The trip back was lengthy but rather uneventful. They took as much stuff as they could carry, then Uraraka climbed back up and Toga bound one of their now filled backpacks to the rope, allowing Uraraka to pull it up.
Then she did the same with the second backpack, before throwing the rope down again so that Toga could bind a corpse to it.
Yes, a corpse.
Uraraka hated it but Shigaraki and Toga had a point. Carrying a desiccated corpse all the way back to Dungeon was going to be incredibly tiring, both physically and mentally, but it should give them a positive identification on whatever species the mine belonged to.
The name ‘white elf’, after all, implied that there were more elven subspecies around. They wanted to find out if the mine belonged to the white elves as well or if it didn’t.
She pulled the corpse up, then pulled Toga up before untying the knot. They then quickly found two fairly long and mostly straight wooden branches before using their rope to bind the corpse to it.
The rest was just them walking back, their backpacks filled by small chunks of iron ore and a variety of tools they’ve ransacked from the elevator hall, and a desiccated corpse held between them on two tree branches.
It wasn’t a quick march. In fact, by the time they got back to the river, the sun had already set. This made looking for a river crossing much harder than it had any right to be and forced Toga to make a giant concession for the team in the form of agreeing to get wet.
It was clear she hated that state immensely afterwards and immediately began to wail to Shiggy and Izukun (surprisingly enough, she spoke to both of them for once) to get her a campfire right in front of the entrance to the Dungeon so that she can dry herself asap.
They’ve decided to oblige.
In the end they manage to get back to the Dungeon deep into the night, dropped all their stuff on the ground and then immediately split, with Toga deciding to see how close she could get to a warm campfire without catching fire (and doing it naked, for some reason), while Uraraka just dragged herself to her room, put her weapons down and then immediately fell asleep.
She barely managed to get to her bed before falling asleep. In fact, one of her legs failed at that goal, resting on the floor right by the bed from knee down. Izuku immediately decided to be a good friend and quickly send a few nearby Astral Slimes to push it up and then have it rest by the rest of her body on the bed.
She didn’t notice. Then again, it wasn’t a problem. After all, friends didn’t care whether the other side knew that you did something for them, right? It was about helping each other, expecting the same from your friend because they were your friend, not because they were paying you back for what you did for them.
And then, there were the unlocks.
The Mine that they discovered was, indeed, much easier to unlock as a biome than the [Muraekai Burial Site], likely due to being a much more basic place. And definitely much less magical.
After all, it was just a place where people worked. Not an ancient graveyard usually guarded by a lesser deity who could also call upon all the dead resting there to raise and defend themselves.
As a result, they’ve succeeded to unlock a completely new biome, called [Elven Mine]. Thus confirming to them that it indeed wasn’t a dwarven mine (if there even were dwarves out there). Oddly enough, the word ‘Iron’ isn’t there.
How does that even work?
Do we create mines but without anything there to mine?
How would you even mine something in a Dungeon where everything wants to kill you
Think about it.
The Dungeon is supposed to bait people into entering it, right?
Yeah?
Well, to me, an endlessly regenerating gold ore vein feels like a good bait.
Definitely much worse than actual, you know, gold bars
You have any idea how much ore you need to carry out of the Dungeon to melt it into a sensible amount of metal in question
Yes, but.
The deeper you go, the more dangerous the creatures are around (if only to inflate the prices of things obtained from it to the level where it doesn’t crash the local economy, making people destroy the Dungeons to avoid this fate).
So, by going by the whole risk management slash cost inflation mechanic, I’d risk a thesis that such a renewable gold ore vein would be available much closer to the surface.
Right, to get the locals to send down a group of miners escorted by rookie adventurers, mine stuff for a few hours while keeping the creatures away (and, perhaps, failing at it) and then leave
Makes sense
Give me a sec
FOUND IT!
Where?!
