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The Core Problem
1. Arriving in the Fantasy World

1. Arriving in the Fantasy World

It was almost unheard of for a god to manifest themselves in one of the Lower Worlds - at least a god of her magnitude. Usually, it would have caused untold devastation, the world failing to accommodate for the existence of a being of such magnitude and breaking under the strain.

She is an exception. And even then, despite only a minuscule part of her great self doing so, there are consequences.

A riot erupts in a city nearby as people already influenced by her are driven into a murderous frenzy. In a few nearby villages livestock gives birth to malformed offspring that have to be put down. Elsewhere an unborn child has their mind twisted by her proximity, leading to many bloody murders in the future.

The consequences in question do not influence her, and thus, she doesn’t care about them.

Instead, she focuses her attention entirely on a certain unremarkable cave on the island of Vestiria. Because while the cave is unremarkable, something inside it isn’t.

A newly born Astral Core, resting on the floor in one of the deeper segments of the cave. Right next to a dried up corpse of a woman that likely carried it there before succumbing to something.

An unexpected and purely random death. Sometimes, it just happens.

The Astral Core in front of the god was a bit… special. So special in fact that it makes the god giggle loudly right before her fingers are pushed inside the being, twisting and manipulating the undeveloped soul inside of it.

“Oh, that’s going to be beautiful.” She says to herself before descending into another giggling fit, her mind glancing into the future and seeing it twist and change as she altered the Core. “So much about your precious little hero, my sister dearest. He’s dead. He’s going to die sooo much. And I’m going to enjoy it.”

Then again… will she?

She stops working for a moment and considers it. She originally intended to replace the still dormant mind within the Core with one fully loyal to her. She had an endless number of those that she could use. So many souls of the mortals that ended in her hands after they died. So many demons that she created.

All of them as loyal to her whims as one can be when they serve the goddess of anarchy and revolution. Whose religious tenets involved subverting any authorities, including that of their own deity.

Would that be fun? She tilts her head, eyes still on the tesseract-shaped sapient distortion of space that the Core was. Would it?

Hmph.

Nah. That would be boring. Boooring! Where’s the fun in that?! She wants more chaos. More infernal amusement. She can do it better.

But how?

Oh! She should give the core two completely different and mutually hostile minds, making their wills and ideas constantly and eternally clash, with neither of them being actually loyal to her! And actively looking for a way to subvert her will!

It was all coming together.

Subverting her own plans was just the sort of chaos she lived for. And it was going to be awesome.

But, there was a problem with that. She had enough followers that hated each other and even hated their own god, but she wanted something more original. Something more radical. But she couldn’t just borrow any random soul out there.

The only reason why it worked with the Core was because it wasn’t developed enough to be religious. That Core’s soul was an atheistic one on its most fundamental level, and the god of atheism was yet to be born, thankfully, despite already being somewhat active.

It all makes sense on the gods’ level, don’t question it.

But it wasn’t enough to be able to contest what she was doing right now. And that’s what mattered to her the most currently.

What to do?

Oh. Oh.

Let’s make appropriate souls from scratch! But it wouldn’t be easy. Oh, her true self could do that easily if they wanted to, but the being in the cave was just a single of its fingers. Whatever she’d make would be faulty to begin with. Missing memories, missing understanding of concepts, broken personalities…

So, let’s borrow something that already exists! But what? Copy someone’s personality? Boooring. Create a personality that’s made to resemble a personality of a fictional entity? There were enough books, theatre plays and whatnot out there in the Grand Empire to borrow from.

That would be great. Perfect! Stupid! And oh so boring. She won’t stand for something so boring.

Let’s reach further beyond. Beyond this realm. Beyond this universe. Beyond the light of the World Engine. Something from a world that doesn’t exist, that never existed or perhaps will exist in the future.

Or all of those at the same time.

Oh, yes. That’s perfect. Just a completely random piece of entertainment (she loves random), the boring sort where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and the former will inevitably win through heroic willpower and other stupid boring stuff like that. And then…

Pick the protagonist and the antagonist from it, recreate their minds from a random point on the storyline, and then install those into an empty soul she plucked from the Aetherial Vortex. Oh, they are going to fight each other sooooo much.

All while quickly doing the same thing to every other character from the story, just to keep their souls for future usage. She has so many ideas!

The god giggles again. That was perfect! She did so many things at this point that the hounds were already after her, and the future was blurry. She could no longer be sure that she’d manage to kill her sister’s newest toy, but it was fine. It was fine! It was going to be much more funny that way.

She pushes the two souls she had on her hand into the Astral Core, completely overwriting what was there before. Then she quickly rewires a few things inside of it to accommodate for its unique status as a carrier of two souls.

