Before commencing the series of bloody trials, Ed came up with a couple of basic queries that would need to be answered. They were important matters that would determine if it was truly possible for him to revive the dead.
'How is memory affected?' The brain is supposed to be in charge of memories, would the revived members lose all their precious memories? Ed didn't believe it was the case since he existed but he also knew that he was an outlier.
'Can they adjust to a new body?' Ed was optimistic about this since at most it would require a couple of weeks or months of physical therapy.1 If it turned out to be harder than he imagined he might simply need to try and match bodies with similar characteristics, things like changing genders would be off the book if such came to pass.
'How often can they die?' If they could die once they could die twice, and thrice, and… many times. Would they become a different person along the way as their memories are lost and replaced by new ones? The psychological implications might result in having a group of lunatics instead of an immortal army as he had once hoped.
With those three questions as a baseline, Ed began by picking out the maddened orc. He had singled himself out with the incessant screaming.
After entering and cornering the orc in his cell, Ed cut his throat. It was one of the best ways to keep the body mostly intact and ready for the next experiment.
As blood oozed from the split throat, Ed placed his hand on the orc's head and began to use spirit insertion. Just as he was about to start, however…
Nothing irregular happened! Ed was glad that he didn't receive any sort of warning. Whether it was due to the dungeon not watching or it allowing it was yet to be seen.
The mystical cloudy swirl that exited from his palm was placed directly on the corpse's head and the original consciousness was plopped right back in. Quick and simple.
After a couple of seconds, the body finally showed signs of life as it twitched slightly. Ed quietly backed off and observed warily with his sixth sense as the body became increasingly more lively.
"Aaargh- hewu- Gaarg!" It took no time for Ed to hear a bunch of incoherent words. It looked like he would have to pick a better way to kill them if he wished to hold any sort of conversation.
The zombie orc that kept on bleeding from its neck stood up drunkenly before quickly collapsing onto the cold floor. As Ed had watched the whole act he knew why.
'The consciousness keeps deteriorating' The sixth sense skill allowed him to see consciousnesses as well as threat color. Ed wanted to use the former skill to conduct his experiments but surprisingly it was actually the threat color that came in clutch.
It was impossible to see the consciousness while inside of the head after all. Ed had to notice the increasingly lowering danger level to gauge what exactly had transgressed.
'Zombies through spirit insertion are a no go' The consciousness would die alongside the corpse rendering the option impossible. That did bring forth the question of how exactly death magic worked, however.
'I do recall the lich saying they were more like puppets' That implied that zombies summoned through necromancy didn't actually have a soul of any kind which made some sense.
'I'll have to follow this up in the crypt' His zombie research was shortlived but it was nothing more than a curiosity so Ed didn't mind it too much and moved to the next experiment.
He approached another cell and made a short scan to remember whose consciousness it was. He then opened the cell and took the frightened orc's consciousness.
'Let's see how Gaturn likes this new body' The orc hadn't done anything to deserve his animosity, it was only the fate of the losers to be experimented on by Ed... or something else that justified it.
The new consciousness went in without a single hiccup. This body however took much longer than the zombie to wake up.
[Gaturn (Unconscious)]
Two sacred tribe orcs for the price of one, Gaturn is currently inhabiting the body of Zabub.
'I guess he is still in shock from being killed' Ed too was in a state of disarray the first time it happened to him, It helped that he had fewer of his original memories though. It also helped that his thoughts were garbled by the dungeon and that he was once more thrown into an unbelievable circumstance.
"...I'm becoming like the dungeon aren't I?" A bell went off in Ed's head as he made a silent mutter in realization.
'What are you, System?' The similarities between the dungeon and the system were surprisingly close, it made one wonder if they are one and the same.
'I suppose to answer that I'd first need to know what the dungeon is' Ed felt that the dungeon would be easier to decipher than the system since there existed many human records on dungeons.
'I still have to assimilate the monster encyclopedia' Ed mentally jotted it down for his next assimilation and switched to wondering how exactly to wake up the sleeping Gaturn.
He went with a cruel yet simple method of casting water spurt on the poor orc. It didn't take long for the orc to awaken after that.
"Waaah-? Cough cough!" Some of the water naturally entered the orc's nostrils and caused him to cough profusely.
"Gaturn, do you remember anything?" Ed ignored the confused state of the orc and quickly asked him a question. Whether or not the orc was able to immediately respond was a test in of itself.
"Cough cough" After some more hacking Gaturn finally got over his abrupt awakening and fixed his watery eyes on the imposing orc in front of him.
"You-!" Gaturn exclaimed in both surprise and fear as he tried to back further away from Ed only to clumsily hit their head on the cell's wall.
"Are there any foreign memories?" Ed asked continuing his probe. That sort of reaction to himself would be the expected one from any sacred tribe captive.
"I- what are yo-" Gaturn then froze as he promptly scanned his entire body. It was… not his own. Gaturn then blinked confusedly. That confusion was only incremented when past the dark and stuffy environment he managed to catch a glimpse of the bloody corpse of a fellow orc. Was he going to die?
"Sigh… this is going to take a while…" Ed said in lament. Working with others was not his forte. He could only hope to receive a skill that helped in that specific area.
'Although relying on the system for everything might not be a smart idea' Still, what was convenient was convenient. You wouldn't have a calculator and not use it unless otherwise prohibited, right?
Ed spent the next few minutes catching Gaturn up to speed on all matters pertaining to his current state. The orc had a hard time accepting most of it, especially since it didn't seem to remember dying.
That was good news for Ed since it meant that immediate memories were more likely to be lost than older ones. He had spent enough time with Vorgarag that he wouldn't forget Ed in his entirety.
Despite that, Ed was not willing to leave it at such shallow findings. He continued to probe and unfortunately, it seemed his previous conjecture was not entirely correct. Gaturn would often pause as if forgetting something.
Ultimately Ed formed a simple conjecture. The things one remembered depended on how deep one's impression of it was. Shallow thoughts had no place in the core of one's mind, erm, consciousness.
'Vorgarag might forget a couple of minor words or things but so far picking him a new body should be possible!' Ed was getting somewhat excited but he knew not to get too confident and quickly calmed down.
He progressed into the next step. He taught Gaturn to move adeptly and get accustomed to his new body. It resulted in various epic failures as Gaturn fell on his own face.
'His muscle memory is both screwing with him and helping him' The brain and muscles were acquainted with certain actions but Gaturn's own memories caused certain disagreements. Walking wasn't really that complicated once he got over his initial confusion, hand-eye coordination was entirely different. Things like which hand one used predominantly became key.
"Gaturn, you have been very helpful, thank you" Ed decided that the orc was not so bad after being left to rot in a cell, killed, and resurrected in a new body.
"Erm, neither are you…" Gaturn said with hints of caution. He found it completely odd that Ed was being kind enough to guide him on how to properly use his body as well as gauge his memories.
These actions meant a lot to the lost Gaturn. He felt that their brief exchanges and the funny falls helped form a quiet bond between them both. Even now Gaturn still felt iffy on what had lead to this development but it found the fact that Ed was there when it counted to be all that mattered.
"So I'm sorry" Ed replied with a legitimately sorry expression before decisively swinging his axe and cutting the orc's throat once more.
He still needed to study how many deaths the average orc consciousness could tolerate and if it was possible to make a quick recovery.
Gaturn's, well no, Zabub's corpse thudded as it fell on the desolate cell floor. Ed moved on to the next cell.