Lorae turned out to be a wellspring of knowledge concerning the area, even if the years passing since the tomb was left effectively isolated from the world has put everything that she told them under the ‘requires verification’ status.

To begin with, they learned that this area was never truly settled, instead existing in something akin to a power vacuum between the elven states to the south and the beastkin tribes to the north.

The ‘shield-city of Tael’ that Lorae mentioned turned out to belong to the elves. ‘Shield-city’ in this case meant a heavily fortified settlement near the edge of the inhabited area, which was established for two reasons.

The first one was to act as a staging point for deeper expeditions into the unknown, by either soldiers or mercenaries/adventurers, which allowed the civilization to more or less know what was happening in the regions beyond and to exploit some of the natural resources existing there.

Usually, the things that were really valuable and didn’t require a large-scale harvesting process. So, miles-wide farming plot was a nope, but a small quarry where some particular rare stone was, or a mine, or some harvesting/hunting operation in the area where there were rare plants/animals was an option.

It just had to be something that could be somehow preserved, because taking all of those things back to civilization required forming a heavily-defended caravan. The sort of thing that you usually did once a month or so, not every day.

The second one was to literally act as a shield, taking in the first blow of any army/raiding party emerging from said no-man’s land before it could reach the more economically significant inhabited territories, and allowing the defenders of the region to mobilize and repel the attack.

Until some cult of the Hierarchy managed to perform daemon summoning on such a scale that they managed to raise a regular army that way. It ended up laying siege and eventually taking Tael. This broke the border defense line and allowed the Hierarchy forces to make a deeper push beyond it.

While the army and the cult were eventually defeated, Tael was still in their hands the last time someone visited the tomb. As a result of that - and the surrounding countryside being thoroughly decimated - the border of the elven kingdom of Vestiria was pushed back south.

Now, their Dungeon happened to be located in the Iron Brook Valley, which was a lengthy valley through which the Rust River flowed from the Drakespine Mountains in the center of the Vestirian Isle to the Vestirian Sea.

What was considered to be the center of civilization on the isle that was located in the south, where the elves lived. Everything north from the central Drakespine Mountains (which is where the shield-city of Tael was located) was generally considered to be more or less a no-man’s land.

Yes, despite the presence of the beastkin. To the Grand Empire (they elected not to prod too deeply into it for now, it felt like too much of a subject to get through it on one sitting either way), they were just a part of a larger problem, or to be exact the part of it called the Nine Hordes.

It was a notably less problematic one than most, to the point of occasionally getting some recruits for the auxiliary legions from them, and some trading happening here and there, but it still wasn’t officially a part of the ‘civilization’.

Where was this whole fragment getting to?

When Tael fell, the beastkin clearly pushed south in the absence of the elven presence in the region, enough for at least one of the tribes (the one that their past and future visitors belonged to) to settle somewhere south of that part of the Iron Brook Valley.

Before the fall of Tael, there was a marble quarry about one day of travel to the southwest, a hunting camp two days of travel to the east, a gold mine a bit above a day to the northeast, and a small fort almost three days to the west.

All of those locations could house something interesting and valuable - or be complete ruins with next to nothing interesting there. Still, they’d have to check it out. In fact, Izuku had Shigaraki immediately contact Spinner and ask him if he’s willing to head to the marble quarry right away.

And guess what? The answer was yes.

Spinner was doing his best to become one of the most useful people around, and that’s without them turning him into a walking instrument of doom by giving him a videogame or a few from which he could learn how people of this world fight.

Yes, Izuku still remembered his downright unbelievable skills in learning things from videogames.

Unless it was a quirk. Was there some sort of reptile out there that was good at mimicking the movements of others? Izuku has no idea, but he has some suspicions.

Look, just because his quirk theories were usually wrong didn’t mean that he couldn’t make more, okay? It never stopped Todoroki-kun with his really wild theories about everything.

No, Todoroki-kun. Izuku wasn’t All Might’s secret love child (unfortuna… errr). Ochako wasn't a secret child of Thirteen. Itsuka Kendou wasn’t a secret love child of Mt. Lady and Death Arms (their ages alone just didn’t fit). Kamino wasn’t a secret custody battle over Izuku and for God’s sake, All for One and All Might weren’t past lovers (and Inko wasn’t the surrogate mother for their child, just… no ).

