Chapter 195: A Promise

Emma led her team of miners into the cavern that had just been exposed behind the rock wall, observing their surroundings with meticulous caution.

The deeper they pressed inward, the feebler the illumination from the torches in their grasp became. The cavern walls were slick and smooth, devoid of a single mineral vein or extraction mark. The place was unnervingly quiet, broken only by the sound of boots crushing the layer of dry stone dust.

Then Emma caught sight of it.

A colossal humanoid skeleton lay sprawled across the center of the cavern. Its limb bones stretched longer than a human body, stacked one atop another like the ruins of a creature that had once towered high enough to graze the stone ceiling. Its skull bore a deep fissure across its crown, two empty eye sockets staring blankly toward the approaching delegation.

Emma drew in a ragged breath, stammering out:

"What on earth... is that thing?"

No one answered Emma; everyone remained frozen in stunned disbelief.

Several miners stepped closer, sweep-shining their torches around the chamber. This location contained zero ore, not even a speck. It was as though all the minerals that had once resided within the stone had been utterly drained away.

Emma knitted her brows.

Why would a Dungeon brimming with rich veins of Golden Mithril harbor an entirely hollowed-out cavern like this?

Even the most seasoned veteran miner could fathom no logical explanation for such an anomaly.

Right at that moment, a streak of golden radiance flashed across the skeletal remains.

Emma backed away, shouting at the top of her lungs:

"Everyone fall back! Watch out for that giant skeleton!"

The illumination propagated along the massive bones, surging through the fractures like molten metal. Then, from the twin eye sockets of the colossal skull, a pair of deep golden wraith-fires blared to life.

The skeleton slowly stirred.

The grating screech of bones grinding against bones echoed across the entire chamber. It lifted its head sluggishly, gazing down at the diminutive humans standing before it before giving a casual flick of its hand.

The ground shuddered.

From fissures splitting the stone, hundreds of skeletal soldiers crawled out. Gripping rusted armaments, they encircled the mining crew instantaneously.

"Fall back!" Emma barked.

Summoning her massive pickaxe, she gripped its shaft and swung it with ferocious momentum. A skeleton was sent hurtling into the rock face, shattering instantly into a shower of fragments. Yet the very next second, three more converged upon her from opposite flanks.

Emma stood entirely alone; skilled combatant and SS-rank miner though she was, she lacked the capacity to safeguard everyone simultaneously.

The remaining miners were far from warriors. Clutching their pickaxes, they attempted to fight back, yet were swiftly beaten down and tightly bound. A skeleton planted the blade of its scythe directly against the throat of the nearest man.

Emma froze, her grip upon her weapon trembling violently.

"Drop your weapons, human!" the giant skeleton bellowed. Its voice sounded harsh and parched, akin to rocks scraping against one another. "Or we start claiming the lives of your companions."

The pickaxe weighing down Emma’s hands felt agonizingly heavy.

She stared at the terror-stricken faces of her comrades, then slowly lowered her weapon to the stone floor, letting herself be completely surrounded by the swarming foot-soldier skeletons.

A harsh, grating chuckle reverberated from the colossal skull.

"Wise choice. From now on, you all work for us. Mine the Golden Mithril, refine it, and hand the entirety of it over to me."

It pointed a bony finger straight toward Emma.

"As for this little girl, she gets isolated for separate confinement. She’ll refine ore until she no longer possesses the strength to lift a hammer, keke kekeke..."

Ever since that fateful day, Emma’s existence transformed into a living hell.

She was granted a mere two hours of sleep per day. The remaining hours were swallowed entirely by swinging mallets, refining Golden Mithril, and enduring the unremitting supervision of the skeletal overlords. The instant her arms grew too fatigued to raise her hammer, they dragged her back to her feet with leather whips.

Not until Thunder was hauled in did Emma discover that this utter idiot had actually demanded to track her down the moment he learned of her disappearance.

He should have simply stuck to laboring in the extraction sector, where he might have eventually secured a window to slip away. Yet Thunder relentlessly pestered them to be reassigned to refine Golden Mithril, loudly proclaiming himself an A-rank blacksmith capable of processing metals far superior to anyone else present.

How could that skeleton capable of human speech possibly let a self-proclaimed expert like Thunder off the hook? The skeletons wasted no time tossing him straight into the exact same cell block as Emma.

"You really are an absolute fool," Emma stared at Thunder, exhaling a helpless sigh.

Thunder merely grinned, acting as though being enslaved inside a Dungeon warranted zero anxiety.

"It’s fine. Regardless of how things turn out, being stuck down here with you isn’t half bad."

Emma’s cheeks flushed pink.

In the past, she had occasionally criticized Thunder for fleeing Ji-pong City because he couldn’t stomach the pressure. Yet after enduring this prolonged ordeal of imprisonment side by side, she had caught a glimpse of an entirely alternate man hiding beneath that breezy, cavalier exterior.

Thunder remained clumsy, hot-headed, and occasionally prone to overconfident bravado. Yet he never abandoned her. No matter how utterly exhausted he grew, he continuously devised ways to share his meager rations, always cracking idiotic jokes to bleed away her despair.

In this godforsaken abyss, those microscopic gestures of care proved immeasurably more precious than Emma could ever have imagined.

She remained silent for a long beat before suddenly blurting out:

"Hey, if we manage to make it out of this place alive..."

Thunder pivoted his head to look at her.

"I’ll go out on a date with you."

Thunder choked mid-swallow while drinking his water. He coughed violently, staring cross-eyed at Emma as though suspecting his ears had misfired.

She averted her gaze, the tips of her ears burning crimson.

A second later, Thunder burst out into a booming laugh. The sound reverberated through the chilling cavern, forcing the two skeleton sentries posted by the doorway to pivot their heads in curiosity.

"Deal!" He wiped a stray droplet of water from the corner of his mouth, his smile refusing to fade. "This whole expedition of mine was officially worth it!"