A/N

Hey all! After reading a few reviews I came to the (not so shocking) realization that the pacing for this story is way too fast, and so I've decided to heed your suggestions and slow down just a tad bit. Please enjoy!

CHAPTER EIGHT: WAR ON FLOOR ZERO

Katsuo had briefly returned to Earth in order to tell his mom and friends they may be unable to reach him for an hour or so. A couple half-lies was all it took to assure them that he would be fine and he was back on floor zero, doing everything he could to prepare for the Dungeon Break reaching its climax in an hour. Even now, the echoing thumps of hundreds, maybe thousands of monsters making their way down could be heard from the town. All the merchants had long since abandoned their shops for fear of death, except for the bartender who kept the tavern open. No alcohol, of course.

Katsuo found himself helping out wherever he could, moving boxes of supplies, giving speeches to ease the nerves of the brave men and women fighting, etc. His worries for how this would all turn out only rose when he saw the makeshift barricade being put up. There was only around half a day left before the dungeon break occurred, but still. Wooden spikes and haphazardly placed crates were NOT going to defend against a horde of monsters coming from the first ten floors. So, putting his knowledge on architecture to good use (courtesy of the library), Katsuo and some adventurers knocked down an unused building and used it to build up an even better wall. Not like the bar was set high though.

There were more jobs left to do, but Katsuo left those to the experts since his mind could only hold so much information right now. Eventually, he found himself on top of one of the guild buildings, watching the people work tirelessly as they prepared for a war. Katsuo did notice a… rather bright man sitting around doing nothing, but it was none of Katsuo's business. That guy is gonna die first. Katsuo took out his lunch box, which had been packed by his mother, and slowly began eating away at it, refilling his energy. He could have just drunk a stamina potion and been done with it, but boxed lunches from loved ones heal the body and the soul. Needless to say, Katsuo got out of it with much more energy.

Realizing he had a pretty good vantage point of the area, Katsuo stood up and began analyzing the defenses. Everything seemed good for the most part. The wall was nearly finished, supplies were where they needed to be, and it seemed the preparations were nearly complete with an entire hour left to spare. An open field of rock stood in between the edge of town and the entrance to floor 1. Upon first coming here, Katsuo had wondered why they didn't expand as much as possible, but with dungeon breaks happening, he guessed they wanted the least amount of damage possible. I wonder how my friends are doing.

Friends. Huh. When did he begin worrying about other people? When did he have people to worry about? Everything after saving his mom was a little bit of a blur. Constant fighting and bloodshed had eventually led to Katsuo sort of making his way through life on auto-pilot. He had clear memories of Midoriya and Kirishima, how he'd inspired the two to follow their dreams and become heroes, but that was it. He could barely even remember the blonde guy from the beach. This realization brought a deep-seeded unrest to Katsuo's soul. If he couldn't enjoy his new life to the fullest, then what made it any different from his old one?

Guess I'll have to slow down a bit when I get home. I won't instantly die if I stop working for a few days. With that little bit of soul-searching out of the way, Katsuo's ears picked up the sound of the roof entrance opening and closing behind him. Turning around, Katsuo spotted the guild master. "Hey old man. Proud of the way things are going down there?" The old man found his place next to Katsuo and looked down at all of the young adventurers, scrambling about to get their jobs done while also finding the time to smile and laugh. He looked down at them with the eyes of a grandpa watching his grandchildren play in the dirt.

"I'll be proud once I see them smiling tomorrow and know they'll be alright." The two men just stood there for a while, taking in the sight of the glowing town in the darkness of the area, all those little people down there, each with their own life to live after today. Those lives are precious flames that must be protected. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, as the time for war was near approaching. "You know where to go. I'll see you after this ordeal is over." The guild leader shook Katsuo's hand, entrusting the lives of his adventurers to Katsuo. After that, they parted ways, each going to their own station.

Although he was still strong, the guild leader was much stronger when it came to strategy and planning. He saw a battlefield the way an artist saw a blank canvas, remembering every adventurer's strengths and weaknesses, then selecting the best place for them to be. He was on top of another, shorter building that was closer to the front. Meanwhile, Katsuo had posted up at the nose of the army, being one of the commanders on the front lines. He and two other men were there, supposedly the strongest in the tower. The first man was the flashy guy from before. His golden hair, shiny white armor, and smug attitude were shining in the darkness. In a bad way. "My my, they sent more street trash to back me up? Whatever, I suppose a dirty rat like yourself will just have to do."

Katsuo could tell immediately who this guy was. His name was NOT important enough to remember, but his class? Oh man, this guy was a textbook, self important, ego-inflated royal. Not the type of royal to recognize Noblesse Oblige, but the type to think anyone who isn't royalty is gutter trash and worth nothing. Katsuo didn't think this guy had worked for anything in his life, much less picked up a sword, but maybe he was just judging a book by its ugly, disgusting cover. Either that or he had this guy all figured out from just a glance.

