Itar’s death has given them - once again - a rather bountiful harvest, even if to a slightly lesser degree than Ekana. After all, a lot of things that he could unlock for them were already unlocked by her, such as everything in the [Decorations] page.

Same with [Items], honestly. The same [Tribal Outfit] as Ekana, and the [Tribal Spear] was already unlocked through her. Not to mention the fact that they had to test if [Aged Elven Spear] wasn’t better than that weapon.

They were also coins, in the newly opened [Treasures] section of the [Items] panel. [Imperial Currency, One Crown] was how a copper coin was listed. Silver one was instead listed as a [Imperial Currency, Ten Crowns]. However, both of those were ‘gifts’ from the elder.

In [Materials] the amount of wood present in the spear allowed them to instantly unlock [Beechwood II], which was previously at measly 2%. [Low Quality Iron II] jumped from 4 to 12%. [Wolf Leather II] was doubled from 27 to 55%.

However, there were also some completely new things, unique to Itar. Especially among the [Skills and Abilities], but not quite - they’ve also unlocked [Karadian Beastkin, Wolf-Morph] in the Entities tab, obviously.

As for [Skills and Abilities], they’ve got following [Skills]: [Spear Proficiency II], [Shield Proficiency II], [Wolf Fang School I], [Butchering II], [Mining II], [Woodcutting II], [North Vestirian Language, Spoken V], [Tracking I], and [Hunting I].

A lot of those (namely butchering, the language skill, tracking, and hunting) were doubles of the skills they’ve already learned from Ekana, but of lower level. This was at first glance useless, until you remembered the bit about Ambient Mana Level requirements.

They could cycle skills around, giving their servants only what was needed, thus keeping their AML requirement sufficiently low. So, even lower level copies of the same skills were potentially useful.

As for [Abilities], they’ve got [Shield Bash I], [Lesser Thrust I], [Barricade Shield I], and [Predator’s Advance I], the last of which seemed to be that ‘very quick run’ thing that was still slower than [Cat Leap I] and had no capability for vertical movement, but was definitely good at building momentum for a charge or pursuit of enemy.

Alright, so the problem is that the wolf guy was definitely stronger than Ekana

Full recreation will go slightly past our current AML limit

The limit is 1.2, and the ETL of Uraraka is 15, so it requires 1.5 AML.

Drop butchering, hunting, tracking and woodcutting.

Yeah, we have Toga for the first three and woodcutting is kinda pointless for us

We could unlock some materials by chopping down nearby wood, though.

Why are you arguing against yourself?

Also that will just make it more obvious that someone’s living around, we don’t to draw unwanted attention

Right.

So?

So, it seems that non-combat skills have only a minimal influence on ETL, so it went down by a whopping 0.1 despite losing four skills.

We’ll have to drop some of the Abilities. How much will it be without the [Barricade Shield]?

1.3, so still 0.1 too much, this is annoying

I’ll drop [Lesser Thrust], we can’t have anything, she’ll have to rely on just stabbing people the normal way, and shield bash is useful for attack interruption

She’ll get the other skills soon enough

Alright, that’s 1.2

She can be brought up as a [Barbarian Warrior, lvl 12], instead of [Barbarian Warrior, lvl 15].

Why have you decided to keep [Mining II]?

It might be useful for dealing with the collapsed tunnel at that burial site.

Oh, right.

Alright, so I’ve got the design down, you just have to accept it, and probably send Toga elsewhere to have a quiet moment with your girlfriend nr.2

She’s not my girlfriend nr.2!

Nr.1 then

…. she’s not nr. 1 either.

But yes, we should send Toga elsewhere for a moment, how about telling her to go hunt something?

Himiko*

I hate you

But okay, H-Himiko.

Wait, do the servants actually need to eat?

Toga only seems to be thirsty rather than hungry, so probably not, for as long as they’re in a Dungeon zone with appropriate AML

But I think that they can enjoy food and drinks, and Toga could definitely find us new stuff to put in chests and so on

I’ll go tell her, give me a moment

Toga, you have a quick mission before Uraraka is alive, I need you to go out of the Dungeon and kill something edible, then bring it back here

“Wha?!” Toga appears shocked by those words. She was sitting on her bed, hugging Slimy-chan and probably thinking what she could do with Uraraka. I.e., daydreaming, and probably about some lewd (and/or bloody) things. “Really?! Do I have to?”

Yes.

Go and show Uraraka how useful you can be by bringing her some big slab of meat or smth

“Big slab of meat?” Toga tilts her head with a mischievous look on her face. “Are we talking about Izukun again?”

sigh

I walked myself into this one

Just go and be annoying somewhere else

Alright, she’s heading towards the exit, what are your thoughts about the character design?

Why are Uraraka-san's breasts significantly bigger than the ones I remember?

