Might as Well

They immediately headed for the mining area located a ways away from the city, where Sam, so long ago, faced the Gauntlet of Body and where he acquired that weird amulet.

’I really need to figure out a way to get to the Dark Lands…’ Sam mused as he ran alongside the others, Clarissa this time traveling on Katie’s back as her physical stats were still not enough to keep up with the rest of them. ‘I also need to look into getting mounts for the team, or maybe vehicles.’ He spent a few moments thinking about it. ‘Should I start a motorcycle gang?’

Snorting at his own joke, he shook his head and refocused on the target of their little excursion.

The area they were heading toward was full of mines, and a lot of them were under the control of the Silvercrest family or families allied with them. It was in a rather prime position, both tactically and financially. As in, it was easy to defend, and they didn’t have to travel with the mined ores far. There were even several smaller refining operations right outside of the mine shafts, but as the refined bars of metals were much more tempting targets than the raw ores, only a few smaller families made use of them.

With the map (and a permission token) given to him by the lord of the Silvercrest family, he would be in a prime position to find any fracture (read dungeon) on said lord’s land. Which in turn would lead to the lord setting up a business of allowing adventurers to visit said fracture.

He was expecting to find several, even dozens of fractures, just in a day. Sadly, not all of them would be profitable.

Around seventy percent of fractures were simple instabilities in the barrier between the world and the dimensional void and would vanish after whatever was created was destroyed. In gaming terms, they would get one visit, and after the defeat of the boss (if there was one) it would vanish. Sam expected that most of them they would be finding would be these kinds.

As for the rest?

About twenty percent was the permanent kind, ready to be plundered forever. Granted, they came with their own danger, as a permanent fracture that wasn’t cleaned up regularly would overload and release a monster horde on the surroundings. One of the most important reasons Sam wanted to make sure that the NPCs set up an infrastructure to monitor permanent fractures. Dealing with monster hordes originating from fractures was rather annoying.

The last ten percent contained the hidden fractures that were obscured from the world for various reasons, only waiting for the lucky adventurer to find them and exploit the hell out of them. Next to the hidden fractures were the quest fractures. Fractures that one could only enter or even find if they had the corresponding quest.

They arrived at the abandoned mining site in a short amount of time and by the time Clarissa was getting down from the excited Katie’s back while grumbling, his senses were expanding, probing the ever-present metallic and rough presence of the mana around the mountains.

He could instantly feel several chaotic presences in the fabric of the mana. Though, unfortunately, where the famous treasure dungeon was in his inherited memories, he couldn’t sense anything.

‘Probably because I killed that annoying little dragon wannabe lizard…’ he mused.

With a small smile on his face, he turned to his team.

“Everyone ready for a small adventure?”

Dan nodded eagerly, hefting his club up high, while Katie, as always, was bouncing in one place. Clarissa was, however, glaring at him slightly.

“It would be helpful if we knew what this ‘small adventure’ meant…” she spat out, using her hands to create quotation marks.

Sam nodded and instead of saying anything, with a few motions of his hand, shared the quest with all of them.

As they read, he began to explain. “We are looking for fractures. As they’re obviously this game’s dungeons, we are looking for permanent ones that can be exploited. The local government is going to set up the infrastructure and tax the incoming materials. We, or rather the company will get a percentage of that income.”

Clarissa blinked at him owlishly. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Yes,” he answered with a challenging grin.

The glare returned to her face. “I’m not joining!”

Sam simply shrugged and gave her an impish smile. “As you wish…”

In the background, Katie let out a quiet and disappointed 'aww' upon hearing Clarissa’s declaration.

He clapped his hands together once, gathering their attention, and spoke up.

“Any other questions?”

Everybody shook their head, and Sam nodded happily.

“Excellent! Then let’s go and plunder the shit out of the local environment!”

And with that encouraging war-cry, they charged towards the opening dotting the mountainside leading towards countless abandoned mine shafts.

The nearest bundle of chaotic mana led them through one of the lower mining shafts at the bottom of the steep cliffs that were the results of countless years of exploitation.

