Chapter 70 - Eggs
Peta-chan and I had been observing the vice-captain as she fought monsters and looted canned meat in the new dungeon level.
We also watched as she discovered chickens, caught them, and tried eating them.
At first, the chickens were treated like small monsters and hunted easily with bows.
But once it became clear they didn’t vanish like monsters when defeated—and didn’t even fight back—it was obvious these chickens were meant as a food source.
So, the knights shifted gears and started trying to catch them alive to bring back.
Watching the elite First Unit scramble after the surprisingly swift chickens was like witnessing a training montage straight out of a certain famous boxing movie.
...Well, considering they were in full armor, it wasn’t surprising they were having a hard time capturing them alive.
As for the canned luncheon meat dropped from monsters, once they realized the cans were made from surprisingly soft material, they didn’t hesitate to slice them open with their swords.
“Hey, hey, don’t go opening canned food with a sword! There’s a pull-tab for a reason!”
I knew full well they wouldn’t understand the concept of a pull-tab, but still—I wished they’d at least taken a closer look before cutting them open.
Even so, the seasoned processed meat inside the cans, along with the freshly caught chicken, seemed to satisfy the members of the First Unit immensely.
With this, their long-term stay in the No-Hunger Dungeon without worrying about food would surely become even more comfortable.
The chickens and canned meat were added on short notice after many adventurers began complaining about the lack of meat in their diet during dungeon expeditions.
Letting them fall into protein deficiency would go against the dungeon’s intent of fostering stronger adventurers—definitely not a good thing.
That’s why I decided to introduce canned meat with long shelf life. But relying solely on canned meat for protein seemed like a quick route to excessive salt intake.
And so, after considering the balance, I decided to add chickens.
Originally, I had wanted to introduce pigs or cows, but apparently, the dungeon’s miasma couldn’t create intelligent lifeforms.
Come to think of it, back in the day when Peta-chan was unconscious and asleep, I tried to create a sexy succubus lady—but I couldn’t.
I wondered if it was because I didn’t actually know any sexy succubi, so I tried again with just a sexy regular woman—but that didn’t work either.
Later on, when Peta-chan woke up, I casually asked her if it’d be possible to make cute pets like dogs or cats and keep them in the master room. She flat-out told me it was impossible.
“Hm... but maybe you could make bugs or lizards?” she said.
So, I started testing the limits of what I could create—and in the end, chickens were the cap.
If I tried to make birds that seemed any more intelligent than chickens, it just didn’t work.
Actually, even these chickens made from mana were clearly more aggressive than real ones—and utterly unresponsive to communication.
It seemed the dungeon simply couldn’t create creatures with enough intelligence to interact meaningfully.
Which means, unfortunately, that no dungeon would ever feature a seductive succubus temptress or an adorable cat-eared monster girl. What a bleak world.
And so, I decided to release the chickens I had managed to create long ago into the current No-Hunger Dungeon.
Since there was grain growing all over the place, they could just feed themselves and multiply freely.
And sure enough, the chickens pecked at the scattered grains, laid eggs wherever they pleased, and hatched chicks without a care.
The chicks, too, went around pecking at crops and steadily grew up on their own.
The chickens made from mana seemed to be recognized as part of the dungeon itself—they weren’t attacked by other monsters.
That meant they could be left alone to multiply freely, and sooner or later, the knights would probably start bringing some of them over to the Hot Spring Dungeon too.
I watched the chickens increase in number with a satisfied smile.
Next to me, Peta-chan observed the steadily growing flock with a puzzled look on her face.
“These chickens... they’re eating grain... and laying eggs to multiply? That doesn’t seem right...”
“What do you mean?”
Peta-chan sounded genuinely confused, but to me, nothing about it seemed off.
They were pecking at grain, laying eggs, and multiplying—exactly what ordinary chickens were supposed to do.
No matter how you looked at it, they were just... incredibly normal chickens.
“I mean, it’s strange for a creature made from dungeon mana to function on anything other than mana as its energy source, right?
Crops in the dungeon grow by feeding on mana, don’t they?
So by the same logic, these chickens, being dungeon creatures like the monsters, shouldn’t need to eat at all—they should just wander around.
Ah... maybe because I, the dungeon core, developed a sense of hunger, the act of eating mana-based crops and converting them into energy has become possible for them...?”
...It sounded like she was running into some kind of dilemma that only made sense to a dungeon core. As a former human, I was completely lost.
“But then that still doesn’t explain why they’re laying eggs and reproducing... Dungeon creatures aren’t supposed to breed.”
...The conversation was definitely heading into dangerous territory.
“W-wait! But look!
Over in the Hot Spring Dungeon, the knights planted crop seeds, and now they’re sprouting, right?
Even the plants in the dungeon can reproduce properly!”
I scrambled to defend my point.
“Well sure, but that dungeon incorporates some of your common sense into how it operates, so it’s not that strange.
But in the No-Hunger Dungeon, the crops just pop up spontaneously from dungeon mana—you don’t even have to sow seeds, remember?
So by that same logic, the chickens we’ve placed there should just spawn from nowhere, too. So why are these ones laying eggs and breeding?
I mean... unlike appetite, I don’t exactly have any reproductive instincts or desires, you know?”
At that point, Peta-chan suddenly looked like she remembered something.
She glanced over at me, then slowly lowered her hand to her lower abdomen, her gaze growing distant as if she were trying to recall a sensation from the past.
No, wait—what are you remembering?! Stop that!
Why?!
Why did releasing chickens into the dungeon somehow bring us to this horrifyingly dangerous memory minefield?!
After a long pause, Peta-chan finally spoke up with a serious expression.
“Hey... Master, don’t tell me... back when I was unconscious, you secretly...”
Gulp.
“...were laying eggs?”
............
“LIKE HELL I COULD!!!”
The answer she arrived at was...
An answer that was almost right, yet also incredibly, painfully wrong.
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