Check Rooms
And yes, Tomura was right. There was now a completely new entry in the [Rooms], titled the [Mining Area]. Stats of it [AML and RU cost) were signed as ‘varied’. And, as they tried to make it for testing purposes, it became clear why.
They could choose what minerals they could put in the [Mining Area]. In the current moment, they could pick a whole one option, namely, [Hematite Vein]. And even then, by their calculation, they wouldn’t be able to use that until around fifth level.
To compare it, it seemed that creating refined metals of rank II - like, say, the processed iron that they almost managed to unlock - seemed to require levels 11 to 20. If the rest of the system worked similarly, it’d mean that to mine gold ore one would only need to get to ~lvl 25, while getting a full golden bar from the treasure chest guarded by creatures would require you to get to level 50.
For comparison, there didn’t seem to be a lvl 50 Dungeon on the entire Isle of Vestiria. Dungeons, it seems, weren’t that important to the local economy.
Sure, they could be helpful - even the smallest Dungeon could give you a renewable local source of iron ore, and you could safely build a small town around it which wouldn’t have to import iron (or, as much of it), but it wasn’t going to become anything super important to anyone.
It was mostly about really deep Dungeons, allowing extremely skillful adventurers to dive deep and obtain small amounts of goods that were actually super-valuable.
Thus far, the only thing that they could logically put in a [Mining Area] on level one would be ores of rank one minerals, like tin or copper. Since they had none of those, it was another thing that was largely useless for them right now but could be highly useful in the future.
This rather extensive realization about the details of the System made them be rather confused about the reasons for the jewels and [Enchanting Anchors] not having the same ranking system. It lasts until they try to put any of them anywhere.
Like the [Mining Area], they have to choose details of it before placing it anywhere. ‘Small’ size is more of an umbrella term, allowing them to customize the size and cut of the jewel within certain borders (mostly related to size). The larger they try to make anything, the more the RM cost and the higher the AML level needed to spawn it.
They can’t hope to put anything from either of those categories until at least lvl 10, and even then that would be extremely small things.
So
Level 1-5, Limestone Cave
Level 6-10, Elven Mine
Level 11-15, Muraekai Burial Site
How does that sound?
Makes sense, and should definitely classify as ‘orderly’ for the appropriate mana flow.
Also gives us a place for Aeonia (likely as the final boss of the Muraekai Burial Site section).
What else did we get?
A bunch of decorations
A bunch of items, but mostly tools and shit like this
The corpse is noted down as belonging to a ‘stone elf’, whatever the hell it is
Huh?
Yeah, weird name but okay
Anyway
That would be all, I think
The biggest issue - the lack of creatures - is still on
We’ll send them back to try to deal with the giant spiders and bring one of their corpses back.
For now, let’s let them rest.
***
They’ve ended up discovering what was the downside of having their servants go past the AML restriction, like what Izuku tried by giving Uraraka some additional javelins, thus making her have a whole 0.1 surplus there.
She fell asleep and slept like a log for almost a whole day straight, being clearly extremely exhausted and requiring a much longer resting time than usual. In fact, by the time she woke up, the Dungeon had expanded.
It turned out that expanding the Dungeon by another level required a full 100 units of Residual Mana, and they were nearly certain that they’d need more of it with every subsequent level.
Thus forcing them to create some Node Rooms in order to facilitate growth of maximum Residual Mana storage capacity in order to let themselves continue growing. Yes, their Core could now fit 120 RM instead of 100 RM (and that's without 10 more brought to them by their first Node Room, which made the limit reach 130).
This was accompanied by another brief moment of unconsciousness during which their Core relocated to the newly opened second level. It was literally just… that. Where the Core used to be, now was a hole in the ground, leading to the second level, a new type of [Room] was unlocked.
The [Level Change]. They could pick two different options from the list, each of them in line with one of the [Biomes] they unlocked. The default one that they used here automatically was the [Limestone Cave]’s rocky shaft, requiring the intruders (and their own servants) to carry a rope with them to go up and down.