Next up for meet and greet was the other strongest adventurer, known as the Black Death. A creative name for someone who walked away from Katsuo as he tried to make small talk. The man looked to be around 17, maybe 18 years old. He had black, spiky hair with crimson red eyes that shone brilliantly in the dark. He was wearing a pitch black coat with a hood on it, although the hood was off when Katsuo saw him. His face almost looked lifeless, like this was the last place he wanted to be. But his eyes told a different story. Katsuo had never seen himself in a reflection while fighting, but he imagined the way his eyes looked when he was excited in a battle looked exactly like his before this fight started.

Katsuo also took the time to get to know the men and women he would be leading into battle. They were all very kind and humble, unlike Flashy Bastard, who was too busy checking out his hair in the reflection of his sword to talk to anyone. Bet if there was a princess here that guy would be all about helping the poor unfortunates. Disdain aside, Katsuo recognized the strength of his soldiers and made his way back to the front. Only five minutes remained until the dungeon break commenced. The sound of footsteps had long since made their way to the town, but they were much more faint. Now, the footsteps sounded as if they were right next to Katsuo, the sound bouncing off the cave walls over and over again.

Katsuo's grip on his dagger tightened, sweat trickling down his forehead as he pulled up the system window one last time to look at his quest regarding the dungeon break.

Requirement for completion: Successfully defend the Floor 0 town from the army of monsters. This will be successful when the Floor 10 boss has been killed.

The clear conditions were simple: defend the town and kill the final boss. However, Katsuo's growing sense of unease only worsened as the timer on the quest counted down. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

THE DUNGEON BREAK HAS BEGUN

The system window automatically closed itself as the first horde of monsters appears. Fortunately, it was only the monsters from floor 1, nothing too bad. It was more like an appetizer before the main course. Katsuo led the charge, Flashy Bastard running ahead to show off like the prick Katsuo had already guessed him to be. A simple jump barrage was all it took to clear out the monsters. Because floor zero was so large, the walls were way too spread apart for Katsuo to jump off of them, so he ended up settling for just jumping off of the monsters as he cut through them all. There was no break in the action however. More monsters began to pour in at a rapid rate. Kobolds, armored skeletons, large green slimes, etc.

It seemed every monster was being pulled from D&D and put straight in Katsuo's line of fire. As the monsters became progressively stronger and stronger, Katsuo found himself having to spend more and more time on each group, but he managed. Soon, a break in the fighting appeared where floor five should have been. The reason there were no monsters here was due to Katsuo's rampage across floor five the day before. The adventurers took this time to regroup and plan their next move, with the guild leader reorganizing his soldiers to fill in for the adventurers who had been injured during the first 4 waves.

All in all, not many of them were hurt, and there were no deaths to speak of. The adventurers crowded around Katsuo, phrases like "thank you" and "you're a lifesaver" were thrown around like crazy, a blushing Katsuo saying he was just doing what was right as his ego began to inflate. Of course, memories of the giant from a couple days ago stopped it from getting too large, but Katsuo was happy. He had successfully preserved their smiles in the middle of a war, and that was all he needed. Of course, the break didn't last long. After everyone had gotten situated, they were back to the fight. Katsuo didn't know it yet, but shit was about to get real.

-HL-

Floor seven was a bloodbath. Katsuo was surrounded on all sides by giants, minotaurs, slimes, etc. He dodged a giant stone, jumped on top of it, and sliced through the necks of ten minotaurs before turning his attention to the giants. Fun fact: slimes are extremely acidic. Katsuo found that out when a strong kick had pushed a giant into a slime, its screams of pain and possibly even terror echoing all throughout the cave. Katsuo had no time to process this however, as more giants began to converge on his location. He jumped, punched, kicked, and slashed his way through the horde, keeping a tight circle of open air around him at all times to keep from being overwhelmed.

Jump barrage and punch barrage could only do so much as their cooldowns kept getting in the way of their use. Katsuo had drunk around 10 stamina potions and 2 health potions at this point, and he was starting to wonder how much money he would actually make by the end of this ordeal. Time after time, more monsters, more monsters, and even more monsters came out of the woodwork. Jump, slash kill, jump, slash, kill, the blood evaporating off of Katsuo's skin as an unstoppable force met an army the size of a small country. He didn't know how many enemies remained, nor how many allies would still be alive to have his back. All he knew was that he had to keep going, for the sake of everything he fought for up until now. And then, the fighting came to a stop.

A giant, green-ish blue tail came out of nowhere, slamming into Katsuo's side and sending him to the otherside of the small town, crashing into a shop. Everything was blurry, the sounds of screaming distant as Katsuo's vision began to fade…

And then he was back. Through sheer force of will and a determination to see this fight through to the end, Katsuo gritted his teeth and climbed his way through the rubble, making his way onto the roof of the shop. He drank a health and stamina potion, not entirely back to full strength, but better off than he was a second ago. His eyesight returned to normal, the battlefield grew more defined and less blurry. What he saw was a massacre. The adventurers had suffered a few casualties and were retreating away from the wall. They were fine in the grand scheme of things. Looking in the direction they were running from however, Katsuo saw the army of monsters being slaughtered by another monster.

