Born in apocalypse

"Even I didn’t know that I would have changed this much. If I knew, I would already be Tier 4," Ewen joked.

Ewen clearly knows how difficult it is to raise his levels, and reaching tier 4 without any tier 4 monsters would be a very difficult task, a task he wasn’t ready to take on.

"Talking about tier, how do you feel after evolving to a Tier 3 monster, O-old man? Is it even right to call you ’old’ man anymore?" Dhruv asked with clear confusion on his face, unable to decide how to address the man in front of him.

"It would be a pleasure of mine if you still call me ’old man,’ My lord," the old man paused to see Dhruv’s reaction.

He was happy to find Dhruv nodding in agreement with his suggestion. After taking a breath he continues,

"And to the question of how I feel? Well, I feel great. I mean, the word ’great’ is probably undervaluing the thing I’m feeling now. It... it almost feels like I am born a second time," Ewen said while remembering his experience after the evolution.

"Ohhh! I am glad that you didn’t regret the decision to turn into a monster," Dhruv expressed his gratitude.

After that, they talked for a while about Ewen’s evolution. Dhruv asked a few questions like how he felt in that weird realm, what was the name of his evolution, whether he managed to buy any evolutions or not, and if yes, what was the name of his mutation.

Ewen quickly and correctly replied to all the questions he was asked without any hesitation in his mind.

The more he talked to Dhruv, the more he felt that something within him was changing. From viewing Dhruv as a lord, he began to feel that the man in front of him wasn’t just a lord; he was something different, something more powerful and, most importantly, kind to them.

If Dhruv had wanted, he could have done everything on his own, yet he had gone out of his way to help so many people, providing them with food, a place to stay, and a roof above their heads.

The old man felt grateful for all of this over and over again.

After their conversation, the old man was about to walk away so he could meet with other people when he remembered something and quickly mentioned, "His grace Azarex said that the first warehouse is ready, and the corpses can be placed in them at any moment."

’Warehouse is done, this is quite fast.’ Dhruv thought as he looked at the sun to get the knowledge of time.

"Okay. You go, people are staying. I’m coming back after telling Alaric about this," Dhruv said as he began to walk toward the area where the corpses of the normal monsters were.

After walking for a while, Alaric quickly appeared before him and asked, "Is there something I can do, Master?"

"Yes, Azarex mentioned that the warehouse is done, and you could drop the corpses there at any moment," Dhruv repeated the same thing Ewen had mentioned to him.

After thinking for a while Alairc nodded and mentioned, "Then I will drop them after collecting these corpses,"

Dhruv nodded and was about to walk away when he noticed that something was missing with his favorite shadow lord. He quickly turned around, facing him, and asked, "Is something wrong, Alaric?"

At first, Alaric was about to ignore the question, but remembering that this question had been on his mind for quite some time and this was the perfect opportunity to ask, he didn’t hesitate to open his mouth and say,

"Master, I wanted to ask why you are training them. Are we not enough to guarantee your safety that you need these people for that?"

Dhruv wanted to say something but closed his mouth. It took him a few seconds to come up with the perfect response. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Of course, I’m not training these guys because I think you three are not enough. The real behind training them is quite the opposite to this in my opinion..." Dhruv said with a smile on his face.

"How is that, Master?" Alaric inquired.

"Well, think about how at this moment you have to do this corpse transportation instead of being with me. If anyone attacks me at the moment, how are you going to protect me? Even Vexar and Azarex aren’t with me..." Dhruv said and paused to see Alaric’s response.

The moment Alaric heard this, a frown appeared on his face as he thought, ’How come I didn’t think of this, b-but isn’t this the master’s order, and how can I deny that? Then, am I doing the right thing by not protecting the master at this time?.. Or am I doing wrong?’

Alaric was getting more and more confused as time passed. Dhruv knew this was about to happen, so he quickly continued,

"As you can already see the problem. You three can’t protect me and do other things at the same time. I’m training these people to counter that exact thing.

"See, when these people get somewhat stronger, then they can do all the things you three need to attend to at the moment. The more these people get stronger, the less you will have to do any of these things and thus can just sit in my shadow, protecting me all day, although I would advise you not to do that," Dhruv carefully and patiently explained everything to Alaric.

"This is so true. Like that time when I had to go outside the island to make a map that could have been done by others if they were strong enough. Hmm! How could I not have thought of this... this clearly shows how far Master thought of these things," Alaric thought, genuinely surprised by Dhruv’s answer.

"Then everything is alright. I would even try to train them so they could reach that level soon," he quickly replied.

"Soo, nice of you. Now, quickly do this. We have to finish the last village quickly so we can check what the second floor of the dungeon looks like, and then we can plan how to attack them tomorrow," Dhruv explained.

After seeing Alaric nod, Dhruv was about to walk toward the resting area but stopped when he remembered he hadn’t done anything and he wasn’t tired at all. Thinking this, he began to walk toward the workers who were busy transporting the other materials.

Dhruv quickly reached that place and began to look for anything to do. During his search for work, he was astonished to find that there was nothing that needed his attention. Everything was working flawlessly.

Every single task was divided perfectly among the people in a way that nobody was getting overworked. At the same time, nobody was getting underworked as well.

This had all happened due to Lyra. The interesting thing was that this hadn’t occurred because she was very good at handling people, even though she was. This had happened because of her magic. Yes, this was the result of one of the spells from her moonlight magic.

Dhruv didn’t want to disturb her at the moment, so he only managed to find out that this was one of the very advanced spells she had acquired after reaching Tier 3. For the past weeks, she had been practicing this single spell all this time, and from the looks of it, Dhruv could tell that it was worth it.

Instead of walking towards the resting area, Dhruv began to practice his own magic for the remaining time.

While Dhruv was training busy in his magic, Alaric was busy doing some laborious work. Alaric was almost done with collecting the corpse. When he was finished he quickly went to the overworld to drop them in the warehouse.

While he was dropping the corpses, he happened to meet with Azarex. When Alaric met him the very first thing he told Azarex about how Dhruv wanted to make these people stronger so they could protect him at every moment.

Azarex didn’t entirely understand most of the points Alaric was trying to make, but he supported whatever his master and brother were trying to do, nonetheless.

While meeting with Alaric, Azarex also mentioned that Navi was trying to meet with him so he could help them transport the slime from the prison cell to the newly built farm.

Having no problem with that Alric quickly agreed. After a few more minutes of chatting with Azarex, Alaric began to move toward the area where the farm was being built.

When Alaric reached the farm, he didn’t waste any time and quickly approved Navi, the leader of the project. After consulting and finding out that he could drop the slimes in the farm at any moment, he didn’t wait for anything and moved toward the prison.

After reaching the only part of the prison, except for the bathroom, which was still standing - the breeding area of the slimes. During the breeding of the slimes, they had to do quite some work to increase the numbers of these monsters. It took them hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of beasts from both dungeons to make their numbers increase from 50 to 200.

Alaric packed every single slime in a single setting. After absorbing them into his shadow, he moved to the farm and carefully placed 50 of the slimes in each section of the cylinder.

When this was done, Alaric didn’t wait any longer and moved toward the portal once again. After getting into the dungeon he began to head toward the resting area.

By the time he reached the place, he noticed that everyone was getting ready for the final attack of the day. Alaric was sure that today the first floor of the dungeon would be conquered.