The second option was an elevator shaft, one clearly unlocked by the [Elven Mine] biome, but one they couldn’t use without betraying the fact that there was a mine nearby to their future visitors.
They’d probably get a stairwell the moment they’d get the [Muraekai Burial Site] unlocked.
Alright, I’m looking forward to realizing my lifelong dream of making everyone else’s life extremely miserable
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
And having my enemies fight their way through my own discount version of Sen’s Fortress before reaching me
Explain.
No, lol.
You’ll see it when we get enough RM to build it
But let me be clear
This level is going to be lethal
What? Even more than the first level?!
Yes.
Look
I get you
I’m not going to call you a casual newb unable to do what has to be done and kill people, despite you being one
…
Because doing the pacifist route here is a perfectly valid option when you manage to establish a positive relationship with someone up top
Well, pacifist theoretically, you’ll still kill people if they run screaming LEEROY JENKINS too deep into you and are way over their head
But
We don’t have anything like that quite yet, at least unless the beastkins show up soon and offer us a legally binding contract or smth to establish it
And so
We can’t play it easy on 4/5 of the Dungeon and only then turn the difficulty level up to eleven, we have no idea if the next group of people that shows up won’t have deadly intentions from the start
so, we have to be as lethal as possible from the beginning, as a ‘wild’ dungeon would have it, and only then we’ll change the whole thing
So, for example, once we have a deal made with someone, we’ll do, say, four levels per segment of relative ease (still dangerous, but not THAT dangerous), then a super dangerous, no holds barred fifth level, with all the horrid traps we can make and ending in a boss fight, so that only really good people can get past it and reach second segment
How does that sound
I’m genuinely surprised that you’ve ended up explaining your decision making process to me, and in a way that’s actually lucid and easy to understand.
Oh, fuck you
And yes, it does make a certain amount of sense.
Besides, everyone seems to be knowing that wild dungeons go all out, so if they still press inside while knowing that, it’s their decision and their lives, yes?
I’m definitely a positive influence on you
Should have been like that in Japan
You remember that I could punch limbs off people in Japan and you were my enemy?
Do you actually think that it’d be better for you if I was slightly less reserved about using lethal force?
… you know what, yeah
And you still tried to punch me in the USJ
I guess I really dodged a bullet back then
Yes. Yes you did.
Anyway, let’s let the RM recharge to full and do your ‘Sen’s Fortress Lite’ thing, unless Ochako wakes up first and then we send her and Himiko after the giant spiders.
She’s ‘Ochako’ to you now? Just as Toga is ‘Himiko’?
Should I be congratulating you or asking you for relationship tips?
Stop that.
Ochako is my best friend. And Himiko is my… errr… my best friend’s stalker? Or more like, my best friend’s and my own as well.
Ah yes, she’s your stalker and that’s why you’re on first name basis with her
That makes sense to me
I’m going to ignore your existence until Ochako wakes up.
Suit yourself lmao
***
By the time that it became clear that Uraraka crashed really badly - and by the time Toga was finally dry enough to be comfortable, allowing her to change her clothes into ones that were also comfortably dried - Himiko had an idea.
“Izukun, you there?” She asks, once again completely skipping Tomura and instead speaking directly to her super-duper cute crush.
Yes, Himiko. I’m here. What is it?
“I figured out that Ochako-chan might feel bad for missing so much time that she could spend with me.” Toga replies, once again confirming that her connection with reality was… tenuous at best. “Can I go and catch something for us to eat? Say, a tasty rabbit or something like that?”
Sure, but don’t go too far, okay?
If something happens here, with Uraraka knocked out, we’re gonna need you here asap.
“Okiedokie!” Toga salutes for no apparent reason. “I’ll quickly gather up my stuff and go hunt something tasty for my beloved Ochako-chan!”
Things went downhill from there.
