Chapter 127 – Kobold Hunting.

“Well, these aren’t giving me much…”

“( ¬ _ ¬ )”

“They taste bad?”

Rusty stood over the dissolving remains of a monster. It looked like a clump of mud with a strange broken core hidden within, a Mud Slime. When it was alive, it had a glistening brown body made of an unusual goop. Normal slimes were transparent to some extent, allowing people to see their cores easily, but this one hid its core due to its different form.

“At least they fall easily to your magic, Gleam… I wish I could use magic too…”

There were several of these little creatures dead around them. They were the first monsters Rusty and Gleam had encountered. While they were unable to damage his steel body, they had made it quite dirty. He had used a simple mace to smash their bodies, hoping to hit their cores, and even when he missed, their bodies exploded everywhere, covering him in grime.

That was why he decided to leave it to Gleam to shoot them from a safe distance. Whenever a spell touched their bodies, the mana would somehow destroy the core instantly, which only made him long for magic even more.

“(´・ω・`)”

Gleam climbed back onto Rusty’s shoulder, her antennae touching his helmet in a reassuring way as she tried to comfort her friend.

“You’re right. I’ll get it eventually, if not with a level-up, then with my absorption skill.”

Rusty was confident that he would gain the ability to cast. He was only missing one skill to do so. His absorption skill had a drawback, though. The more skills he absorbed, the longer the cooldown before he could use it again. If he overused it, he would have to wait weeks, maybe even months, before trying again. That was why he limited how often he used it. Besides, there weren’t many skills around that would make him significantly stronger. It was better to save this ability for other rare skills instead.

“So, you’ve said that they should be some mages here?”

“That is what that old dirty board said at the adventurer guild… but who knows?”

Aburdon replied from within Rusty’s left eye socket, his dark glow radiating next to Alexander’s who was on the right side. Now that Rusty was back in the dungeon, he had adorned his full monster form with no troublesome cloth parts to impede his movement.

“ (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) “

“You’re right Gleam, no use waiting here and complaining, let’s go in deeper and see what this dungeon has to offer for us!”

Rusty pointed with his steel finger toward the next tunnel, and soon, his metal footsteps echoed through the corridors. Even though this place was called the Sunken Mine, he had yet to reach the sunken part. Instead, he was moving through various mining shafts.

“Wait… could it really be?”

As he turned a corner, he arrived at a dead end. At first, he considered heading back, but then he spotted a mineral deposit on the far wall, dark gray with streaks of rusty red. Approaching it, he quickly accessed his system and retrieved a steel pickaxe he had forged within the Soul Forge space. With a few well-placed strikes, he dislodged a chunk of rock and examined it.

“It’s iron ore!”

“Well, this is a mine dungeon. It’s normal for it to have metal ores.”

Alexander commented as Rusty examined both the rock in his hand and the larger deposit within the wall.

“We might find something more valuable deeper inside, but don’t get your hopes up.”

“What do you mean?”

Rusty asked while using some SP to place the ore chunk into his storage.

“Most precious metals above iron have probably already been mined, and this deposit was likely left behind because it wasn’t worth the effort.”

Rusty studied the wall and the ore in his hand. He could tell it had a lot of impurities, which would need to be removed through smelting. Not everyone had a system like his to process it instantly. Iron wasn’t particularly rare or useful for monster hunting either. Equipment above E-rank was usually made from superior metal variants, like black steel, which was said to be enhanced by dungeon mana to form a stronger alloy. This iron wasn’t black iron, so he wouldn’t be getting a head start from it.

“We should be careful, if the guild or the city lord has a contract to mine out the metals, if we get caught, we will be in a lot of trouble.”

“Humanoid laws again? Those are really troublesome… wouldn’t it be better if there weren’t any?”

“( •̀ – •́ )”

Rusty nodded as Gleam agreed with him. The two of them were monsters, not truly part of humanoid society, so all these rules and systems seemed like a needless burden.

“If not for those laws, the world wouldn’t be able to function”

Alexander replied. Having once been part of that society, he understood its importance. Without laws, the world would descend into chaos. Worse, without unity, the races might fall to the ever-present threat of monsters.

“Bah, who needs laws? The strong should decide what’s right. Isn’t that so, Rusty?”

Aburdon cackled as he rebutted the fallen hero. As a former demon king, he had ruled through sheer power, unchallenged and absolute. In his world, laws didn’t exist, only his will mattered, and no one had been strong enough to oppose him.

Rusty struck the wall again with his pickaxe, dislodging more iron ore while listening to his two guides argue. He couldn’t help but wonder what an ideal world would look like. Would more laws bring order, or would no laws bring true freedom? If he ever became as powerful as Alexander or Aburdon had been in their prime, could he shape the world with his strength alone?

Questions swirled in his hollow mind, but they quickly faded as he refocused on his current objective which was to find a mage. Ever since coming here he was sticking to the walls and using his skills to fade into the shadows when other adventurers approached. This dungeon was new and as before, he was more worried about adventurers than the monsters lurking inside. At least the monsters wouldn’t try to fool him while the people in this world had many other agendas besides just being strong.

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“You might be right… this iron ore is probably not worth the trouble…”

After smacking the wall for around ten minutes Rusty decided to give up on this endevour. The quality of the ore was just too low for his liking, and unless he found a more valuable deposit deeper within, it simply wasn’t worth his time. He stored away the few chunks he had mined and turned away from the wall, refocusing on his goal.

“Let’s move on. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

He adjusted his grip on his weapon and started backtracked to take a different tunnel. The deeper they ventured, the more the air seemed to change. The dampness increased, and a faint mist began creeping along the cavern floor, swirling around his metal boots. The mine shafts gave way to rougher terrain, and wooden supports became sparser, replaced by jagged stone walls and the occasional carved-out alcove where old mining equipment lay abandoned.

“Oh… Look Gleam, doesn’t that one look similar?”