They’ve spent some more time, just lounging in the bed, before eventually getting up and picking up their clothes.
“You know, I consider staying a wolf beastkin forever.” Uraraka surprises Izuku by speaking suddenly while putting on her shirt. “With the whole ‘have your soul bound through the cheat code’ thing.”
“Eh?” Izuku blinks in her direction, the shock interrupting the process of pulling up his pants. “Really? What about your eyesight?”
He’s had the wolf’s eyes for merely a while, and he already noticed all the issues with that. And that’s despite not getting to leave the Dungeon. The missing colors and the shortsightedness was a pain in the ass, really.
“Well, it’s not perfect.” Uraraka admits. “But the sense of smell and improved hearing are both really cool. I’ve already gotten used to having weaker eyesight, and I pretty much can’t even imagine myself without this new smell of mine.”
“Well, it is pretty cool.” Izuku admits. “I’m yet to figure it out fully and…”
“You remember yourself mentioning that dogs can smell emotions off people?” Uraraka says quietly just as she suddenly leans closer to him… and sniffs the side of his neck, startling him slightly. “I think I figured it out by now. And I really love how you smell when I’m around. And when we’re together.”
Izuku stares at her, wide-eyed, looking for words to say in response to it before failing and blushing furiously. Ochako clearly takes that as a sign of a job well done, and winks at him before returning to putting her clothes back on.
“Don’t do anything about it quite yet.” She then informs him. “The soul binding thing, I mean. There’s no point in it when I don’t even know how to improve myself. We need to learn more about this world before doing anything like this.”
“M-makes sense.” Izuku snaps out of it and finishes putting on his clothes.
“By the way, can I ask you a question?” Uraraka then speaks to him again, interrupting the process again. “Just… answer me honestly, it might be a bit embarrassing, but I really won’t mind the truth, okay?”
“O-okay?” Izuku doesn’t exactly like the ‘bit embarrassing’ part, but if she’s asking him for it, he’ll do it. “What is it?”
“Did you, when creating your body, do anything with the, uhm, sliders?” Uraraka asks, and Izuku blushes when he realizes what sort of ‘sliders’ she means.
“I… I d-didn’t!” Izuku replies quickly. “It went with the same, errr, setting as it was on Earth.”
“Oh.” Uraraka blinks at him. “Well, I can only hope that my version there won’t be a dumbass and will eventually ask you out. If she won’t, then she’ll miss out on a lot and will forever regret it.”
Izuku blinks at her again, absolutely and completely confused.
***
The situation after that was pretty normal. Izuku and Ochako returned to the living room again and spent a while chatting cheerfully and holding hands, Izuku slowly processing the fact that he now had a lover (or girlfriend, he genuinely wasn’t sure which word was better here).
Processing and basking in it.
And they also kissed a few more times while waiting for the others to return. Izuku… really couldn’t have enough of it. And neither did Ochako.
And then things go bad.
Disconnect and get back to the Core, now
Uraraka, go and untangle Toga, we need her right fucking now.
What?
***
What’s going on?
Yaoyorozu spotted visitors heading in our direction when returning from the grove with new herbs
They’re coming from the direction of the suspected Rampant Bloom’s lair
No
She spotted spiders, human-spiders and some robed humanoids among them
No, just no
How did they find us?!
My theory?
Smell
Blood. Uraraka and Toga were hurt during our second visit to the mine.
Yes
They must be following the smell, there is a chance that they’ll lose the trail when they reach the river but we have to be ready
Toga, I have a mission for you
It’s very fucking urgent
“Mm-hmm?” Toga lets out through the gag (her face, naturally, with a furious blush on it), Uraraka currently busy freeing her limbs.
Grab the key to Aeonia’s sanctuary and run there as fast as fucking possible
We need her here, asap or we might be fucking toast.
“Mm-hmm.” Toga nods, Uraraka pulling her gag out. “Gah. Alright, I’m going there right now! Don’t die, alright?”
No promises are made
***
Yaoyorozu remains on the lookout by the edge of the cliff, close to the secret exit of the Dungeon, just as Toga finally manages to reach it. The catgirl runs past her, using [Cat Leap] whenever possible and rushing south, towards Aeonia’s graveyard.
Both Izuku and Tomura switch over to her eyesight. They can, indeed, see a group in the distance, most of them constantly covered by trees, obfuscating their exact number. But there were definitely a lot of them.
Yaoyorozu-san?
“I’ve counted about eighty of them.” She reports immediately. “Most of them are spiders, the ones that we’ve already come to know. The remaining ones are those hooded figures that I can’t see clearly. There are seven of those, I think.”
You think we can take them on?