The tesseract shivers under her touch. Her work is done. Her newest toy was all set up. Now, she just has to explain a few things to it/them, and it’ll be done.

What? Where am I?

Why can I hear those words inside my head

Why am I thinking in italic

Why are my thoughts coloured red

what

Huh? Who are you?

You’re the one inside my head, you should be the one to answer first

Oh, no italics anymore, so that’s how it works, okay

I’m not inside your head, you’re inside mine! What sort of quirk is this?!

The god grins. Oh, yeah, that was just what she intended to happen. It’s perfect. Perfect! This is going to be so much fun! It was definitely her best idea ever since she tried to strangle her sister with her own umbilical cord before they were even born!

Nothing beats that one.

Stop that and get out, or I will call the pro-heroes.

Ugh, PH-word already. Do your worst, call All Might, I’ve tried to kill him once and I’ll gladly redo that mission with better stats

Oh, wait, he doesn’t have his cheat-ass quirk anymore, duh

Tomura Shigaraki?!

Yes? Wait

That color

You’re that annoying All Might fanboy whose name I don’t remember

The name’s Izuku Midoriya and you should have at least remembered that much, especially after you threatened to kill me!

I have threatened to kill a lot of people, that doesn’t make you special

or memorable

Seriously though, wtf is happening

I expected you to know the answer, especially considering the fact that we’re inside MY head!

It’s not your head, it’s mine! Go find your own!

Arguing with the voices inside your head that claim to be the real owners of your body? Forever and ever? Damn, now the god feels like a mother seeing her child and being amazed by all the similarities between them.

Awwww.

Adorable.

She wants to make them suffer so much.

Anyway.

She clears her throat loudly, bringing their attention to her.

What the

Villain!

Oh, wow, judgmental much

Just because it looks like a sleep paralysis demon doesn’t mean it’s a villain

Hmmm. Does she look like one? She seems pretty normal to herself. More or less androgynous body draped in a robe woven out of darkness, the front of her face blurred and covered in shadows… nope, nothing weird there.

Speaking off, she hasn’t changed her gender in like ten minutes already and that’s way too consistent for her, so let’s do it right now.

“Oh, I’m not a villain.” He replies. “Just your friendly neighborhood god of evil, actually. Name’s Luna, the Hierarch of Night. God of shadows, anarchy, revolutions, chaos and the moon.” The main one, at least. The other one belongs to his brother and they don’t speak about it.

Just how petty you have to be to create a completely new moon in every reality that has ever existed (or will exist) within the multiverse just to spite your brother?! He would have never done that to their sister, duh.

Okay, maybe he would. Actually, yeah, he’d definitely do it. Really runs in the family.

Great

Not a villain, just a chuunibyou

I’m not even angry, just disappointed

Waste of really intimidating villain aesthetic

Oh, so now you admit that it looks like a villain.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

screw you

“Wow, such bold words for someone in eternal damnation distance.” Luna scoffs. “Look, I’ve just isekai’d you two… I think that’s the word for it in your language… into a fantasy world and installed your souls into a brand new Astral Core. Mr. Pneumoconiosis over there…”

Wait, who

You.

It’s the name for the dust inhalation sickness.

Fucking neeeerd.

Said the villain using gaming lingo while trying to kill the Number One Hero.

“...should be aware of the gaming subgenre of creating and managing your own dungeon and luring adventurers to their death.” Luna continues, ignoring the quick exchange of words. “That’s your reality from now on. Have fun with that.”

What

What?

Hmph, so maybe he should give them some additional explanations. Still, it’s fun! Their confusion is just so enjoyable to witness.

“Look, your current body is literally just a small tesseract lying on the floor, in a cave.” Luna decides to deal with disbelief first. He could just… give them a taste of eternity, but he doesn’t want them scared shitless. It’s not very productive, okay? “You’re not humans anymore. Following me?”

What

What?

Luna groans.

“Just try to look at yourself from the outside.” He decides to take another detour. “Astral Cores have a perfect awareness of their surroundings, for as long as it’s within their claimed Domain. Just try it.”

What the…?!

Oh, cool.

A desiccated corpse.

That’s your take from this?

Yes

Unbelievable.

“Look, what Astral Cores do is take in magical energy from outside of the Physical Plane, then release it inside of it.” Luna decides to continue around the subject. “Just imagine a giant coal power plant releasing loads of carbon-di-oxide that some plants enjoy, and then replace carbon-di-oxide with mana and plants with everything supernatural, and you get an Astral Core. That’s what you are now. The rest is about self-defense and development.”

Wait, wait, WAIT!

Didn’t you just literally kidnap us?

