Izuku groaned as he woke up, loud snoring echoing throughout his room.

Rubbing at his eyes, he looked down to see Sir Ratsudon sitting on his chest, curled up like a cat. Scratching the spirit rat's back, Izuku shimmied the thin, scratchy blanket off of his lower half, placing Sir Ratsudon on it.

Looking around, it took him a moment to figure out why his back was so sore, until he looked to his right, the side of the bed at eye level, one white-furred paw hanging off the side. 'Right, Miss Usagiyama took the bed…'

He finally got the last of the sleep out of his eyes and sat up, running his hand through his hair. It was a bit oily, and a quick sniff confirmed that he was smelly.

'Guess it's time to have another bath.'

Izuku sighed, standing up and rummaging through the chest that held all his stuff, grabbing out a large scrap of cloth from the bottom to use as a towel. Looking over at the bed, he saw Miss Usagiyama lying starfished across the entirety of it, the blanket having fallen off during the night.

Doing his best to ignore the absurdly chiselled abs peeking out from underneath her scrunched up shirt, and failing pretty badly, he picked the blanket up from the ground and waved it over her, letting it drop back down on top of her.

He left the room as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake her up and incur her wrath for doing so, tiptoeing out of the doorway and closing the door slowly. As it clicked shut, Izuku flinched for a moment, hoping that her rabbit ears weren't sensitive enough to wake her up from that.

Luckily for him, they didn't seem to be, and he sighed, walking down the stairs and down to the Inn area. He weaved his way through the tables of people either nursing a hangover or drinking enough to get a new one, ignoring the smirks and claps coming his way.

Izuku understood what they were insinuating, but Izuku wasn't thinking of Rumi like that. And even if he was, he was fairly certain that if that had happened last he might not be alive anymore to celebrate. But hell, maybe Melissa and Mei had a point. Maybe adventurers were just really weird.

Wiping at his hair with a towel, he used his butt to push open the door to his room.

"Woah there, I'm getting dressed. So unless you want my foot to go through your skull, you'll close the door and face the wall."

Izuku yelped, having almost forgotten that Miss Usagiyama was in here during his long bath. Pulling the towel up around his face to cut off his peripheral vision, he faced the wall, using his other hand to hold up his untied pants.

"Sorry about that, Miss Usagiyama! I forgot that you were in here…"

All he got was a grunt in response, so he stayed facing the wall, hearing the squeaking of her leather armour as she put it on, the soft 'clink's of the buckles letting him know that she was almost done.

"Alright, I'm done. You can turn around and get dressed now."

Izuku did so immediately, putting on his adventuring gear, clipping [SteelBringer] and the [Ratbone Dagger] to his hips. As he put on the [Ratmaster Pendant] the dormant Sir Ratsudon stirred, 'waking up' from whatever limbo he went into when Izuku took the item off.

He pulled up his hood and walked outside to see Miss Usagiyama leaning against the opposite wall to him, rolling a copper coin through her fingers. "Good, you're done. Come with me."

She didn't drag him along behind her this time, allowing him to just walk beside her, which he counted as a win. "Miss Usagiyama, may I ask where we're going?"

Miss Usagiyama's ears twitched, and she rubbed her nose. "To the Dungeon. Sparring with me was a good way to test your general skill level, but fighting against monsters is very different, I wanna see how you do against the Floor 1 Sub-boss, at least."

Izuku grinned. "You mean the [Duke of Rats]? He was tough, but I did beat him my second or third time going into the Dungeon by myself."

Miss Usagiyama turned to look at him, a surprised look on her face. "You beat the sub-boss, by yourself, at Level… what, 10?"

Izuku smiled. "Uh, I actually beat Floor 1 at Level 9, killing the [Duke of Rats] got me my Elemental Affinity level up. I actually beat Floor 2 the other day as well. The [Great Mole] was really challenging, but I got Sir Ratsudon here from the loot drop, as well as getting to Level 13."

Miss Usagiyama stopped altogether, turning to face him. Her eyes were squinted at him, her lips pursed. "You're bullshitting me, right? Wait, no, you [Heroic] people are never really the type for that."

Izuku shook his head. "What? No! Of course not! Why would I lie about that?"

Miss Usagiyama shrugged, and Izuku saw her give him another once over, but this time it felt like she was actually looking at him, a big difference from the apathetic glance she had given him in Sir Shield's office.

