Why Is There a Chicken Cult (And What Do They Want Now?

The Church of the Sacred Nugget was completed three days after our tournament victory.
I wish I could say I was exaggerating about it being an actual church. I wasn't.
The chicken cult—officially calling themselves "The Order of Eternal Peck"—had used their pilgrimage to the Roost as inspiration. They'd returned to Respawn City with architectural plans, religious texts (all written in the past week), and an unshakeable determination to establish a permanent place of worship.
The building they constructed was... impressive, in a deeply concerning way.
It was three stories tall, shaped like a massive egg, with stained glass windows depicting Nugget in various "holy" poses: Nugget Triumphant Over Evil Chickens, Nugget Ascending Through the Sky, Nugget Judging the Unworthy, and my personal favorite, Nugget With Kazuki (The Prophet Who Doesn't Want To Be A Prophet).
A bell tower (shaped like a chicken's comb) rose from the top, and it rang every hour with a sound that could only be described as "aggressive clucking set to church bells."
"They built a CATHEDRAL," Haruka said, staring up at it in disbelief. "To your chicken."
"He's not MY chicken. He's his own chicken."
"That's not the point!"
ChickenProphet emerged from the church entrance, wearing elaborate robes that somehow incorporated actual feathers. "MASTER KAZUKI! You've come to see our holy work!"
"I came to ask you to STOP," I said. "This is getting out of hand."
"Out of hand? OUT OF HAND?!" He gestured dramatically at the building. "We have brought ORDER to chaos! MEANING to suffering! HOPE to the hopeless! Through the Sacred Nugget, we have found PURPOSE!"
"You've found a BUILDING PERMIT somehow!"
"Marcus approved it," ChickenProphet said smugly. "He said, and I quote, 'If it keeps them from camping outside the guild hall, fine.' We have OFFICIAL RECOGNITION!"
I was going to kill Marcus.
---
Inside the church was even more elaborate.
The main hall had pews (normal so far), an altar (less normal—it had a giant golden statue of Nugget), and a PULPIT from which ChickenProphet apparently gave daily sermons about "The Sacred Teachings of the Peck."
"What teachings?" I asked. "Nugget doesn't teach anything! He pecks things and eats worms!"
"EXACTLY!" ChickenProphet's eyes shone with fervor. "The Sacred One teaches through ACTION! Through SIMPLICITY! He does not burden us with complex theology! He simply EXISTS, and in his existence, shows us the way!"
"The way to what?!"
"To... BEING!" He spread his arms wide. "To accepting our nature! To pecking at life's problems instead of overthinking them!"
I stared at him. That was... actually not terrible advice?
"Did you just accidentally create a functional philosophy?" Amy asked, taking notes.
"NO!" I protested. "Don't encourage this!"
But she was already interviewing cult members:
"So the core belief is 'peck at problems instead of overthinking'?"
"Yes!" a cultist responded enthusiastically. "The Sacred Nugget teaches us action over anxiety!"
"And the other teachings?"
"Accept your nature, even if others find it strange! The Sacred One is unkillable not because he fights being a chicken, but because he EMBRACES being a chicken!"
"That's... surprisingly healthy," Amy muttered.
"STOP LEGITIMIZING THE CHICKEN CULT!" I yelled.
---
But the cult had grown. Significantly.
What started as thirty members at the pilgrimage had swelled to nearly eighty. Players who'd watched our tournament victory, seen Nugget's combat prowess, and decided that maybe there WAS something divine about an unkillable chicken who'd helped a level 1 player become champion.
The cult had organized into different orders:
**The Order of the Morning Peck:** Wake at dawn, practice "pecking meditation" (which was just... pecking at training dummies while thinking)
**The Order of the Sacred Egg:** Focused on "new beginnings" and helping new players survive
**The Order of the Eternal Roost:** The pilgrims who'd been to the temple, now considered "enlightened"
**The Order of Feathered Justice:** This one concerned me. They'd appointed themselves as vigilante peacekeepers, patrolling the city and "pecking" at criminals (literally hitting them with staffs topped with wooden beaks)
"They're running a protection racket," Sarah observed. "Like the Slime Mafia, but with more religious justification."
"That's not BETTER!"
"I didn't say it was better. I said it was similar."
ChickenProphet approached me with a proposition. "Master Kazuki, the Sacred Order has grown beyond our expectations. We need... guidance. Official recognition from you, the Prophet, and from the Sacred Nugget himself."
"No."
"We're willing to offer tribute! Resources, gold, service to your guild!"
"Still no."
