The Talking Rock

"Hey!! I'm not a rock!! Please don't do that!!"

No matter how many times I listened, it was the same. The rock was speaking.

Had there ever been a case like this according to the world's common sense? Digging through my magical knowledge, the possibilities that came to mind were: rock elemental, a disguised spirit, an intelligent monster, a magical accident during a research process, or a perverted female mage who had transformed herself into a lewd statue because she wanted to be humiliated. The problem was that far too many things were popping up.

As I stared quietly at the rock, Miroa, who had finished her hunt, slipped back in.

"Master? What is it?"

She looked curious, so I told her straight.

"......The rock is talking."

"If it's a monster, I'll smash it to pieces."

When Miroa glanced toward the pickaxe, I flinched. I wasn't the only one scared. The rock screamed again.

"Ack!! I'm not a monster!!"

Miroa's blade tip turned toward the talking rock. The voice addressing it instantly grew cold and icy.

"If you're not a monster, then what are you."

"Hup."

Even a rock seemed to sense killing intent; I heard it swallow hard for a moment. Only after a long pause did the answer finally come.

"I-I'm a dwarf, it is!!"

Aha. That finally connected the dots.

"So it was a dwarf. I heard your kind vanished without a trace a long time ago."

"I only knew them as beings from legends or fairy tales."

"They are definitely recorded in history. It's an incredibly old story, but documents remain."

The race more obsessed with firepower than any other was the dwarves. They were the origin of the dampening explosives that had powered the empire's military might throughout history.

Yet none remained today.

'Because they were all wiped out.'

The early empire had carried out a massacre. History made it clear why the empire had come to hate dwarves so deeply.

'The race itself was a pack of chaos-loving troublemakers.'

They adored bombs, firepower, and weapons. They loved watching them go off even more. At first the relationship was good; they shared gunpowder technology, and dwarf engineers even received the highest honors from the empire's Ministry of War.

But then they helped topple the ancient civilization that had been the empire's greatest rival. Once peace arrived, the way dwarves were treated changed completely.

Had the hot-blooded early empire, now armed with gunpowder, simply stabbed them in the back? That was part of it, but the dwarves themselves had been the insane ones.

'Firepower! We need more firepower!!'

'We need more things to blow up!!'

'We hate peace!! We need more wars!!'

These creatures simply loved explosions. They preferred living beings over inanimate objects, human cities over nature, and large-scale blasts over small ones. Inciting war was their daily routine, and when that failed they would secretly supply weapons to the barbarian tribes threatening the empire. The empire had tried appeasing them, even integrating them into the army, but there was no solution. In the end they were all exterminated, conveniently redirecting the hatred of the conquered peoples at the same time.

'What was the empire like back then?'

It was a different era, so the atmosphere was nothing like the present. People said our empire overflowed with love, romance, and generosity. The problem was that it had become too generous.

The reason the dwarves were completely wiped out was also because the method to eliminate them was absurdly simple. When exposed to sunlight, they turned into stone and hardened. Thus, in the empire's early history, an entire race went extinct in mere decades. Yet it seemed a survivor sealed away by the ancient civilization had remained.

"So you turned to stone, but you can still talk?"

It was alive even while petrified. Its accent and speech were odd, but it could speak the empire's language.

"It's real!! I don't know why either, it is!!"

"This is new to me too."

Ancient magic might have influenced it somehow.

"It looks different from a normal hardened dwarf right from its shape. Miroa, have you seen anything similar?"

I decided to hear her thoughts as well.

"There are many dwarf-shaped rocks in the north, but this is different. I only knew the legends that explained human-shaped rocks or the origin of gunpowder. I don't know much about the dwarf race in detail."

That was the average level ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of knowledge across the empire. If I hadn't casually flipped through ancient texts and old knightly literature as a hobby, I wouldn't have known either.

"I used to be handsome, it is!! I woke up like this, it is!!"

So it had grown round and smooth with the passage of time. Its consciousness had been absent so long that its form had eroded before it finally awakened.

'This is interesting.'

A former dwarf with self-awareness existing as an ego-rock was starting to intrigue me. If I looked into it further, I might find all sorts of applications.

"Are there any others of your clan?"

"Th-there aren't, it is."

None, then. I picked up the pickaxe again.

It had originally been in dwarf form but had worn down into this rather small rock. I had already confirmed that its mind remained intact even when pieces were chipped away. Since things had come to this, I could probably shave it smaller and move it to the laboratory.

"Then farewell."

"Kyaa!!"

When I threatened it, the thing even moved. It shuffled away surprisingly fast. It really wasn't an ordinary rock.

For some reason, there seemed to be far more enjoyable research subjects here than back at the academy. Country farm life really was this healing and pleasant.

Just then, something perfect to test came to mind.

'The affinity system's unlock condition was exchanging names, right?'

I thrust the pickaxe forward and asked.

"I am the mage called Ri. Do you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have a name?"

"B-Buckle!! Please spare me!!"

Come on. I wasn't going to kill it.

"From now on, Buckle's home is the research lab in our house."

