Chapter 16: The Mine

Page 1 of 3

“Thank goodness, Linde—you’re alive!”

Without even having time to wipe away her tears, Victoria hurriedly lifted Linde from the ground and pulled him into a tight embrace.

For a human, the hug was far too forceful.

It was almost as though she meant to crush his bones and meld his entire body into her own.

Linde felt his chest compressed painfully, making it difficult to breathe.

Yet the words he had been about to use to stop her died in his throat when he heard the fervent pounding of her heart.

An embrace was an intimacy no less profound than a kiss.

It meant breaking through the distance people kept between themselves, boldly entering another person’s private space, and feeling their breath against your face.

In return, you allowed the other person to hear every breath you took.

At the moment two people embraced, two hearts beat within each body, and each person’s heart filled the space missing from the other.

If a woman did not resist your embrace, chances were she loved you.

Aside from the embraces he had received from his mother as a child, Linde could hardly remember ever being embraced by anyone else.

Now, a young dragon was crying so bitterly over his death, and offering him her burning heart without the slightest reservation simply because he was alive.

The realization stirred a strange feeling within him.

Being cherished was rather nice.

The happiness rushing through his mind left him somewhat dazed…

“Chirp, chirp! You’re about to strangle him!”

Seeing the whites of Linde’s eyes showing, Hirona anxiously warned Victoria.

“Oh—sorry, Linde.”

Victoria noticed his condition as well and hurriedly released him.

“Since you’ve already apologized, what more can I say? Just keep hugging me.”

Linde took a breath and joked.

“I felt truly guilty when I failed to catch you before… I swear, next time, I absolutely will catch you! Absolutely!”

“All right, all right.”

Linde answered obediently, reaching out to pat her on the head.

After resting for a moment, he began exploring the unknown region.

It was not completely dark. Mushrooms and other fungi emitting a blue glow grew along the stone walls and in the corners.

They looked like tiny stars scattered across the night sky.

Besides that, the place was rich in mineral resources.

Hematite, chalcopyrite, fluorite…

There were already quite a few ores Linde could identify at a glance.

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

Not to mention the uncontrollable delight he felt when he spotted a glimmer of gold embedded in the stone wall to his right.

Gold ore!

One of the rare ores people dreamed of finding in Minecraft.

It was only slightly less rare than diamond.

Though, in terms of actual properties, it was about as valuable as a dog at the dinner table.

Still, who didn’t like glittering gold?

Later on, gold dust would also serve as an important ingredient in various crafting recipes.

Whether he could use it now or not, stockpiling some could do no harm.

What if he happened to need it in the future?

Linde was the sort who liked to prepare for a rainy day. Since he was still at the beginning of his development, he would gather and store anything he found before worrying about how to use it.

Unfortunately, he was carrying only a wooden pickaxe.

Wooden and stone pickaxes were not only slow and laborious when mining gold, but also incapable of yielding intact raw gold.

Only an iron or diamond pickaxe could extract it without damaging it.

Fortunately, iron ore was plentiful here. After spending a little time mining, Linde gathered enough to make an iron pickaxe.

Then he eagerly set about mining the gold ore.

To Linde’s disappointment, once he broke out that single block of gold ore, there was no vein continuing behind it.

Even after ruining another wooden pickaxe and digging deeper into the wall, he saw no further trace of gold.

Well, one should be content with what one had.

Having finished mining the most precious ore, he inevitably turned his attention toward the abundant iron deposits. Those were what would truly support his future development.

A great harvest of ore. Hee hee.

Victoria noticed the smile on Linde’s face and found herself puzzled. Why was the little human so delighted merely to dig up a bit of gold?

Had he never eaten anything better?

How pitiful.

Once they found a gemstone deposit later, she would give him a larger share to eat.

Poor little thing—he must have been so hungry that he was even willing to eat iron ore.

She obediently lay where she was and waited for several minutes, only to realize that Linde showed no sign of stopping. He had become completely absorbed in mining.

Seeing this, Victoria could not help advising him, “Linde, let’s find a way out first. Breathing this air for too long is making me feel dizzy. If we manage to get outside, we can always come back the same way later. You’ll have plenty of time to mine as much as you like.”

“The ore isn’t going to grow legs and run away.”

“That’s true.”

Linde wiped the sweat from his brow and nodded in agreement.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

No matter how much he mined now, he was still missing the other basic materials needed for crafting, so he could not make many useful things anyway.

Upgrading his wooden pickaxe to an iron one, then crafting a simple iron chestplate and helmet, would be enough for now.

When they returned in the future, he could mine the place until not a single ore remained.

“All right. Let’s find the exit first.”

He brushed the dust from his hands and packed everything he did not currently need into a chest.

“Chirp, chirp! There’s something huge ahead!”

Hirona returned from scouting and began chattering excitedly.

“Are we going to have to fight? Sigh… all right. I suppose we can’t avoid it forever.”

Victoria let out a long sigh.

She was not skilled at fighting, but if battle was unavoidable, she did know a few earth-element spells.

Conjure a gemstone and hurl it at the enemy. Conjure a larger gemstone and hurl it at the enemy…

If the opponent’s head was hard enough to withstand gemstones, then there was truly nothing she could do.

“Chirp, chirp! It isn’t alive. Oh, hurry up and come see for yourselves!”

Impatient, Hirona urged Victoria and Linde forward.

The human and dragon followed her, their hearts filled with curiosity.

There was no denying that the underground space was astonishingly vast.

The passages twisted and turned in every direction. They did not seem to have formed naturally; rather, some creature appeared to have deliberately bored them through the earth.

What kind of creature could possess such an ability?

Or, put another way, what kind of creature would need such a vast space in which to move?

Questions arose in Linde’s mind.

When they reached the end of the passage, the answer silently revealed itself before him.

An uncountable number of tunnels spread out across the space ahead.

The enormous cavern felt large enough to contain hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of adult dragons.

From where he stood, the densely packed passages resembled the openings of a honeycomb.

And they were currently standing inside just one of its chambers.

Far below, a pale skeleton hundreds of meters long lay silently atop a vast circular platform.

Judging from its skull and skeletal wings, it had clearly been a dragon in life—and one of unimaginably great power.

After all, the larger a creature was, the more energy it needed to sustain itself. Without sufficient strength, no creature could survive at the top of the food chain.

Linde estimated the depth from their current position to the circular platform and decided it would be safer to have Victoria carry him down.