The matter of the orc blood fruit orchard was passed onto the orc Gorgo under the recommendation of Dakgu. Gorgo was an aspiring chef or so Dakgu had informed him. That meant he was happy to have more ingredients for recipes.
Having delegated one more task that would otherwise fall onto himself, Ed was able to focus on the tribe capturing effort.
After promptly assimilating something, Ed called everyone together for a new meeting. The period since the last meeting had not been very long but no one complained.
"Dakgu, you were quite deep into the forest. Your tribe also stole things quite often so you must know a lot about your neighbors" This was information provided to Ed by Sharog who had done some basic research on the Thunder Cry tribe after becoming allies.
Ed's words were very direct making Dakgu feel quite shy but he did provide the information in the end.
"There is Ripper tribe, Romarod's tribe, Bloodrain tribe, Soaring Scream tribe…" Dakgu started to list out some tribe names. Ed felt some of them didn't make much sense but he knew better than to judge the tribes on names alone.
"What about the power gap?" Ed interjected as Dakgu continued to list tribes they had robbed in the past.
"Hm? Power gap?" Dakgu asked reflexively. Why was Ed asking about a power gap? How was he to know Ed's limits when answering? Noticing this, Ed almost wanted to cry.
"You can't keep on relying on me" They got handed a crushing defeat by the humans. Thanks to the dungeon, his participation in battle was up to chance. If he took their opportunities to hone their skills the same would keep on happening over and over again.
Dakgu was a bit ashamed. He quickly got to answering the question properly.
"...right. If we start with Ramarod's tribe we should be fine" Dakgu said remembering the tribe rather vividly. The leader had left a deep impression on him.
"Wait… is that their tribe name or is that the leader?" Gurln who had never gone outside the settlement asked with confusion.
"It's both…" Dakgu answered. Ramarod was an egocentric battle maniac. His tribe was not one acquired through inheritance but through brute strength. After acquiring the settlement, Ramarod changed the tribe name to his own.
Durgash, Dakgu's master and parental figure, did not like his lack of a moral compass. He only admired Ramarod's battle thirst but otherwise, the two were akin to enemies. While Dakgu and thunder cry were bandits out of necessity, Ramarod was simply rotten and drunk on power.
Dakgu continued to talk about the fights between Durgash and Ramarod, and eventually Ed had to put a stop to it. The kid was actually rather talkative when it came to his now-deceased master.
"Right… Sorry" Dakgu said feeling squirmish. The fond memories became poison after his immersion in them was shattered. Fortunately, this was a poison Dakgu had gained resistance to. He snapped out of it rather promptly.
"In that case, let's plan out our assault" Ed said after they decided on a target. Soon enough, Ed came across a problem.
"This is too much time just walking" He muttered audibly. Everyone except himself had a confused expression hearing this.
To them, there was no alternative. They had grown accustomed to things feeling distant. No matter how many times they thought about it, they would never come up with an answer. But Ed was a modern man.
Even with his memories and knowledge being fragmented, Ed could still come up with some outside-the-box technology.
"Let's take this meeting outside" Ed had created a meeting building for settlement affairs but what he wanted to showcase needed some space.
Everyone followed him out and Ed started his showcase by placing his hand on the ground.
"This is… a cart?" Sharog asked noticing the four-wheeled structure forming out of the earth.
"That's right" Ed made no changes at all to the cart. What was his reason to create a new cart with zero changes?
"We'll put someone to pull the cart as transportation" Ed continued explaining his thought process a bit more.
That was probably at least slightly faster than normal walking. If someone was tired, they could enter the cart and if any other orc was there they could start pulling. But slightly faster was all it could do.
"Using potions, it's possible to at least half our travel time" If the orcs up front drank potions that could strengthen their leg power, it wouldn't be a simple matter of managing their pace better.
To begin with, pulling a heavy cart was actually pretty darn slow. The orcs weren't very light so there was no real need to explain the problem. To combat this they needed more strengthen.
'The ednergy 1drink, ahem healing supplement, can restore lots of their fatigue' Simply put, Ed planned to dope his orcs to the point where they could replace horses. Orc-drawn carriages would become the norm in Sanctuary once he got these up and running.
