Yuji's first full day as a member of Loki Familia was, by all accounts, uneventful.
He spent the morning settling into his room in the western tower. Although it was the same guest room he had occupied briefly after returning with Loki Familia's expedition group, it felt different now. It was an odd feeling to have somewhere he could call home properly.
Gareth dropped by mid-morning to hand him a key and a folded piece of parchment bearing the Familia's emblem.
"Your room key and your provisional identification. Show it at the Guild if anyone asks. Loki's already filed the paperwork, so you're in the system." The dwarf looked him up and down with an appraising eye. "You eat yet?"
"Not yet."
"Well, stop by the kitchen if you want to grab a bite. Cook's name is Mariene, and she knows how to make some Far East cuisine too, although she can't measure up to my cooking." Gareth said with a laugh, patting Yuji's shoulder as he turned to leave. "Oh, and if you're planning on going to the Dungeon, come tell me first. Finn left standing orders that any solo runs by members above a certain threshold need to be logged. It's so we can keep track on who might be in trouble in the Dungeon if they don't return."
"Sure."
Gareth nodded and left, his heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Yuji had his breakfast in the Familia's communal dining room after going to the kitchen and asking the cook there for something to eat. She told him she'd be more prepared to serve him Far East food the next day, she wasn't equipped, and her skills were rusty, insisting she would rather have him eat Gareth's food than have anything she served that was subpar.
The other members in the dining hall were low ranked adventurers who'd stayed behind from the Dungeon trip. They have Yuji curious looks but kept their distance, apparently unsure of what to make of the tall, pink haired newcomer who had appeared in their Familia overnight.
He didn't mind the distance, it was something he was used to.
After breakfast, he went to find Gareth in the operations room and logged his intention to enter the Dungeon solo.
"Really? I thought you were going to just kick back and relax." Gareth said, his pen hovering over the ledger on the desk.
"At first, I was, but I might as well start getting used to the Dungeon earlier rather than later. Besides, it makes for good exercise." Yuji replied simply.
"Hah! If it were anyone else, I'd tell them to scurry off. I'll give you one of our sketches of the early and middle floors that Rakta made." Gareth said, moving to a cabinet by the side of the room and going through scrolls of rolled-up parchment. "She has an amazing talent as a mapper, so if you have any questions about the Dungeons' layout, she's your best bet, although she's down there now with Finn and the others."
Gareth looked back and asked him, "How far down do you plan on going?"
"Middle floors, maybe the upper twenties." Yuji replied, looking around the room with some interest.
Gareth paused for a moment. "The upper twenties on your first day? Hmm…"
"Is that a problem?" Yuji asked him, seeing Gareth clearly deliberating about something.
"For a level 1? Yeah, but you? Nah, not a problem exactly. You'll have to haul ass if you want to come back on the same day, though, unless you want to sleep overnight in the Dungeon." Gareth said, pulling out a thick piece of parchment and tossing it to Yuji who caught it. "A good point to stop, I'd suggest, is Floor 18, that's the first safe point and even has a community of adventurers living down there. The Floor Boss on floor 17 should still be respawning so you won't encounter it."
"How long do they take to respawn?"
"It varies from Floor boss to Floor boss, but this one, the Goliath, respawns every two weeks. It's about Level 4 in strength."
Yuji nodded and pocketed the parchment inside his clothes.
"You want a supporter to go with you?"
"No, it's fine. I'm not going down to collect anything, just getting used to it for now." Yuji replied as he turned and started leaving the room.
"Just come back in one piece. Loki'll have my head if anything happens to ya."
"I'll be fine."
"That's what they all say."
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Babel Tower was busier than Yuji had expected for a mid morning weekday.
The first twenty floors of the massive structure was a vertical marketplace, packed with Familia run shops selling everything from weapons and armour to potions and preserved food. The floors above them were private residences belonging to various Gods and Goddesses. At the very bottom, accessible through the ground floor, was the entrance of the Dungeon itself.
