"This a friend of yours Megumin?"

Megumin just let out a huff as she crossed her arms, pouting. "No! She's not my friend, she's just some stupid girl who always follows me around claiming to be my rival!"

YunYun pouted at that as well, not wanting to just take the insults, but found herself looking at the floor instead. What did it matter what she said? Now that Megumin had given her explanation, the Artificer would probably just send her away.

But what she didn't notice was that Izuku recognized the look on her face. It was a look that he himself had on his face many a time over the years growing up. He set his mouth in a disapproving line and turned to Megumin.

Summoning a fly swatter with |Summon Tool|, he smacked her on the shoulder. "Hey! Don't be rude Megumin! You shouldn't talk about other people like that, even if you're upset with them! You should at least let her explain herself properly."

YunYun just stared at the pair as Megumin started pouting. No-one had ever stood up for her like that! The stories she had heard about the new Artificer's kindness were true!

Izuku crouched down and held out his hand to the girl, as she was still lying on the ground from when she fell over. She took his hand and he helped pull her up. "So, Megumin said your name was YunYun, right?"

She nodded as she reached her feet, still too anxious to reply to him properly. He just smiled at her softly. "So, from what Megumin said, and what I've seen, you've been following us around for the last few days. Why is that?"

She shifted around uncomfortably, looking over the group members. Aqua was looking bored, scanning the area around them, Megumin was just holding onto her shoulder as she pouted at Izuku, and the blonde crusader that she didn't know the name of seemed to be a little hot, as her face was fully red.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. The very fact that he hadn't sent her away immediately was a good sign in her book. Maybe she would actually be able to get her pitch off to him!

Standing up and bouncing on her feet as one hand covered her face, she spoke. "Greetings Artificer! My name is YunYun, and I am a mage of the Crimson Demon Clan! I have traveled to Axel from my hometown to request that I join your party!"

Izuku just nodded as he crossed his arms. "Yes, I pretty much guessed that was why you're here. I, personally, have no problems giving you a chance to prove yourself, but I will have to deliberate with my party first."

Megumin looked like she was about to speak up when Izuku glared at her for a moment, unfolding his arms. "How about you meet us back at the Guild Hall tonight, and we can talk about this further. Is that acceptable to you?"

YunYun was beaming as she nodded frantically. The Artificer was willing to at least discuss giving her a chance! This was already going better than she had expected it to! She was a bit hurt by the annoyed expression Megumin had, but she had gotten used to feeling hurt by this point.

Scrambling out of sight, she rushed off to the room she had rented at the guildhall and jumped around in excitement for a few minutes before sitting down and starting to read. She had to wait until that night after all.

"Ok Megumin, spill it. What's your issue with that girl?"

Izuku and his party were outside of Axel, doing a simple fetch quest. Aqua had selected it after Izuku had tried to pick another kill quest, almost ripping the page out of his hands and thrusting the fetch quests into them instead.

Now, Izuku wasn't the best with knowing how others felt, unless it was anger or disgust, usually towards him, but even he could tell that the rest of his party were still a bit antsy about his recent injuries during Darkness' trial run.

He turned back to the group upon hearing Aqua's question. He had been waiting for Megumin to bring up the subject herself, but this would probably work just as well. Stopping in place and sitting down, he motioned for the rest of the party to sit as well, pulling some food out of his pack.

Megumin groaned as she sat down to Izuku's right. "Ugh, do we really have to talk about that right now? We grew up in the same village and used to be friends, then I learned explosion magic and went off to do my own thing, but now she follows me around and proclaims herself as my rival just cause I challenged her to a few duels for food as a kid!"

Izuku nearly winced at the similarities to him and Kachaan. They used to be friends, then one started using explosions and the friendship deteriorated to an almost completely one-sided relationship. Frowning, he shook his head to dispel such thoughts. Megumin was not as bad as Kachaan, not even close.

He laid down on the ground and looked over at her. "So why don't you just humor her? Why don't you just have the occasional duel? She really didn't seem as bad as you seem to make her out to be."

While he was talking, he was running his hand over goggles, pulling up the |Infuse Magic Item| scroll, just to read through the options. It was fairly basic stuff, but there was an option for different kinds of optics, like heat or night vision. He wrote those down in his notebook for future reference.

