32 Yona Village

Now closer to the Yona Village, Stanis could see that the defences in place weren't nearly as impressive as Kei had described them. The pitfalls were filled with rotting corpses, the spikes broken and scattered, while the wooden barriers they had were bloody and chipped away at every corner: not at all able to stop an enemy charge.

And then the realisation dawned on Stanis; the Yona Village was the top predator in the region, they didn't need defences at all when it was their surrounding monsters who were frightened of them. The fact that they were searching as far as hours away from their own village for Monster Camps gave testament to their strength and desire to grow.

Before the defences on the Western side was a large stream that essentially separated the Forest from the plains that led to the Village. It was shallow enough to safely swim across, but there was also a wooden bridge that they could cross.

After the bridge was about hundred metres of shoddy and broken defences, following which was the Village itself. It was as Stanis eyed the Village that he felt like the place where they had made it must have already been a proper Town before the apocalypse. All the continents had crashed back together and other mashings of landscapes had clearly happened, but you could still find whole Human Settlements.

This rising suspicion inside of him came from the fact that the largest buildings, around two stories high, were made out of large pillars of wood, concrete, bricks and other materials like those. Either the System was very generous to the people who upgraded from a Camp to a Village, or most likely these were all here beforehand.

After walking over the bridge, they only had to walk for two minutes before they reached Yona Village. At first, Stanis was completely shocked as he saw the sheer number of people active in the place, at least a hundred or so that he could see straight off. He had lived in an urban landscape before the apocalypse and didn't feel pressured by the number of people in front of him, instead he felt joy at seeing that Humans could still survive and thrive, even after the Apocalypse.

Callum, who had talked non-stop, saw that Stanis was in a daze and thus clicked his fingers in front of Stanis, finally breaking him out of his joy.

Out of the six guys who had guided them, the leader went towards the largest building, most likely the Village hall or such, to report that the Goblin Crystal was already been destroyed, whereas another three of them decided to find someplace to sleep as they were severely fatigued. This left Callum and Kei, both in good moods, who offered to show Stanis's group around the Village. Having no reason no decline, the seven of them were shortly walking around the Village, familiarising themselves.

The first place they went to was the Forge, a place that Stanis had expected to be billowing with smoke, was actually empty with only cold equipment to fill the building. It was an open forge with all the equipment there, and yet there was not a single person in sight using them. After a bit of thought, Stanis realised what Callum had said before was true: why would anyone want to work hard bending metal when they were already given good equipment by the system, on top of the fact that they would die if they didn't keep progressing.

Right next to the open Forge was a building with an open bit, as well as a closed-off bit inside. It was a tannery and leather-working station all in one. Just as for the forge, Stanis could see various equipment laid out but no people actually using them, or any signs of the equipment ever being used. The outside portion was for the tanning, whereas the inside of the wooden building was for the leatherworking, with a surprisingly cool breeze inside.

It was as they were walking across to the next attraction that Stanis noted that to the North of the Village was a towering Mountain. Squinting his eyes, he could barely see pathways up the Mountain and also several openings within it. He then remembered what Callum had said about all the Monsters in the surrounding areas being basically dead, apart from the ones that lived in the Mountains. To be fair, it made sense considering that the whole strength of the Village came from the number of people they now had. In squat tunnels which could cave in at any moment, their numerical advantage counted for nothing, especially when against Monsters that were suited for that type of terrain.

Then they walked across to the accommodations, which started out as large double-story and single-story houses, but soon downgraded towards the System-supplied Tents for the weaker, newcomers.

Finally, they walked across to the unique parts of the Village: the Classes Hall and the Market. Stanis had to take a deep breath in as he saw the Classes Hall, a truly ostentatious and extravagant building. It was about the height of a double story building and had golden, silver and crimson decorations. This ranged from impressive carvings of jaw-dropping monsters to just the simple displays of multiple, massive crimson diamonds arranged in flower shapes. Simple…

The decorations were a mid-way between classy and over-the-top as Stanis felt that they were almost like the System's way of stating how powerful and impressive it was, something that all the Humans already believed in after it had tipped their lives on their heads. There was only a single entrance to the Hall, and quite a wide entrance at that, but there was not a single person going into it. Stanis was beginning to see a recurring pattern across all the buildings…

Kei saw his group's confused expressions and explained, "Callum's already told you how strong you become after getting a Class. So why's no one checking it out I hear you ask. That's because you can't even enter the building until you get to level 20! The fact that the people who already have classes basically keep mum about what's inside other than to the higher-ups of the Village makes it even more mysterious.

Having finished introducing the Classer's Hall, Kei began to walk towards the final building of interest. It was akin to a Wild-West Saloon with small push-doors that barely covered the entrance. Only after entering did the two themes split ways, instead of multiple tables holding drunk, scheming Cowboys, the inside was actually empty until the very end of the room.

At the end was a series of shelves, all with multiple magical items on. The most irritating thing about it was that the items kept moving like they were on a conveyor belt, apart from the fact that they were just on plain wood.

Once again feeling the need to explain, Kei turned around and said, "You can only see the actual items you can get once you pay the price."

Callum then interrupted him, "Hey I was explaining that last time before you interrupted me!"

After a short exchange of expressions, much to the group's amusement, Callum carried on "So you gotta put in something like the Stone of Wonders or like anything valuable in this world to actually get something back."

He then paused, took a second to think, before continuing "I'm guessing you guys have some of those, but don't use them. A few of us used the Stone of Wonders here and all we could trade it for were shit like singular health potions when you get multiple from the System's Weekly Supply. The worst thing is you can't get your item back after starting the transaction, so it's best to ignore this place unless you're really desperate, kay?"

Stanis's group nodded at this, before exiting the building. The first thing that came to Stanis's mind was the opportunities he had at this Village. He had been hopeless and pessimistic about this world so far, blaming it for taking away the life that he had just salvaged.

But now a sprout of hope grew inside of him after seeing this Village; they had started from the same trials he had, and yet had come so far that there were people smiling and laughing across the street, enjoying this miserable reality. He had already built back one life from ruins, surely he could build this one up even higher, to the point that his life was truly worth living. And what he needed for that was power! It was the only thing that people would respect you for here, nothing else…

As Stanis was caught within his thoughts, a large beam of light shot out from the Classer's Hall, rising to the Heaven within seconds. It stayed shining like a show of Glory for a few seconds.

Kei looked over at them, the excitement visible as he uttered out, "There's another Classer!"…