^^ Razor Rabbit ^^

Ignoring the rabbits in order to further reinforce my dungeon home? Yeah, that turned out to be a terrible, stupid, idiotic thing to do. Everyone was aware that if there was one thing rabbits were good at, it was multiplying, and we'd even been warned that they would 'propagate' themselves, and I didn't think about it. Now, the city was swarming with massive carnivorous rabbits and there was very, very little we could do about it until the sewer systems and at least one water treatment facility were under our control, because not even frog-sharks could breath sewage water. On the plus side? The 'Razor Rabbits' that weren't Wave Enemies were worth much more EXP, so if we killed them all and then left the original twenty alive, we could farm relatively weak monsters for EXP to expand the dungeon even further before the next Waves, which would no doubt get progressively and exponentially worse. We started out with Mice, and graduated instantly to Rabbits, and I wasn't looking forward to Badgers or Bears like the Goliath Bear from Wave One, the 'Boss Monster' or 'Apex Predator'.

"So what do you think? Farm the Rabbits until everyone gets a Class and some Combat Skills, or clear the waves as fast as possible? Kenny, you're the resident Gamer, which is safer?" The digital map of the city I'd built in the Throne Room was zoomed in to show our immediate area, with the general location of the rabbits marked by what the Seed Turrets could see from atop the entrances as somewhere to our north, in the area previously known as 'Taito', which was bordered entirely by the Sumida River; my plan was to breed a bunch of Leaping Sharks and loose them into that river, where they could run guerrilla warfare efforts against the rabbits who came to drink the water, and it was being debated now.

Ken, who'd been for lack of a better term, '!!!PISSED!!!' that he'd been unconscious for the apocalypse, sighed at the question. "What we need is a reliable food and water source as well as EXP, of which all three increase our survivability; if we kill the Wave Rabbits, we clear the Wave, but the rabbits stick around and breed, so I'd say we build up levels here, then lay out some traps so that we can find the Wave Enemies, -which as far as I've been told are not demarcated in any way, so that'll be a challenge in itself,- and once we find them, I propose capturing a few of them and slaughtering the rest. That way no one can accidentally clear the Wave, but if we need to, or when we're ready for the next Wave, we can do so with minimal issues. So points of order are: Identify the Wave Enemies, Capture One, Kill the Rest, and use the Rabbits that've taken over the city as a reliable food and EXP source, just like your plan for the Fish in the Subway tunnels and Sewers. As far as you've said, they seem to be extra territorial, and they attack other Awakened Enemies on sight, so having them here will hopefully prevent a repeat of the Apex Predator Bear invading our new home. We also have something of a perfect storm here, with a dungeon designed to capture, confuse, and kill off monsters by the dozens, so we can use that to trap enemies inside and then us Villagers can ambush them and gain EXP in a controlled environment."

Akira frowned, tapping his fingers against the table's edge thoughtfully. "Agreed so far, but what about those Flying Animals we saw on the first night? We don't know where they're roosting, if they're totally nocturnal, or that was just because they'd been Awakened, but so far we haven't seen them during the day... they could hunt the rabbits as well, we don't know."

Kenny nodded seriously, agreeing. "Exactly why we should capture the Wave Rabbits now, so the other Enemies don't pick them off at random. I feel like the Game Masters, whoever they are, will speed the game along artificially if we take too long, so it wouldn't surprise me if the eagles and bats began to eat the rabbits as soon as tonight."

I sighed, a thought occurring that ruined whatever remnants of a good mood I had. "... It could also be that they're trying to establish a food chain, after making every herbivore a carnivore suddenly, and every Carnivore an Apex Predator... the alert said that Death was Failure, and Failure would be Punished, but then it proceeded with a horrific slaughter that killed millions of people in a matter of ten minutes; whoever made this all happen, I don't think they want us to survive. I think we're the obstacles; why else would they make the enemies propagate and grow so quickly?"

Everyone was quiet, looking at the map without talking, and after a few minutes our Animal Handling Expert spoke up. "I'll rig up a net trap we can employ for catching the rabbits, and cages on the opposite sides of the pitfalls so we can use the captured ones as lures until we find the right ones. While I make that, maybe Akira and Sybil can go fetch whatever civilians are left and bring them here? Along the way you kill whatever you come across, and gather EXP? And maybe some supplies and materials for the lab and kitchen, if you can find them?"

"Sounds good to me; sitting on my ass has never been my favorite job... Akira?"

The old timer sighed, rolling his shoulders slowly, but nodded in acquiescence. "Yes, I think that's the best plan we have so far. We'll be specifically looking for the families of our people, but any civilian we find will be brought back and settled in the Dryad Floors; that way we can keep an eye on them without letting them into or even near the Labs. Once the fishing villages are finished, we can send them that way so they're not in danger here... I imagine we'll be drawing a lot of attention here in both the near and perceivable future. For now, hunting and rescuing people while resupplying seems like a proper use of time."