…

…

You know what, I really feel like asking some variant of ‘so, how much did you observe them irl to immediately know that they grew and through clothing no less’ would be a low blow

so

How much did you observe them irl to immediately know that they grew and through clothing no less?

I did not.

Oh, really?

And here is my retaliation for this. Check this design.

Oh

My

God

What the fuck did I just see

All for One with cat ears, cat tail and a pair of really big breasts and wide hips under his clothes

K a w a i i f o r O n e

this

this is the most cursed thing I have ever seen

why are you tainting my mind so much

how are you so good at bringing up the most fucked up things at a moment’s notice

And why do you keep making the breasts of every female character we create bigger, you degenerate?

Okay, look, I actually don’t, okay?

…

DON’T POST WHATEVER YOU’RE MAKING RIGHT NOW

LET ME EXPLAIN

Go on.

And it better be good.

I’m just aging them up, okay?

Figured out that there’s no need to keep charging at the invaders with underage characters, lest the invaders decide we’re into this or smth

So I’m setting their biological age to 18 years old, and since both of them were younger than that, it aged them up

That’s all, I swear!

…

So the fact that they all happened to grow a cup size or two in that time is a coincidence?

Yes.

A very lucky coincidence, but still a coincidence

…

your execution has been delayed

Execution is a really strong word

If you want, I can still show you how Nedzu would look as a catgirl

rebgoaergdgdlfbglerbglre

STOP

CEASE AND FUCKING DESIST

Or what?

Are you going to call the pro-heroes to arrest me?

…

The more I know you the more I realize that Tartarus and the rest of the oppressive system of heroics had a point, they just kept locking up wrong people

And I’m far from being done.

ugh

Anyway, go and explain everything to your girlfriend, I’ll make sure that Toga’s following my orders

Uraraka-san isn’t my girlfriend, she’s my best friend.

Heterosexual best friends of opposite gender (or homosexual best friends of the same gender) are just couples in denial

Emotional and developmental damage that All for One dealt to you during your ‘upbringing’ is so deep and far-reaching that it should be legally qualified as a disability.

Oof

***

“H-huh?” Uraraka’s first reaction to being isekai’d is much more natural than what Toga went through. And much more focused on her massively altered perception, especially eyes. “Wha…?!” She lets out as she stares at her own hands, clenching them a few times to confirm that yes, those are her hands.

Despite how odd everything looked.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

And despite her having a round wooden shield strapped to her left arm and a short spear in her right hand.

Uraraka-san!

“Huh?” She looks around, only now noticing the giant crystal and that she was in some sort of a cave. “Deku-kun, is that you?”

Yes, and you have no idea how happy I am that you’re here.

Do you remember all those edgy isekai stories that Tokoyami-kun was so into?

“Yes?” Uraraka replies, clearly confused as to how it was relevant in the current situation. “Uhm, where exactly are you?”

It’s… a bit complicated to explain. But before we get to that, you have to know that we were apparently isekai’d. So, we’re in a fantasy world now.

“That’s… a really strange dream.” Uraraka scratches the side of her head. That’s when she notices something. “W-wait, why do I have… are those cat ears?!”

No, those are wolf ears. And yes, you also have a bushy tail. And no, this isn’t a dream, although I wish it was.

“Huh?” Uraraka is clearly still having issues parsing the whole thing. She looks over her shoulder just to see a tail in question. “Wait, is that the reason why everything looks so weird? The colors are all wrong.”

Yes. You seem to be having dogs senses, which includes a somewhat poor vision but great sense of hearing and smell. I don’t think you can see the red color at all.

“Y-yeah, that makes sense, I think I can hear… a lot of things.” Uraraka replied nervously. “And…” She sniffs loudly. “There’s a smell of… someone else? A woman, so not you. She seemed to have left recently.”

… we’ll get to that later.

Look, the situation is as follows:

I’ve been isekai’d here by a self proclaimed ‘evil god’ who put my soul in an Astral Core/Dungeon Heart. Basically speaking, I can create and change things within this particular cave, including the cave itself, but I don’t have a physical body.

They’ve also isekai’d a lot of people we know, most if not all of them really, except rather than giving them physical body, they just connected their souls to the Core. I can, in some circumstances, create bodies and put those souls into them, letting them exist.

I just did that to you, but the only bodies I could use were either those of cat people or wolf people, so I’ve gone with the latter.

“O…okay.” Uraraka takes a deep breath. “That’s… a lot to swallow, and it still feels like a really weird dream, but… okay . What else do I have to know?”

Weeeell, I’m not the only soul in the Astral Core. As in, not the only soul that can alter and create things here.

You won’t like the identity of the other person.

It’s Tomura Shigaraki.