Darkness nodded, rolling her shoulders as she took the chest part of her armor off. "I agree with Izuku. Would it not be easier to duel with the girl occasionally, instead of antagonizing her?"

Megumin just huffed. "I guess it might be, but she's so annoying! Did you see her silly attempt at being dramatic earlier, with the hand over the face thing? Jojo references are so last year."

While Izuku had a minor existential crisis about the multiversal nature of Jojo references, Aqua spoke up. "You know, they actually reminded me of the stuff you did when you asked to join our party!"

Izuku chomped down on the sandwich he had brought with him while Megumin stopped herself from exploding Aqua, and instead just chased her around with her staff. He looked over to Darkness, who had an odd look on her face. Although, anything that wasn't flushed and panting was sort of odd for her.

He raised his eyebrow at her and she smiled at him. "You look like you're deep in thought there Izuku. You're thinking of letting that YunYun girl into the party if she successfully completes a trial run, aren't you?"

Izuku just hummed, nodding his head slightly. "I'm thinking about it, yea. She actually reminds me of myself a little bit. Before I arrived here in Axel, I was a nobody. Actually, I was less than a nobody. I didn't have any of the powers or special abilities that my peers had, and they tortured me for it."

He shrugged. "I doubt she went through the exact same thing, but I know someone who has been ostracised from others when I see one. I could see it in her eyes that she wants to be around others, she just doesn't know how to. If I can give her a group where she can feel comfortable and safe, I should."

'That's what a hero would do.'

They finished up the quest and headed back to town.

Luckily it had been a fairly basic quest. One of the blacksmiths in the area wanted some ore from a cave just outside of town, but had broken his foot, and was unable to get it. Izuku and Darkness had been the ones doing most of the mining.

Darkness had been hammering away at the mine near effortlessly for the full three hours they were down there and looked almost as good as new, while Izuku looked like death warmed up, red in the face, and absolutely drenched in sweat, unable to move his arms due to their soreness.

He knew that he was scrawny, his strength stat told him that every time he pulled out his adventurer card. Maybe he should try and get an exercise routine going? There were a bunch of absolute units in Axel, surely there would probably be one or two that wouldn't mind giving him some pointers.

It wasn't time for his party to meet with YunYun yet, so he found a quiet corner of the hall and hunkered down with his notebook. He was currently going over the designs for some upgraded outfits for his teammates. He was just as worried about their safety in the field as they were for his.

He wasn't much of a designer, but he had picked up a few things here and there during his rare visits to the Bakugou household. Mitsuki was a model and Masaru was a fashion designer after all.

He was just doing the finishing touches on some new designs for Megumin when someone knocked on the wall beside him. He jolted and slammed the book shut, yelping.

There was a giggle from behind him, but when he turned around, there was no-one there. He turned back around a few seconds later and yelped again when he saw a white-haired and scantily clad woman spinning a dagger on the other side of the table.

"Howdy, nice to meet ya. You're the Artificer right?"

Izuku just nodded as he used all of his willpower to stare at the girl's face. She just chuckled and leaned back in the chair, putting her dagger away. "Calm down. I'm just here because this is the first chance I had to get out of my stuffy realm! I just wanted to say thanks for saving Aqua. She may be a bit eccentric, but I'd like to think that she's my friend."

She started to slowly vanish in bursts of white light, winking at him. "Damn, I gotta go now. Before I do, I want you to have this, you guys are going to need all the luck you can get if you wanna beat the devil king."

As the girl vanished completely, Izuku changed his focus to the item she had chucked to him. It was a pocket watch with the symbol of Eris etched onto the side. Opening it up, he was shocked to see that it was only a pocket watch in aesthetics, as on the inside was a digital clock.

Closing it quickly, he used his |Infuse Magic Item| skill to find out the item's name. The scroll appeared in his hand and he quickly read through its contents. Apparently this item was called the |Digital Pocket Watch of Luck|. A fairly bland name, but he guessed it was accurate.

It was stated to give the user a boost to their luck while they had the item on their person, akin to a permanent boost from the |Blessing| spell. He thought about it for a moment, before pocketing (ha!) the watch. He didn't think that he was the one that needed a boost in luck the most, but he would hold onto it for now.

Looking out of the Guild Hall windows, he saw that the sky had darkened considerably since he sat down. He hadn't even realized that he had spent so long working on his designs. Hurrying over to where he could see Aqua's bright blue hair, he sat down.

