“That ‘Luna’ character definitely doesn’t sound like a deity that I'd ever worship willingly.” Yaoyorozu comments once Izuku finishes narrating the new situation. Their entire group has just left the Dungeon after inspecting their new religious establishment.
“I don’t mind them!” Toga announces cheerfully. “They are pretty cool, actually. Without them, I’d still be back in Japan. And here, I don’t have to act! I don’t have to pretend that I’m someone that I’m not!”
“Yeah.” Yaoyorozu glances at the catgirl. “I can imagine you feel great here. But… I don’t think that you’re in the majority.”
“As if I ever cared about being in the majority, duh.” Toga rolls her eyes around. “I want to live the way I want to live. Laws? Rules? Bleh. So, yeah, I kind of like Luna. They seem to be my type of free.”
“I have a strange feeling that religion is going to become much more popular among our classmates than it was in the past.” Uraraka decides to comment. “It’s hard to ignore it as a subject, really.”
For as long as none of you start worshiping Occasa, I don’t think that I’m going to mind you converting to any of the local religions.
Sorry but I have to draw a line somewhere.
“Occasa’s definitely the most disgusting deity that I’ve heard about.” Yaoyorozu agrees with him. “I can’t believe that the local undead can actually fight someone and still have an unquestionable moral and aesthetic high ground.”
“Don’t get too loud about it once we reach the tomb.” Uraraka quickly says. “Aeonia seems to be high on that undead supremacy kool-aid, and she can probably kill us all with a swipe of her hand.”
“You do not have to worry.” Yaoyorozu replies. “I’m no fool. I understand the value of being diplomatic, especially when you’re dealing with forces that are far stronger than you. What about you, Kirishima-kun?”
“Well, I’m definitely pumped up a lot about the fight!” Kirishima replies, his looks definitely supporting his statement. “Just… I don’t feel alright about doing what feels like grave robbing to me, alright? Not manly at all.”
I told Midoriya that it was grave robbing
He appears adamant that it’s just adventure archeology
Because it is.
“Midoriya-kun, with all my respect to you, it’s definitely grave robbing.” Yaoyorozu decides to backstab him, earning herself an angry glance from Uraraka. “Archeology can only be done with an intent of expanding your understanding of the history of the owners of the grave you’re opening. When you take things away to learn more about a certain ancient culture and move everything from it to a museum, that’s archeology. If you do it for any other reason, it’s definitely grave robbing.”
“So why did you agree to head there with us?” Kirishima asks, giving her a confused look.
“I’m just extremely curious as to how elven gravesites look like.” Yaoyorozu replies with a mockingly serious look on her face. “I’m thus legally an archeologist. You’re the trio of grave robbers that just happened to travel alongside me.”
Uraraka chuckles, Kirishima smirks a bit, and Toga gives Yaoyorozu a surprisingly respectful look.
“You know what, I feel as if I wasn’t the only one who felt nice by no longer having to shoulder the burden of societal expectations.” She then says, her eyes still on Yaoyorozu. “And I like it!”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Yaoyorozu replies. “But I do admit that I’m somewhat… excited by all the things that a world of magic can show me. Although I’d much prefer to experience it all in safer circumstances. As for you, Kirishima-kun, don’t worry. I believe that the only remaining owner of that cemetery is apparently alright with us taking things from it.”
“Fair point.” Kirishima admits. “Well then, guess that I’m looking forward to it too!”
***
“Your numbers seem to have grown since our last meeting.” Aeonia speaks to them through the doors of her locked sanctuary, interrupting Yaoyorozu’s detailed examination of the carving on the doors. “There are two more of you there.”
“Y-yes.” Uraraka replies. “We’ve got an ogre warrior and a white elf mage.”
“Mage.” Aeonia appears amused by it for some reason. “Judging from what I can tell from her, she’s a First Circle hedge mage that has never gone through a proper education in an imperial collegium. I’m genuinely curious as to where exactly your master is finding people like you.”
“Why is it so surprising to you?” Uraraka asks back.
