Hearing Tomura Shigaraki have a complete emotional meltdown in the background has allowed Izuku to take a deep breath and relax. Everything was as it should be. The world was in perfect harmony.
Once he is done relishing in Shigaraki’s suffering, he returns to listening to the talk.
“... treat it like alcohol, apparently.” Compress says while pointing at a package of something wrapped in waxed paper.
“I heard about it.” Yaoyorozu replies, glancing at the package with a rather hard to read expression on her face. “In the book about local species, that is. It’s how elves get around alcohol being highly toxic to them.”
“Alcohol’s toxic to them?” Uraraka says, suddenly leaning over the table. “Like, more than it’s to humans?”
“Apparently.” Yaoyorozu replies. “According to the book, elves were originally created by some old and really nasty empire as servant species. Their masters didn’t want them to waste time on something as unproductive as drinking alcohol, so they designed their bodies to react violently to it. Naturally, elves almost immediately began to look for alternatives. Those leaves are apparently one of the most common solutions.”
So, it was basically an elven weed. Or at least that’s what Izuku thinks it is. Although he couldn’t be sure of it, if only because he has never seen weed in his entire life. In fact, he was yet to see anything that was considered an addictive drug.
That is if you excluded alcohol (he saw his mom drink a bottle of wine once or twice with Bakugou’s mother) and, well, the morphine that Compress showed them earlier.
“Thankfully, non-elves can also smoke it and have fun.” Compress says. “Which is what I plan to do later. In moderate doses. It’s the same reason why I stole the beer keg - I figured out that it’s the time to leave the party, but that I can have a bit of an afterparty back at home. With Tomura, if he wants to join.”
They had exactly three adults in their Dungeon. All of them were villains, and all of them seemed to be interested in taking drugs.
Wow.
Truly, being an adult had to suck and their favorite way of coping with it was likely illegal in Japan.
“You’re naturally free to join the party as well.” Compress continues. “Even take some of the stuff, since I’m definitely not interested in being the moral police. So it’s all up to you, personal choices, personal responsibility, yadda yadda yadda.”
As one can expect, those words did provoke some reaction, with Uraraka reacting the quickest.
“Wait, you do remember that we’re technically underag…” She says, before freezing mid-word and turning her head to look at Himiko. Who responded by blinking at Uraraka confusedly, not knowing what it was about. The wolfgirl then looked back at Compress. “You know what, no. I’m not opening this can of worms. I’ll instead ask, is that really just beer?”
“The beerest beer that ever beered.” Compress replies. “Locally produced, not exactly the strongest thing I’ve ever drunk. I don’t think that you can really get wasted with it, just slightly tipsy. And if it’s still too strong for you, you can always dilute it with water.”
Looks like it wasn’t liquor after all. It seems that Compress, for all his faults, had at least some sensibilities left. That or he decided not to take high percentage alcohol drinks while clearly suffering from a hangover.
Neither Yaoyorozu nor Uraraka (who were clearly taking the lead today) have the time to answer before Compress suddenly sighs loudly.
“Look, if you’re curious, just try it.” He says. “You have two people upstairs that can literally pull your very souls into a timeout corner the moment they decide that you went even a centimeter too far. Hell, if they both decide to join the party, then I’ll be a reasonable adult and I’ll be the one to personally send you home if you go too far.”
“Are you sure that this is what a reasonable adult would do?” Monoma comments dryly, finally reminding them all that he existed. “Be alright with people of questionable adulthood drinking alcohol?”
“Look, what I’m saying is that if more parents told their children ‘look, alcohol is bad but if you are really curious as to how it tastes, you’re always free to try it at home instead of going with your quote unquote friends to some shady bar and be roped into trying some shady shit due to the whole forbidden fruit appeal’, the world might have been a better place.” Mr. Compress shrugs. “Besides, what are you expecting from me? Wholesomeness? I’m a villain, lest you forget. Technically a former one, but things stay with you in that line of work.”