Uraraka gasps loudly. That was… that somehow felt to her even more like a dream, but definitely not a good one.

We don’t really have any other choice than to cooperate right now, because Luna, the god that sent us here, was rather… descriptive about the eternal suffering we’ll go through if we don’t fulfill the mission they’ve given us.

The mission is to kill some local hero, but apparently, they’re the sort of hero that’s ready to burn an entire village because the locals are the wrong type of people. And no, I have no idea how true this all is, so we’ll be doing our best to find out.

“O… okay.” Uraraka decides to take a deep breath again. “That’s even more to swallow. And digest. So, you probably can’t move out of that cave, so the idea is to make it dangerous enough for them to, you know, not return from it.”

It feels like a less painful terminology than ‘to die here’. At least to her.

Yes.

We have a lot of tools to do that, but we’ve barely started growing and we’ve already almost died once.

And, err…

I think I accidentally killed someone.

Or, help kill someone.

She blinks, staring blankly into space for a few seconds. The words ‘Deku-kun’ and ‘killed someone’ just didn’t feel natural in one sentence. Unless there’d be a ‘heroically captured someone who killed someone else’ after ‘Deku-kun’.

“Deku-kun, if you want to talk about this…” She eventually replies. She is his friend, and she should at the very least listen to him before condemning anything. She owed him that much for the entrance exam alone, and that’s without mentioning what sort of great friend he was to her afterward.

Yeah, I probably want to.

I gave an idea for a non-lethal trap, Shigaraki made it a reality.

It… worked a bit too well.

The companions of that guy seemed to think that it was his fault for not looking under his feet, but… yeah, it’s not easy on me.

“Sounds like an unfortunate accident.” She decides. Then it occurs to her. “... it’ll probably happen again, won’t it?”

Yeah.

If we want to get anywhere close to obtaining the firepower necessary to get Luna off our back, people will have to die in this Dungeon.

We can assimilate their bodies, unlocking new bodies to be created and filled with souls, copying their combat skills and general know-how, replicating their equipment and so on.

From how that man’s companions acted, I’d say that it’s a pretty rough world out there.

“Well, while in Rome, do as Romans do.” Uraraka replies. She wishes she was more certain about it. “I don’t like it, but… did they know what sort of place they were entering?”

Yes, mostly.

Just underestimated it to a large degree.

“Then, if it’s really as rough of a world as you’re making it to be, I don’t think that, you know, that’s the worst thing ever.” She replies. She is slightly more confident about this time. “It’s not like you’ve invited them here. And… did you have the entrance locked at the time?”

Yes.

“See?” She tries her best to give him a reassuring smile, wherever he is. “It’s like entering a construction site, without your helmet on and when there are clear ‘DO NOT ENTER’ signs around. When something falls on you after that, it’s definitely your fault, right?”

Your immediate readiness to justify murder because that’ll make me feel better is concerning, but also highly reassuring.

“Not murder, more like… a regularly repeating tragic accident.” Uraraka replies. Usage of proper terminology was extremely important in interpersonal relationships, after all. “Because it’s going to repeat.” And no, she doesn’t like that prospect.

Yes. And you’ll probably end up having to fight people to death.

Some people might be coming here just to kill us, we already had one such person. And there are no police or pro-heroes we can call to save us.

I don’t even know if there are any prisons nearby or a society whose response to ‘do crime’ isn’t an automatic ‘kill them’.

“We’ll figure it all out, Deku-kun.” She replies. “No need to worry over that before we get there, am I right?”

Yeah.

You can’t believe how relieving it is to hear you not scream at me for what happened.

I think I’m happy that I don’t have a face because I couldn’t look myself in the eyes in the mirror.

“Because you worry too much!” Uraraka replies loudly. “And you need someone to set you straight whenever needed! If I may ask…”

Your parents aren’t on the list.

“Ha, of course you know immediately what I wanted to ask you about.” Uraraka chuckles. Yeah, she never hid how important her parents were to her. “We’ll have to come back as soon as possible then, right? They have to be super worried.”

…

“Deku-kun?” She then asks, slightly more worried. “What is it?”

I don’t think that we’re coming back, Uraraka-san.

“W-what?” She lets out, her eyes growing wide. Did he mean that…

I don’t know how much we can trust the god that put us all here, but they made it clear that we’re not the people we remember ourselves as.

We’re copies. Identical copies. The same memories, the same personality. But still copies.

There is another you out there that’s still working hard to help their parents retire and pay them back for bringing you up.

“Oh, I…” She looks down as the full weight of what he just said hits here. “You mean… I’ll never see them again?”

I… don’t know. Maybe if we ask Luna (if they ever show their face around) to bring them around as copies like we are?

But… I don’t think that it’s a good idea, at least until we manage to fulfill our mission.

