Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

The cannon that Shel made seemed fine at first glance, but… it was so short! The magic cannons Ed and Vorgarag made before were much larger and robust. They relied heavily on arrays and needed the extra space.

The same should have in theory applied to this cannon, but the length was just too pitiful. It was worth noting that the length of a cannon's barrel could be correlated to velocity and range.

The current barrel length disqualified this option. Not to mention, it also looked a bit… It looked like Shel might have been fantasizing about something inappropriate while making it, given the two other attachments.

"Shel… What is this?" Ed asked somewhat exasperated. Was this his fault? Maybe he shouldn't have pushed the job onto a drunken orc.

"It's my masterpiece, I made it with you in mind!" Shel replied with a brilliant smile.

"Please don't say that…" Ed muttered inaudibly. The use for this short cannon was limited, and Ed certainly didn't want to be associated with that.

'Hm? Wait, this can still be useful' if Ed remember correctly, mortars shot an angle to increase range, the cannon could still be used as a mortar. Mortars were not necessarily very accurate, but with each miss it was possible to adjust the angle and eventually land on target.

'Could I use mortars in a naval battle?' The mortars required more precision and skill than the more direct cannons. That was both a good thing and a bad thing.

The inexperience or even mental state of the lizardmen handling the mortar could lead to guaranteed misses. But fortunately, the odds of the enemies being hit from afar might be low, but since you could afford to miss, you'd get them eventually.

"So? What do you think?" Shel asked as she fine-tuned a couple of small details on the stumpy cannon.

"You did good" Ed replied with a stiff smile. He could work with it.

'I'll need a mix of both' When in doubt, try both out. It worked with ice cream flavors and would also probably work with weapons of war.

"Hehehe…" Shel giggled happily before slurring the end of her laugh and collapsing.

Ed got quite a fright, but managed to grab her with ease. The drunk woman had pushed through evident exhaustion to deliver a finished product. Ed felt very grateful, even if she had inadvertently insulted his manhood!

'Let's take you home' Ed picked Shel up and walked her home. After that, he returned to the smithy to properly close it and clean the mess leftover from Shel's work.

'Time to make something...' Ed knew better than Shel what the cannons should look and function like. If he made a prototype, mass-producing it would just require the orcs to be observant, which should be no problem.

'I don't think that's asking for too much anyway....' Even amongst the smartest of species, there were always unimaginably dumb individuals. It was the law of moronical exchange1 or something.

Putting that matter aside, Ed began work on this cannon. He made sure the barrel was longer this time and also pictured the elements it would fire out.

'Literal fire' Having the cannon's barrel throw out flames might make for an interesting close-range weapon. Using a fireball might also work, but aside from being boring, the other options were more deadly.

'Earth balls' Essentially, just cannonballs made from earth. These cannonballs might not be very fiery, but the power of a large stone hurling through the air at high speeds could not be underestimated.

They could very well rip apart the body of the lizardman on contact and then bounce repeatedly to take out other lizardmen in the vicinity. On the chance that it didn't bounce, the shrapnel could still maim many of the targets. The real icing on the cake however was that this gruesome scene would also cause psychological damage to the enemy!

'Well, it can cause physiological damage to both sides...' Everything had its downsides.

The other option was earth balls that exploded. Ed figured that adding a crystal into the cannonballs could do the trick. The downside was that the lethality was increased in the immediate range, but the ability to kill multiple opponents outside that range was hampered.

The psychological damage was fortunately still there for both sides. Well, assuming there was any part of the target's body not charred to bits to inflict it.

Out of these 3 shell options, the only ones really viable were the latter two. While the flamethrower idea was cool, it wasn't necessarily practical. It was one of those things that would need both extensive testing and improvement to be practical.

'Why should I try to reinvent the flamethrower?' If there was a reason, it was because he didn't know how to make one. But the blueprints for the other cannons were already there in his mind. The flamethrower would thus be an endeavor fueled solely by curiosity rather than necessity.

Hours flew by and before Ed knew it, the night had already passed. By now, Ed had already finished the cannon. No, not just the cannon, Ed had also finished many boats and ships.

Having made one boat, the other boats were very easy to make. With so many boats and ships, he needed more water space, however. 

To fix this, Ed made a moat around the outer walls of Sanctuary. This moat was admittedly what he spent most of his night on.

[Craftsmanship has leveled up]

[Formationist has leveled up]

Unsurprisingly, this night of hard work paid off in the form of level ups.

'Two of each type' Ed made two types of boats. One was the multi cannon ship, and the other was the single cannon boat.

In terms of size, the multi cannon dwarfed the single cannon ship. The multi cannon was slower however and also a bigger target.

'Which is fine since it is also more armored' Ed spent a good amount of time just branding the terrafirm ore in thick layers. The large ship could almost be considered an armored ship.

These magnificent ships were docked near the Sanctuary gate thanks to the wide moat. The boats were just waiting to be taken for a joyride. But not before discussing the other two types Ed referred to.

There was the long range cannon ships and mortar ships. The large ship lost some long range cannons in favor of mortars fired from the deck. The small ship could not come to an even compromise though and had its singular cannon replaced for a mortar.

Finally, the other choice of twos that had to be made was the choice of ammunition. Earth balls or exploding earth balls? The answer was both.

The two shells could be used in different situations. There was no need to split them evenly amongst the ship. The exploding ones were actually fairly expensive considering that he needed to be a skeleton to replenish them, giving a bit to everyone was a nice compromise.

In the end, Ed only built... 8 ships. He needed a model or frame of reference for each of the available options. It had been no easy task.

The moat might have taken the most time, but Ed didn't actually finish the moat just yet. This meant the time he spent of these ships was not too far behind the time spent on the moat.

Looking at the sun shafting down and illuminating his vessels, Ed got the urge to show off. Ed figured it was time to introduce the new vessels to the members of the Sanctuary council. 

'The ships themselves don't help Sanctuary' There would be no naval battles in the orc plains anytime soon. Still, the weapons could prove intriguing.

With these thoughts in mind, Ed returned to Sanctuary with a skip in his step. He was eager to show off his latest accomplishment, but he was also hoping to use this as an eye-opener for the orcs.

'At least I hope it is an eye-opener' The orcs would be able to see there was no limit to their creativity or what was possible.

'In this world more than any other' Without magic, Ed would not be able to make these ships and cannons. At times, the magic felt like dumbed-down physics. There certainly were intricacies to the world's magic system, but the barrier to entry was rather low.

As Ed stepped into Sanctuary, the orcs were just waking up.

"Hey!" "Ed!" Wherever he walked past, the orcs would offer words of greeting. Ed would return them in kind.

Not even an hour later, Ed got the Sanctuary council to assemble. There were a little over 20 members currently. Sharog had appointed the majority of them as she was more involved in the affairs of the settlement.

"I have a really important announcement to make" Ed made ships, but to whose merit? The orcs of Sanctuary didn't know much about the dungeon. Only those close to Ed knew.

Recalling the earlier greetings and the happy smiles on the faces of the orcs, Ed was finally able to come to terms with admitting something.

"I am not an orc" Ed said. The orcs who were originally rather relaxed became wide-eyed. Not an orc?!

Moronic Exchange is the principle that limits human's infinite potential.. It's a simple concept: smart cannot be created from nothing, and so in order to obtain smart, something else of equal value must be dumb.