Several minutes later, the screeching had died out.
The goblins had been wiped out completely leaving nothing but twisted green corpses, the metallic tang of blood and the dull glow of monster cores scattered in the dirt.
Vex, the black-haired scout, moved through the carnage with the hands of a vulture.
He was bent low prying the cores from the chests of the fallen creatures with his dagger popping them out like overripe seeds. As he worked, he whistled a jaunty, out-of-place tune as he began to sing.
"One little greenie, out in the dark... took a little dagger right to the heart."
Pop!
Another core went into his hand.
"Two little greenies, hiding in the mud... now they're just puddles of bone and blood."
Kahn, the burly leader of the group, stood a few feet away.
He had his oversized hammer resting over his shoulder, the heavy metal head still stained with goblin brain matter.
He wasn't looking at the loot; he was staring at the far wall of the cavern with his eyes narrowed as if trying to see through the rock.
Garrick, on the other hand, had found a jagged rock to sit on. He was leaning forward, his orange hair shadowing his face as he stared at his boots, trying his best to look like an emo protagonist in a tragedy but nobody cared since everyone was ignoring him.
Serra was busy helping Vex gather the cores.
As she bent over to reach for a stray green stone, her dress rode up flashing a clear view of her white panties. Klaus, who happened to be standing right behind her, didn't look away fast enough.
Serra froze, her hand hovering over a core.
She looked back over her shoulder, her face flushing red.
"Hey! Stop peeking at my underwear!" She snapped, dropping the core back into the dirt.
Klaus blinked with a deadpan expression. "I wasn't. Not like I was interested anyway."
"Hey!" Serra huffed, looking genuinely offended that he wasn't interested.
Klaus just turned away, He didn't have time for the drama.
Soon enough, the pair finished gathering the loot and they dropped them in a messy pile in the center of the clearing.
Most of the cores were a pale, sickly green which was the mark of Tier 1 goblins. There was one that stood out, however; a slightly richer green taken from the Hobgoblin.
Kahn looked at the pile and let out a hearty laugh that echoed through the damp cavern.
"Good work, everyone. Not only are we going to make a killing from these cores, but the corpses themselves fetch a decent price for parts."
Vex chuckled, his greedy eyes reflecting the green glow. Kahn tapped a storage ring on his finger, and the pile of cores was sucked inside.
He turned his heavy gaze toward Klaus.
"Now then," Kahn said as his voice dropped into a more serious tone. "Feeling anything else?"
Klaus didn't answer immediately.
He closed his eyes and expanded his Magnetic Field. He could have used Metal Sense, but Magnetic Field had a much larger range. It acted like a sonar, bouncing off anything with a metallic signature.
The downside was that it didn't distinguish between high-value ore and useless scrap, but right now, he needed the range.
The field rippled outward, passing through the stone walls like water through a sieve and he felt a tug.
Something was lodged deep within a nearby wall, a high-density signature that vibrated with a strange energy.
"Over there," Klaus said, walking toward the wall. "I feel something coming from inside here."
He reached out, focusing his mana. He used Magnetic Field to exert a pulling force on the signature, literally dragging it through the solid rock.
The stone groaned and cracked with dust falling in sheets until the wall seemed to spit the material out.
It was a shard, jagged and glowing with a brilliant blue light with thin, obsidian-black veins running through the translucent surface like frozen lightning.
Klaus blinked and the rest of the party froze.
In a flash of black hair, the shard was gone.
Vex had closed the distance in an instant, snatching the shard out of the air before it could even hit the ground.
He held it up to his eye, squinting at the black veins. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small, tattered leather book, flipping through the pages with frantic speed.
He stopped on a page near the middle with his finger tracing a line of text. He looked back at the shard, then at the book.
"This is it…" Vex whispered, his voice trembling with awe. "It's an Iron Metil Diamond shard. On the average market, this goes for a hundred silvers, that's one gold coin per shard."
The group's eyes widened and even Klaus felt a jolt of surprise.
One gold coin for a single shard? That kind of money could set them up for months. If the cave was full of them... they weren't just adventurers anymore.
