Chapter 43
"Heave-ho, heave-ho♪"
Chink! Chink!
"Come on out already—heave-ho♪"
Chink! Chink!
The rhythmic sound of my pickaxe striking the wall rang out.
I was currently mining at the last excavation point near the exit on the ninth floor of 〈Stonebridge Abandoned Mine Dungeon〉.
I was singing just because I felt like it.
Swinging a pickaxe in a place like this made me desperately want some music.
Somebody give me some BGM. The academy's smartphones don't have a music player.
"We've collected quite a lot."
"Yeah. Is this really an abandoned mine? We're getting so much."
Hannah said, eyes wide as she looked at the mountain of materials piled up.
"Well, this is a dungeon, after all. Even if it runs dry, it replenishes on its own over time, so we can dig as much as we want."
"Then it isn't really an abandoned mine, is it?"
Hannah was worrying about little things, but the developers had chosen the name, so I had no idea.
Anyway, we could still dig up materials in an abandoned mine. Who cared about the rest?
That said, the reason we'd gathered so many materials this time was partly that nobody had been mining in this Lower Beginner 〈Shocker〉 dungeon lately, but also that the excavation points were especially good.
Generally, if you were after materials, you'd start digging from the first floor and work your way deeper. Once you'd had enough or your bag was full, you'd head back. Not many people fought through lots of monsters just to reach the gathering points farther in.
As a result, the gathering points deeper in were often left mostly untouched.
In 〈Dan-Katsu〉, the gathering yield was higher the farther in you went.
Apparently, that was true in this world, too.
By the way, gathering is different from monster drops: you use the Skill associated with a gathering point to obtain materials.
At 〈Stonebridge Abandoned Mine Dungeon〉, for example, using the 'Excavation' Skill at a gathering point lets you obtain materials.
We'd already collected enough drops from weak monsters to meet the request's quota, and excavation was finished, so all that was left was the boss drops.
Actually, we'd already been farming the boss.
When we first reached the deepest part, we challenged the boss right away.
My current MP was 200 max.
Thanks to the 'MP Auto-Recovery LV1' on the 〈True Soul Necklace〉, it now took only twenty minutes to recover 15 MP. That was a big help; we'd already defeated the boss fourteen times in an hour and a half of farming.
Reaching 【Hero LV17】 had also cut each fight down to around six minutes.
After running out of MP, I waited for it to recover naturally while using 'Excavation' at the gathering point near the exit on the ninth floor.
That way, I could efficiently collect boss drops again afterward.
It was past four in the afternoon. It seemed about time to head back for one last round of boss farming.
"All right, once we've finished packing this up, let's go hunt the boss."
"O-okay. Wow, this looks like more work than I thought."
Well, we'd dug up as much as we could.
We'd gathered far more than the required amount. Mille should be pleased with this haul.
The two of us packed everything into Hannah's 〈Item Bag (Capacity: Large)〉.
Items in an 〈Item Bag〉 don't add any weight, so even heavy things like excavated materials can be carried in large quantities with ease.
It's really convenient.
Once we'd finally finished packing everything, we headed to the tenth floor.
〈Stonebridge Abandoned Mine Dungeon〉 was a cave-type dungeon.
True to its name, tunnels with stone-bridge-like floors stretched through it.
The passages were quite wide, since stone golems and the like roamed around inside.
They might even have been as wide as a four-lane road.
The boss room lay at the end of one of those passages.
It felt more like a road than a room.
Without the gate at the boundary, no one would have thought it was a boss room.
And in the center sat the boss of 〈Stonebridge Abandoned Mine Dungeon〉.
Its name was 〈Armor Golem〉.
It was a roughly two-meter-tall stone golem with its entire upper body covered in iron plates.
Unlike yesterday's 〈Bear Anteater〉, which seemed like a joke monster, this boss was pretty ordinary.
"All right, we're back. Time to resume boss farming!"
"Yeah. Good luck, Zephyrus-kun."
Hannah was watching from the Safe Area, by the way.
She'd reached 【Alchemist LV20】 a little while ago, so she couldn't gain any more levels in a Lower Beginner 〈Shocker〉 dungeon.
Well, I didn't mind saving the MP I'd otherwise spend on 'Appeal LV5'.
This 〈Armor Golem〉 looked tough and strong, but it had a weakness that made it ridiculously easy to beat, even solo.
The 〈Armor Golem〉 came charging over with a clank-clank, so I slipped past it and slashed at its legs, making it lose its balance and topple forward.
That was the 〈Armor Golem〉's weakness. Its upper body was so heavy, yet it ran, so if anything caught its legs, it went sprawling.
Back when this was a game, you could knock it down by attacking anywhere as soon as it started running. In the real world, though, you had to hit its legs, which was a bit of a nuisance.
It gave me a little trouble at first, but once I learned to slip past it while slashing, it became easy prey.
I slashed at the fallen 〈Armor Golem〉, then backed off when it got up and tripped it again when it charged. After that, it was just a matter of repeating the process. Its upper body was so heavy that it took ages to get back up, which let me keep landing normal attacks the whole time. It usually turned into a treasure chest after about five cycles.
I hacked away at the fallen boss—slash, slash! Somehow, even here, it made me feel like I was mining!
After six more boss runs, we decided to call it a day and wrap up our dungeon run.
This time, we got 18 "Wooden Chests" and 2 "Silver Chests." The silver chest rate was painful. The rare drops weren't great this time, either.
Last time was just too good. Still, going 20 boss runs without a single good drop was rough.
Still, no "Gold Chests" at all. Well, the odds were pretty low, so I hoped we'd get one next time.
But I reached 【Hero LV18】, so I'll call that a win.