Stuck As A Dungeon Mob

Back in the Elven city, things had been developing in a strange direction ever since Ed and the expedition group departed.

At the center of the Elven city where the temple stood, at the main chamber, there were groups upon groups of elves gathered around silently drawing on the ground. The quiet scribbling was only accompanied by the sounds of others picking fruits from the trees and plants dotted around the chamber.

Nevertheless, no one else spoke for they were afraid to disturb the thing at the center of this chamber.

The divine tree Azalia.

During the expedition's walks, Ed did just as he promised and passed on through the link skill his transmission to Azalia. For the first time ever, the residents of the city discovered that the large and beautiful tree at the center of the chamber was far more alive than then initially speculated.

This tree however only sent out orders to them. Azalia would demand them to start creating arrays at the same time every day and command those who made mistakes to fix them.

On the first day, the elves obliged of course having been intimidated by the foreign entity but they very quickly noticed one thing.

It couldn't hear them.

For a moment, the chamber was filled with joyful conversations and deliberate slacking. What was there to fear about a tree that could only shout words at them?

The answer was its keeper.

W had been left behind to monitor the chamber per Ed's instructions and following his flying body's upgrade, he took on a far too fearsome appearance. Once he realized the city was going out of control it only took his intimidating presence to quickly get things back on track.

Nowadays, the elves remained quiet as they scribbled their arrays and waited patiently for any possible corrections from Azalia. This would normally make them miserable but lately, a new product was going around that they were quite fond of.

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"These water fruits are delicious" An elf commented as they took a bite from a watery blue fruit.  They were taking a small break from drawing on their array, as long as they didn't overdo it, Azalia and W would allow the elves to take independent breaks and converse quietly with one another.

Ed's instruction for Azalia had been to teach the elves not to make them miserable and similarly all W had to do was protect Azalia and maintain order.

With this in mind, the elves were able to have casual conversations without any fear.

"I agree, they are amazing" The elves had frequently been trading the fruits they earned from labor for these water fruits whenever they wanted a treat. This was especially true for the water mages of the village.

One such notable individual was Sanev, the young and pure water mage who had now made his mark as an array genius and was focusing intently on the runes he drew. At the center of these runic lines that formed an array was a water fruit.

​ That's right, Sanev was taking class time to reverse engineer a water fruit tree. Unfortunately, the merchant for this fruit was very thorough. All of the produce that was sold was sold without any seeds and through merchants that refused to speak a word.

Sanev's attempt to make a tree out of a seedless fruit was bound to fail.

"No… I must make it work" Through the tutelage of Azalia, Sanev has been trying his best to do the impossible since otherwise, he would continue to be limited in the number of fruits he could consume daily.

Throughout the city, the water mages that consumed the fruit were showing vast improvement in their skills. This was especially true for the elves that were coming up with new business ventures.

For example, some elves were selling their array drawing services. This wasn't a very popular service as a large number of elves could also provide it but it was nonetheless a business venture.

The more lucrative ventures were instead the alchemical aspect of array drawing. Those who could make formation ink were highly valued. This was mainly since this was a field that Ed only taught briefly so those that were able to quickly grasp it were few.

Anyway, with so many mages, water or not, making significant gains through businesses, Sanev had to take up a business of his own to try and replicate their success.

'The learning period is over, thank you for your time!' Azalia shouted into the minds of those present.

Immediately, a significant chunk of those that had been drawing made their way over to Sanev.

"Alright, we will begin the tutoring immediately" Sanev said confidently. Their androgynous smile captured the elves present.

"But first payment" He then added causing those that were enthralled by Sanev's beauty to wake up from their stupor. Immediately, orc blood fruits started to pile up beside Sanev who was quietly keeping track of who had paid what and how much.

"Sa… Sanev, I'll have to skip out on this lesson" An elf who was a usual customer then said to Sanev.

"What? Really?" Sanev was saddened by the news. This was a common trend among the elves he taught. The number of people he was teaching was a significant chunk but previously it had been a majority of people.

This was due to a variety of reasons but the main one was not everyone made large earnings. They couldn't always afford to splurge money on furthering their education, especially for those with a family.

"Well, Thank you very much for coming up to this point, I'll be waiting for you during the next lesson however" Sanev said to the elf who bowed politely and quickly departed.

Everyone else then paid the price for his tutoring sessions as well and Sanev began revising upon his own knowledge to pass on useful tips to the elves present.

Whilst doing this, Sanev kept a careful eye on one person.

Riniya.

People skipping Sanev's tutoring sessions was nothing new. Sometimes they would come back and sometimes they wouldn't but the only one who never left his lessons was Riniya. This meant she was quite comfortable with paying to raise her skills.

She was the adoptive daughter of the elven city's current leader Alolvi meaning it made sense for her to be well off. However, she was still too well off by Sanev's standard.

'She might be the richest person here' Sanev commented inwardly with narrowed eyes. As his experiments to reverse engineer a water fruit tree had failed, Sanev had diverted some of his attention to tracking down the source of the fruits.

His prime suspect was as one could guess Riniya who ever since the fruits enter the market did not worry about going hungry. This was unusual because although she was indeed in a way the adoptive daughter of the leader, their relationship was not actually that good.

To begin with, Alolvi only saw her as a niece, and Riniya herself only called him uncle. Overall, Riniya was extremely likely to be somehow connected with the water fruits and Sanev did not plan on resting until he could satisfy his cravings.

After the tutoring lessons ended, night had fallen and Sanev immediately ventured his way into a seemingly unoccupied building. On his way to this place, he had already exchanged the payment he received that day for water fruits.

"Sanev" It was then that a voice came out of the shadows of this lonely building.

"Any new findings?" Sanev asked the voice.

"Unfortunately not" The voice replied.

"Tsk" Sanev was not happy but he could only suck it up.

"We'll just have to confront her directly then" Sanev added.

The person to whom the voice belonged then came out of the shadows and nodded. It was an elven woman who Sanev was acquainted with.

There was nothing noteworthy about this woman except the fact that she also shared Sanev's desire to find the water fruit source. But it wasn't just with Sanev, many others who were tracking down the mysterious source of the water fruit were also acquainted with her.

An entire group of people had come together to find this source and she was in charge of communicating between them.

Unbeknownst to Riniya, her merchandise was making quite the stir in the elven city. She was currently looking at the arrays in charge of providing mana to her mana fruit trees.

These arrays were hidden in a basement underneath her home. As an earthen mage, this much was nothing for Riniya who could be said to be a young prodigy.

"It might be time to expand the business" Riniya who was blinded by profits thought so. But the only issue was that she was currently cooperating with just one water mage to remove the seeds from the fruit.

This was a water mage that she purposely become closely acquainted with in order to make sure he could trust them with her business. There was no guarantee that if she passed this task to someone else they wouldn't keep the seeds and hijack her monopoly.

Riniya was left in a dilemma, she didn't know the best course of action, or that soon Sanev would be at her doorstep.