Yuji made his way through the crowd with his good down. Some people gave him curious glances, whilst others scoffed, seeing him going down empty handed, assuming it was another Level 1 newbie too hyped up for their own good before being torn apart.
Stepping past the looks, he descended into the Dungeon.
The Upper Floors were familiar territory, he'd passed through them with Loki Familia on the way back up, though they'd moved quickly that he hadn't had time to study the environment closely. Now alone and unhurried, he took in the details.
The walls of the first few floors were a pale blue-green, with a texture that felt organic rather than constructed. Monsters spawned from the walls themselves, emerging from cracks and fissures with a wet, unpleasant sound. They were manufactured by the Dungeon itself, produced and deployed like an immune system attacking foreign bodies.
He dispatched them without stopping. The goblins, kobolds and dungeon lizards of the first few floors posed no threat to him. They couldn't get within five feet of him before they lost their head.
He wasn't here to collect magic stones, so he made sure to break them as well, not intending on having anyone pick up after his scraps.
He'd taken the time to conduct a simple experiment as well. After cutting off the limbs of a goblin, he went over and injected it with his reverse cursed energy. Just like any normal person, it started healing its wounds, a look of utter confusion marring the goblin's face. It turned to look up at Yuji before it was shortly decapitated right after.
He descended steadily, passing through floor after floor, and dispatching the various monsters that tried attacking him. He wondered if this was a common occurrence, as he had been charged at by what looked like thirty war shadows, monsters resembling a black shadowy body and sharp claws that could cleave a person in two with one swipe.
So could Yuji, and that was exactly what he did to the group of monsters. He bisected them all without the need of pulling out his hand, including their magic stones, before making his way further down.
The environment shifted as he went deeper, from the pale green of the upper floors to the grey stone of the middle levels. The monsters grew larger and more aggressive, but the result was the same regardless.
By midday, he had reached the seventeenth floor.
Taking out the map that Gareth had given him, he looked at the impeccable drawing of the Dungeons layout.
The massive cavern that served as the entrance to the eighteenth floor, the safe point known as Under Resort (scribbled with little doodles of a house), stretched out before him. He could see the crystal lit ceiling of Floor 18 through the opening, and the luscious greenery that encompassed a large area of the floor.
Gareth was right, the 17th Floor was empty when he entered it, so either Finn's group or some other adventurer had probably killed it before going further down.
He didn't descend into the safe point. Instead, he took a side corridor that branched off from the main path, heading into a section of the seventeenth floor that was quieter and less frequented.
This is what he'd come for.
During the expedition, when they'd passed through these floors, Yuji had caught something at the edge of his perception. A presence that didn't fit the pattern of the other monsters. It was brief, barely a flicker, and the pace of the group at the time hadn't allowed him to investigate lest that grew suspicious of him.
Now however, he had all the time in the world.
He moved through the corridor, his senses extended outward. The ambient noise of the Dungeon surrounded him, accompanied by the sounds of monsters spawning and their shuffling movements in adjacent rooms.
Then, on the edge of his range, he'd found it.
A pair of presences that wasn't human, but also wasn't the same as a normal monster. It was more akin to something in between.
It was on the 19th Floor, in a section of tunnels that branched off from the main route. It was moving carefully and deliberately, with an awareness of its surroundings that no ordinary monster possessed.
Yuji changed direction and headed downward.
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The 19th Floor was darker than the ones above. The walls had shifted to a deep brown with patches of phosphorescent moss providing lighting in the dim environment. The corridor he followed was narrow and winding, branching multiple times before he settled on the path that brought him closest to the anomalous presence.
He found them in a wide chamber with a low ceiling, partially hidden behind a formation of rock that created a natural alcove.
The first thing that greeted him was a voice, but not the usual guttural roar of a monster. Instead, it was a voice speaking words, coming from the inside the alcove.
"...told you, the route through the eastern passage is blocked too. The spawning increased again."
The voice was rough, carrying a guttural quality that didn't seem fit for its throat, but the words were coherent.