The creature was large, taking up a good chunk of the battlefield. Its scaly skin was green-ish blue, with a tail behind it that was smacking monsters into the ground repeatedly. And at the top of its body were three separate heads, with large fangs and deathly eyes. The hydra of floor nine. Unlike the monsters around it, who ignored each other in favor of killing humans, the hydra was a mindless monstrosity, merely killing anything near it. The adventurers were all hiding behind the buildings now, praying to anything that would listen to spare them and save their friends and family from the thing that was currently killing every living creature it saw.

Katsuo, knowing he had no time to spare, began making his way to the battlefield once again. He spotted the two men from earlier and touched down next to them. "Okay guys, what's the plan?" Katsuo asked, looking at the other two as they simply watched the monster. Flashy Bastard was horrified, and Katsuo doubted that he would still be here if he could get his legs to move properly. But the other man? His crimson eyes just screamed excitement, like he couldn't wait to get into the fight, his deranged smile adding on to that startling conclusion. "Okay, let's just rush in and attack, yeah?"

And that was how Katsuo found himself running alongside a potential serial killer and a potential serial bed-wetter, a literal wet blanket, if you would. The Hydra caught sight of the unlikely trio, swinging its tail down and absolutely obliterating the ground where they once were. Katsuo and Flashy Bastard had jumped off to the right while Crimson-eyed Psycho Killer jumped to the left. Katsuo could have sworn he saw Crimson licking his blade too. Katsuo began running up the Hydra's tail, dodging balls of acid spit as he made his way up the torso. Flashy Bastard was no longer anywhere to be seen.

The middle head of the Hydra prioritized Katsuo, firebolts flying everywhere in a blaze of glory as Katsuo began running faster and faster, running up the scaly back of the Hydra. And low and behold, a giant jumped onto the Hydra's back as well. I'm such a trend setter, Katsuo thought to himself as he dodged the giant's equally large stone and sliced through his neck. It was nothing but cannon fodder as Katsuo finally made his way up to the base of the necks. Somehow, Flashy Bastard and Crimson were already up there, cutting through the necks as best as they could. Katsuo decided to target the middle head, jumping off of the other two as he began to slice and dice through the Hydra's neck.

"Timber!" The head fell off of the hydra, slamming into the ground. "AAAAAHHHHH!" The sound of a royal scream pierced Katsuo's ears. Flashy Bastard was now Bloody Bastard, being chewed up inside the left head. "NO!" Katsuo, who was now standing on his last legs from pain and exhaustion made one last desperate bid to save Blood Bastard from his fate, pouring all of his mana into a single, highly strengthened punch to the jaw. It worked, maybe too well. The Hydra's head burst, covering Katsuo and already Bloody Bastard as they fell to the ground. OOF! Katsuo held his damaged side, the groans of pain coming from Bloody Bastard snapping him out of it.

He grabbed the poor man, who's lower body was fully chewed through and began running back to the town. Crimson must have finished off the Hydra, because one last screech was heard before its shadow began to grow over Katsuo. IT'S FALLING RIGHT OVER US! Katsuo poured his energy into his legs, sprinting even faster as he just barely cleared the impact area.

He tripped, sending him and Poor Bastard to the ground. It was clear now, there was no hope for Poor Bastard to survive. Katsuo dragged himself over, buying a healing potion from the shop. He considered drinking it himself, not having enough money to buy another one, before deciding to give it to the man beside him, hoping it would alleviate some of his pain. Katsuo collapsed onto the ground. "What… is… (labored breathing)... your name?" The man asked, using his last words to learn the name of his hero. "Katsuo. Hiroki Katsuo." The man didn't respond. Katsuo tilted his head over to look at him, gazing upon the man's visage. He looked like he was asleep, but Katsuo knew better.

The last thing he remembered seeing before blacking out was the guild leader's panicked expression, the sound having faded away as Katsuo finally succumbed to his injuries and allowed himself to be swallowed by the darkness, if only temporarily. Quest cleared.

That was certainly an interesting display, no? It would seem the successor to power has been born. He has certainly proven himself to be a worthy adversary. We may see fun yet again, my friends. The creature, cloaked in darkness and death, gazed upon Katsuo as he was taken into a medical tent, before leaving the battlefield. Until now, Blood Bringer.

A/N

That was a doozy to say the least. Next chapter will be the final chapter before UA, and I'm probably going to include less Solo Leveling elements as I go more in-depth into MHA. Still gonna be getting stronger with every fight and skills and all that, but less scenario events. I'll include some moments of Katsuo in the dungeon town, but that's about it. Until next time dear readers! (3188 words!)