The next few hours are… kind of wild.

Spinner is absolutely overjoyed to be in a fantasy world, is perfectly alright with not returning home (the fact that he’s definitely far from being the strangest looking guy around probably helps) and literally can’t ask them questions quickly enough.

This led them to stop trying to entertain said questions and instead consign Tomura to the fate of bringing Spinner up to date. A task that he took up with surprising enthusiasm.

Thus once again reminding Izuku of how he accidentally made him decide that he’d become a better villain. Ouch.

Monoma, in the meantime, is absolutely inconsolable. Uraraka decides to try to cheer him up with food, which leads to Monoma sitting by the table in their living room, eating a solid chunk of freshly cooked meat… while still crying.

Kirishima was sitting right next to him, and did his best to console him. That sure, the rivalry that built the majority of his image and made it a real focus on his personality might have been gone now, but surely, he can develop it all again! And if he wants to, Kirishima will gladly become his rival!

After all, competition is manly. Doubly so where it’s a competition of manly men, striving to become ever manlier in the process.

In Izuku’s opinion, Monoma was latching onto the whole rivalry as a form of coping with a shock that getting isekai caused him, so it wasn’t exactly the best way to do it, but… it was better than nothing.

And besides he had no idea how to approach the problem better.

“Such a drama queen.” Uraraka sighs. She was listening to them from around the intersection in front of the living room.

“He’s funny.” Toga comments. She was, of course, orbiting somewhere close to Uraraka at all times, except for when the latter was in her room. Toga learned her lesson. “A bit too loud, but funny.”

“Yeah, I know.” Uraraka shakes her head. “Then again, if his magic is about making others stronger by making them angrier, he has that in the bag. And if he goes too far, we’ll just bring Itsuka Kendou to keep him straight.”

“How does she do that?” Toga looks at her curiously.

“In the best way.” Uraraka replies with a grin. “With physical violence. Knocks him out each time he does that and drags him away while apologizing for him being a dumbass.”

“That sounds really funny!” Toga grins back at her. “I wanna see it! And I think that you’re looking forward to it as well!”

Judging from the look on Uraraka’s face that Toga’s words get, she’s absolutely right about it.

I don’t want to ruin the mood, but… cut that man some slack.

We were pro-heroes in training, we all had images that we embraced, roles that we played.

He just got a bit too immersed into his acting. And then all of that flew out of the windows, so he is now trying to find a way to cope with it.

Although I agree that his chosen role was particularly… annoying.

Uraraka gasps loudly (and fakely).

“Izuku actually said that something was annoying!” She says loudly. “Truly, Monoma has crossed the line! Toga, it’s time to solve the problem, right now!”

“Yes ma’am!” Toga salutes to her. “But only if you call me Himiko! Like all my friends do!”

Izuku was about to respond to Uraraka’s fake declaration of having to kill Monoma for annoying him (at least that’s how he interpreted her words) when Himiko spoke. Toga definitely took both him and Uraraka off-guard with her sudden declaration of… friendship.

“Eh?” Uraraka blinks at her. “You want me to call you… really?” Toga nods a few times, very quickly. “Well, I… alright? If you really want it, then I’ll call you Himiko.”

“Yey!” Himiko cheers. “Now let’s go kill Monoma together!”

Izuku can tell from the look on Uraraka’s face alone that she didn’t expect the situation to develop in this direction and has just realized that she agreed to calling a woman that has actually killed some people back on Earth by her first name.

That has given her some complicated feelings that she struggled to unpack.

The fact that she was more confused about it than about beating Monoma up was saying a lot of things about her character. And about Izuku’s, as he, too, was more concerned with Himiko’s plea to move over to being on the first name basis.

Then, Uraraka goes ‘fuck it’ and decides to ignore the entire subject.

“Tempting, but we need him.” Uraraka replies, Toga sighing loudly. “Don’t you sigh on me, we might do that in the future, if he doesn’t do his job properly.”

And that seems to somewhat improve her mood. Izuku definitely doesn’t want to unpack any of that.

***

“So, no waifus?” Spinner asks in the far corner of the Throne Room, where Midoriya, the annoying not-offspring of All Might likely isn’t listening in.

None thus far

The catgirl that showed up soon after our arrival tried to kill us

Ever since then there were only two local women of note

One of them is way too old and more of a All for One type of person

And no, I don’t like him anymore

“Great.” Spinner nods. “I haven’t liked him, ever. Shady character to say the least.”

Man, if you only knew

Turns out that he might have been the one that manipulated me into killing Mon-chan

And my family

Spinner gasps loudly. He made someone kill their beloved dog to manipulate them in their most vulnerable state?! All for One did such a thing? What a monster. Truly, Stain would have never willingly followed such a fiend!

Oh, and he also had Tomura kill his family.