At that moment, a voice that felt like salvation rang out.

"Hoo."

A bomb made and sold directly by a dwarf—the original root source of firepower. When I considered how disappointingly weak imperial magic's firepower tended to be, this was incredibly appealing.

'It means I can blow away any terrain I don't like later.'

This place was a basin surrounded by layer upon layer of mountains. I had already been thinking it would be good to demolish one mountain for the sake of logistics efficiency and smooth passage.

Even if not that, a tunnel would be convenient. Asking Miroa to do it was out of the question. No matter how strong she was, she was still only human; she couldn't blow up an entire mountain alone. My magic was the same. No matter how efficient, I lacked the mana to erase a whole mountain.

So I had needed another method.

'What if I stockpile bombs and set them all off at once?'

Collecting bombs step by step also sounded like an interesting challenge. Gathering dozens or hundreds and detonating them together would be incredibly fun.

The price for the bombs was ridiculously just stones or bits of metal.

"I'm a useful dwarf, it is!! I hate pickaxes!! Please just don't kill me!!"

So I'd spare him for now.

"You can trade stones and various useful goods, right?"

When I asked as if testing the waters, the answer that came back was tremendous.

"Tasty, it is."

Was it eating its own kind? No. Since it had originally been a dwarf, that didn't count as its own kind. But dwarves didn't particularly eat stones, did they?

The more angles I considered, the more complicated it became, so I decided to keep it simple.

'It's basically a trash can, isn't it?'

I could instantly clear out all the junk items that even shops refused to buy. And the payment was none other than bombs. Good was good.

I moved past the dwarf Buckle and headed for the next floor.

I bought a few bombs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to raise his affinity. Using them inside the mine, however, was on hold. I was still in the middle of stockpiling as many as possible, and Miroa could easily crush a few rocks by herself.

"Miroa. This way."

"Yes."

Exploration magic actually had three colors. Useful mineral veins glowed blue. Dangerous monsters glowed red. And the light marking the entrance to the next floor was golden.

I approached the rock marked with golden light and struck down with the pickaxe.

Clang!

Clang!

Thanks to the game system's assistance, I could break the rock without much difficulty after only a few swings. Each strike visibly shattered more of it. The hearty breakfast helped too.

Miroa, who had wanted to take over but had her pickaxe confiscated, watched from the side. The sight seemed to leave quite an impression.

"Master, when did you train your body to this degree...?"

"Magic."

"I see. I thought as much."

I brushed it off with the all-purpose excuse of magic. It was magic, after all.

Afterward I used the pickaxe to clear away the broken fragments. The staircase leading to the lower floor appeared as suddenly as a mirage vanishing. A large passage that hadn't existed before simply popped into being. This truly was the charm of ancient magic. Since I would be visiting the abandoned mine often, I planned to analyze this later.

"Today we'll only go down about ten floors like this."

"I will follow with my life on the line."

I made sure to farm diligently between floors.

The items I obtained from mining were quartz, copper, coal, gold ore, and so on. The spoils Miroa gathered from hunting were insect meat, bat wings, and the like. With our pockets nicely filled, we successfully cleared all the way to the ninth floor.

Slash.

Miroa cut down another bellari. The insect meat would be useful as fishing bait and as trade goods.

"Do you intend to go deeper?"

"This is around the ninth floor?"

"If we call the floor with the original entrance the first floor, yes. This is the ninth basement level."

Miroa didn't look particularly tired, but time was the problem.

"Monsters are affected by time. They grow stronger at night. The underground monsters are no exception, so it will become dangerous if we stay any later."

Monsters tended to rampage more after dark. The deeper we went, the more I worried about the climb back up. But the moment we reached the tenth floor, we encountered an elevator.

Ding!

When I pressed the button, it worked perfectly.

"We can leave now."

Inside the elevator heading upward, Miroa asked me carefully.

"Master, did you already know about this?"

"It was mentioned several times in documents about ancient mines."

Information about the mine elevator that functioned as a sort of save point.

'It wasn't ancient texts. It was just metagaming.'

In truth I had simply read it from the status window.

Ding!

The elevator returned to the surface. I met a familiar face again.

"Ah, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠person who gives stones!! I'm glad you're safe, it is!!"

"Yeah. Good work."

When I responded, his affinity rose again.

The round, smooth rock had no face to speak of. Yet after I gave him some stones as payment for the bombs, he was already following me around. The descriptions in the legends had been pure evil, but...

'I think I'll leave him like this for now.'

The fact that he was a rock rather than his true dwarf form played no small part in my decision to let him live. After gathering plenty of useful resources, we stepped outside.

Step, step.

Crunch, crunch.

I was pushing through the potatoes that filled me with warmth just by looking at them when I reached the front of the mansion.

"What the..."

Something had arrived in front of the mansion. It was a letter-carrying spirit, but not an ordinary pigeon. It was a winged bird, yet even from a distance it radiated dignity and grace.

'That's exclusively for the imperial family.'

It was a firebird spirit that only the imperial family could use.