Born in apocalypse

The murmur in the crowd continued as Dhruv gave the crowd time to understand everything. While they were talking about their two new guardians he revised the second announcement he was about to make today.

Making his mind Dhruv lifted his hand as the area descended into silence once again. Glancing at Aurora for a second, he opened his mouth.

"...So, I’ve come to know that most of the children on the island have reached the maximum tier of their class and could evolve at any time... is that correct?" He asked, looking at a girl standing in front of her parents.

"Yes... My lord," feeling the presence of their lord, the children answered with a bit of hesitation.

"Now, now, there is no need to be afraid of me... tell me, what is your name?" Dhruv asked, looking at the girl who answered his previous question.

"L-Lily... My lord..."

"So... Lily, tell me, what do you want to become? Do you want to become a mage, or warrior, or perhaps are you interested in craftsmanship... tell me how would you like to go in the future," Dhruv asked Lily with all the calmness he could muster.

Hearing the question, hesitating a bit, Lily replied, "My lord, we have made a group... Sam... Mia, come here..."

She called the rest of her group members. Hearing their names called out like this in the entire crowd, both of them panicked a bit. After seeing the reassuring faces of their parents and their lord the duo eventually calmed down and moved toward Lily.

Reaching Lily, Sam whispered in her ear while keeping a forced smile, "Why did you call me like this?"

"Shut up... this is the perfect opportunity to get the recognition of His Majesty..." Whispering back, Lily looked at Dhruv and continued,

"My lord, these two are members of my group, and we have decided to be a team," pausing, she looked at Mia and said, "She will be our mage and healer... Sam and I will be warriors. As I like both magic and sword I’ve personally chosen the magic warrior route... is that good?"

After coming to the island and with the help of Lyra and Dhruv, everyone’s knowledge about evolution, their use in class, how it works, and things like that has increased massively. So it wasn’t a surprise to see even children were making their own choices.

"Ohhh! Wow... aren’t you guys the smart ones... I like that. Speaking of magic warriors, I’m one as well," Dhruv said, giving a thumbs up to the group.

"Really, My lord..." Lily asked, somewhat surprised after finding her choice was matching with that of her lord.

"Of course..." Nodding his head, Dhruv looked at everyone and continued his part of the announcement.

"So, let’s get to the point... as most of you know, the growth in monsters does not happen in the same way it does in humans. We humans slowly grow over the years and accumulate knowledge as we experience it, but monsters... they just evolve and could skip a part of their life..."

Letting the words sink in, Dhruv continued, "Because of this, the second tier of evolution could directly make any child who wants to evolve into their early teenhood, and if they decide to do tier three, they will certainly reach the maturity a human would have at the age of 18 or so."

Pausing, Dhruv looked at Aurora, who was nodding her head. Smiling, he looked at everyone and continued, "So... I will make a law... no child below the age of five will be allowed to evolve to tier two, and no child below ten will be allowed to evolve to tier three. From then on, they will have the mental capacity to make decisions on their own."

Dhruv further explained that because of this way of aging, monsters’ brains work in a different way. The more they evolve... the greater their learning speeds become. It didn’t happen in a linear way as well.

Because of this, everyone that it wasn’t a problem to let a ten-year-old human who had transformed into a monster make their own decisions.

Looking at their faces, Dhruv sighed, "I wanted to make the age requirement a little bit higher, but seeing the situation we are in... it wouldn’t be right to put restrictions on anyone’s power... the power that could come in handy in desperate situations...."

"Yes, My lord, I agree with that..."

"Me too."

"Same here..."

Everyone gave their confirmation as Dhruv nodded his head. Looking at the children in the group, he asked, "So... how many of you are ready to evolve?"

Lyra was the one to step forward. Turning her head toward Dhruv, she said, "There are twenty-six of them, my lord..."

"Okayy!"

Nodding, Dhruv turned to face Grec. The moment he did that, the goblin lord’s heart skipped a bit. He was almost about to blink away from the area but stopped as he heard his master’s words,

"Grec... use the coins we earn from the slime farm and distribute them to the children so they can have decent stats before they evolve. If that won’t be enough, I have some as well..."

Phew!

Heaving a sigh of relief, Grec nodded his head and remembered how many coins they had earned from the slime farm.

At first, everyone used the coins they earned from the farm for themselves, but as more and more people evolved, they didn’t really need those coins, so they began donating them.

Eventually, people started donating 80% of what they earned from the farm, which continued to pile up. At the moment, Vexar was in possession of almost 10 million CC from the farm alone.

Of course, he wasn’t planning to give these coins and wanted to just kept them for himself, but after his master’s order, he didn’t have any choice but to distribute them to the children.

"As you wish, master..." he replied, keeping a smile on his face. It still hurt to part with the coins he had, but it wasn’t to the point that he had to give up his own—the ones he earned by scamming... or maybe his hard work.

"There is one last thing... Vexar, Azarex, Alaric, and I will be gone for a while to conquer some more dungeons... if you need anything in between, you can talk with Aurora," Dhruv said, signaling toward the fifth guardian.

Not having any problem with it, everyone nodded their heads. Having nothing more to say, Dhruv dismissed the crowd and went to his own room.

Looking at Aurora and Archana, he said, "So... let’s see the report on the dungeon keeper."