“Sounds personal, want to talk about it?” Monoma cuts back. “Baby got roped into trying alcohol in a shady place and ended up taking the clown pill before getting themselves a chuunibyou sugar daddy?”
“Oh, screw you.” Mr. Compress straight up flips him the bird. Uh-oh. “I’m fabulous, regardless of what I do and how I do it.”
“Alright, alright, so let me intervene before you two start another public villain versus hero feud.” Uraraka says quickly, interrupting Monoma’s scathing reply that he was clearly about to unleash. “How about a compromise? Beer and maybe those leaves are permitted in the Dungeon, but anything else isn’t. And the moment you start looking as if you’ve gotten too attached to it, Midoriya and Shigaraki put you into permanent abstinence mode.”
“What a childish policy.” Mr. Compress comments. “But if you need…”
“You’re included.” Uraraka glares at him. “We can’t have a reasonable adult be a bad influence over others, am I right? Feel free to get wasted outside the Dungeon, but inside of it, we’re going to have that little thing called laws.”
“Shigaraki, could you please tell them something?” Mr. Compress decides to refer to the higher authority. “Like, say, your veto?”
He isn’t emotionally available at the moment due to being busy processing the sight that was cat-eared femboy Stain.
“Midoriya, with all my respect to you as a hero that impressed Stain, you’re a sick fuck.” Mr. Compress replies while shaking his head. “My life is now permanently worse because I know that this concept could even theoretically be made into reality.”
And if you party too hard while in the Dungeon, I might just coerce Shigaraki into actually making it a reality, with the alternative being me showing him something even worse.
“There is nothing worse than that.” Mr. Compress counters.
Do you want to talk about charming fellows known as Gigantomachia or Kyudai Garaki? I don’t know why my old pediatrician is on the list of potential characters but I have a strange feeling that you do.
“Alright.” Mr. Compress throws his hands up. “You won. No drugs and strong alcohol in the Dungeon, ever. I don’t even want to know what you could do with those two, especially as it would probably be something completely and utterly disgusting and downright a war crime. Are you happy now?”
Yes.
FUCK YOU MIDORIYA
And now I’m even happier.
***
Some time later.
“… and then I charged at her, when everyone else wavered!” Uraraka nearly shouts, waving the mug around. One of her feet was on her chair, while the other one was on the verge of the table, allowing her to tower over everyone, even their ogres. “And I slit her throat!” She adds, as she does the horizontal motion, almost spilling some of her beer. “Then everyone suddenly regained their spirit and charged, breaking the enemy!”
“Holy shit, that sounds manly!” Kirishima looks absolutely pumped up by the tale. The fact that slitting the throat couldn’t actually kill that particular enemy definitely helped him. Judging from the look on Tetsutetsu’s face, he was in full agreement with his brother.
Both Toga and Midoriya were there, staring at Uraraka with stars in their eyes. Tokage and Ay’zira looked definitely super impressed but without the clear erotic subtext that Compress preferred not to touch with a ten feet pole.
He sighs in the background as he raises his own mug. Ignored during the whole party by most people, except for Spinner and Shigaraki that were sitting right next to him.
He wasn’t saying anything about it, but it was great to have them around. Even Shigaraki somehow got friendlier ever since they came here. Midoriya was a positive influence on him, but saying that aloud would probably start a fight.
Also, right now he has something else to complain about.
“Don’t be a bad influence, my ass.” Compress groans as he stares at Uraraka. “She drank more than I did.” So much about anyone in the room being reasonable.
“I always knew that the heroes were all sick in their head, but I never knew that it was that bad.” Shigaraki grumbles. “Or that it started so early. I should have dusted them all in the USJ, it would have made not one but two worlds so much better.”
“There, there, boss.” Spinner says, taking that moment to return from taking a refill at the increasingly empty keg of beer. He immediately puts one of the mugs in front of Shigaraki. “No need to get murderous. Or political. Just drink another one. I’m not sure if this can make you black out and erase memories of this evening, but you can definitely try, right?”
