Later under the darkness of the night, Ed was getting ready to spar against Sharog. To be specific, he was getting ready to not beat her.
"Shel really made this?" Ed asked as he equipped a weighty quote on quote 'suit of armor' To Ed, it seemed as though Shel simply melted a lot of metals and gave it a rough body shape. This made it entirely uncomfortable, Ed felt his movements were suppressed.
"That's right, maybe she has a talent in smithing" Sharog commented equipping herself with some crystals. Though perhaps that was an understatement.
"Where is she now then?" To get this Sharog had to talk to Shel and Ed found it weird that she wouldn't have come to see the spectacle that being the case.
"She was sleeping in the smithy when I asked" Sharog replied as she finally managed to somehow stuff a bunch of wind crystals into her robe. The reason she did this were the rules decided by both of them for the spar which were as follows…
Ed would be physically handicapped and also not be allowed the usage of crystals. Sharog on the other hand could use whatever she could physically carry. The victor would be decided once Sharog surrendered or in the unlikely case of a miracle if Ed surrendered.
"Ready?" Ed asked while trying to not to accidentally break the armor that was selected as his handicap. The poor smithing left it vulnerable to Ed's innate strength.
Sharog shook her head before proceeding to run at least three houses back. The battlefield was the buildings in the outskirt. They would eventually be demolished so Ed didn't mind getting it done now.
"READY!!!" She shouted before immediately starting an incantation. The crystal in her hand shone green and Ed who was a fair distance couldn't help but form a wry smile. It seemed Sharog and Vorgarag were similarly shameless.
'What a bad influence' Ed thought before dashing forward with great difficulty. The orc iron armor served as a heavy weight and an inhibitor for his entire body. Ed's balance was out of whack but his movements were still speedy.
Sharog was thus given quite a fright. She hurriedly finished her spell. A vortex of wind formed and darted forward. Seeing this Ed didn't stop however.
He had many ways to neutralize the attack but…
[You've been dealt damage. -11 hp]
[You've been dealt damage. -11 hp]
There was really no point. His monstrous constitution negated a large amount of damage. What would usually feel like pushing right through a blender felt to Ed like receiving multiple paper cuts.
To top it all off, the armor that was supposed to act as a physical handicap was very poorly smithed but it was still armor. The razor-sharp winds that formed the vortex left gashes on its surface but still failed to destroy it in its entirety.
Though that was Ed's own doing. Metals could be easily reinforced using earthen mana since in the end the two things were not dissimilar.
"I'm coming Shar-!" Ed wanted to say provokingly but he was forced to halt his speedy approach after a green crystal was launched at him and sliced into two by Sharog's own spell.
The sudden rupture caused the crystal to explode into a wild torrent of wind.
[You've been dealt damage. -17 hp]
'Luckily I stopped right in time' Ed thought after being grazed by the wind. Ed was at first quite honestly skeptical about the utility of this spar as he had considered it mostly one-sided. Nevertheless, he was glad to know that Sharog had found a way to easily shorten the gap.
With the wind as a smokescreen, Sharog disappeared.
'Clever girl' Ed thought before being forced to jump aside. A sharp slash of wind darted past leaving a long streak in the position Ed once stood.
Sharog herself was not anywhere to be seen. Nevertheless, as there were two spectators in the form of Gurl and Lash Ed knew she couldn't have gone too far. Plus, the spell gave him her general direction.
Ed stepped forward. The ground trembled underneath his firm step as waves of earthen mana quaked the buildings in that direction. They began to vibrate and shake fiercely, the debris of wood and rock that started to fall signaled they would soon collapse.
The buildings weren't safe anymore. Sharog would have to come out.
'Got you!' Ed was right, Sharog fled from a soon to collapse building and Ed immediately shot out a spiral of water, it was water spurt.
But water was not faster than wind, Sharog manipulated a simple wall of air. Which managed to fend off the attack with ease.
This left Sharog confused. The attack seemed pointless. But she also knew that regardless of what it was, she couldn't dwell on it.
With adept hands she started to toss out crystals as if they were pebbles by the roadside.
"Wha-" Ed was left utterly shocked. Those things were precious! Their supply was in temporarily surplus but if everyone was as extravagant as Sharog in no more than a couple of months they'd be left empty.
"Damn!" More importantly however, if all of those crystals exploded at once even Ed would be threatened!
A dome of earth instantly formed around Ed. He felt fortunate that magic could be used with relatively ease regardless of bodily condition. His uncomfortable arms loaded with heavy iron would not have allowed him to cast such a prompt wall if he required something like a staff.