And, very importantly, Kaminari wasn’t related to Pikachu. No, the Pokemon series wasn’t a tale of a Dawn of Quirks in Australia. No, Todoroki-kun, I don’t care that Kaminari started shouting ‘Pika-pika, PIKACHU!’ each time he was about to unleash his quirk, he was just making fun of you.

And also, no. If Dabi really was a much uglier Endeavor coming back from a future where All Might became immortal and thus could forever occupy the Number One Hero spot, trying his hardest to stop that utopian future from coming into fruition, I’m sure that everyone would notice how he was clearly a Todoroki.

Especially your family.

There were also other revelations, including some of nearly theological nature.

“The victory of the Rapturous Ecstasy is highly unlikely, especially a long-term one.” Lorae appears adamant about that. “I can say a lot of things about the beastkin, but not that they can’t fight well.”

“While I agree that they’re rather ferocious in combat…” Yaoyorozu replies. “... I don’t think that I have any good things to say about their commanding skills. Or tactics. Or readiness to do anything that isn’t charging head first into danger.”

That really was a good summary of their past history with them, yeah. Izuku can agree with that.

“However bad they are at it, Rapturous Ecstasy is worse .” Lorae replies calmly. “Out of all the pantheons that the Hierarchs have split into, it is generally considered to be the least threatening. For a lot of very good reasons.”

Oh?

“Very good reasons?” Uraraka is the one that asks.

“In the end, the pantheons are for Creation what the political parties are for mortals.” Lorae replies. Izuku is immediately surprised by them knowing what political parties are. Did Ancient Rome have those? “Just with an ability to alter parts of Creation to reflect their own beliefs. When Tyrannus was deposed, the High Gods broke apart over what to do with Creation, each of the subsequent pantheons having their own answer to that question.”

“Let me guess, Shadowlight Covenant’s answer to that is ‘anarchy’.” Monoma replies.

They were still standing in front of the throne. It made the talk a tiny bit awkward, but… well, they were talking to a daemon, that alone was weird, right? Besides, it’s not the fault of the lampades that tombs usually weren’t filled with tables and chairs.

And for some reason Izuku was certain that sitting on the coffins or sarcophagi just wasn’t an option, and merely suggesting this would infuriate the lampades.

“Correct.” Lorae replies. “They believe that Tyrannus’ reign over the Hierarchs was a mistake not because he was a bad ruler but because there was a ruler to begin with. Immutable Hierarchy is its polar opposite, it thinks that anarchy and even any sort of freedom whatsoever is an aberration and that the previous state of affairs should be restored. To the high gods of the Nine Hordes the problem was that the Creation was too civilized , and peaceful , and it should instead be embroiled in constant war and should be much less civilized, as being civilized means that masses grow weak and complacent. Rampant Bloom takes that idea much further and thinks that not just the sapient inhabitants of Creation but everything within should be embroiled in eternal struggle for survival. The Breathless Tide…” She speaks those words as if they were particularly vulgar swear words. “... thinks that change as a concept is a problem, and if everyone and everything was eternal and unchanging, things wouldn’t get worse. Even if it would also mean that they couldn’t get better.”

That wasn’t exactly how Aeonia described it to Yanagi-san. Propaganda of either side at work? Or maybe Tide was just as internally broken that both options were true?

“Pentagram, in the meantime, thinks that Creation itself is a problem and should be erased.” Lorae continues, before sighing loudly. “Then, there’s the Rapturous Ecstasy. Whose opinion on the Creation with all its flaws is ‘Fuck it’. In one case, literally.”

The f-word coming out of her mouth is so unexpected that the three of them actually stare at her in shock for a few seconds. Even the lampada that brought them to this room (and was still standing by the wall) appears shocked and almost horrified by Lorae swearing.

“They have no greater plans for the Creation, and very little in terms of lesser plans for their direct surroundings and their own future.” Lorae continues. “They’re still dangerous, yes. They’re still evil, a dozen times yes. But while the Covenant’s forces are chaotic but also devious and cunning, Ecstasy is not only chaotic but also completely whimsical. And that’s why in the field it usually yields to almost everyone else.”

“It can’t be that bad, right?’ Yaoyorozu replies, clearly uncertain about her own statement. A rare feat. “Sure, the Rose Guard forces that we’ve seen have some… worrying elements of their equipment, but they seemed well-equipped and could fight rather well.”

An eyebrow gets raised when the Rose Guard name is spoken. But that’s all that it achieves.