She let out a whistle, shaking her head. "Well, I'll be damned. That's actually kinda cool. Not many people that I can think of who would have had the balls to into a Dungeon by themselves before they had even reached double digits."

A feral grin on her face, she smashed him on the back. "You know what, you can call me Rumi. You've got a little bit of my respect for being hard-headed enough to solo the first two floors, Midoiyra. At least this is gonna be better than that dipshit noble I had to bodyguard for last year…"

Grinning, she waved for Izuku to follow her. "Well, I still wanna see how you go against monsters at least a little bit, so you're gonna go through Floor 1 again so I can watch."

Izuku nodded as they entered the Dungeon Hall, jogging behind Rumi as she placed her hand on the door, and clicking [Yes] when it popped up in front of him, his vision fading as they entered the Dungeon.

Izuku grinned to himself as he saw the [Duke of Rats] finally collapse, an [Earthspike] sticking right through its abdomen.

A slow clap echoed through the chamber as the loot screen came up, dropping a handful of copper coins and a single silver into his hand. Miss Usa- Rumi stepped forward, inspecting the corpse.

"Not bad, not bad, especially for your level. You gotta get better with [Earthspike], though. Right now they form slowly and aren't even sharp. If you want them to be effective you have to practise making them fast and sharp."

Leaning on his sword, Izuku smiled at her. "Thank you, Rumi. I'm confused though, did Sir Shield pay you to… I guess this would be called tutoring… did he pay you to tutor me?"

Rumi shook her head, her own loot screen showing up and dropping 2-3 coppers into her hand. "Huh, surprised I even got that many. Whatever. No, he didn't. But I refuse to be connected to someone whose got no clue what they're doing."

Nodding, Izuku looked at the blunt [Earthspike] that had forced its way through the [Duke of Rats] body, his eyes drawn to the wide, flat top, and the smooth edges of the spike, for some reason. He felt like he was getting an idea…

'Ding!'

But before he could think about it too much, his focus was drawn away from the [Earthspike] as he heard the bell ring at the edge of his hearing, spinning around to quickly scan the room. Rumi noticed, giving him a weird look.

"Yo dude, you can chill. There's only one sub-boss in this Chamber, right? You don't need to be so jumpy."

Izuku glanced over to her and saw her leaning against the wall next to the exit door. He opened his mouth to explain what he had been worried about, before closing it. Did he want more people to know about the bells? Or that the Dungeon was sorta kinda talking to him, every now and then?

He told Melissa and Mei because he trusted them, and he knew that David and Kurimuzon wouldn't go blabbing it so he was fine with them knowing, but wouldn't spread the fact that the Dungeon seem to have an interest in him cause problems?

He shuddered to think of how Bakugou and his cronies would react to that information. Making up his mind, he smiled at Rumi. "Right, sorry. I'm still fairly new to this."

If Rumi thought he was lying she didn't make it known, turning and opening the exit door immediately, stepping into the Warp Chamber. She waved him along and walked into the exit Warp Pad.

Smiling, Izuku stepped on it after her, heading back up to the surface.

Izuku hummed to himself as he ate his lunch, 'Incursions; A guide to the commonly spawned' open next to him.

After exiting the dungeon, Rumi had gone off somewhere to do… something. She hadn't really told him what she was doing, she just kinda hopped off, but he was fine with that. She probably had some really important high-level stuff to do.

He chomped down on the chicken sandwich he was eating, picking off a small bit and placing it on the chair next to him, Sir Ratsudon immediately gobbling it up. Izuku didn't actually have a clue where the things Sir Ratsudon ingested went, but Sir Ratsudon kept eating stuff, so Izuku kept feeding him.

Turning the page, Izuku hummed as he reached the [Water] monsters section, looking through the listed monsters. There were apparently 3 types of monsters that came from an [Incursion].

[Common]s, which were essentially just the low-level fodder monsters. But while they weren't incredibly strong, a rupturing [Mana Spring] had more than enough power to spawn them nonstop for a day or two, where they got progressively stronger, until they stopped altogether, [Elite]s spawning instead.

The book said that for a land-based [Water Incursion], there would be a lot of [Snapping Turtles], [Poison Dart Frogs], and [Sea Newts] as the [Common] monsters.

[Elite]s were monsters comparable to Sub-Bosses, or early Floor Bosses. A rupturing [Mana Spring] could only make a handful of these, but they were still a threat, especially without high-level fighters that can deal with them by themselves.

