Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
"So, what have we learned?" I asked as I approached the others. The fight had lasted less than five minutes in total, and I'm sure there were roughly 50 groups scattered throughout the tower. We'll be here for hours.
"I hate undead and armor," Jinx said dryly. I snorted.
"I'm with you," I said dryly.
"Yeah, well, you're terrifying with a spiked ball you pulled out of nowhere," she said mockingly. I shrugged.
"I'm prepared for anything," I said playfully. "But back to the point. The armor is thick, the metal is ridiculously durable, even for a grade weapon like my Wado Ichimonji. The fat undead I faced was completely covered in armor, difficult to kill with a sword."
"Bludgeoning blows work wonders, so I'll be sticking with my spike ball for the rest of the dungeon, at least until the boss. As for the monster itself, it's not agile, it doesn't move or dodge quickly, and the only thing it has going for it is some kind of mage? It's capable of using some kind of flamethrower and something resembling incendiary grenades."
I finished analyzing the monster while looking at its corpse in the distance.
"I'll go," Midoriya said with a grimace. "Mine moves slowly, I'm guessing from the size of his legs. He has extraordinary strength in his arms and can swing his sword quickly to attack. From what I could see, he can create localized bursts of fire with his sword when it hits the ground, not too far from him. It shouldn't be a meter in diameter, but you have to be careful.
"Then there's that... implosion? Absorbing explosion? Or whatever. It creates that explosion in the entire room and then absorbs the fire and us at the same time. It doesn't seem like it gets any better when it absorbs the explosion, so it's probably just using it to pull us all in." Midoriya said with a grimace.
"That's annoying. Can you finish them quickly so he doesn't?" Todoroki asked measuredly. Midoriya grimaced.
"Maybe? Like Miyamura's monster, it has armor covering its entire body. I had to hit really hard to even start to dent it, let alone kill it." Midoriya said almost apologetically.
"Mmm, we can try switching. I can move my iron ball with the force of tons on my part. I don't know if it's enough to hit harder than you, really. But we can try." I said simply. Midoriya simply nodded.
"Okay, our turn!" Ruby said with an excited smile. "The one we were up against was small, but he moved and attacked quickly! His axe was capable of generating nearby flames, but he had little armor, so it was easy to kill him!" Ruby said with a smile, Penny nodded in confirmation, while Jinx snorted.
"I'm sorry, I can't do much against them," Todoroki apologized, almost emotionlessly. "My ice can't hurt them. I can't penetrate their armor, and it's hard to accurately hit anything moving quickly. The best I could do was freeze them and stop them."
"But even that can't stop them completely. The tower's high temperature, combined with the monsters' body temperature, causes them to melt quickly. I'm sorry," Todoroki said apologetically.
"N-no need to apologize! It's still advantageous to keep some monsters locked up while we defeat the others! So don't worry!" Midoriya tried to cheer up with a smile. Todoroki just nodded and looked away. We all looked at Bakugou last. She just clicked her tongue.
"He was slow; he had to drag his shield around everywhere. He couldn't turn quickly, so he was easy to ambush. The only special thing about him was that he could dash and charge with his shield in a straight line, nothing that couldn't be dodged."
"The only thing that's really resistant is his shield. I couldn't do anything to it, but he only has armor on his head and legs; his chest is completely exposed, and he's weak." Bakugou grunted as she looked away. I nodded.
"Okay, okay, okay, that's good. So, I'll take the broadsword monsters, and Midoriya will take the mages. They're the only ones with full armor, and we're the only ones capable of damaging them properly. We haven't seen one with a spear yet, but can he, along with the axeman and the shieldman, take care of them?" I asked the other five girls.
"Leave it to us!" Ruby said excitedly.
"We'll take care of it, friend Miyamura!" Penny said excitedly.
"Yeah, yeah, as long as I can keep killing them," Jinx said with a smile.
"Tch, whatever." Bakugou grunted, and Todoroki just nodded.
"Very well!" said Midoriya with a smile. "From what Izumi said, the groups should be varied, and from what we saw, the 'types' of monsters may be repeated, so we won't know which group and how many of each we'll face in each fight, but this way we'll be more organized and we'll be able to advance quickly." said Midoriya excitedly.
"All right, let's keep moving. We still have a lot of groups to kill before we can reach the boss. This isn't a race against time. We have all the time and resources to survive for a while, so if anyone gets tired or hurt, or their aura drops enough, we can take breaks." I said seriously.
"Let's kill them already." Bakugou growled. I rolled my eyes.
"Okay, let's go. We each have our own targets. If there are duplicates of mine or Midoriya's, hold one back until we remove the first one. Midoriya, if there are multiple broadswords, they're the priority. That pull ability is annoying and dangerous during a fight." I said seriously. Midoriya nodded firmly.
"All right, let's go!" Midoriya said seriously,
"Wait!" I stopped them both. Everyone looked at me alertly as I ran towards one of the monsters. I reached inside one of the corpses and pulled out the essence stone. I smiled slightly before dropping it onto my shadow. I headed to the next monster.
