Ed's words were surprising. Nevertheless...
"Again?" Sharog asked with hidden concern.
"What!?" Shel exclaimed in panic.
Sharog's reaction seemed odd but this would be the second time Ed made such a declaration out of seemingly nowhere. After the initial surprise, there wasn't much else.
She was also concerned. It was perhaps her own delusion but after seeing the strength of the humans and the death of Vorgarag followed by their victory she had written off the possibility of a second attack.
Of course, there was always the possibility of the war involving a foreign tribe but seeing the serious expression of Ed and hearing his declaration would make one automatically write off this possibility.
Shel on the other hand wasn't present to witness many of these moments and she definitely hadn't thought this far ahead.
"The humans will be coming and just like last time I'm not sure when but we need to be ready" Ed didn't address any of them as he explained what will now be happening. Sharog nodded and Shel was left aghast.
"W- What about our smithing?" Shel then asked spontaneously causing both Ed and Sharog to form question marks.
"Well… I suppose there will be a lot more free time from now on…" Ed wouldn't have time to teach them much so letting them have a go at teaching themselves wasn't bad as long as the workshop remained standing.
The war effort could benefit from properly armed orcs as well so there were no downsides. The orc iron supply would only grow so leaving it to pile would be immoral.
"Then you won't teach us…" Shel muttered in disappointment. She was a strong orc woman. That image of herself had long since shattered. The only thing she saw herself as now was a weak useless orc. Smithing was the one way she found to change this yet…
Sharog didn't understand Shel's words and actions so she didn't voice out any concerns. She instead carried on the topic.
"What should we do then?" Sharog probed.
"For now find Vorgarag and-" Before Ed could even finish Shel made her presence be known once more.
"Vorgarag!?" The reason was that she was simply shocked. Vorgarag had died!
"I revived him" Ed didn't have the time to explain this to her, at least not in detail. His words however fried Shel's brains as she simply stood there in a daze. That Ed could revive himself was already shocking but all of a sudden he was able to bring the others from the afterlife too? Wasn't he simply becoming way too far out of reach?
"Invite Bulwud and Dakgu to join us tomorrow first thing in the morning. For now, coordinate with Vorgarag on small ways to improve the defense" Ed instructed Sharog while performing some small stretches. He was getting ready to leave and was shaking off the leftover grogginess.
"Where is Vorgarag? And why are we inviting those two?" Sharog shot out.
"Vorgarag is located in the complex by the…" Ed quickly explained the location as well as the reason for inviting both Bulwud and Dakgu.
The answer was simply that it was time to create a proper systematic form of governance. Dakgu was a would-be tribal leader who was still looking to take on the mantle and Bulwud was chief of construction.
Both of them were fit to help decide on the future of the settlement. Last time Ed had almost singlehandedly taken care of creating the defenses but Bulwud and his many connections could prove useful now.
"Let's invite Gurln too" Sharog added after hearing and digesting Ed's thoughts. To this Ed only shrugged, he wasn't against it. Gurln could act as the representative of the now-extinct sacred tribe. It might prove helpful in the future even if not now.
Once all of this was settled, Ed finally took off.
"I'll be handling something important" Ed had two goals at the moment. One was to prepare for combat. It was a broad goal so he had many ideas. As for the systematic form of government… it was arguably less broad but still time-consuming.
'I'll focus on the former for now' Ed was interested in one particular subset of this category. Splitting himself into two. The reason was that it would improve his efficiency in completing this goal and properly start the latter.
'That way I can still teach smithing while creating potions as a skeleton for example' Ed could not reverse the roles so the freedom was limited but Ed was not bothered. There are many things for a skeleton to do.
Like finally begin to experiment on creating golems. It wouldn't do for some unsavory rumors to float around about himself but if it was a skeleton it could be attributed to evil gods or witchcraft.
"Neither of which are known by the orcs…" The dungeon was the only god and there was no other.
Of course, ultimately there was no rule that said he had to possess the skeleton and orc body provided by the dungeon. Ed thus made his way into the barracks. His purpose was not to check up on either Vorgarag or Nag. His purpose which could be inferred was quite simple...
'One of you has to act as a third body' Ed couldn't afford to walk for hours with the intention of retrieving his body. That being the case there were two options presented to him.
He could split his consciousness into uneven halves and have the one possessing his current body to retrieve his skeleton body or do the opposite. Send himself possessing the body of one of the captives to retrieve it instead.
Both options had their merits and demerits but Ed wasn't in any rush to retrieve his body.
'I'll need to figure out how to fix it if I manage to split myself in the meantime' The dungeon had its own special ways to do so as was evident by the way it regenerated his limbs and shuffled his attributes. For the current moment, Ed could only think to use the system as well as his physical smithy.
Ed was quite curious as to what might happen on the occasion that he gave himself prosthetics. Would his status window reflect the changes or would there be an imbalance in strength?
Things like that were key knowledge before Ed could throw himself into battle.
The prison's stalwart door was opened letting light seep into the dark surroundings. This caused many of the captives to cover their eyes which had yet to adjust.
"Aaah..." One even exclaimed. This exclamation was soon replaced by silent fright. The light that seeped into the prison cast a large shadow. Ed's shadow.
The traumatized orcs could not even be bothered to consider anything else as their brains began to blank.
'What!? I didn't even torture you guys that much. What's with the exaggerated reaction?' Whenever he performed experiments the others would not get to see it unless they themselves were next as well. It was simply impossible for these orcs to have formed so strong a negative opinion of him, no?
"Plea- Please… Give me water…" One orc built up his courage and asked with parched lips.
"Ah, so that's it" Ed suddenly remembered that he had instructed not to feed any of them. The settlement's situation did not allow for captives to be given luxuries like food.
"They should have at least given you all water, however…" Ed mumbled before making some quick rounds around the place giving everybody a cup of water. It was important to stay hydrated. This was especially so for test subjects. How would you be able to tell the degree of pain they were suffering if you could not see tears stream down their harrowed expressions?
Ignoring the borderline demented thoughts, Ed assessed the entirety of the imprisoned orcs. Their number had been cut in half leaving no more than seven.
'This might be pushing it' He had allowed too many of them to die within such a short amount of time. The worst part was that only the dungeon benefited from this occurrence. It wasn't like Ed was averse to seeing the dungeon prosper but if it was to prosper Ed would need to leech off of if even slightly.
[Rebub (Dying)]
{ A sacred tribe orc captive that has been starved by his captors to near-death }
'...Can't you show a little bias?' Ed asked the system before entering Rebub's cell. The other orcs were in the exact situation like this one so they could hardly serve Ed's purpose of retrieving his skeleton body.
For now, Ed could consider taking care of the captives through the use of potions. He had lots of blood and had figured out an array that could help plants grow indefinitely. He was not low on the materials for health potions.
Ed started to think about materializing a health potion but it seemed he either didn't have one or he had no idea where it was. He really wished he had a proper inventory system.
'I might have to just go and get it' Ed would give it until tomorrow morning when things were to be settled.. If he couldn't make even a small breakthrough then he would temporarily give up on the matter.