In the end, it was Yaoyorozu who noticed that something was amiss. And immediately brought it to Izuku’s attention.

“Where are Mr. Compress and Spinner?” She asks early in the morning. Funnily enough, they didn’t have anything to do in the aftermath of the battle. The beastkin were doing all the legwork for them.

Yesterday, that is. They were doing their job yesterday, carrying all the corpses into the Dungeon and letting them grow fat and happy with no hard work whatsoever. This morning, though, the flow of corpses took an oddly long time to resume.

This prompted Izuku to voice his surprise by it to his old classmates, which promptly led to Yaoyorozu noticing another discrepancy.

…

Shigaraki?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

GOT YOU!

What have you done?!

Well, what do you think beastkin did the evening after their victory?

Once they moved every injured person to their camp and did their best to patch them up?

I… don’t know?

They partied, dumbass

They partied hard

I figured out that you’re going to complain about it if I asked you for your consent, so instead I made a sovereign decision to accept Atsuhiro ‘Rave God’ Sako’s petition to go and get wasted, for as long as he grabs Spinner and wingmans him into getting laid, without asking you

…

Really?

Character development, asshole

I care for my subordinates and go out of my way to make them happy, in exchange for their continued loyalty

As for the reason why the beastkin stopped carrying corpses inside, it’s probably because half of them aren’t currently available due to being on the verge of death by hangover or drug comedown

I only peeked through their eyes once or twice, and damn, let me tell you this shit was wild

You know what, I won’t even ask.

Also… Rave God?

Have you seen how that man looks? And, if you ignore his clown moments, he’s good at acting and an entertainer by profession

Before becoming a proper villain he was dumping most of the money he was getting on his frequent visits to nightclubs, and his outing as a villain has likely disappointed a lot of girls and boys he met there

I see.

Well, hopefully he didn’t do anything stupid while partying.

***

Izuku’s worries turned out to be well placed, a fact that they discovered when Mr. Compress finally returned to the Dungeon a few hours later, looking like a textbook definition of hangover and carrying a backpack filled with stolen goods.

He was accompanied by Spinner, who was carrying a second backpack filled with stolen goods. And, to add insult to injury, the duo was also carrying a large, unopened keg of liquor. That they also stole.

… please tell me that you got all those things legally.

“Pfffft.” Mr. Compress manages not to break into laughter but he gets close. “Yeah, right. Legally. That’s definitely a word, one that I have never heard in the past and one that I elect to ignore in the future.”

“He stole it, and roped me into helping him.” Spinner decides to clarify the situation. The two of them were proudly marching down the Level Change Room on the First Level. Likely to get as far away from the potential beastkin pursuers.

Nice

How was the party?

That’s not nice, that’s a cri…

I’m not even finishing this sentence, you’d just reply some variant of ‘that’s what makes it nice’

You know me so well, sob

“Wildest party in my life, boss.” Mr. Compress replies. “Beastkin might not be the nicest people, but they know how to party, I give them that much. I’m ready to bet my liver that at least a few of them died in the process, and the rest just kept partying. Rivers of alcohol, more drugs than I can name and sex. A lot of sex. Though they could work on the music a little, even if the drums had that interesting rustic charm to them.”

Well, sounds fun

Spinner?

“Y-yes.” Spinner replies, suddenly sounding a bit nervous. “Thank you sooo much, Tomura. Your idea to have me go and have Compress, errr, help me a little was pure genius.”

Sweet

Bring all the loot to the lowest level, I want all the heroes go through the trauma of being accessories to mass robbery before we assimilate it

……

Cope and seethe, Midoriya

***

“You did what?!” Yaoyorozu speaks for the entire group, now gathered in their common room in front of the two thieves.

“We’ve stolen a bunch of stuff from the beastkin while they were too busy partying to care.” Mr. Compress replies. He’s thoroughly unapologetic about his act of thievery.

“Are you serious?!” Uraraka joins the argument.

“That’s super unmanly.” Kirishima judges. Judging from the look on Mina’s face, his girlfriend was in full agreement with him.

“Did you get something cool?” Toga asks, immediately drawing a lot of eyes to herself. “Why are you looking at me like that?! Beastkin are fine with stealing stuff from each other and usually blame the victim for being dumb enough to get robbed, duh. Compress just did the same to them.”

