Stuck As A Dungeon Mob

The machine roared into action just as usual, there were no anomalies as it pressed down on the wisp of Ed. The radiant white ink seeped into the wisp of Ed without even a semblance of an issue.

By the time the machine finished stamping down on the-wisp, Ed hadn't even finished observing. The process was too seamless.

'Looks like the branding process doesn't slow or speed up' At the very least it didn't speed up or slow down when being passed onto parts of himself.

Ed looked at the branding machine and inspected every inch of it, there were no anomalies.

'No, wait… There is no more ink!' Ed was shocked by the discovery but thinking about it again... The ink did seep into the wisp of Ed. As opposed to simply imprinting, or branding, itself onto the surface of the wisp like the other inks would.

'So is that because they are a wisp of myself? Or because the skill was mine?' The only way to find out was for Ed to hurry over to the spirit room and fish out some consciousness.

He grabbed two lizardmen consciousnesses and took them over to the forge room.

[Assimilation is off cooldown]

The assimilation skill became off cooldown so Ed actually ended up assimilating one of the consciousnesses.

[Health +25]

Ed's body instantly felt a bit more freshened up. He now felt like he could really sink himself into what he was working on. Not that he couldn't before, assimilating a consciousness always left him with an odd feeling.

After assimilating one of the consciousnesses, Ed had to return to the spirit room to grab another. After doing so, he whacked the memories out of the new one and merged it with the other in the forge.

The now much larger wisp became a full-fledged consciousness which Ed then took to the branding room.

'Let's see… Body recollection plus eloquence Ed, get back on the extractor' He would pass one of the two skills to the new consciousness.

The Ed was obedient once more and wasted no time getting on the machine. The most time-consuming process was the wait for the skill to be extracted, following that wait, it was free sailing.

'Future blood clot, good luck' Ed transmitted to the empty consciousness. It couldn't move around or think in the system space but Ed went ahead and sent it a message anyway. He had high hopes!

He inserted the new ink which was by the way Body recollection and placed the consciousness on the right spot.

After a few seconds, the machine pressed down on the future blood clot. The process did not take too long but Ed could tell the end result was not as clean as he had hoped.

'Some ink remains…' Ed made sure to check the ink storage first before assessing the future blood clot.

[Empty Consciousness (Charged)]

[ An empty consciousness charged with power beyond its capabilities ]

Ed read the assessment and frowned slightly. The body recollection skill was admittedly powerful, Ed hadn't been hurt in a good while so he did not get to exhibit lately. Nevertheless, to give power beyond the capability of the regular consciousnesses… Wasn't it a bit much?

'I must have underestimated myself' Ed thought before focusing back on the consciousness. There was a question that needed an answer, Ed wasn't sure if he was brave enough to do it.

'What will happen if I brand it again?' Would it become overcharged? Would the consciousness then begin to break and dissipate similar to how the items he once experimented with did?

After a minute of deep contemplation, Ed decided against it.

'It's too reckless' He wasn't losing limbs in his bodies too often but as he mentioned the skill was pretty valuable. That meant that he wasn't keen on losing any number of levels. Ed was better off using the rest of the ink on some Ed wisps to test whether it would propagate the skill.

Ed ended up doing just that, he returned the body recollection to its rightful owner.

'Now I should fuse us back together' He couldn't check the wisps' status without merging with them. The wisps could check their status but to access that memory he would need to merge with them again anyway.

After a short session of mass suffering, Ed and the wisps were now back together.

'Ugh… Status…' Ed said inwardly. He now had memories of the branding machine and the painful flattening it performed.

[Name: Edwa&!]

Type: Level 8 Consciousness

Health: 1231/1233 (!)

Mind: 5/8

Bodies: Skeleton, Orc, Mushroom, Elf

~Skills~1

[Body Recollection lvl. 1] (-!)

[Transmission lvl. 1] (+!)

Glancing through the status window, Ed noticed that nothing much had changed. Except…

'Ah, I lost a level' Ed thought regretfully.

'That was only about half of the ink too…' It looked like as long as he lost any amount of the matter for the skill, his level would go down. But since some matter was retained Ed could only assume the level would be regained faster than normal.

'Now it's time to find an ideal blood clot body for this consciousness' With this thought, Ed couldn't help but frown.

'I don't think regular blood will cut it' The charged consciousness would prove too powerful for the likes of those. Ed might need to create a new one from the only two bodies he had that could bleed.

'An orc or elf blood clot' Ed would have to leave it up to fate then since he didn't have any real control over this.

With all of that in mind, Ed left the system space. Yoashk was riding on the carriage holding his cage as per normal. Sharog was using the power of the wind to hasten their trip, and Gurln was naturally doing the same.

The orcs were performing their usual banter and Dakgu as one of their leaders was setting an example.

...Dakgu was laying on his skeletal snake mount, actually. All along, the adventurer girl Kinami watched in horror. The abominations Ed created were not all equal in creepiness.

There was for example a chimera of sorts. It had the skeletal head of a lizard, the body of a boar plated with the chitin of a centipede, and also the legs of a centipede. This amalgamation of parts could be found near the back of the group.

As it turned out, most animals and monsters were the way they were for a reason. The combination Ed created was not the best. One couldn't deny that what it lacked in speed it made up in terror and strength, however. The thing was intimidating if nothing else.

'System, please have the dungeon transfer me' If he was changed to his orc body he could wait for the orc elites. If he wasn't... Well, that wasn't really a problem either. He had something to do on every floor anyway.

***

In the depths of the desert, a figure walked forward almost in a trance-like state. The figure's state was pitiful. Its previously pristine white bones were now weathered and yellowed.

The sandstorm the orc skeleton, Idrisi, braved through was not a weak one. It was already a miracle that Idrisi's body was not torn apart and thrown into separate parts of the desert.

Fortunately, the sandstorm had long since blown over. It was now nighttime, the undisputed best time for a skeleton to wander.

The freezing temperature of the desert did not affect Idrisi, however. It continued to leave its steps in the sand.

After a while, these steps stopped. They hadn't faded, Idrisi halted.

Something was wrong.

Idrisi's gaze swept the entirety of his immediate vicinity though… what was there to miss?

The orc skeleton was now wary and laid down in the sand, its job was to chart the lands not face the unknown. The skeleton was acting cautiously.

Unfortunately, it was a pointless caution.

An object suddenly struck Idrisi from behind. The orc skeleton fell forward from the sudden impact, bone shards fell onto the yellow sands. Did Idrisi die?

No, any creation of Ed could not die so quickly, especially not an undead. Yet, Idrisi did not struggle to stand.

The orc skeleton had the consciousness of lizardmen, that didn't mean it was stupid. There were in fact plenty of smart lizardmen some like Var Agus even exhibited great wisdom.

That was why, without knowing where the source of the danger originated from, Idrisi was better off not acting.

The sand started to shuffle about and new figures emerged from what previously appeared to be empty soil.

"What is this?" Someone or something asked in a language foreign to Idrisi. The orc skeleton resisted the urge to try and look at the figures to find out their identity and remained limp on the ground.

"It's a skeleton… But what monster is this?" Another entity answered.

"Have you ever seen anything like that leader?" The first asked.

"Not personally, but there exist creatures like this in the blood haven" The leader responded. His answer suggested that the skeleton had to have come from the blood haven.

"Wait… wasn't the haven closed recently? It's no longer encroaching on the land, right?" A new voice asked.

The leader remained silent. They couldn't answer this question.

"Let's take it back" The leader suggested.

The others quickly acted and Idrisi remained unmoving. It believed that even if it did nothing, its liege would notice the anomaly and come to its rescue.