“They’re even worse than whatever you’re portraying in your head, I assure you.” Lorae replies. “An entire army of Ecstasy can drop a plan to invade a certain city simply because they’ve found out that there’s a famous cook living there and they want to taste his food instead of accidentally killing him during the siege. They can also attack their supposed allies simply because one of their leaders saw, say, a daughter of the king of their allies and decided that he desires her body. And both of those things can and likely will happen entirely on a whim, with no deeper thought put into that.”

“That’s… insane.” Yaoyorozu replies after a second or two of digesting those words. “They can’t win any war that way. Unless…” And then she realized it.

The rest of them needed Lorae to spell it out for them.

“... they simply don’t care whether they win or not.” Lorae finishes it for Yaoyorozu, who nods. “Yes, because they don’t. Defeat, even if it leads to their execution precedes by torture, is just another type of fun to them. Rapturous Ecstasy is the divine equivalent of getting completely drunk while your ship is sinking, simply because you’ve given up on trying to save it and you want to have your fun before it’s too late.” She sighs loudly. “Let me make an educated prediction of how the battle will turn out. The Ecstasy forces will put up a pretty decent fight from the start, but they’ll eventually break. Not because of the beastkin being so much better than them, but because they fundamentally don’t care about winning and a solid part of them that will be still in this world by then will start getting intrigued by what the beastkin might do to them if they’re taken alive.”

She shakes her head, making it clear that she just doesn’t like talking about it. And, to be honest, Izuku just can’t blame her.

“I think that I’m starting to understand what you meant when you said that they’re the least threatening among the Hierarchs.” Yaoyorozu decides to concede the point. “They look like petty annoyances rather than a serious threat.”

“Oh, they are a threat, just as a source of moral corruption rather than a force on a battlefield.” Lorae corrects her. “Their cults can be incredibly depraved and quite capable of both hiding from the authorities and spreading their depravity through society. As a result, Cibus, Decidius and Procacitas have some of the most disgusting and dangerous cults among all the Hierarchs, except for Pentagram. They also enriched Creation with such great things as a drug extracted from a plant that only grows on the dreams of a mortal tortured beyond the breaking point of their mind and several different spirits that are explicitly designed to only breed with mortals of one or either genders, and aren’t even daemons but shard spirits instead. Simply because Procacitas finds the idea attractive or something equally disgusting.”

It takes Izuku a second to realize just why Lorae looked so disgusted by the last fragment of this talk.

Shard spirits are essentially animals and plants from a Spiritual World.

…

So, Procacitas is basically operating on hentai logic and is trying to make it into the foundation of the entire Creation

okay

This is absolutely disgusting.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Hmm?

Oh, yeah. It’s disgusting, yes. Yes.

…

On a sidenote, Procacitas is now the High Goddess of Hentai Logic to me, and I’ll refer to her domain in no other way

Understandable.

“That’s… absolutely sickening.” Uraraka decides. Lorae shrugs.

“It definitely is, and you’re invited to help eradicate it from Creation, one self-indulgent hedonist at the time.” Lampada replies dryly while leaning on one of her armrests. “ Thankfully , they’re usually so self-centered and lack greater scope plans that they’re not a common sight, if only because of usually being easily extinguished by other factions. Especially away from the quote unquote civilized folks among which they can hide. I’m genuinely surprised that they have an actual stronghold in the wilderness. They’re usually marginally smarter than that.”

In other words: if the beastkin crush the Ecstasy forces occupying that mine, it’s entirely possible that we’ll simply not have to deal with more Ecstasy forces in the foreseeable future.

Letting us focus our Dungeon on things slightly more… tolerable.

Like the undead.

I can’t believe that the literal walking and often rotting corpses are better than something else.

Mood

“We’ve caught some Gore Munchers during our past fight with them.” Uraraka decides to ask the right question… all while completely ignoring the disgusting implications of everything that was just said. “Will it be hard to persuade them to fight on our side?”

How smart of her, Izuku decides.

“Gore Munchers… oh, those guys.” It takes Lorae a second to recall them. “That depends entirely on how much food they’ll be getting while serving you. They care for nothing else but that. They prefer their food to be very fresh, preferably as raw as they can get, but aren’t very picky as to what it’s made of.”

Which, they understand immediately, means that they’re alright also with human meat. How lovely. Ecstasy was just… getting better and better with every new information that they had about it.

Absolutely incredible.

“That’s enough to make them fight their own old comrades?” Yaoyorozu seems to still struggle to comprehend the existence of something as chaotic and disorderly as the Rapturous Ecstasy.