Aqua slapped her palm on the table. "I'm just saying! If we used your |Explosion| spell to launch Darkness into the air, we could see if she could survive from super high up because of her defense stats! We already know she can survive the blast!"

Izuku immediately shook his head. "I only just got here and I'm already saying no. I don't care what her defense stats are. Physics are physics and no one can survive an impact at terminal velocity without rupturing your internal organs. I'm not going to let you kill Darkness for sport."

The group went silent and just stared at him for a moment before Aqua huffed and nodded, the others following her lead. Darkness was a little disappointed that such an appealing idea had been vetoed by the boy, but was touched by his concern for her. Which in her mind was odd.

They talked for a short while longer before Izuku spotted YunYun. He saw the way that people moved out of her way, like she was meant to be avoided, and felt some anger flare up in his chest. He pushed it down as he waved her over.

As she started to walk over to them, he whispered to his party. "Alright guys, you remember what we discussed earlier in the mines? Megumin, you're going to play nice with YunYun, got it?"

Megumin nodded with a huff, crossing her arms and pouting. She would play nice. Izuku smiled at her thankfully as YunYun arrived. He stood up and bowed to her slightly. "Hello there. Please, have a seat."

She nodded and moved to Darkness right, placing the crusader in between her and Megumin. Izuku tried to ignore the mumble of 'using me as a human shield!' he could hear from Darkness.

The group was silent for a moment, save for the chewing noises from Aqua as she guzzled down some more food and drink. Then, Izuku spoke up to get the conversation rolling.

"Alright YunYun, we discussed it as a party, and we are willing, one of us reluctantly, to allow you to have a trial run for our party." YunYun looked like she was about to squeal, so Izuku held his hand up to stop her.

"But to even let this happen, I had to make a compromise with Megumin. She will be the one choosing the quest that we go on for you to prove yourself." He looked over at Megumin and nodded towards YunYun, signaling that it was her turn to talk.

"Hmph. I guess I should warn you about the intense danger that I will be putting you in, YunYun! Will your skills with the art of magic be enough to prove your worth?!"

Izuku summoned the flyswatter again as Megumin went off-script, and she let out a small 'eep'. Pouting she lowered herself in her seat. "Fine. YunYun, if you do good in the trial run, I will stop complaining and allow you to join the party hassle-free, alright?"

Izuku knew that he wasn't going to be able to stop the squeal this time, but he wasn't expecting YunYun to also jump across the table and slam into him, wrapping him in a hug. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I won't disappoint either of you! I will show you that I deserve to be a member of your party!"

Megumin just huffed and stood up, picking up her staff and moving towards the staircase. "Now that this is all done and dusted, I'm going to bed. See you in the morning guys. Goodnight YunYun."

Izuku squirmed out of the hug and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to YunYun. "This is our room number, and where to meet us tomorrow morning. If we aren't at the meeting place, see if we are still in our room. We'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

YunYun nodded and sprinted off, smiling so wide it looked like she was splitting her face.

And while he still found it odd that someone wanted to be around him (he was getting better, just slowly), seeing someone so happy gave Izuku no choice but to smile.

Deep in an underground bunker, the universe was cracking.

The flow of time had been altered, something that should have happened now being prevented from happening due to an unknown anomaly. Normally, removing one person from the timeline wouldn't amount to much, but apparently this "Izuku Midoriya" would have been a very influential person later in his life.

So many other timelines intersected with his, but not as much as the little girl's that lay in front of him. She seemed to be taking it the worse. Her time-based Quirk seemed to make her more attuned to the fluctuations of the timeline around her, causing sickness and nausea.

Janus, the god of time, knew what this girl was. She was an anchor. A person whose existence and personal timeline would change the much larger equation of the world. Skipping forward and following the strings of fate, Janus discovered what her captors had been planning with her, and how Izuku Midoriya influenced her fate.

He knew that if he didn't find a way to stabilize the timeline, this entire area could become uninhabitable, and then it would be his ass on the chopping block when the big guy discovers his blunder.

'So if Izuku Midoriya doesn't rescue Eri when he does, then too many heroes lose their Quirks due to the bullets to be a viable fighting force anymore, leading to a massive villainous uprising.'

Janus floated in the void outside time, thinking of a solution. The timeline would stabilize if the Yaluza's ability to make the Quirk stopping bullets were removed.