The smaller ones were easy to harvest, while the larger ones required a little more time. I had to take out a dagger and cut through their skin to get to their essence stones. The only good thing was that they seemed to be burned and charred inside, and the organs seemed completely dry and bloodless. It was a good thing.
Once I finished removing the essence stones and storing them in my shadow, I approached the group with a satisfied smile. Their expressions were mixed.
Jinx looked amused, Ruby exasperated, Bakugou irritated (although that was her default expression), Todoroki indifferent, Midoriya gave me a flat look, and Penny just laughed lightly.
"Alright, let's go!" I echoed Midoriya with a smile and started running. With those last words, and a few sighs from the others, we ran back towards the other group of monsters.
We quickly headed to the next location, where we met a group of seven: two with shields, two mages, one with a spear, one with an axe, and one with a broadsword.
Even so, we moved immediately, without hesitation. My spike ball crushed the broadsword monster, sinking its skull several degrees, but it was still alive. I attacked it quickly and overwhelmed it enough to kill it before it could execute its area attack.
I looked at the others and headed to Todoroki immediately. She had one of the fat undead frozen, just as before. Todoroki moved away as soon as she saw me approaching her. With the same ease as before, I crushed the undead, completely denting its armor.
Once he was defeated, I looked around. Everyone seemed to be finishing off their respective monsters. Midoriya held his own quite well against the burly, armor-plated undead. Dozens of blows had dented his armor; in fact, it looked cracked in some places when he fell, damn OFA and his enormous strength.
Looking at the others, Ruby had finished off the spearman, Jinx the axeman, and Penny and Bakugo each took the shieldman. That was good. This time we did better against the monsters, although it took almost the same amount of time. We already knew what to expect against them, so nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Though we eventually met the undead spearman. His height was only half my full height, which was odd, but the spear he had was twice his length. As he moved, he used it as a walking stick, banging it against the ground with every step.
According to Ruby, it only attacked from the front, and the only dangerous thing was that the tip exploded on contact, but nothing that couldn't be easily dodged.
With the last monster counted, we were entirely ready for this dungeon. We continued up the tower while taking out every monster we encountered.
The groups we didn't find were completely random, with no discernible order. They consisted of groups of 5, 4, 8, 5, 7, 4, 8, and more, none of which were the same as the last. The variety also varied enormously. Some groups were really varied, with few repetitions within the same group.
However, we have even encountered completely identical groups, consisting of a single type of monster.
The one that gave us the most trouble was that group of six undead with broadswords. Todoroki was able to pin one down, Midoriya took care of one, and I had another. That meant three of them were still free. We were pushed back, and the flames attacked us several times during that fight.
While Bakugou, Penny, Ruby, and Jinx were holding up perfectly fine throughout the fight, they weren't able to deal enough damage fast enough for his sword to not explode and absorb the fire. The stupidly thick and durable armor, coupled with the undead's resistance to death, was a horrible combination for all of us.
Luckily for us, it was the only group with too many broadsword monsters in it; the other groups at most had 2 of them in a single group, so we were able to keep them almost completely undamaged for most of our fights.
Even so, we had to stop to rest, hydrate, and recover the aura we'd spent during the fight, at least for the girls. Midoriya and I had so much aura that we were still above 70%, while the girls had already dropped below 50% when we first stopped.
Drinking water was becoming increasingly common. The higher we climbed, the hotter it seemed to get. Although nothing was perilous at the moment, I'm sure we were reaching 55° degrees as we continued to climb.
We were all sweating like crazy. The only reason none of us hadn't gotten heat stroke was because of the stupid physiology of this world, we were more resilient than normal civilians and on top of that Todoroki was keeping us cold with her ice, every few minutes, though not very often, trying to constantly regulate our temperature would start to drain a lot more aura.
More aura than we were spending protecting ourselves from the heat, the aura protected us from most of the heat, although it was starting to drain our aura passively, nothing really worrying.
The only saving grace was that all the monster groups were pretty far apart from each other, so far, we haven't had to fight more than one group at a time.
"Please tell me that was the last group." Ruby moaned as she collapsed onto the massive block of ice Todoroki had created once the fight was over. "Ah, cold, how I love you." Ruby sighed in relief as she pressed her sweaty cheek against the ice.
"That should be the last, or well, before last. I'm feeling a group with the dungeon boss." I said wearily as I leaned my back against the ice. The coolness of the ice made me sigh in relief.
I loved my costume; my traditional kimono was a part of me at this point. However, I wasn't foolish enough to keep wearing it even in 55° Celsius. My kimono had at least four layers of clothing, and I would have died from the heat right from the start.
So I was wearing my workout clothes—my own, not UA's. They consisted of a tight black shirt that accentuated all my muscles due to the sweat, and loose, lightweight white pants.
"How are you?" I asked lightly. I looked around, and everyone had slumped onto Todoroki's block of ice. Even Bakugou lay back down without complaint, and Penny did too. Oddly enough, she had a cooling system that I could hear working overtime as it tried to cool Penny's body down from the temperature.