That was something that Izuku had to agree with, at least on the surface level. The problem they were facing was less about the beastkin being robbed and more about what it meant for their own morality and conscience.

“And I’m supposed to believe that he did it as a punishment?” Yaoyorozu replies, staring daggers at her before turning her eyes towards Compress.

“Nope!” Compress grins back. He is definitely hungover, but he’s so much of a drama queen that he’s forcing himself through it just to keep the show going. “I just saw some cool stuff lying around and decided to take it.”

Absolutely and thoroughly unapologetic. Hell, proud of what he just did.

“Midoriya-kun, I know that Shigaraki won’t like it, but I feel that regardless of the beastkin’ behavior and culture, this is crossing a line.” Yaoyorozu decides to directly address a higher authority. “We should give it back. Or, if we don’t want them to suspect us, just drop it in the forest somewhere where they should find it.”

Izuku is yet to answer that when Compress decides to make an attempt on persuading a whole group of hero trainees to ignore a blatant act of thievery. He does it by pulling something out of his backpack and putting it on the table in front of them.

It’s a bar of soap.

“I…” Yaoyorozu’s eyes darted towards it before returning to Compress. Izuku can see a number of people in the group react almost identically to her. A concerningly large number of people. “I don’t think that a bar of some… primitive soap works as an argument for thievery.”

“I think you massively underestimate beastkin alchemists, Yaoyorozu-san.” Compress replies, looking at her with a smug smirk on his face while grabbing the soap from the table. “From what I’ve seen, it’s a really good soap. A lot of foam and it smells really nice.” He sniffs it, his eyes on Yaoyorozu the whole time. “Lavender scent, definitely. Would be such a shame to give it back and wait for who knows how long for the beastkin to gift us with it on their own.”

Silence in the room. Izuku can see a lot of his classmates exchanging glances. No one says a word, yet. But to his shock, Izuku realizes that they were actually wavering.

“You know, I’ve seen the beastkin be up to some really shady shit yesterday.” Tokage finally decides to take the bullet for the team and speaks up. “He didn’t rob some poor innocent people, but pretty much the local version of villains. Better than any alternative, but…”

“I… guess that you have a point.” Uraraka says slowly a few seconds later, the shocked looks switching from Tokage to her. “We’re imprisoning the daemons, and that’s fair enough of a punishment for their crimes, but the beastkin… they’ve kind of got off scot-free, right?”

“Girls, that is not manly at a…” Kirishima tries to interject but Mina suddenly squeezes his arm. He looks back at her, but she says nothing, instead staring at the soap without a word and with worrying intensity in her eyes.

“Isn’t that just like a bonus reward?” Kaminari speaks, suddenly reminding everyone in the room of his existence. “Uraraka-san helped the beastkin win and lower their casualties, so she definitely earned an additional reward. But we can’t just go and ask them for it, because we’re hiding how smart we are from them. So, it’s just like a bonus reward, right? And, besides, Tokage-san said she saw some shitty thing, so getting a recompense for it is valid. It’s like making them pay a fine, right?”

“Yes!” Tokage fist bumps her open palm, just as Monoma, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu give Kaminari looks best summarized with the words ‘Et tu, Brute?’. Kaminari looks confused by their reaction. “That makes perfect sense! I was definitely traumatized and need reimbursement for my suffering.”

Uhm, I’m all for seeing moral corruption of heroes (especially the ones that annoy me a lot), but they DO remember that we can just copy this stuff once we assimilate it?

We can’t be sure that it doesn’t require too much Ambient Mana for us to spawn it immediately. It shouldn’t be a problem for something as simple as a bar of soap, but we can’t be sure.

That’s a very you thing to be concerned with a still hypothetical crime

Mr. Compress puts the soap back on the table. Yaoyorozu promptly swipes it before giving it a quick sniff, her eyes on Compress (and his smug smirk) the whole time.

“You won.” She then promptly surrenders. So it really must have smelt like lavenders, huh. “I, errr, withdraw my veto. This one time.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Great.” Uraraka sighs. She doesn’t seem to be awfully happy about participating in the act of thievery, but… soap. “What else did you two bring?”

Wow, what a way to get bribed

With a bar of soap

You win this time, now stop being so annoyingly smug about it.

