Surprisingly enough, everyone was on board with it. Absolutely everyone, even their newest members that only heard some stories about what sort of absolute aesthetic atrocity and scourge upon the innocents this cult was.
Although, to be exact, Hatsume and Satou wouldn’t take part in the attack to begin with, Kodai was unreadable, Dabi was down for murder regardless of the reason for it, and Todoroki once again stated his readiness to kill people if Izuku asked him to. Which was, well, maybe a little bit concerning.
Especially to Yaoyorozu.
Also, for once Izuku could see the suspected family similarity between Dabi and Shoto. And he wasn’t sure what to think about it.
So, he did what he usually did when he wasn’t sure what to think about something and stopped thinking about it. Surely, such a policy wouldn’t cause him any trouble down the line.
Alright, that’s… great?
We still have to send the message to the beastkin and set up the Ninth Level as the barracks.
Eventually we’ll probably put most of our daemon army a level or two above our own living area.
Once we figure out the Laws we can just make a two-directional teleportation devices that only allow people in service to Dungeon to use them, so that we’ll pretty much have entire daemon cities in our killzone, with them showing up to patrol appropriate levels of the Dungeon as a day job.
That makes sense.
It’s going to be an interesting time, ngl.
So, we put down the [Rose Guard], right?
… we probably can’t have Himiko and Kodai-san design it for us?
God I wish
Let’s just drop shit at random and let them furnish it for themselves
Good idea.
***
In the end, they decided to go for a bit more generous approach to furnishing the Ninth Level. Creating tunnels and rooms, after all, didn’t cost a lot. It’s filling them that really drained their budget.
To begin with, their endgame for the level has them add either one or a few [Underground Ecosystems] for the express purpose of allowing the defenders of this level to wage war on a slightly larger scale. After all, what’s the point of having hundreds of warriors if they are forced to fight in a tight corridor?
All you need is a few strong enemies that will switch around when one of them will be tired or are accompanied by a mage that can lift exhaustion and their numerical superiority will become meaningless.
It’s one lesson that they’ve got from the Elder Anaya’s brief foray into their Dungeon. If the Cynocephali had to attack them through one or even two entrance points, they would get one-sidedly butchered.
For now, though, [Underground Ecosystems] were rather costly, so they’ve elected to only leave a scaffold of corridors where they were eventually supposed to be placed.
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2025/01/31/image.png]
They’ve centered the newly added Ecstasy ‘wing’ on the level around a larger empty room to give the inhabitants their own space in the middle and to place the teleportation devices in the future (and to not have to delve deeper into it if they needed anything from them).
They put the [Moraverian Alchemy Lab] right in front of it, seeing as the Alchemists with their crowd control capabilities could be pretty useful in the soon-to-be raid, and settled the rest with [Rose Guard Soldiers] and [Ghouls].
They’ve immediately discovered that [Rose Knights] were automatically connected to the [Rose Guard Barracks] Lair, just as [Rapturous Brutes] and [Languid Ironclads] were to the [Moraverian Alchemy Lab].
They did a quick test of it and it seemed that the [Frenzied Bloodletters], alongside [Sword Dancers] belonged to the [Court of Dance]. Although they were just a bit short of Ambient Mana to be able to place the latter, so they elected not to add either for now.
For now.
The ghoul settlements were just a scattered bunch of bedrolls, a handful of slightly less ramshackle tents (settled mostly for privacy rather than protection from the elements) and some tables.
Primitively shaped out of wood or other basic materials, they could make them from sculpted rock.
Another part of the decor that they could put there were meat hooks for draining their victims of their blood. For some reason Izuku is almost certain that said victims aren’t random animals.
Ghouls definitely eat people. Eat and drain them of their blood that they seem to be drinking. Which is… lovely.
We should definitely try to put the [Lair] designation on a [Hall] to see what will happen, but for now this should be enough
How many do we spawn?
One each, to make the talk quick.
Then we have them deliver the message to the others after they are spawned.
We should have them all set up a single representative that will be allowed to speak for the rest, because I sure as hell don’t want to micromanage those people.
I can get behind that.
Let’s send our usual representatives there to have that talk and spawn one of each of those guys once they’re there.
***
Their usual representatives are Neito Monoma, Momo Yaoyorozu and Uraraka Ochako, the last one being there mostly because adding some rather intimidating brawn just felt like a good idea.
Besides, the enemy might have needed someone to growl at them to cooperate. You never know.
So… ready?
“Let’s get it over with.” Monoma sighs. “That shower has my name on it and I’m looking forward to it more than you can imagine.”
… I get you sooo much.
Alright, doing it now.
In an instant, three daemons manifest right in front of them.
