[Dungeon] 40 – The End of the First Monster Wave and the reopening of the Dungeon

[A/N: I picked this back up; I hope you guys enjoy it. Also, tomorrow, I will be writing another chapter and then have a Cafe chapter on Sunday]

As the humans recovered from their losses, recovering and burying the bodies of their dead and retrieving the corpses of hundreds of monsters, butchers overworked to harvest the monsters for their raw materials and meat, the reward for the Quest finally appeared.

The people who had the least amount of contributions had gained a large amount of EXP, gaining anywhere from a single level to nearly ten, helping some of the players reach the second stage and evolving their classes. Those who numbered in the top ten contributors obtained items and equipment, while the number one contribution earned a class change option and a unique Title. [Savior of the Ark Settlement], which gave a set of bonus stats and an ability called [Savior's Grave], which provides a base multiplier to Vitality and Endurance when defending another. 

This top contributor? None other than Jay, the Human Berserker. Top contender for strongest in the Settlement alongside Bright and a few others.

His top contribution not only earned him that title but also a new class.

[Guardian]

A mix of both a defender and a warrior, a Guardian had skills that made him incredibly strong when defending others and gave him a strong skill set that allowed for versatility, allowing him to heal, take damage for others, bolster his weapons and shields, and a final skill that allowed him to sacrifice a large majority of his health and a few years of his life span to bring back another to life.

The skill had a few limitations: The person had to have a class, they had to die within five minutes for revival to work, those targeted had to want to live, and the Guadian could not use the skill again within a year.

Such a powerful class in Jay's hand quickly led to him becoming the strongest Classer in the town.

Though he did lose the skills of being a Berserker, he found that the Guardian class suited him better, even for the loss of the levels he had accumulated, dropping him back down to level 100, making Bright the highest-leveled Classer.

The Beast Lords escaped, but with so many monsters culled, the average monster was far weaker than previously and far less in number, providing relative safety in the biomes so long as no one ran into an Elemental or the Beast Lords themselves.

The betrayers hiding in the Snowy woods of the Arctic Forest did not increase in number or gain many levels, as they had failed to personally contribute to the destruction of the Ark Settlement, leaving them falling behind the other Classers, though they would not stay far behind for long as they started to hunt down as many monsters around them as possible.

...

A day later, the portal to IKEA reopened, granting people access to its abundant resources. A few people left and never came back, deciding that they'd rather deal with the staff than the horrific monsters. Those that left were few in number, more willing to risk it in the Dungeon than fearing every night that their walls would no hold and scrounging for food so as to not starve.

However, their losses were quickly replaced as the portal opened near a small settlement, one that willingly joined the Ark, seeing it as an escape from the IKEA. The three that left the Dungeon to never returned left with a bit of supplies, and with the directions supplied by the town's people, they headed for a nearby IKEA settlement.

The sixteen new souls that entered the Dungeon were warned of the dangers and of the benefits, and they did not care. They were happy to touch grass after having been stuck for months to even years in the infinite IKEA.

...

Time quickly began to pass, and before the people even knew it, a month had passed since the Monster Wave.

Many had overcome their grief and moved on with their lives, but with the loss of Vernon, Ark's leading therapist and biggest altruist, the morale of the people was what it once was. Despite their loss, Clair, Ark's Mayor, picked up the mantle, doing her best to help, even if she found herself to be underqualified for the position.

Her class evolution into a Mayor led to the official foundation of the settlement being recognized by the System, granting the city and Clair herself benefits and perks. For one, Clair could now appoint [Guards] upon those who had reached the second stage, granting them skills such as [Lie Detection], [Aligment Detection], and [Inspect]. [Inspect] allowed a guard to see the very basics of a person's class and title if they had one. Such as being able to see if someone was a warrior and their relative level, if they were not higher level than the Guard, that is. Otherwise, the [Inspect] would not list the level, instead leaving it as question marks.

As for [Aligment Detection], it was a conditional skill determined by morals. For example, if the class was considered evil, it would color the target in a red hue, but if it were an evil class that wasn't frowned upon, it would show as Grey. Such as a Kingdom allowing practitioners of Necromancy into their cities would appear as a Greyish hue, while in a Holy Kingdom, the Necromancers would be spotted instantly due to the red aura around their person. It was based on the perspective of the Kingdom and its leadership as a whole.

While there were ways around the Inspection and Alignment Detection, it required specialized items, classes, skills, or levels, with a Guard being significantly lower level than the Target being unable to discern much of the Target's information unless the Target wished for the information to be detected.

So far, Clair had only enlisted a few to become Guards, and even then, it was not as strict as many came and went from ARK without being inspected.

With Ark becoming an official town under the system, it was granted certain benefits. For one, Clair could now tax the citizens of the Town, not that she did, as the Town still worked through a bartering-based economy. She gained several charisma-based skills that made her a better leader and negotiator, working with others to set up markets, settle disputes, and organize the Hunters, people who dived into the Biomes in search of levels or a way out.

The Town Walls were rebuilt and reinforced, traps and escape plans were put into place, and some people even began to set up farms outside the walls, using the wild seeds gathered and harvested from various plants in the wild, while one tried to start Husbandry, catching some of the weaker monsters and trying to tame and train them to be livestock.

One of the species they had captured was the Giant Red Rooster. These avian creatures are similar to chickens, though twice as large. They have a maw of teeth, three more eyes, and an omnivorous diet. This hopeful citizen, in the process, unlocked a new skill. Monster Farmer, which seemed to be a more combat version of the basic Farmer class, some had the choice of choosing when they first gained a class. Choosing to change classes, the Monster Farmer was quite happy with his hellish husbandry project, having to occasionally fight his own livestock to the death just to get some eggs.

As the people went about their lives, one of the Hunters encountered the 'mist,' a fog-like boundary that, no matter how they tried to travel through it, they'd always end up turned around and back where they started. A mist, that stretched around the four biomes and Ark, trapping the Humans in a 'Dome' that they couldn't leave.