With Katie in the lead, they entered the mining shaft, their journey illuminated by Sam’s Light Ball.

As he watched Katie go forward, small yellow arcs of electric energy radiating from the young woman, he made a note to recruit a proper tank for the team, as it wasn’t the best post for the girl.

Plus, a berserker was never the best idea for the main tank.

As they headed deeper inside, the mana fluctuations became much clearer, telling him that something like the portal at the giant tree was inside, albeit with much, much less energy.

“We’re going the right way, guys!” he spoke up softly and tightened his grip on his sword. He didn’t want to miss any last-minute ambushes.

Fortunately, nobody attacked them on the way and a few minutes later, they stood at a dead end of the mining shift, deep underground, in front of them a brownish portal swirling merrily.

Doing a last check of the surrounding, Sam glanced at his teammates, and when he saw everyone was ready, he simply stepped forward with the others following him instantly.

There was a brief moment of disorientation, then they were standing right where the mining shaft ended. Only the dead end was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the shaft continued deeper, with the darkness hiding everything from their sight.

Before they could start walking forward, a notification screen popped up.

[You entered a new fracture!]

[Fracture: Mining Shaft #17]

[An old mining shaft that has been abandoned due to the ore veins drying up. Now it is home to something sinister. Go and deal with that something!]

[Time Limit: No limit]

[Charges: 1/1]

Sam simply nodded after reading it, while the others had some questions.

“Hey, boss! What do the charges mean?” asked Dan.

Sam simply shrugged. “Probably that we can only run it one time.”

“So, then this is a bust?”

“I mean, from the perspective of our quest, yeah… But, it’s still a dungeon, so we will get rewards!” he explained, while keeping an eye on the darkness. His mana sense told him that something was indeed lurking down below.

“Cool!”

“What about loot distribution?” came the every-pragmatic question from Clarissa.

Sam nodded at her and then started explaining. “Whatever drops, goes to whoever needs it the most. If multiple people want it, we will roll the dice. The party menu has an option for it. Materials go to the company unless you need them for your own crafting. Anything else will be dealt with case by case.” He waited for a second for his party to digest, then continued. “Any questions?”

The others looked at each other, then back at Sam, and nodded as one.

“Good for me!”

“Acceptable!”

“I want a new weapon!” “Meow!”

Sam nodded in appreciation and then unsheathed his sword and pointed it downwards the slope.

“Then onwards, my friends! Let us kill everything that stands between us and loot!”

With a resounding cheer, the entire team charged downwards.

The first few steps were uneventful, but after a few dozen yards, they were finally met with resistance.

The first thing they noticed was the sickly green eyes in the darkness, which revealed small, stocky golems, heads oddly shaped like mining helmets charging at them, raising their oddly long arms in the air.

“RAAAARGH!”

Sadly, they were smashed to pieces by Katie who was at the front of their small procession.

“Golems?” asked Dan as he looked around with his club ready to strike.

“Mhm,” hummed Sam thoughtfully. “They appear where the rock and metal type mana concentration is high. Probably the fractures will exacerbate this problem…”

“Any weaknesses?”

“Joints mostly… and water, but these are simple, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

“Sooo….”

“So, go nuts. I’ll warn you if anything dangerous comes out.”

“Excellent!”

After that fateful exclamation, the small and rather adorable golems in the fracture could only cry out for help as they were destroyed by several enthusiastic adventurers.

Due to being a small one-shot fracture, the mining shaft didn’t branch out to any side shafts, only heading deeper and deeper.

The golems didn’t really provide much resistance. Which was natural, as they were in an area that had a lower average level than them. Though, the drops were rather nice, if a little useless to them.

The golems, as expected, dropped mostly raw ores, including some small gold ones, and a few low-grade gems. Still, the drops were better than nothing.

While Sam didn’t mention, golems in dungeons had a very small chance of dropping skill books related to golems. Naturally, a low-level dungeon like this would only drop from the boss monster. He hoped with Lucky they would have a chance for it.

He didn’t want it for himself, because while it was a powerful way to play, it wasn’t really to his taste. However, he did promise Lucy that he would get her a security person. And coincidentally, he knew somebody who wanted this exact skill. How fortuitous!