“Because Dungeon Lords usually have a rather overblown sense of ego.” Aeonia replies. “They look for those already powerful to bind to themselves. To act as their agents. You’re, frankly, way too weak for it to make sense.” There are maybe three seconds of silence, with Yaoyorozu glaring at the door with an angry frown on her face, before Aeonia speaks again. “Well, regardless of that, what brings you to my tomb? More questions that you seek an answer to?”
“Yes, but also no.” Uraraka replies. “We were wondering if there’s a burial chamber here whose occupants we can actually take on.”
“Seeking to acclimate yourself to your new skills after receiving them from the Dungeon then.” Aeonia reads through them immediately. “There are two that should be achievable to you in your current state. Each of them is composed of a single noble that has become a greater undead and a number of his courtiers that turned into lesser ones.”
“What are the differences between those two chambers?” Uraraka replies. Did Izuku miss her and Yaoyorozu agreeing to who will be the voice of their party?
“One of them has turned into a mourner.” Aeonia replies. “You can expect magically-charged screams that will weaken you and might even end your life. The other one has become a deathblade. Neither of them are particularly strong for their kind, mind you.”
“If I may ask, what’s exactly the difference between greater and lesser undead?” Yaoyorozu finally speaks, asking a question of the type that Izuku would expect from her.
“You don’t know that?” Aeonia looks vaguely surprised by it. “Truly a hedge mage. Each pantheon like the Shadowlight Covenant or a Rampant Bloom has its own, unique outlook on how society should look and how their armies fight. For Breathless Tide, it's being pyramid shaped.”
“Pyramid shaped?” Yaoyorozu asks, with a somewhat insulted frown still on her face. Someone didn’t like not knowing things and being called out on that.
“There’s a limit to the number of those strong enough to become true undead.” Aeonia replies. “Besides, there’s just not enough resources to… improve everyone. Most become the soulless lesser undead. Some manage to develop the so-called pseudosouls, pale imitations of the real souls that allow them to think for themselves and grow. Given enough time those can develop further, becoming a proper daemons of the Tide, combining undeath with daemonhood.” She sighs. It must be nice to be at the top of the social hierarchy. ”Per every greater undead or a daemon of undeath in this realm there are a dozen or two of lesser undead, most of them resembling the skeletons that you’ve already defeated. In both value and utility.”
“So… weak and largely useless?” Uraraka replies with a question.
“Weak? Certainly.” Aeonia replies. “Useless? Not really. Even in death someone has to sweep the floors, and who better to work such a job than those who lack minds to complain and muscles to get tired? Among the lesser undead you usually find the skeletons, but also zombies and spectrals.”
“So, whenever the Breathless Tide marches to war in a Physical World…” Yaoyorozu replies, clearly dedicated to getting something correct.” … it does so with waves of skeletons, zombies and spectrals, with elite formations of the greater undead and daemons like you as the commanders.”
“Indeed.” Aeonia confirms her suspicions. “Depending on how well made they were, the greater undead can become equals of daemons, though even then becoming a daemon is always a promotion for them. Our presence makes all undead into much more of a threat, even the lesser ones.”
“And that Bloody-Handed revenant?” Uraraka decides to ask. “Where’s he on the societal ladder?”
“Nowhere.” Aeonia replies, sounding sour all of a sudden. “He is too insane to fit it. If he would ever recover his sanity to the point where he could be considered a civilized individual, he’d be an equal of me in my prime. Unfortunately.”
“I see.” Yaoyorozu replies before turning her head to face Uraraka. “What’s your decision?”
“Letting me decide?” Uraraka asks, clearly surprised by it. Yeah, Yaoyorozu was always the commanding sort, back in Japan.
“You have more… experience.” Yaoyorozu replies. Trying not to say too much in Aeonia’s presence.
“Well then…” Uraraka thinks it over for a minute. “Unless my master has any other idea, I think that I’d like to see just how tough a deathblade is.”
Go on, we’ll end up having to fight them both, so for now it’s your choice.
Do you want to talk about any emotions that your not-girlfriend calling you ‘her master’ might have provoked?
Do you want me to see if I can beat the Cat Might picture by showing you something even more cursed?
Alright, alright, stay in denial all you want.