The first one of them is a Rose Guard with their usual equipment, although thankfully lacking the ballgag (probably because they intended to bring one that could talk). Their first reaction to the situation was to raise her shield and do nothing but stare cautiously at the three people in front of them.
The second is the alchemist. What they are wearing is a combination of thick leather outfit that resembles a plague doctor’s attire covered with a belt and some bandoliers and pouches, and a surprisingly modern looking gas mask. There is a long dagger and some grenade-looking things at their belt.
They don’t do anything, clearly realizing immediately that they can’t hope to achieve anything when there was a melee combatant so close to them, Izuku making sure to put Uraraka quite close to him for that exact reason.
The ghoul looked like a savage. Part of its attire was made of leather that Izuku was almost certain belonged to humans. He also acted like a savage, immediately trying to jump Uraraka, only for Yaoyorozu to bark out an order to stop.
And stop he did, freezing in the middle of his attack, his clawed arm extending towards Uraraka’s face.
She didn’t bother to raise her shield, just gave him a really cold look. She was just so damn cool. Izuku can’t help but be amazed.
“Dungeon.” The alchemist says calmly, their gasmask lightly distorting their voice. Looks like they’ve found the brains of the Ecstasy’s representatives. “We were consumed by the Dungeon.”
“Yes, yes you were.” Yaoyorozu replies. “And you will serve it. Whether you want it or not.”
Well. That was another type of impressive. Intimidating for sure, although Izuku finds it a bit too ruthless to be cool. Still, nice.
The alchemist sighs tiredly. He was definitely not enjoying the situation at all. However, while the average mortal would react to the prospect of life sentence combined with forced labor with horror, for the daemons it was more of a minor inconvenience.
Izuku just couldn’t get over the strangeness that being a daemon was. Worst of all, he probably should do that as soon as possible, because his very existence right now was closer to that of a daemon than a mortal.
The daemons in front of him were just old enough to have accepted that thoroughly and completely.
The ghoul growls. Their growl is completely inhuman and somewhat intimidating. Izuku likes hearing Ochako growl, but this is something completely different.
Probably because Ochako never growled at him. But, rather, at those that were mean to him. Which was nice.
He liked it when people defended him. He usually preferred being the one to defend others, but it was also nice when he was the one that was protected. Ochako with her ‘even heroes might need help’ policy scratched an itch that Izuku didn’t know existed before she started doing it.
“Well, I guess that’s a new experience to have.” The Rose Guard soldier grins. Once again confirming their suspicion that Ecstasy as a faction was just a multiversal force of complete psychopaths looking for more and more depraved things to do just to satiate their boredom. “So, how about…”
If anything, they should be happy that most of them stayed in their Spiritual World and kept doing weird stuff to each other.
“One rule before we start.” Uraraka cuts in, interrupting the soldier. ”The Dungeon has a very serious policy concerning sex. No underage individuals, no animals and plants, no shard spirits, nothing that’s dead, and if something doesn’t want to have sex with you, you’ll respect their decision and don’t do a thing.”
That sort of order would normally cause nothing but a brief surprise at someone feeling the need to state such an obvious thing. However, they were dealing with forces of the Rapturous Ecstasy.
So, naturally, the reaction of the Rose Guard soldier was a loud gasp of horror and shock, and a wide-eyed stare.
“Y-you can’t do that!” She exclaims loudly. “What’s the point of fighting if not to…”
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“The point of fighting is to either fight because you enjoy it or fight for a good cause. Preferably both at the same time.” Uraraka cuts her short, giving her a very hostile stare. “You will either follow those rules, or suffer. In a way that you definitely won’t enjoy.”
The soldier closes her mouth and says nothing, but the look she was giving Uraraka was definitely a defiant one. Oh, well. They’ll learn.
I give them two weeks before they start fetishizing the ban and the threat of severe punishment alongside being forced to obey said orders with their very bodies being unable to disobey us
Did you really have to say that?
Yes.
Because I suffered this thought, and if so, you will suffer it too.
Ugh.
Well, at least they won’t do, you know, anything horribly wrong for as long as they are restricted like this.
If they get off to being restricted, that’s on them.
… yeah.
Neither the ghoul nor the alchemist seemed to care a lot about the soldier’s suffering. They didn’t look down on her for what she was representing, they just didn’t care about her fate and were much more concerned with potential bans for them.
“As for you, you’re an alchemist.” Yaoyorozu speaks, eyeing at the man in question. “Can you make anything that’s not narcotics and mind altering stimulants?”
“Is there anything else that’s worth making?” The alchemist replies. Sounding completely serious about it.
Alright. So they were all completely useless for everything that wasn’t combat. That has more or less confirmed their suspicions. Still, a bit disappointing.
