Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

While that test was ongoing, Ed met the divine tree Azalia and carried out his usual routine.

He inspected Azalia's growth with a glance and then cared for some of his experimental arrays. Since the runic ink he created wasn't necessarily made with the exact formula Ed was afraid of any potential side effects. Like it was possible that this runic inc wore off much faster, no?

After Ed was done with that, he could finally tend properly to Azalia.

'I see you've grown some new leaves' Ed transmitted to Azalia.

'Mhm!' The tree assented proudly. Ed also nodded silently to her cute act before using the link skill to pass on his vitality.

'Happy!' Azalia cried out cheerfully. There was a lot of great vitality entering her system!

After doing this, Ed bundled together a bunch of plant matter with the forge and assimilated the end result..

[Vitality +1]

'Too poor...' Ed thought slightly disappointed. That bundle didn't just have quantity, it also had quality. Under normal circumstances given that he was in a new floor he wouldn't mind too much but... everything in this floor was dead! The low attributes gain would continue for a while.

Ed then looked down at a large unfinished array that surrounded Azalia. Thanks to the interruption of W and the elves he was unable to finish inscribing the floor.

'Azalia, are you ready to help out?' Ed asked taking the opportunity to bond with the tree. Helping Ed draw arrays was one of the few activities the tree could do alongside him.

'Mm-hmm!' Just like that the tree and elf got to work. They continued at it a good few minutes before he received an unlikely transmission.

'Ed, I think it's about time to let the human girl go' The transmission was from none other than A who had been keeping watch over the Kimani girl.

'Oh? Really?' Ed had received few transmissions from A so he wasn't always caught up on her adjustment to the Sanctuary society. Last he heard the girl was going to school which may or may not have been a good thing.

Judging by the transmission however, Kimani must have done more than simply adjust. Ed imagined it wouldn't be impossible for her to have made some friends. Otherwise, how could A guarantee that things would go smoothly?

'Yes, she seems to even be having fun here' A transmitted back. Frankly, he couldn't ignore the possibility that the girl was simply putting on an act but he was still willing to bet on it. After all, what could Kimani actually do even if she was faking it?

The conditions that Ed gave her, the power, were very beneficial to her. The dozens upon dozens of tiny blood clots that had entered her system also made it impossible for her to come clean without being subjected to experimentation.

Of course, there was also the fact that those things could end her life. Ed didn't plan on doing it, but the possibility always existed. As long as Kimani thought Ed capable of doing it she would hesitate more than just a little before coming clean to any authorities.

'Alright, you have my permission' Ed trusted himself so he trusted A's judgment. Plus he would be too preoccupied with the elves in the coming days so he couldn't try to multitask every single floor of the dungeon.

'Hmmm… I have to check in on the crypt and the marshland' Ed then remembered that those two floors were being left in the dark.

'Soon we'll be allowing the humans into the orc floor so maybe I should plan to focus on developing the swamp…' With thoughts like this circulating Ed's mind, he drew runes on the floor while Azalia oversaw the operation.

***

In Sanctuary, the main roads were all cramped and filled to the brim. The plaza was a place where anyone afraid of crowds would faint on the spot. 

This was thanks to the goblins which now seemed to match the orcs in terms of population size.

"Hey! Watch where you are going!" An orc shouted.

"Snort" But all he received back was a snort from a boar. The boar rides that Ed had tasked Urzoth with had recently taken off in full force. The two progenitor boars of this profession were now living lavishly seeing their children head off to work for the first time.

This rude boar was one of the many. The boars had a relatively low reproduction rate, at least when compared to the goblins, so it took a good while for the boar transport to take off.

Urzoth had to breed the strengthened boars Ed provided for a few generations first. This was harder than one might think, some orcs viewed the transport boars as a waste of good meat. There were a few troublemakers that had to be apprehended.

But as the boars integrated into all business activities, these feelings slowly went away. Their convenience for lugging merchandise or even just orcs and goblins had everyone convinced.

"Kimani!" A goblin shouted from within one of the boar-drawn carriages.

