Chapter 191: The Mine Cave Dungeon

Kai sat quietly, listening as Kei recounted the tale of Thunder going missing inside the Dungeon.

He didn’t interrupt, simply remaining seated beside Kei, his golden eyes tracking every micro-expression across his face. When Kei concluded his account, the room plunged back into silence. Outside the window, night had thoroughly blanketed Ji-pong City.

Kei gazed at Kai with a cautious expression.

"Kai, do you want to help me search for Thunder?"

He had no wish to burden Kai with his personal affairs. Yet the harsh reality was that he currently operated merely as a fragile mage. Even though he had been promoted to a Craftsman, his physical conditioning remained practically indistinguishable from an ordinary human’s.

Throughout dinner, Kei had continuously stolen moments to harvest mana straight from his manastones. Regardless of whether Kai agreed to accompany him or not, he intended to depart that very night. Thunder had been unaccounted for far too long, and he refused to sit idly by waiting for secondhand news.

Kai stare fixedly at Kei.

Then, without warning, he lunged forward and threw his arms tightly around him.

"Of course I’m coming with you!" Kai declared, his voice brimming with eager excitement. "The two of us, exploring a Dungeon together! Just the two of you and me! The mere thought of it gets me thrilled!"

Kei exhaled a soft sigh of relief. Reaching out, he stroked Kai’s cheek, chuckling helplessly at his eager demeanor.

At some point along the way, he had simply grown accustomed to having Kai constantly by his side. No matter where he traveled, this man invariably followed in his footsteps.

"Then go get your gear ready."

"Yeah!" Kai bounded straight to his feet instantly. "I’ve been ready for ages!"

As the night deepened further, the two of them slipped out of the building in absolute silence. Lugging Kei piggyback style on his back, Kai glided effortlessly past the deserted avenues, rocketing swiftly toward the outskirts in alignment with the Dungeon coordinates marked on the map.

The midnight wind brushed across Kei’s face. Beneath their boots, Ji-pong City steadily receded, reduced to distant clusters of blinking lights swallowed by the dark.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Kai halted atop a mountain ridge situated some ten kilometers from the city.

The S-rank Dungeon lay concealed amidst a jagged cluster of cliffs. Its entrance yawned pitch-black like a colossal fissure carved into the mountainside, exhaling a damp, biting chill from deep within.

They arrived before the break of dawn.

Kai set Kei down, turning his head to inspect the cavernous Dungeon entrance.

"Let me head in first to scout the path ahead."

Kei nodded. "I’ll stick right behind you."

Kai stepped inside. Kei followed immediately in his wake.

The interior presented a humid, dripping cavern. Water trickled continuously from the ceiling, tracing jagged rock faces before pooling into muddy puddles beneath their boots. The air carried a heavy, earthy reek blended with the metallic tang of ore, precisely mirroring a deep subterranean mine shaft.

It certainly matched the optimal environment for Emma to unearth Golden Mithril.

Barely two minutes into their advance, a diminutive silhouette abruptly lunged out from an intersecting bend ahead.

It was a gray-skinned Goblin gripping a pickaxe caked thick with dirt and gravel. Displaying zero hesitation the instant it clapped eyes on Kei, it roared and charged straight toward him.

Before Kei could even raise a hand, Kai interposed his body right before him.

A swift, decisive strike descended.

The Goblin was neutralized instantly, its limp body collapsing heavily onto the stone flooring. The pickaxe flew from its grasp, sliding across the wet rock before coming to a rest right beside Kei’s boots.

Kei lowered his gaze to the fallen monster, his eyes locking onto the dirt-smudged pickaxe.

"Do monsters around here mine ore, too?"

Kai peered deeply into the gloom ahead, his expression stripped of all playful levity.

"Looks like it. Stay alert, Kei. If there’s one running around, there’s bound to be plenty more deeper in."

Kei didn’t reply immediately.

He crouched down to scoop up the pickaxe, taking careful precautions to avoid the blood-stained blade. It weighed noticeably heavier than it appeared; its handle was wrapped in a frayed, dark cord, while its metallic tip was ground completely smooth along both edges, as though it had been subjected to relentless, prolonged utilization.

It bore no resemblance to standard monster loot scavenged at random.

He dragged his fingers across the face of the pickaxe head.

The caked dirt flaked away instantly, exposing minuscule streaks of silvery radiance intermingled within the dark metal.

Kei froze.

This material didn’t conform to conventional alloys, but before he could center his focus to analyze it, the rhythmic patter of water droplets echoing from deep within the cavern was abruptly drowned out by an alternate sound.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Steady, methodical impacts echoed from ahead.

Kei pivoted sideways to question Kai. "Did you hear that?"

"Got it." Kai tilted his head slightly, his ears twitching, his golden eyes gleaming within the dark. "Something’s smashing rock or tunneling out a shaft?"

Kai cast a glance down at the motionless Goblin. "It tried to attack you just now."

His underlying implication was that these creatures naturally attacked humans rather than engaging in honest manual labor.

"Yet it was holding a pickaxe right before that," Kei tightened his grip around the pickaxe handle. "If there’s a mineral vein located around here, they might simply be defending their territory, or perhaps..."

As he trailed off, his voice dropped lower.

Emma was a professional miner. She had vanished inside this Dungeon after unearthing Golden Mithril. Meanwhile, Thunder had journeyed here specifically on account of that ore sample, only to lose contact as well. If a mining operation existed deep within this cavern system, they might very well unearth traces of both individuals.

Equally possible was that whatever awaited them down the line was far from an ordinary mining tunnel.

Kei dropped the pickaxe back onto the stone floor, though his eyes never detached from it. "We should inspect the surroundings closely. Let’s avoid destroying anything that might shed light on what transpired here."