The fight against two lesser deathblades was, indeed, a much harder one. It was so bad, in fact, that they almost lost it. They ended up losing Tetsutetsu and Ashido before their enemies finally broke.
And yes, it’s another fight that Yanagi ended up sitting out, learning even more about the basics of necromancy as a profession from Aeonia. Naturally, this wasn’t enough to make her in any way qualified as one, but at least she learned something.
She was definitely looking forward to Aeonia settling in the Dungeon so that she could learn more things from her on a daily basis.
For now, however, she had to bid her goodbyes and help the others carry their spoils of battle to the Dungeon, which was a problem especially as they somehow managed to lose two out of three of their ogres.
“I hate it.” Kirishima shakes his head. “I hate it that we’re getting so used to dying that it doesn’t even bother us. How’s that manly?! I’ve just seen my girlfriend and my brother straight up dying, and I know that they’ll be alright with that, but just… I don’t like seeing that happen.”
“Don’t worry!” Uraraka gently slaps him in the back. As expected from his massive frame, she feels the impact more than he did. “We’re just gonna have to get better and this will all stop. Besides, sooner or later we’ll get some semi-useful daemons that we can use in greater numbers, and you know what that means?”
“That the Dungeon will get more populated?” Kirishima asks.
“No.” Uraraka replies. “That we’ll officially progress into an RTS stage, and then we’ll be able to merely lead or even just accompany entire units of daemons serving our Dungeon. They’ll be dying and coming back to life instead of us. Besides, won’t fighting an entire battle alongside a giant army, clashing with another one of equal strength, battling it out against legions and legions of enemies alongside our comrades be super manly ?”
“You know what, you’re right!” Kirishima agrees with her after a moment of thinking it over. “That vision is definitely super manly. Of course, for as long as our cause is manly.”
“And it will be, because we’re still the good guys.” Uraraka grins at him. Kirishima smiles back, his usual enthusiasm and optimism being clearly restored. “See, that’s the spirit!”
“I get it that you’re having a moment, but could you like, please get back to helping us drag that goddamn deathblade up this hill, finally .” Monoma hisses at them from the side, looking as if he finally began to regret promising Yanagi to bring it back to help her in her experiments .
Uh-oh.
That’s definitely a good idea.
***
This time, Izuku wasn’t waiting for them with a hot shower and a massage, but mostly because it was a much shorter trip outside, and Uraraka didn’t get dunked in blood again, even if she really felt that she got close to it when Ashido died.
And yes. Being the adorable and kind cookie that he was, Izuku did ask them if they wanted it while they were still heading back to the Dungeon, but Uraraka told him that it’s not necessary and that he shouldn’t waste anymore mana.
Toga looked quite disappointed by that. Her disappointment vanished with a quick hug from Uraraka. She was…
She was very low maintenance most of the time. Just give her enough attention, scratch her head (or the back of her neck/area right above the base of her tail, she really liked both) just right, give her a hug and a quick kiss, and she’ll immediately switch over to being happy and satisfied with her life.
Sometimes it really felt as if she was just a human pet for them both. Uraraka didn’t mind it, though. And clearly neither did Toga.
As Izuku and Shigaraki were left to their own devices (mostly checking out what they unlocked this time and furnishing Yanagi’s new [Necromancer’s Laboratory]), the rest decided to eat together (alongside their now resurrected friends) to celebrate another new and successful expedition, and share their opinions about a certain unwanted visitor that came to the Dungeon when they were away.
Everyone seemed to be at the very least highly disturbed by the purifier’s very existence. People with some past issues with law like Mr. Compress doubly so.
At some point in the talk, when they all moved over to the subject of the other burial site that Spinner (the only person missing from the Dungeon right now) has discovered, Yanagi decided to speak her mind.
“Can’t we just go there and befriend them?” She says, raising her hand to get their attention. “They might know more about the area than we or Aeonia do.”
“Befriend them?” Monoma looks absolutely shocked at the prospect. “I… huh?”
“Aeonia said that they won’t attack if we don’t try to barge in.” Yanagi points out. “Just knock on the door, introduce ourselves as servants of a local Dungeon, tell them we’re not going to attack them and ask them if they’d want anything from us and if they know any interesting places in the area for us to visit. How’s that so surprising?”
Silence at the table. Kirishima and Tetsutetsu exchanging quick glances. They aren’t the only ones to do that, but with their sizes, it’s definitely the most visible case. They are really bad at being subtle.
