The Runesmith

Chapter 632: Strange Tremors.

“Hey, wench, bring me another mug of that ale.”

“Why settle for a mug when we can get an entire pitcher?”

“Damn, you are right.”

The three adventurers cackled at their own brilliance and slammed their empty mugs onto the wooden table while shouting for the waitress. The Red Dragon Inn was loud that night, louder than usual. The adventurers had just returned from a long expedition to the more dangerous outskirts of the dungeon, and they were eager to brag about how close they had come to dying. They wanted to savour their escape from what they insisted had been certain death.

The waitress approached with a tray tucked against her hip. Her dark hair was braided, and her features were sharp for someone no older than her mid-teens.

“My name…”

She said with clear irritation.

“Is Millie. Not wench. And if you slam your mugs and they break, you are buying them.”

The closest adventurer, an unshaven brute with far too many knives on his belt, grinned when he heard her speak.

“Fiery one, are you not? Come on, Millie, do not be like that. We are just having fun.”

“Your idea of fun.”

She replied, dropping the fresh pitcher between them with a solid thud.

“Usually ends with vomit. Vomit that I am the one who has to clean up.”

The adventurers roared with laughter, more at her frustration than at their own jokes. Millie did not find it nearly as amusing. She turned on her heel at once, eager to get away from the reeking table of half-drunk adventurers. As soon as she stepped away, a sudden quiver ran down the wooden floor.

A ripple, subtle but unmistakable, moved through the inn’s floorboards. Mugs rattled. The chandelier above gave a sharp clink, and several adventurersʼ coin pouches jingled. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the tremor faded. Confusion spread across the room.

‘What was that?’

The knife-belted brute muttered the question as his grin vanished. The second man lowered his mug in mid gulp, overseeing the room as if waiting for something.

“An earthquake? Do not tell me the monsters are rampaging early?”

A few other patrons in the Red Dragon Inn cut their conversations short and looked around with growing unease. Even the bard stopped playing his lute as everyone tried to understand the tremor.

“It cannot be a monster rampage. It stopped too soon.”

One adventurer said while scratching his head.

“If it is not the monsters, then what caused it? We do not get ordinary earthquakes here.”

The adventurers slipped into an argument as they tried to make sense of what had happened. Whatever shook the inn had to come from somewhere.

“That was not an earthquake, and it was not a monster rampage.”

They stared at the young girl who had interrupted them.

“And how would you know, miss Not a Wench?”

“Because earthquakes do not feel like that.”

She tapped the floorboards with the toe of her boot.

“That was a shockwave. Deep. Something must have exploded.”

The three men exchanged looks of disbelief and then burst out laughing.

“An explosion? Strong enough to do this in the dungeon?”

It was clear they did not believe a word the girl said. To them, she was nothing more than a waitress whose job was to clean the tables and carry their mugs of ale. They were all tier three adventurers, and if they could not figure out what had happened, then she certainly could not either.

“Haha, I am sure some mage blew himself up, and the explosion reached all the way here, girly.”

Millie did not laugh. Her brows drew together, and for a moment she looked furious. She was about to give the man a sharp retort when a voice called from behind her.

“Millie, the tables need cleaning up. Please take care of it.”

She looked back to see a woman standing behind the counter. The two resembled each other closely but she was clearly much older.

“Yes, Mom.”

She answered and finally pulled her attention away from the laughing adventurers who had already forgotten about the strange tremor. Millie, however, could not help wondering what had caused it. Most people thought she looked like a maid or someone with a cooking class, but her class had come from her father’s side rather than her mother’s. That alone made her think the disturbance had been caused by a powerful explosion.

‘But there had been no shockwave or sound. What could it have been?’

She drifted deeper into her thoughts as she tended to the tables. Her eyebrows furrowed again as she looked at the mess another group of adventurers had left behind.

‘Why do these people always treat us like this?’

She lived among powerful combat class holders, and to them, people like her were nothing more than servants. She knew she was stuck here and understood that if she wished to survive, she needed to play her role. Her father was gone and the protection she and her mother had relied on was fading. It was best to stay quiet and hope that someday she and her mother could leave this place.