Shigaraki says nothing, just immediately empties the entire mug, before wiping his mouth and continuing to grumble while staring daggers at Midoriya over the table.
Uh-oh.
It might have been good that they only had light alcohol available to them, or Tomura might have ended up becoming the first Dungeon Lord ever (probably) that fell into alcoholism, and all of them would have exactly one person to be blamed for that.
And no, it wouldn’t be Tomura.
***
In the end, the only casualty of the evening was Momo Yaoyorozu. Who, due to having only second-hand information at how the elven magical leaves worked, has grossly miscalculated the appropriate dosage.
In short, she smoked way too much of them through the wooden pipe that Compress stole from the beastkin alongside all the other goods.
As a result of that she went through the ‘improved mood, slightly lowered inhibition and improved self-esteem’ phase lightning fast before crashing hard and falling dead asleep in the middle of the party.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Seeing that, Monoma groaned loudly before grabbing Kaminari (who was grinning even more than usual due to inhaling some of the excess fumes thanks to sitting right next to Yaoyorozu) and carrying Yaoyorozu to her room together.
He returned, holding the pipe as if it was the spoils of a hard-earned victory. This period of happiness lasted until Mr. Compress sneaked at him and stole said pipe, before telling him that it’s enough fun for today and that he’s confiscating both the pipe and, as he called it, the ‘elven zaza’.
This, in turn, led to a brief fight which lasted until Kirishima and Tetsutetsu intervened. However, they still ended up confiscating the pipe and telling everyone involved that it was definitely enough of the leaves for the day.
“You know what, I feel almost bad about drinking.” Mina comments as the two ogres return to the table and sit beside her. “I, like, don’t feel it at all. And neither do you. We’re just stealing the fun of others and not getting anything out of it.”
“Yeah, I guess we’re more resistant to alcohol.” Kirishima shrugs. “Or is it just our body mass and weak alcohol? Besides, hey, think of it as us confiscating it so that others won’t go too far.”
“Huh.” Mina thinks it over while taking a quick sip from her mug. Not exactly a great fan of the taste, it was a bit too bitter for her, but it was still arguably better than tasteless water. “You know what, I can work with that. By the way, have you seen Uraraka and the rest of her love triangle? I think they vanished on me when I wasn’t looking.”
“I’ve seen them!” Tetsutetsu says. He was sitting on the opposite side of Kirishima and needed to raise his voice a little to be audible to her. “Midoriya whispered something into her ear, she made a shocked but very happy face, then the three of them excused themselves and vanished.”
“Oh, great.” Mina sighs. “It’s something perverted again, isn’t it? I just can’t understand those three. Like, I get it, they have fun time in their bedroom, but it just feels like all the perversity detracts from how romantic it can be, you get me?”
Kirishima has no idea how to emotionally process Mina talking about sex and promptly focuses on chugging down his beer. Great way to escape from his own emotions, his adult life truly was off to a great start.
***
At the same time, elsewhere.
Himiko purrs loudly, every second of Ochako-chan scratching the top of her head giving her an intense feeling of bliss. She was absolutely loving it, even if it was rather clear that Ochako’s mind was somewhere else.
It was focused entirely on Midoriya.
Who had the brilliant idea of using scraps of paper materialized by the Dungeon - and some writing implements borrowed from Yaoyorozu’s study - to recreate Ochako’s favorite board game.
The two of them were sitting cross-legged on the floor of their living room, busy trying to bankrupt each other in the first Monopoly game that has ever occurred in this universe.
All while Himiko - whom they already bankrupted - was enjoying herself, her head resting on Ochako-chan’s leg and receiving all the scratches that she could ever hope for. And then some.
Nice. Very, very nice. She didn’t even need sex (at least, not right now), for as long as she was given enough attention. And some scratches. Yes. It was fun, especially as they were with her and also had fun.
A few more minutes of this and she was going to move over to Izukun and see if he would start scratching her too.
