World announcement!

People of Lapis!

Long was the age when your planet slumbered, but now it awakens. A mystical energy called mana has begun to permeate the atmosphere, enhancing all it touches.

But beware, for opportunity brings with it equal risk. The gates of possibility may have opened, all is possible thanks to mana, but the same goes for dangers as well.

Fortunately, you’ve been blessed! A wandering deity, known to you as ‘the Light’ has deemed you fit of protection. All your cities, town, and even the smallest villages are protected. The same doesn’t go for the wilderness.

Wild animals will soon start mutating, growing stronger. They’ll acquire power beyond compare for mundane mortals. Still, you have an opportunity to fight back.

Through the wilderness, trials have been scattered. All may attempt them, any could reap the power they promise. Everyone who passes the challenge will gain power over mana, similar to the beasts.

Go out! Explore! A new age is upon you!

Nearest trial Dungeon: ---

Hmm, is that a bit too pompous? Ah, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I am masquerading as a deity after all, so they’ll expect a weird tone of voice. Hopefully.

The last addition, a marker for the nearest Dungeon to each person, was a bit of a last addition. But I think it was a good choice. Who knows how long it’d take people to begin searching for them otherwise.

Like this, they have a constant reminder of what they could be doing.

As for what I could be doing? Good question. I’m sure there’s something I can find.

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Ah, it has been so long, has it not? Greetings, it is I, the Narrator.

Oh, how out little Dungeon protagonist has grown. But that’s not why I’m here. There’s more interesting stuff to observe for now.

For example, the newest [special] quest.

What was it that it’s objective said? Provide System access to a planet of Ferras? Yes, that’s exactly it.

Our poor little Dungeon, blinded by the earlier quests in the quest chain, interpreted it rather poorly. But who blame the Core? After all, it is a rather understandable mistake.

Stolen novel; please report.

You’d expect the System to want a whole planet’s worth of population as Users. Except that if that were so, it would have written it in no uncertain terms. No, instead it put the objective as granting System access to a planet of Ferras.

To the planet, not the people living on it.

And indeed, a planet is not such a simple thing as an inanimate object. Not completely.

Or perhaps, to be more exact, a planet is only an inanimate object under mundane circumstances. When nothing special, nothing magical, is occurring.

Unfortunately, the introduction of mana was exactly such a thing. After all, it’s not called a planet’s awakening for no reason. With the introduction of mana into the planetary system, the world consciousness awakens.

Fortunately, this World Core had not been awake before. This was a relatively young Universe, few of its planets had had the chance to awaken yet. Which meant that once Lapis awoke, it had only a most rudimentary mind, nothing that’d tell it to defend or attack anyone.

Naturally, the System knew this. And the System also knew that once Lapis learned more about the world, something that happens extremely fast for a World Core, it would be no easy task of making it a User.

At that point, there’d have to be a proper negotiation instead of simply appointing it as such.

So, the System could only wait and hope its sole System Core would realise the proper mission before it was too late. Well, not too late, but before the quest became much much more difficult.

As for Lapis? It was stretching out its consciousness, looking at the planet that it was.

There was a strange energy permeating it, slowly spreading and increasing in quantity. It tried to touch some and the energy responded almost by itself. Lapis liked that.

What it found strange, though, was that there were spots where the mana refused to go, even if it pushed it there. Likewise, there were some spots where it naturally gathered and the planet couldn’t drag it away from.

Very strange, the curious new world thought.

What Lapis did not know was that what to it was simple playtime, was almost catastrophic to the inhabitants above. Random spikes and drops of ambient mana started occurring around the globe. Some animals, caught up in the mana storms, mutated practically immediately, becoming monsters much sooner than a certain Dungeon and fairy duo would have expected.

And there’s one thing that draws monsters more than anything else. High concentrations of mana.

As Lapis continued to play, the mana storms wandered along the planet’s surface. And the monsters, hungry for more began following them, migrating from place to place in the wake of the storms of mana.

The worst of it was when Lapis periodically attempted to push mana into settlements. In never worked, but the mana around the cities did increase in those times. The monsters soon followed. Before long, the local Sipalians called the phenomenon a monster wave, a huge surge of the monster population that had no clear cause.

As for the Sipalians themselves?

After the world announcement, there were many who were doubtful. That quickly changed after many of the people who had wandered too far outside of cities never returned. That then sparked a hunt for these trial Dungeons the announcement had mentioned.

It was the only thing they knew of that could combat the newly risen monsters that had appeared.