“I’d recommend temporarily unsealing my sanctuary before heading there.” Aeonia comments. “If you fail and get wiped out I’ll seal the chamber for you.”
“It won’t attack you?” Uraraka asks.
“It won’t.” Aeonia replies. “I’m a much greater servant of the Tide than he is. He will not risk my wrath, even in his current form. Though if he slays you and I have to reseal him, one of you will have to come here to seal me in again. I do not feel safe outside of my sanctuary.”
***
They do end up unsealing Aeonia’s chamber, to clearly worried looks of both Kirishima and Yaoyorozu.
A moment later Aeonia steps outside of it with truly regal grace, gracing their new members with but a single glance each, before telling them all to follow her.
It’s only at this point that they realize just how tall Aeonia was. She was the only member of their party that Kirishima didn’t have to look down on while talking to them. Somewhere around 220cm.
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Elves definitely weren’t that tall. Were their old gods just themselves but taller? That felt strangely in character for many takes on elves from various fantasy stories in their world.
I know that you’re going to use that against me, but I have to say it
Aeonia is incredibly hot for a walking corpse
…
On one hand, I really want to insult you over this, but I do have to admit that at least in terms of aesthetics, she is looking rather incredible.
Which, when you’re literally a cube, lets you forget that her body’s likely at room temperature.
Purely hypothetically, when the room temperature is exactly 36.6C, the room temperature becomes the fun temperature
Is this revenge for Cat Might?
Yes.
Keep trying, eventually you’ll get a good one.
Aeonia leads them to the locked door on the other side of the tomb, connected to the corridor behind her sanctuary.
“Here.” She says as she turns towards them, standing right next to the door and pointing at them. “The deathblade awaits you behind those doors. I wish you luck.”
“Anything more we have to know about them?” Uraraka asks.
“He is a dangerous warrior.” Aeonia admits. “Given enough time, he’d likely ascend into daemonhood and become a death knight. Even now he is rather quick, well-equipped and can steal life on touch. Do not let him do that, as he can use it to heal himself.”
They all nod. Kirishima looks pumped up (is it about fighting an enemy that steals life, which means ‘thief’, and thus a villain, right?). Yaoyorozu and Uraraka look determined. Toga looks as if she found it all amusing.
Classic Toga, really.
Uraraka slides the key into the door and turns it. The door opens, and they immediately step inside, their two warriors walking ahead, rogue and a mage following behind.
The burial chamber was a mess. Someone has thoroughly ransacked this place, piling coffins at the other end of it into the shape of a very primitive-looking throne. On it, a figure was sitting.
It was an elven warrior… at some point in the past. He was wearing a severely declined armor composed of leather with rusted metal plates forming a scale-like pattern on top of it, covering the front of the chest and giving it some bonus protection.
He wasn’t wearing a helmet, revealing just how warped his head was. Hair and ears were there and looked as they were supposed to be, but his face was missing entirely, with a malformed skull exposed to the world, a pair of violet eyes staring at them from otherwise pitch-black empty eye sockets.
The moment they enter, the deathblade grabs a sword that was resting by the side of his improvised throne and stands up. It’s at this moment that they realize that the blade he was carrying was a two-handed one at some point in the past, but now was broken, making it just as long as a one-handed sword.
It had a cutting edge only on one side, reminding them (or at least Yaoyorozu and Shigaraki, who were most knowledgeable about old weapons among their group) of scimitars.
There are more undead in the room, gathered around the throne. Skeletons, wearing tattered remnants of their old outfits. Lavish robes that belonged to them in life, armed in improvised weaponry, including such things as a metal torchstand wielded like a spear.
Uraraka counts eight of those, before the fight starts, the deathblade pointing his free hand at them and whispering something that sounded like ‘slay them' .
The skeletons charge at them, the deathblade calmly approaching them behind the wave of bones. Toga immediately leaps from behind of the group, doing her standard ‘bouncing off the walls with [Cat Leap]’ routine, attacking the deathblade from a side.
It steps back, moving surprisingly fast, before doing a wide slice with his sword, almost managing to cut her in half. With how flexible she was, she manages to narrowly dodge it, only for the undead’s kick to send her into a wall.