Explosions of air then sounded out in great number and the dome of earth Ed made was shaken to its core. The cracks that ran across it where however quickly patched out as Ed expended some more of his mana to mend them with ease.
"Ah!" Sharog suddenly screamed out causing Ed to smile subtly. She had fallen for his trap!
The dome undid itself as the wind scattered and all that was left was a scarred ground and the figure of Ed looking at the still-intact buildings in front of him.
'It didn't trigger?' Ed questioned before gazing around catching sight of a short Sharog. That didn't sound quite right...
"Eh? Why are you on your butt" Ed exclaimed in surprise. Things hadn't panned out as he had planned after all.
"I… I slipped…" Sharog said inaudibly.
"What?" Ed asked.
"I slipped!" Sharog yelled out before trying her best to maintain some of her dignity by standing up gracefully.
"I- I had an elaborate plan you know…" Ed said recalling the simple steps he wanted Sharog to follow. Since Ed's mana was limited he wanted to use only basic spells when necessary.
This lead to him choosing to use the water spurt spell as a distraction. Sharog would believe something higher was at play and avoid the area he cast the spell on. This psychological barrier would limit her movements and allow him to pin her down even while being weighted down by the armor.
Ed also made the area towards which she would move unstable. Once she had nowhere to go the ground would collapse and so would the buildings on it. This could kill Sharog but Ed planned to protect her once it happened.
"I know!" Sharog yelled equally frustrated. Expecting Ed had some sort of plan she decided to act unlike herself but after trying to skip over the puddle of water she ended up slipping and falling.
Remembering something, Sharog turned to look at Gurln and Lash who quickly averted their gazes. Teacher who? Rather than show Ed's power the spar seemed to have shamed Sharog!
"Hahahahaaa:" Someone then laughed. They all turned to the personage and it was none other than Vorgarag.
"How could you fall on your butt like that!?" Vorgarag said once more before laughing anew.
"You guys are really…!" Sharog didn't know what to say anymore.
***
"Report!" A voice suddenly shouted as it entered an encampment. It was Roi who yelled this hurriedly.
Siar, the newly appointed squad leader of the magicians scout turned to face his approach. He wore a solemn expression recognizing that the news would likely be important judging by the haste of his subordinate.
"What did you find?" Siar asked not wasting a second.
"While exploring directly east from here we found orc tracks. Following them led us to a goblin den but of course we didn't enter. Explorer stayed behind to monitor the situation" Siar listened closely as Roi spat out all of the key information in a small bundle of sentences.
"So the orc is colluding with goblins?" Siar asked trying to gauge the severity of the situation.
"Ummm… I can't say just yet but it is highly likely" Orcs and goblins were different species and while that didn't mean the two could not cooperate, orc society depended highly on strength. Goblins did not have strength.
This meant that the orcs would only feasibly work alongside goblins when listening to a higher power.
"That is odd, I'll see if we can send an advance party. For now take a break" Siar said dismissing the scout.
Siar then immediately turned to enter a tent, Balin and the others were discussing their contingency plans there.
Eon who was inside of a separate nearby tent just so happened to be eavesdropping on the situation. His thoughts on the matter were… optimistic.
"A smart mob usually means a smart mind" Eon was starting to suspect that the special skeleton he read so much about was human. It wasn't really a stretch considering that skeletons are of the human body. The only contradictory evidence had yet to be verified.
"Cough The monster can switch bodies…" That was the account of Samuel on his venture onto this very floor. There was no direct evidence other than the similarity of the skills possessed by both special mobs but something that could switch as such could have originally been non-human.
Still, the skills could have been simply similarly passed by the dungeon core as the mastermind of the entirety of a dungeon's inner workings. The special mob could also simply be capable of transferring its memories with others. There were many possibilities.
"Hmmm… I'll have to see things for myself…" There was no other way to know the truth.
This made Eon feel regretful, he had spent a lot of time pointlessly arguing against Balin and his squad captains. Their goals did not match so neither did their destinations.
That being the case, it wouldn't be detrimental for Eon to move in advance. He could always regroup with Balin and the others later since exploring and conquering the entirety of the floor did take time.
"In this state, co- cough, in this state things might be risky but…" He was confident in dealing with some orcs and goblins even without using his space mana crystal.
Thus, without alerting a single soul. Eon opened up a portal and disappeared.
His goal the intelligent monster and its minions.