Chapter 486: A New Mission For Brida And Tasmin

Silas paused, letting his gaze linger on the two women a his eyes narrowed into a dry piercing squint.

"Now... answer me this," Silas murmured, his voice laced with amusement. "Did you two sprint three miles through subterranean fault lines straight to this cavern... without checking on your mining squads first?"

Dead silence fell once more.

Brida froze mid-breath as her eyes darted toward the high crystalline ceiling and her fingers twitched against the pommel of her cleaver.

Tasmin’s composure shattered instantly.

Her pale cheeks flared with deep agonizing guilt as her mouth opened, but only a dry squeak escaped her throat.

The reality of what they had done suddenly crashed down upon them like a mountain avalanche.

Brida had literally blown a hole in the earth and run straight toward the scent of Silas’s mana without ever looking back at the women sitting at her outpost.

And Tasmin... who had originally intended to climb back up the shaft to rejoin her squad at BVR Star had completely abandoned all military protocol once she replayed Brida shouting that she was going to claim the Lord’s reward alone, diving headfirst into the shadows to hunt her down.

They had left their squads completely unattended in the middle of a hostile basin...

"Uh..." Brida swallowed hard, sweating profusely beneath her leather harness. "Well... you see, my Lord... the threat was urgent! We had to deliver the report immediately!"

"I was pursuing a rogue Brida," Tasmin attempted weakly, her voice barely a whisper as she stared at her boots. "I... I was ensuring your security..."

"You two are unbelievable," Silas sighed, though he couldn’t entirely hide the wry exasperated smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. "What you accomplished down there was incredible but you could have checked your outposts, ensured your perimeter wards were holding, and delivered the report tonight over dinner."

He shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Regardless," Silas continued, his eyes gleaming with a challenging spark, "since you both abandoned your posts to come chasing after my morning decree... it seems you’re both still dead-set on competing for the special reward."

Both women’s heads snapped up.

The guilt vanished in a flash, replaced by the sharp hum of fierce competition.

They exchanged a brief, fiery glare before snapping their attention back to Silas.

"Give me a map," Silas ordered, extending his hand. "One of you."

Brida immediately began frantically patting down her armor, fumbling with the battered leather pouches on her hips. "Wait! It’s in my side pocket... hold on, the buckle is jammed with monster blood—"

SWOOSH!

Before Brida could even unhook her strap, Tasmin’s hand blurred. With the smooth effortless precision of an elite scout, she produced a crisp perfectly folded vellum map from her inner harness and placed it gently into Silas’s open palm.

"Here, my Lord," Tasmin murmured, offering him a sweet triumphant smile.

Silas looked down at the parchment, then looked at Tasmin. "Efficient as always. Thank you, Tasmin."

"You’re very welcome, Lord Silas," Tasmin beamed, tilting her chin up and casting a smug venomous side-eye at Brida that practically screamed words at her. ’I win this round, you clumsy ox.’

Brida ground her molars together so hard an audible crunch echoed in her jaw, but she forced herself to keep quiet.

Silas unfolded the vellum, smoothing it out across the flat surface of a limestone boulder.

The map of the Umbral Basin was covered in grid coordinates, and symbols.

Across the northwestern ridges, Mine XVIT... the impenetrable alloy deposit had already been stamped with a glowing green mark.

Silas chuckled softly under his breath, shaking his head. It was probably Eluned...

’Eluned,’ Silas thought, a fond knowing warmth settling in his chest. ’Knowing my cute competitive wife, she probably cracked that impenetrable cavern wide open with her roots, realized she stole all the work from the girls, and immediately marched the squad to the adjacent sectors to clear the unassigned nodes... She wouldn’t be able to resist showing off.’

He traced his finger across the map, moving toward the central crags where BVR Star and Brida’s outpost lay.

"Look here," Silas said, tapping three distinct circular marks clustered within a two-mile radius of their current position. "These three caverns... Sector Seven, Sector Eight, and the lower ridge of Nine. All three have been surveyed by Thora’s ledgers and they’re confirmed high-yield veins of Star-Iron and Deep-Earth Alloy."

He picked up the map, refolded it neatly, and handed it back to Tasmin.

"Here are your orders," Silas commanded, looking directly into both of their eyes. "You two will return to your squads immediately. You will link up, form a joint extraction detachment, and you will systematically clear and harvest all three of these mines before the sunset bells ring."

