Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

Ed followed after Lash, they both made their way to the plaza, which wasn't surprising. The plaza was the hub of Sanctuary by now. What was surprising were the changes that happened in the short few days Ed was absent.

"Kill him!" Shouted a burly orc as they lifted their heavy axe into the sky. Their bloodshot eyes carried thick killing intent, causing Ed to be somewhat taken aback.

"RAAWR!!!" Another orc let out a battle cry as they drew back their axe let out a full swing towards a brown creature. Ed narrowed his eyes as the orc approached their target.

'Pipsqueak!' Ed shouted inwardly.

The swing missed, Pipsqueak stepped back. Another swing! He stepped back! But it was no good, with each step he took so did the maddened orcs! They weren't outright charging out, but they certainly looked ready to pounce!

"DIE!!!" A final cry, the meaning behind this one word was made even more clear by the orc's furious expression. Their axe swung down.

The sound it made caused everyone to quieten. It was a thud and that was... Unexpected!

"Another dodge! Hahaha!" An orc exclaimed with gleeful surprised.

"Damn it Yag! You lucky runt! How did you know Zog wouldn't get him?" A tall and muscular orc asked a more petite orc warrior.

"Hehehe, we small brothers just need to look out for each other" Yag replied proudly. It was worth noting that although he was smaller than the average orc, he was still twice the size of Pipsqueak.

Ed, who watched this interaction, couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in questioning surprise. When did these orcs become so chummy with Pipsqueak?

"Hey! Is that Ed?!" Someone asked seeing Lash approach with Ed. Instantly, the eyes of the orcs glistened. The rich man himself- Er, the leader of their great Sanctuary!

"Ed! How about a round of drinks!" Someone exclaimed rushing over. It looked like this would become a normal way to greet him in the future.

"Yeah! Let's celebrate the ol' Pipsqueak over there!" "Hey, isn't his name? Kikiki?" "No you idiot, that's how they talk!" The orcs grew more lively now that Ed was present. Ed didn't know why, but it was good to know he inspired good vibes.

'Huh, Sharog did a good job' He didn't expect any less from her, but he was still somewhat surprised. Though one could say that he did indeed expect less in that case but… The situation he created before disappearing was just too much to handle ordinarily.

'I wonder what means she took' Looking around, the only goblins that were actually having fun were the ones he modified with Pipsqueak as the protagonist. Which was expected.

'He has the different hair color' Ed thought to himself before finally spotting Sharog somewhere in the crowd. At the moment, she was conversing with Dakgu, Shel, and Romagod.

He mouthed Lash a thanks and turned to face the crowd of orcs.

"Alright! Drinks are on me!" Ed couldn't turn down the offers of each individual orc, so he gave in.

"YAY!!!" "YEAH!!" "YES! POISON DRINK!" The orcs cheered and celebrated the occasion more so than they did the victory of Pipsqueak. Ed hurried past them and went over to Sharog and the others.

"Ed!" Shel was of course the first to greet him. She even did a small wave. Then there was Dakgu who nodded his head acknowledging his existence. As for Romagod, son of Romarod leader of Romarod's tribe, he simply put on an awkward smile.

"Hold on a moment" Ed said to them before pulling Sharog aside.

"Ed, I am glad you are back" Sharog said with a small smile.

"Yes Ummm hi… This is going to sound bad but, I don't have any money" Ed said with a bit of awkwardness.

Sharog's smile froze. What?

"You don't have any money?" She asked taken aback. She had been conversing with the others when Ed made his appearance, but his words did register in her mind.

"Th- The drinks?!?" Sharog said figuring out what Ed wanted.

"Yes…" He made the currency, but he didn't keep any for himself. All the money that belonged to him, he just passed onto Sharog. Even when he wanted something from Goe's he went over to her for cash.

Sharog placed her hand on her temple, she was unsure about what to even say about this situation.

