Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

Using the turbo-boost feature of the ship in the swamp was not very smart but it did get the job done. The ship rocketed forward into a small patch of land.

"ARGH!" "Urgh…" "Damn it" There was a small collision with the hull against the ground but fortunately the ship was merely scraped. If that hadn't been the case, they'd surely be sinking into the water.

"We are in cannon range!" Var Agus shouted while pointing towards where Loask once swam. 

"Fi…" But he didn't give the order to fire just yet. His mouth quivered. If they fired there would be friendly fire.

"Hey! Why didn't they ram them as well?!!!" A lizardman on the flagship exclaimed.

'Var was too hasty' Ed thought. He was caught up in his own ship and didn't wait for the two other single cannon ships to catch up. They were more vulnerable than the flagship too making it an exceptionally poor choice.

"Argh!" One of them did manage to fire off the boost just now but... 

"Ah…" the other's captain was cleanly stabbed by a spear. Their figure fell to the ground with a thud. Var who was watching from afar tightened his grip on the ship's railing. He had been leaning on it for a closer look and he sort of regretted it. He should be doing more than looking!

Still, he couldn't charge forward so confidently anymore. They only numbered 12 after splitting the boats, losing just one lizardman was a catastrophe.

"Var… Do we… Fire?" The ship that failed to boost away in time was getting quickly overrun by well-equipped Mensch lizardmen. They could fire without worries now.

"How, how can they swim so well?!" Var did not answer, he was still caught up in his feelings of anguish. He was really not prepared for such an idiotic tactic. Were it not for the fact that they were caught unprepared it wouldn't have ever worked!

"Damn…" But the leader or captain of these Mensch lizardmen clearly knew that. Var had to concede it wasn't as idiotic as he would like to make it out to be. This realization jolted Var out of his daze.

"F- Fire!" Var Agus ordered. There was nothing he could do for their fellows, Var needed the small hijacked boat to be shot down. Loask who was on this small ship wasn't planning on having it though.

He pulled out his second trump card with a smug smile.

"Hahaha!" From afar one could not make out its features but from up close, it looked like a small statue of a hydra head.

Upon closer look, one would notice that the neck was actually a hollow opening. Loask inserted his arm into this opening before pointing the hydra-head at a cannonball.

"I'll show you real fire!" Raging flames shot out towards the cannonball leaving Var Agus, and even Ed who was hearing and seeing everything through A, stunned.

The cannonball, which was actually an explosive one, exploded mid-air from the sudden heat. This resulted in an explosion that actually blew the small cannon ship back!

"Where did he get that from!?" Loask was only wearing rags that covered his lower body. Did he put a hydra head there? How did he keep it in its spot-? It was best not to think about it. The battle was still ongoing.

A good commander had to be able to adapt quickly to a changing battlefield and make difficult decisions oftentimes on the spot. Var Agus was having a hard time.

"Hey!! They are sailing away!" Kouzzo shouted noticing the small boat was not heading in their direction anymore. This resulted in Kouzzo feeling furious. That was their boat! This was stealing!

Ed didn't care about the piracy as much as he did the weird artifact. Where could a lizardman procure such a thing on the current floor?

'Are there still hidden chests or…?' Were there simply such relics lying around in the dungeon. Thinking about it for a bit, Ed realized that he actually didn't do much exploration.

'Based on the monster encyclopedia, finding relics pertaining to past events of the real world is not uncommon' Ed could not see the magical device, but if it were linked to something it would have to be the hydra.

'Unfortunately, the distance is too large to assess' Ed would not be able to pinpoint the origin of this device.

'I should explore the orc plains a bit more' The size of that place was fairly large and there were without a doubt more tribes and maybe even species to be found and observed. What first greeted him when he entered the portal from the boss room to the orc plains had been a small ruin after all.

But with the current predicament taking a turn for the worse, Ed had to refocus his thoughts to the matter at hand. He wanted to come up with a solution to the fleeing lizardmen.