As an idea hit him on how to fix this issue, he warped himself back into his realm and pulled up a whiteboard, and started some calculations of exactly when he needed to act to fix the issue.

If this worked, he would probably get rewarded for his ingenious thinking!

Megumin has chosen what YunYun would have to do to prove her worth to the party.

And Izuku really couldn't believe what it was.

Apparently, today was a day that there would be a swarm of flying, sentient cabbages that would attack the town, and the adventurers would try to kill a whole bunch of them because of how valuable they were to the town.

Megumin had challenged YunYun to kill enough cabbages to earn the party a whopping 10,000 Eris. Izuku had asked Luna about how many cabbages YunYun would have to kill to get that much, he had been told that she would have to get at least a hundred cabbages by herself.

Izuku didn't even know if that was possible for her to do. He knew that YunYun was an archwizard like Megumin, but he hoped that she wasn't as… focused, on one type of magic as Megumin was.

YunYun looked nervous as the group approached the city wall. Izuku had suggested that they get there early so that she could get some of the faster cabbages first.

He nodded to her, flashing her a smile. She blushed and gave a shy smile back, before going back to taking deep breaths with her eyes closed. Izuku activated |Farsight| and checked the horizon.

As the old saying goes: seeing is believing. Izuku hadn't truly believed in the whole 'living cabbages' thing until then. But as the ability activated and his vision zoomed-in, he saw them.

What looked like a thousand green orbs were flying towards Axel at breakneck speeds. He leaned over and tapped YunYun on the shoulder. "YunYun! We have incoming! They're just exiting the treeline!"

Yelping, YunYun quickly got into a battle stance, her feet planted and her body sideways to the cabbages. As she did, Izuku heard the siren that meant other adventurers were being notified of the swarm going off.

Light gathered around YunYun's hands as she pooled her mana in her spell. Holding them up to the oncoming swarm, which she could just barely see normally at this point, a beam of light connected her palms together, before she threw her arms forward and yelled |Light of Saber|!

Izuku watched in awe as the volley of attacks headed towards the swarm of cabbages, cutting through the first few before detonating in a blast of light. Izuku, who was holding YunYun's adventurer card to keep track of her progress, saw that she had gotten seven with just that first volley. And she was nowhere near done yet.

As adventurers started trickling out through the gates now that the swarm was closer, YunYun started throwing more and more 'Light of Saber' spells. Izuku glanced over at Megumin, who was sitting with Aqua and Darkness, watching YunYun fight.

A few of the cabbages were picked off by other spell casters and archers, and Izuku could even see one guy grabbing them out of the air with a spell and placing them in baskets. Izuku idly wondered if he would get paid more, as his cabbages weren't damaged.

"|Wind Wall!|" His focus was shifted back to YunYun as she thrust her arms forward, and the air in front of the group started blowing away from them, pushing back some of the faster cabbages that had already reached them.

It was chaos at this point. Everywhere that Izuku looked, adventurers of every class and level were running around like headless chickens, firing off spells and abilities willy-nilly. Some were even hitting allies!

As YunYun's |Wind Wall| spell ended, a few cabbages, seemed to get through her attacks, one of them slamming into her leg, sending her sprawling to the ground. With the break in her attacks, a few more cabbages moved towards her quickly, seemingly aiming for her head and chest.

She had just pushed herself into a sitting position and shaken her head when she opened her eyes to see the incoming cabbages, and screamed, raising her hands above her face. She huddled up into a ball, hoping that it would make it hurt less.

Then she heard the unsheathing of a sword, and Izuku yelling "|Powered|!". There was a swish of the air above her head, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Izuku standing in front of her, cabbages at his feet cleaved in half, and an outstretched hand to help her up.

"Hey, are you -AH- alright? These -AH- things are going really fast. You're not -AH- hurt are you?" YunYun was pulled out of her staring at the boy, one of the first people to help her without planning on getting something in return, but his cries of discomfort.

She grabbed his hand and hurried to her feet, nodding to him while quickly casting another |Wind Wall| behind Izuku. He sighed and rolled his shoulder, a bruise already forming underneath his shirt where a particularly solid cabbage smacked into him.

Letting Izuku sit down behind her, YunYun turned to the still incoming swarm with anger showing on her face. These cabbages had hurt someone who was willing to be friends with her! Someone who was willing to get injured to protect her! There was no other possible punishment but death for the cabbages!