"We've already commissioned a statue of you riding the Sacred Nugget into battle! It's being carved from marble as we speak!"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
"Too late! The artist is very motivated! It should be done by next week!"
I looked to Haruka for support. She was trying very hard not to laugh.
"You're enjoying this," I accused.
"Immensely," she confirmed.
---
The situation escalated when the cult's activities attracted attention from other factions.
The Roleplayers—the guild that treated Eryndale as a real fantasy world and refused to acknowledge the game's broken nature—saw the Church of the Sacred Nugget as HERESY.
Their leader, **LordEdgelord_TheEternal_Lv16**, arrived at our guild hall with an ultimatum.
He was... exactly what his username suggested. Black armor with way too many spikes, a cape that billowed dramatically even indoors (how?), and a sword that was DEFINITELY compensating for something.
"Kazuki Tanaka," he declared in a voice that suggested he'd practiced this speech in a mirror. "Your CULT spreads lies and false worship! There is only ONE true faith in Eryndale—the Way of the Eternal Blade!"
"There's a BLADE religion?" I asked.
"We worship the LORE! The STORY! The TRUE NATURE of this world as a realm of fantasy and adventure! Not as a... a VIDEO GAME!" He said 'video game' like it was a curse word.
"But it IS a video game," I said.
"HERESY!"
"We're literally trapped in a VRMMO. That's just facts."
"LORE-BREAKING FACTS!"
Amy leaned over to me. "The Roleplayers have been having a hard time. Their entire identity is based on immersion. Admitting they're in a broken game destroys their coping mechanism."
"So they're in denial."
"Aggressive, organized denial with swords."
LordEdgelord continued his rant. "Your chicken cult undermines the sacred narrative! You treat divine beings as GAME ENTITIES! You reduce epic quests to BUG EXPLOITATION! You are RUINING the immersion!"
"We won the tournament," I pointed out.
"THROUGH CHEATING!"
"Through creative use of game mechanics!"
"THAT'S JUST CHEATING WITH MORE WORDS!"
Nugget, who had been sleeping on his perch, opened one eye. Looked at LordEdgelord. And clucked once.
It was not a friendly cluck.
LordEdgelord froze. "The... the Unkillable One. He is REAL. The legends are TRUE."
"See?" I said. "Even you acknowledge he's special."
"Special in LORE! Not as a game boss!"
"Can't he be both?"
LordEdgelord's eye twitched. His worldview was cracking. "You... you're TRYING to break my immersion!"
"I'm trying to survive in a broken game!"
"THIS ISN'T A GAME!" He drew his sword. "I CHALLENGE YOU! For the right to define reality in this realm!"
"That's not how reality works!"
"IT IS IN THE LORE!"
---
And that's how I ended up in my second duel of the week.
The Roleplayers vs. Debugged Destinies. A "philosophical battle" that was really just an excuse for two groups to hit each other with swords while arguing about metaphysics.
The arena was packed AGAIN. NewsGoblin_Tom was beside himself with joy.
"WELCOME TO THE REALITY RUMBLE!" he announced. "Where we answer the age-old question: Is Eryndale a game or a GENUINE FANTASY REALM?!"
"It's definitely a game!" I shouted.
"LORE-BREAKER!" the Roleplayers screamed.
The battle was surreal.
The Roleplayers fought with perfect form, treating every move like it was from an epic fantasy novel. They shouted attack names, maintained character voices, and roleplayed even while losing.
We fought like people who'd accepted the game was broken and decided to exploit that.
LordEdgelord lunged at me with a move he called "Blade of Eternal Sorrow!"
I dodge-rolled through a glitched hitbox and bonked him with my spoon handle.
"THAT'S NOT EPIC!" he complained.
"But it WORKED!" I countered.
Haruka was fighting three Roleplayers who kept stopping mid-combat to deliver dramatic monologues.
"Face me, wielder of flames! For I am SwordSinger, and I shall—"
She fireballed him mid-speech.
"HEY! I wasn't done with my introduction!"
"COMBAT DOESN'T WAIT FOR INTRODUCTIONS!"
"IT DOES IN PROPER FANTASY SETTINGS!"
The Roleplayers were skilled—genuinely good at combat. But they kept handicapping themselves by refusing to use "immersion-breaking" tactics.
Meanwhile, we used EVERYTHING. Glitches, environment exploits, the fact that BarrelBob's barrel could clip through certain attacks.
The turning point came when Nugget decided to participate.
LordEdgelord had cornered me, sword raised for a "dramatic finishing blow" (his words).