“Another question then, what’s the deal with Ecstasy’s presence in that mine?” Monoma decides to change the subject. This wasn’t a part of the plan, they didn’t really care about the rest of the battle, it was for the beastkin to deal with.
“Does it really matter anymore?” The alchemist replies. That was… a bit surprising, Izuku expected a straight and automatic answer. “We’ve lost the battle, with so many casualties the beastkin will capture it.”
“It might not matter, but it’s definitely rather interesting.” Monoma replies. “Answer the question.”
The alchemist sighs before delivering the answer. It was a story that sounded painfully typical for Ecstasy.
A cult composed largely of the night elves, operating on one of the upper layers of the Labyrinth (that giant underworld that they were yet to learn more about) spread throughout the nobility of a local kingdom of the stone elves.
This led to an attempted coup d’etat by a noble clique of utter degenerates that was backed (or, more likely, controlled from shadows) by the cult in question that ended up being a failure.
What followed was a brief civil war. The loyalists were winning handily, but the traitors held on long enough for the cult to manage to summon in major reinforcements from their patrons, including a demigod and a handful of archdaemons, with a growing tide of daemons that were following them, dragged into the Material World by a prospect of a very good party.
Except, it didn’t work. They had some decent progress, which lasted until the demigod in charge of their army was slain in combat by the sorcerer-king of the elves and his personal retinue, which led to a rout.
Although it was a rout that was far from being quick and simple. The elves were definitely struggling to clean their country up.
The mine they found was seized by one of the remaining regiments of the Ecstasy army that moved in after hearing about the miners supposedly breaking to the surface (and promptly having to abandon the uppermost level due to the spider infestation), slaughtered or forced the miners into cannibalism followed by Cynocephali possession and occupied the mine.
They checked the uppermost level and slaughtered the spiders, which was the main reason why the spider lair on the level was so abandoned. They confirmed that there was an exit to the surface and then focused on fortifying the lowest level of the mine and sending some squads around to help the surviving remnants of their army retreat back to the mine.
Their idea was to reorganize their forces in the mine and then barge to the surface as an organized fighting force, but it backfired horribly when the beastkin found them first and crushed their forces into pieces.
They’ve also completely missed some of the spiders returning.
Interesting, but not exactly useful.
“We’re planning to hit the Rampant Bloom cult in a few days.” Uraraka says when they’re done grilling the alchemist for intel. The rest were much less talkative. “We’re going to need some additional manpower for that. We’ll be spawning more of you, but we aren’t having this talk again. So, I want you to explain the situation to them.”
“This can be done.” Alchemist replies, as neutrally as possible. The mask hid his eyes from them, but Izuku was almost certain that he glanced towards the Rose Guard soldier. “I don’t recommend taking more than a few ghouls. They aren’t a good pick against most of the Bloom creatures.”
The ghoul just growls. He doesn’t seem insulted by the words, more like… disappointed at missing out on the carnage? Yeah, it was probably this.
“Duly noted.” Uraraka replies dryly. “Figure out which one is supposed to represent you, because we’re definitely not dealing with all of you at the same time. And if you have anything you need spawned in your quarters, contact us through said representative.”
***
So
Did you notice it
The part where the alchemist didn’t seem compelled to follow our orders to the letter when Monoma asked him about the origin of the local Ecstasy forces?
Yeah
How do you think it works?
I think that they can’t act against us, so when we tell them to fight someone or stop they will, but we can’t force them to speak something just as we can’t force them to write or think something (I think).
Which is somewhat arbitrary, but it makes sense.
Without this clause in, everyone wishing for some exotic morsel of supernatural knowledge would just kill a daemon and pawn it off to a Dungeon in exchange for being forced to spill the beans.
Arbitrary or not, it makes some amount of sense
There has to be a limit to control over them, being able to forcefully brainwash them just by telling them to think as we want them to would be really damn broken, and on so many levels
But this opens up a problem
That being?
If the Rose Guard daemons know about some really secret stuff, like Luna’s bullshit cheat code, they can yell those secrets to any visitor simply out of spite for being denied their fun
Oh
Oh
Yeah
If anything, Ay’zira is a major security threat right now
I don’t think that she would betray anyone, she is definitely Uraraka and Tokage’s friend, but if she doesn’t know that something’s a secret, she can accidentally spill the beans
so
I’ll have Ochako have that talk with her.
I, uhm.
I have to admit that, however it pains me.
?
Good job, Shigaraki.
wow
Wish I could take a picture of that message and frame it
I could then show it to All Might without providing the context
What a great moment for you to start having semi-decent villainous ideas, Shigaraki.
Long after you stopped being a villain.