Nope

Suffer, bitch

The next thing that Compress pulled out of his backpack is a book. Or, as he quickly corrects himself, several thin-looking books, wrapped in leather. All of them are roughly similar in size, comparable to an A5 format and per Izuku estimation of thickness, probably having about… 200-250 pages?

This looks to me like some murim-themed manga/manhwa/webcomic martial art manual

“You’re completely correct about it, boss.” Compress replies. “Beastkin are all about individual skills and earning your stuff, but if they limited learning opportunities by making them work through the same mechanism, they wouldn’t have enough warriors. So, I borrowed some books from their unofficial public library. Only the entry level stuff, and they had more than one copy of those.”

“Oh?” Uraraka lets out, her tone betraying how intrigued she was by this part of the spoils. She quickly leans towards the pile of books and finds the one with ‘Wolf Fang School, Basics’ written on the front, before quickly leafing through it.

Through her eyes, Izuku sees a lot of highly detailed anatomical diagrams of wolfkin of both genders, with a number of symbols, points and lines. Likely showing how to form and strengthen your mana pathways. Thankfully, there are also a lot of words describing how it works for those with completely no understanding of the basics.

There are also descriptions of various forms of footwork and combat techniques to be used with the basics described in earlier chapters. They already ‘know’ most of them, although not in the same way.

“Nice.” Uraraka grins as she puts the manual down on the table. “Looks like the final obstacle to becoming a wolfkin permanently has just vanished. I’ll finally be able to train myself properly.”

“Wait, you want to stay a wolfkin?” Monoma asks, glancing at Uraraka. “You know that there are much stronger bodies out there, right?”

“And what’s the baseline difference between them in ETL?” Uraraka counters. “One point? Two points? Get some good equipment and you can bridge that easily, even without training. It’s hard work that matters.”

“Both of you have a point.” Yaoyorozu decides to join in. “Yes, there are species in this world that are much more powerful, but there’s a possibility to bridge that gap with sufficiently hard training, good equipment and some luck. However, Uraraka-san is going to remain connected to the Dungeon for the foreseeable future, if only because Midoriya-kun is as well. This means that she can amass combat experience, skills and equipment with no risks to her life, and while taking full advantage of her lifespan being effectively unlimited.”

“So, unless the worst happens and the Dungeon itself is killed, we’ll all become powerful.” Uraraka summarizes it. “The real question is how quickly it happens. And guess what? I’m tired of all my physical training being for nothing, because all the changes to my body reset back to mediocrity each time I die! I want to train myself in both martial arts and normal physical training. So, yes, I’m totally up for this change.”

“Wait, so does it mean that if you do some weightlifting and so on, you’re gonna develop more muscles? Permanently?” Toga suddenly perks up. Uraraka nods. “Oh, hell yes!”

Uraraka sighs, clearly exasperated but also amused by Himiko, wrapping her arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer. As usual. Himiko was really funny when there was no risk of her killing someone, and when she somewhat toned down her bloodlust.

And also, she was very relatable to Izuku, at least right now. Because he, too, wouldn’t mind Uraraka getting some more muscles here and there.

N-not like she wasn’t perfect as she was right now, though! But when they created their bodies in this world, those were mediocre by default. If they get humans, the bodies they’ll be able to make will likely have exactly 0.5 baseline ETL, exactly in the middle between the strongest and weakest human ever.

As a result, due to being above the average for the human species before landing here (thanks to their training to become pro-heroes) they all grew somewhat weaker in the process, although the losses were smaller than they could have been thanks to their new species having higher average strength, speed, stamina etc.

In short, Uraraka’s muscles were significantly less pronounced than they were on Earth, even if she didn’t get visibly weaker in the process, and they all (minus the ogres) went through a similar thing.

And Izuku could only wonder how strong Ochako could get. And… well… yeah, he can’t say that even in his thoughts, but he definitely empathizes with Himiko’s words. The ones concerning the associated aesthetics of such a change.

“Right.” Yaoyorozu clearly decides to ignore Toga’s interruption and focuses on looking through the pile of books instead. “Let’s see what we have here. Wolf Fang, Tiger Claw and Tail Splitter Schools, which is something that we already have some practitioners of.” She says as she puts three of the books to the side.

There are more books there. Izuku can’t help but feel somewhat… excited about it. But it’s an excitement tainted with guilt, considering that he felt it towards stolen goods.

Goddamnit, Shigaraki. It’s all your fault, and Izuku is going to make you suffer for it. Somehow.