'Boosting to chase after them is not only dangerous due to the terrain, but if we get into battle we could lose another boat' That was not to their benefit. At the same time, they couldn't just let them be.

As Var Agus was having a small mental breakdown seeing the enemies escaping his grasp, Ed's voice entered his mind.

'Have someone follow them from a distance and firing to keep them busy' The ammunition would run out eventually but the real goal would be to follow the lizardmen. Since they had settled a rendezvous point, the boat that was left behind could always flee in that direction.

'The one that stays behind goes back to the rendezvous point to ask for reinforcements' The only problem was that it was very well possible for the enemies to never stop fleeing. In that scenario, the boats could lose their sense of direction and the reinforcements might also never find the enemies.

The whole situation was becoming somewhat complicated which was a pity.

'Another person should also try to find where they came from' This did not sound pointless but it didn't sound very useful either. Ed only transmitted this because he was interested in learning more about the world and its history.

He doubted Var Agus would be too thrilled about doing the same thing.

"I see" Thanks to Var thinking he understood Ed's intention, he didn't even bat an eye at the third transmission.

"Let's do that!" He said with conviction before quickly passing down his orders to the crewlizards.

"Inform the small ship!" He also made sure to inform the neighboring ship.

"We will give them all of our ammo, have them follow far behind the enemy ships!" Var was improving on Ed's plan as well. He considered that they wouldn't need the ammo anymore.

Of course, since he believed in the mushroom god's wisdom he also believed that anything left out was either a test for him or implied. Thus, figuring that out was not necessarily to his credit. Just a matter of course if he was to live up to expectations.

The idea almost had Var Agus jumping up and down in expectant excitement. There was a certain thrill to knowing you would pass a test with flying colors!!! Unless…!?

"Hey! Tell them to not initiate combat, only use the ammunition as a deterrent!" The point was to last as long as possible until reinforcements came not to fight it out with the Mensch lizardmen. If he didn't communicate this point properly issues could arise.

The small boat soon got the idea and after a quick transferal of cargo, they set off. The divine blood warrior of the goblin was in charge of this vessel.

"I will get it done!" Those were Rexl's last words as his ship sailed off into the horizon. He was a burly lizardman with a hideous scar that ran down his entire left arm. He seemed vicious to say the least. Var trusted him.

"What about the canoeing lizardmen? Should we kill them first?" Not everyone fitted in the stolen single cannon ship they were forcing themselves into. These lizardmen couldn't last in the water forever either no matter how good they were at swimming.

That was why it was only a matter of time until they decided to scramble after the boats they abandoned so decisively.

"We don't have ammo now, let's leave them…" Var wasn't confident in killing them without any casualties on their side. They were better off not tempting fate. They had to listen to the mushroom god!

Everything in the marshlands appeared to have gone back to normal.

***

The creepy torches flickered sporadically. They added to the creepy atmosphere of the room a group of C-class adventurers found themselves in.

"A chest! Under this old desk!" An adventurer shouted.

An expert assassin walked over and looked at the chest carefully before deciding there were no traps. They opened up the chest and…! There were a pair of normal leather trousers.

"Aw, another dud" The chests of the crypt were befitting its status as an undead low-level dungeon. The only good things were all monopolized by Ed. He was the one who decided when to release it, how to realize it, etc.

These adventurers wouldn't be able to know that what they did know however was that their luck was rotten.

"Oh wait, there is a potion here" The pants actually had a potion! Their rotten luck must have changed to good fortune!!!

"Huh?" Suddenly, the ground started to shake violently.

"AHH!" Almost all of them lost their footing. The fact that almost all of them fell was normal. The scream was however not normal.

"Noooo!" The potion they picked out of the chest fell to the ground leaving nothing of itself.

"Damn it!" They wouldn't be able to sell or use that at all now!

The adventurers were startled by the earthquake and now resented it.. They never stopped to think about why it happened though.