***
Midoriya had a lot of pointy words to say about Mr. Compress, but he had to admit one thing. The man wasn’t lying. The alcohol was really weak, and they only had a single keg (however large it was). In short, no one actually got drunk.
By the time the party finished, it was already pretty late, so they all just went to sleep. Come morning (of the third day after the battle) and the steady flow of corpses into the Dungeon returned.
The beastkin must have cleared their heads and finally recovered from their own party. One whose intensity Midoriya could only speculate about.
Even Yaoyorozu woke up eventually.
“Well, that was definitely an experience.” Is her first public statement about the events of last night. “One that I don’t plan to repeat ever again.”
“Yeah, you were really out of it yesterday.” Uraraka agrees with her. The two of them were in the common room on the lowest level of the Dungeon, Yaoyorozu immediately moving over to boil some water for a herbal tea. “So, no more magical leaves?”
“Hmmm?” Yaoyorozu glances at her with a surprised look on her face. “No, I meant no more overdosing on them. It was a pretty interesting experience before I knocked myself out, thus cutting it woefully short.”
Uraraka blinks at her, before deciding that she isn’t paid enough to deal with that and immediately moving back to reminiscing about the last evening.
She was absolutely going to defeat Izuku next time!
***
The amount of loot they gain from that battle - even aside from the daemons - is absolutely insane. The unlocks just keep on going and going and going, and at some point they become downright overwhelming.
In [Sapient Species] they unlocked the Bearkin [ETL: 10] and Tigerkin [ETL 10] - which concluded the list of expected unlocks, and even then Tigerkin were a bit of a surprise (Compress claimed to have seen one but he wasn’t certain about it).
Then, however, were the Wyvernkin [ETL: 15] and Dragonkin [ETL: 20], immediately making it rather clear that the fighting on the other side of the river had to be even more intense than it was on their side of it.
They’ve also unlocked Night Elves, which came as a total surprise. What was an even greater surprise was that they were listed as having a baseline ETL of 15. So, thrice that of the White Elves.
As for the old daemons, they’ve got:
1) 227 Rose Guard Soldiers [ETL: 25], bringing their total number to 242.
2) 16 Rapturous Brutes [ETL: 42], bringing their total number to 21.
3) 35 Sword Dancers [ETL: 30], bringing their total number to 37.
4) 23 Frenzied Bloodletters [ETL: 25], bringing their total number to 28.
5) 96 Gore Munchers [ETL: 16], bringing their total number to 102.
As for the new daemons, they’ve got:
1) 45 Ghouls with ETL of 23.
2) 20 Languid Ironclads with ETL of 40.
3) 8 Moraverian Alchemists with ETL of 25.
4) 6 Rose Knights with ETL of whopping 50.
With enough time and energy they could now raise a small army. Yes, it was going to be an absolutely disgusting army forcing them to take a shower each time it was deployed anywhere, but an army nonetheless.
Which definitely was going to improve their chances of surviving the near-future. Who knew that all out battles could be so profitable?
As for items, wow. The amount of new unlocks was absolutely insane as well. In fact, it was so bad that the entire ‘outfits’ category got internally split between three subcategories [Civilian], [Combat] and [Magic].
[Civilian] has mostly given them various iterations on the standard tribal clothes. Which was great, because it was going to give them some diversity on the field of what they were going to wear in their free time.
[Combat] subcategory was, however, completely insane. There was no better word to describe the variety of protective equipment they’ve got. Gauntlets, boots, pauldrons, shoulderpads, greaves, sabatons, helmets and more. Chainmails, splint armors, scale armors, lamellar armors, gambesons, leather armors and more.
Add to that the variety of shields added to [Weaponry], namely round shields, kite shields, coffin shields, tower shields, bucklers and more, and you reached the point where they could customize their servants' protective equipment very far.
Some of their past equipment pieces got renamed to fit in better, such as the [Tribal Skirmisher Armor] becoming a [Tight-Fitting Leather Armor Set], composed of multiple sub-elements that they could further customize.