“Here we have the… Battering Ram School?” Yaoyorozu raises an eyebrow at this. “Oh, right, it’s for the sheepkin. Rams. Funny. Anyway, next we have the Rabbit’s Foot School for the rabbitkin, Bull Charge School for the cowkin, Hog’s Tusk School for the boarkin, Foxtail School for the foxkin and the Mauling Paws School for… bearkin, it seems.”

Only the last one had a name that didn’t immediately betray what species it was made for, forcing Yaoyorozu to spend a brief moment checking it.

“A substantial haul, all things considered.” Yaoyorozu then says, clearly deciding to evict the fact that she was talking about stolen things out of her head. “Nothing for the mages, though.”

Compress says nothing. Instead, he pulls a few significantly thicker books from his backpack. He was definitely waiting for the best moment to do a dramatic reveal.

He earns himself silent stares from almost every former hero trainee in the room, except for Kaminari, who clearly didn’t realize yet what the problem was. Then again, Izuku genuinely couldn’t tell if he was properly following the conversation.

This time, Shigaraki of all people notices it.

I have a question to you

Is Kaminari, you know, all there?

Yes.

Sort of.

He’s a bit of a dunce 95% of time, but a galaxy-level supergenius for the rest of it.

You just learn to roll with it.

… ok?

“Alright.” Yaoyorozu sighs, looking simply… defeated. Compress definitely considers that his win. “Let me see… looks like we have two books concerning basic, entry-level skills and training for both Rage and Blood Magic and two more, which are… give me a second.” She leafs through the pages of the remaining two books. “Oh. Beastkin must have gotten those from some necromancer they killed. One’s for Death Magic, the other is for Curse Magic.”

“Gimme.” Yanagi doesn’t wait any longer than absolutely necessary before grabbing those two books and immediately beginning to read one of them. Completely ignoring everyone else at the table.

Izuku starts to suspect that not only Ochako but also Yanagi-san and perhaps even Spinner will switch their bodies to a permanent one very, very soon. And he was happy for them, as that meant that they’ve found themselves a new identity, successfully wading their way through the existential horror that their arrival in this world was.

Yaoyorozu just glances at Yanagi, before quickly shaking her head and turning towards Compress once more.

“You’ve gotten us tutorial books for martial arts and magic, which is… good.” Yaoyorozu then says to Compress through her teeth. “This leaves our sorcerers, who…”

Compress, with utmost speed and dexterity, stars pulling even more books out of his backpack before staring at a frozen Yaoyorozu with this annoying smug smirk of his. Even being severely hungover doesn’t stop him from being a troll.

“They will never find your body, nor the murder weapon.” Yaoyorozu says. Slowly. Carefully. And with utmost focus on every single syllable, her eyes locked onto Compress the whole time.

He looks supremely unimpressed, and shrugs in the most comically exaggerated way Izuku could possibly imagine.

Yaoyorozu, once again, is forced to concede defeat and quickly checks the contents of the books in question.

“Well, yes, those are manuals and guidelines for rookie sorcerers.” She eventually says. “We have entry level knowledge on fire, ice, acid and electric sorcery, all of them written in Itavian so definitely not locally manufactured. Beastkin probably stole it from someone. There are also two scrolls written in the local language, and those are for rage and blood sorcery.”

Izuku doesn’t say it, but he has a theory about the origin of at least some of those goods. He could imagine fire and ice being rather common ‘elements’, but ice and acid? Too much of a coincidence. Same with black magic books.

He is ready to bet that Compress just reunited the property of several of the beastkin former ‘sacrifices’ with their owners. In the Dungeon. The beastkin must have stolen the books for themselves before dumping the bodies in the Dungeon. And now, Compress stole them back.

That helped Izuku a lot in persuading himself that this particular involuntary repossession of goods was… tolerable. Although while he did succeed in that, it was a narrow victory, one motivated entirely by the beastkin not having anything resembling a code of law. And their spoken traditions actually encouraging this sort of thievery.

“Any other books you have in that backpack of yours?” This time it’s Uraraka that asks. Yaoyorozu closes her mouth, consigning whatever she was about to say into oblivion.