Yeah

Anyway, fuck that guy

We’re in a fantasy world now and if we ever bring him in, he’ll only have the skills we’ll give him

A part of me wants to summon him as lowest level trash mob just to make the adventurers kill him over and over while laughing at his desperate attempts to look scary

Like a freaking level one goblin

“Brutal, but very fitting for that guy.” Spinner decides. All for One was going to get a brain aneurysm after a day of such treatment. For him, it was literally a fate worse than death. “What about the other woman?”

Former elven deity, imagine that

Tall, graceful, scarcely clothed, and yet acts, speaks and walks as you’d expect a deity to

If she stepped on me I’d say thank you

“Wait.” Spinner blinks. “Isn’t that a thing with you and pretty much all women?”

Shhhhh

SHHHHHHH

Never ever speak aloud about stuff that Midoriya can use against me if he overhears them

He can’t hear me when I don’t want him to hear it, but he can easily overhear you

He would never let me live that down

you have no idea what sort of monster he is in private

“H-he is?!” Spinner stammers. That was… terrifying! “You can’t be serious! He impressed both All Might and Stain , there is no way that he can have a monstrous side!”

He is absolutely fucked up in the head

trust me

He has been terrorizing me with the shit that came to this fucked up head of his almost from day one

ugh

Look, let’s talk about something else

Return to the previous subject, please

“Okay.” Spinner decides to listen to his friend(?). “So, a deity? Huh. You’re trying to live a power fantasy here, and that’s freaking awesome, boss.”

I know, right?

There’s a catch though

She’s now an undead.

She looks perfectly as if she was alive, but is really, really pale.

“So, she’s just like a vampire?” Spinner thinks it over for a minute. “I mean, that’s fair and valid, I think? Lusting after a vampire doesn’t make you a degenerate, right? It’s not being a furry, I mean.”

Bruh, we’ve had that talk already

you’re the last person to have problems with furries

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“No.” Spinner says, dragging the word over. “Anyway, you’ve brought me with you over to your isekai adventure and I have to say it: you’re my best friend, from now and onward into forever.”

poggers

Also, yes

I’m looking forward to having someone to actually be on my side, Toga has sold us out for the very prospect of getting her dream threesome with ‘her cuties’

I also decided to become a better villain and open up more to my followers, being less of a self-centered dick at times

“That’s… cool.” Spinner replies. He is surprised by the character development of his friend/boss, but also somewhat on guard. He is, however, completely unsurprised with Toga selling them out for two cute heroic butts. If someone asked him back in Japan, it was just a matter of time. “But I think that was something you’d have to do by definition. I mean, you can’t just lock yourself in the room and play videogames, right?”

Please don’t remind me that there are no videogames here

It hurts, man

And we didn’t even get waifus to compensate

It sucks

“Yeah, it seems so.” Spinner nods to himself. “Still, it has only just begun. Future might be better, so let’s be optimistic, right?”

Right!

***

Monoma eventually recovers, and manages to act more or less normal. They understand the reason for that some time later, when he encounters Uraraka and Toga in one of the corridors of the Living Level.

“Aha!” He announces loudly, the very timbre of his voice inspiring Uraraka’s killing urges. “There you are! Cats and dogs, both of them inferior by default to their peak form - foxes! The cat software is running on the dog’s hardware! The best of both worlds!”

Silence in the corridor, Monoma staring at them and clearly expecting some reaction out of his… victims.

Uraraka’s eyelid twitches a little.

“Can I stab him now?” Toga asks her. Uraraka feels tempted to answer yes, but… c’mon, she is no longer a hero in training, but this doesn’t mean that she should become so much of a dick, right?

“Just some surface-level cuts, the sort that will heal quickly.” Uraraka replies. Toga grins at her, pulling her blade out of its sheath and leaping at Monoma, who yelps loudly and runs away.

***

Monoma’s magic turns out to work about as they expected after hearing the spell names. With only one thing resembling a twist among them.

[Rage] turns out to be an AoE spell. Monoma rings his bell while casting a spell, the sound instantly pumping-up the people in the area, making them… angry. Furious. They still controlled themselves, it wasn’t an unthinking berserker rage, just… being angry.

This paired up well with [Enraged Blow] which let them add additional oomph to a melee attack, and seems to scale off just how angry they were at the time. It, too, required Monoma to ring his bell but oddly enough wasn’t an AoE spell, but one targeted on a single target at the same time.

How did it work? Yaoyorozu (and Monoma too) suspected that it was some particular sound frequency that made it happen, and you could decide where exactly it occurred in the room. Something in the magic itself made it work like that.

[Ignore Injury] was another thing that fed off [Rage] and general anger felt by them, and seemed to make them able to ignore their injuries for some time, allowing them to operate their limbs at unchanged performance despite the cuts, bruises and pain in them.

As for Spinner’s martial arts, they also work about as expected.