*****

‘I think I might have to create something better to absorb these underwater shockwaves…’

Roland watched the explosions ripple outward as his torpedoes tore into the clustered sea serpents. The bursts of light appeared muted beneath the water, yet every blast sent a violent surge through the lakebed. Dark clouds of blood spread through the depths like drifting smoke, and severed scales drifted slowly toward the bottom. He had set up a spell to dampen the shockwave and managed to prevent a full heavy earthquake, but it was still not enough.

The creatures thrashed in pain, but the frenzy that had drawn them to the lure kept them from fleeing. Several serpents coiled in confusion and whipped their tails across the lakebed as their panic grew. They could not identify the source of the attack because Roland remained hidden behind an array of concealment spells.

‘This is quite the shooting gallery.’

Roland kept his distance while watching for any sudden movement. His cloak of mana held firm, and the serpents paid no attention to him. They focused only on the glowing orb and the strange substance it released. The lure placed them in a trance-like state, and they continued to swallow it while being torn apart by his new weapon.

‘This lure is better than I expected, it even has a sedation effect on them…’

It was a strange sight to see the monsters ignore their survival instinct. Even as some of their allies died in front of them, the sea serpents moved toward the lure instead, as if pleased that the competition had been cleared away. If not for it, some would have probably escaped the bombardment.

Congratulations, you have leveled up!

Congratulations, you have leveled up!

‘This is a resounding success…’

Within a few minutes, he had risen another two levels. Although this method required more planning and preparation, it proved highly effective. This was one of the middle-sized lakes in the area, so he would be ready to move on to multiple lakes the next time he appeared. With the rate of destruction confirmed, he now understood how many torpedoes he needed and how he could improve their design.

‘The only real problems are these tremors and the splash…’

After the first salvo, a massive geyser of displaced water surged upward from the middle of the lake. Agni began howling and running about as the water splashed in every direction. Roland felt the pressure change even through his armor, and the shockwaves slammed into his mana mantle.

‘I could place shock absorbers around the lake, but it will use up a lot of power…’

If he prepared further and created specialised spells to absorb the tremors, it would slow his progress. The adventurers were already aware that something strange was happening within the dungeon, but in another part of it. So as long as he acted quickly, he should be able to get away with his new hunting method. This time, most of the damage would remain inside the lake, with only a few cracks spreading outward.

‘Not like they have anyone brave enough to dive in and investigate.’

The stronghold the adventurers had created lacked any proper structure. It was nothing like the organisation of the Adventurers Guild above ground. Their leader could assign missions to investigate unusual events, but most people preferred to stick to hunting monsters and focusing on whatever helped them maintain their high levels.

Even if someone appeared before him now, they would probably not dare dive into the lake. Breathing underwater without the help of magic was impossible, and most of the mages here focused on combat rather than utility. While they could likely create shields or bubbles around themselves, venturing into the deeper parts of these lakes where large lesser dragons lurked was considered suicide.

“Hm… that should be all of them…”

Once the tremors subsided and all the torpedoes were used, no monsters remained. The materials required to make them powerful enough to damage monsters around level two hundred and fifty were not cheap, but he would get his money’s worth.

“I should get to it.”

Some of the monster parts floated to the surface while others sank into the depths. It would be unwise to let all of these tier three lesser dragon parts go to waste. When hunting plant dragons, most of their flesh was usually torn apart or burnt, but that was not the case here.

Large portions of their bodies remained intact and could be used for various purposes, even for armor or weaponry.

At first, Roland rose slowly to the surface to show himself to Agni, who had been agitated by the explosion and the water spraying in every direction. Soon, the monster body pieces broke through the surface as well, and it was time to get to work.

‘I can leave the cleanup on the surface to the regular golems, but I will have to handle everything myself on the bottom.’

”Agni.”

”Woof?”

”Stay here. I have to go down. If someone comes, hide inside the forest.”

”Awooo!?”

Agni did not seem pleased with the order, but he would obey it. With the lake now cleared out, Roland used his spatial magic to summon regular spider golems and a few humanoid ones. They spread out along the shore. The spider drones came equipped with large nets, while the humanoid golems helped pull them back with the bodies of the sea serpents trapped inside.

Once they were set in motion, Roland submerged himself again to collect the parts that had sunk. His mana hand spell could stretch quite far, so he used it to gather everything in his sight. Each piece he retrieved was deposited into one of his spatial runes for safekeeping.

‘I wish I could use these spatial runes as a means of transport. It would make things much easier.’