They were treasure hunters.
Kahn turned to Klaus.
"Klaus... can you feel any more of them? Tell me you feel more. If you find us a vein, I'll pay you a bonus that'll make your head spin. This is our big break!"
Klaus didn't need to be told twice. He had expected this dungeon to be a low-tier scrap heap, but Iron Metil Diamonds changed his attitude quickly. He closed his eyes again, pushing the Magnetic Field even further.
There… he felt six more signatures and they felt identical to the first one.
"There are six more in this room," Klaus said.
He didn't wait for permission.
He manipulated the magnetic currents, yanking the shards out of the walls and six blue flashes erupted from the rock from different corners of the cavern. One of them flew directly toward the rock where Garrick was sitting.
Thwack!
The shard clipped the orange-haired swordsman right in the back of the head.
"Gah!" Garrick grunted, the impact knocking him clean off the rock. He tumbled into the dirt with a pathetic thud, rubbing his skull.
Vex didn't even check to see if his teammate was okay. He was already scurrying across the floor like a manic squirrel, picking up the shards one by one.
"All of them! They're all Iron Metil Diamonds!" Vex yelled, his face split into a terrifying grin. "If the rest of the cave is like this, we're going to be stinking rich. We'll be richer than some low-tier nobles!"
Kahn and Vex both turned to look at Klaus.
They were both smiling, but it wasn't the kind of smile you wanted to see. It was the look a shark gives a tuna.
It creeped Klaus out, but he forced a small smile of his own, massaging the back of his head.
"I don't feel anything else on this side of the dungeon…" Klaus said, shifting his weight.
Kahn nodded with his hand tightening on the handle of his hammer. "Forward then. Garrick, get up off the floor. Serra, you stay with Klaus at all times! Do not let him out of your sight."
Serra nodded solemnly.
Klaus knew exactly what was happening.
This wasn't just about protection… They were keeping him under a magnifying glass to make sure he didn't pocket a diamond for himself.
He couldn't blame them; he'd be a fool if he didn't do the same in their position. Wealth changed people, and this dungeon was full of it.
Serra walked over to his side while clutching her staff.
"Thanks for finding those…" she said softly.
"No need," Klaus replied.
Kahn lifted his hammer and pointed it toward the dark tunnel ahead. "Forward!"
…
Two hours later, the environment had changed.
The damp earthy smell of the entrance had been replaced by the scent of metal that tickled the back of the throat.
Klaus was currently sitting on a large flat rock, catching his breath. Serra was standing right next to him with her staff glowing as a protective barrier shimmered around the two of them.
Up ahead, the rest of the group was in the middle of a chaotic melee with a fresh pack of goblins.
"Are you ever going to let me stand up?" Klaus asked, looking at Serra.
"No," the healer replied while her eyes were fixed on the fight. "You need to save your energy to find more diamonds. We can handle the fodder…"
This had become the routine.
Every time they entered a new chamber, the party would clear the area while Klaus focused entirely on the mineral signatures.
They didn't want him fighting; they wanted him mining and the haul was becoming legendary.
They hadn't just found Iron Metil shards, they had found Silver Metil Diamonds, which went for 500 silvers a shard.
They had found two dozen of those alone.
Then, tucked into a corner of a sub-chamber, Klaus had pulled out a formation of Copper Metil Diamond… The whole formation alone was worth at least 1,000 silvers and these were only the minimum market prices, too. If they sold in bulk to the right collector, the price would skyrocket.
'I'm only getting ten percent, but still...' Klaus thought.
He hated the contract he had signed.
If he had known the dungeon was a Metil Diamond mine, he would have demanded forty percent. He was the only reason they were finding them. Without him, they'd be walking past millions of silvers hidden behind an inch of rock.
He looked up toward the fight.
Vex was currently dancing between two goblins that were significantly larger than the scouts they'd seen at the entrance.
The one on the left lunged with a rusted spear and Vex dipped his shoulder, dodging the stab by a hair's breadth, then ducked under a wide clumsy slash from the goblin on the right.