Luna made it clear that if we fail, they’ll make all of you suffer eternally in whatever dark hellish realm they call home.

Them being here right now would just mean more hostages.

“I…” She takes a deep breath and manages to mostly calm herself. “Alright. I get it. I don’t like it, but… I guess it’s time to make sure that they have their happy retirement in two worlds at once, huh?”

Hahaha, yes, it’s one way of putting it!

“So, speaking about more constructive things, who is the other person that was here?” Uraraka then asks. She’ll leave the existential crisis for later. Deku-kun already has enough on his plate as it is.

… you won’t like it.

“It’s Himiko Toga, isn’t it?” She then replies before sighing loudly.

How?

“This room smells of blood… and of someone being very, very horny.” Uraraka replies dryly. “And you were clearly doggy about it, get it?” She adds as she points to her ears. That earns her a solid chuckle out of him. “I can add two to two, right?”

Right.

Yes, it’s Toga.

Worst of all, you’ll have to sleep in one room for now because of stupid Dungeon mechanics that I’ll explain to you in full detail later.

Good news is that neither of you can die, and if you suffer critical damage you’re just back to the soul freezer.

So if she bothers you…

“... then lethal force is authorized.” Uraraka finishes for him. “Yeah, yeah, good to know. And, there is also one more subject that I wanted to ask you about. I don’t want you to overreact and faint on me, but…”

Tomura Shigaraki had your body aged up to 18.

That’s the side effect of it.

“Hmph.” Uraraka pouts a little. “Can you please make sure he behaves? I don’t know how much control you can have over him but… do your best, please.”

Whatever he does, I have to accept it. Goes both ways.

And I taught him that if he misbehaves, he’s going to continue seeing the system pictures of naked Dabi with cat ears and a tail.

Uraraka laughs loudly at that. She wishes she could see his reaction to that!

“Alright, so I guess I’ll spend a while learning how this place looks like.” Uraraka then says. “Feel free doing whatever we want, we’ll talk later, okay?”

Okay!

Shigaraki, where’s Toga?

Outside.

How’s your girlfriend?

She’s not my girlfriend, she’s my best friend.

And pretty well. Seems to have approached it… calmly. And has gotten over it mostly.

Fucking dumbass.

What? Who?

You.

Calmly? Gotten over it mostly?

Fucking dumbass.

Her tail is straight down, that’s the dog’s equivalent of being depressed, you stupid insensitive fuck.

Since when are you an expert in human emotions?

I had a dog. She’s now part-wolf. I don’t think that her tail speaks another language than the plain old dog language

And what happened to that dog? Run away because they couldn’t stand you?

I accidentally killed Mon-chan alongside my entire family when my quirk first came in

Oh, I

My condolences.

… and now I feel like a jerk, ugh.

Yeah

And then I wandered through the streets, no one bothering to help me, no heroes in sight, until Sensei found me

Wait, what?

Why do you think I hate the Hero Society?

No no no, not that.

So you, the grandchild of a person that’s coincidently All for One’s former archenemy, develop a quirk.

Your family is completely surprised by it and dies, so I assume that it’s not a variation on any of their quirks.

Then, despite a disaster wiping out a whole family and you, a child, walking around randomly on the street, no hero shows up.

Which is straight-up impossible. I once got lost in the woods while playing with Kacchan and when I was three hours late, my mother had already called the police and the police was looking for me. And included one or two heroes when they realized that it was in that forest and it was pretty big.

But for you, no one came, despite a disaster happening nearby.

Even if the heroes and emergency responders thought you died there, someone just had to connect the dots when he saw you nearby.

Aside from the guy who, as stated, hated your grandmother, hated her successor (All Might) and wanted them to suffer and just happened to be able to give people quirks at will.

And just happened to mysteriously, mysteriously, be in the same area as you did at the time.

That’s beyond suspicious, Shigaraki.

Wait, so are you telling me

that All for One made me kill Mon-chan?

…

And my family too I guess

Shouldn’t you be more angry over their deaths?

Look, my last memory of my family includes my father yelling at me for bringing my grandma’s old poster to home. My sister did it, but she said it was me to avoid punishment

It wasn’t the first time when any of that happened

But Mon-chan was always on my side

So, yeah, if you’re right then All for One just joined my personal shitlist, I already considered killing him because he was annoying, but by killing Mon-chan he now made it personal

You considered killing your guardian because he was annoying you?

He taught me to hate everything that pisses me off, he shouldn’t be surprised by me growing to hate him too when he started to piss me off

You know what, yeah.

That makes sense.

And feels really karmic for him to get taken down by you, you know?

Anyway, do you think that I should talk to Uraraka some more?

Yes, you dumbass

… I can’t believe I’m taking tips on friendship from you, but you know what? Okay.

My life is so crazy that this feels par for the course.