CHAPTER 474: A NEW PURPOSE

Two main categories are available:

1. Combatant – Those who choose to protect.

Combatants stand at the front, defending their kin, the Dungeon Master and Core, and their lands.

Combatants may take up arms to protect their domain or leave the Dungeon’s area to face other Dungeons and their Masters.

Combatants will gain strength through battle and training. Their bodies and instincts will sharpen in proportion to their achievements.

2. Supporter – Those who choose to build and nurture.

Supporters shape the Dungeon’s civilization.

They may farm, craft tools, gather resources, cook, forge, educate children, and more.

Their growth is guided by practice, labor, and creativity.

A blacksmith who hammers for months will find his arms strengthened and his metal more refined.

A builder who works daily will find their body sturdier and their sense for design sharpened.

The Dungeon observes every effort and rewards it with proportional growth.

[Additional Information]

Once a lifestyle is chosen, it will influence the way your strength develops.

Combatants will grow through combat.

Supporters will grow through creation and service.

Further specialization will occur naturally as you dedicate yourself to your chosen path.

—

The message ended there. Silence lingered over the glade. The people exchanged uncertain glances, but beneath that uncertainty was something new: a quiet thrill.

For the first time in memory, their lives weren’t just about surviving until tomorrow. They could choose how they would live.

One of the younger men, a hunter by habit, clenched his fist. "Combatant," he said, and a glow ran down his arm as the system accepted his choice.

A woman beside him, who had spent years tending small gardens before the tribe was forced to leave its home, pressed her palm to her chest. "Supporter."

One by one, they began to choose. Some with confidence, others hesitantly.

Taigi stood a few steps behind the others, half-hidden between the trunks. She read the words again and again.

Supporter. Combatant.

Her thumb hovered over Supporter. It made sense. People like her didn’t fight. She had no training, and she was a woman. In her tribe, women did not fight. They were responsible for duties befitting women, namely birthing and raising children.

At most, women were allowed to farm and gather, but not fight. As a single man could sire hundreds of children in a year, but a woman could only get pregnant once, female lives were much more important to the tribe’s survival.

As such, they were not given training, not even in self-defense.

Frankly, Taigi didn’t know what was going on with her in the past few hours. She had stepped out of her comfort zone entirely... It was as if butchering the four elders and the rest of Varek’s subordinates had unlocked something in her. But she did not know what it was.

She felt out of her element.

Taigi thought of her father then. He was a proud and talented hunter. The day he died, her world crumbled. No one fed the daughter of a dead man. No one sheltered her. Survival meant swallowing her pride and doing what she had to.

Her hand trembled.

Supporter would be safe.

She could fade into the crowd again, forget about the last couple of hours where she acted as a leader.

Then she remembered standing before Kaiden hours earlier, forced into the skimpy foreign outfit, the humiliating dance meant to tempt him. She could still feel the heat of shame on her face. She had hated every second of it. Not Kaiden himself, but what it said about her life and value as a person. That she had no power. No choice.

Her hand dropped. She looked at the glowing word Combatant.

No more hiding. No more being used.

She lifted her chin and declared, "Combatant."

Light surged around her hand. It pressed against her skin, sinking deep, burning with something that felt alive. The air grew heavy for an instant, and the others turned to look.

Then a new window appeared before her, brighter than the rest.

[Personal Directive: Dungeon Master Communication]

"No one is born for greatness. We reach for it. You chose to rise when you could have hidden, and I respect that. Strength isn’t given; it’s taken, shaped, and earned. From this moment, you walk a path of your own making."

Her lips parted in disbelief. For a heartbeat, she forgot to breathe.

The message faded, replaced by a new notification etched in gold-framed text:

[Special Notification]

Designation: Leader of the Dungeon-Born

Unique Path Unlocked: Leader

Lead your kin to victory in battle to awaken leadership-oriented abilities.

Your growth will mirror that of your subordinates. Their strength will echo your will.

—

The glow around her deepened, tracing marks across her forearms. These were tattoos made of light, command sigils forming beneath her skin.

Taigi’s breath came unsteady. She clenched her fists and looked toward the unseen heart of the dungeon.

"You believe in me so much...?" she whispered.

No reply came, but she didn’t need one. She could feel his acknowledgment; the command sigil on her hand was more than proof enough.

Her shoulders squared.

For the first time since her father’s death, she felt like her life was hers again.

"I will not fail you," she declared with fervent fire burning in her eyes.

Kaiden had gained a loyal commander who would never abandon him, even if presented with an offer most could never refuse.

...

Kaiden watched from the control chamber. Their names, new designations, and fledgling class paths appeared on his interface one after another.

[Combatants: 47 Registered]

[Supporter: 62 Registered]

[System Note: Growth Potential Detected – High]

He leaned back with a quiet smile tugging at his face.

For the first time, Kaiden understood what the system meant when it called a dungeon a living world. It breathed through its people. It grew through their hands.

The interface dimmed, leaving the outline of Taigi’s name at the top of the roster with her new title beside it.

[Taigi – Leader of the Dungeon-Born]

A small chuckle escaped him. "Guess I really did become their ruler after all..." Then he shook his head while thinking of the absolute absurdity of what had just happened, "Only in the mana apocalypse..."

But his grin sharpened a moment later. Ruler or not, his job wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.

Being a Dungeon Master was only part of his life. The other parts? The ones that made him infamous, profitable, and dangerously influential? That was still waiting.

He looked Vespera in the eye and sighed theatrically. "Alas, the work of a Dungeon Master-Pornstar-Paragon of Sin is never over."

There was no time to rest.

Kaiden was only getting started.