“I… guess that we’ve gotten a bit too used to treating all the discovered places as potential raiding locations.” Yaoyorozu eventually comments. “Trading, diplomacy and receiving quests from them just… wasn’t the first thing that came to our mind.”
“Well, we’ll have to ask Shigaraki and Izuku about their opinion on that.” Uraraka says. “But I guess that it feels like a good idea. Just… you’ll probably have to sit out that mission. I have a feeling that the lampades might not like you being there, at all.”
“Sure.” Yanagi shrugs. “I’ll be busy getting familiar with my laboratory either way. I’ll likely be spending most of my free time there from now on.”
“Excuse me for asking, but… what exactly is such a laboratory needed for?” Yaoyorozu decides to satisfy her boundless curiosity. “I thought that most of what necromancers do is just casting spells.”
“Corpse dissections, mostly.” Yanagi replies idly while putting a piece of meat in her mouth.
“Excuse me?” Yaoyorozu asks again, clearly confused with her answer.
“To create greater undead and summon daemons I require better materials.” Yanagi explains after she swallows the food. “Flesh, bones, blood, skin, internal organs and so on. Those can come from different donors, for as long as the quality is correct, there’s enough of it and it’s correctly placed. However, keeping those parts as fresh as possible is key, which requires appropriate storage and regular casting of correct spells.”
Aeonia explained to her that Life Tap is a spell whose primary usage is to preserve the corpses for a bit longer by killing all life within indeed - which seemed to include the bacterias responsible for their decay.
Not the word she used, but that’s what Yanagi understood from the explanation.
“It’s a bit more complicated with lesser undead, but it’s still possible.” She continues her explanation. “In their case, well, it depends on the type of an undead that you’re trying to make. For skeletons, you have to remove all the flesh, obviously. For zombies you need to wait until the decay sets in, for spectrals you need not the corpses themselves but things that were theirs for a long time, that had their owners imprint themselves on it, leaving a memory to be resurrected in a way.”
Only after a few seconds does she realize that there’s a dead silence at the table. Yanagi looks at the others just to see the looks of confusion and (in some cases) faint revulsion that they were giving her.
Uh-oh.
“Sorry for saying all that at the table.” She quickly bows her head a little. “It’s not exactly a subject to talk about when people are eating.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Monoma says before sighing loudly. “We have a lot of such subjects, like whatever the Ecstasy is doing at their mine right now. Eventually we had to stumble upon one of them.”
“Right.” Uraraka clearly agrees with him. “I guess that another one of us went native, huh? Well, for as long as you’re happy with that, the least I can do is accept and support you, right?”
“Oh, errr, thank you.” Yanagi replies. She only now figured out that it wasn’t exactly about talking about such things at the dinner table, but being alright with such things in general.
She, honestly, doesn’t care. She is now a necromancer, and that’s what matters to her. She is going to do her best for them all to survive, as they’re still her friends (some of them, at least), but she’s going to do it while achieving her dreams.
***
Both Izuku and Shigaraki decide that Yanagi’s idea for indulging in some diplomacy with the lampades from the other burial site is a good one, even if Shigaraki had some pointy words said about meeting potential allies in sketchy places.
Izuku tried to make fun of that only to discover that he referred to Overhaul killing Magne and half-disarming Mr. Compress, at which point he decided that it wasn’t funny and he’d feel bad if he tried to make fun of any of it.
He even apologized to Shigaraki, which only made him more annoyed. That was definitely the best way of apologizing to someone like him.
As their entire expedition group, minus Yanagi, departed, they had the time to consider further expansions of their Dungeon.
Yanagi was busy in her laboratory, training her dissection skills (and her newly obtained [Butchering III] skill that made her level up as a Necromancer from level 19 to 20) on some human corpses.
How did she obtain mortal corpses, at least aside from the [Deathblades]? Well, looks like the long-forgotten ‘Decoration’ in the form of desiccated human corpse was finally useful.
No. Izuku didn’t want to even think about what was happening there. Is he getting… corrupted as well? He is noticing himself steadily agreeing to more and more… outlandish ideas, simply because he already agreed to the past one and this one was merely a bit worse than it.
Then again, what was he supposed to do? Tell Ochako to stop enjoying combat? Tell Himiko to stop being happy that she can finally live without having to conform? Tell Yanagi-san to stop indulging in her (admittedly slightly concerning) childish dream of being a necromancer, even if it required butchering corpses?