"So you plan to drug everyone?" Dakgu asked with some skepticism. He could now see where Sharog got her 'alcohol' idea. It turned out, Ed was a bad influence.
"Nope, I'm only encouraging competition amongst our fellow orcs by creating a sport that's both fun and productive." Ed said with a straight face.
[Eloquence has leveled up]
"I- Ok…" Dakgu became quiet from thereon on the topic.
The decision to implement doped, erm strengthened, orcs to pull the carts carrying other orcs was voted in unanimously. Similar to the orchard, this was just a stop gap solution. In the future, Ed could make the transition to using other creatures.
He could for example try modifying the boars or fall back on the mushrooms he seemed so fixated on, creating a hulking mushroom creature didn't seem like too far out-of-reach nowadays. But the boars were a bit hard for the moment. There were still less boars than people and taking too many could further stagnate the farming. Not only that but the boars might not all be very obedient.
Thus, Ed could only settle with this for the time being. The preparations from there on were pretty simple.
Ed and Sharog worked to make potions while Dakgu and Gurln were instructed to teach the other orcs to use armor. It was funny since Dakgu nor Gurln themselves hadn't used any but now was as good as time as any to learn. Most of all Ed trusted Dakgu's intellect.
Yerghug and Shel continued to work together to make weapons. Yerghug organized mining and moving of ores and weaponry while Shel and her team of smiths made the weapon that was being hauled away.
Just like that everyone was accounted for and delegated a task. With these short preparations, Ed was certain that Romarod's tribe would be easily integrated into Sanctuary. If not... he could always hold another festival.
***
Back in the cavern, Kroz and his two new pets met another lizardman.
"Kroz, did you find a new exi-" The lizardman was about to ask Kroz a question but stopped himself. The sight of Bloody who was half as large as Kroz gave him quite the surprise.
The sanguine creature didn't seem to have any hostility towards Kroz and the latter even looked calm and confident.
"Did you tame this monster?" The lizardman asked slightly impressed. Soon enough, they also noticed that there was a second monster. Who could have known Kroz was so talented, two for the price of one!
"I didn't" Kroz said with some pride, "These creatures are just hungry" He continued displaying his overwhelming sense of responsibility. Surely, the hydra god would also be impressed by his good morals.
He was so responsible, the second creature had been hiding behind the first. It was only concealed due to how much he fed the first. Bloody's size had increased by nearly double from the small slime it used to be. The area that the lizardman traversed were many while searching for an exit, nevertheless there were always creatures around.
The main problem with both W and Bloody was that they were missing the sense of hearing. It was incredibly easy to hide from deaf creatures especially since eyesight could at times even be unreliable.
Not just that, but the two could be alerting all the monsters in the vicinity to hide through said sounds and not realize.
"Just food? The lizardman asked back looking at the red blob. It looked quite bloodthirsty too making him uneasy. Nonetheless, he didn't judge the new companions.
Soon enough, Var Agus and others approached the duo noticing the ongoing interrogation.
Rather than wait for the new lizardmen to ask questions, Kroz explained himself and this caused the shaman to nod pensively.
To him, it sounded all quite fine and dandy yet… They couldn't keep a red blob that ate everything. More importantly, they had yet to find the exit.
The reason why they were killing a bunch of mobs was because of this. Since they couldn't find the exit, food wouldn't come cheap in the near future. Gathering some now was no problem.
Not only that but if they were going to sleep soundly at night they needed to be monster-free. This made some lizardmen bitter. With Eon, nightly patrols were a thing of the past.
Watching the lizardmen interact with one another and discuss in their foreign language. W figured it was about time to get to know them better.
'Hello, I am Ed' First was a simple greeting that was technically not untrue.
The lizardmen who all heard the voice broke out into cold sweat. Why were they hearing voices? Wasn't that too creepy? The lizardmen noticed they were all equally perplexed and didn't think too hard about it any longer.
"Oh great disembodied voice in our heads, we are just lizardmen passing through" Var Agus said respectfully in a language unknown to Ed. It seemed that he would be quite preoccupied for a short while.