Vex then reached into his cloak and pulled out the usual two small, pitch-black bombs that he dubbed the "Black Balls of Chaos."
He didn't throw them but instead he lunged forward, stuffing the balls directly into the open mouths of both goblins before spinning away and sprinting behind a pillar.
BOOM!
The muffled explosions sent green gore painting the walls. Another goblin tried to pivot toward Vex's back, but a flash of steel cut through the air.
Garrick was there, his orange hair swaying as he completed a wide horizontal slash.
"Fight me!" Garrick shouted into the cave.
'You're not tough, bro.' Klaus thought, shaking his head.
Garrick kept swinging, cutting through the remaining small fry with flashy, unnecessary movements. Serra watched him for a second before looking at Klaus. "Is this something all swordsmen do?"
Klaus thought back to the swordsmen he'd seen in the game… the plot armor hero, the prince and even the heroines.
"No…" he said. "It's just him."
Kahn was the real force in the room. He took a heavy step forward with his boot cracking the stone floor and creating a small crater.
A Hobgoblin charged him, swinging a thick wooden baton. The weapons collided with a sickening SKRR sound as metal ground against wood.
Kahn didn't recoil. He leaned in and delivered a brutal headbutt.
The crack of the Hobgoblin's skull was audible over the roar of the battle. The beast staggered back, dazed, and Kahn seized the opening. He brought the hammer down in a massive overhead swing, slamming the Hobgoblin into the ground so hard the floor caved in.
A second Hobgoblin came charging from the side, but Kahn was ready.
He dropped his hammer, caught the beast by the face with one hand, and slammed it into the rock wall. Veins popped on his massive biceps as he applied pressure, literally crushing the creature's head against the stone.
The last of the goblins fell to Garrick's blade as Kahn hove his hammer back onto his shoulder with his chest heaving as he let out a hearty adrenaline-fueled laugh.
"Nice warm-up!" Kahn yelled. He turned his eyes toward the rock where Klaus was sitting. "Well? Feel anything?"
Klaus shook his head. "I don't feel a thing in this room."
Kahn's smile didn't disappear, but his eyes turned cold.
He leveled the head of the hammer toward Klaus. "You better not be lying to me, boy."
Klaus immediately lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender.
This was the problem with groups.
Greed was a poison… Klaus knew that if he even looked like he was holding out on them, they wouldn't hesitate to torture him for the locations.
Once he was bled dry of information, they'd kill him to keep the secret of the dungeon for themselves. It was basic human behavior in a lawless world like the dungeon.
Klaus was confident he could escape if things went south, but he wasn't confident he could outrun them for long. Kahn, Vex, and Garrick were all aura users and they had physical stats that far outstripped his own.
Serra was a healer who could keep them in the chase indefinitely so he was at their mercy, and he hated every second of it.
Kahn chuckled, sensing the tension. Suddenly, a section of the far wall trembled. The rock groaned and slid aside, revealing a hidden compartment that spiraled downward.
"The path to the Boss has opened," Kahn said, walking toward the opening.
He reached the threshold and stopped dead. "Woah."
Vex ran over with his eyes gleaming. "Let me see! Let me see!"
Vex reached the edge and his jaw practically hit the floor. The rest of the group joined them, Klaus and Serra trailing behind.
What lay ahead was a long, winding cavern leading toward a massive ceremonial door but the architecture of the tunnel wasn't what stopped them.
The walls, the ceiling, and the very floor were encrusted with Metil Diamonds.
The walkway was a literal treasure map.
There were Iron shards everywhere, but tucked between them were Copper shards, Silver shards, and even the fabled Gold Metil shards that glowed with a warm sun-like radiance.
It was a treasure mine worth enough gold to buy a small city. It was enough to make all of them nobles ten times over.
"We're rich!" Vex screamed.
"We're rich!" Kahn roared at the same time.
Klaus stood at the back of the group, staring at the glittering gold shards. He didn't feel rich but he did feel the cold prickle of dread on the back of his neck.
'Something is going to happen…' he thought. 'And I'm not going to like it.'