"That aside, you did a great job" Ed said with a smile. There was no awkwardness to it, just genuine and heartfelt gratitude. Sharog sighed and smiled, the smooth talker!

"Of course I did" She declared causing Ed to chuckle.

He then looked around at the work Sharog was proud of. He hadn't expected to return to this lively environment. The original plan was to put everyone to work immediately after returning, but with the current noon festivities, there was no way that would fly.

'Let's have them enjoy it some more' Ed thought going back to the small group with Sharog.

Much later, the sun had yet to set, but some orcs were already wasted. Ed decided it was about time to end the celebration, and he went over to Shel.

"Shel, can you help me produce something?" Ed asked Shel who was just a tad bit tipsy.

She turned to look at Ed with drunken spunk. Could she help him produce something? She could help him produce anything!

"All you have to do is ask" Shel told Ed with a weird fire in her eye. It was nice she was so passionate about helping Ed supposed.

"I need to produce cannons" The matter of the ships he was already ruminating over, he just needed the cannons.

"Cannons?" Shel's mind was not in the right place, but the mention of cannons brought her back to reality. If she remembered right, the cannons were those things Vorgarag once made.

"Ok!" She replied simply. The alcohol was still affecting her.

"Ask Sharog for help, I'll leave it to you" Ed said before sighing and quietly leaving the plaza. 

He reached the inner walls after some walking. He scaled them and jumped down the walls out into the field of rubble. Ed then walked over to the outer walls, which he also climbed.

'This should be a fine enough place' Ed thought after walking just outside the forest.

He then quickly dug out an earthen crystal from his system space and then worked his magic.

Trees were uprooted or displaced as Ed began to make a giant hole in the ground. This hole wasn't all that deep, but it did stretch out quite a bit. After it was dug, Ed pulled out a new crystal.

The crystal shone a blue hue. Ed quickly began to manipulate the mana to fill up the hole. By the end of it, Ed had a decently sized pond.

'Just enough to fit and sail a 2 or 3 lizardmen boat' Ed thought as he watched the water calmly. Now it was all about making this 2 or 3 lizardmen boat. To do this, he needed to know the basics of boat building.

'A rock sinks because it is too heavy' But ships heavier than rocks floated, so obviously that wasn't the crux of the issue. The real trick to making stuff float was for the object to displace more water than it weighed.

To put it in clearer terms, when an object sunk, the water it moved aside had to be heavier than the boat itself in order for it to float. This principle explained the general shape of boats.

They all needed to sink to displace water, but if they sunk too much they would obviously submerge into the water. If it submerged, the heavy water would sink it. The hull of the ship therefore had to be tall enough to prevent water from entering.

That was why really flat boats did not exist. They needed some sort of hull. This was of course all relative, since once again it depended on the size of the vessel.

But thinking too much about these little things would cause Ed's head to hurt. There was no need to go so deep into it. Boats were something that humans figured out long before knowing the principle of how it worked. He as a person who knew this principle already had a leg up on the ancient humans.

As for how he knew these things… apart from being a generally curious person, Ed's craftsmanship skill taught him how to do certain things. It didn't explain how it worked, but Ed knew how to make it.

Always filling his head with useless knowledge from online videos or articles, Ed knew enough to make some inferences, as he had demonstrated.

'Well the skill still takes most of the credit' The skill helped to make something without knowing ALL the principles behind it, so saying it explained how it worked would be wrong but saying otherwise was misleading.

Ed shook off the thoughts by this point and began to envision the boat he wanted.

'I'll need both boats and ships' The boats were just for transport, but the ships needed to have space for magic cannons. This also meant calculating their weight.

'It's a good thing I've prepared this pond' Ed hadn't mentioned it before, but the water sources in the orc floor were actually quite few. Most of them could hardly be called streams.

There were signs of these streams once being rivers, but for whatever reason the dungeon cut back on them.. This was none of Ed's business by this point, he just needed to test out his boats and ships in his newly created pond.