Audron Ef’i sat in the command chair of the administrative mana saturation vessel, Marchana, going over reports and playbacks of the current mana saturation target. He flicked through the statistics of the dead and dying, ruminating on the likelihood the native species would survive the saturation process. Humans… hmph, hairless monkeys, average physical stature. They might survive with enough of a genetic sample to continue the propagation of their race. He thought with bored indifference.

“Whadda ya think, boss, think they’ll survive?” Rusne, one of the only other two beings on the ship asked as she poured through her own data set.

“Who knows? What’s the current survival rate?” He asked with little interest.

“Let’s see, after almost three solar cycles, total survival rate thus far is around 30%, though some areas are down to as low as 8%.” She responded quickly.

“Hmmm… where are the highest survival rates?”

“Looks like the rural areas in most continents are doing the best, particular in the continent they refer to as North America, specifically the Southwest region of the country called The United States of America. Lots of primitive style firearms around there. Also, in the southern country called Mexico and beyond are organized criminal elements they refer to as ‘Cartels’ that are doing very well.”

“Really? In most primitive civilizations the rural areas do the worst.” This piqued Audron’s curiosity, “Any hypothesis as to why they are doing better on this planet?”

Sochi, his other crew member spoke up at this point, “Actually, I have one. These Humans aren’t actually that primitive, they had already begun exploring their local space and sending unmanned probes out to its furthest bodies, you might recall that the Council intercepted radio waves from a pair of these probes that had exited the system, yes?”

“I recall that in the briefing, yes.”

“Ok, so those probes are generations old, and the Humans have been rapidly increasing their tech level without the help of Mana, this has led to a phenomenon where most people congregate in larger cities and essentially grow fat and lazy as the tech level increases and removes most external threats.”

“Ok? Where are you going with this?”

“Simple, the people that live in the rural areas still have threats to contend with and value hard work. They live a harder life compared to the city dwellers. Now, it’s still a fairly sedate life, but to put it simply, most of them know how to survive a few days without standard amenities, and there’s a small subset of these people that spend time preparing for an ‘apocalypse’ type scenario.”

“I think I see now, the people in the city just aren’t prepared for the total collapse of society, while the rural people simply don’t rely on it.”

“Pretty much, though it's more common for people in the rural regions to be more likely to help each other out. Currently, the major cities across the world are in chaos as the most prepared for chaos, the local defense forces, and the criminal elements, are battling for control of the cities.”

“Sounds ‘bout right.” Rusne mumbled while scanning playbacks of the various battles between Humans and monsters took place, or more often, Human on Human fights broke out.

“Oh, the other problem we’ve been having is with the major governmental bureaucracies, that weapon launch we reported earlier was from the three largest countries in the world blaming each other for the monsters and deciding to launch all of their nuclear weapons at each other.”

“I’m assuming you neutralized those aberrant things?” Audron asked with an arched brow.

“Oh yeah, a few thousand collapsing mana barriers and they all were crushed before they even armed. Then the government heads were all dragged off to hidden bunkers. I’ve already sent some nasty species of sand worms to destroy those bunkers.”

“Sounds good. Can’t have primitive bureaucratic assholes mucking it up for the Refugees.”

“No, sir, we cannot!” Sochi said enthusiastically with a sharp toothed grin.

“Alright, so, I guess the next question is how have we dealt with their militaries?” Audron asked the pair of crewmembers.

Rusne was the first to respond, “The three most advanced countries in the world, we sent Dragons to deal with their military. The rest are facing various hordes of Advanced and Master Class monsters. This should thin the ranks fairly effectively.”

Audron thought about that and considered whether the Dragons would be overkill or not. He pulled up some playbacks of the Dragon fights and was impressed by the martial response the countries of America, China, and Russia mustered. While the Dragons didn’t manage to wipe out said militaries, they significantly reduced their effectiveness. Alright, on to independent settlements.

“How many independent settlements have been established?”

Sochi was there with an answer almost immediately, “A little over 3000 have been established since System Initialization, sir.”

“And how many are still standing?” This would be the real test of the Humans durability. Once a settlement is established, it will be attacked by a horde of high level monsters 24 hours after creation, the System doesn’t tell you this. It just happens. The system doesn’t like beings that hide behind walls for safety.

