The humans of the Aspiration base were rather busy. Moving from one base to another was no easy matter, especially without their cart. Unfortunately, it had to be used as assurance to transport the drop item out.
As long as it was given to the kingdom or someone of the nobility who could vouch for them, they might be able to recoup some face. Of course, that meant that if it was instead sold to adventurers they might have to toil in the dungeon for more than just another week or two. They might be there for months.
Although the original intention was for them to clear the dungeon, that was nothing more than a joke now. After abandoning that goal all that was left was to save themselves. If by chance they hadn't done enough to achieve that goal either... would they need to try and clear the dungeon again? Their numbers were insufficient.
That was why moving the base closer to the portal seemed smarter. They could be reinforced and or escape more easily. The old base could always be reconquered. Well, they were booby-trapping it now.
Just because they were thinking of retreating, it didn't mean they didn't have other plans. If by luck the base traps didn't go off they could always disable them and take the base back and use that as a foothold to clear the dungeon eventually. Well, a new group. They might all just retire.
"Building this new base to the same level as the other will take us at least a week" Tarin said to Stuart who was surveying the new land. They had already brought loads of resources, they just had to unpack and build new walls and houses.
"Not even with the new resources from the cart?" Stuart asked somewhat taken aback. A week was too long! They would still need to guard the old base if it was going to take a week unless they chose to spend their nights unfortified.
"Not even" Tarin said shaking his head, "We lost too many people" He continued. The losses of their mages was particularly stinging.
But even with this lack of manpower and magic power, both Tarin and Stuart knew that there was no plan to stop the move. Even with the unfavorable circumstances, it was 10x times better than standing around doing nothing.
So, as part of the group responsible for moving around the materials Stuart and Tarin returned to aspirations which was already looking like a husk of its former self though its history was not long-lived.
"Maybe we shouldn't have named it something so auspicious1…" Stuart muttered seeing the current state of plans. A hollow and empty aspiration did not paint a good picture.
"Stuart!" Someone yelled from beside, causing Stuart to cock his head that way.
"Yes?" Stuart said asked before starting to receive a report from the man.
"A human?" Stuart involuntarily exclaimed. There shouldn't have been any humans in that floor of the dungeon. They hadn't forbidden it so adventurers could get in but the direction was odd too.
There was no other choice. Stuart motioned Tarin to continue and called Bede up to go meet the human with them. As they followed the man, they noticed a subtle commotion from a distance.
"Yo- You are Bob, right!?!" A knight said to a man in wretched knight armor. The man nodded repeatedly, seemingly glad to be recognized.
"Bob? I think I do remember seeing you around…" Another knight said. It would seem his memory had received a jolt thanks to hearing the name
They were naturally heading towards this small commotion which was apparently not one at all. Stuart approached both of these knights and the proclaimed Bob. He inspected him closely but found nothing odd. He was wearing their armor, though it appeared to be in a dirty and wrecked state.
"How did you survive?" Stuart asked with narrowed eyes. The attire and identity seemed to match but... Why did one of their own suddenly appear before them seemingly from the grave?
Then again... the identity appeared to match but all of Bob's squad maters were dead. Nobody else could say they were really acquainted with Bob who had no real presence in regard to the company as a whole. It seemed that being the only to go out alive wasn't very kind to him in this situation.
"It spared me" Bob said simply. He was never going to try and lie. He got nothing from it and in the end Ed had requested he did so.
"It spared you…?" "Spared?" "Huh?" There were all sorts of immediate reactions by the listening members but confusion was the common denominator.
Bob explained his story. It was from the moment he was knocked out to the moment he found it he was being spared. He couldn't remember every detail for what it was but it was enough for the others to get the gist of things.
They shed tears for their brother Bob.
"You've gone through a lot…" A knight said expressing sympathy.
Another shook his fist at the sky protesting the injustice that was the adversity they were forced to face.
Bob's face seemed to have question marks floating around it, the reactions were not quite right.
What was wrong about being stuffed in a sack and then left by a run down shack? Or was perhaps the issue the inconsistent feeding periods?
"We will have to find a way to advance preparations, let's get Bob-" Stuart was about to give out orders but was interrupted by a frantic Bob.
"Bu- But I'm not finished with my story!" Bob said hoping to enter the part where he would speak about Ed's actions and reasoning behind those actions.
"Bob, it's okay" A knight said patting the man on the back.
"No! Seriously stop! We can communicate with this orc! We can talk it out!" Bob shouted not willing to let this go so easily. Why were his words being so decisively ignored?
"Brainwashing orcs sigh…" Stuart shook his head. Could it get any worse?
"Brainwashing… Orcs…?" Bob repeated somewhat amazed. Had he fallen for brainwashing-? No! Bob suddenly realized there was something inherently wrong with human mentality.
How could they believe the orcs had hypnotic brainwashing powers before that they could be talked to? Why-
Bob froze up. Could it be true? Was he being manipulated? Was he not threatened by the same being he was advocating for? Or was it a result of deeper psychological trauma?
Not too far away, hiding behind a bunch of trees and bushes, Ed was paying close attention to the Bob situation. He had let him go with a straight trajectory towards the human base with the intention of having Bob leak wrong information.
'As long as he can rile them into battle we won't have to face these walls' With the things he got from last time like the grappling hook he could easily have the human base walls be rendered useless in a short time.
The only impediment was teaching the orcs to use the tools effectively but while some of them might be a dull, Ed could always pass on the skill if just one of them learned it with sufficient proactivity.
But even then, using tools to overcome the fortified base wasn't as easy and clean as luring the prey out to a hunting ground where you set up your own traps.
'I'm not expecting you all to come attack right away' That would be an inane choice. But Ed could still try and observe the changes in the base. The movement of the guards or just the noises that originated from there.
'I can still contact Bob' Ed could transmit Bob a message for a meeting location and enter through the earth to obtain rock solid information to then confirm any suspicions.
Ed was quite happy with this use of Bob but he was still somewhat disappointed.
'It'd be better if he could talk to me directly' Maybe it was about time he looked into spreading skills from himself onto others. He could start by making use of W.
'Well, he is missing in action for now' He would just have to split a smaller part of himself.
Thinking about this process got Ed thinking about the system which in turn reminded him of the dungeon.
'Is it going through another of its silent periods?' It looked as though occasionally the dungeon would be dormant. With his previous theories, Ed's best guess was that it was somehow conserving or getting more power during these quiet periods.
As for the use of conversing energy… Well, the dungeon had to have the same dreams as any other dungeon, right? It had to be preparing to break out.
If the crypt safe room was anything to go of off… it was pretty close. Though that also attested to one thing.
'The floors ahead will be large and expansive' It then became a question of how many were ahead of him and how long this journey through them would become. As he relied on the humans attacking and progressing further in rather heavily...
'Hopefully it'll be years' Ed said smiling, this was a real possibility. From what Ed could see, if the humans were struggling at their current level, they had already lost the battle.
In his eyes they were hitting some sort of invisible ceiling. The likes of Eon he had only seen once and that was Eon himself. People of such caliber were not a dime in a dozen.
So, with his plan to lure and whittle the humans out. Ed was confident the dungeon would not be close to cleared even a year from then.
But perhaps this confidence was unfounded. The humans…. They didn't seem like they would be coming out any time soon.
1. showing or suggesting that future success is likely