The lizardman, Kroz, did not dare turn back as they continued to run. Nevertheless, they were eventually forced to come to a stop. He was walking away from a dead-end at first so after turning back…
<"Dead end…"> He met a dead end as was expected.
Kroz had no other choice than to grip his spear tightly and turn to face the two odd creatures. To his surprise, the two were keeping their distance from him. In fact, the two creatures were only staring at him. The lizardman had to double back and trace back the actions of the creatures.
<"Ah! You must want new prey!"> Kroz was suddenly enlightened after remembering how Bloody was drinking the Blood of the monster lizard. The other was only present like some sort of puppet controlled by the Bloody one but Kroz facepalmed and shook his head feeling quite stupid.
The foolish creatures were just hungry and he was kicking up such a fuzz. Thinking about it further, the chances that the creatures had been following him and eating up what he left behind was not small!
Noblesse oblige, or lizard feeds, something like that was his duty as the more intelligent creature.
"I, Kroz, will become the leader of these two creatures!" Kroz who was a devout believer of the hydra god, and a lizard with unique character and never before seen choice of words, confidently strode out of the dead end.
Seeing his actions, W was so confused he forgot to transmit his intentions. Bloody however was overcome by curiosity and did its weird slime slithering to follow after Kroz.
'I guess this is fine too' W got a grip of himself quite quickly and followed after the two. The lizard didn't seem to have bad intentions. Although his goal was the exit, he couldn't avoid investigating what was an intelligent species.
He believed that he, being Ed, would not make a choice that the main part of him wouldn't make.
***
At that moment, in a new meeting location inside of Sanctuary, Ed was making a choice that he wouldn't normally make.
"Let's conquer the nearby tribes" With the human threat in the vicinity, Ed needed manpower.
"That was already the plan but… It's not really possible" Sharog replied. The battles hadn't been delayed to make equipment, they had been delayed due to the problem of acquiring food.
"The tribes outside our own are likely still living off spawned boars, but we aren't" That was to say even after suffering such tremendous casualties the food situation was not resolved. That there were fewer mouths to feed was true but there were also fewer orcs capable of mining, animal husbandry, and fighting.
Boar farming was not as simple as, put together boars, watch over their babies, and eat them when they are grown. The environment had to be right and the boars had to be incentivized to reproduce. This was outside the basics of providing food and drink as well as cleaning.
One also had to maintain a balance. Eating too many might result in a net loss and they also had to make sure that the elder boars were replaced by younger ones to keep the production going.
While the farm could manage, the loss of some key personnel could make it stagnate for a bit. The boar population was still lower than the orcs. Actually, nowadays, the orcs mostly got by on a vegetarian diet.
"I wonder why God hasn't fed us…" Shel muttered causing Ed to break out into a cold sweat. The dungeon likely left these orcs to their own devices as a means to save energy due to his intervention.
"I'll just increase the number of tree arrays" Ed was also thinking he could add mushrooms to the food menu.
'Maybe I can make some boar meat shrooms' That would be quite an interesting mix. Thinking about it a bit more, alcoholic mushrooms were also a viable option. Taking it a step further, why not try and make the grass into an edible mushroom for some salad?
Ed was starting to plan a full-course meal plan using nothing but mushrooms when his thought process was brought back to reality.
"Ed, what is the plan?" Sharog asked still plagued by the famine. It was something that had brought her tribe to near destruction and was something she had yet to escape from.
"We'll proceed with the plan to acquire any nearby tribes" Ed just had to do a couple of small things before that. The center of the settlement was still full of debris from that time he cleared it of buildings.
It was about time to clean things up and reserve the area for tree arrays.
'The garden is too far to be viable' The scale of the arrays was also too small.
"For now, everyone is dismissed" They had all been participating in a meeting following the beating sense into everyone festival.
The orcs present were Yerghug, Dakgu, Gurln, Sharog, and Shel. The addition of Gurln came as a surprise to Ed but he didn't show any opposition or bring attention to it. The young orc could not be a threat at the current stage of development in the settlement.
After everyone was dismissed, Ed started to plan out the new array. The area he marked out in his mind was plenty big but he was still trying to save as much space as possible.
Ed, therefore, moved the four inputs from the Quad Input Tree Growth Array to different locations. The main two inputs were the energy input. He placed the earth and water crystal input to the center surrounded by a new runic array circle.
This array circle would control the output of mana from these crystals with a couple of simple settings as options. The main goal of this new array, the Tree Plantation Array, was to facilitate its use for the orcs.
After these two, no three, inputs were accounted for. The final input was the target tree. Distributing all the mana from the center to all the trees was quite difficult. The trees at the edge could be getting short-changed or the ones nearby could start to grow uncontrollably and require to be shutdown.
Thus, Ed had to split the plantation array into a 3x3 sector. The middle sector held the input and controls, and the rest had inhibitors also controlled from the center. There was still room for issues but in such a situation the orc in charge could shut off the mana output from the center.
'It's a good enough array' It got the job done. The orcs would be having lots and lots of blood orc fruit in the days to come.
After planning it out, Ed got to work on it almost immediately. It wasn't noon yet but he had already flattened the area in front of the smithy. He created a large expanse.
'The ink I need is not available' The ogre blood could not be used so Ed ground blood shroom with orc blood fruit for a fruit scented ink. The effectivity could not compare to Blurak's but unless Ed intended to use his own blood it was the best alternative.
The blood shrooms had at least a shred of Blurak, the effect was the same as using his own blood at least. When given the option to not provide his own blood, Ed would take that option.
[Formationist has leveled up]
The array was finished and under the curious gaze of some orcs, Ed started to plant seeds in the outer sectors of the 3x3 area. Lastly, he put in the crystals to fuel the whole thing and…!
The arrays came to life. The runes floated off the ground and spun in their circular pattern. If it were nighttime, the sight would be beautiful. The sun was still up however so all the orcs could admire was the speed of the arrays.
"Wow, that looks fun!" Immediately some of them started to have dangerous thoughts so Ed quickly created a wall around the array and a path above it using the earth. The trees had already started to bud so Ed had to be prompt.
'Fortunately, I made it start at the lowest setting by default' Soon, the control of the center array and even the input locations were given an altar.
Ed started increasing the mana output to the outside sectors and the trees started to grow at a visibly faster pace.
The barren area in front of the smithy turned green and forested in the matter of a single minute. The trees even started to bear fruit.
"Urgh, more orc blood fruits" "That still looks like fun" " I don't get it" There were mixed reactions but unlike before with the armor event, they were mostly negative. The orcs were exhausted of fruit.
"This solves the issue temporarily" Eating the same thing over and over again was not healthy regardless of what it was. Unless Ed planned on carrying the entirety of Sanctuary on his shoulders, the smartest decision was to keep his people healthy.
"Sanctuary orcs!" Ed suddenly shouted to the watching crowd.
"Who dares come forward to care for this new venture?" Ed asked the crowd who only looked at each other with surprise. Was no one going?
Aside from the beating competition, Ed never had anything fun for them to do. Who wanted to be a weak farmer?
"....I'll discuss it with Sharog" Ed who hadn't expected to be reject felt somewhat dejected. Where did his charms go?