Instantly, Yuji and the monster were enveloped by darkness. The female monster blinked and next thing it knew, it found itself in what looked like a town.
There was one thing that most intelligent monsters in the Dungeons share, and that was the desire to reach the surface. Its large head swiveled, looking at the unfamiliar landscape and buildings, as well as the open air. The figure of the man that stood atop of its head had long since disappeared.
From the perspective of the Loki Familia, they watched as Yuji's figure raised his hand, and then a dark sphere enveloped the both of them, floating in the air like an immovable anomaly.
Inside the Domain, Yuji appeared and stood near a playground he used to frequent when he was a child. His Domain gave him the breakdown of what the monster in front of him was.
"Not exactly a soul, but something similar? Whenever it dies, it gets cycled back into the Dungeon, waiting until it can be revived again."
The monster heard Yuji talking to himself, turning and quickly sending a cloud of spores towards him, engulfing the entire town.
However, in the moment they had appeared, the spores each disintegrated in the air as though millions of little slices tore them apart until nothing was left.
"You ain't worthy of having my Domain be explained to you, just die."
As his words echoed out throughout the Domain, the monster was sliced and cut apart a hundred, thousand, millions of times over and over again. The dissolving fluid inside of its sacs was no exception.
It kept being cut down as Yuji imbued the sure hit effect of his Domain with Dismantle and Cleave until the only trace left behind was the magic stone, dropping onto the ground.
(A/N: Common misconception but Cleave isn't JUST for people with cursed energy, instead the damage output can be scaled BASED on their cursed energy, it can still hit anything)
Walking over, Yuji picked up the stone and noticed it held a much stranger appearance as opposed to the other magic stones that were dropped by the monsters they had come across.
"Finn or Riveria might know more about this thing."
He pocketed the stone and the Domain broke down, leaving him to fall down to the forest below. Landing on the ground, he looked up to where the Loki Familia were, seeing that they were making their way over to the exit.
With a kick off the ground, he disappeared, leaving behind no trace as he met up with the Loki Familia once again.
"Yo, catch."
Yuji suddenly appeared before the Riveria and Finn, who were both overseeing the retreat towards the upper Floors.
Caught off guard, Riveria fumbled slightly as her hand knocked the magic stone Yuji threw towards him, before catching it firmly.
Riveria looked at the magic stone in her hand, frowning as she did so.
"Looks like you took care of another problem we faced. I can't thank you enough for your support." Finn said, walking up to Yuji and directing his gaze to where the monster had been, along with that odd orb Yuji summoned.
"What the hell was that, anyway? All I saw was a giant black ball floating in the sky, and then it broke away with no trace of the monster." Bete curiously asked him, scratching the back of his head in irritation at having to rely on someone else to save their asses.
"A Domain Expansion. I just isolated it from the outside world and dealt with it." Yuji vaguely answered him. "I can explain more later once we get out of this place, if you're still curious."
"Tsk, I don't care, but those two nerds- the two nerds and Aiz might." He clicked his tongue and pointed towards Aiz, who was now staring at Yuji with an even bigger fervor in her eyes.
"I for one would very much be interested in learning more about what it is you did." Riveria promptly replied, putting the matter of the magic stone aside for now.
"Good, once we head out, I'll invite you to stay at our Loki Familia's place so we can sort out the compensation and division of rewards. For now, we're forced to end the expedition early due to the extensive loss of material and weapons." Yuji looked over the supply chain that the supporters were carrying, noticing a severe lack of weapons and equipment compared to before. He even spotted one of the frontline adventurers holding a pan in place of a mace.
"How long would it take for us to head back up?"
"Well, if we focus on only heading back up, I'd say maybe 12 days or less. It would have taken longer if you didn't help heal the wounded." Finn cast a grateful look towards Yuji, before addressing the entire group.
"Alright, everyone!! I'm calling an official end to our expedition. It's time to head home!"
Cheers erupted throughout the expedition members, some of the exhausted looking people letting out sighs of relief.
Looking on, Yuji couldn't help but smile, taking in the novel experience of being part of a Dungeon expedition, as short as it was.
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The Dungeon layout would dramatically change on certain floors. The standard design started back on Floor 1, and then became steadily more complex with new topography including forests, ponds, deserts, and many other areas.
Yuji marveled at the unique structure that comprised the Dungeon's layout, completely affirming in his own mind that something like this wouldn't exist back on his own planet.
The terrain that he and the Loki Familia were currently making their way through was a series of cave-like systems, with rocks jutting out from the walls and large holes leading to other passageways. He also had to watch out for the occasional hole in the ground, lest he fell down to a lower Floor below.
They had travelled up from the deeper Floors all the way to the middle levels, the 17th Floor.
"We could've kept goooooing! I didn't have enough fuuun!"
"Enough already. You're really starting to test my patience here.
"But we worked so hard just to get to Floor 50…"
Tione scolded her sister, having been forced to listen to the same repetitive complaints over and over as Tiona hadn't stopped voicing her boredom the entire way up.
"How many times does Captain have to explain it to you? Those monsters destroyed almost all of our weapons and food. Even if we wanted to continue, there wasn't enough left."
"But there's food everywhere down here. We could've figured it out…"
"Without weapons or items? They don't grow down here. Especially weapons, since all we have left are just pieces of junk.