Izuku watched for the next few minutes as more advanced magic than he had ever seen before was thrown out at the swarm with amazing speed. He watched as the counter ticked up more and more. And when YunYun ended her rapid attacks by shooting out black and red lightning that chained from cabbage to cabbage, pushing her just over the hundred mark, he stood and cheered for her.

After the swarm was defeated, YunYun was made an official member of the party.

Izuku was really surprised at how valuable the cabbages were.

When YunYun handed him the bag full of Eris, it almost dragged his hand to the ground with how full it was. He heaved it onto the table and tied up the top tightly, keeping it away from Aqua, who was staring at it with sparkling eyes.

Using the three-hundred Eris he had gotten from killing the cabbages when he saved YunYun, Izuku bought everyone a round of dinner and drinks (water for Aqua, fruit juice for everyone else). Standing up with one foot on the chair, he raised his glass towards YunYun.

"To YunYun! Archwizard of the Crimson Demon clan and the newest member of our party!" He got a few cheers from the other groups around his table, and all of his party but Megumin cheered loudly. Megumin just let out a small 'woo'.

They sat and ate and talked for about an hour before YunYun started getting sleepy. She had used a lot of mana today, and while she was a Crimson Demon, even they could run out of mana. She got up groggily and walked upstairs, heading to sleep. A few minutes later, Megumin followed her up to the room.

It was right before Izuku was about to go to bed as well when the door to the Guild Hall opened up again, showing a very tall elf with bright red hair. He looked around the room before spotting Izuku. He walked over to the boy.

"Mister Artificer! Glad I could catch you before you retired to your room. I finished the model you requested! It is in my shop awaiting you. You may come now, or I can store it for you for tomorrow morning!

Izuku shook his head. "No, it will be better if I test it now. If I don't I'll just end up not being able to sleep from excitement." He put the roasted toad leg back down onto his plate and stood up. "Alright you two, I'll see you in the morning, just going to test one of my skills."

Aqua bolted up and stood next to him, shaking her head. Darkness got up as well. "You can't tease us like that! I wanna see what you're doing! And who is this man?"

Izuku shrugged, not really minding if they tagged along. The elf walked forward and gave them a small bow, flourishing his arm behind his back. "My name is Nevarth Zylric. I am a craftsman that focuses on the beautiful art of pottery."

Aqua gave the guy a blank look, before glancing at Darkness, who looked as confused as she was. Was everyone in this world an overly-dramatic fool?

Izuku was already out the doorway and heard towards Neverth's shop with the elf in tow. He seemed excited about this, so it was either really cool or really nerdy. They arrived at Neverth's shop and entered, and Aqua froze, mouth agape.

Standing there, in the center of the room, was a ceramic statue of the one, the only, All Might, in full painted colors for the outfit and everything. Izuku was staring at it in awe, but Aqua just hit the ground as laughter overtook her.

"PPFFFFTT! I knew you were a fanboy Izuku but seriously? Lemme guess, your gonna turn it into some super-powered magic fighting robot, aren't you?" Aqua was on her knees slamming her fist into the ground, while Darkness and Neverth just looked confused.

Darkness went over and knocked on the statue, noting that it wasn't hollow, the sound the rang out akin to a completely solid object. "Um, Izuku, who is this man that you commissioned a statue of? He must be of great importance to you."

Izuku blushed and rubbed the back of his head, nodding. "Uh, well, yea. He's a really powerful hero from my homeland. His punches are strong enough to level cities if he wanted to! I just wanted to see if I could, I dunno, honor him?"

As Izuku placed his hand on the statues, a scroll appeared in his other hand. Aqua and Darkness seemed to realize what he was about to do, their eyes widening. Izuku looked at the scroll and smiled at its content.

Summoning a pen, he started writing.

Porcelain Statue

[All Might]

[Quality: A]

You are about to use the skill |Create Golem|. This skill allows you to animate objects to perform a variety of tasks to the best of their abilities. Stronger materials will be available to be turned into Golems at higher levels.

Golems will follow Voice Commands of all registered owners. These include:

The creator
The creator's party members

And any individuals the creator gives access to

Golems can also be programmed with a basic personality, which can be based on a person, living or dead. The Golem will have no memories, but can be programmed to act like the creator expects another person to.

Do you wish to add any programming to this Golem?

[Y/N]