The only human in the settlement Kimani waved back to the young goblin awkwardly. She had no idea who that was! There were so many goblins in Sanctuary, how could she know them all?

In contrast, she was the only human in Sanctuary. Whether she liked it or not she became a popular topic of gossip.

Currently, Kimani was walking home from school. She had learned nothing about the orc language but she did learn a lot about their culture. No, to be exact she learned a lot about Sanctuary culture.

Although Kimani had never adventured before, she felt it was impossible for orc and goblins to act like this normally.

Following loosely behind Kimani was A still occupying the body of Loask. The poor lizardman would never receive his body back at the current rate.

Anyway, A felt that Kimani's inexperience actually ended up making her the perfect choice for the human assistance program, otherwise known as the HUP.

"Maybe I should call it the Human assistance plan instead... Yeah! The HU- That's the same thing…" A muttered as he followed behind her. He had been ruminating about what cool name to give the operation.

But seeing that his acronyms weren't top-notch he decided to just talk to Kimani and have her execute the uncool named plan.

"Kimani" A said to the human girl just as she reached her designated home.

"...Hello" Kimani said unenthusiastically. She was still a bit scared of Ed and thus also afraid of A who seemed to act as a proxy of him, and it seemed her fears weren't unfounded.

"It's about time you return to human society" A brought with him bad news, or at least he brought with him unfortunate news. The truth was that Kimani was at this point terrified of leaving Sanctuary.

It was a bizarre feeling.

"Do… Do I have to?" She asked with trepidation. A flinched not expecting such a question.

"Yes…?" A said sounding unsure. If she didn't have to, then who did have to? They didn't prepare another human!

A found this situation to be odd so he couldn't help but want to get to the bottom of it.

"Should we go inside?" A asked Kimani clearly meaning to say if they should go inside the house. Kimani recoiled from surprise before quickly letting A inside.

"Sure" She said welcoming A in.

A observed the house. It was a cabin of sorts with stone as a floor and foundation and wood for its wall and roof.  One could see sun rays peeking in through gaps in the wood. The furniture in the house was sparse and dusty suggesting that it saw little to no use.

The only thing with any signs of use was the bed Kimani slept in. There were some boar fur sheets strewn about lazily.

The noise of the hustle and bustle of Sanctuary was still ever-present while inside the house but there was a similarly present emptiness that gave the cabin an eternal sense of loneliness.

A frowned inwardly. Kimani's lifestyle in Sanctuary could only be described as depressing based solely on her home.

'She only goes out to school and then comes here and lays down…' That was the impression Ed received, and he also knew it was the truth since he was tasked with keeping an eye on her.

When she had plans of escaping she still wandered about but now it seemed she gave up on everything except for sleep.

"What's going on? Why would you want to stay here?" A asked sincerely using the human tongue. The two were just standing in the dark home with Kimani awkwardly twiddling her fingers.

Kimani hesitated to answer the question.

"I'm afraid…" Kimani replied honestly after a few seconds of deliberation. She didn't know why she did so, but she wanted to come clean with her fears.

There were monsters inside her. How could she go out into the real world with those things? But that wasn't the only thing she feared, she also feared the death of her mother.

The reason why she went into the dungeon was that she was in a critical state. Kimani was afraid that upon emerging from the dungeon she'd be told of her mother's death.

But if she was still alive and somehow found out she had monsters living in her body… Would that even worse? How would her mother react?

Kimani was afraid of the secret in her body, and her secret pact with Ed. But she was most afraid of the reactions of society and her only family to both of these things. If they were to ever be found out... She shuddered just imagining it.

Kimani... was afraid of the uncertain future. This left her stuck in the passing present.

A had no way to know what Kimani feared exactly, but he could still offer some vague yet sagely words of advice.

"There's nothing to fear" A declared to Kimani hoping to first give her some confidence.

"The only thing to fear is inaction" He continued.

"Instead of moping around wondering what might go wrong, why not find out and deal with it?" A stated matter-of-factly.

Kimani took in his words and looked up at him startled. She was really being comforted by a monster at that moment... 

"You are right…" But the monster was right, she had to go.