Mining (3)
What is life? A profound question, truly.
A being granted the gift of existence, and in the very same breath promised death. Hurtling ever onward toward inevitable demise, striving by any means necessary to leave behind biological or spiritual progeny. A subject worthy of deep philosophical and scientific contemplation alike—a wondrous creation of the divine.
Life itself is the ultimate crystallization of mystery.
Which brings us to the question: what criteria define it?
Scholars have established various yardsticks over the centuries to demarcate the boundaries of life, but those measures remain entirely subjective. Separating living from nonliving in an absolute, objective sense is virtually impossible.
The Gallery's system was no different. Naturally, it reflected the subjective judgment of its creator. The issue was that every other inanimate object up until now had traded without the slightest hitch.
Yet this mithril flaunting its resplendent luster right before my eyes—
For reasons beyond my comprehension, the Gallery had classified it as a living being.
"……"
I stared at the gleaming mineral vein, submerged in thought. A solitary question bounced endlessly around my skull: Why on earth?
Chunks chipped away from the main body could be traded freely, yet the vein as a collective whole was barred from the trade window because the system registered it as alive.
Could there be a core lodged inside it, like with that Earth Guardian?
If so, that spelled grave danger. It meant this entire vein might animate and start roaming around just like a construct. Buried deep underground as it was, nothing was certain, but the gnawing anxiety refused to fade. Since the Gallery labeled it a living organism, caution was paramount.
Then again, it didn't react at all even after taking several hard hits…
The Earth Guardian had responded the instant mana was introduced, whereas this vein had shown zero reaction even when struck with mana-infused swings. Just what kind of bizarre ecological marvel was this thing? It defied all survival logic.
In the end, all I knew was that the vein was somehow alive.
What if, instead of assembling into a humanoid form like the Guardian, it remained amorphous like a slime from some video game? What if one night while I was fast asleep, it suddenly shot upward in a forest of razor-sharp spikes—ta-da!
And what would happen then? Fatal injury at minimum. The human body is frail. The moment a spike punches through your skull, it's goodbye, cruel world.
Faced with a hazard like that, I couldn't just sit back and ignore a living mineral deposit in my home.
Should I ask the dwarf first?
A living mineral vein. The only person with the expertise to answer something so preposterous was Passing Dwarf. If even he had no idea, I'd draft a question for the wider Gallery.
Even the resident dwarven blacksmith had thrown in the towel.
Ultimately, taking it to the Gallery was my best bet. Out of that entire eccentric crowd, someone was bound to know.
Just to be safe, I recorded the whole phenomenon on video, even chipping off another sliver for demonstration. The Gallery's interface allowed photos and video captures directly through the user's field of view, making the recording effortless.
[Attached: photo_mithril_vein.png]
[Attached: video_trade_window_error.mp4]
[Attached: video_shards_crawling_and_fusing.mp4]
It's just as you see in the clips. Passing Dwarf told me it's mithril.
He said mithril isn't supposed to be alive, so has anyone ever seen something like this?
What on earth is going on here?
A sudden wave of pity washed over me for the Main Moderator, but I shook it off. Such were the trials of wearing the management armband.
I shifted my gaze back to the mithril deposit, now believed to harbor a sentient ego. How on earth was I supposed to get rid of this thing? The dread of accidentally triggering a subterranean catastrophe while mining loomed heavy in my chest.
"Ahem. Hello, friend?"
"……"
"If you can hear me, would you mind moving your body somewhere else?"
I phrased the petition with utmost politeness. It might look idiotic, but I was dead serious.
Naturally, the rock remained completely motionless. It had no ears. Being classified as a living organism didn't magically grant a mineral auditory canals. If you talk to a jellyfish in plain English, will it understand and listen? Not a chance.
"*Sigh*. This isn't going to work."
Leaving it as-is was out of the question. I came to a resolute, desperate decision. Even if it meant carving out the entire back cavern wall, I would dig up every last speck of this mithril. Rather than sleeping above a ticking bomb, I'd disarm it with my own hands.
If neither of us had ever realized the other was here, it probably would've stayed dormant.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say. It felt like I'd gone out of my way to kick a sleeping bear. But what was done was done; there was no undoing it now.