“No, but I have some other things. Although I don’t expect you to agree with my choice of loot.” Compress replies. “There was no real point in stealing valuables, seeing as we have a wide selection of gemstones, crystals and coins readily available once the Dungeon gets deep enough. I’ve instead decided to wander towards the few huts operated by the beastkin medics accompanying their army, although they’re perhaps more appropriately referred to as alchemists.”

“... you stole their drugs, didn’t you?” Yaoyorozu asks, sounding resigned more than anything else.

“Well, yes, but.” Mr. Compress replies quickly. Someone definitely didn’t like the way she put it. “They are actually pretty advanced about it. To a degree that… Ah, damn, just see for yourself.”

He gestures at Spinner to hand him his backpack, before pulling something out of it and putting it on the table.

It’s a syringe.

Glass syringe with some metal coatings here and there, looking like something straight from the Earth’s hospital, although with glass that was maybe a bit thicker. It’s filled with a not-yet identified liquid, the identity of which was probably a crucial element of Compress’ next… performance.

“No way they can produce something as detailed as this, not with their technology level.” Yaoyorozu states while grabbing the syringe to look at its content up close. “Let me guess, imported from the Grand Empire?”

It had to be the Northern Wind hideout, Izuku decides. It already showed them that there was something distinctly wrong with this world’s technological level, so expecting the syringe to come from a connected source made sense.

“Yes.” Compress replies. “Which both makes sense and doesn’t make sense at all. Barbarian tribes clad in furs and metal are running around its territory, and yet its more civilized provinces seem to have technology approaching the level of at least late 20th Century, which is… weird.”

I think that the term you’re looking for is ‘Schizo-Tech’

But yes, yes it’s definitely the case here

“After seeing one of the local maps being drawn in a projection implying that whoever made it had access to satellite imagining, nothing can potentially shock me on that field.” Yaoyorozu states flatly, before glancing at the syringe one more time. “It’s morphine, isn’t it?”

And suddenly Compress’s behavior and choice of things to bring home made sense. Sure, their connection to the Dungeon seemed to make them somewhat numb towards their own pain, but what if they accidentally injured someone they didn’t want to, some unfortunate visitor to the Dungeon, and they needed to patch him up?

Morphine was dangerous due to its addictiveness, but it was also an extremely potent painkiller. And seeing what sort of injuries the locals were casually dealing to each other while fighting, especially when magic or daemons got involved, having a painkiller available could mean a world of difference.

“Yes.” Compress replies. Izuku didn’t miss the flinch on his face when Yaoyorozu figured it out. “The beastkin seem to be growing a lot of opium poppy, enough to have a whole industry going. And their alchemists are something else, because despite working in tents, maybe wooden huts in the forest, one of their products is something called the sleeping dust, which per description of its effects sounds like heroin.”

“You’re joking.” Yaoyorozu stares at him, almost mortified. She isn’t the only one, it was quite a bomb to drop. “They are producing heroin?”

“I didn’t see it myself, so I can only speculate, but the description I got from one of the beastkin fits.” Compress replies. No one feels like asking why he’s so knowledgeable on the subject. “Although despite being a major producer of opioids, they are very particular about not using them themselves. The only thing that beastkin themselves are permitted to take are some sort of ‘cookies’ made by mixing grinded poppy seeds with flour, which is a very, very lightweight drug. Morphine’s only allowed for medicinal purposes, and heroin’s a straight nope for everyone.”

“They aren’t using it?” Uraraka raises an eyebrow. “Then why do they… oh. They’re exporting it, aren’t they?”

“Yes, and let’s just say that the elven authorities have some very valid reasons to dislike having beastkin as neighbors.” Compress replies. “On a sidenote, sorry for that boss, but I think I’ll have to mention it, even if it’ll make it harder for you to, errr, torture Midoriya. The corpses that the beastkin delivered to the Dungeon, all of them, starting from that first catgirl, are a result of a recent drug crackdown in Anaya’s tribe. Someone was stealing the sleeping dust from the shipments going south and tried to sell it among the beastkin and let’s just say that the elders didn’t like it one bit.”

Ehh, it’s fine, I’ve milked those corpses for all I could either way

Midoriya being tortured over whether the beastkin were killing random people to give their corpses to him was fun to watch, but

Time to find something else to torture him over.

Classic you.

Yes. Cope and seethe, Midoriya

Hmmm? No. I never back down. When in doubt, I throw caution to the wind and counterattack.

Here, kawaii catboy Stain.

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!