The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 389: A City Like a Corpse (6)

When I didn't go hunting, I focused on my research. The creatures are still evolving, not just increasing their levels. The longer they exist, the stronger they become.

The highest-level creature I've encountered so far was a monster in the forest during one of my hunts. It was level 189. It destroyed an entire hunting group before we managed to kill it.

The others were around level 175. It took forty of us to bring that thing down.

We're growing stronger too, but not fast enough. The creatures have a head start.

[Entry 379]

Exactly two years after Mana came, a ship appeared in the sky. Today.

It was massive—larger than anything we've ever seen. Its hull was covered in markings I couldn't read, and it moved with no visible propulsion system.

The ship sent a message. The transmission was in a language we didn't understand, but the system translated it.

They called themselves the Allied Worlds, claiming they had seen this phenomenon before and offering their help.

The High Council met with them immediately. The representatives came down in smaller craft—creatures we'd never seen before. One of them was arthropodal, with multiple limbs and chitinous armor.

They explained what was happening to us, but it was just a reiteration of what the system itself said. But why did they come this late? Somehow I think it is because of the Children of Mana.

I should've anticipated that a bunch of psychos would have seen the apocalypse as some sort of divine punishment. Though the Allied worlds say it is actually a natural phenomenon.

I don't really know what to believe. Things are getting too crazy at too fast a rate for my taste, and… well… I still have found no way to reverse the mutations. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

However, someone somehow made our machines work again despite mana interference. Maybe I will be able to go find my family if I get my hands on a vehicle.

[Entry 419]

The Allied Worlds have been studying us for months. They've been watching how we use the Guardian System, how we fight the creatures, and how we organize ourselves.

I didn't think much of it at first. It seemed reasonable. They needed to understand us before they could integrate us into their alliance, as they said they wanted to do.

But I was starting to notice things. They weren't just observing—they were testing us, measuring our growth rates, our combat effectiveness, and our social cohesion. Plus, they could have stopped plenty of monsters many times, but they didn't.

One of their scientists came to my laboratory yesterday. It asked me about our government structure. It wanted to know how decisions were made, how conflicts were resolved, and how we handled dissent.

I told it the truth, explaining that we Ignis value independence. The creature didn't respond and just recorded my answer before leaving.

Something about the interaction felt wrong.

However, what worries me the most aren't the allied worlds or the monsters, though; it's the Children of Mana. They seem to be growing.

[Entry 423]

Three years had gone by since the apocalypse. I wrote nothing for the past year because I decided to go back home. It took me a while to reach an adequate level to finally leave my laboratory.

I… I went to search for my wife… I found her… She died. Staying there didn't make sense to me at that point. I lost my family, but my friends and colleagues were still at the laboratory, so I came back at level 267, and so… you know, I decided to write in my journal again.

What else? Oh, yes… I'm pretty sure the Allied Worlds are still evaluating us.

I confronted one of their representatives today. The Children of Mana are getting out of control at this point, but the Allied worlds aren't doing much about it despite them having said they would.

Motherfuckers…

Though I got some information from the dude, I'm not sure I understood it correctly, and I don't know if my assumptions are right, but… I think the Allied Worlds don't save everyone.

Maybe they can't. Based on what the man…? I'm not even sure how to call that dude. Well… He said that integrating a new species into the allied worlds requires massive resources.

This all fits into what I think… They really are evaluating us, and I honestly don't think we are giving them an impression. It's not because we are weak; rather, the opposite—the guy said we are a pleasant surprise. Our average level is 360 at this point.

The guy said that usually, in three years, people reach level 240 at best, and here we are. I wonder if there are other races out there that did better than us.

[Entry 578]

The Allied Worlds are leaving. I didn't think those motherfuckers would do it, but I figured it out.

They use criteria when choosing a new species to join them. Two axes on a graph. The first axis is potential—what they call Tier. It measures how powerful a species can become. The second axis is controllability. It measures how easily a species will follow the alliance's rules.

High potential and high controllability mean automatic acceptance. Low potential and low controllability mean reject.

The problem is when a species has high potential but low controllability. That's us.

We're strong. The Allied Worlds have seen how quickly we adapted to our situation and how effectively we fight. But we're also independent. We question authority. We refuse to be managed.

They think we're a risk. They think if they give us the resources to grow, we'll eventually become a threat to them.

So they're debating. Do they save us and take the risk? Or do they cut their losses and leave?

So, this morning they announced it. They said they've done everything they can for us. They said we are in a stable situation, but… We aren't. The Children of Mana are still out there. The Allied Worlds said they destroyed them all, but they didn't! I know there are still some of them out there, but they refuse to see it.

They barely suppressed them the first time; without them we are going to die!

They said they would let us know if we were going to get accepted, but I know that is not going to happen. The real question is, are they going to do something else?