"Find me someone from the other group, I need to know what is going on, and what the threat level is. We’re still technically a port town, even if we can’t get to the docks at the moment, and I don’t want to find out too late that there is some massive sea monster that can actually get to us here," Kalli ordered.

"On it. Give me two minutes and I will bring them," Niall agreed.

True to his word, in less than two minutes, the Rogue was back, dragging a woman who had redressed herself in a naval officer’s uniform.

"Sub Lieutenant, report." Kalli demanded.

"And who are you?"

"Coordinator Kallista De Marimgar. And I need to know what triggered a nuclear response within a hundred kilometres of the capital."

For a split second, Kalli could see the training kick in, and the Sub Lieutenant nearly answered honestly.

"That is classified."

"Don’t make me un-resurrect you."

Niall laughed at the expression on the officer’s face. "I would suggest that you tell her everything. She’s in charge of the resurrection pod that brought you back to life after you were vaporized by a nuclear blast.

She also has the only class that we’ve ever seen that can exchange quest reward points for survival supplies. You really don’t want to get on her bad side."

The Lieutenant considered that as she looked deep into the Coordinator’s eyes.

There wasn’t any sign of hesitation or fear in them, Kalli was just waiting for her to make the decision so that they could get on with their day.

"Alright, fuck it."

"That’s the spirit. Now, start from the beginning because I know nothing of what happened with your group after the Army grabbed every awakened human they could get their hands on and fled the city."

"The heroes are strategic assets under the..."

"Skip that part. I’ve heard the whole patriotic spiel before. What was actually done?"

"You’re a real people person, aren’t you?"

"It’s been under two weeks since I pulled a gun on a bunch of middle schoolers."

The Officer smiled at Kalli’s flat response. "Fine, I get it. The top brass knew that this was coming. There was a first round of hero awakenings nearly two years ago, and they kept it silent. So, the moment that the mass awakening started, they gathered up all the heroes that they could find, and every nation moved them to military installations and secure facilities to wait out the worst of whatever is happening.

They think that this will pass, and we can rebuild society."

Kalli laughed and shook her head. "Not even close, they’re so screwed. We’re undergoing trials, and we’re failing miserably. If we don’t start doing better, there isn’t going to be anything left of our old world to rebuild from.

If you look outside, the city of Marimgar is almost entirely rubble, converted to the home world of the monsters, except the blocks that we held.

That might have been the plan of the top brass, to let the cities fall, and rebuild after. But the trials are judging how well we preserve humanity, not just the wealthiest and the ones with the best guns.

When the first trial ended, we got a below-average score for two hundred heroes and three hundred civilians remaining in the territory.

So I can only imagine what the other regions were rated, if they had someone who could actually see the quest results. Without trying to actually save enough of society to make a society, and not just the upper crust of it, everything that they’re planning to save will be completely converted to the world of the monsters.

If I’m understanding the situation correctly, your ship was attacked by them?

I haven’t forgotten that I wanted you to get me the full details of what you were doing since this started."

The Officer nodded. "That’s right. We have been working a coastal defence route, to keep hostile nations from taking advantage, and to keep the monsters from congregating too near to the safe zones.

It had been going fairly well, but then we were swarmed by some sort of octopus monsters, and our escort vessels were sunk.

But at the same time, we got notice that the bunker was under heavy attack from the outside.

They were suffering an invasion of monsters that were blocking their fresh air vents and attempting to break down the bunker doors. As the facility is hardened against attack, we aimed for an area that didn’t risk damage to the bunker complex and fired a volley.

It should have cleared most of the monsters away from one side of the complex, but then we were swarmed again by the octopus monsters, and we were nearly out of torpedos.

We went to full forward motion, and deployed depth charges to minimal effect.

I was not a bridge officer, but I suspect that it was a mass migration event, far more than even a full battle group could hope to handle. Either way, I was manning a defensive autocannon when the explosion happened."

"Wait, so it wasn’t your ship that deployed the nuke?"

She shook her head. "No, we weren’t even carrying any. We’re a battleship, not a missile cruiser. My only thought is that somehow the reactor in the facility was breached. But that should have been contained beneath the mountain.

It’s either that, or option X."

"What is option X?"

"That’s the official code we have been using for an enemy attack. It is possible that the detonation was neither us nor the facility, but a hostile actor who nuked us from high altitude or an orbital station."

Kalli sighed. If the humans of this world were still nuking each other, with everything else that was going on, that "two in a million" chance of survival that the System mentioned might actually have been optimistic.

"Alright. We will take it as an unknown for now. Welcome to Marimgar Academy. We will find you a place to settle in, and starting tomorrow, you can join the rotation on missions to build System Points.

It’s the only way to build your skills and keep buying supplies, so it is a non-negotiable duty for everyone in the Academy."

"And if we don’t wish to remain within the Academy?"

"I recommend that you don’t go southwest or north. Both directions have monster forces you’re unlikely to survive. But you’re free to leave. I honestly don’t have the bandwidth to deal with heroes who don’t want to be here."