They’ve decided to take it easy for a moment and focus on internal expansions before having anyone go on another outside trip, if only because they wanted to establish appropriate defenses asap.

Yes, the chances of anyone wandering in were pretty small, but it did happen with Ekana, so they decided to not risk it happening again.

Kirishima and Uraraka spent most of the time training, Yaoyorozu joining them occasionally unless she was going on a lengthy walk through the Dungeon to let herself think. Toga was either playing with Slimy-chan in her room or following Uraraka wherever she went, to chat. Or to just observe her at work.

Or at combat training. There was something in Ochako Uraraka using her body to move around rapidly or to swing her spear that seemed to really grind Toga’s gears. Uraraka’s response to that was usually to make Toga work her ass for that sight, pulling her into additional combat training.

They had [Skills] and [Abilities] but knowing how to properly use them both in combat was another subject altogether.

Still, Izuku was growing increasingly confused at what exactly Ochako was thinking about Himiko, as aside from some physical violence (during the training) and a few cases of wrapping her arms around Himiko’s neck (when she was going too far) with clear threat of strangulation, there was just… nothing more that he’d consider to be a potential sign of hostility .

Yes, that would be plenty of hostility for most people, but considering what Ochako thought about Himiko before they were reborn here, that was a massive change. In fact, a few times, Izuku noticed Ochako acting almost playful, joking and laughing together with Himiko (or laughing at Himiko), to clear confusion from Kirishima and Yaoyorozu.

To return to the constructive things, some time later they’ve gathered enough Residual Mana to expand the Dungeon with one more level, only to (soon after that) go through with point two from Shigaraki’s list.

Soon after the 3rd Level was born, they went through another blackout, which was accompanied by the development of four quarters. With the normal Ambient Mana Level of 3rd Level being 1.4 (which would soon upgrade to 1.6) that was enough for Toga and Uraraka and would be enough for Yaoyorozu, but not quite so for Kirishima.

So, they end up making small, curtain-covered ‘vents’ connecting their houses to the Throne Room, to make them ‘technically’ qualify as a part of it. That should work well, right.

They’ve also got them a small common room, just a table with a number of chairs around and a series of cupboards by a wall. Toga immediately runs away from the Dungeon to catch something tasty so that they can eat it together.

She returns some time later with a dead deer that she butchers by the entrances, before cooking some of it over a campfire and bringing it down to their living room.

image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/04/24/image.png]

1. Entrance, 2. Common Room, 3. Throne Room.

“I’m afraid that I have to excuse myself from the feast.” Yaoyorozu says when she is invited by Toga and Uraraka to their small house party. And yes, it’s something that they both were at this point organizing.

“Why?” Uraraka asks. It’s clear from the frown on Toga’s face that she thinks it was about her.

“One of the things I noticed about an elven body is that it lacks fangs.” Yaoyorozu surprises them both, before opening her mouth and pointing at her teeth. Yes, there’s a definite lack of fangs there. “It’s highly likely that elves do not eat meat. I’d rather not discover that by vomiting out everything I ate.”

Toga’s frown suddenly vanishes. Looks like it wasn’t about her, after all.

“That… makes sense.” Uraraka decides. “But you can just drop by and hang around, right?” Looks like she decided to bring them all back together… or else .

“Alright.” Yaoyorozu decides to surrender, if only because she didn’t want to make Toga feel excluded.

The party itself wasn’t very eventful, but it was pretty… okay . Slightly awkward, but okay.

Kirishima seemed to have an absolutely voracious appetite (at least, when he had something to eat, as otherwise he could do without it thanks to being part of the Dungeon). Yaoyorozu clearly didn’t know how to act around Toga, and seemed to be confused about Uraraka for some reason knowing how to do it.

Izuku decides to ask Uraraka about it some time later.

You’re really trying to get Toga involved, aren’t you?

“Yeah.” Uraraka nods. She was on her way back to her quarters after the party, which - considering how close it was now - was going to be over very quickly. “I mean, her antics are kinda funny when you take away the threat of being violently murdered.”

