Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

With the goblins still prostrated before him, Ed could only look at the bright side of things. The goblins were at least bound to be loyal to him. His only real concern was the odd stare Sharog had been giving quite a lot as of late.

"Hahaha... I'll try and get them to help us now…" Ed awkwardly laughed past the matter of the goblins prostrating themselves and started using the transmission skill.

'One of God's subjects has slipped into God's abode and I'll need your help to reclaim him' Ed's transmission which depicted Dakgu's loss of his consciousness as an accident should have been negatively received but it wasn't.

Prild stood up gracefully and pointed at his hand eager to get to work.

'What does he need? ...Ah! The bone staff!' W memories did faintly hold such a thing.

"Sharog, where did you take their stuff to?" Ed asked with Prild behind him now making a pitiful pleading expression.

"They are in… the barracks! I'll go get them" Sharog said recalling their location. Much to Ed's benefit she then volunteered to get them herself.

'Alright, now I just need to get these guys to Dakgu' Ed thought to himself before transmitting to the goblins to follow him. They did not refuse for obvious reasons and followed faithfully after him.

In no more than 15 minutes Prild was touching Dakgu's body not in an at all creepy manner. Even though Ed trusted the goblin elder's ability, he was still weirded out.

'...Is this necessary?' Ed asked Prild who fervently nodded. Ed shrugged the matter away and only paid close attention.

Prild had never previously received the chance to practice his magic on a living body, but the process could not be all that different. He was right, Ed could see it all through his sixth sense.

Similar to the trees, however, he had to squint really hard and be as close as possible. This was the only way Ed figured to identify these remnant particles. Then how did this shaman do it?

Looking at the elder's hands caressing their way around Dakgu's body, apart from feeling a shiver in his spine, Ed also dawned upon the method.

'Amazing' Prild was able to control his own consciousness like one would magic power to coat his hands in it. His own consciousness would then clue him in whenever he chanced upon the faint memories of another.

How did this work? Ed had to try it for himself to know. So leaving Prild to his own devices, Ed closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. To be more precise he returned to the system space.

Entering the spirit room, which was just as mystifying and cloudy as always, he grabbed a random consciousness and tried to squeeze it with all his might. The end result? Nothing.

'I guess it wasn't that simple…' To be fair, he shouldn't have expected this method to work. If it were that simple he would have figured it out on his own by now.

Having performed the short test, Ed awoke from his faint slumber and continued observing keenly with his sixth sense. The more he followed closely after Prild's actions the more Ed had to admit defeat.

'Why won't it work for me?' Was it possible that the dungeon gave Prild a unique skill that allowed him to identify these remnants? Ed couldn't deny the possibility but he also felt that such a situation should have been advantageous to him. If there existed a skill he was confident in learning it. The dungeon didn't manifest things from thin air now, did it?

That was a good question but just at this moment, Sharog returned with all the goblins' things. Ed's eyes gleamed as he recognized some of his skeleton bones as well.

'The goblins must have picked up whatever fell from my bag' The assassin had made a hole in it with his dagger so some parts of himself did fall out. The other pieces… they had to be in the hands of the humans.

"Here are the things-" Before Sharog could finish Prild already ran over and snatched away the orc bone. The goblins who had been doing goblin things in the background all acted similarly as they started retrieving some of their own belongings.

Ed ignored the regular goblins however and only focused on the serious expression of Prild. The bone staff seemed to fit in naturally with the aged goblin shamans demeanor. This made Ed feel some expectation.

There should have been no real reason for Ed to presume Prild and the other goblins could help. His first clue was only that someone had aided him when fighting the assassin, Ed assumed this was one of the goblins.

But… how did they do it? How did they perform an invisible attack? To Ed the only answer was consciousness. This didn't make any sense on its own, but with their bone weapons as a clue, Ed could tie them in with shamanism and spiritually as a byproduct.

Of course, all of this was nothing when compared to the assessment he ran on Prild previously. The fact that Prild could commune with the dungeon was all Ed needed to know even if the shaman part was somehow excluded.