“It all depends on how dangerous the hooded ones are.” Yaoyorozu replies. “The spiders we might be able to defeat with the use of terrain, the boulder traps alone should completely shred them.”
Lovely
Ah, crap
The group of Occasa’s worshippers crossed the river and seemed to have caught their trail again. Their vanguard, in the form of one of the hooded figures and a few giant spiders, began to march directly towards the Dungeon entrance.
Get down before they cut you off at the Floor Guardian Room
“On it.” Yaoyorozu nods before moving back from the edge of the cliff and running towards the secret exit.
***
Some time later, two people have entered the Dungeon, accompanied by four giant spiders (two Biters and two Spitters) heading in slightly ahead of them and spreading through the entrance area.
Both the Bloom’ cultists were definitely women, that much they could be certain, mostly thanks to their robes being almost definitely weaved from spider silk, albeit coloured black. But with their entire body covered by either those or by black masks with some red shapes and symbols surrounding their eyes, they weren’t able to say more than that.
The first one has some sort of golden trim surrounding their hood and a spider-like symbol hanging off their neck on a wide necklace made from what looks like a golden silk. Definitely the more important one.
I think they are elves
The body-build fits
Good point
“Dungeon.” One of the figures says while looking around, in what’s definitely the elven language. The voice feels… grating . Annoying. Just downright disgusting. “Newly born one. The Webmistress favors us. Its core will make for a splendid sacrifice.”
They didn’t need to hear that to know what their intentions were. They looked at them and saw red dots. Hostile intent. The cultists were here to kill them. Just, damn, great.
“Can it be a problem?” The other speaks. Their voice is definitely almost as bad as the other one.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“No.” The first one replies. “It’s a young, weak and stupid one. Send Illea, Vinya and Uka. Have them take half of the Holy Ones with them. I’ll let them prove themselves to the Family.”
“As you order.” The second one nods and walks out of the Dungeon, almost immediately followed by the first one (who seems to be in charge of their group).
They are coming in two waves?
You think that we’ll be able to reset the traps after dealing with the first one?
I think so.
But we have a limited amount of mana left, so it all depends on how much we lose in the process.
***
Some time later, the 1st Level is absolutely flooded with spiders. They count seven Biters, seven Spitters, and six Spider Maidens, alongside three cultists, two of which were almost certainly elves, with the third one likely being some type of a beastkin.
Giant Spiders: The Civil War
I just hope that the cultists won’t convert our spiders into more of their servants with some cheat magic.
Thankfully, they didn’t, although one of them did try to cast some magic on the first pair of spiders that they’ve run into.
“It doesn’t work.” The suspected beastkin says, their voice… What was with the voice of all the cultists?! Those voices were just wrong . Was something wrong with their throats? “They belong to the Dungeon.”
“Regretful.” One of their compatriots replies and points at the two dungeon spiders. Immediately, their vanguard swarms them and tears them to pieces. “Let’s move forward.”
The spiders of the 1st Level weren’t that much of a threat to the invaders, regretfully. They couldn’t order the creatures present there aside from assigning them to a [Lair] or a [Floor Guardian] room.
Otherwise, they were simply living there, wandering around, not particularly hungry thanks to the Dungeon’s ambient magic offering them necessary satiety, and attacking the intruders under the compulsion that Dungeon made a crucial part of them.
They had very limited capacity for ordering them around unless they were intelligent enough to understand vocal orders.
And the creatures on their first level weren’t quite intelligent enough. And so, they were engaging the intruders in very small groups.
Within twenty minutes, the cultists succeeded in clearing out both [Spider Breeding Chambers] and defeating the two [Spider Maidens] with some minimal trouble, losing only three spiders (two Biters and one Spitter) in the process.
The cultists didn’t even get to use their magic (whatever it was and however it worked).
Worst of all? They also destroyed the shrines. The absolute disrespect.
***
The second level is where they’ve decided to establish a first ‘real’ level of defense, by virtue of having enough space and an additional support in the form of Komori and her small legion of lignomorphs that she could actually command and that would be lost if they let the attackers get past the 2nd Level.
They also had a highly uneven and almost maze-like area of the [Underground Ecosystem] which could be used for an ambush or a flanking attack. And that’s what Uraraka planned to do.
Some time later the first of the spiders began to flood into the [Underground Ecosystem], immediately spreading around and looking for things to kill, with the three cultists following them alongside most of the Spider Maidens.
Soon a clash started as the spider vanguard ran into [Lesser Lignomorphs] and almost immediately discovered a problem.