She really does act like a cat sometimes, yeah.

In this particular case, her moment of intense felineness was deciding (close to the end of the party) that it’s enough for her and she wants to take a quick nap. She was now in her room, wrapped around Slimy-chan.

She was very indecisive and moody. Just like a cat. Then again, she was somewhat like this even before they all landed here, just with more murder attempts and a really warped look on the concept of love.

“She does so, yeah.” Uraraka nods while entering her own room. “I think it’s that ‘I do what I want’ thing at play. I do have some moments of having a wolf’s instincts flaring up, I just ignore them. She, in the meantime, embraces doing whatever she wants.”

That… makes sense.

I know that I’m going to sound contradictory, but it immensely surprises me just how friendly you are towards her.

“Well, if I’m friendly to her, despite what happened between us in the past, then the others won’t feel like kicking her out of the group, right?” Uraraka says while sitting on the verge of her bed. “So I’m doing my best to make her feel accepted and make the others realize that she’s accepted. We can’t risk the group splitting on us, right?”

That much wasn’t… incorrect. However, there was something that Izuku had to point out.

We still will have a split, sooner or later.

We might be able to, uhm, live alongside Mr. Compress, Gentle Criminal or Twice, but can you imagine the same thing with Dabi?

“Well… good point.” Uraraka admits. “But if we keep the others more or less accepted, it’ll be just him, right?”

Right. Makes sense.

Well, I guess that’s all from me. Go to sleep.

By the time you wake up, the Dungeon should have four levels!

“R-really?” That for some reason startles Uraraka. “So quickly? That’s… that’s great!”

… anything you want to tell me?

“Nope.” Uraraka pouts a little. “Go do your job!”

***

It took them two whole days, but they did get their job done. Splitting their 1st Level into two, making a creature-based 1st Level (with an entrance and the shrines) and then a trap-based 2nd Level that took most of the past 1st Level.

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image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/04/24/image06fae3bf1540b3a4.png]

1. Entrance, 2. Guest Room, 3 & 4. Religious Chambers, 5. Spider Breeding Chambers, 6. Floor Guardian Room, 7. Hidden Tunnel, 8. Secret Exit, 9. Mining area - Cassiterite, 10. Mining Area - Malachite

They’ve discovered some additional things about themselves in the meantime, proving to them that Dungeons could develop completely new unlocks on its own, for as long as their ‘minds’ developed them.

Their biggest discovery was that they could make three different types of ‘exits’. One of them was the main entrance, one that literally had to be a thing and couldn’t be moved. That’s where most of the mana was vented out from.

Second was one ‘fake’ exit. They’ve put one in the sort of ‘guest room’ by the entrance, made with an intent of hopefully delaying further visits in their Dungeon by making people just… rest before attempting it.

They’ve made a fake exit there, which works as a vent. There’s a campfire there (one that Toga will be using for her cooking, at least until they get one created on their current 4th Level), with a ‘fake exit’ in the ceiling above, venting the smoke… somewhere.

This was likely also a thing for [Growing Areas], making fake ceilings letting sunlight in. From nowhere. Dungeons were … complicated.

The other exit was… literally, just an exit. One that could have almost the entirety of the mana flow cut out, and yet being somewhat warped , in that it could connect the 1st Floor of the Dungeon (and first Floor only) with a chosen location in the vicinity of the Dungeon’s main entrance.

‘Vicinity’, in this case, meant ‘within about a kilometer’. They’ve set the fake exit above the cliff face that housed the main entrance, which should give them a good observation spot. With someone with an actual good eyesight (like, Yaoyorozu - and just that, at least for now) placed up there, they should be able to detect incoming visitors before they’d enter the Dungeon.

They should also be able - at some point in the more distant future, once they’d become ‘civilized’ officially - to have their servants leave the Dungeon without the visitors noticing them.

They’ve put the secret exit on a hidden tunnel that connected it with the entrance section through a secret crawlspace, with another such crawlspace allowing one to exit this section into the Floor Guardian Room.