The goblins slowly settled down after they retrieved their belongings. Some of these belongings were weapons which caused Sharog to shoot him a glance that seemed to ask if that was ok. But Ed didn't feel threatened by the regular goblins so he told Sharog to pay it no mind.

Finally, with the goblins settled and Prild having all he needed, the ritual was to properly start. With all the touching Prild had done things were bound to progress rapidly, so Ed made sure to pay attention.

"Ot huul, haaraan han or huulkhaar rhan akuun den rhuurthec" The primitive chant of Prild was powerful. Every syllable seemed to invoke a sense of divine dignity, this was unlike magic.

Magic chants were like preset programs while Prild's chants were quite literally prayer. The fervent piety demonstrated by every single one of Prild's expressions and gestures also affected the overall atmosphere of the place.

It was cold, and silent. It was eerily silent. Watching with sixth sense, Ed started to notice some changes under this silence.

The consciousness of Prild seemed to have started to glow and the bone staff which was placed on Dakgu's stomach started to show hints of blue.

This was Prild's own spirituality being channeled and spun to absorb the remnant particles. This was only plain to see thanks to the staff increasing the power and effectiveness of Prild's work.

But it wasn't just this, it was also mana. The monster encyclopedia noted that the creation of ghosts and specters often happened in areas rich with mana. This was no coincidence. 

There were even ghosts made of flames, water, and other elements. This meant that mana and the consciousness habituated the same plane or could at least actively interact with one another.

'That's what I was missing, mana' In the system space he could not control any mana. Why did he need mana? Ed couldn't say, maybe the consciousness was attracted to mana, or maybe they could combine to form some sort of pseudo-element that could manifest control over the common spirituality.

'A spirit magic of sorts' The branches of magic were just as broad as they were magical. Ed was learning a lot just from observing and speculating on the process Prild was performing.

"HEgaan or kuuch tokaan a shakaan duun taagaan o akaal" More goblin gibberish, Ed could not understand it. What he could understand and see clearly however was the remnant consciousness.

After being captured by the bone staff, the remnant spirit of Dakgu disappeared downwards in what seemed to be a split second. Ed barely caught a glimpse of the process.

'W- What!?!' What was more impressive however was how a much larger blue light, a blob of consciousness, was brought back in turn.

[Dakgu's consciousness]

It was Dakgu's consciousness! Ed was awestruck by the simplicity of the process that followed the onerous display of reverence.

'Isn't this the same as saying you like to be praised?' If the dungeon was so simple to be weak to praise then maybe Ed could get his level up after all.

These extraneous 1thoughts then disappeared from Ed's mind as Dakgu's consciousness lingered atop of Prild's bone staff unmoving.

'Is something wrong?' Ed asked himself. He would have asked Prild but he was afraid of somehow ruining the process. Thus he only gazed intently as beads of sweat formed on Prild's forehead.

'Why is he stuck here?' Ed was confused. But judging by the beads of sweat that formed on Prild's head he could only determine that a war he couldn't see was being waged.

With his sixth sense he should have been able to see it but alas no matter how close he got or how much he squinted he could only see Dakgu's consciousness floating above calmly.

Finally, something changed. Prild's outstretched arm started to lose strength, it made all the onlookers hold their tongues. It seemed Prild was losing!

Prild's arm fell down alongside the staff all airs of great grace no longer found as he was sprawled out on the ground panting like a tired dog.

'He- He lost!' Ed received quite a scare as he saw the consciousness of Dakgu fall alongside Prild and his staff. Almost instinctively, Ed dashed forward and absorbed it using his spirit insertion sub-skill.

What Ed did not know was that Prild had never recovered a whole consciousness from its god before! It didn't know what to do now! All of its life it extracted remnants from bones and other remains and would receive power from the god in return. There was never any inserting, just extracting and expending!

'I guess the system is still invincible' Ed said having placed the consciousness into Dakgu's body ever so simply.

Extraneous - having no relevance or anything to do with the matter at hand