The Fate of Humanity

Ellis walked out the door and locked it behind him. Outside the front door, there was a hallway that went off to the left. As he walked down the hall, he noticed another door on the right that seemed to be another private living area. Farther down the hall he found the elevator. Ellis pushed the call elevator button and entered the elevator.

According to the elevator he was on the 41st floor. He remembered when he first came to meet Droven the woman had brought him to the 20th floor but she had swiped a card to get there. He didn't have a card so how was he supposed to get there? After a bit of thought, Ellis decided to just go down to the ground floor and ask the receptionist where the meeting would be.

Beep.

Ellis selected the ground floor button and the elevator started slowly moving down.

I wonder what this meeting could be about. Probably about what we're going to do about future monster waves. If we don't do something the city is bound to be overrun eventually.

Ellis thought to himself in silence frowning. When the elevator stopped moving, he got off and made his way to the front desk.

"Ah! Mr. Ellis. Mr. Droven is having a meeting with the other VIPs right now. Here, take this card and head into the elevator. Select the basement floor button and then swipe the card. Hurry, they're waiting on you."

The receptionist gave Ellis a slight bow and handed him the card.

The card was similar to the business card he had received from Belial. It was all black with the letter V.I.P. written in gold lettering.

Ellis inspected the card as he hurried back to the elevator.

I wonder why Droven is having a meeting in the basement. Why not in his office or a meeting room?

Ellis pondered as he entered the elevator and did everything the receptionist had told him to do. The elevator started going down and kept going down for what felt like forever.

What the hell? Why is this basement so far underground? This elevator ride is longer than when I came from the 41st floor to the ground floor.

Ellis tapped his foot anxiously as the elevator continued to descend.

When the elevator doors opened, a large brightly lit white room was revealed to Ellis. At the far back of the room was a massive glass window revealing what looked like an underground laboratory of some sort. Droven was standing near the glass window in front of two familiar-looking girls. As Ellis got closer, he saw that the girls were Cora and Lyre. He gave the room another quick look around and saw there was no one else aside from those three.

Huh, I wonder where Belial and Kieran are?

Ellis thought to himself as he approached the group. The closer he got, the more he could see what was on the other side of the window. Large corpses of the various monsters they had fought during the battle were littered around the floor with groups of people surrounding them and taking notes. There was also a large glowing anima crystal, presumably from the Magma Demon. It was the largest anima gem he had seen so far, about the size of a bowling ball.

I wonder how do they get these monsters down here? There must be a giant elevator somewhere else.

As Ellis reached the group of three people, Droven spoke up.

"Ellis! There you are. I'm glad to see you're doing well."

"Thank you, sir."

Ellis nodded his head before he came to a stop near Cora and Lyre.

"This is Cora, and this is Lyre."

Droven said gesturing at girls as he introduced them.

"Hello. I'm Ellis. It's nice to meet you both. I'm glad both of you are okay. I'm sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances the first time."

Ellis smiled and bowed as he introduced himself to the two girls.

"Hello."

Lyre said in a monotone voice as she looked at Ellis blankly and said nothing else.

"H… Hello."

Cora uttered out softly as her face began to turn red and she averted her eyes from looking at Ellis. Her forehead still had a red mark from hitting her head.

I guess she is still embarrassed about earlier.

Ellis thought to himself as he scratched the back of his head.

After the introductions, Droven began talking again.

"Here is the situation. The Tower doors are now open and haven't closed. There is a chance of another wave of monsters coming out again, but for right now they are slowly trickling out at a rate of one to two a day. Kieran is currently watching the tower and fighting off anything that makes it through. Fortunately, everything that has been coming out are small monsters that are easily dispatched by him. As for Belial, he has already entered the tower."

Belial has already gone back into the Tower? That guy is such a battle maniac. I bet he went in as soon as the fight with the Magma Demon ended.

Ellis thought to himself before Droven continued.

"The researchers below have managed to make a composite material out of the Magma Demon's corpse that is ten times stronger than steel."

Droven gestured to the people working down below before continuing.

"Using this new material, a wall will be built around the Tower to protect us from further destruction. Kieran will oversee the building of the wall around the Tower to make it easier to defend. I also have a team of researchers testing the crystals that come out of the monsters to try and figure out what exactly they are and how we can use them. I refuse to abandon this city and its people. And even if I wanted to, most of the other cities are in far worse condition than this one. In this new world, we are going to have to get stronger to survive. Right now we have no leader and barely a government so I'm going to personally see to the city being rebuilt even stronger than before."

Droven paused as he gathered his thoughts.

"I'm telling all of you this because this city needs your help. I need your help. You all are the only hope for humanity. Tower-Walkers are the only ones who can fight on equal footing with these beasts. Conventional weapons are useless. We need to find a more permanent way to defend against these monsters. As of now, the only thing I can think of is to create more Tower-Walkers, but the survival rate is extremely low right now. I am asking if you all can go back into the tower and become stronger and bring weapons, armor, and materials out of the tower so we can give them to people so they can enter the tower with a fighting chance. Only things that come from the Tower can enter the Tower. That way we can increase the survival rate and make more Tower-Walkers."

He's right. The world is changing and right now I am one of the people who can do something to help. In order to protect my sister, I need to get stronger too. I was thinking about going back into the Tower anyways. There has to be a potion I can use to wake mom up. Maybe one of the higher tier potions will work better.

Droven started talking again cutting Ellis's thoughts off.

"The world is changing, and we need to stay ahead if we want humanity to survive. I know you all have someone or something to protect. Do it for them and for the survival of humankind. Think about it. Please give me your answers before the end of tonight."