They’ve figured out an even better way of hiding the ‘maintenance tunnels’, with some well placed Slimes and Shards being able to open them from the inside at will. This meant that even if someone among their servants was in the entrance section when a visitor was spotted, they’d have the time to run away through the maintenance tunnel and go down a level.

There were three more features to this level.

The first one were two [Spider Breeding Chambers], each of them looking akin to the place they found in that mine. A lot of eggs, a lot of cocoons, a lot of things crawling over them. Each of them slightly larger than their room should have been.

There were spiders there. [Giant Biter Spider] and [Giant Spitter Spiders]. It seemed that [Lairs] were capable of spawning those independently, without wasting their own Residual Mana, at the cost of it taking time.

They were now twenty Giant Spiders inhabiting the 1st Level, covering the walls with their webs and generally being pretty creepy, every [Lair] maintaining ten of them. There were also two [Spider Maidens], which due to the AML mechanics, quickly set up shop in the [Floor Guardian Room].

With their servants now being something else, those two humanoid spiders (with a handful of regular spiders lounging around) have become their first ‘proper’ Floor Guardians. Or, to be more exact, their first ‘proper’ Floor Guardian, just a plural one.

The second features were two [Mining Areas], each of them located close to a [Lair], which meant that attempting to mine things there for a prolonged period of time would mean inviting spiders to harass you regularly.

Look, they can’t make themselves be too easy, alright?

One of those mining areas was filled with [Cassiterite] ore, which was a tin ore. The other, with [Malachite], which was a copper ore.

The third feature of the new and likely final 1st Level design was the religious corner. They were going to set up every unlocked shrine by the entrance, to (hopefully) farm religious favor thanks to the outside visitors.

There was now a shrine to Luna placed there. The statue pictured them as a tall, androgynous figure with their face covered with blurry shadow, holding a sword in their hands, its blade pointing down.

At the symbol of a sun placed at the feet of the figure itself.

That’s… very on the nose. Even for Luna.

True

We’ll probably end up having to add the shrines to the gods that some of our servants began to worship on the living floor, right?

Eventually, for now it’s the sort of ‘quality of life’ upgrade that isn't crucial, and we shouldn’t waste mana on it.

Their next move is fixing up the second level.

Here, the changes were going to be minimal. But they were a necessity.

Setting up a proper entrance to it, now that it was no longer 1st Level.

Expanding their old fall trap by making another one right after it, banking on some newcomers to jump over the first one and hopefully falling into the second one (Shigaraki’s idea, obviously).

They’ve left the Node Room and Floor Guardian Room where they were, despite not having anyone to place there right now, once Uraraka and Toga moved out. That was fine - it still produced some Residual Mana and expanded their storage capacity.

We’re going to make it a 3rd Level sooner or later.

Hamadryad & Co?

Yes. And probably some [Growing Areas].

That will make the Living Room into the 5th Level (and, by the way, will allow us to manifest outside of the Core to have some time for ourselves).

I sure as hell look forward to that

Yes.

I think that we’d then add a new 3rd Level and focus it on the elementals (just a lot of them), thus making the boulder traps level the 5th one, finishing the first segment of the Dungeon (the [Limestone Cave]), allowing us to move over to the [Iron Mine] one.

Fucking cool.

image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/04/24/image5464e2adcc490663.png]

1. Entrance, 2. Slime Trap, 3. Projectile Trap, 4. Node Room, 5. Hidden Tunnel, 6. Floor Guardian Room.

They also remove the 3rd Level’s quarters, which helps them recover some of the mana used to create them. This concludes the whole list of the changes, and only makes them further look forward towards being able to manifest outside.

They really need to rest from having to remain in constant contact with one another. That was… exhausting.

Monoma and Spinner come next?

Yes

We need to bulk up some more

We should also give each of them their own room on the living level.

Are you also adding a shrine there while at it?

No

A rare moment of lucidity from you

image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/04/24/image0b25cf5e8767959b.png]

1. Entrance, 2. Common Room, 3. Throne Room

They all gather up in the Throne Room for the moment of their new allies being born. And, in case they went slightly crazy (so, normal behavior for Monoma) doing something stupid, like attacking the Core.