They could also easily save their designed sets for easy access. It was very handy. Like a lot of the Dungeon’s system.
Oddly enough, a lot of equipment pieces they found had grades. So, they had equipment pieces like [Chainshirt] and, next to it, [Chainshirt I] and [Chainshirt II]. Izuku originally suspected that the latter two would be made of better materials, but then he discovered that they could customize those too.
So, they could easily make [Steel Chainshirt], [Rose Steel Chainshirt I] and [Copper Chainshirt II]. Which meant that the numerical markings meant something else than durability and resistance to damage.
One more thing that they had to figure out. However, what they discovered rather quickly was that ETL influence of said markings was insane. With [Copper Chainshirt II] requiring three times more points than the [Steel Chainshirt].
The difference between [Steel Chainshirt] and [Steel Chainshirt II] was twice as large. Although, oddly enough, the difference between [Steel Chainshirt I] and [Steel Chainshirt II] was much smaller than between [Steel Chainshirt] and [Steel Chainshirt I].
Very confusing.
[Magic] subcategory (or, as they were going to refer to it from now on, [Magic Outfits], as they had a lot of magic elsewhere) had mostly what they’ve already unlocked beforehand. So, robes for hedge mages, necromancers and sorcerers, of Webmistress Family and the Northern Wind.
However, [Sensalist’s Attire] was something completely new. And deeply traumatizing, as they both discovered when they decided to check what it was.
my eyes
this one time I empathize with you as we both suffer the same horrid fucking fate
the beastkin must have nailed some Ecstasy cultists and we assimilated them without realizing
that’s, errr, quite a collection
Half of it is definitely fetish stuff
like the shibari ropes
even if it’s called differently
same with all the, errr, gags, collars, plugs and whatnot
and I’m genuinely shocked that locals know what latex is
Or that they can make lingeries with garter belts at their technology level, unless they somehow imported it from Moraver
please stop talking
And let’s pretend we’ve never seen any of it.
You know what, for once I’m in full agreement with you.
The improvements in the [Weaponry] category were much more SFW. And definitely much more palatable. It also included the same confusing system of numerical markings by their name that they were yet to decipher.
They’ve got a wide selection of melee weapons of all types and stripes. This included knives, short swords, long swords, great swords, maces, clubs, hammers, two-handed axes, two-handed blunt weapons and, last but not least, spears.
There were also whips, but they had a theory as to where they came from and they immediately elected to ignore their existence.
In the ranged weaponry, they’ve got slingshots, greater choice of javelins and short-bows, their first recurve bows, long bows and light crossbows. But there was also something that felt completely out of place on the list.
They’ve decided to spawn one of those things by giving it to Momo Yaoyorozu. It was way above the limits of her ETL and in fact above the limits of their currently Ambient Mana Level, but they could still spawn equipment above it for as long as they marked it as being in possession of one of their servants.
Yaoyorozu looks at the thing that she was now holding, blinks a few times in total shock, before raising her eyes and looking into space.
“Midoriya-kun.” She says, her voice filled with disbelief. “This is a bolt-action rifle with a 5-round stripper clip.”
I know.
It also has a 2x scope and a bayonet in optional attachments.
“The fact that you know it is deeply reassuring because it means that all the elven weed that I smoked yesterday didn’t give me brain damage.” Yaoyorozu replies dryly, and almost uncharacteristically venomous. Did she actually think that she was hallucinating for a moment? “Alright. Alright. There has to be a logical explanation for this gun being a thing and I’m going to find it. Or die trying.”
Great.
Just don’t hold onto it for too long, or you might end up going into a temporary coma. It requires a lot of Ambient Mana to maintain.
“Duly noted.” Yaoyorozu replies while shaking her head. She lost consciousness exactly once, and she already had enough of it for a long time.
This world seemed to be such a disjointed mess and she was looking forward to figuring out the reason for it.