I’m fucking learning, you dick
Also, I consider this to be the New Game+ of my villainy
Riiight.
***
In the end, Ochako decided to not wait with becoming a wolfkin permanently. She felt completely fine in her body, but she also wanted to be able to properly improve it. And, unfortunately, she couldn’t do much about it without making this step.
Which was a source of great annoyance to her.
“Do it, Izuku.” She announces right after she agrees to have That Talk with Ay’zira. She, too, was pained by Shigaraki having that idea. What was the point in having him around if they couldn’t laugh at his misfortunes?! “I want to be able to train.”
I know, I know!
And I understand you.
In fact, errr
I think I agree with Himiko that the results of this change are going to be, errr… nice.
“Strong and muscular girls are sexy!” Himiko decides to make what he meant even more clear. “Although I like them cute, too. But you, Ochako-chan, look cute regardless of how you’re built, so it’s like, two best things ever in one package!”
“Well, now that’s an opinion I like hearing.” Uraraka smiles wryly at Himiko, who considers that to be a sign of a job well done. “But, yeah. I believe that I figured out the manuals, and I know how I’ll be able to strengthen my pathways and train the techniques. I’m also looking forward to getting my body trained properly. And I’m perfectly fine with my current looks. So, let’s do it!”
Well, I really can’t say no to that.
No last-minute changes? It’s the last moment when you can get any plastic surgery you wish to have for free, instantly and permanently.
“Pfft, as if I’ve ever cared about my looks.” Uraraka rolls her eyes around. “Every change that I could potentially like has already happened to me when I was aged up. And yes, you know what I mean. Mostly because I mean it due to your reaction to it.”
Uhm
In my defense, I’m a boy.
“That I definitely noticed.” Uraraka replies before chuckling when she hears him let out an anxious mumble. “No, seriously, the only potential change to my body I could ever consider would be some scars here and there to appear like I mean business to people, but if I want to look like a grizzled veteran of a thousand battles, I should probably be a grizzled veteran of a thousand battles. So, nothing for now." She then pauses for a second before speaking again. "Okay, I'm going to correct myself there. Make me a bit taller. It makes you hit harder and I want to hit harder."
... how tall are we talking about?
"I'd love not to be ten centimeters smaller than you." Uraraka sighs. "I also don't want to be a giant. How about making me about the height of Yaoyorozu-san?"
That would make her... a few centimeters taller than Midoriya. Although, of course, his height right now - and forever onward - was going to be his own personal choice. But he does recognize the flash on Toga's eyes who realizes that taller girlfriend = more muscles.
Fine then.
Here comes nothing.
If they expected any shocking changes, like the ones that Komori went through, they were solely disappointed. Nothing seemed to change in Uraraka, in fact she didn’t seem to notice any changes to herself.
The only change was that Izuku could no longer alter her current body. And that, if killed, she would be resurrected in that exact same body.
“Well, that was a bit disappointing.” Uraraka glances down at her own body but sees nothing amiss there. “Not that I suddenly expected to become an archdaemon or anything, but I expected to at least feel anything.”
Well, I guess I can help with that.
I’ve prepared a little something to celebrate this moment.
Although Hatsume-san and Kirishima-kun helped me a lot.
Could you, uhm, head outside right now? I’ll guide you there.
“Alright!” Uraraka exclaims cheerfully. Izuku had something prepared for her? This had to be something awesome! Like all other gifts he had for her. “Lead the way!”
***
It was a gym.
Izuku, that absolute madlad that Uraraka would love to just grab, take home and make him the world’s most cherished househusband (if saving people wasn’t so important to his own mental and emotional wellbeing that she just couldn’t take it from him) had created her a gym.
He carved out a room at one edge of the middle level of their apartment block and replicated as many training utensils from their world as he could, asking Kirishima on tips of what could be added to it, and Hatsume to make some designs that the Dungeon system had problems with making into reality.
Hatsume, being herself, worked extra fast on it. It was mostly basic stuff like dumbbells but she was certain that it would only grow in scope as time passed.
And there were even separate showers and changing rooms here!
D-do you like it?
“Izuku, you have no idea what sort of things I’d do to you right now if you were here, but I’m sure that you would enjoy every single one of them.” Uraraka replies. Before she gets to immerse herself in the adorable ‘Eep?!’ that Izuku lets out, Himiko hugs her from behind.
“So, does it mean that I’ll get to see you, all sweaty and exhausted after some super hard training that you’ve pushed yourself to your limits on, on a regular basis?” She asks her, practically whispering the words to her ear. Ochako simply nods. “Oh, fuck yes.”
Well. She lost a lot when she landed in this universe, but damn. There were some perks to it as well.