I nodded and zoomed out the map slightly, looking for nearby places that'd have all the things the labs probably needed, while Akira went and found out the addresses of the people whose families were in the city. When he came back, I found the addresses, thankfully not terribly far off, and marked a circuitous route that would take us to all of the locations we needed to visit with maximum efficiency.

"Why... are you mapping that along the main roads? We're trying to remain unseen, no?"

"No? I thought one of our secondary purposes was to gain EXP and Loot? How can you do that without challenging opponents?" I shouldered my hammer with on hand and a two-hundred-gallon burlap sack from the utility closet on the other, then lead the way out into the subway tunnel towards one of the exits; the water level wasn't that high right now, because it was still spreading throughout the network of tunnels, not just this portion I had control over. The walkways along the side, left over from when it had been a train tunnel, provided room to stay out of the rushing water, even as we passed the first of the 'villages' I'd built, a cave set into the side of the tunnel some hundred yards away from the throne room. It was currently empty, of course, but it was built in a simple manner which would allow it to house about a hundred people comfortably.

I'd had to make some small adjustments to the two Gates that connected directly to the dungeon and the river, in order for the river villages to be accessible, but it basically just included making a second gate just like the first, so you could directly access the river -and thus the tiny villages alongside it- without going into the dungeon at all. Going from the throne room out through this manner took a bit longer, because you had to walk almost half a mile uphill instead of using an elevator, but it was a heavy 30 degree spiraling slope of stone that could be easily filled with a whitewater current as water poured in from the top and swept everyone inside that wasn't holding the slim aluminum railing down to the bottom, where the Piranha-Minnows and Piranha-Sharks and Frog-Sharks were currently breeding many, many more of themselves, so it was a good workout and a good defensive structure.

"Going out?" The Dwarven defender at the Northern Gate began cranking the wheel without waiting for an answer, the heavy stone and steel gate rumbling softly as it rose up into the ceiling and allowing us into the dungeon proper, then out into the street as the second gate opened.

With a curiously smooth stride that made him look like he was gliding over the ground, Akira went first, hopping effortlessly atop the ruined and abandoned vehicles of the road around us to get a better view of the surroundings. Within minutes, we arrived at the first site, a small super market. The interior was a total mess, with every visible package of food torn into and apart, leaving only the non-food items to us; this served me just fine, because I was here for the non-food items in the first place. "I'll go search the back for some reserve foodstuffs. Don't get too distracted and lose sight of your surroundings, alright?"

I gave Akira a stink-eye that had him scuttling off into the back rooms, shattering a lock to access it which gave me a little hope there was actually some food back there that hadn't been pilfered by the animals yet. While he was doing that, I was gathering things from the cleaning isle; things like bleaches, dyes, hair products, cleaning products, and more, which could be used to make chemical compounds when combined properly; given our next-gen industrial-grade equipment, we could handle such combinations with ease and efficiency. A sniffing sound caught my attention as I tossed a bottle of shampoo into my sack, and I immediately set the sack down and readied my hammer, facing the pair of massive fanged rabbits sniffing at the wrecked front door of the market. After a moment to examine their movements, I whistled sharply, making them perk up and snarl at me. "Akira! Company! I'm gonna try to capture one!"

The front rabbit leapt straight at me, hampered greatly by the low ceilings that forced its leap to come up short, and then squeaked in pain and surprise as my hammer cracked upside its jaw, shattering the fangs on that side and slamming it to the ground with one gargantuan swing. My Skill, Super-Human Body, seemed to be a passive skill, because it had given me no resistance whatsoever. Pulling some rope out of my bag, I swiftly hogtied its feet together while it was still stunned, and then shoved the whole thing into my burlap bag; it was only about a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds, and most of its size was fluff due to its surprisingly gaunt figure, so it fit without too much trouble.

Arriving with an effortless grace that honestly made me want to punch him, Akira leapt over my head, his white sword slashing entirely through the throat of the second rabbit to behead it in one swing before it could bite me, landing on the other side and sheathing his sword with an appreciative sound. "I like this weapon... it's a bit light, but it cuts well, and the enemies turning to ash means there's no blood or fat on the blade to dull it if I were to fight multiple enemies... I see you captured yours? Well done! Luckily we're only a few dozen meters from the dungeon, so we can head that way after you're done gathering whatever the labs need."

"Did you find anything in the back?" I slung the rabbit in a bag over my shoulder carelessly, holding my hammer in my left hand and following him out towards the dungeon swiftly.

"Nothing useful; all the meat had gone bad. Their freezers were left open and without power. It looked like someone rifled through it recently, but it looked like whoever it was wasn't in there anymore." He knocked on the blank wall of the gate softly, and we both kept an eye out around us while the stone and steel slab lifted out of the way. Once inside, we waved to the dwarf who was grumbling about opening the gate repeatedly under his breath, then went to deliver our purloined goods to the lab.