Just in case things went south, I hoisted Bbarmbo onto my back before raising my pickaxe.
Thwack! Crack!
Rather than hammering into the mithril directly, I carved delicately around its perimeter. I needed to map its outer boundary with my own eyes to gauge just how massive this deposit truly was. Thankfully, it seemed confined entirely to the interior of the cavern.
Games and reality really are worlds apart.
In that certain blocky survival game, you could dig all the way down to molten lava with just an iron pickaxe. Clearly, protagonist privileges were reserved for superhuman freaks. I was merely an ordinary human dropped into the Forest of the Four Seasons by divine whimsy.
A sigh slipped through my lips, but continuous mining took precedence over grumbling.
Thwack! Crack!
How much time had passed?
Once I had dug down roughly to my own height, the overall contour finally began to reveal itself.
"Ah, damn it all to hell. Seriously?"
I took back my earlier assessment. What I had seen was merely the tip of the iceberg. No matter how deep I excavated, there was no end in sight. Just how far down did this subterranean vein reach? It defied all estimation.
I'm losing my mind here.
At this rate, I wouldn't just be tearing down the rear wall; I'd have to hollow out the entire cavern from top to bottom. But I still needed a roof over my head to sleep in peace. Exhaustion tugged at my limbs, whispering that I should just rest.
With a heavy heart, I stared at the shimmering, silvery-blue expanse of mithril.
Was it Gyeongju back home? They say whenever you dig up a backyard garden there, ancient relics pop out.
Meanwhile, every shovel of dirt here unearthed mithril that gave me a pounding migraine. Worse yet, it was a mineral that might spontaneously birth a Guardian. An Orichalcum construct had been horrifying enough, but a Mithril Guardian?
There's no other choice. I have to excavate the whole damn thing.
The operational plan changed on the spot: mine the mithril out completely until I located the source of its consciousness. Whether it would actually morph into a construct remained uncertain, but ignoring the worst-case scenario was a luxury I couldn't afford.
Clang! Clink! Clang!
I threw myself into the labor. Even as the dull ache in my palms deepened into numbness, I clenched my teeth and endured. Failing to subdue this thing meant my very life was on the line. This was mining with my survival hanging in the balance. Luckily, I possessed the reinforced pickaxe gifted by the dwarf.
Whenever severed mithril chunks or flecks tumbled loose, I promptly stowed them into my subspace pouch.
"*Haaah*... *pant*..."
After an hour of ceaseless, blistering swings, my stamina gave out first. And yet, the mithril vein retained its monolithic, unyielding stance. Bizarrely, the more I swung the pickaxe, the denser and more impenetrable the mineral felt. To be precise, the deeper inward I penetrated, the tougher the stone became.
I'm definitely making Passing Dwarf craft me a solid mithril pickaxe.
Either that, or I needed to complete my Aura Blade. Progress was stalling at an agonizing crawl. Still, I had to push as far as my strength permitted. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, after all.
Taking advantage of the rest break, I sent a sizeable chunk of mithril over to Heavenly Demon.
I gifted another hefty chunk of raw mithril to Praise the Sun, who had previously sent the golden shields.
After that brief intermission, the grueling mining resumed. It felt like an endless war of attrition. By the time dusk settled across the forest, I still hadn't managed to excavate the entire mass.
Tonight, I'll just have to sleep as far away from this wall as possible.
Swinging the pickaxe all day long had left my forearms shaking and my fingers completely numb. Rubbing my prickling wrists, I pulled up the Gallery interface. Roughly thirty minutes remained until dinner, so I figured I would browse the forum to kill time.
Oh, a message from the dwarf.
Every time I had pried loose a large chunk of mithril, I had transferred it over to Passing Dwarf, along with a strict demand that he forge a solid mithril pickaxe for me. Seeing a message waiting, I assumed he had either finished the tool or was deep into the smithing process.
The text waiting for me was miles away from what I had anticipated. Short, blunt, and summarizing his predicament with absolute clarity.
The moment I saw it, curiosity eclipsed any immediate panic, and I tapped out a reply.
Which, translated into plain terms, meant my survival to-do list had just grown by another impossible milestone.