Apinsig
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Chapter 225 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-05-24 19:31:25 +0000 UTCWhen I gave the news of the salty river to the expedition, they were not certain how to feel about it. Not having drinkable water was a problem but we should also be able to make salt-gathering pools which would mean that salt will no longer be a limited resource for us.
By the end of the discussion, everyone was quite happy with this discovery, and we headed up the mountain to the next elevation that they wanted to check. Up here we also found a waterfall and with the salt-rich water, the entire area was covered with salt.
This was also the first time that I had to command everyone to stay back as there was movement on the ridge above us. Turned out that it was just mountain goats but there were quite a lot of them. It seems that they were enjoying the salt.
The expedition members once again used their abilities but nothing particularly interesting was found. We now headed back towards where we came from but because we were on a different elevation, we were on fresh ground so they could search for more metals. We camped for a night and continued the next morning.
They eventually found a small gold vein worth mining but it was currently made a low priority as we needed iron more. On the third search on this elevation, we were back to our starting point. Another small iron vein was found but we didn’t go back down. We continued further south and searched another two times finding a decent-sized tin vein and a small-sized lead vein before we started to descend.
Halfway down we heard a challenging roar. I quickly turned towards the direction the sound came from and a huge monster mountain cat rushed out from the forest below and started to climb its way towards us.
I noticed that the others started to run. “Stop and hold your ground,” I ordered them, and they did what I told them, but I could see that they wanted to run and were scared shitless. The expedition leader and one other human were silver rank otherwise they were all under that which was still quite good for nonfighters. The monster down there was fake gold and would soon be a first rank, but it wasn't yet, so I was just calmly standing at the edge of the cliff waiting for it to climb a bit higher.
The monster acted stupidly mad. It was kind of sad that such a beautiful creature was driven mad by the monster core inside it. It seems that this particular monster wasn’t handling being a monster that well and I could see quite a lot of battle scars meaning that it was probably fighting nonstop. I started to charge my spear which actually made the monster hesitate for a moment. Its eyes cleared for a moment but soon they became hazy again and it roared again and continued to charge.
Seems like the intelligence was still in there but whatever the monster core did it alter too much for that intelligence to handle. As soon as it jumped to start climbing the final cliff before it reached me, I threw the charged-up spear.
I didn’t use my core energy as I did not want to damage the spear and it just wasn't necessary. My throw was a bit off, but it still pierced its entire body and by the time we all climbed down it was already dead.
We collected as much as possible from the body and continued our mission. After around half a day we finally made it back to where we started from. We all looked back at the mountain knowing that it had a lot to offer us, but we will need to work hard to be able to claim its resources. Still, the mood was quite high, and everyone made some fire-cooked meat so we could eat and replenish our strength for the journey back.
During the meal and on our way back I learned a lot more about how mining works in this world. Originally, I thought that it worked as it did in medieval times back on Earth where people started a mine and processed the ore there while having some guards station there to keep bandits away. While bandits are also a problem here the wildlife is a bigger concern. I should have realized this before as it made complete sense.
There are two different ways to approach mining. The first option is low yield but less costly. It will probably be something that we will be doing in the beginning. An expedition similar to ours will be made with fighters strong enough to fight off any trouble that might come. The mining crew will extract as much ore as possible and use storage-extending items or abilities. Then they will just head back when the storage is full.
The second way is to make a permanent mine. For that, we would need quite a large vein to make it worth sinking so many resources into it. I’ve always imagined mines to be a few simple wooden buildings and a large smelter and then an entrance to the mine or two. This wouldn't work in this world unless it was a safe area. You would basically need to build a small fortress with two fortified entrances, one into the outer world and one into the mine.
Both of those entrances need to be strong enough to fight off superior enemies. At first, I thought that it would be quite dangerous to only have one entrance into the mine, but it would be necessary for defence. You wouldn't want monsters from the outside world to get in and you needed to fortify that mind entrance because you never know what you might run into inside the mountain. Apparently, there's a whole underground world with lots of creatures that live underneath the earth which would love an easy snack in the form of a miner.
It was fascinating to hear about worms that use acid to dig through the rock and then suffocate you to death while slowly eating you. Beetle-like creatures that will keep you alive to drag you to their queen and huge monsters that will burst from the ground under your feet and swallow you in one bite. Mostly those creatures but also natural caves formed an entire world underneath our feet. There are even sapient races that live underneath the surface with their own kingdoms and wars.
The more I heard the more interested I became. The dwarves seem to touch both of these worlds with their mountain homes. This gave me a lot to think about and worry about. While they said that they didn't know or have heard about underground kingdoms breaching the surface to attack and conquer I was quite certain that it must have happened.
Seems like I still have a lot to learn about this world. Even to the dwarves here the stories they told me were more fantasy than actual fact and none of them could tell me anything for certain, but I could sense the truth in those stories even if they didn't believe it completely.
Some new defensive plans need to be made up and securing the towns and villages' underground areas might be as important as protecting them from the above-ground threats. That reminded me of the cave that I found on the rock creatures mountain.
Perhaps a trip to explore that cave during the winter is necessary. While I highly doubt that it would lead to any big underground area, we need to be certain that there isn't anything dangerous close to us that could annihilate us.
When we reached back to the inn it was already close to sunset. The dwarves grumbled a bit that the inn wasn’t open yet because now they needed to continue heading towards the village that they would probably not reach before midnight.
I was quite glad that I didn’t have to walk back to the village, but I still had some exercises that I needed to do before I could go back to the smithy and continue to work on my blade forging.
After another two days, I finally had enough free time to head back south to search for the dungeon. The run there was decently fast, but it still amazed me how large our nation really is. I was glad to see that the beetles hadn’t claimed back the area that I had cleaned out, so I continued my massacre knowing I was making progress.
My thoughts often slipped to the underground world and the terrors and wonders it might hold. I started to feel an urge to travel and see the world but I wanted to wait awhile longer as I at least wanted us to have a portal structure built so I could come back here easily. There was no way that I was going to miss a harvest but during the winter travelling to different places sounded quite nice. I just had to hope that there weren’t too many people where I would want to go as that sounded unpleasant.
I had been searching for over half a day while killing beetles that I ran across when I had to groan out loud. A message stick broke that notified me the Thorn Rose Company will soon open a portal so they could bring what we requested and take what we promised them.
I murdered some beetles in annoyance as I had barely gotten started searching for the dungeon. I planned to stay here for at least three days but now I needed to head back to the village.
