Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

What did it mean to be grand? This was a simple question, and it had a simple answer.

Magnificent and imposing.

With this definition in mind, within the continent of Begliwick, there was only one territory truly worthy of the word grand.

The Galeburst dynasty was magnificent in size and imposing in power. Between the Volcan Empire and the Galeburst dynasty, most believed that the latter would win unilaterally. That sounded insane, could it actually be so one-sided in a direct confrontation?

The reality was likely not, that was just the view of the common people. That wasn't to say there was no element of truth to their beliefs, however.

How could a powerful empire develop in the cold mountain tops of Volcan? The hostile environment did not allow for their population size to flourish and it also hampered the motivation of its residents. For them, each day was bleak and lightless.

Ironically, this hostile environment was also the main deterrent against the Galeburst Dynasty's assault. The chances of the Galeburst dynasty winning against Volcan in their home territory was practically zero.

This fact maintained the status quo for many years.

That didn't mean the two powerhouses didn't have skirmishes and small scale wars throughout the centuries. On the contrary, there were uncountably many.

In both the empire and the dynasty, future rulers would try to display their talent and worth by excelling in battle. Plus, there were always some prodigies that believed that maybe they could be the ones to finally break the stalemate.

The results proved to be ultimately mixed for both territories, but it nonetheless became a custom.

Alastor Galeburst was an up and coming dynast. He was both gallant and powerful, every one of his actions exuded an air of grandeur for he was indeed grand. That was to say, for the people of Galeburst, he was the living embodiment of their nation.

Yet, despite Alastor's good looks and popularity, he was not the ruler of the Galeburst dynasty. His father still held onto that throne. Alastor was already a grown man, how could he permit this situation to continue?

Of course, he wasn't crazy enough to assassinate his father or anything like that. The crux of the issue lay in the peace on the continent of Begliwick. Unlike his ancestors, Alastor never had the chance to prove his prowess on the battlefield.

"Finally…" The man Alastor himself said with an exhausted tone. He was currently inside a dungeon, a very dangerous one.

He wore resplendent green armor with nary a single scratch. This was despite the fact that this prince of the dynasty had gone through insufferably tough battles. The prove was that out of his initial party of hundreds only a small few remained.

Needless to say, what Alastor wore wasn't just any set of armor. It was the set of armor created for the famous figure of the dynasty, Augustus Galeburst.

Alastor looked up at the thick stone door that separated him from the boss room.

"Never raise your head thinking you are mighty…" He muttered with an arrogant smile.

"You might have been a coward but I am not" Alastor declared evidently mocking his ancestor. Only a few members of his party knew which ancestor he was referring to. 

It was a rite for all the Galeburst Dynasts to learn about the letter left behind by the nephew of Augustus. There was something laughable about that sentence, however.

Nephew! The man did not even leave behind a name!

Was he too afraid of becoming renowned amongst his descendants for his stupidity? That might very well be the case, who would willingly kill their dynasty's best warrior?

Anyway, while the contents of the letter were exclusive to dynasts, the history itself was known by the people. All of Alastor's party members were fellow family members each an expert in their respective classes. They knew a thing or two about the family's history.

The 30-year-old prince of Galeburst, Alastor, then walked calmly towards the large stone door. His every step echoed in the small hall he and his party of 10 currently stood.

Alastor finally placed his hand on this door to the boss room.

"Beyond this door is a dragon! Be ready to put your life on the line!" Alastor screamed to his teammates.

"""Understood!!""" An obedient roar.

For Alastor to raise his head and have his father rightfully abdicate from the throne he needed a big achievement.

Fighting a dragon and successfully slaying it… How great was that achievement? It would at least put Alastor on par with Augustus.

With armor made from a dragon, weapons enchanted and crafted by masters, and the potions of the genius alchemist Zahid Zephyr, Alastor would prove less than a dozen humans could take down a dragon.

While such a delicate setup was not possible for the common people... This detail was not a flaw. Only the Galeburst dynasty could perform such a feat! That's what it screamed.

The entirety of the Galeburst upper echelon had an eye on the results of this raid team. Especially following the reports of the Volcan Dragon. A new and unexpected deterrent.

***

Back in the elven desert, Ed decided to continue his work on the tree array.

'I didn't turn it on last time but now…!' Ed provided two elemental crystals to the array which quickly powered on. The runes ignited into action and the entire array started to whirl and function.

While the array spun fast, the speed couldn't compare to the rate at which the orc blood fruit seed was growing. A small sapling was present not even a minute after activation.

The small sapling then continued to grow at a similarly frightening speed and only after a good minute did the growth start to slow.

'Hm? Is the tree now dying?' Ed asked himself noticing that the sapling was starting to dry.

"Huh…" Ed said surprised by the failure of his array.

'Azalia, what went wrong?' Ed decided to see if the tree could lend a branch in this situation.

'Look there!' Azalia transmitted back to Ed who stared at the tree dumbfounded. Look there!?!

Fortunately, the two of them were linked so Ed clearly understood where Azalia wanted him to look but still… There? The tree had to learn to be more descriptive in the future!

Putting his grievances aside, Ed seriously examined the tree array.

"Oh, the runes are messed up" He said after a short while. The runes were actually drawn too closely so some energy was trespassing into other circuits.

The array had powered down by now and the sapling completely dried up. Ed used the opportunity to quickly fix up the formation and then remove the dead sapling. He planted a new seed into the soil and provided new crystals.

Within moments, the array was back into action. Unfortunately, it was extremely slow in this action.

'Right, the tree was supposed to be growing slowly' The first trial must have provided a different result due to the runic circuit hopping.

Watching a sampling grow for a few hours was not to Ed's liking however so one could say he got extremely lucky because that was when a transmission from W came through. They hadn't separated for long!

'Ed, I've found Mauro' W transmitted to Ed who nodded. He could sense both of them were together.

'Initiating communication' W said to Ed before focusing on the matter on his end. He passed some basic means of communication to the lizardman skeleton and began to ask it questions.

'What did you find? A city?' W would ask questions like this and wait for the lizardman skeleton to give its response.

Mauro seemed to like to shake its head when responding to W, however. There were little to no affirmative answers.

'Wait… Was it ruined? Like a ruined temple or city?' W said after the thought dawned upon him.

Mauro responded with a meek nod making W want to smile. He was a skeleton bat right now though and couldn't actually smile.

'Ed, Mauro has found ruins'  W said transmitting his interactions with the lizard skeleton to Ed.

'Good to hear, make sure to investigate that after checking on Idrisi' The orc skeleton was still mostly idle. His position hadn't changed much and it had already been at least an hour since Ed first noticed Idrisi's inactivity.

'Noted' W replied before instructing Mauro to continue heading towards Ed.

'This interruption turned out to be rather short' Ed thought before looking back at the tree array that softly whirred.

'I wonder what we'll be able to find in the ruins' As long as the place wasn't just a ruined place of residence there was bound to be something worth finding. The hydra gauntlet from the marshlands was a surprisingly interesting device for example. 

Ed would have loved to have acquired the gauntlet, its firepower left hardly anything to be desired. Any new findings could mean finding an artifact of a similar caliber and that was definitely exciting.

But speculating and fantasizing wasn't going to help Ed forget his rude reality.

'I'm just going to be watching stuff grow for the next few hours' The slow torture might really end up killing him.

'Well, maybe I should investigate the place some more instead…' The library was an intriguing find but since much of the pages were ripped or books were simply missing there wasn't much he could actually learn.

'Let's start looking on the opposite end of the city' He would scout everything to the best of his abilities once again.