‘Let’s root for the boss monster to drop it,' Sam thought as he stepped over the remains of the last golem that protected the entrance to the final chamber, where more than likely they would be attacked by a bigger and meaner golem.

Taking a look at his team, he was glad to see that none of them were tired, instead even Clarissa was raring to go. It seemed the easy journey through the fracture had emboldened them.

‘Glad I chose this first… Going to a swamp fracture would have probably resulted in open rebellion…’ he thought with a chuckle.

He simply stepped over the threshold, followed by his teammates, and was instantly aware of the giant green eyes that opened up at the back of the giant cavern. They were considerably higher than the ones on the monsters they had seen so far.

Then, with a small roar that shook the entire room, it stepped forward.

The new golem looked almost the same as the smaller ones. Stumpy and long arms, ending in deadly-looking claws perfect for digging, and the top of its head looking like a miner helmet. The only difference between it and the smaller ones was that its mining helmet had a lamp at the front (shaped from rock) that shone with the same green light as the eyes.

“Katie, distract! Dan, try not to cook us!” he yelled out and instantly launched his own attacks, followed by a small and very hot flame lance from his pyromaniac friend, while Katie wreathed in yellow lightning and launched herself forward, the entire cavern echoing with her demented laughter mixing with the golem’s roar.

The giant golem didn’t last long enough for the fight to become really enjoyable, especially, with the new spells that they were granted by the big quest during the event. Sam was pretty sure that even Clarissa could have taken the golem down if given enough time.

As the carcass slowly turned into rainbow pixels and evaporated, he walked forward and picked up the drops. The others gathered around him, curiously looking at the items.

“Let’s see…” he spoke out loud as he went through the meager drops left behind by the boss. “Ore, ore, gem, some more ore… Nothing exciting.” Sensing the other fidgeting behind him, he just smirked and continued. “Oh look! More ores!”

“For fucks’ sake, you idiot!” came instantly the yell from Clarissa. “Just tell us if something good dropped…”

Sam raised his hand in a placating manner. “Alright, alright!”

Turning back to the pile of items, he quickly sorted out all the crafting materials and chaff, leaving them with two books and a giant hammer.

“Well, we have a war hammer if anyone wants it?” he asked and then waited for a second for someone to speak up, but the silence was his only answer. “Then it will go to the auction. I’ll send you guys the money after it’s sold.”

Putting the weapon into his inventory, he picked up the two books.

“Hmm, one of them is Rock Barrage, which is a Rock Bullet skill, and the other is Earth Wall… Anyone want it?”

Disappointed at the low-quality rewards, his teammates shook their heads and began to wander around the cavern, probably hoping to find some hidden reward.

Sam simply pocketed the spells, chuckling at them.

‘What did they expect from a low-level fracture… honestly…’

Next, he turned toward the notification screen that popped up as soon as the boss monster fell dead.

[Congratulations, you cleared Mining Shaft #17!]

[Exit: Yes/No]

[Warning: If no decision is made within 30 minutes, the fracture will collapse and automatically eject the players!]

Sam simply pushed the yes button, and once again, the world became a blur.

They found themselves exactly where they entered the fracture, only the brown portal was nowhere to be seen.

Turning around, they began trudging up towards the sun, ready to look for another fracture. Ignoring his party members, despondent due to a lack of amazing loot, Sam simply focused on his mana senses, trying to pinpoint the next fracture, while also making a hasty note about the details of the first one in a notebook.

It would help the NPCs rate the dungeons if they had some kind of data to work from.

Reaching one of the junctions, he stopped for a second, then pointed toward the right.

“The next one is that way!”

Instantly, the previous disappointment vanished from them, and Katie, ever excited, ran forward.

“Come on! Maybe this time it will drop something cool!”

“Meow! Meow, meow, meow!”

“Excellent argument Puffball! We should move faster!”

Sam watched as the girl vanished down the corridor and looked at the others with a wry smile. Dan was chuckling and Clarissa was simply face-palming.

“We should hurry up, otherwise she will finish the next one on her own…”