“Toga!” Uraraka yells just as the torchstand holding skeleton thrusts his weapon into her shield. It’s stopped with a quick [Barricade Shield] immediately followed by a [Shield Bash] that pushes his weapon to the side, allowing her to finish it off with a [Lesser Thrust] straight into its skull, shattering it instantly.
“I’m alright!” Toga shouts back as she leaps back onto her feet. “Focus on…”
Deathblade charges at her, moving extremely fast in a straight line (some sort of dash skill?). She tries to dodge, but it seems that the undead calculated where to kick her, some damaged and opened coffins blocking her escape to the right and left. And when she tried to jump up… he expected that.
He grabs her leg by the ankle (there is a brief flash of red coming from his hand) before she can escape his reach, then turns around and slams her into the floor. She gasps loudly, but the deathblade is onto her before she can even try to escape, his hand resting on her face… and more red light flashing.
Toga dies a few seconds later. Her body stays on the ground, with no signs of visible injuries but growing deathly pale, lying on the floor just as the deathblade stands up from her corpse.
Well, shit.
At least she did what she was supposed to do before (potentially) dying - namely, occupy the deathblade’s attention while they dealt with its underlings.
Kirishima broke two of them with a single swing of his log empowered by a [Heavy Blow], sending their bits and pieces flying in the process. Uraraka defeated two of them, including the torchstand holder and was busy exchanging blows with a third one.
Yaoyorozu disarmed the one that managed to get past their line of warriors with her staff hilt’s blow to its wrist, before firing a [Lesser Firebolt] straight into its skull, which staggered it enough to let her break its head with another hit from her staff.
She was surprisingly dangerous in melee.
There were only two skeletons left, one of them turning out to be a surprisingly skillful fencer and managing to occupy Ochako’s attention, while the other one was promptly crushed by Kirishima’s shoulder tackle.
And that’s when the deathblade made their move.
The warrior dashes towards Uraraka, crossing the distance quickly enough that she barely manages to raise her shield in time. The deathblade severs it in half with an upward slash, her arm sent upward and her hand partially sliced through.
Before she can react (aside from registering the feeling of sharp pain in her left hand) the deathblade’s empty hand lunges forward, straight towards her face.
Izuku - who was witnessing the scene from her eyes - gets traumatic flashbacks to Tomura’s charge during the USJ. And like back then, it’s stopped by someone intervening.
Instead of Aizawa-sensei, this time it was Kirishima. Right before the deathblade could kill Uraraka, Kirishima grabbed its arm. And then, he moves quickly, wrapping his arms around the deathblade’s waist from behind… before german suplexing him into the ground.
“The last skeleton!” Yaoyorozu shouts from behind Uraraka, shaking her out of shock, before firing a [Lesser Firebolt] at the skeleton in question. “Finish it quickly!”
And she does, finishing the skeleton with [Lesser Thrust]. They can easily kill random unarmed and unprepared people, but against trained combatants with any degree of skills, their weak durability really makes them fall short.
Kirishima throws the deathblade off him before he can touch his body with his life-draining hands, the undead crashing into some surviving stone sarcophagus, losing his sword in the process.
Kirishima and the deathblade stand up nearly simultaneously. Kirishima looks mightily pumped up at this point, the deathblade coldly staring back at him, ignoring Uraraka for a moment.
Yaoyorozu decides to do something constructive and grabs Kirishima’s ironwood log, clearly struggling to lift its massive weight even when tries to do so with both her hands (if Tomura was going to joke about it later, Izuku would get really mad). She ends up having to drag it towards Kirishima, cursing quietly to herself.
The deathblade realizes what her goal was, so he naturally tries to attack her. It ends up running straight into a [Lesser Thrust] and Kirishima’s attempted punch to the face. It’s forced to take a step back, which buys them enough time for Kirishima to grab his log, freeing her from its imposing weight and size and…
I hate you, Shigaraki.
What?
I thought that we already established that, what changed?
“Kirishima-kun, swing away!” Yaoyorozu yells suddenly. Kirishima doesn’t ask any questions, instead he does, indeed, swing his log with his whole strength.
