VRMMO no Shien Shokunin ～Top Player no Shikakenin～

Chapter 65: Mining with a bomb blast

「Did you bring the pickaxe?」 (Selene)

「I’ve got one in my inventory!」 (Yumir)

「Hind-kun, what about that thing?」 (Selene)

「I’ve made it and brought it. I’m completely prepared.」 (Hind)

「Well then, shall we head out?」 (Selene)

Hearing Selene-san’s command, Yumir and I got on top of our camels.

Just as Riizu had announced, she had gone to investigate the amount of experience monsters give.

Without taking risks, I asked her to aim for isolated targets.

Though I’m a bit worried about having her go alone…

Since she’s much smarter than me, I doubt that she’ll misjudge the timing to make her retreat.

We left the town of 『Royal Capital Waaha』, and we headed north under the blazing sun of the 『Lukia desert』.

「Be that as it may, Selene-san, you sure did well to obtain information about a mining spot.

「It was from an NPC right? Did you get close to someone from town?」 (Hind)

「…Do you think I would be able to talk friendly with the people in town and naturally get information from them?」 (Selene)

「It wasn’t that? Now that you said it, I can’t imagine Secchan going around doing that.」 (Yumir)

「Ah, could it be that? That thing that’s been getting popular in the BBS, that there will be an information shop for sure in every large city.」 (Hind)

「Just as I thought, Hind-kun knew about it. You need money for it, but the information is accurate.」 (Selene)

A while ago, she did say that she felt nervous speaking with people like vendors casually after all.

If the players that come here increases, the sharing of information will make progress, there might not be a need for the existence of information shops someday.

Now that there’s few players in the desert, they are a valuable and convenient existence.

Even in other regions, the higher ups that run walkthrough sites seem to be using these information shops.

Like this time, getting information about where you can obtain materials is particularly useful.

「By the way, how much was the information about the mining place?」 (Hind)

「Hmm? Eh, I think it was 100.000G?」 (Selene)

「-Isn’t that really expensive!? I don’t know what the market price is for information, but isn’t that the price of one camel!?」 (Yumir)

「Not really. If we can get lots of minerals, we can get that amount back right away.」 (Selene)

「Yumir, give it up. The sense for money of a first-class crafter is completely different from a normal player.」 (Hind)

「S-Seems like that’s the case…」 (Yumir)

「Eh? Is it that weird? I don’t think that’s the case though…」 (Selene)

Selene-san said that but…for combat type players that rely more or less on getting drops and have to consume consumables, it’s an amount that is hard to come by.

For those kind of players, their main source of income are the subjugation quests that are always available in each town after all.

I’m in the middle, or should I say I’m a blockhead regarding both sides, so I can understand both sides.

Especially like that time when I sold accessories unreasonably with the elven ears, I sold them for many times the price of the materials.

In Selene-san’s case, there’s the fact that she’s skilled, the price of her gear is higher compared to the average crafter.

On top of that, the pace at which she finishes her work is unbelievably fast.

All players are replacing their gear for the event, during this time she’ll probably be able to earn that amount in an instant.

「In that case, why don’t you pick up a crafting skill too, Yumir? Riizu said that she would make restorative medicine with me, so if you did it well, you’ll earn quite the profit.」 (Hind)

「I don’t really mind, but I can’t do anything difficult, you know? In order to enjoy the game, I don’t want to do anything that’s really complicated.」 (Yumir)

「Ah, in that case, how about agricultural development? You could grow medicinal herbs that can be used for items or ingredients for cooking.

「If you get used to it, it’s a simple job that is just repetitive, wouldn’t that be good?」 (Selene)

On the other hand, I believe that requires patience, though it’s most likely less strict that agriculture in real life.

She’s not really the type to leave a job half done, so it’s not that it doesn’t fit her.

While she was pulling the reins of the camel, Yumir kept nodding while she was thinking about Selene-san’s proposal.

「If Hind supervises me, I think I might be able to do it. Will you do it together with me?」 (Yumir)

「Ah, I don’t mind. There was this proposal of improving the soil of the desert, shall we begin once this PvP event ends?」 (Hind)

「Umu, let’s do it that way. In that case, Tobi should be in charge of something else then.」 (Yumir)

「You are right…」 (Hind)

What would be something that suits Tobi?

Though if the person himself says that he doesn’t want to do anything other than fighting, I have no intention to force him…

「Shouldn’t it be fine if he just helped me with making accessories and throwing weapons? I’m making quite a few ninja type items after all, other than that…you could call him if you need help crafting or anything.

「In other words-」 (Hind)

「「He’s in charge of doing odd jobs then.」」 (Yumir and Selene)

Doing odd jobs.

We are a guild of only five people, there are probably a lot of times where we will need to have everyone in the same place, since I’m more or less concerned with all parties, my standing hasn’t really changed.

It’d be fine to give it a cooler name and call it reserve corps or something like that.