“Yes?” Luna replies, somewhat confused. Wasn’t that obvious? “I mean, kind of. To be exact, I copied you. You’re completely separate individuals than the ones you remember yourself to be. Just with the same memories and personality. You can never go back to who you remember yourself to be.”

That’s somehow even worse.

That can’t be ethical. Or legal.

Luna laughs loudly. Oh, that was hilarious.

“It’s unethical and illegal, but I’m an evil god!” He announces cheerfully. “That’s just what I do! I’m evil! But I’m generous about it. Copied everyone you know too, and anchored their souls into yours. You can bring them to life as inhabitants of your dungeon. Eventually. Look, can I continue explaining the basics? You’re gonna need them.”

Wait wait wait

Yes! Ignore him and explain!

What?

Don’t drag it too long or it’ll change its mind and not explain shit to us

Do you want to play the survival game with your real life on the line, but without listening to the tutorial?

If you want to die, just kys without dragging me into it

“Anyway.” Luna sighs. “Look, I’ve set you up with some basic UI to accommodate for the fact that unlike the normally born Cores, you’re not natural about it. You get most of it explained there. The general logic goes like this: your core grows stronger over time, and with it, the size of your Domain. The Domain is the zone around your Core that you control and where you can alter reality to some degree. For now, what you have around you is the natural cave that you were born in.”

Can we change everything there?

“Yes and no.” Luna replies. “This first level of your Dungeon has the ‘Cave’ biome. There has to be at least some logic in your design, because what you’re doing is rearranging your own body, pretty much. Best idea is to stick to a single Biome per level to maintain steady flow of mana out of your Core. And before you ask, no, you need an entrance and an uninterrupted route between it and your core. Otherwise, you won’t be able to vent all the mana you’re constantly oozing, and it’ll gather up in your room, before tearing the space there apart and killing you.”

So, their entrance is our ventilation shaft

“Yes.” Luna replies. Someone’s gaming skills are definitely being useful right now. On a side note, genders are boring! Let’s throw them out for a while (at least until they decide that not having them is even more boring). “The further you are from your Core, the lower the Ambient Mana Level, meaning that you can make less and less stuff there. Following that?”

What happens with the AML where there’s only a single passage from Level X to Level X-1

Isn’t it like standing in front of the gas pipe? it should then disperse naturally through the level, but have a much higher level before it happens, right by the level change zone

“Absolutely.” Luna nods. “That’s why you can put the local equivalent of boss creatures there, protecting the access to the lower level. You can put much stronger creatures there, in fact usually even stronger than the average on the level below thanks to all that power converging in one place.”

Makes sense

“Also, within a Level, you can create a number of special locations.” Luna continues. They’re finding this surprisingly enjoyable! Lacking gender, that is. And yes, they were missing one a few minutes into descending to this particular Physical Plane, they just find it enjoyable all over again. “In short - you can play with the fabric of reality a bit more. Put a room larger on the inside than it’s on the outside. Reshape its interior to put, dunno, an underground lake there? Or a lair of creatures? This sort of thing.”

Okay, what about unlocking new stuff

“Several options there.” Luna replies. “You can assimilate things that were brought into your Domain. Kill enough people from some nearby country, and you’ll be able to use the traditional decorations and architecture of that place, simply by assimilating the memories of people you killed, for example. Similarly, you can assimilate their magical knowledge, physical abilities, equipment, money and potions they carried and so on. You can use those to craft your boss creatures, to equip random creatures that moved in and settled in your Domain, and to put the goodies down as bait for adventurers.”

Okay, cool, what’s next?

That’s a very you reaction to being allowed to grow stronger by killing people.

yes

“You can also get acquainted with the local inhabitants.” Luna continues. Yeah, yeah, good luck with that considering your location (lmao, lol even). “They can bring stuff in, helping you decorate your Domain and produce stuff that they can then harvest from you. After dealing with things that moved in, because you need some degree of life on every level to stabilize the mana flow. And you can only directly control the creatures you’ve created. Meaning that the others will likely be trying to kill everything that moves.”

I can see PvP and diplomacy/running quests for people, is there a PvE mode?

“Yes.” Luna replies. “You’re a giant and constantly growing distortion of space connected to the endless expanse of thoughts, memories and emotions. Things can be recreated naturally around you, just from your runaway magical energy. In short, you can absolutely dig a hole in the wall and randomly run into an inhabited recreation of underground ruins of some local ancient civilization that you have to clear from its inhabitants to incorporate it into yourself. And thus unlocking a new Biome option. This gets more powerful and dangerous the stronger you grow.”

Leaving the dungeon?

“Yourself? No.” Luna replies. “Some of your servants? Yes, even if they can’t stay out there permanently.” She’ll let them discover all the nuances of interacting with the world outside in due time.

