As planned, we head to the second floor. The mining spots near the entrance are all occupied, but we keep going without minding that.
The passages are twice as wide as on the first floor.
This central path will take us to the door to the third floor if we keep going, but I hear it takes three days.
Also, it splits off into many tunnels, some of which might take more than three days to reach the deepest part.
If someone’s looking to get rich quick, that’s an option, but you never know if you really will mine something good there.
I can see the location if I use Map, but…
“Which area would be good?”
“Should we go to those rumored depths? It will be easy to move if there aren’t any people.”
Says Rurika in response to my question, and the others nod.
Then that’s where we’ll go.
With that decided, I enlarge Map. The longest tunnel without reactions from people… Here.
“But it looks like we’ll have to walk for a day.”
There are still no objections, so we start walking in that direction.
We reach our destination after a day, and enter a tunnel to the side. After thirty more minutes of walking, we check if anyone’s around, and I call out the dog golem. Then I bring out the wagon, and we use it to transport us.
The ground is rugged and not fit for a wagon, but this is a special one I made, so it absorbs shocks to a certain extent, making it not unusable.
“It’s still rough.”
“Yes, my body’s shaking.”
I hear Rurika and Hikari say, and I start thinking I should improve the wagon. We haven’t been using it, so I haven’t been working on it either.
Especially here in the empire, since we’ve been buying local stuff and moving on.
Going faster makes the vibrations worse, so I increase the speed while making sure no one gets sick. It’s still faster than walking, so we reach the deepest part in less than a day. After all, golems don’t need to rest.
“I’m going to mine, but what about you?”
“We’ll do it too. But since there are more monsters here, we should split into three groups.”
Mine, keep watch, rest.
I’m exempt from keeping watch, and will instead mine. That’s what we agreed on, it’s not because I’m selfish.
I don’t waste time, and take out my hammer right away to start mining. This is a magic iron and steel one I made before coming here, and I made enough for everyone.
Their weight is different depending on who’s using it, so they’re personalized.
I hit the wall, and the noise echoes.
I’ve already used Appraisal, and know there’s nothing on the shallower areas. But apparently there’s something a little deeper, so I keep hammering away.
I’m not focused on one spot, I hit uniformly over a bigger area as I scrape away the wall.
I need to do this to go deeper. Sometimes it’s rough, because I have to do this even if I know there’s nothing here.
After about an hour, the noises close to me stop. They start again after five minutes, but different, because the miner changed.
After another hour, I take a break.
I keep going in this rotation of half an hour of resting per two hours of mining, with a break to eat with everyone in the middle.
We’ve been telling the time through feeling alone like usual, but that’s pretty accurate when contrasted with the precise stomach clock Hikari has.
I stop working after dinner, and we go rest after deciding who keeps watch. This time, I’m also taking part in keeping watch.
“How is the mining going, Sora?”
“It’s still the first day, so I haven’t gone too far. But I’ve found some ore, so it’s not bad, on a personal level. I’d be happier if I could find mithril though.”
“Can’t you tell with Appraisal?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
I’m using skills to keep an eye around us while we talk, but there are no reactions nearby, people or monsters.
Well, there are people in the tunnel next to this, but… There’s an at least five meter thick wall between us. Even if they dug this way, they wouldn’t get here in just a couple of days. Not that they’re mining in this direction anyway.
Actually, the reactions are still moving a bit. Are they still mining?
My turn keeping watch ends without a single monster appearing, and after more of the same the next day, night comes again.
But I found things like diamond and amethyst. These are used by royalty in decorations, but also as materials for magic items. It’s incredible how you can mine this stuff normally in this dungeon. And of course, we need it to get to the third floor.
Today I’m keeping watch with Chris, and nothing happens until Rurika and Mia take over.
I rest in preparation for the next day, but then my body violently shakes.
Thanks for the treat.
Thanks for this weeks updates, & hope everybody has a good weekend. 😎👍