Would they even listen to him, in the first place? And if not, then what is he supposed to do? Pull their souls out of their body and keep them in a perpetual freezer? To begin with, would Shigaraki even agree to that?
Probably not, if only to spite Izuku.
So, he quite literally couldn’t do anything. So… should he just… stop resisting it? Or, to be exact, set up some simple new… is the moral system a good term to use here? One or more rules that would act as uncrossable lines to him, the whole thing allowing him to recover his bearings, more or less?
…
No harming innocents. That was it. That was his new moral guiding light.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
He was going to absolutely veto everything that would involve injuring, killing or robbing people who didn’t deserve that. People who did harm, murder or rob innocents? Free hunting season.
He has to get used to people dying. He doesn’t like it, but he has to. Not a lot of people in this world seem to care.
When it comes to things that are merely ‘offending’ the sensibilities that he carried out of his old world… Well, as long as Yanagi-san isn’t butchering innocent people, what’s the problem?
No, he is also going to draw a line on butchering innocent people killed by others. They might have family members wishing to give them a proper burial. It counts as pillaging innocent people.
That was more or less everything he needed, really. Simple and straightforward. Not a lot of nuances there, then again, that would only make it more complicated.
Actually, now that he thinks about it…
Shigaraki, I have a question.
ugh
what is it
You mentioned once that in such isekai stories slavery is often a thing, right?
Ye, what about it
… are you into it?
what
Are you a fucking dumbass
Yeah, I’d definitely be rebelling against societal hierarchy if I wanted people to own other people and the latter not being able to do shit about it
that makes so much fucking sense
So you’re not interested in using that to obtain a woman who can - or in this case, has to - spend time with you?
Look
I might be a bit of a pervert
and I might have had very little contact with opposite gender
but I’m not a fucking incel, okay?
Everyone who uses the very system of slavery that way is even dumber and more worth killing than average user of said stupid fucking system, got it?
Okay
Sore spot, right?
Obviously
I was pretty much kidnapped and then groomed by an asshole who killed my beloved dog
I’m NOT into anything resembling this bullshit by definition
Great.
So, if it’s out there, we’re not touching it with a fifty feet pole and we don’t allow anyone in our domain to do so either.
We have that settled, okay.
let me guess
figuring out your new approach to this world after whatever bs Yanagi is doing, are you
… maybe.
sigh
You might want to add an exclusion clause to that one when daemons are involved
Unless we’re planning to get every single one of them eaten alive from the inside by one of our otherworldly associates, we’ll have to order them to do stuff against their will
Good point.
But I don’t want it to be a good point.
Ugh
Dumbass
Look, just think of yourself as a fucking prison, okay?
What?
Let’s say that we eat up a few of those Rose Guard guys/gals/non-binary whatevers
For as long as they’re following your orders, they can’t move around at random and do shit to other people
You - or in this case, we - are just literally a fucking prison for spiritual beings and lesser deities (in the future)
And I guess that forced work for inmates is a thing here
Oh.
Oh.
That makes sense.
So I can be alright with forcing daemons who belong to the ‘bad’ factions and did bad things to fight for us (fight or work, nothing yucky ), and it’ll just… make sense.
And for daemons of the ‘good’ factions, I can stick to signing contracts with them and treating them accordingly.
Of ‘good’ factions or, in cases like Aeonia’s, of ‘bad’ factions for as long as they’re reasonable enough to establish a contract with us.
That makes sense.
… wait, why are you helping me?
Because, you fucking heroic dumbass, I don’t want you to get a weird idea and start to vetoing reasonable, life-changing decisions that we as a Dungeon need because of some stupid fucking internal conflict
The faster you get through this bs, the faster I can be certain that you’re not going to become a critical weakness of this Dungeon
Got that?
Yeah!
It worked. He now had an ethical system that was a logical middle-ground, a compromise between what he wanted to live like and what this world and his entire new life had demanded from him.
It was a weight off his shoulders, really.
… you do realize though that if we find people in need out there, I will be adamant about helping them, right?
You don’t say?
Yes, yes I figured that much out.
And I’m ready to accept such an unfortunate situation if only because the alternative is getting chain-vetoed by you at everything that’s halfway logical
Besides, loot is loot, right?