「Ah, we are about to arrive at our destination.」 (Selene)

Due to Selene-san’s words I strained my eyes, I could start to see a rugged rock surface beyond the dunes of the desert.

It gave a different feeling to the areas the Basilisk turned into stone.

Unlike other regions, it seems like in Lukia desert you don’t obtain minerals from the mountains.

It seems like this rocky area was originally a quarry.

The fact that the top brass used it to get stones to make buildings at first meant that in reality it didn’t have that many useful minerals.

However, if you kept quarrying deeper, gradually, minerals with enough density would appear.

Furthermore, if you dug even deeper…it was revealed that there was quite the amount of ore veins.

Since the bedrock was quite far from town, the mining hadn’t progressed that much, in other words, it means that there are still a large amount of minerals to be mined here.

It’s probably because it’s a game, they basically won’t get mad at us if players arbitrarily took them.

If this was real life, it would be important resources for the country, it would be expected if they were bothered by it.

Anyhow, the mining points will just respawn as time passes anyway…

We finished swinging our pickaxes at the mining points in the outer layer and were now getting ready to dig further underground.

The materials we got in the outer layer were mostly 『Pebbles』, even if it was something better it was only 『Iron ore』. It wasn’t great.

「Selene-san, I finished setting it up.」 (Hind)

「In that case, shall we light it up and take some distance?」 (Selene)

Once Selene-san took the flint on her hands, Yumir made a very excited face and looked like she wanted to say something.

…After she frowned her eyebrows in a troubled manner for a second, Selene-san handed the flint over to Yumir.

「Yumir-san. Can I leave lighting it up to you?」 (Selene)

「Is it fine!?」 (Yumir)

「Yup, please.」 (Selene)

I’m sorry, about her being so flamboyant.

She can’t really help but want to do this kind of thing with her own hands.

Once we confirmed the clattering of the rocks lit a fire on the handmade 『Gigantic Bo-hiya’s』 fuse, we hurried up and took some distance from there.

The camels were hidden waiting in the shade of a rock and just to make sure, I covered my ears with both hands.

Along with a muffled sound, smoke and dust danced in the air, even when we took enough distance, shattered fragments of rock rained down on us.

As always, I can’t understand this firepower…even though I had used a large amount, it makes you doubt that it was gunpowder.

The first one to jump from the shade of the rock was Yumir and she cheered in a loud voice.

「Oooh!! The boulder turned into little pieces! This feels so good!」 (Yumir)

「H-Hind-kun, it was more powerful than I expected…」 (Selene)

「Y-You are right…」 (Hind)

However, it doesn’t change the fact that it went through the bedrock, so the result was good.

This is what they call mining by using explosives.

It seems like the ores are mainly underground, we got information that the ground was hard prior to this and came up with this measure.

Even in the mines in Beli confederation to the north, players can’t get to the ores if they don’t dig themselves, seems like mining points are buried.

We waited until the dust settled down and we carefully approached the place of the explosion…

「Ooh, from the crumbled area, mining points started shining here and there! Guess this makes it a success.」 (Hind)

「Yup, I’m glad. Well then, shall we get to work?」 (Selene)

「Understood! Alright, I’m going to start mining!」 (Yumir)

The mining points that were shining were scattered all over the place, we headed towards the light with the pickaxe and swung it down.

Each time I swung it down, a message saying 『You have obtained iron ore』 appeared within my field of view, and the items I obtained were automatically sent to my inventory.

『Iron ore』, 『Iron ore』, 『Iron ore』, 『Cobalt』…Hmm!?

Once that showed up, I hurriedly verified my inventory, seems like it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me.

「S-Selene-san, Selene-san!」 (Hind)

「What’s wrong, Hind-kun? Did something happen?」 (Selene)

「Right now, cobalt appeared! If I remember correctly, cobalt is-」 (Hind)

「!? Isn’t that a minor metal!? Hind-kun, keep gathering them! Fast!」 (Selene)

「Y-Yes!」 (Hind)

「What about here!? Doesn’t it appear here!? Ah geez, it’s all iron!! Why!?」 (Selene)

Selene-san was getting excited and breathing roughly, a sight I haven’t seen.

Then, she started swinging with scary vigor down on her own mining point.

S-So fast…

「Hey, this is chromium? A material called that appeared. Is this good?」 (Yumir)

「Kyaaaaaa!!! Yumir-san, get everything! Gather as much as you can!! I’ll go there right now, so please!! I beg you!!」 (Selene)

「Y-Yeah. What’s gotten into you, Secchan…」 (Yumir)

She just went “Kyaaa!!”…

After that, we kept working, until all the lights of the mining points disappeared, we focused on swinging down our pickaxes.

As a result, while we were surprised by how excited Selene-san was, we managed to get a small amount of 『Cobalt』 and 『Chromium』 along with the large amount of iron ore.