For a [Water Incursion], the usual [Elite]s were things like [Greater Sea Serpent]s, and the picture showed a giant snake spitting out a stream of water at a silhouetted person that was about as tall as the snake was thick. It was noted in the book that the picture was to scale, and Izuku gulped, imagining multiple of them writhing towards the town.

And finally, each [Incursion] had something the book called a [Pinnacle] monster. It only showed up at the very end, and was seemingly the [Mana Spring]s last-ditch effort to do… whatever it was they were trying to send monsters out to do.

According to the book, [Pinnacle] monsters were incredibly strong, usually requiring a few mid-to-high level people to take down. There was even less variation in what they could be, apparently, as the book only listed one possible [Pinnacle] monster for [Water Incursion]s.

The picture was to scale as well, and Izuku almost couldn't believe it. The little silhouette of a person completely dwarfed, with the [Leviathan] on the page easily 5-6 times taller than it, and even wider.

Izuku couldn't imagine ever fighting something like that, and some people had fought multiple?!

Placing a bookmark where he was up to, he closed the book, needing to take a break.

Looking around, he noticed that it was notably later in the day, fairly late in the afternoon, but not the evening yet, and there were many more people in the Inn. He had finished his sandwich a while back while reading, and a server must have come and taken his dishes away because the plate was gone.

Izuku felt guilty about not taking it back himself, but reading up on what he would potentially be fighting in the coming days was important. He was about to stand up to go read out in the sun when the door of the Inn opened again, Melissa walking in and immediately heading towards him.

He immediately perked up, smiling at her. He gave a small wave her way, but she didn't wave back, already too close for it to really matter. Sitting down across from him with a thud, she placed her elbows on the table.

"Is everything alright?"

Melissa sighed, meeting his eyes. "I swear, I've known you less than a fortnight, and I can already tell that you're going to worry me to death."

Izuku smiled sheepishly, getting a sense of deja vu. "I'm guessing Sir Shield mentioned that I'd be helping out tomorrow?"

Melissa nodded wildly. "Yes?! Of course, he did?! Ah, sorry. You don't deserve to be yelled at... It's just, I'm already worried for my father, having to deal with this double [Incursion], and now I'm worried about you too."

She leaned back in her chair, and Izuku passed her over the rest of his mug of water. She took a sip, groaning. "Are you adventurers always so stressful to be friends with?"

Izuku scratched the back of his head. "I, uh. I don't know, really? I guess maybe? I'm sorry for worrying you, but Sir Shield asked for my help, and I want to help as much as I can."

Melissa nodded, sighing. "No, no, I get it. [Heroic] to the core, I guess. It's just, Mei has been my only real friend for so long now, and the most I've ever had to worry about her is mild burns or not getting enough sleep and making another explosive. Now I'm worried about you getting actually hurt! It's stressful!"

Izuku's eyes widened. "Has she actually made a bomb before? Why would she?"

Melissa shrugged. "Sleep deprivation, I think. It can affect even her after too long, even if [Energetic] lets her sleep less."

Izuku perked up. "Is that one of her traits?"

Melissa froze, letting out a raspberry as she put her forehead to the table. "Yes, it is. Please don't tell her that I told you that? I don't know why exactly but she and Otto really don't like when people use scanning skills on them."

Izuku tilted his head, a bit confused at that, but nodded. "Alright, I won't mention it."

Melissa smiled thankfully, taking another sip of water. "So, Mei and I didn't see you at all yesterday, but dad said you stopped by to talk with him. What did you get up to?"

Izuku perked up. "Oh right! You don't know Rumi! Sir Shield hired her to be like, a safety net for me during the coming Incursion! She's a super high-level mercenary!

He smiled, his hands patting Sir Ratsudon. "I spent yesterday with her showing her what I was capable of so she knew when to step in during the [Incursion]s if it looked like I needed it.."

Melissa hummed. "Huh, dad didn't mention her, I'm glad you have someone for backup like that, though."

Izuku nodded and then froze as Melissa put her hand on his shoulder. "You be safe, alright? Mei would be really upset if her primary supplier up and died."

Izuku chuckled, leaning into her hand slightly. "I might be low level compared to Rumi or Sir Shield, but I don't plan on getting myself hurt."

Melissa smiled, patting his shoulder, before bringing her hand back. A server showed up and took her order after that, and Melissa and Izuku spent the evening sitting and talking.

Izuku was still nervous about the [Incursion] tomorrow, but sitting there with her, talking about magic and potions and whatever else, made it all seem like it was going to be OK.