Uraraka has maybe a second to realize that Yaoyorozu cast the [Float] spell on the deathblade. Its footing was disturbed, and this was enough for him to fail to dodge the attack, with the log swing hitting him squarely in the chest and sending him flying in the distant wall, into which he crushed with a deafening noise of metal impacting stone.
That’s a broken move.
Unless there are multiple enemies, since she simply cannot cast two spells at once and [Float] requires certain degree of focus
And now you start using your brain to assess your enemies skills and find counters to them.
Asshole, I figured out Eraserhead’s weakness during the USJ attack!
… I forgot about that one, I concede the point.
As the deathblade slides down onto the ground, Uraraka smells weakness. She closes-in with [Predator’s Advance] before delivering a [Lesser Thrust] directly into his face. Despite likely being briefly stunned by impact, the deathblade manages to tilt his neck, making the spearhead hit the wall beside his head instead.
He grabs the spear with his left hand and then delivers a kick into the front of Uraraka’s left leg. His armored boots either break or at least fracture the bone, Uraraka yelping in pain and almost falling onto him, into the range of his hands, but Yaoyorozu stops her with a [Float] spell that breaks her fall.
She manages to roll to the side, and before the deathblade can stand up, Kirishima slams his log into his head with [Heavy Blow], the head completely shattering on impact, the log practically bouncing off the wall behind it.
The deathblade keeps raising his hands, a much too slow attempt to block Kirishima’s attack, for about a second, before his entire body goes limp.
“Congratulations.” Aeonia says dryly from her position by the door. She must have moved into the door frame to have a better look at the battle. “For your current meager arsenal of skills and abilities, that was some surprisingly decent performance. And your teamwork is good.”
“Y-yes.” Uraraka lets out as she uses her spear to help herself stand up. Her leg was definitely useless after that kick. “It was pretty tough.”
“If you say so.” Aeonia definitely doesn’t consider it to be ‘pretty tough’ by her standards, which only makes them wonder just how powerful she would be. “I assume that you won’t try to defeat the mourner with one of your fighters dead and another largely incapacitated, so I’ll be back at my sanctuary. Do not forget to seal it before leaving.”
She then turns around and walks away.
her ass looks just as shapely from behind as the rest of her body does from the front
…
In other words, I’d absolutely tap that undead and I don’t mean it in the ‘double tap’ way.
Although I guess I’d gladly double tap it indeed. Or triple tap it. Or quadruple tap it.
Wink wink
Still trying to disturb me?
yes
It’s not working.
The more you point out how I’m trying to disturb you and how it’s not working, the more I suspect that it does disturb you
Your entire existence, your backstory, your past attempts to kill me and my friends and how bad you were at it are disturbing to me.
You do not need to lust for an undead woman to disturb me.
Trust me.
S u r e.
Anyway, let’s resurrect Toga.
And get ready for some tasty additional stuff, including a brand new deathblade, woohoo!
Death knights are kinda a staple for fantasy as well, and I like that.
Oh yes, you and your staples.
You sure you’re not secretly thirsting for Dabi?
…
I hate you and everything you stand for.
I hate you and everything you stand for too.
Yaoyorozu turns out to have brought some basic, improvised first-aid tools. Which, in this case, is some beachwood and a rope to use as a splint, to aid Uraraka in limping back to the Dungeon.
Yes, her tibia was apparently broken. The deathblade had a rather terrible kicking strength.
Once they’re done with that, they quickly look through the burial chamber for something that they could steal and bring back to the Dungeon. They… honestly don’t find much, at least nothing that they didn’t already find in Aeonia’s sanctuary.
They still take a handful of small jewels with them. Why? Well, because when they encounter anything resembling a civilization out there, they’ll have something to barter with it.
At least before they develop enough to be able to just produce those things.
Once they’re done with pillaging the place, Kirishima lifts the deathblade's corpse, throws it over his shoulder and begins their journey back to the Dungeon, with Yaoyorozu helping Uraraka walk there.
Apparently, Yaoyorozu wants to see if the Dungeon accelerates their healing and having a broken bone to test it is somewhat fortunate, as they don’t have to injure any of them to find out. Uraraka is mildly concerned, but goes along with it.