It had been over a decade since then. I sometimes thought back on that day and sighed with regret. Not that I could have chosen anything different. If I had, I’d have been killed or shunned, which was basically the same thing as not just humans were changed, but animals and plants too. Not to mention the freaky creatures humanity had dubbed monsters that were introduced to our world. Monsters and beasts of all sorts roamed around freely, and without an entire society of people combining resources to carve out a safe haven in the wilds that the world had become, I’d probably have died.

No, I didn’t regret saying yes. I just regretted that I got stuck with the worst class. I didn't get to be a Mage, with the ability to control magic to cast spells of all sorts. I didn't get to be a Warrior, with physical abilities enhanced well beyond what should have been humanly possible. I couldn’t be any of the powerful, incredible classes out there. I had to get the only class with no combat potential.

I shook my head, clearing these thoughts away. It wasn’t the first time I’d had them, and dwelling on them wasn’t productive. I turned my attention back to the task at hand. A hardcover copy of An Ecologist’s Guide To Dungeons sat open in front of me. I’d been attempting to study from it for the past hour, but kept getting distracted.

I sighed as I forced myself to read through the dull text. I had a test tomorrow, and if I didn’t pass it I wouldn’t be able to graduate.

The book blathered on and on about the impracticability of dungeons. Most of it was common knowledge. Ever since the world changed, dungeons had emerged. However, most of them weren’t formed naturally. Instead, there was a group of people, a class of people really, that created them. The Dungeon Makers. The class that is most necessary to society, and yet also the weakest class. My class. I sighed again forcing my attention back to the text.

The author was postulating theories about why dungeons aren’t renewable, what causes them to break down. Everyone already knew the answer though: people became too strong. Initially, after the god, Janus, appeared, the world was scary. New species were introduced through the changes, dire beasts and even the vegetation became deadly. People fought with everything they had trying to level their classes. At some point though, they reached critical mass and the momentum shifted. People hit such high levels that they could easily kill every monster. Moreover, monster parts had become key ingredients in some of the most popular products to hit the market.

Everyone just had to have their porta-dimensions and holophones. It wasn’t enough to enjoy a good steak, you had to eat manticore tail. Kids weren’t satisfied with a toy robot unless it had a beast core granting it enough artificial intelligence to do their homework for them (when their parents weren’t looking, of course). The demand was infinite, and so no one thought about the limits of the supply.

Monster species went extinct left and right. The world government, or the loose collaboration of city-states and powerful organizations that functioned as one, recognizing the impending shortages of monster materials, quickly tried to rectify the situation, issuing laws about hunting beasts not unlike the way they used to regulate how many deer you could hunt. Unfortunately, the damage was done, and the supply could no longer keep up with the demand. It was then that a previously ignored class rose in society: Dungeon Maker. Dungeon Makers, unlike other classes, didn’t receive skills that allowed them to throw fire at enemies or cut mountains in half. Instead, they had only one ability with several options that developed as they leveled: they could create dungeons.

Sounded great right? It wasn't. They could create a dungeon, but they couldn't control it. If they could then maybe they’d be able to earn some respect. It wouldn’t be that different from being a Conjurer or Summoner. Absent that control, though, when the world descended into chaos after Janus arrived they were the most useless members of humanity, and universally disliked. After all, back then humanity had a hard enough time just surviving the monsters that roamed the wilds; a class that created more monsters that people would have to fight was worse than useless: it was a threat.

That all changed when humanity began to run out of a natural supply of monsters to harvest the components necessary for industrial progress. Even without combat power, Dungeon Makers quickly became important. They were the class that was key to the entire supply chain of nearly every industry. Quickly, the government secured a number of Dungeon Makers. They created the first ever Public Dungeons.

The Public Dungeons, as the name suggests, were dungeons made available to the public. Anyone could go in and seek their fortune from monster parts, or go in to try to gain levels by defeating monsters that were stronger. The catch was that anyone entering had to pay to enter, and then also had to pay a tax on all monster parts collected from the dungeon. This in turn provided the money to support the Dungeon Makers, as well as the cost of creating the dungeons.

The wealthiest in society, which was really just another way of saying the most powerful as wealth without power just made people a target in the early days of the apocalypse, couldn’t stand that. Thus, the private industry for Dungeon Makers was formed. It quickly became a class associated with great wealth.

So why am I complaining about it? It’s pretty simple. I lived in a society where people are so strong they could be called gods in the before time. Not that they would call themselves that, unless they wanted to get exiled for fear of Janus taking away the power he had granted to the world. The Church of Janus had few shared tenets among its followers, but that was one they all universally upheld.

Still, people are freakishly powerful now. Kids who have barely leveled have abilities that would rival the top athletes of the world before Janus arrived. And that’s just the average ones, the ones who went had working class parents who sent them to public school rather than hiring private mentors to teach their children about their classes.

On top of that, the world was a different place. In the past, people needed education to succeed. Now, all they needed was to get lucky in a dungeon. If they found a rare spawn and killed it, they'd have enough money to retire then and there. Not that anyone did. They could continue to level and get stronger and stronger. The stronger they were the more easily and efficiently they could clear dungeons. Those who grew too strong for dungeons could even challenge some of the monsters that remained in the wilds. They had never stopped growing either, though whether they progressed through levels in the same fashion as humans did was a topic that received much debate.

Regardless of how they grew stronger, the strongest monsters were so powerful that they could destroy an entire city, if humanity didn't have its own champions to defend them. Champions might have been a bit of a misnomer; overlords might be better. Or oligarchs.

Facing an unending race with the monsters to not fall behind on levels and face destruction, there were naturally some pretty big shifts in how society functioned. Those with great personal strength, whether physical or magical, became the elites of society.

Where did that leave Dungeon Makers? The early prejudices against them combined with the much greater societal importance given to personal power, so that Dungeon Makers were treated as weak, distasteful members of society that were only tolerated because they were useful.

Maybe that was why the book I was reading as part of the upper level class I was taking to get my final credit before graduation discussed questions and ideas that no one had bothered teaching me about. Dungeon Makers weren't there to think or to innovate. They needed to just create what the client ordered. Basically, I was trained to be the guy taking someone's order at the drive-thru, taking their money, and giving them what they want. No thought required.

And like the guy in the drive-thru, Dungeon Makers have to work long hours. Dungeons are renewable, but only when people die in them. The release in mana when a person dies feeds the core, which in turn allows the core to create more monsters. These days, everyone is too strong to die unless they carelessly wander into a high level area without an escort. The Public Dungeons see enough death in them from careless people that they only have to get rebuilt every decade or so. In comparison, most private dungeons only last a year at most. Dungeon Makers are contracted to renew the dungeon a certain number of times. Of course, they’re paid well for it. Dungeon Makers are some of the richest members of society. So long as they stayed useful and didn't offend anyone powerful, anyways.

A voice broke through my thoughts.