Both women blinked, listening intently.

"And let me make this crystal clear," Silas added. "You will mine at a normal pace... That means no Earth-Shattering Cleaves to collapse the mountain, Brida and no using chains to violently rip veins out of the bedrock, Tasmin. You will use dwarven technique, protect the crystal matrices, and guide the recruits properly. If I find out either of you brought down a cavern roof just to speed up the ledger, you are disqualified from the reward entirely. Understood?"

Both women gulped in unison, their throats bobbing as they nodded vigorously.

"Understood, my Lord!" they chorused.

"Good," Silas smirked. "Whoever logs the highest tonnage of pristine, undamaged ore in their golem’s bins by the end of the day... receives the special reward directly from me tonight, Now get moving."

Tasmin’s amber eyes flickered with a sudden practical thought. "My Lord... what if the transport bins on our Phase 2 Golems fill up completely before we finish the third mine?"

Before Silas could answer, Thora stepped forward, waving a soot-stained wrench through the air.

"If the bins fill up, you send a runner or a wolf back to the eastern foundry line!" Thora barked, puffing out her chest. "I’ve got transport carts and a spare Phase 2 chassis idling outside the gates! Just submit a formal request to Aeli and it’ll be dispatched within minutes! Don’t let empty bins be an excuse for laziness!"

"Understood!" Brida grinned, her eyes blazing with renewed determination.

Without waiting another second, Brida took two massive, sprinting steps backward, tossed her cleaver into the subterranean hole, and dove headfirst into the dark breach.

"SEE YOU AT THE FORGE, TASMIN!" Brida’s boisterous voice echoed up from the depths of the shaft!

Tasmin gasped, her jaw dropping. "You cheating, ill-mannered brute—!"

SHSHSHK.

Tasmin didn’t even bother saying goodbye.

She cursed under her breath, dissolved into a fluid wave of pitch-black mist, and surged down the shaft in hot pursuit, determined to pass the woman before she hit the lower tunnels.

Silas stood watching the empty, smoking hole in the floor for a long moment, slowly letting out a quiet wheezing breath.

He raised his arm, wiping the fresh beads of sweat from his brow.

"Gods give me strength," Silas muttered to himself. "Those two are going to take ten years off my life."

He stepped up to the edge of the jagged breach, channeled a gentle pulse of his Gold Core’s earth affinity, and stomped his boot against the stone.

KRA-CRUNCH.

The pulverized limestone and shattered shale ground together like teeth, flowing like liquid rock to seamlessly seal the breach shut.

Within seconds, the floor was flat, solid, and completely impassable once more, leaving the geode secure.

Silas turned around, only to find the fifteen recruit maidens staring at him with wide intensely expectant eyes.

Brenda was chewing her lower lip, holding her chisel against her chest, while Sarah cautiously raised her hand, her cheeks still sporting that soft rosy flush.

"Um... Lord Silas?" Sarah asked hesitantly, her voice echoing softly in the quiet cavern. "Since Lady Brida and Lady Tasmin are competing so fiercely for the reward... does that mean... is it still okay for us to keep working for a reward too? Or is the competition only between the commanders?"

A chorus of quiet hopeful murmurs rippled through the ranks of the younger girls.

Silas looked at their sweat-streaked faces, noting the blistered palms, the chalk-dusted armor, and the genuine earnest desire shining in their eyes.

He offered them a warm reassuring smile that made several of their knees wobble.

"Of course it’s still open to you," Silas said gently, his voice carrying effortlessly. "Brida and Tasmin are competing for the prize, but a territory does not run on the backs of two women alone. Blessed Land is built upon every single strike of your picks... I have plenty of rewards to give. For the girls who show the greatest discipline and harvest the cleanest yields today, I will personally ensure you receive custom rewards from my own hands."

"YES!" Brenda squealed, pumping her fist before immediately clamping both hands over her mouth in embarrassment.

"You heard the Lord!" Helen shouted, her face alight with fierce, motivated energy as she hoisted her pickaxe. "Back to the walls! Clean facets! Let’s fill the titan’s bins to the brim!"

With a unified thunderous cheer, the recruits and everyone alike threw themselves back into their work with five times the intensity of the morning.

Tink! Tink! Tink! Clang!

The music of the geode resumed with terrifying efficiency.

For the next two hours, the women worked like a well-oiled machine as slabs of porous limestone parted cleanly from the bedrock.

