Although the situation was frightening, Ed's job didn't change. He had set out to gather information and at first glance, there was plenty to gather. In fact, the job seemed like it would be a cinch for Ed.
The only issue he might have was determining the method of approach. If he just walked straight in he would be sentencing himself to death. Fortunately, he had developed many tricks at this point so even that was a non-issue.
Ed's figure disappeared into the ground and started digging towards the human base. This was the most silent approach he could think of in the spur of the moment.
It was a good idea but the only problem was that after Ed calculated himself to be under the base, he was stuck there. He didn't know where anything else was located.
Fortunately, with everyone stepping about to faithfully carry out whatever their duties were Ed had enough to at least form an educated guess.
As he grew closer and closer to the surface, he was even able to listen to muffled conversations. Being under the earth was quite nice. The only real issue was that Ed could not breathe down there and would be running out of oxygen.
'It's not like I put any air into my storeroom, sigh…' Ed thought before realizing something.
'The living room! Can I take things out from there?' If things could grow there had to be oxygen, right? Ed tried putting this into practice but unfortunately, it didn't work. All he ended up wasting some precious time sitting around.
This led Ed to believe he should make a small hole for air somewhere and return. Yet just as he was ready to scour other parts of the settlements for an isolated place, he heard something.
"We are going to be returning tomorrow" It was the voice of a human woman that Ed was hearing from below. Her words of return could mean the humans were retreating grabbing his attention.
"Oh…" A young man said sounding somewhat disappointed. The idea of returning had seemingly never crossed his mind.
"Why?" A different girl's voice spoke and said.
"We will be transporting an item for the kingdom" The original voice succinctly answered the question much to Ed's delight.
'So they are transporting an item…' Ed wasn't sure what item it was but it couldn't be just anything. Getting in and out of the dungeon was not easy enough for them to be exchanging letters with someone outside for example.
"But… we'll be back once that's delivered right?" The man asked but seemingly received no verbal reply as Ed no longer heard anything on the matter.
Nevertheless, Ed gained plenty of knowledge. Enough to formulate a simple and effective plan. But before telling it he decided to quietly leave the area.
'I should either attack the base while some of them are gone or attack the ones carrying the item' From a logical standpoint, the best plan was to attack the ones carrying the item.
Simply put, they were likely to be fewer enemies as well as Ed having more of a buffer time to deal with them. Leaving from within deep inside enemy territory was not easy. To exit the humans would have to cross through the crypt so even if he somehow failed to eliminate all the humans, he could get rid of them on their way out.
'If they don't continue going out however I would be lowering their numbers all the same' Actually, a good strategy for Ed to employ would be to have some orcs, skeletons, mushrooms, well anything capable, monitoring the humans and attacking them whenever they tried to leave.
'They would slowly starve like that' If they couldn't go out to forage in small groups they'd send the entire group. At which point Ed could deal some petty amounts of damage and retreat. It was after all very costly to mobilize a large group. The humans would be making losses or at best, breaking even.
'The way I see it, they have no way to retaliate' If they had set up a string of bases to the second floor they could get reinforcements but as it stood the humans were stranded.
Ed entered the system space and checked back into the living room. The mushrooms had already gone through a couple of cycles and were growing just as well as they had in the mushroom caverns.
Ed didn't know if the system had magical growth properties or if the cavern was lackluster, whatever the case the mushrooms were growing well.
Ed headed to the storeroom to get some plain gray shrooms but quickly realized a problem.
'Spirit buds, you took all the fungi' There was no fun in having to collect mushrooms again. Nevertheless, this was the task delegated to Ed by the spirit worker, conveyors, spirit smith combo.
'It's a good thing I chose to grow some gray ones first' Ed also learned to be careful about emptying his stock. It wasn't like the system would notify him when things were about to run out.
'Maybe it's an upgrade' Ed joked inwardly understanding full well that it almost certainly was.
He then returned to the living room and grabbed about 3 gray mushrooms. If he took much more the speed of their growth would be hindered. After that, Ed took them to the holding box in the forge.
'You can chill it for now smith' Ed transmitted to the spirit smith afraid it would spend what he had just stored. The spirits were surprisingly more like computers than spirits. They did exactly what you told them to which at times led to unintended circumstances.
Back to the matter at hand, Ed wanted to duplicate the magic hook using mushrooms. With the new information Ed just received, he could safely declare it was unnecessary but it was no longer about planning an assault.
'It's about learning something new' If he could create even an inferior magic hook through the mushrooms Ed would be over the moon. The forge was not omnipotent however so Ed didn't want to get his hopes up either.
He returned to clarity and started the process by separating the magic hook into separate components.
'Doing smaller pieces might help' It would also be easier to not mess everything up. In this same spirit, Ed unscrewed a screw and threw it into the forge alongside a gray mushroom.
The forge started to turn them into liquids and while waiting patiently, Ed also decided to try and get some leeway on the magic ladder. Its value was lesser than the hook in Ed's eyes so he was a lot less conservative about it.
The item was tossed carelessly into the forge alongside another gray mushroom leaving Ed with one.
'What should I use it on?' Ed was not sure if it was worth using it on anything new. He felt his options were limited. Ultimately, Ed chose a bow from the storeroom. He had always meant to get the orcs into archery.
'We clearly lack ranged attacks' The possible strategies became limited. Sharog was also the only one with mage capabilities making things that much more difficult. Magic was very versatile more so than archery but the entry bar was set that much higher.
'Well, I wouldn't put it past an orc to shoot another's eye out' Ed believed it was an orc's god-given right to injure itself or others be it on purpose or by accident. As the saying went, orcs would be orcs.
As the things melted, Ed was able to notice that no known combination popped up. He was once more in new territory.
'Merge the screw and the mushroom' Ed told the system who acquiesced. There was a relatively small dark gray blob and a somewhat mushroom-like gray liquid drawing closer to one another amidst the radiant and cool white flames.
As they merged, the dark gray ball started to become a part of the mushroom immediately telling Ed that this was a failed attempt.
'I can only get the materials it seems' Directly copying the item was not in the mushroom's area of expertise. In fact, a tree that produced screws seemed more likely than a mushroom that did the same.
Venturing into such a venue wouldn't be easy though since Ed would need to learn to modify a tree first. From his previous dealings with trees, that wasn't achievable for the current him.
The two other gray mushroom pairs also melted together with their counterparts. The result was similar for all.
The gray mushroom and the magic ladder resulted in the ladder entering the mushroom. For the bow, the mushroom entered it converting it into a much more useless bow.
With the spirit smith having made lots of custom mushrooms for him, Ed went ahead and planted a couple in the living room before exiting the system space.
The failure was disappointing so Ed went ahead and prepared for the next morning.
'Dakgu, can you come to me?' Ed transmitted to Dakgu who had been on a quest to find orcs for the settlement. The chances that he was nearby were slim but with over 10 hours of downtime, Ed felt Dakgu could make it there in time for the battle.
'I'll try and reach the portal before them alongside the orcs with Dakgu' The humans wouldn't see it coming making for a perfect ambush.