[Close Wounds] seems to amplify the natural regeneration capabilities of a lizard, making small injuries heal pretty quickly (pretty much quickly enough to have some usage on a battlefield, although it depended on the scope of injuries).

[Hard Scales] seemed to amplify the toughness of his scales, allowing him to withstand quite a bit of damage, at the downside of limiting his ability to move (due to his body becoming less flexible ) and still leaving some weakspots in places of his body that weren’t protected by them.

Finally, the [Lacerating Claws] seemed to be a variant of [Sharpen Claws] that was optimized for hands being actually used as weapons . Faster movement, greater cutting power, likely more blood loss from your enemy even from the surface scratches.

His footwork, [Vertical Movement], was just that. Footwork technique that allowed Spinner to easily scale vertical walls. Which, well, it was just his old quirk but in a new package.

Pretty cool.

“So…” Uraraka decides to speak once they’re done with testing their new skills. “... are we going somewhere now? C’mon, we’ve been in this place for way too long! I get it that we needed to get some stuff done to keep ourselves safe, but now we’re done with that and I’m bored !”

“Same!” Toga immediately states her support of what Uraraka said.

“They are right.” Yaoyorozu decides to pitch in with her own support to the idea. “We don’t have a lot to do in the Dungeon, and one can only fast forward by sleeping so much before it starts to grow tiresome. Besides, I really wish to see more of this world.”

How about picking up that mourner from Aeonia’s graveyard?

“That would be cool!” Uraraka decides, only to immediately backtrack on this somewhat. “But, wait: aren’t they a type of a ghost? How do we, you know, injure a ghost?”

I don’t think that it’s a good idea.

If we show up again, and we come with even more people, Aeonia might start asking questions.

I’d prefer not to have to answer any of her questions before we can sign a contract with her.

“That’s a good point.” Yaoyorozu agrees with him. “What about that iron mine you’ve said you found? It supposedly had more than one level, right?”

Huh, I didn’t think of that. But yes, it had more than one level. And we’ve only explored the first one.

We could also assess the Rampant Bloom’s presence in the area, while at it.

“Let’s do it then!” Uraraka raises her fist with a fierce expression on her face. “Let’s go and see how deep that mine goes!”

Well, they didn’t have a lot of choice on that field, and Izuku found himself absolutely incapable of saying no to her when she was making that face.

***

The next morning they all depart from the Dungeon, heading towards the mine. To Monoma and Spinner it was the first time that they’ve ever got to see the outside world. Frankly, none of them appeared to be super amazed by it.

Then again, it’s just a lengthy walk through the forest. They’ve both done that in the past, if only during the Training Camp (and no, none of them feel alright with addressing Spinner’s and Toga’s role in it, it’s best forgotten).

Toga’s antipathy towards the very concept of being soaked in water has been easily nullified by Yaoyorozu casting [Float] on her and Kirishima just throwing her over a river, with the spell deactivated the moment she reached the other side.

“I’m surprised you didn’t drop her into the water.” Monoma says quietly.

“It has crossed my mind.” Yaoyorozu replies in kind. “But I’ve decided to not needlessly antagonize people that I might end up having to fight side by side with. Consider this a gentle suggestion that you should correct your behavior before someone will really stab you, Monoma-kun.”

I think that the best way to respond to that is ‘big oof’.

Monoma, while an exemplary student, definitely had some… behavioral issues.

That he should correct, as he’s now living in a much less forgiving world that has no patience for his… quirks.

You call it a quirk, I call it a severe inferiority complex that he copes with by acting larger than life

What?

You can’t diagnose people (correctly), that requires the understanding of human psychology that you shouldn’t be capable of!

Wow, rude.

Yes. That was my intent.

Look, I can speak serious language

What I did up there was just me translating ‘I call it a small dick syndrome that he copes with by being an annoying little shit’’ into serious language.

That sounds more like you, indeed.

You want me to translate my diagnosis of your ‘childhood friend’ for you?

No.

It’s a severe inferiority complex that he copes with by acting aggressive as that makes people back down from confronting him over his sources of inferiority, which is the only way in which he can feel safe.

Like a dog that someone has really fucked up with bringing up, and that makes him bark and lunge at literally everyone

Sigh.

***

There were no spiders on the 1st Level of the Iron Mine. In fact, they’ve found no activity there whatsoever. Dust, abandoned tools that they had no longer any use for and the leftover of the largely dead spider lair.

In short, it was boring.

“So, are we heading back up to look for Rampant Bloom forces?” Uraraka asks soon after their inspection of the spider lair is finished (Yaoyorozu wanted to check it out, just for her own curiosity). “I think that those have to lead somewhere.” She adds as she points towards the crevices in the wall.

It’s where her past spider maiden nemesis has likely emerged from. And where there was one creature, they could be more.

