Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

Back in the Bosque capital, a young man was resting peacefully within his tent. After receiving the treatment from Bloody and W, the bedridden patient showed more signs of activity.

Unfortunately however he still did not wake up. That was also why W's treatment had to continue for an additional day. He helped the boy train his motor skills by doing meaningless hand and foot gestures.

The observing knights were happy to see him so lively at first, but after a while they looked as though they believed the boy was possessed, which was quite frankly not entirely incorrect.

Regardless, this motor training continued for another day before the boy finally showed signs of opening his eyes.

"Urgh…" He let out a groan.

"The prince…! He groaned! Get a doctor!" The knight inside the tent sat up hurriedly from where he sat and yelled.

This small episode resulted in nothing in the end. But there was actually one thing it helped with.

'Prince…!' W sucked in a non-existent cold breath. He was inside one of the prince of Bosque's body. As for whom… there was no need to ask. A worried parent would check up on their child the moment they showed signs of waking up from their coma.

"Please wake up, Aaron, your father will say goodbye for today" The king, W's previous host, said to his son Aaron Bosque who remained unmoving. He had paid him a full visit spending at least 30 minutes doing nothing but staring helplessly at the boy.

'Brennan must care for his kids' The odd part was that to Ed's knowledge he didn't visit his sons very often. Only now did he pick up such a hobby.

But Ed was not in his son's body to judge Brennan's parenting skills. He was there to bust out of the capital and return to Ed.

'The problem is this identity is a bit too high profile' While the common people might not know much about Aaron Bosque, it didn't mean he wasn't a meaningful figure. Brennan's sons were heirs to the throne, at least until Miller had children of his own.

A potential crown prince, even if their presence was thin, would cause a large noticeable commotion upon disappearing.

This all complicated Ed's plan. He could try giving up on this host entirely but he would be in a bad position.

'We spent so much effort already' The blood they lost could not be regained so quickly. They would need to stay in this high in mana host for at least a little while longer. He ran the risk of overstaying his welcome, however.

'If they weren't Brennan's son!' Ed was really frustrated. He was taken for a fool by Brennan unknowingly. If they weren't Brennan's son he could have taken them away without arousing suspicion but not as things stood.

Quickly realizing that escaping with Aaron would be too difficult, Ed decisively chose to give up.

'The blood might be good but there will be other opportunities' The prince would have many things to catch up on after his eventual awakening. It wasn't a bad idea to return after he got acquainted with the new world around him.

'The capital did just collapse' And W did not know for how long Aaron had been in a coma, this could be news to him.

'Bloody, I have a special task for you' But just because W had to report back to Ed, it didn't mean that Bloody had to join them too.

As soon as the mention of a special task appeared W could tell that Bloody became angry. You can't keep me away from father! Or something along those lines was what Bloody seemed to want to say to W.

'Hahaa... It's just staying here for a little, you can handle it, right?' W decided to skirt around Bloody's obvious feelings of disapproval.

In the end, Bloody had no choice but to relent. It was a pity too since Bloody really wanted to show off how much it grew to Ed. Funnily enough, how much it liked Ed was also the reason why Bloody chose not to protest W's decision, he was told to listen to W.

With Bloody relenting, a couple of days later, W left the body of Aaron Bosque. The young prince didn't notice, and neither did the knights.

After slithering out of the tent on his own, W couldn't help but miss Bloody.

'I can't use blood sense anymore' He was smaller than when he was combined with Bloody so thankfully he was still rather hard to notice. Regardless, he had to be really careful if didn't want to get sneaked up on.

Which was why, in an effort to go out unnoticed, Ed made sure to only travel during nighttime. He could tell the time of day based on the heat of the sun but even that could be inaccurate. All of this combined was to say, it really took W a while to even near the edge of the capital.

His small size might be good to remain unseen, but it also meant the distance he could travel was negligible.

'Finally' But after passing through enough rubble, and cruising among one of the main roads leading to the south Bosque gate, he was finally close to leaving the city. Or he should be based on his calculations.

'It looks like it's about to be morning… I should find a body…' Traveling the rest of the way this slowly would not be ideal. As for why he didn't find a body sooner… it would simply be too suspicious to walk out of the gate by yourself.

As always, inhabiting a random body also brought the risk of not knowing their status. While he doubted he'd be lucky enough to run into any more royalty, even a commoner who had a half decent caring family would mean trouble.

It was while Ed was ruminating this that he felt the vibrations of something heavy rolling along the main road.

He instantly inferred what this object was.

'I need to get on that carriage!' Ed could not see without Bloody but that was fine, he could still feel vibrations and the like. While he wasn't at the level of echolocation, knowing whether the vibrations were stronger or not at certain points was good enough.

Plus, W forgot to mention it, but he also had his sixth sense. Without vision, the skill worked at a very limited range.

As long as something with a consciousness entered within that very limited range of him, W could sense them. It was almost like a slightly distanced touch.

As the rumbling grew stronger, Bloody mustered some power to perform a big leap, relative to his size anyway.

Just as the horses and the carriage were passing by the broken and open gate, a small red blob just so happened to plaster itself by the coachman's seat. Ed could feel the coachman's presence calming him greatly.

'Worst case scenario, I enter the coachman after we leave the gates' With a solid way out, Ed did not need to worry much anymore. Thanks to the marks he had with Ed, he could tell if he was getting closer or further.

While none of the messages were being sent to Ed's location, the reasoning was obviously that their distance was too large.

***

It was early morning, Samuel Oakley was riding on a carriage back to Arbor Town.

"Sigh…" His injuries were healed. There wasn't even much scarring from many of the humiliating blows he took.

"Please show some ID…" While the coachman outside talked with the guards to be let out of the city gates, Samuel started thinking about his wife and son.

'I'm not strong enough yet' Being able to take a pounding from an old and experienced dragon was something to brag about but Samuel did not feel like bragging.

As the carriage wheeled past the trashed battlefield he previously nearly lost his life in, this thought that his strength was insufficient resurfaced inside of Samuel's mind.

The potion strengthened his constitution and regenerative capabilities but that was not enough to be considered strong. If his attacks could not keep up, he was just a punching bag.

'Getting stronger faster…' Samuel wanted to know the key to doing so.

The problem was that no matter how many times he asked himself this question, the answer always came back with the same result.

The cave of Myths.

The crypt's bone drop item could improve magic capabilities greatly, and the orc's tusk as he had personally tested made for cockroach level survivability.

If Samuel was able to find out what was on the other floors…

'Could I get stronger then…?' The details about with the dragon and the royal family was all far too complicated. While he was still on the duke's side, he was not really interested in learning more than absolutely necessary.

"Hahahahaha" Samuel suddenly let out a laugh.

"What happened?" The coachman looked back curiously and asked.

"Nothing, I just remembered something funny" Samuel responded. The reason he was on the Duke's side... the academy and his family.

His original intention was to fabricate rumors about the orc tusk's effects to improve the number of adventurers traveling to Arbor town. Using the personal prestige he earned from that, as well as the influx of adventurers, he could set up an academy to train and exploit the cave of myths.

His fabricated rumors were ultimately unnecessary, however. Just like in the would be rumors, he did take the potion. The main difference was that he used it to contend against a dragon of all things.

Samuel laughed because of the irony but he also laughed because he didn't know if he was supposed to be happy or sad about this change.