"Any last words, Lore-Breaker?"
"Yeah. You forgot about the chicken."
"What chick—"
PECK.
Nugget descended from above like a feathered meteor, striking LordEdgelord with pinpoint accuracy.
The Roleplay leader went down in one hit.
The crowd went WILD.
The Roleplayers stared in shock. Their leader, defeated. By a chicken. In an extremely non-epic way.
"That... that wasn't in the lore," one whispered.
"Maybe," another said slowly, "maybe the chicken IS the lore now?"
"HERESY!"
"But also... kind of cool?"
We won the battle, but something unexpected happened.
Instead of being angry, several Roleplayers approached us afterward.
"That was..." one struggled for words. "Unexpectedly satisfying. We've been so focused on maintaining immersion that we forgot to have FUN."
LordEdgelord, respawned and significantly humbled, extended his hand. "You fight without honor. Without proper form. Without respect for narrative structure."
"Thanks?" I said uncertainly.
"But you WIN. And you SURVIVE. And maybe... maybe survival matters more than story." He looked pained saying it. "Perhaps we can... learn from each other?"
"You want to join forces?"
"I want to not LOSE constantly because we're too busy roleplaying to adapt." He sighed. "The game is broken. We can either keep pretending it's not, or we can work with that brokenness."
"That's very mature of you."
"I hate it. I miss the old days when things made sense."
"Yeah," I said, looking around at the chaos. "Me too."
---
That evening, the Church of the Sacred Nugget held a ceremony.
Against my will, I was declared "Prophet of the Peck, First Among the Faithful, He Who Rides the Unkillable."
They gave me a holy robe (I refused to wear it).
They presented me with a blessed staff (I gave it to ChickenProphet).
They wanted to anoint Nugget with sacred oils (Nugget pecked anyone who tried).
But they also did something useful: they pledged the Order's support to Debugged Destinies. Eighty members, organized, trained in their pilgrimage, ready to assist.
"We may worship differently than others," ChickenProphet said. "But we recognize truth. You helped us find purpose. We will help you... whatever comes next."
"Whatever comes next" was more ominous than I liked.
---
That night, PatchNotes/Daniel appeared with concerning news:
> "Guild Alert: Code Breakers Activity Detected"> "They know you accessed the Developer's Archive"> "They're mobilizing. Full force."> "Estimated attack time: 48 hours"> "Kazuki... they're coming for everything. The Debug Cloak. The archive data. You."
"How many?" Sarah asked.
> "All of them. Every Code Breaker member. Plus mercenaries. Plus players they've convinced that freeing everyone requires sacrifice."> "Estimate: 200+ hostiles."
The guild fell silent.
"We have... what? Thirty fighters?" Gary said. "Even with the cult's support, we're outnumbered three to one."
"Then we don't fight them head-on," Amy said. "We use what we're good at. Chaos. Unpredictability. The fact that we exploit things they'd never consider."
"We also have allies," I added. "The Slime Mafia owes us. The Iron Vanguard respects us. Even the Roleplayers might help."
"And ERYN," PatchNotes/Daniel added. "ERYN helped you before. Maybe... maybe it would again?"
"That's a lot of maybes," Haruka said.
"It's all we have."
I stood, looking at my guild, at the friends I'd made in this broken world.
"Two days," I said. "We have two days to prepare for the biggest fight of our lives. To defend not just ourselves, but the right to exist in this world WITHOUT deleting the AI that created it."
"Dramatic," Gary commented.
"Accurate," I corrected.
PatchNotes/Daniel appeared with our marching orders:
> "GUILD QUEST: 'The Siege of Respawn City'"> "Defend against Code Breakers assault"> "Protect the Developer's Archive"> "Survive (this one's important)"> > "Difficulty: EXTREME"> "Recommended Level: 20+"> "Your Level: Still 1 (embarrassing but consistent)"> "Chance of Success: Low"> "Chance of Epic Story: HIGH">> "Two days to prepare."> "Make them count."
I looked at Nugget, who had fallen asleep on his perch, completely unaware he'd inspired a religion and was about to be at the center of a war.
"We're going to need a miracle," I said.
"Or a really good exploit," Amy countered.
"Same thing in this game."
The church bells chimed in the distance—aggressive clucking mixed with holy music.
We had two days.
Two days to turn a ragtag guild of misfits into an army.
Two days to save an AI from deletion.
Two days to prove that broken things could still be beautiful.
The Code Breakers were coming.
And we were going to be ready.
Probably.
Maybe.
We'd figure it out.