After about three minutes of moving, we arrived at a place that was not much different from the terrain we had traversed so far.
A fresh plain where a green sea spread out. The only difference was that the ground was slightly lower than other places.
“Hmm… Is there really a way to the mine here?”
Nod-nod—
I nodded at Yeon-hee’s question, took a few more steps, and pointed to the ground.
Seeing my gesture, she nodded and then started chanting a spell, summoning something from the portal.
“Wang-wang—”
Yeon-hee summoned a master of digging tunnels, and soon a chubby dog appeared.
“Huh? Even an Earth Puppy?”
“You don’t just have combat-type summoned creatures. Amazing…”
“…A chubby and cute puppy… Summoner… good class…”
Of course, everyone knew the reason why Wang-wang was brought out.
(It’s been a while since I last worked; let’s go, pig.)
“Ruff!!”
Wang-wang snorted at me and quickly began digging where I pointed. I also tried digging alongside Wang-wang, testing the performance of the trait [Tunnel Digging] I had just acquired.
Dig-dig-dig—
‘Oh, it definitely feels like the ground is a bit softer.’
“Wang?!”
Seeing me digging with the tunnel-digging trait, Wang-wang’s already cute eyes lit up even more, as if it could sense the same trait energy.
“Woof! Wang-wang— Woof!!”
Then it perked up and started digging faster, and because its paw structure was different, the speed was in a completely different league. It felt like there was almost a tenfold difference in speed.
‘Guess I need to buy some shovels and other tools.’
If I wrapped my magic around a shovel and dug, it would definitely be much faster than now. Of course, I would have to deal with the massive magic consumption.
“Wow! I’ve never seen an Earth Puppy digging like this!”
“Me neither. But Il-wol, you dig well too? I’ve heard it’s not easy to dig through the ground in a dungeon… Seriously, what’s up with that? I’m starting to get a little scared.”
“……”
Fueled by Joo-ah and Ah-rin’s conversation, we kept digging for about ten more minutes when Wang-wang stood up on its hind legs and signaled to Yeon-hee.
“Something must have come up.”
“Whoa… Let’s go down there first!”
Ah-rin and Joo-ah had expressions that showed they could hardly believe they had really found a mine.
And as I struggled to lift a handle I had uncovered from the dug-up ground, a heavy door hidden beneath screamed open.
The entrance was big enough to fit four to five refrigerators at once.
Clunk—!
Gulp—
Everyone held their breath and stared silently into the opened door.
The dust that had accumulated for a long time swirled before settling, revealing a staircase leading down, which made our group’s faces visibly brighten.
“St, stairs…! Whoa!! It’s real!! Hahaha!”
“Eek!!”
“…Hehe… Hehe…”
Once the characteristic spiral staircase leading to the mine came into view, everyone who had been holding their breath erupted into cheers. Even the usually quiet Ham Eun-young couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
‘Maybe I should take a look at this mine after a long time…’
I wasn’t particularly excited as I roughly knew the value of the content inside.
The party members cautiously began to descend the staircase with extremely excited faces.
Step, step—
The staircase downward didn’t stretch out for too long. However, as soon as we reached the bottom, the party was taken aback by the numerous paths branching out in all directions.
Instantly, everyone turned their heads toward me, but I pretended to rummage through the kobold Ddung-i’s pouch because I was curious how they would respond.
Not getting any help from me, everyone seemed to dig into the pieces of knowledge they had stored, their eyes drifting left as they fell into thought, with Yeon-hee being the first to step forward and act.
“Hmmm… So…”
She picked up a rock that had fallen on one of the paths and threw it with all her might.
Thud— clattering—
Listening intently to the sound where the stone was thrown, she threw stones at every fork in the path and then, upon returning, pointed to the farthest right path.
“Uh, this one looks like it’s the longest…”
“That’s right!”
‘Oh…? Correct answer.’
The sound of the stone gradually diminished as it traveled further away down the longest path on the right.
“I’m sure. Usually, the places dug the longest have the most Mana Stones buried, right?”
“Exactly. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a reason to keep digging that path. Shall we go?”
Yeon-hee sent Ran and Ddung-i ahead to scout the path they had chosen.
After walking along the path for about 15 minutes, Ran and Ddung-i came back with positive responses.
(Master, there were quite a few things that shone nicely.)
“Thanks, Ran. Everyone, I think this path is right.”
“Phew… Are we really the owners of the mine…?”
“……”
A while later, we entered a vast open space where dozens of small holes were drilled into the walls. While it wasn’t completely covered in sparkling Mana Stones, it was clear that high-quality Mana Stones were buried around.
“Woohoo!! This is amazing!!”
“What a coincidence! On the first day of partying with Yeon-hee, we hit the jackpot!!”