Tione continued her scolding, gesturing to the fact Tiona didn't have anything left at all.
Everybody had been forced to wear badly damaged armor and carry weapons that were prone to breaking at any moment. Their edges had become dull without any way to maintain them. All their armor had holes or large gashes on the plating, one big hit and it could break apart. Equipment like these were always prone to breaking down during long missions, with the exception of Superiors.
"Ahhhh, this sucks! Just getting all the way up to Floor 50 was long and hard enough already…"
Tiona complained and walked on with her arms behind her back, strolling over to Yuji's side, nudging him with her shoulder.
"You think so too, right? I bet with you tagging along, we could've kept going past Floor 60, maybe even up to 70!"
"Haha, maybe, but I would rather head back up to the surface and relax."
He wanted nothing more than to finally sleep with a proper roof over his head, kickback and relax for once, enjoying this new world he was in.
"Blehh, you really do sound like a grandpa when you say things like that." Tiona teased, before skipping towards Aiz and Lefiya.
"All because of that monster, we had to leave… So, what was it exactly?"
A few moments passed before Lefiya answered, "I-I don't know… I've never read or heard about that monster appearing in the Dungeon before…"
"All we can say is that it was an undiscovered species… But that magic stone it dropped is quite strange." Tione continued on, glancing towards Riveria, who had the stone in her pouch.
Magic stones come in many different shapes and sizes, but the one thing they had in common was their dark purple color. The stone Yuji had retrieved however, had a bright colored core surrounded by a dark purple layer and an even more unusual shiny covering.
As they all pondered, the group arrived at a wide room. The passageways up here were a lot narrower than the deeper Floors. With the large amount of equipment they were carrying, they had to split up the groups into two before entering the Floor they were on.
It was a lot harder to coordinate a large group in such tight and narrow spaces if they were to get swarmed by monsters again. Riveria was in charge of the forward group, which included the two Amazonian twins, Aiz, Lefiya, Bete, Yuji and twenty adventurers together. Finn and Gareth stayed back and were with the second group, following behind them from a distance.
Everyone was exhausted and tired as they headed back home, but the ones having it the worst were the low level supporters who had been tasked with carrying the baggage and carts that had survived.
"...Linne, want some help?"
"Huh? N-no no. I'm fine?!"
Aiz had approached a human girl and offered her some assistance with the baggage. The supporter quickly rejected the offer, she couldn't let a First Class Adventurer do something as mundane as carrying the bags.
Yuji had noticed how the rest of the Loki Familia treated Aiz. Her strength and reputation being very well known between them, and not to mention her detached way of handling things, many members of the Familia were at a loss at how to interact with her.
'Honestly, from my perspective, she just seems extremely socially awkward. Then again, they probably respect her strength and reputation a lot, so combined with her personality, it doesn't paint a pretty picture.'
Yuji ruminated to himself as he walked up behind Linne and lifted the comically large backpack off her back.
"Wha- Eekk! M-Mr Itadori, you don't have to do that!" Linne quickly protested, trying to reach and pull back the bag.
"It's fine, I'm more than capable of defeating this bag monster." He gave her a grin and tussled her hair before walking past, slinging the bag onto his back, leaving Linne behind as a blushing and panicked mess.
"Tsk, don't know why you would even bother with them. The runts ain't worth it." Bete clicked his tongue, walked up and kicked the supporter lightly on the side of her hip as a way to shoo her away, coming up next to him. He turned and looked back at Aiz as well.
"Same goes to you, Aiz. Just let them do their job, it's all they're worth down here. Even as strong as you are, you don't know shit, huh? Just talking with weaklings is a waste of time, much less helping them out."
"..."
Aiz listened quietly as Bete cocked his head back and was about to laugh, but Yuji slapped the back of his head, sending him falling flat on his front.
"Ah, dammit… What's the big idea?!"
"With your reasoning, I should've just left you all behind then, huh?" Yuji said, walking over Bete's back and over him, causing the man to let out a grunt as he got up and patted the dirt off his body.
"Yea, you could've, and it would be well within your right as someone strong."
Yuji shook his head, remembering what Riveria told him before about bete, describing him ironically as "a man who wanted to be misunderstood".
"Once you're the strongest… then you can decide how to treat others. For now, stop being a tsundere, it's embarrassing for a guy your age."
"Y-You-!" Bete flustered, his eyes twitching rapidly before shoving his hands in his pants and storming him.
"There's nothing wrong with what you're doing, so don't let it get to you. Remember, helping people isn't wrong." Yuji looked back at Aiz, who looked up and nodded at his words.
"Don't listen to a word Bete says, Aiz. That's the real time waster."
"Go to hell, woman. You should be helping the runts! Yet there you are, empty-handed! Move your ass!"
"Shut up already!"
Tiona and Bete kept shouting and bickering with one another, glaring at each other.
They were cut off short, as something interrupted them.
"-UoOOooo!!"
The sounds of a distant howl started to echo towards the group and beyond. It wasn't long till the unmistakable grunts of heavy breathing joined them. Although this room and Floor had many exits, monsters were constantly being born in each one of them.
"UUOOooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
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Authors Notes: Be sure to leave a review and powerstones behind! Having more people read this story is the biggest source of motivation