I have a question.

Probably a stupid one.

What’s our, err, status among the population out there? Can we expect to be exterminated on sight?

It said that we can get acquainted with the local inhabitants, dimwit

And you just trusted a self-proclaimed god of evil on that?! Locals would probably want to kill us merely for speaking to it!

You have a point and I hate it.

Luna sighs loudly. That? That was the fun type of being surprised. They genuinely expected Tomura Shigaraki to be the one to figure it out, huh.

“Look, the situation there is complicated.” Luna replies. On a side note, back to a female gender. Because why not? “You’re legally treated like a sapient individual and your Domain’s considered your property, meaning that adventurers and other people walking in are technically trespassers. You can legally kill them, for as long as you don’t try to kill anyone outside of your Domain. And even then, you have to be appropriately judged before the local government authorizes your execution.”

Which was oh so horrifyingly orderly to her. Bah. Disgusting.

“However.” Luna then adds. “An Astral Cores’s body is extremely valuable. And the ‘ethical’ source of it, namely the authorized executions of the Cores that went homicidal, doesn’t exactly match up to the demand. You can be visited by people that want to kill you. Whenever someone enters your Domain with such an idea in mind, you will know.”

And… you?

“You’re free to make entire levels themed after particular deities, including their servants as the inhabitants.” Luna replies. “It’s completely fine, unless you try to do that with the gods of the Pentagram. And no, I’m not one of them. Just remember that if witnessing something makes you start losing your mind or if it has more or less angles than it should have, say no. Though you might want to not tell anyone that you’ve met me in person.”

I have another question.

Stupid this time?

What’s your goal? You haven’t made us on a whim.

Stop that

Stop not being useless

Having problems with things challenging your worldviews?

You can still change sides and become a… not completely bad of a person.

Probably.

Fuck off

“Pffft.” Luna chuckles. “During this very talk I’ve changed my gender several times, entirely on the whim! I could totally do that. But… no. Your endgame is killing the nearby Chosen One of my annoying sister that’s currently roaming this island. Once you kill her precious hero, I’m going to nope out of your life entirely, leaving you free to live however you want! Like the generous god I am.”

FUCK

YES

Now we’re talking!

What? I’m not helping Tomura Shigaraki kill a hero!

“Well, it’s either this, or I’ll decide that you’re useless to me.” Luna replies. “Then I’m going to trap Shigaraki in my nearest spiritual realm of Evernight, making him eternally suffer beyond your primitive mortal comprehension. As for the oh so selfless Izuku Midoriya, I’ll let you live freely in this world! While taking back all the copied souls of your classmates, your teachers, your mentor and your mother, and making them suffer eternally in Evernight in your place.” After a few seconds of silence, Luna decides to add. “Hey, I’m an evil god, what did you expect?! At least take solace in the fact that I don’t break my words. I will leave you alone if you fulfill the mission I’ve given you. No strings attached.”

… is he at least a corrupted hero?

“Nope.” Luna replied shortly. “He’s a Chosen One of the most straight-laced, lawful good asshole of a deity in the entire Imperial Pantheon - my sister dearest. Who knew everything about him before choosing him. His past, his default future, and even the future that he would have once she chose him. Chosen Ones are always acting exactly in the way that their patron deity endorses. Always. There is no such thing as a ‘corrupted’ Chosen One. And there never will be.”

Absolutely nothing wrong about him?

“Look, my sister is the local ‘Knight Templar’ archetype.” Luna rolls her invisible eyes around. “Yes, that guy might be donating to orphanages and defending the innocent, but gods save you when you happen to be born as a member of a species that’s associated with the evil gods. Fairly sure he burned down a few settlements of such people. With said people still inside. Does it make it any easier for your fragile conscience?”

A bit.

Not much though.

Seriously?

Wow, you’re soft.

Anyway

How dangerous is he?

“Extremely.” Luna replies. They’ll learn exactly how bad it is in the future. “It’s going to be an extremely lengthy journey for you. And my sister gave that asshole some really annoying combination of blessings that coats him in her stupid magical light of purity all the time and makes him invulnerable to damage while not in darkness.”

This is more fucking broken than All Might at his peak.

“Tell me about it.” Luna shrugs. It wasn’t her first rodeo. Her sister being so annoying (and so annoyingly competent at being annoying) only made ruining her eternity so much sweeter! “Don’t worry, though. Get yourself a sufficiently deep level with a high ambient magic level, and dedicate it to me. Within such a place, my shadows can temporarily overpower his light. Then, he’ll be vulnerable. But you’re far from getting there, so focus on the basics for now. And, you know, surviving the next few weeks.”

She’ll absolutely love watching their struggles!

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