If I remembered correctly, the value of this place was about 15 billion won or so. Of course, that was just a rough calculation of the profit based on the amount of buried Mana Stones, and in reality, the cost of mining, transportation, and the labor of workers, as well as security personnel, would significantly reduce the net profit. Furthermore, this place was a government-owned dungeon, so the benefit that would trickle down to us likely wouldn’t be as much as we thought.
“How long does it usually take to mine?”
“I heard a place much larger than this took two years of diligent mining before the job was completed, so this could be done in under a year, right?”
“Hah… so we can’t just take it all for ourselves, huh?”
“I’ve heard that it’s hard to find Mana Stones outside of the official sales route…”
While the Mana Stones obtained from monsters are refined enough to be used in real life right away, the Mana Stones gathered from nature had to be excavated entirely from where they were buried and then go through several stages of extraction by Hunters with Alchemist traits to become usable.
So we couldn’t just hog the benefits to ourselves.
“First, we need to report this. I heard the profits take a few months to come through…”
“Right. But after about a month, it’ll come in steadily, like a paycheck!”
“Hehe… paycheck…”
“Yeon-hee, you really are…”
Suddenly, Bae Joo-ah and Baek Ah-rin rushed to hug Yeon-hee and started rubbing their faces against her cheeks.
“Eh? Uh, hey…”
In a way, it was only natural. Since the mine discovered within the dungeon is required to be divided equally among the party members, those who had just sat back and hit the jackpot had no choice but to feel grateful to Yeon-hee, who had me.
‘I think I received about fifteen hundred a month back when I got mine…’
The amount we would receive was just over 10% of the value calculated based on the initial deposits. This amount would be divided among the four of us and then paid out over several years.
The payout horizon that the group thought they understood would end up being much longer than they thought. If they distributed profits in a short period, the management’s expenditures would fluctuate, which is why they set it at a minimum of over two years.
“Wouldn’t it be at least 100 million a month?”
“Whoa! Jackpot!”
“100 million… Hehehe…”
“Il-wol, should we move?”
Nod—
Unfortunately, there would likely be a considerable gap between their expectations and reality.
I briefly recalled the memory of a former comrade who had shouted about how the state had nothing to benefit him when taking so much.
Anyway, I drifted away from the busy party members exploring the mine and narrowed my senses, searching the outer parts of the mine.
‘Where are you, you punk?’
What I was looking for was a rare mineral called “Kadinite” to use as a material for a great sword.
Basically, weapons are made from the Mana Stones taken from the monsters you defeat and iron ore obtained in the dungeon, but if Kadinite is added, the durability, hardness, and corrosion resistance would greatly enhance.
‘Found it here.’
I felt the presence of an anomalous mineral nestled in a corner of the wall. The amount was small enough to be held if I spread my arms wide.
But since it was used as an additive, I had more than enough for making my weapon.
Dig-dig—
I wrapped my magic around my hand to enhance it and began to dig into the wall.
“Huh? What’s that?”
As I suddenly started scratching at the wall, the others approached, showing curiosity.
‘This is ours.’
I dug for quite a long time until I reached something that I couldn’t even scratch.
‘What do I do about this…?’
A part of the Kadinite chunk, firmly embedded in the wall, was revealing itself, and I thought for a moment about using a bomb to blow open the wall but shook my head.
If I messed it up, it might affect the mine itself, and if monsters came racing in due to the noise, it would be tiring in many ways, so I began carefully chiseling away at the wall with a dagger, as if doing fossil extraction.
It wouldn’t go into my inventory just yet, but once half of its form was revealed, I could store it.
Scratch—scritch-scratch—
‘Damn it, half?’
But soon calculated that this way would take ages. Since I had never dug anything myself before, I hadn’t thought it would be this hard.
At that moment, Ddung-i, who had been staring blankly at me from behind, gave my back a nudge.
(Huh? What’s wrong?)
Without answering my question, Ddung-i began rummaging through its bag.
A hammer resembling a claw hammer, a pickaxe, and a small shovel the size of a trowel came tumbling out in a row. Each tool was covered in grime, showing signs of past years.
‘Wait… I didn’t see anything like that before when I rummaged earlier?’
Was this a magical bag? I was dumbfounded and tilted my head, and Ddung-i dove into the small hole I dug in the wall.
Bam—Bam—Bam—Bam—!
As soon as Ddung-i entered, rhythmic metallic sounds started ringing in a regular pattern. Its agile movements, unlike anything I had ever seen before, were enough to catch my eye, and the satisfaction on its face was unmistakable.
Yeah… so you did like something…
But seeing that made me smirk to myself.
‘So freaking fast, huh?’
I even started to doubt if its previous sluggish performance was just an act. But for now, I decided to let it be until its true form was revealed.
Twenty minutes later.
‘Wow… Did you break through all this in twenty minutes?’
Ddung-i lay sprawled on the mine’s floor, panting heavily as if it had burned everything white.
Peering into the hole it had dug, the Kadinite had been nicely arranged amidst the other mixed minerals.
I began tossing the reddish stones I saw into my inventory one by one.
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