Lignomorphs were nearly impervious to the [Giant Biter Spiders] poison due to their peculiar biology. They could be restrained by the [Giant Spitter Spiders] and torn to shreds by the needle-like fingers of the [Spider Maidens], but they could dish quite a lot of damage to them in retaliation, their lashes tearing off the spiders’ legs, blinding them and then, when they were largely immobile, finding a way to tear off their carapace and crudely vivisect them.
It was a brutal battle that only got worse when Komori showed up on the battlefield, immediately exposing the enemy's mistake. They’ve deployed three Spider Maidens as a group to eliminate the [Lesser Lignomorphs] without getting any injuries in the process.
They didn’t expect a [Hamadryad] being present on the level.
Komori stepped into the larger cave room where the three Spider Maidens were busy tearing a [Lesser Lignomorph] to pieces and immediately snapped her finger, making roots and tendrils erupt under one of them, grabbing its body and slamming it into the ground.
Then two more [Lesser Lignomorphs] step into the cave after her, immediately engaging the two remaining Maidens, allowing Komori to focus on the one that was closest to her.
It can’t do a lot when she fires needles at it, the projectiles piercing its upper body’s skin in multiple places, before she gets close enough to wrap the tendril leash around the Maiden’s head before instantly tearing it off.
She let a third [Lesser Lignomorph] move in and start to tear off the carapace pieces of the blinded creature despite its increasingly desperate struggle as she moves over to another one.
As Komori’s fighting the spiders, the cultists realize that something’s not going as they intended it to. Another wave of creatures is sent to engage the hamadryad that the vanguard encountered, one of them having clearly possessed some sort of spell that lets them see through their eyes.
There were still some creatures around them, but it was all that they could hope for. And, in fact, what they wanted to achieve from the start.
There was a hidden chamber in the middle of the [Underground Ecosystem], where Uraraka, Monoma, Kirishima, Spinner and Yaoyorozu gathered up earlier. Waiting for the right time.
Monoma-kun, it’s time, hit them with [Rage] and then attack.
“I don’t even need that spell right now.” Uraraka groans while raising her spear for a moment. “How dare those creatures interrupt our time together?! I’m going to find and burn their breeding grounds to the ground, slaughter them to the last one and steal all their valuables, just wait and see!”
And no, that was before Monoma enraged everyone in the hidden chamber with his magical bell. After that happened, she was just straight up livid, her body trembling in barely controlled fury that seeked to be unleashed in the most bloody way possible.
Having her act like that over their date being interrupted would be enough to make Izuku blush and smile faintly… if he had a face right now, that is.
So
your girlfriend is basically female Conan the Barbarian
You know what?
that’s surprisingly cool for someone like you
Shhh, it’s the middle of a battle.
They push open the secret exit and immediately charge outside, into the slight opening some distance away from where Komori was fighting (while being slowly overwhelmed by the spiders that were converging on her position).
Uraraka grabbed her spear with her shield hand and pulled a javelin from the quiver on her back, before immediately throwing it at the cultist at the other end of said opening, who was in the process of turning towards the new source of noises.
The projectile hits the cultist squarely in the shoulder, the elf letting out a distorted scream while grabbing the javelin sticking out of her body. Immediately making Izuku realize that Ochako really meant the ‘slaughter them to the last’ part.
Huh. That was quite h… concerning. Yes, it was concerning. Then again, it was self-defense against people who wanted to slaughter them all, which definitely made it more reasonable in Izuku’s eyes.
There are two more uninjured cultits in front of them, alongside four more spiders and one spider maiden.
“Attack!” One of the cultists shouts and the spiders immediately lunge towards the new arrivals.
Spinner fires an arrow at one of the cultists, but they’ve succeeded in casting some sort of protection magic, making the arrow bounce off their abdomen. A moment later their companion retaliates in one of the most horrid ways Izuku ever saw.
They take a deep breath, their back leaning backward, their silky mask unwrapping itself around their face… before their throat suddenly bulges, and the cultist projectile vomits a whole bunch of spiders in a concentrated cloud that flies past their changing melee fighters and hits Spinner.
Who, understandably, freaks out and drops his bow while trying to get those things off him.
Oh, fuck
This is going into my Nightmare Fuel folder
Uraraka storms past the two [Giant Spiders] that tried to stop her with [Predator’s Advance] before slamming into the beastkin cultist, shield-first, pushing her back. The silk of their mask splits and she gets to see giant spider mandibles and legs begin to erupt out of her mouth, as if she was trying to vomit it straight onto her from above.
Said ‘it’ being a spider likely larger than her head.
No. Just… no.
Uraraka suddenly raises her shield, its upper edge hitting her in the jaw with enough strength to make her mouth close onto the spider thing, partially biting through its own legs and body. That interrupts whatever scary shit she was casting (was that even casting, or were those things just inside her?) and makes her start choking on whatever was just coming back down her throat.
