so stop acting like one."

The person with a small territory in-between the circulation of goods laughed at both of them. "Being young sure is nice!"

"I'm older than you," replied the male tanomobi as he wryly smiled.

Regoni maneuvered the improvised bakery in an excruciatingly fast pace as she went back and forth all day nonstop to feed 1,457 people within the barren remnants of the citadel. She possessed all kinds of items and even precious heirlooms from all of the trading she has done, but she certainly screamed inside all the time to get time off to rest all of her overworked muscles.

'Only one night left, I want to die,' Ragoni complained in her mind. 'If there is a chance for me to meet with the new director and establish some connections, I might be able to monopolize the whole market in this Citadel.'

Further from the center was Elon's living territory. Trying to convert mana without care in the world. As she was one of the rare living cultivators out of the thousand people, she was able to survive without eating a single grain for many days as her mana could compensate for the necessary nutrients.

There weren't any conflicts or rebellion as far as the three day trial goes—except the ones who asked for conflict and rebelled, those people have already died at this point. It could either die to the environment or the term that MF was enforcing, 'whoever makes conflict will be killed' and thus forcing the slaves to lessen their hostile intentions in order to survive.

They weren't animals afterall, one within a hundred could affect others by doing something that benefited them, the admirer then became the worker to influence others and so on and on. But in this case, it was manipulated in the right direction for them and the authorities.

The slanderer shall be executed, and the people who didn't cooperate will lose many benefits or even end up dead on the ground. MF had planned all of this, forcing them to act accordingly and become active both socially and mentally to survive. Fear was ingrained but the environment and message are relayed to make them obey while having the freedom to do nothing or do something for themselves and their families.

As long as they did it right, they will survive. There was an invisible bottleneck that everyone needed to pass. Surviving within this kind of place was already a sign that they were on the right path all along.

It created the mindset of 'keep thinking, take action, socialize, filter future action, profit, and repeat'. Everything was a part of a giant social experiment that had been set up; only a few notable individuals within the trial had noticed this.

Some even made their own group, they improvise the available objects into tools and hunt for more materials and items. Because there was only one source of food within the dystopia, the people with a greedy attitude began to convert their belongings for survival instead of keeping them.

In actuality, the plan was to hone and let the people taste the suffering all together but this scenario had benefited MF more than she might have thought.

"Milady, one of the disciple candidates thee hath chosen hadst turn the situation for the better," said Abe directly to MF's mind on the outskirts of the Citadel. The Avalanche Bringer appeared occasionally within the free ground to remind everyone of the one they should fear.

"Fufufu, regardless of the consequences, it would be something that I've already foreshadowed. The one that made the difference between animals and demi-humans is their brain after all.. A less depressed mood might nurture more positive emotion within my flock of sheeps."