“It’s the Rapturous Ecstasy that we’re talking about.” Lorae shrugs. “The biggest problem with servants of Cibus during a military campaign is that they’ll gleefully devour each other or even themselves if not supplied with an ungodly amount of food, constantly. Their very High God is portrayed as having two bodies that are constantly trying to devour each other. They just follow his example.”

Well, it looks that having those Gore Munchers work for us shouldn’t require much coercion.

How reassuring.

Boooring.

… weren’t you against coercing others to do stuff?

I was, so what?

…

You’re inviting my crushing response so openly that I suspect a trap, and I won’t take the bait.

Boooooooring.

“One more question.” Uraraka decides to take the lead once more. “What exactly can we expect from the servants of other pantheons? What I mean by it is which one of them is the most dangerous, and what are their common strengths and weaknesses?”

She’s looking for a good fight, doesn’t she?

Of course she does, who am I kidding

She is seeking to prepare us against future threats, especially those that will befall us suddenly, giving us little time to gather intel about them in advance. Like the great and thoughtful hero that she is.

…

And she’s looking for a good fight.

At least you’re honest about it.

Lorae surprises them a little by giving them all a vaguely confused and almost suspicious look. Uh-oh. Is this something that's pretty common knowledge in this world? If a group of people showed up on Earth and asked a random passerby what are those ‘pro-heroes’ that they’ve heard about, Izuku can expect them to get a similar stare in reply.

“Where exactly did your Dungeon find you?” Lorae then asks them the one question that they didn’t want to hear. “I originally considered you to be rookie adventurers, but this question is something that they get an answer to during the mandatory lectures for new recruits of that profession.”

“You’ve got us.” Monoma rolls his eyes around. “We’re secretly heroes from another world. A mundane world, which means no magic and none of that High God juice to get very high on, hence our confusion about what you clearly consider basic knowledge about this world.”

Uraraka and Yaoyorozu stare at him in shock. Honestly, so did Izuku.

“You could just say that you don’t want to answer.” Lorae replies dryly, glaring daggers at Monoma. Who just shakes his head, looking genuinely disappointed.

That slick, conniving bastard

what

Monoma just answered the question honestly, in a way that made Lorae automatically disregard that answer as a false one.

As a result, if she ever finds out the truth and will complain about it, Monoma will just tell her that it’s not their problem that she didn’t believe them, as they were honest with her from day one

That absolute bastard

He’s fucking perfect and I want him as our official diplomat from now on

What?! That’s… he pretty much lied to her! Just in a different way!

Midoriya, let me enlighten you about the nature of diplomacy

it’s an art of telling someone to fuck off in a way that makes them excited about the journey ahead

Shigaraki, let me enlighten you about the value of your opinion on the subject.

Have you ever engaged in diplomacy with someone - anyone - without it ending in immediate bloodshed?

Yes.

When I recruited Toga and Dabi through Giran, our black market assistant/recruiter, there was no bloodshed

Let me guess

Kurogiri stopped you from murdering each other

… how?

You met Himiko and Dabi, at the same time.

There’s no way that this didn’t end with a murder attempt.

Okay, logic checks out

but how did you know that it was Kurogiri who stopped that murder attempt?

Not Giran?

Because I don’t know that guy, but I did see Kurogiri one or two times and he seemed like the only even vaguely responsible member of the League.

Actually, are you sure that he wasn’t secretly a hero? Or at least a former one? That would explain a lot.

…

Let’s just keep listening to the talk

“You’ve already met Rapturous Ecstasy, which is usually composed of three branches, each dedicated to one of three of their High Gods.” Lorae starts her lecture, completely ignoring the looks that the two others were giving Monoma. “First one belongs to Cibus and is usually composed of creatures with voracious appetite that are often empowered when they do manage to eat something. Second belongs to Procacitas, and it’s usually something either irritatingly oversexual or merely filled with enough magic-empowered capacity for seduction that they can sway people to join their side even in the middle of a battle. The third one, belonging to Decidius, is the most diverse. It ranges from combat junkies that go on a complete rampage on the battlefield, destroying everything in a drug-induced frenzy to those that are completely numb to everything, including pain, which makes them very hard to fell, though also rather slow.”