Uraraka pulls back and is about to impale the creature on a [Lesser Thrust] when she hears Izuku shouting ‘BEHIND YOU’ in her mind, so she immediately dodges to the side, the hand of a spider maiden piercing through the place where she was a moment ago.
She slams the creature back with a [Shield Bash], stunning it completely a second before Kirishima’s log slams its spider body from above, reinforced with a [Heavy Blow], splattering it completely, the spider maiden beginning to collapse onto the floor.
Kirishima has already destroyed two more spiders and finished the cultist that Uraraka injured with a javelin, and was doing pretty well in general, with Yaoyorozu using the [Move] spell to intercept the ball of web that a [Spitter] fired at him… until now. Because now the third cultist extended her hands and had webs erupt from them, like some discount spiderman, targeting his legs and arms.
And despite his prodigious strength, he fails to free himself before he is bitten by another spider. He tears it off its body and crushes it in its hands, only for another one to jump at his back and bite him in the nape of his neck.
He grabs and throws it at the wall, but it’s clear that getting injected with poison into a place close to his brain was enough to overcome even his body’s natural resistance. The effect isn’t as potent as it was with Toga, but it’s clear that his attempts to free himself from the growing pile of web enveloping him are steadily growing weaker as dizziness and weakness set in.
Uraraka impales the cultist that she knocked out earlier on her spear with a [Lesser Thrust] further empowered with Monoma’s [Enraged Blow] buff. The beastkin cultist meekly tries to grab the spear sticking out of its chest, with spiders erupting from under their robe’s sleeves.
Uraraka acts quickly and kicks her off the spear, before shaking the spiders off. She then immediately loses it.
The third cultist fired more of those irritating spiderman imitating webs and wrapped it around its hilt, before pulling it out of her hand.
The cultist is then hit by a [Lesser Firebolt], but the silk is clearly protecting her pretty well from flames, so it’s at best an annoyance.
Crap, we’ve just lost Monoma.
The third cultist must have been ordering the spiders to come to your position from all around while you were dealing with the other two, one of them just jumped at him from the wall and bit him.
Kirishima is about to drop from the fight too.
Uraraka growls. Were they going to lose another fight? No. It wasn’t a loss. It was a skirmish. They were harassing their enemy. It was fine to retreat before attacking the enemy again.
She jumps back, avoiding what looked like a poisonous spit from the third cultist, before starting to pull back. They aren’t ready to announce to the cultists how intelligent they are (they don’t want them to suspect anything was strange with that Dungeon), so she just runs back, expecting Izuku to relay her unspoken orders.
And he does that.
Spinner has managed to clear the spiders off him and fired two more arrows at the third cultist, neither of them hitting her but still forcing her to cast the body protection spell repeatedly.
Yaoyorozu gave a quick look to Monoma. He managed to kill the spider that leapt at him with his dagger, but had enough of its poison pumped into him that he was clearly about to go into anaphylactic shock, and knew it, so he just nodded at her.
She runs past him, casting [Earthen Shield] just in time to intercept a web projectile from a Giant Spitter Spider that has just arrived on the battlefield, before disappearing behind a corner of the cave.
Uraraka ran after her pretty quickly alongside Spinner.
Elsewhere, Komori was finally overrun by the spiders. She was biological enough to suffer from their bites (if not even nearly as much as what they did to sapients of this world), and eventually that weakened her enough for the last remaining spider maiden to slit her throat and tear her arm off in the elbow.
That weakened her enough for the remaining spiders to swarm her.
The initial engagement cost them Kirishima, Monoma and Komori and all of the [Lignomorphs], at the exchange for the enemy’s advance party being absolutely massacred in the process.
Out of three cultists, only one remained.
Out of seven spider maidens, only one remained.
Out of around thirty giant spiders, maybe ten remained.
Frankly, if not for the fact that the remaining cultist gathered up the spiders around her, and that many of them could easily knock their enemies out with one venomous bite, they’d have enough strength for a successful counterattack.
Great success.
Oh, crap
The group above must have some sort of sensor link with the spiders and realized what has happened, and are sending in reinforcements
A cultist as a shepherd, three spider maidens and a dozen more regular spiders
Damn it.
The advance party is holding down and waiting for the reinforcements. Can we counterattack them?
We’ve lost one of two of our main damage dealers, Spinner’s lacking the armor piercing capabilities to injure the enemy, and Yaoyorozu’s ability to deal damage is next to zero
The answer is no
You’re right and I hate it.
Let’s retreat behind your beloved ball traps and hope that they’ll weaken the second wave enough for us to win.