“A little over 600 remain standing and funcional, sir.”

Audron thought for a moment and decided 20% survival rate on settlements seemed about average from his experience. Let’s see if there’s anything interesting going on then, shall we?

“Find us something entertainment Sochi.”

Sochi nodded and began fumbling with controls and then sent an image to the main view screen. Rusne leaned back and grabbed a snack from her spatial inventory and began to enjoy the show. Audron leaned forward and watched the viewer zoom in on a small settlement. It had two long buildings, with a large bonfire between them and a tall wooden palisade surrounding half the claimed area. It housed just over 50 people and several were on the walls sounding an alarm as about 3 times the number of Gnolls approached from the North and West.

“Why have you chosen this one, Sochi?”

“Oh, well, they are the only settlement who’s owner has claimed a dungeon rather than destroy it, and negotiated the rights to said dungeon to a group of refugees. I figured it would be interesting to see how this forward thinking group of Humans dealt with their first siege.”

“Indeed. How many settlements have responded favorably to the Refugees?”

“Only about 2%. So, not many.”

The group chatted while they watched the attack on SooHoo settlement commence. Audron nodded appreciatively as about 30 fighters mounted the wall and used it to launch various projectile attacks on the pressing horde. Then a group of five Humans and a large canine type animal slipped out the back of the settlement and began cutting their way through the back ranks of the Gnolls.

“Is that the settlement owner leading the counter attack?” Audron asked.

Rusne leaned forward and looked at the individual's information and added it to the corner of the view screen for all to see.

“Captain of the Guard, Alyssa Nightraven, Level 14 Shadow Warrior. Where’s the owner?” Audron asked as he watched the girls group engage the Warband leader.

Rusne began tapping at her console and another picture appeared on the opposite side of the viewscreen. Karl Brunett, Outlaw lvl 20, First Blood, Race Traitor x2, Merciful, Dungeon Master, Negotiator. Huh, that’s alotta titles for 3 days of work. And Dungeon Master, so we now have a face to the man who claimed the first dungeon. I’ll look at his file later.

“So…. where is he? His file says he’s a powerful warrior but I don’t see him here.” He asked again as the team led by his Captain of the Guard was knocked on her back and her right arm was severed in a spray of blood. All of them watched in rapt attention now, Rusne’s fingers moved slowly on automatic waiting for the final blow that would end the girls life.

“She ain’t getting back up from that.” Sochi commented mostly to himself.

They all watched as the Warband Lieutenant raised his massive axe high in the air and angled it to drop on the poor girls neck. Her team was out of mana and stamina, her animal companion was unconscious and the end loomed over her like the Grim Reaper himself. Suddenly the Lieutenant seized up and electricity arced around his body. Then gunfire from off screen began punching through his body. Rusne quickly panned the playback so they could see who had saved the girl from a quick death.

A group of a dozen people all dressed in the same brown pants and tan shirts arrived armed with firearms and joined the battle. The Lieutenant turned slowly to see who had interrupted his kills when a woman with her left arm severed below the elbow smashed through the Gnoll frontline. She glowed the telltale lilac of psychic energy and fury blazed in her eyes as she summoned a half a dozen mental blades that shot out and bypassed the Lieutenant’s physical armor and pierced his chest and neck.

A woman from the new party ran to aid the fallen Captain of the Guard and her own parties healer leapt to provide aid. It was clear that they were able to stabilize her while the brown clothed group made short work of the Gnoll battle line. Seeing the climactic end of the fight Audron returned to his attention to his subordinates.

“Is that a uniform they are wearing, where did they come from?”

“Ah, yes, it is. They are apparently the local law enforcement, they work at a prison several miles from the settlement. As I was about to say before the fight wrapped up there, Karl Brunett is currently chasing down some criminals and leading a team through a Nightmare dungeon.”

“WHAT!?!?” Both Auron and Sochi spat at the same time, they looked at each other and saw the same thought in the other's eyes. Nightmare dungeons aren’t supposed to spawn for MONTHS!