The only positive aspect of this was that the girls had taken off their shirts without any hint of embarrassment due to the heat. They were only using chest binders to keep their breasts from moving around, not out of modesty. It's not like I have women's sports bras in my shadows; maybe I'll start stockpiling some.
Jinx apparently didn't have enough to bother her because she didn't wear anything on her chest. You had to love this world as I looked at Jinx out of the corner of my eye. Yes, it had its positive sides.
"We're fine. All of us have our auras above 60%. That last rest we took half an hour ago worked wonders." Midoriya moaned in pleasure as he clutched the ice. He was the only one who hadn't changed; he was still wearing the generic UA uniform I'd given him.
The only thing I hadn't noticed was Melissa's gauntlet; it must be because she keeps it in bracelet form. It was bright red, but it wasn't at all the armor it was when it was active.
Midoriya used it every now and then in fights, even though he hardly needed it. I'm pretty sure he was reaching 30~35% OFA easily, and apparently that was more than enough to dent and kill the monsters.
"Do you want to rest one last time before the dungeon boss?" I asked once more, Jinx growled.
"I say we go kill that dungeon boss so we can get out of this damn dungeon already." Jinx growled. "By the way, do you have any other swords? The ones I have are finally cracking. I avoided the monsters' armor, but there were a few times I hit or grazed them anyway." Jinx said.
Instead of answering, my shadow extended beneath Jinx, and two more jagged swords shot out of my shadows. Really, I had a lot of swords stuffed in there; you can never be too prepared.
I also removed some protein bars and some water. Everyone took their portions without hesitation and began eating and drinking without complaint. By this point, we were a well-oiled machine.
What one would expect after killing over 400 A-rank undead. Really, it wasn't the longest dungeon by any means, and definitely not the most monster-rich, but it was still a pretty high number.
Even more so because for half of our group, it was the first dungeon they had entered.
"How long have we been in here?" Bakugou grunted as she poured some of the water from the bottle over her head to cool off, not caring that her sweat was being washed away with the water; after all, she was going to sweat a lot more soon. Jinx and Ruby quickly followed suit, both moaning in pleasure.
Really, the gratuitous view of topless girls getting wet was a perfect point in favor of this world, and I would never stop repeating it.
"6 hours 38 minutes," Penny said almost immediately. "There were about 57 groups, 436 monsters, the fights averaged 5 minutes, about 4 and a half hours of fighting, about an hour of running and climbing ladders all over the tower in between fights, and about an hour of rest spread out," Penny said almost clinically.
"It must have been dawn outside the dungeon by now, right?" Ruby asked, humming.
"Surely. I'm sure they're waiting for us," Midoriya said contemplatively. "I'm sure they've also sorted everything out there. I hope they also have a group of Hunters waiting just in case."
"We won't lose." Bakugou growled, sounding completely confident. Midoriya smiled slightly at her.
"No, we won't," Midoriya agreed. I laughed lightly.
"Okay, one last plan?" I ask lightly.
"What's there to discuss? We'll leave the boss to you. Izuku takes care of the armored undead, and the rest of us will take care of the small ones." Bakugou growled. I smiled widely at her.
"Ah, Bakugou, are you saying I'm stronger than you since you let me take the dungeon boss?" I asked playfully. Bakugou glared at me and growled.
"I didn't say that, bastard." Bakugou growled through gritted teeth.
"But it's implied." I scoffed further. I could hear Jinx's amused snort.
"Stop bothering Kacchan," Midoriya scolded me. I just shrugged.
"Okay, 10 more minutes and we'll be done with this," I said, taking out a piece of chocolate and throwing it into my mouth.
"Really, chocolate? Now? " Jinx asked dryly.
"There's never a bad time to eat chocolate. Chocolate gives me strength. I need everything I can get to face the dungeon boss," I said shamelessly. Everyone rolled their eyes at this point.
"Addict," Bakugou growled.
"Guilty as charged," I said without hesitation while laughing. "It was either this or go to sleep, but that can wait until we finish this dungeon, then I'll sleep for three days straight."
"Amen." Jinx and Ruby said in agreement while grumbling.
"Amen." Todoroki muttered, and we all looked at her in surprise. She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I may be tired," Todoroki snorted, and we all laughed lightly before settling into a comfortable silence.
After the 10-minute break, half of the ice block had melted entirely, so we separated from it, although most of us made grumbling noises as we did so.
I put away my slightly battered spike ball; most of the spikes were broken or bent from the strain. I definitely needed to replace it when I could or send it in for repairs. But looking back over the last few hours, it did an excellent job of swatting away the undead.
I pulled Wado Ichimonji, Sendai Kitetsu, and Enma out of my shadows and placed them on my waist. I could feel Sendai Kitetsu's malice and displeasure at me using another weapon; truly, it was a spoiled brat. I tapped the sword to calm it down; we still had a more powerful opponent to fight.
We started walking up to the last room at the top of the tower. We approached the door, or rather, the giant metal arch where a door should have been, but there definitely wasn't one, as we could see inside, and my eyes found it.
The dungeon boss was waiting for us.
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