The night passed.

  And when morning came back around, so too did the red people.

  They came marching back with similar numbers, but they did not meet with similar humans. By now, anyone who wanted to run had already left.

  Everyone who remained would likely not be leaving unless they quite literally had no other choice.

  Especially since every single one of us who remained on the front lines had only gotten stronger since then. Especially those of my family.

  Grandpa now had three Traits, Rakeon too received a powerful new skill, and there was me, who had two skills in my arsenal that would be able to affect the outcome of any battle.

  Plus, every single person had gotten their share of levels and the associated stat points that came with it.

  Needless to say, the Williams family, and the community of humans who fought alongside us, were far better equipped to deal with these invaders than literally just yesterday morning.

  And we showed them that.

  It wasn’t necessarily a resounding victory where we destroyed them to the last man, but it was better than the two battles yesterday.

  A lot better.

  In fact, the number of people dying drastically reduced in comparison to yesterday.

  I’m sure that had something to do with the fact that there were fewer people in general involved, but no, even though I barely had time to pay attention to the entire battlefield myself, I was still able to catch bits and pieces of other people fighting, and it could clearly be seen that people had grown in strength.

  After the battle was over, and everyone was okay, we made sure to tell who we could about the Dungeon and its benefits, while also sending a few different members of the family to go and do it.

  I decided not to include myself in that group.

  Half a day later, and the nighttime battle was upon us once again.

  It was a bit harder than the one in the morning since a good number of people couldn’t see quite as well, but overall we survived once more.

  Then another batch of Williams family members went to the Dungeon. Again, I opted not to be part of this batch, but from what I was told, there were quite a few other people who went inside.

  The red people wouldn’t have a damn clue what hit them.

  …

  This process of fighting two battles a day and rotating different members of the family into the Dungeon went on for days, and once we realized that the red people were sticking to their two battles a day at almost the exact same times, we began to rotate into the Snakebite Dungeon as well.

  No one wanted to spend their hard-earned reward coins for the most part, so Snakebite would handle that.

  We even considered pushing to the second floor but decided against it since we didn’t know how long we would have to spend there.

  And it wasn’t just us, eventually practically almost everyone who remained in the community had joined in, trying to get stronger in the Dungeon.

  Then eventually, days turned into a week, one week turned into a couple, and before we even realized, a little over a month had passed just like that.

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  And by now… a lot of things were different.

  At some point, the red people had stopped attacking twice a day and settled on just one slightly bigger attack in the morning.

  That went on for a couple of days before they stopped attacking altogether. Just nothing.

  It seems that wherever they were getting constant reinforcements from had stopped sending them or maybe ran out.

  If a stranger learned about what exactly the red people were now going through in our little community, then they probably wouldn’t blame the red people too much for a complete withdrawal.

  Instead of these chaotic merciless battles we went through where many people either died or ran away, they slowly became nothing more than walking targets of XP. Especially the ones in black armor.

  Now, it wasn’t like we were going around fighting each other for the chance to hunt someone in black armor, but the threat they posed was no longer so great.

  The community and all of its fighters had grown. Significantly.

  In fact, just the members of the Williams family alone could likely fight both daily battles by ourselves if that was still happening. That was how strong we had grown, and of course, that brought a whole lot of changes as well.

  Since the attacks stopped, we’ve had a lot of time to earn quite a bit of coins and likewise spend quite a bit of money. We bought every single book present in the shop, multiple copies too, and even a few different training dummies for the family.

  The whole family.

  There was a very real possibility that we wouldn’t be able to just stick all my little cousins in the theater and protect them without a problem.

  These books and training dummies would be a great way to let them get their foot in the door of this new reality instead of just throwing them in the middle of a battle and asking them to fend for themselves.

  Well, there were also a few talks about taking them in the Snakebite Dungeon so that they could farm XP, but not a single one of the mothers in the family was willing to sanction such a decision.

  Not yet at least. Grandpa would eventually win… probably after they became proficient in fighting against the dummies and perhaps each other.

  Anyway, we were all benefiting from these books, and for the most part, the family kind of entered a training arc of sorts, as corny as that sounds.

  But it was true. All of us were training with a focus unlike ever before in our lives. Probably due to the fact that our lives quite literally depended on it. Not because of the battles we’ve been facing, but because of what we learned upon reading the book on World Subjugation.

  There was nothing to be confused about either. The book said a lot of complicated things, but the core of it was simple to understand.

  In total, there were two different types of World Subjugation. One type was simply another planet declaring their intent to the system, and then an all-out war would begin with both planets.

  No rules, or restrictions, or any form of safeguards. Just war. The complicated part is how exactly that war would end. The book was a bit vague on it, but I did understand enough that all the natives of the invaded planet would need to do is kill their invaders.

  While the invaders would have another objective in mind, one that killing most of the natives would make easier.

  The other type was the one that Earth was currently going through.

  A Pre-Int subjugation.

  Our planet was not integrated into the wider Multiverse, and thus we didn’t have access to mana and all the abilities we are displaying today. Apparently, this integration is something that Earth would’ve gone through immediately, but who knows when.

  Regardless of when it would’ve happened though, the fact is that they are here now, and since we are Pre-Int, this World Subjugation attempt comes with restrictions for the invaders.

  There are safeguards in place that will give the planet being invaded a chance to retaliate. The invaders will have no restrictions on numbers they can deploy, but the levels of power that they can possess are very restrictive.

  And it explains in detail why our enemies have generally been so easy to overcome.

  It was almost like the system was punishing the invading planet for trying to take the easy way out and invading a planet that had yet to be integrated instead of attacking another established planet.

  Now, while these restrictions were in place, they wouldn’t be there forever. At some point, they would be lifted in full, and the red people would be able to fight at full power. Something that included deploying higher-graded enemies.

  Which brings me to the next thing we learned, or better yet, got confirmation about.

  Grades.

  It was nothing more than a power ranking system in the eyes of the System, and lo and behold, F Grades were the lowest on the totem pole.

  I’ve read enough books to guess that from F would come E, then D, C, B, A, and perhaps even S. It was a pretty common occurrence in LitRPG books, and I guess it would once again ring true here.

  And once all the restrictions were lifted, the invaders would be able to use whatever they had.

  So… people were training.

  Everyone was doing whatever they could to get stronger. Including me. Something my status reflected in full.

  I honestly feel whole lot better and I'm looking forward to pouring that energy right back into my writing!