He recalled the battle with the abyssal cult, where he had nearly died. During that fight, he had modified one of his runes to reach his other armor. Although the feat had seemed like a clever shortcut, it carried serious consequences.

If another rune was fashioned with the same coordinates and applied later, it would destabilize the space where the items were stored. It could be done once or twice, but after that, the space would collapse, destroying everything inside and causing the connecting rune to explode as well.

”And the mana cost exceeds that of teleportation gates too...”

It was a technology with future potential, but it required far more study. To his knowledge, no one in this world had managed to fix this deteriorating effect. If he succeeded, he would be creating something never before seen, a method that could make transporting goods almost instantaneous. Even then, considering the immense mana cost, it was unlikely to find commercial use as teleportation gates existed.

Roland exhaled slowly as he swept his gaze over the now emptied lakebed. Where once a nest of apex predators had slumbered, there now remained only destruction. Instead of using his eyes of mana, he relied on ordinary light from his armor to illuminate the area as the cleanup began.

He moved around, quickly gathering whatever he deemed important. The lesser dragon blood, even when diluted by water, could be used for various potions, something Rastix would certainly be interested in. Even the meat and bones could be fashioned into something useful, and at this stage, he could probably embed runes into fully operational bone armor.

‘Hm… wait, what is that?’

A few minutes passed as he pulled various parts closer, until he noticed something unusual. In the area where the sea serpents had spawned, something protruded from the yellow lake sand. It was unmistakable, some sort of ore.

‘This is…’

His boots touched the ground, and the light from his armor shone in all directions. The signs of the sea serpents’ slumber were everywhere, yet they seemed to have avoided a particular rock formation. Roland extended his hand and released a controlled burst of air pressure, carefully pushing the sand aside to reveal an intriguing discovery.

If he was not mistaken, this ore was only found at the bottom of deep sea trenches and was not something that could normally be mined or excavated. It was a material rarely used for anything since underwater mining was still in its infancy, yet for some reason, he had found it in this lake within the dungeon, somewhere no one had ever thought to look.

Roland hovered closer, his boots crunching softly against the lakebed as more sand drifted away under the controlled pressure of his spell. What emerged was not a simple vein but a rocky cluster of obsidian stone with metal blue crystals protruding from it, shimmering when the light touched their surface.

“Abyssal star steel, they call it? It really does look like a meteorite clump, but whoever came up with that name has a strange sense of humour…”

His eyes narrowed behind the visor as the realization settled in. He knew instantly that if anyone discovered this deposit, his entire grinding operation would be at risk. This dungeon belonged to the duke, and he would never allow such a vein to go to waste.

‘It is not much, though, but more could be hidden in the other lakes, and there is also that large one.’

The amount here was limited. After clearing the sand with his spell and analyzing the cluster with his sensors, he was certain it would produce at most a few ingots for personal use. He could craft some armor or weapons from it, but there was not enough to support anything on a wider scale.

However, there were multiple lakes in the area, and the monsters hidden within them behaved in much the same way. It was possible that in each of them, he might find another small pocket vein of this metal.

Just like any other dungeon, this was likely a renewable resource, meaning that with time, he would be able to continue mining it. The metal was considered a notch above mithril while still remaining within the tier three range, though at the upper end. It would make a fine upgrade, one he would need if he intended to fight the top-tier monsters in this area.

There was also the largest lake, which potentially housed a rare variant of sea serpents. He had planned to avoid it for now, but once he gained a few more levels and prepared additional ammunition for underwater combat, it could become a viable option.

‘I wasn’t expecting this, but I could use this for Rune Mark III.’

With his elemental armors that enhanced his power for each element, his Rune Mark II armor had become somewhat outdated. Mithril was still rare, yet many metals surpassed it. With this new material, he could create something truly exceptional, a suit of armor capable of supporting higher tier three runes and the more complex structures he could now design. When he crafted the first version of his mithril armor, he had only just reached tier three. Now he needed something that could carry him through the middle stages, especially as a new class was beginning to appear on the horizon.

‘Though this still might not be enough.’

With that thought, he pulled out a spear. It had not been made for this purpose, but it was enough to pry the metallic ore from the ground. He jammed it in and used it as a lever to loosen the piece of rock. After a few attempts, it broke free, and he stored it away. His hunt was complete, and it was time to withdraw.