Fist-sized cerulean stones, brilliant emerald clusters, and deep royal amethysts were pried loose, dusted off, and stacked into gleaming pyramids across the chamber floor.

By the time the midday bells rang from Helen’s brass wrist-timer, the central dome of the geode had been completely swept clean of all exposed surface diamonds.

Thora stepped up to the massive glittering mountain of extracted wealth, wiping sweat from her brow as she signaled the entrance fissure.

"Phase One Titan!" Thora yelled. "Final sweep! Clear the floor!"

KRRRRRR-GRIND!

The colossal stone arm of the Phase 1 Titan Golem slid through the limestone gap once more.

Its massive articulated bedrock fingers scooped beneath the final enormous pile of gems, lifting hundreds of pounds of raw refracted light through the opening.

CLATTER-CRASH!

Outside in the goblin settlement, the last load poured into the titan’s reinforced alloy bins, filling the one of the main compartments to the point that it was almost overflowing.

The construct hissed, its central amber optic flashing once as it settled back into low-power idling mode.

Inside the geode, the women collapsed against the rock walls, groaning with exhausted deeply satisfied smiles.

Their leather harnesses were soaked through, their arms burned with lactic acid, and their boots were coated in glittering crystalline dust.

Silas rested his pickaxe against a stalagmite, clapping his hands together with a crisp clap.

"Alright, that’s the morning shift concluded," Silas announced with a broad smile. "Tools down, everyone. It’s lunchtime..."

A collective joyful cheer rippled through the cavern.

Silas stepped into the center of the cleared, smooth limestone floor.

He focused his mind, tapping into the spatial storage of his inventory ring.

VUUUM!

With a gentle shimmer of spatial mana, a massive thick woven picnic mat... wide enough to comfortably seat twenty people materialized in the center of the room.

It unrolled smoothly across the stone, its soft quilted surface providing a luxurious clean sanctuary from the cold gravel.

"Take off your boots if you want, sit down, and make yourselves comfortable," Silas instructed, stepping onto the mat.

The girls didn’t hesitate.

One by one, all of the primary excavation members... the recruit squad leaders Helen, Brenda, and Sarah... Catelyn and Lyra, even the Princess, Aurelia, Thora, Vala and Reina eagerly slipped off their heavy tool belts and dropped onto the soft mat with sighs of sheer, unadulterated bliss.

Thor marched over, her heavy footsteps shaking the limestone, and plopped her massive leather-clad rear directly onto the edge of the mat with her long blonde hair swaying as she looked at Silas with desperate starving eyes.

Silas chuckled, reaching back into his inventory.

He began retrieving neatly stacked, polished wooden lunch boxes... each one carefully prepared and packed before dawn by Kaelia’s master culinary team back at the Keep’s royal kitchens.

He handed the boxes out one by one.

The girls eagerly popped the lacquered lids open, revealing vibrant mouth-watering arrangements of herb-seared river trout, steaming parcels of seasoned wild rice, crisp honey-glazed root vegetables, and sweet berry tarts that filled the damp cavern with an intoxicating heavenly aroma.

"Oh, by the heavens..." Brenda moaned, taking a delicate bite of a glazed carrot. "This is incredible! It’s so sweet!"

"Kaelia’s cooking is truly a divine blessing," Aurelia murmured gracefully, using a pair of wooden utensils to sample a sliver of trout, her golden eyes fluttering with quiet appreciation.

And then, Silas turned toward the towering blonde God of Thunder.

With both hands, Silas hauled a massive two-foot-wide iron roasting bowl from his inventory, placing it directly before Thor with a heavy metallic thud.

Inside the bowl was a mountain of prime roasted wild boar.

The meat was charred to crispy, golden-brown perfection on the outside, succulent and dripping with savory, spiced juices on the inside, and garnished with thick cloves of roasted mountain garlic.

Beside the bowl, Silas set down a massive five-gallon wooden keg of Thora’s finest dark dwarven stout, its spigot practically weeping with frost.

Thor’s storm-blue eyes expanded to the size of full moons.

A single divine tear of pure joy rolled down her soot-stained cheek.

"Lord Silas..." Thor choked out, her voice trembling with reverence as she stared at the boar meat. "You... you are a true king of men and an emperor among mortals."

She threw her massive muscular arms forward, catching Silas by the shoulder and pulling him into an affectionate one-armed bear hug.

THUMP!