Especially as they were missing a lot of spiders if they go by the number of open eggs in this place. All those spiders had to go somewhere, right?

“I don’t think there’s a point in doing so currently.” Yaoyorozu replies, staring at the crevices with a thoughtful look on her face. “I took note of the terrain surrounding the entrance to the mine. Considering where those tunnels are going, I think that I know their destination. There seems to be a pretty deep valley starting in that direction in a few hundred meters.”

“Wait, really?” Uraraka appears surprised by it. Then again, so is Izuku.

Right, bad long-range eyesight.

“I’ve seen it too.” Spinner decides to join the talk. “There’s a large terrain depression there. It looks almost like a sinkhole, just a really big one.”

Now, one thing had to be said. Spinner’s eyesight might have been better than Yaoyorozu’s. But neither Tomura nor Izuku were going to use it. Ever.

It had a larger spectrum of visible light and a wider color palette. It was pretty much like seeing the world while being on strong drugs (or that’s how Tomura described it, except when asked if he knew that from experience he said no).

Look through his eyes for a few minutes and you’ll get a headache, even if you were a talking tesseract.

On a side note, it was only after experiencing it that Tomura realized why Spinner was always owning him in games requiring attention to details. He could spot shit on the screen easier because attempting to keep things hidden from the player was a lost cause when his eyesight saw colors completely different.

Tomura was absolutely livid about it, but he then reminded himself that Spinner likely had no idea that he had a better eyesight than everyone else, because… well, that’s just how the League worked.

Barely.

“Huh.” Uraraka scratches the side of her head with her shield arm. “Well, that’s awkward. So, I guess that it shouldn’t be a problem unless we head to that sinkhole and that we’re cleared to head deeper into the mine, right?”

“I think so, yes.” Yaoyorozu agrees.

“Let’s go then.” Uraraka decides. “Onward, to the adventure!”

I’m kind of surprised by Ochako taking the lead in the party.

I expected Yaoyorozu-san to take that position from her, but she seems to be more of an advisor.

Have you seen how your girlfriend is acting like?

If you tried to order her around, she would just ignore it and do her own stuff

There is no way of ordering such a person around

Yaoyorozu trying to lead Uraraka around would be the equivalent of a very small person (like, Mineta) trying to walk around a very big dog around, like a Hound Dog-large

Mineta can think that he’s in charge until he and Hound Dog will want to go in different directions

And Yaoyorozu understands that

Your ability to suddenly become intelligent and socially competent when you can compare things to dogs is mildly concerning.

sigh

Look

Before landing here I was forced to endure the longest and most annoying battle exercise in my life, and without Dabi

you know why?

Because he decided that it was annoying

So he just fucked off because his plans just happened to be coinciding with mine, and that’s why he followed me, but he had no interest in, you know, being comrades for real

so I had experience with this very same problem

Are you sure that the Japanese Targets didn’t have a discount on leather jackets at that time?

…

Pffffft

***

“Hmm…” Uraraka glances down the shaft one more time. It’s very, very dark . “You know, I think that we could use the elevator, but we probably shouldn’t. Too loud and so on. But we have a lot of ropes, yeah?”

“Yes.” Yaoyorozu replies. “So… Spinner takes the point?”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to slide down the rope right into an ambush.” Uraraka nods back. Spinner gives them both a surprised look. “Use your Vertical Movement and go down the shaft, then report back when you find another level.”

“Oh, alright.” Spinner nods. “I can get that done.”

Man, I feel bad about him all of a sudden

Sometimes I feel as if he was doing most of the heavy work in the League, at least ever since we’ve lost Kurogiri

Really?

Isn’t he pretty much an ascended NEET fanboy?

How did he become your go-to man?

ugh

You’re going to make fun of it, but let’s go

He was our designated driver, he learned how to drive from playing racing games

What?

He was the guy overseeing our finances, he learned that from business games

He maintained our equipment, he learned that from playing ‘Support Engineering Simulator’ game series

He also repaired the car we’ve stolen, learned how to from playing ‘Car Mechanic Simulator’ game series

Oh, he also kept supplying Dabi with his favorite drinks, by shoplifting for the alcohol and then making said drinks for him. Yes, he learned the latter from playing ‘Bartender Simulator’ game

You can start laughing.

…

I’m, to be honest, way too impressed right now to laugh.

If you’re not pulling my leg, Spinner is built different and he became one of the rare cases of villains that I genuinely respect.

You’re the weirdest hero wannabe I’ve ever met

You’re the weirdest villain I’ve ever met, and that’s after me having to battle a youtuber and being more casually outmatched in the first half of the battle than I was by Overhaul.

Wait, what?

Who is that youtuber and can we recruit him?

Ugh.

***

I forgot to put it earlier.

Yaoyorozu's current drip.

image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/05/02/image.png]