A second voice responded, higher and more fluid. "Then we go around. The hidden path near the crystal deposits is still clear."
"For now. If the spawning keeps increasing, that'll be blocked too."
Yuji's mind was perfectly still. The two voices that were speaking intelligibly were coming from monsters.
He stayed in the shadows of the alcove's entrance, peering inside.
Two figures stood in the small chamber. The first was a red lizardman, taller than average and wearing properly fitted armour with a curved sword at its hip. The second was smaller, a goblin like creature with green skin, wearing armour and had on an oversized pointed cap, carrying what appeared to be a satchel.
They were discussing routes through the Dungeon the same as any other adventurer would.
That was when the lizardman noticed him first.
Its eyes locked onto Yuji's position with an alertness that was anything but mindless. In a single motion, its hand went to the hilt of its sword, its body shifting into a combat stance that was practised and refined.
"Surface dweller." the lizardman said, its voice dropping low.
The smaller creature scrambled behind the lizardman, its eyes wide with terror.
Yuji stepped out from the corner, hands still in his pockets and he could see the lizardman's eyes twitch at no signs of weapons on the hooded man in front of it.
The lizardman studied him, tension coiled in every muscle. Its amber eyes tracked Yuji's posture, his hands and the direction of his gaze.
Yuji raised an eyebrow, he could tell that, despite how the lizardman was projecting itself, the slight trembling in his legs couldn't be hidden from Yuji's gaze.
"I'm not here to fight." Yuji was the first to break the silence, now intrigued more than ever at what he was seeing.
"They all say that." The lizardman replied, its hand still on its sword but not making an effort to draw it yet. Its eyes narrowed as it took a closer look at him. "...You're different. You're not scared."
"Should I be?"
"Most adventurers who find us either run or attack. You're doing neither." The lizardman's stance relaxed by a mere fraction, though its hand remained on the hilt of its sword. "Why?"
Yuji looked at the creature in front of him. Properly armed, armoured, speaking in full sentences and even measuring Yuji up in the case that a fight broke out.
"Because you're talking to me." Yuji replied simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The monsters I've encountered so far in the Dungeon, don't."
Something shifted in the lizardman's expression. Not quite surprised, but more like the cautious recognition of something it hadn't expected to find, but was hoping to for a very long time.
"...No. No, they don't."It said, its hand slowly came off the sword hilt.
The smaller creature peeked out from behind the lizardman, its eyes still wide with terror, looking back and forth from Yuji and the lizardman.
"My name is Lyd." The lizardman said, and the way it offered the name carried the weight of a gesture that meant something to it. "I am a Xenos."
"Yuji Itadori." Yuji replied before asking, "Xenos?"
"Monsters born from the Dungeon, same as any other, but different."Lyd tapped the side of his head with one clawed finger. "We think, we feel and we remember. But we aren't sure why."
Yuji was quiet for a moment, processing the lizardman's words.
"How many of you are there?"
Lyd's expression shifted to something more guarded. "Enough to matter… not enough to be safe."
"Safe from what?"
"Everything." The word carried a sense of heaviness that Yuji recognized. "Adventurers hunt us like any other monster. Normal monsters attack us because we're different. And the Dungeon…" Lyd glanced at the walls around them. "The Dungeon doesn't know what to do with us."
The smaller creature tugged on Lyd's armour and whispered something that Yuji could barely make out. Lyd listened and nodded.
"My companion is nervous. We don't usually let surface dwellers see us, let alone talk to them." He looked back at Yuji. "There's someone on the surface who helps us. A messenger between our kind and a God who watches over the Dungeon. If you know of Ouranos, then you know who I mean."
'The one that Ouranos had follow me.'
The thought came to Yuji quickly as he responded, "I know who you're referring to."
Lyd studied him for another long moment, those eyes of his searching for something. Whatever it had found seemed to satisfy him enough.