—

Fatima was somewhat nonplussed by my placing a visibly wounded rabbit into a box behind a pitfall, caging it instead of healing it, but after it tried to rip her head clean off, (failing only because I grabbed its scruff and held it down,) she was more understanding of my logic. "Give it a micro-dose of tranquilizer; I'd like to test a theory."

She glanced aside at me, adjusting the size of the dose she was measuring and raising an inquisitive eyebrow; she usually preferred to leave all the talking to those of us who liked the sound of our own voices, as she put it.

"Given the size of the Loot we get from the monsters, and the fact that they evaporate so swiftly, I think that each of them has the same amount of body-mass as their original forms, but with additional water and air making up the rest of them, like big water balloons. The sharks growing in the tanks were what gave me the theory, actually, because even as they grew too big for the tank, the water level didn't increase, but rather it Decreased. So that's why the rats died: I gave a bunch of creatures with a Rat's weight-mass-ratio enough sedative to knock out a Blue Whale. Obviously such an insane dosage was instantly lethal!"

She nodded and re-measured the dosage by memory for a small vermin species, then handed me the syringe. "I am not approaching the Hell-Bunny."

I shrugged and scruffed the rabbit again, stabbing the needle into its shoulder to ensure I got a good-sized vein, and then injected it with the tiny dose of sedative. Over the course of around five seconds, the rabbit went still, its eyelids dropping to half-mast, and it stared at us blearily from its place on the ground, no longer aggressive.

New Monster: Lepus Brachyurus/Razor Rabbit
Razor Rabbit(1): 10 EXP / 10 G

"Wonderful." I nodded appreciatively and stepped away, leaving the rabbit in the cage as bait while speaking to the Dwarven Defender who was watching us expectantly. "Once Fatima is back downstairs, have the northern Defender open the northern-facing gate and make a racket, then retreat to the other side of his second gate once he's managed to lure in some Rabbits for dinner; don't put yourselves in danger, tell him to just lure them in and let the traps do their jobs, alright? While he's doing that, Akira and I will go out looking for survivors again."

The dwarf nodded, acknowledging my orders, then spoke into the simple intercom I'd added into this version of the dungeon; it worked on a wired connection and short-wave radio both, so we could catch any signals nearby if we could find some Walkie-Talkies or something similar. "Oi! North Gate! The Lord says to open 'er up and draw in some o' them skinny rabbits for the Maze, then retreat to the other side of your secondary Gate; and stay alive while doin' it!" He received a gruff response from the doorman that seemed to satisfy him, so he went back to his post, nodding politely when Fatima walked past him back into the interior.

Akira sighed, rolling his left shoulder stiffly as we walked out of the maze and out into the street of the eastern exit, facing the harbor. "So, you want to resume our earlier route? It's getting a bit too close to dark for my liking, but I think we can move quickly enough it won't be an issue."

"Onward, then," I agreed, jogging into the shade of a megalithic skyscraper just in case there were flying enemies during the day that could see us, and we made our way towards the nearest residence.

—

Survivors were difficult to come by, but the city was not entirely deserted, we found; in most skyscrapers, a small group of people, -at least two but up to five a piece,- were gathered, and so we brought them back to the subway entrances and left them with the dryad before heading out again. She seemed to delight in taking care of them all, sitting them down in the middle of her glade for a cup of hot tea and some nuts and berries for a nibble before leading them over to the shade of a tree and letting them sleep it off with some gentle music from the harp she played; I was convinced, knowing the lore of Dryads, that she was unintentionally using the tactics her kind used to lure in unsuspecting travelers so that she could kill them and use them as fertilizer for her Tree.

Still, some good news was to be had: both of the families we were looking for had survived by hunkering down in their homes, so once they were reunited with their partners and parents and children, they decided to become the first families to move to the little fishing village, which was nice; that sight gave everyone a tiny sliver of hope, that just maybe their families were safe, and we all cursed our hubris almost instantly, as a system message arrived as if to chide us like disobedient children.

You have Failed to kill any Wave Enemies for (2) Days!!!
This is a Warning: Do not Waste What Little Time You Have Left. Failure Will Be Punished.
Reward: -10 EXP / -10 G / -10 Y

Everyone who had EXP, lost 10.

Everyone who had Loot, they lost 10 G's worth of it.

Everyone who had Neither, however... they lost Ten Years.

The loving family, recently reunited, screamed in horror as their grandfather turned into a mummified husk almost instantly, then to ash as he died of old age in just moments. Their screams turned from horror to surprise, however, as the toddler they'd been carrying around on their backs suddenly grew to the size of a pre-teen, with a small scraggly beard and an expression of pure bewilderment. Chaos quickly erupted, even with Akira doing his very best to contain everyone's panic, and it took several minutes for them to all shut up and let him speak.