***
Himiko Toga had an idea. A very… special one, as she commonly had. She decided to find the right place and jump up the cliff that the entrance to the Dungeon was placed in.
Make no mistake, she didn’t lie to her beloved Izukun. No way! Lies were bad! She was almost too honest for most of the time, if only because she was tired of pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Nope. Now that she was completely free of everything, she would hide nothing.
She just planned to catch something for her and Ochako to eat up there. That’s all. No lies there. But she also thought that if she found something really, really cool up there, she could make Ochako-chan even happier! She was really enjoying those adventures (Himiko noticed!), and she would love another place to have them in!
And so, she climbed up a little, bringing her entire adventure equipment with her, found even more trees (and quite an uneven ground) and then continued on in one direction, not far from the edge of the cliff, and then kept on looking for something interesting.
Or for an animal to hunt.
It didn't take her a long time before she smelled something… odd. She paused her walk for a while, sniffing loudly and trying to figure out what it was, but she had no idea. It smelled… of musk? Of tree sap? Of maple syrup? Of… something else? What was that?
Oh, well, she’ll find out soon enough. But it smelled very nice! Sweet and warm. Definitely something that Ochako-chan would like.
This decision led her all the way into a small forest clearing surrounding a slightly bigger than usual oak tree. The whole place seemed… lively. Her feet were standing on a bushy grass, surrounded by literal bushes, with flowers and berries and other cute or tasty things everywhere around her.
It was so cool! She had to show this place to Ochako-chan!
And that’s when she realized that she wasn’t alone. Because out of the tree in the middle of this small grove, a woman stepped out. With green eyes and a pair of antlers emerging from the top of her head, her otherwise nude body covered by moss and leaves.
“Uhm, hi there?” Toga waves. “You’re pretty cute.”
The woman doesn’t reply. Instead, she swipes her hand in Toga’s direction, and in an instant, roots erupt from the ground in front of the catgirl, attempting to grab her. But she [Cat Leap]’s back, dodging the attack.
“Hey, don’t just try to grab someone like this!” Toga complains. Then she immediately [Cat Leap]’s to the side, narrowly avoiding a storm of what looked like pine needles that the woman seemed to fire from her hand, the needless erupting from fingers and being immediately launched at her.
Okay, that was officially annoying. Surely, no one would care if Toga killed her, right? She was the one who shot first! But how to get it done?
The woman steps forward, clearly angry. She speaks in a foreign language, and the nearby bushes begin to move. They are… creatures? Yes, they are - a tightly knotted ball of small branches that was now made to move on its own, tearing their roots out of the ground and beginning to walk towards Toga, surprisingly fast for a plant.
What the hell was that?!
She narrowly dodges a wooden tentril that erupted from the plant woman’s hand and that tried to grab her right arm.
Alright, Toga isn’t stupid, she doesn’t charge in. She has no idea if she can free herself if one of those tendrils catch her, the walking bushes are still walking towards her as fast as they can, and the enemy could have some degree of control over the entire grove, so she ain’t charging in.
Instead, she throws one of her knives, hitting the woman straight in the chest, the knife disappearing almost until the hilt in the woman’s right breast, right next to the flower blooming in the middle of her chest . She didn’t even bother trying to dodge.
Woman looks down at the knife sticking out of her chest, grabs its hilt with her right hand and pulls it out, a watery liquid the color of amber bleeding out of the injury. She drops the knife onto the ground.
The smell of tree sap grows in strength. The woman is clearly angry now, but far from being out of the fight.
Well, this is definitely annoying.
The two bushes got close enough to try to lash her with a lengthy branch that erupted from their center. The woman fired even more needles at her, and this time scored a few hits, the needles managing to partially pierce her shirt and go deep enough to stung.
Okay. Okay, so now Himiko is genuinely pissed off. And thankfully, so was the woman.