“There is a material for a good synergy there.” Yaoyorozu decides to comment… and stop glaring daggers at Monoma. “Line of those unstoppable juggernauts of Decidius, reinforced by enough fast moving servants of Cibus and Procacitas to stop them from being surrounded and taken down one by one. While also allowing the seducers to do their thing while protected from melee attacks by the proximity of said juggernauts and the hungry ones to feast on something to recover and then quickly return to the battlefield. Plus the frenzied ones to shatter the enemy line when it’s already vulnerable and half-broken. ”

“That would be a material for good synergy, if they were organized enough to employ such a tactic.” Uraraka points back and earns a nod from Lorae.

“It’s extremely rare for such a tactician to end up in the ranks of the Rapturous Ecstasy, and even rarer for them to be perverse yet charismatic enough to persuade others to follow their orders to the letter, but it does happen. And easily becomes a problem.” She admits. “But chances of it being a thing in such a small and otherwise insignificant local outpost are close to zero.”

“We’ll see the quality of their commander when the beastkin learn of the threat to their Dungeon.” Yaoyorozu replies, the flex on the word ‘their’ making it clear that she doesn’t agree with that assessment. “What’s next?”

“Nine Hordes depend on pure, undiluted rage.” Lorae continues. “Every single of their daemons and most shard spirits live to charge at their enemy headfirst, before breaking them in melee combat, with ranged combat and magic only used to soften the enemy before going for the kill. They’re also commonly underestimated, because people keep forgetting that aside from Saevius they also worship Dolositas, the Hierarch of Deceit. They might be primitive and have nothing but contempt for the achievements of the civilized people, but they can be surprisingly cunning, even when completely enraged.”

She described Ochako quite well.

She might not be playing in the same league as Yaoyorozu in terms of academics, but she can and will fight both ferociously and smartly.

Less simping more listening

For as long as I live I will be simping for Ochako

Ugh.

“Rampant Bloom and the Breathless Tide…” Lorae then says, once again speaking the words ‘Breathless Tide’ with pure disgust. “... both go for quantity over quality. The latter field massive armies of inferior fighters reinforced by a number of fairly powerful greater undead and daemons that can easily boost their performance, while the Bloom is focused purely on quantity. And environmental damage that can easily soften their enemies.”

Makes sense, Izuku decides. It’s hard to feed an army when a swarm of overgrown locusts just ate not only your foodstocks but also most of your peasants.

“Shadowlight Covenant is just pure anarchy.” Lorae continues. “It’s a ragtag coalition of concepts and aesthetics that makes precious little sense when mashed together. Luna likes darkness, night and shadows, with just a sprinkle of blood all over it. Her partner in crime, Laenimentus, is a god of unchained progress, of mad pursuit of techmaturgical superiority and of false enlightenments of natural science. You can expect advanced equipment and combat machines that can and likely will at some point explode, malfunction or leak toxic fumes, sometimes all of the above at the same time. And a lot of flashing lights.”

Oh god

Hatsume-san is going to become his Chosen One and conquer this universe for him.

Who is that Hatsume-san?

…

Aoyama-kun, for all my warm feelings for him, is straight up bad at spying.

“Immutable Hierarchy is definitely the most conventionally dangerous of the dark pantheons.” Lorae continues her short lecture. “Their forces are small in numbers but usually immensely powerful. They also weaponize fear, which to them is what lust is for servants of Procacitas. It can break the minds of their enemies and turn them into utterly servile thralls. They also employ some rather… grim aesthetics to make themself even more terrifying.” She sighs. “And usually, it works.”

“I assume that Pentagram is the most unconventionally dangerous, then?” Monoma asks dryly. Then again, he often speaks that way ever since his arrival in this world. Which is still better than his very loud screaming from Japan.

“Yes.” Lorae replies, looking extremely serious all of a sudden. “Servants of Pentagram are masters of corruption, often so corrupted themselves that merely gazing upon them can drive a mortal into madness. You should avoid them at all cost, as they are known to have driven many Dungeons into murderous insanity in the past. Corrupting their servants in the process, changing them into undying hosts of daemons and shardspirits that continued to exterminate or drive insane everything in the vicinity until their deranged master was slain.”

Well

I guess this counts as a single positive of being sent after a hero.

We hopefully won’t have to deal with those guys.

Yeah, I guess

But I don’t like how everyone, even Luna herself, warned us about these guys

It feels like foreshadowing

I sincerely hope that it’s not.

Yeah, same

Oh

I think we’ve forgot what day it is

We’re having beastkin visitors, the group that came with the elder Anaya last time

Oh

Great

You think that Yanagi-san will manage to deliver them the letter without any troubles?

Like, murder attempts?

No

I’ll do it myself

Have fun with that.