Even if you go out to save a village of a bunch of boring sods, we’ll at least get the loot from whoever endangered it, and that’s good enough for me
You’re… strangely okay with catering to my moral needs, you know that?
Look
Overwhelming majority of our potential servants are hero students and heroes
I’m not stupid enough to not realize what my position there is
Even if I do order them all to go burn a village to the ground, they’re just not going to listen
For as long as you don’t do anything critically stupid and suicidal, I’m fine with being the reasonable one in our group and telling you all stuff that you’re too stupidly heroic to know while letting you and your loser friends chart up the course
Survival is my goal
And I’m even ready to conditionally listen to heroes if it means surviving
Alright
You’re just a tsundere
I’M GOING TO SKIN YOU FUCKING ALIVE YOU BRAT
That hits the spot.
Oh, really?
Well, there’s something that’s going to hit my spot
You know what that will be?
Seeing you trying to explain to All Might how permitting Yanagi to dissect human corpses for her own gains and all the other stuff that you’re going to do in the near future was absolutely necessary
I… I’ll manage, somehow.
and what about your mom
Stop talking about my mom or I’ll have Yanagi vivisect you
Okay, okay
Not like that’s possible, but considering your pure rage I wouldn’t be surprised if you manage to find a way, so I’ll not risk it
***
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/08/12/image.png]
1. Entrance, 2. Feeding Grounds, 3. Mining Areas, 4. Metalworks, 5. Projectile Trap, 6. Node Room, 7. Secret Tunnel, 8. Floor Guardian Room
Their end version of Level Fourth was… large . They ended up moving the entrance to it a bit, adding a rather giant zone surrounding it, one including a few new interesting bits that made this level a bit unique.
Such as a whopping eight [Feeding Grounds], which allowed them to house every single of their Cynocephali, making everyone who would try to fight their way into the deeper level be forced to deal with the equivalent of Cynocephali swarm that they faced when they initially entered the 2nd Level of the Ecstasy-occupied mine.
Each and every one of them resembled exactly what the name implied. Piles of bones of undefined creatures scattered around, Cynocephali constantly trying to chew on them or attempting to eat each other, only for their victim to bite back, both sides tearing each other constantly only for the act of feeding making themselves regenerate.
They’ve gotten manifested in their spiritual form. Their bodies weren’t that of long-dead (perhaps) elven miners. Instead, their bodies are slightly more muscular and fur-covered, the Cynocephalii now lacking clothes but also seemingly lacking genitals.
They now looked much more like humanoid dogs of various (but always large) breeds. There were no weapons there, limiting them to their fangs and pure physical strength together with extreme ferocity, lack of self-preservation and ability to regenerate injuries by devouring something.
Just to taunt the visitors some more, they’ve ended up putting three [Mining Areas] with a mixture of tin and copper ore veins around the entrance room, and then a [Metalworks] zone in the room right before the twisty corridor leading to the ‘old’ segment of the level.
There is one of these mana-fuelled smelters that should theoretically allow people to not only smelt tin and copper but also make bronze if they knew even the basics about smelting.
Of course, they’d have to spend hours carrying ore there, and waiting for the process to finish. And then carrying the whole thing outside of the Dungeon. Still, even a dozen or two bars of bronze should carry some value in a pre-industrial society, right?
And you’d have to do all of that while dealing with regularly respawning Cynocephali. Because [Lairs] can do that. Not super fast, but you’d still have to stay constantly on your guard while doing your mining & smelting routine.
The fall trap and the projectile trap stayed as they were, but once someone would rush their way through the latter, they’d enter a Node Room.
One that they just happened to populate with six of their recently obtained Gore Munchers. Or, well, they intended to populate them that way, as they first wanted their servants to come back home.
It was the first time when they were going to spawn previously hostile daemons, and they weren’t sure what to expect, so they decided to wait just in case.
They intended to get a few more Gore Munchers if possible, together with something a bit larger (no idea what exactly, at least for now) as the Floor Guardian fight.
In other words, the level was done.
I have a feeling that we’re keeping those a bit too… concentrated.
Whoever enters this level will have to deal with 69 Cynocephalii storming at them from all directions.
We don’t really have any other dungeon to observe so that we’ll know how to balance this place for average adventurers rather than a regular attack
We’ll figure it out eventually
But yes, we’ll likely end up having to make the Levels a bit… larger , but less concentrated, we’ll figure it out eventually
Right.
Guess it’s free time for now.
Yes.