Rusne reviewed the logs and gave Audron the rundown on what caused the dungeon to corrupt into a Nightmare dungeon. The blood of several hundred beings dumped over top of a dungeon in a short amount of time was certainly one way of creating a Nightmare dungeon. Apparently the local law enforcement opted to kill their most violent offenders rather than let them run around with super powers. I would have done the same thing if I were in their position. Rusne brought up the Nightmare dungeon on her screen and the view quickly traversed the halls, points of interest were highlighted for later review as it sped through and centered on the subject of their search.

Karl Brunett stood at the center of his party of eight beings, one being a Dryad refugee staring at four other beings on the other end of the large room that had clearly just defeated a mid tier boss. Have to see where he met the Dryad, that’s an interesting development. A bald man with markings across his body as well as copious amounts of blood looked up when he entered and shouted to his party.

“FUCK! It’s the cops!” He motioned back to the entrance and jumped off the body of the giant creature they had slain. “So, uh -FuGhRk!”

Karl gave the man no chance to speak further as he drew his pistol and muttered “VITAL AIM!” and pulled the trigger. The weapon barked out and echoed through the room then smashed into the inmates face. The man spun around and grabbed his face as blood began to pour free between his fingers. Karl cocked his head in surprise then said “MAG DUMP!” And proceeded to empty the magazine of his weapon from over a hundred meters away. Not going to get alot of hits with that type of skill from that distance, but…”

The other man’s companions sprung into action as soon as their leader doubled over spraying blood. A short dark skinned man sprang to his side and began healing the damage done while another man of dark complexion carrying a shield slid in front of them and deflected the projectiles that raced towards them.

The man Karl shot in the face turned back to him and laughed menacingly. “GOD DAMN IT! THAT FUCKING HURT! I thought you cops were supposed to de-escalate situations like this!?”

Karl began to say something back when a man on his side carrying a shotgun yelled at the large inmate. “FUCK YOU! WE AREN’T HERE TO TALK!” Then he glowed faintly red and launched himself into the air firing his shotgun the whole way. Pellets bounced off the shield of their tank and then as the man’s arc closed on their group a green barrier sprung up and stunned the man in the air. He tumbled backwards, before he could hit the ground, the man that Rusne kindly identified as Brian Cross, reached through the barrier and grabbed the other man by the neck and whipped him around almost too fast for the eye to see and impaled him on a spike that adorned a nearby wall.

Cross then proceeded to grab the man’s arms and yank hard and the sound of the man’s shoulders popping out of socket was heard across the room as his teammates rushed to his aid. He leaned into the shocked face of the impaled man and sneered, “I’m going to do to you what I was trying to do to that COT fuck Lawrence. He just wouldn’t stay in the fucking wire. But I think this spike will hold you in place nicely!” He laughed maliciously and yanked harder. The man’s eyes shot wide as his arms separated at the shoulder. He tried to scream but only gurgled up blood, then he went unconscious from the pain.

Karls team moved to intercept the other team when a skinny muttering man stepped out of the shadows and hit them with a chain lightning spell. Everyone seized up on the spot as the man cackled, spit, and muttered to himself. That man’s mind is clearly broken. Karl recovered first, then the Dryad, and then his tank and sniper. Karl drew his plasma pistol in his left hand and began shooting controlled bursts at the unhinged magic caster and fired his primitive pistol at the other grouping of inmates.

“KILL THAT LIGHTNING FUCKER!!” Karl yelled over the din of battle. “JUNIPHER, GET EVERYONE BACK ON THEIR FEET!”

When his pistols ran dry he holstered them and pulled his rifle up and began unloading magazines into the trio of inmates that hid behind the healers barrier and the tanks shield. The Dryad began humming a tune that seemed to restore the fallen team members while the sniper unleashed a POWER SHOT into the manic caster. The attack ricocheted off a barrier of electricity but the man still stumbled back. The sniper unleashed several more POWER SHOTs and finally the electricity shield failed and the next round tore straight through the skinny man’s chest. The sniper pulled away from his optic and then leaned back in and fired two more POWER SHOTS. One more through the chest widening the gaping hole from the first, and a final shot that removed the man’s head leaving only his lower jaw attached awkwardly to his neck. He fell over sideways and all of their attention was on the three remaining fighters.

“GOD DAMN IT BRADLEY! I ALMOST LIKED THAT DUDE!” Cross yelled across the room.