"You said you're not here to fight. I believe you." Lyd said, stepping forward, much to the smaller creature's bewilderment and horror, offering a clawed hand to him. "I believe you greet each other with a shake of the hand. We Xenos, have adopted the same for those we choose to trust among our kind."
Yuji looked at the scaled hands, before reaching out and taking it.
The moment their hands connected, Yuji's perception expanded through the contact. It was instinctive, the same reflex that had allowed him to read the monster's magic stone during Monster Feria. His soul perception flowed through the physical connection and into Lyd's being.
What he found almost made his grip tighten involuntarily.
The magic stone at Lyd's core was different from any monster he had ever examined. It was hollow like the Viola's, nor was it a puppet receiving instructions from below. It was self contained, complete and generating its own energy and intent.
And wrapped around it, threatened into its very structure was something unmistakable to him.
A soul.
It wasn't a fragment or a seed, but a genuine soul. While still young and forming, it was undeniably present. It burned with awareness, personality and a strong longing for something far above the Dungeon.
Yuji had touched tens of thousands of beings over four centuries. He had felt the souls of the living and the echoes of the dead.
He had never felt anything like this inside a monster.
Lyd noticed the change in Yuji's expression. "...What is it?"
Yuji released his hand slowly, before quietly speaking. "You're real."
Lyd blinked at his words. "What?"
"Your soul. Its real." Yuji said, meeting the lizardmans eyes. "You're not just a monster that learned to talk. You have a soul, a real one."
The chamber grew silent after his words.
Lyd stared at him, and for the first time since their conversation started, his composure cracked. Something raw and vulnerable surfaced behind his eyes, the desperate hope of a being that had spent its entire existence wondering if it was truly alive or just a convincing imitation.
"... You can feel that?" Lyd's voice was barely above a whisper.
"I can."
The smaller creature had gone still behind Lyd, its mouth hanging open.
"No one from the surface has ever told us that before." He began speaking. "Not even the one who helps us. He believes us, but he can't prove it, can't feel it." He paused his words for a moment. "But you can."
The weight of those words settled into the space between them.
Yuji understood what Lyd was saying. Fels believed the Xenos had souls because of their behaviour, speech and capacity for emotion. But belief wasn't proof. No one had ever been able to confirm from direct perception what the Xenos carried inside them was a genuine soul rather than an elaborate mimicry.
Until now.
"I'm not going to tell anyone about you." Yuji said, understand how significant this might be, not just to them but to anyone else as well. "Not unless you want me to."
Lyd was quiet for a long moment, then he smiled, wide and toothy.
"I think I like you, Yuji Itadori." Lyd said with a wide grin.
"Just Yuji is fine, Lyd."
Lyd laughed, his voice loud and unguarded as the sound bounced off the chamber walls. The smaller creature flinched at the noise, then relaxed. From the corner of Lyd's eyes, small specks of water could be seen trailing down his face as he laughed, as if letting out years of frustration in one go.
They talked for a while longer. Lyd explained the basics of the Xenos, their numbers and the hidden routes through the Dungeon, including their relationship with Fels and Ouranos. He was careful not to reveal too much, and Yuji didn't press. Trust was built in increments, not leaps.
When they parted ways, Lyd was headed deeper into the Dungeon and Yuji was turning back toward the surface. The lizardman called out after him.
"Yuji."
He stopped and looked back.
"Come find us again. Bring that handshake." Lyd grinned. "The others will want to meet you."
Yuji nodded once then turned and began the long walk back to the surface.
His mind was occupied by what he had uncovered and the revelations that came with it.
'Monsters with souls. Something controlling puppets from deep below. A labyrinth sealed behind orichalcum doors. All while intelligent beings caught in the middle, trying to survive in a world that doesn't have room for them.'
As his footsteps echoed through the dark caves of the Dungeon, one last thought drifted through him.
'I know what it's like to not belong anywhere.'
The walk back to the surface was quiet and Yuji used every step of it to think.
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Authors Note:
Longer chap than usual. but hope you enjoyed it. Here's to hoping it uploads at the correct time today.