She charged towards Himiko angrily, her arms bulging under the elbows, skin disappearing under a tangle of roots and branches, likely ready to sprung forward and impale Himiko on them.
That woman’s no Eraserhead, but the fighting skills (all about restraining your opponents) seemed similar. She also has a much worse temper. Himiko could exploit that!
So, she runs back, doing a few quick [Cat Leap]’s to gain some space, still hearing and smelling the furious plantwoman pursuing her with clear intent to murder her, but gaining some space over her and the angry bushes.
Then she rapidly stops, and with one sweep movement throws her backpack off, pulls a torch out of it and does her best to light it up with her flint. Whatever the torches were made from, it caught fire almost immediately.
The moment the plant lady runs from behind a tree, Himiko throws a burning torch at her. C’mon, plants and fire, obviously there has to be some reaction out of it, right? And there is.
The woman’s eyes shot wide in horror and dodged to her side, the torch flying narrowly past her. She forgot about Himiko for a second, too focused on avoiding the fire, and did so at the cost of her body’s balance.
She didn’t realize in time that Himiko did a [Cat Leap] in her direction before using [Sharpen Claws] on her arm and pushing her second knife directly into her throat.
Tree sap bursts out of injury, flooding all over the blade, her eyes once shooting wide in shock. Himiko has maybe three seconds of feeling satisfaction (and slight sadness that it’s not blood) before she is gut-punched with enough strength to be sent flying.
Hot damn, that woman was packing a punch.
Himiko lands on the ground, her back hitting some branches and shit, it hurts. That branch has definitely pierced her skin, and her back now hurts like hell.
Despite that, Himiko stands up, the plant woman bleeding tree sap all over her breasts. Toga still has the knife in her hands, and the punch that sent her flying (done with those bulging, plant-arms) has only made the injury worse.
But she’s clearly not out of the fight. In fact, the bleeding was dying down faster than it should. Was it… Himiko can smell tree resin in the air, she must have been secreting it to block the injury.
That was cool, but it was also pretty annoying.
For now, it’s time to bravely advance in the direction opposite to your enemy. And so, Toga limps away from the woman who, once again, starts pursuing her, with a clear desire to commit a murder.
But she is running much less quickly now. And not because she is on her guard now. She was injured, and just as much if not more than Toga! And worse than that, she made a major mistake.
She didn’t even notice that Toga was goading her towards the cliff’s edge. And when she got there, Toga did a [Cat Leap] above her head and then bounced off the tree and shoulder tackled the woman off a cliff. Ha!
Her happiness was short-lived when she realized that something - namely, one of those branch-tendrils - wrapped around her ankle, pulling her off the cliff right after the plant woman.
Well, shit.
She bends her body enough to [Sharpen Claw] her way through the tendril with her knife freeing herself, and then does her best to not die on impact. She’s a part-cat, that has to amount for something, right?
And it does.
Despite falling for about twenty-meters and all the way into a rocky surface, and despite doing that while being completely surprised by said fall, she manages to not die. She even manages to not break her legs!
She definitely twisted an ankle, though. And with it also worsened her back injury. Ouchies! That will definitely hurt in the morning.
The plant lady, on the other hand, had slammed into the rocky ground, and became a tangled mess splattered all over. Tree sap everywhere, her neck and most of her limbs obviously twisted, a sharper chunk of the rock clearly gutting her. And yet, she was still trying to move, despite being clearly unable to.
Toga forces her body to move and - when the woman tries to look up at her - pushes her knife into her eye, only to drill it further inside by standing upon its hilt and pressing it down with her body’s weight.
And then, then she finally stops moving.
“Alright then.” Toga lets herself exhale loudly with relief. That was… a great and awesome fight, but it was really exhausting. “Time to drag you back to the Dungeon, whatever you are.”
***
I'm STILL getting myself some free and copyright-free AI-generated pictures, lol.
Behold: The Thing.
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/03/09/imageeb23e34122418a39.png]