“DON’T WORRY, YOU’RE NEXT!” And he fired another shot at the man that failed to penetrate the healers barrier. Cross flinched and looked back to where Bradley had been standing and found him missing.

Karl yelled out more directions as his team regained their feet. “Time to finish this! Phil, Scheel, take the tank, Hawkings, see if you can get through the healers barrier, me and Junipher will work on Cross while Valley heals, GO!”

Audron found himself approving of the aggressiveness of the humans. He especially liked the way this ‘Karl’ worked his team. He watched as the groups clashed violently for all they were worth. The enemy tank made a good showing but was quickly brought down by Phil and Scheel as they drew him out of cover. He had held off the duo for several minutes while Cross was sparring with the multi-talented Dryad and dodging Karls bullets. Then Phil had landed a WAR STOMP that shattered the other man’s balance. Scheel moved in behind him and unleashed a side kick that snapped his spine. He flopped limply to the ground and only glared as Phil plunged his sword through the man’s chest.

Cross had a breakout moment when he launched himself through the air and landed in front of Karl and tried to smash him with the arms of the man who had since died impaled on the wall behind him. Even Audron and his crew were surprised when Karl simply let his rifle swing to his side and produced a black ordinary hatchet in one hand and countered Cross’ attack with a swing that severed his left hand. Cross blinked at the bloody stump where his hand used to be then threw the other arm he was carrying at Karl.

Karl, rather than dodge the thrown limb, caught it, frowned at it then delivered a vicious looking kick to the inmates knee, which promptly collapsed backward and caused Cross to scream in pain. He stumbled backwards and Karl landed on his chest with both knees taking his breath from him. He tried to roll out and realized that his shoulder was pinned in place by the hatchet that had taken his hand. Then he looked on in horror as Karl reared back with the bloody arm raised above his head and began slamming it down on Cross’ face.

Audron and his crew watched with silent intensity as the man flew into a rage and obliterated the arm across the other man’s face. His team had since accepted the surrender of the healer and merely watched as Karl vented his frustration and rage on Cross’ face. The problem with using an arm as a club was that it was likely to become useless mush after the first few hits. Karl stopped and frowned at the shredded meat club and tossed it to the side, then frowned again as a barely conscious Cross stirred beneath him, face bloody and bruised, but not dead. Karl decided this was absolutely unacceptable and drew his plasma pistol, shoved it into the man’s mouth knocking out what teeth remained and pulled the trigger. His head above the lower jaw, expectedly, ceased to exist.

Karl looked up heaving heavy breaths and frowned when he saw that Bradley was holding a rifle to the head of the healer who had his hands up and didn’t seem too upset to see the end of his compatriots. Karl stared for several long moments before Bradley filled him in from across the room.

“This piece of shit surrendered as soon as I grabbed him, didn’t even try to fight back. What do you want done with him?”

Karl didn’t respond, only stared with hatred in his eyes.

“M- my name’s R-ruiz. I’m… I.. I’m.. I’m n-not violent. I’m in for fu- eh - fraud.” The man began stammering as Karl stood up and approached without a word.

Sochi chose that moment to make a proposition, “Wager he’ll let the man live, any takers?”

Rusne rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the scene before them. “Pass.”

“Awe, c’mon, he’s worked the rage out, this is over, dude is going to let him live.”

Audron let slip a small smile, “That man is dead.”

“No way….” He started to explain his reasoning when he noticed that Karl had come within 10 meters of his target and hadn’t slowed.

The man who called himself Ruiz also instantly recognized the hostile posture and began to squeal and plead for his life, “L-look! I ain’t never hurt nobody, man, PLEASE!”

Karl didn’t say a word, he just raised the pistol in his hand and pulled the trigger reducing the man’s head to naught but burning ash.

The two crew members and their captain watched in silence for several moments.

Sochi broke said silence again, “Man, I thought he was going to let the guy go. That dude is cold.”

Indeed. “I want profiles on this Karl, the Dryad, his Guard Captain, and… yeah, and the woman with psychic powers that charged in to save her. Also, let me get a rundown on the rest of his team and anyone else you find of interest. I think we will need to keep tabs on this human.”