Spinner gets [Bow Proficiency II], [Tail Splitter School I], [Butchering III], [Mana Pathways I], [North Vestirian Language, Spoken VI], [Tracking II], [Hunting III], [Sneaking III], [Temperate Forest Survival II], [Close Wounds], [Hard Scales], [Lacerating Claws] and [Vertical Movement]. Making him a [Barbarian Archer, lvl 15].

When asked about it, Yaoyorozu made it clear that lizards had very good eyesight, which made Spinner the best character to be their first archer. They’ve given him a [Shortbow] in the North Vestirian style with an appropriate quiver and a number of [Stone Arrows] (which is the only type of arrows they have available currently, at least they are pretty sharp, and the standard [Tribal Outfit] (akin to what Uraraka was wearing but tailored to his body).

Yes, it had pants.

They’ve elected to not add any additional weapon proficiencies for melee combat, as [Lacerating Claws] and [Hard Scales] seemed to imply that his body could be a pretty good weapon.

Giving him [Butchering III] is a sign that it’s time for some upgrades to Toga, who was still running on her entry level stats, while no longer being limited to the AML of 1.2.

Her new stats include [Dagger Proficiency II], [Tiger Claw School I], [Butchering III], [Basic Cooking II], [Basic Bone Carving II], [Mana Pathways I], [Tracking III], [Hunting III], [Temperate Forest Survival II], [Sneaking III], [Pickpocketing III], [Trapping II], [North Vestirian Language, Spoken VI], [Sharpen Claws], [Cat Leap]. Making her a [Barbarian Rogue, lvl 14].

Finally, Neito Monoma.

The stats that he received included [Dagger Proficiency II] (for self defense, they were planning to upgrade this skill for Toga if possible but not for Monoma), [Herbalism [Vestiria] II], [Basic Alchemy I], [Red Core I], [North Vestirian Language, Spoken VII], [North Vestirian Language, Written VI], [Temperate Forest Survival II], [Wrath Magic I], [Rage], [Enraged Blow] and [Ignore Injury].

As for his equipment, they’ve picked a [Shaman Outfit] from the list, before giving him weapons in the form of a dagger similar to ones that Toga was using, and a [Brass Bell] which seemed to be some sort of magic staff equivalent for the shamans.

It was… well, a bell, made of brass (big shock), but the moving part seemed to be made from a small, red crystal.

This all totaled to a [Shaman, lvl 13].

One moment there were only four people in the Throne Room. The next, there were six. And then shouting started.

“Aaah, the heroes!” Spinner freaks out instantly, before trying to raise his weapon to defend himself, only to realize that for some reason he was carrying a bow instead of his sword. “What?”

Bro, chill

Tomura here, remember me?

Your best friend and leader?

“Oh, errrr.” Spinner only now manages to notice Toga, who waves to him from the side of the short line of heroes. “What happened? And where are you?”

We’ve gotten isekaid. And I’m now a Dungeon Manager, unfortunately together with that little shit, Midoriya

“We’ve gotten… WOW!” Spinner throws his arms up. “WE’VE GOTTEN ISEKAID! MY DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE! FUCK YES!”

Monoma gives him a very cold (and very confused) look before turning his head towards his fated archenemies from the 1-A. He seems to have already realized that he had a large pair of fox ears on top of his head.

“I’ve been isekai’d?” He asks. When Yaoyorozu and Kirishima nod. “With you?” They nod again, this time alongside Uraraka. “And you’ve got so many of your classmates here, somehow, before bringing a single one from the naturally superior class 1-B?”

“Dude, chill down.” Kirishima shakes his head. “Bad news for you, we’re not coming back, and there are no longer any classes. We’re all just random people trying to survive.”

Monoma stares at him for maybe three seconds before falling onto his knees.

“Noooo!” He shouts while staring at the ceiling, throwing his arms around. “NOOOOO! Gods, why have you forsaken me?!”

… being too loud, huh.

I told you so.