Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

A few moments later, Ed and Iron were now situated in an unfamiliar location of the crypt. No, Ed actually did think he knew of the place.

'This is the edge of the crypt' Ed could no longer see any hallways that led further forward, all he could see was nothing but a flat wall that ran far into the distance suggesting this conjecture was correct.

Ed's vision could not see this hallway's end, though surely there had to be a corner or something of the like somewhere. More importantly, what Ed could see were his skeletons. To be exact, he could see some of his skeletons.

'Most of them are the named...' Ed could count at a glance no more than 20 anti-skeletons. That the named survived was not a coincidence but Ed didn't exactly feel happy by this turn out.

'Wait… Zephyr is there but… Where's Drench?' The body of Zephyr was made of a wind crystal, the skeleton was visibly injured with cracks all over his body. Drench who was made of a water crystal couldn't have fared much better but... Could they have fared worst?

'Gold, Blaze, Kenny Jr., Callow, Brutus, Prairie...' Ed started to run through the names of his skeletons. Somehow, he hoped that he missed the only blue skeleton in the entire crypt. 

Naturally, it was a pointless endeavor. After doing roll call not just once, but twice, Ed could only face reality.

'Zephyr also doesn't have his subordinates' Ed remembered giving him a couple of wind skeletons with the consciousnesses of goblins to assist Zephyr in gathering intel. Evidently, these skeletons were also gone.

Ed was then hit by an odd sense of loss. This was an overwhelming sadness.

Maybe it was because Ed didn't recall sharing any particular fond moments with any of the crystal skeletons that it felt so sudden and powerful. But...

'Maybe it's because…' It was because Ed knew they were all loyal. All of his skeletons, whether he named them or not were loyal to a fault.

Ed did not care for the plain old white skeletons, and to an extent he also did not care for the regular anti-skeletons, but there was a reason for this.

Expendability.

Ed could recall Zephyr's subordinates because they were few. He could remember his process of creating them but the regular skeletons were nothing but spawned mobs.

'But my anti-skeletons are no different' Ed's anti-skeletons were as of late being handled by the spirit smith. Since the spirit smith was handling it Ed obviously didn't remember making them, and without remembering them… how could he care for them?

But Drench was an experimental piece, and more importantly this skeleton had a name. 

A name was a sign of affection.

'Trench' Ed suddenly called for the head lich.

Trench who had immediately run over now stood in front of Ed solemnly awaiting some form of verdict. Due to Trench's mood, Ed knew he couldn't afford to waste his time and quickly composed himself.

He threw aside the overwhelming sense of loss, almost as if it had never existed to begin with, and got to informing Trench.

'We will be rebuilding the outpost' The area of the main outpost was rather compact before but thanks to the earthquake lots of the ceiling was lost. That gave them a lot of room for escalation.

But the new area they could now expand toward wasn't solely upwards, some walls had also crumbled down giving Ed and his skeletons lots of horizontal room to work with.

The earthquake might have caused lots of deaths but thanks to the demolition there were at least a few positives. There was certainly a lot more space that Ed couldn't wait to fill, there was so much room for all forms of traps and contraptions.

The most crucial part thing the new space allowed for however were facilities.

'I'll make a forge' He needed to teach the skeletons to make things just as much as the orcs. While he didn't think the skeletons would be able to replicate the creativity and originality of living creatures when crafting, mass-producing armor and weapons should be good enough.

'They can't just live off the loot of others' Which was also why the skeletons needed to be able to modify their own bodies. This required Ed to form a link with one of the skeletons.

Fortunately, his choice for who to link with was pretty simple. He didn't need to think twice about settling for Trench. The only issue now was how to make room for Trench. There wasn't anyone that deserved to have their links removed at the moment.

That meant there was only one choice.

'I'll need to level up link' The skill had to be close to leveling up given that Ed constantly transmitted both thoughts and attributes to Azalia. Once it leveled up, he could surely afford to link with an additional being.

'If not…' Ed would really have to give up on someone. The link skill was incredibly important for the autonomy of the skeletons. The forge flame could not be passed on through any other means.

'It'd be cool if the system had a separate upgrade for this…' Sharing features of the system space through link was both a boon and a curse. On one hand it added more versatility, but on the other it meant that lots of the link's features were being put to waste for the sake of achieving a sole purpose.

Putting his delusions aside, Ed focused back on the skeletons present before him.

'Where to start…' Some skeletons like Pioneer ended up losing a limb and needed urgent repairs so Ed wasn't sure if he should heal these skeletons up before anything else.

'Let's… do both' Ed just had to create a nameless split of himself and leave them to put in some work alongside the spirit smith. It was the perfect solution to the issue since as long as he didn't give  the split a body they could never lose the skills or memories they carry.

That in mind, Ed started to collect the skeletons and their consciousnesses.

He didn't hide his intentions to collect them, some skeletons got to witness their partners being whisked into nothingness.

'Sorry Brutus, but you have to go into the system space' A lot of the skeletons knew where they were going so they didn't struggle. Very few of them like Brutus seemed unwilling to be fixed despite this, however.

Ed could only imagine that Brutus wanted to keep the battle scars as a testament to his awesomeness. His bad influence must have rubbed off on some others again.

The unhappy Brutus and all of Ed's anti-skeletons including Trench and Iron were now in the system's storage room waiting for his next move. Without further ado, Ed entered the system space.

The white and divine temple which, Ed was long since used to, was the same as ever and he quickly made his way to the storeroom where he collected the body parts of the skeletons.

'Help me out buddy' He had the worker spirit put the parts onto the conveyor line he built previously. The parts would be shoved into the forge's holding box where they could wait to be used.

'The spirit smith doesn't have the creative freedom to improve on the anti-skeletons but… I do' Ed was feeling giddy as he walked over to the forge room, how did he come up with such a thing?

He followed alongside some articles on the conveyor and saw as they fell one after another into the holding box.

Now inside the forge room, Ed stared at the large forge and its vibrant yet ethereal flames. The juxtaposition of the cold warmth those flames provided never ceased to amaze Ed.

Well, it was likely because Ed wanted to stall the painful splitting process.

'Ah, let's go in' He stared for long enough.

'Aaaaahhh!' After a lot of pain, the system started to work its magic.

In a few minutes, the forge spat out two Ed consciousnesses of different sizes. While one was larger than the other, the difference didn't appear that great at first glance.

The larger one was Ed, and the smaller one, was also Ed. 

Ahem, the one with control over the physical skeleton body was the bigger one though so that one could probably be called Ed prime.

'You know what to do' Ed prime told the new split before quickly leaving the system space. He had procured all the skeletons so his split had plenty to work with. In fact, his split should also be able to create new and improved skeletons in not just body but also mind.

While it did that however, Ed needed to quickly head back to the outpost and start tidying things up.

'Times like these remind me that I made the right decision by becoming an earthen mage' Clearing all the debris following the earthquake would have been a large hassle with any other element.

'...Water might be able to wash everything away actually' Ed muttered inwardly.

'No! Only earth can build structures' He did make the right choice by having the lich give him the element of earth.

Ed bickered with himself about the elements as he made his way to the destroyed outpost. Once there, he began to clear debris with the wave of a hand thanks to his mana manipulation.

After quickly handling this task however Ed began to reconstruct the temple of Ed.

'I'll build it stronger and better' The temple wouldn't go down so easily next time!

Regardless of whether it fell by earthquake or by adventurer, the temple of Ed had to always remain standing.