“So, this is where all the people went,” I said as walked towards the entrance of the mines. 

There were about twenty, maybe even thirty players in front of the mines. I haven’t seen many players in the village today. I just thought that it was off peak hours or something but it turned out that the players were here. Besides the players, there were also many NPCs busy about something, moving equipment and carts of rocks out of the mines while bringing in what looked like barricades inside. They may be evacuating the lower levels. I was sure they were the miners. I think I recognize some of them.

I stopped walking and tensed up. What did I just think about? I shook my head. Why would I recognize the NPCs? I couldn’t recognize Mardukryons individually before. Or, perhaps, I was getting used to Mardukryon facial features. Yep, that was probably the reason. It was like moving to a new place and getting used to the people there as time went by.

Someone bumped into me. “Hey,” I called out.

“Sorry,” the player said. He was followed by two more players. “We’re rushing a quest,” he said pointing his thumb to the entrance of the mine. He galloped away.

“You never know how long this event lasts,” the other guy following him said. "Better line up now," he added before going down the mines as well. 

Did they mean this Wraithpede infestation event? I should also join it then and do it simultaneously with my collection quest from Sumuel. This event was possibly the same as those random cyclical events that add variety to an MMORPG. I used to play a game where there were demon invasions every couple of months or so just to disrupt the routine feeling of playing the game.

Players were either lining up in front of a table managed by Miner NPCs or staying at the sides. I also joined the line. This was probably where quests were given out.

I finally reached the end the table. The large Mardukryon who talked to me had bandages covering.

“Kid, do you know what you’re signing up for?” he said to me. He was a miner named Muluek, level thirty-four as stated on the information above his head.

“Um, what am I signing up for?” I said. “I just followed the line.”

“You’re gonna go down there and squish those bugs that came out of that darned Wraithpede tunnel,” Muluek said. “You don’t seem that tough to me, are you sure you want to help cleaning the mines?” He pointed to his bandages. “I got these injuries when the Wraithpede burst out in level six. Kid, are you prepare to get injured?”

“Yep, I’m ready to get injured,” I said, laughing. I chose the quest for clearing the fourth floor. I wanted to get a feel of the fourth level first to make sure that I could handle the fifth floor.

There were more players inside the mines, most of them were grouped into parties. I spotted other monsters besides the crabores that frequent the first level. They must be the ones who got out of the Wraithpede tunnel down below. But all of them were dead. The moment a monster crept out of whatever hole it was hiding in, a player was there to end its life. The first level was really congested. Players were going nuts killing everything.

Even Miner NPCs were joining in.

I descended to the next level and it was the same case. Overgrown Crabores and Spiky Crabores were kicked to the side as players rushed to kill the new monsters and loot their drops. The new monsters looked like giant black maggots, about the size of my arm at the least. I shrugged. I would get to see more of them below anyway so enough sightseeing. I galloped deeper into the mines.

I arrived at the third level. “One more level to go.” The third floor was wider than the second. I also haven’t been to the entrance to the fourth level but it was probably to the back of this level. I kickstarted and was about to charge when I felt a slight rumble beneath my feet.

I looked down and saw a life bar above a mound that was slowly forming. Then the floor cracked. I stabbed down with my spear.

“Little buggers trying to ambush me,” I said as I stabbed down again. The ground broke and the fat bulbous body of the monster beneath me showed. I took several steps back. “Woah, woah, you’re not a little bugger.”

A fatass overgrown worm erupted from the ground. I quickly cast my buffs and held my stance with my shield raised high. The worm took up the entire height of the tunnel. The upper third of its body was dotted with suckers like the ones of the tentacles of the octopus. The rest of its body were lined black spiky legs.

“Gluttonous Talgash Grubling. Level seventeen. Bring it on,” I shouted at it. Its name was displayed in ornate violet lettering, indicating that it was some special ass monster. My Hunter's Instinct informed me that it has acid attacks and very high life.

It brought its body down to slam on me. I caught its colossal body with my shield at an angle. It slid off to my right and slammed against the side of the tunnel. The tunnel shook a bit, bringing dust down from the ceiling. I felt a bit of static from its powerful attack.

“I took damage from that? How?” My shell wasn’t even popped. It did get a large chunk off the life bar of my shell. I checked myself if some acid was one me but there was none. "Fucking worm. How did you damage me?" With my long spear, I stabbed at it as it lay dazzled a bit from slamming the walls.

It writhed as I stabbed it. Screeching at me with acidic saliva spewing out of its circular mouth, it reared up once again. I didn’t evade because I was curious what the fuck it was doing to damage me. Another slam. This time it slammed me with its open mouth. It was a critical strike! Damn that worm hurts a lot.

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But my shell held. Then I saw that my shield along with the shell was covered with that acidic shit from the worm. The acid didn’t go through the shell but it was chewing the small remaining life of the shell fast.

I popped my own shell and directed the explosion at the fat worm, recast, and continued attacking him. It took me awhile to kill it because it had tons of life. Nevertheless, I have tons of regeneration, so drawn out fights were good for me. I had some problems with my Solar Spirit. The acid attack of the worm was very potent in taking down my shell and it attacked in slow but very heavy hits so I couldn't count on my block chance to regenerate Spirit every time I blocked. But it ate all the explosions of my shell at point blank range so I was able to take it out with minimal damage to myself.

I figured out why that bastard was able to damage me even when I had a shell up. Its body slam attack had some sort of shockwave that goes through defenses. The only way to avoid damage was to evade the body slam itself. I was sure the shockwave was some sort of physical damage because I tested it out.

All these time, I kept on damaging myself to level my Ancestral Constitution, it became second nature for me and I automatically did it even when I wasn’t thinking about it. But I stopped stacking up my Ancestral Constitution for this fight to check out how he was damaging me. Sure enough, whenever he slammed down on me, my Ancestral Constitution procced, which meant that I was taking physical damage. Physical as in someone was hitting me, compared to the damage of poison gas or something, which doesn’t proc my skill.

“I have to watch out for some types of physical attacks as well,” I said as I went over its corpse to check for loot. “I thought that if I levelled my shell and got lots of armor I’d already. be fine on the physical side of defense. I was wrong”

I got two [Talgash Grubling Legs] and two pieces of [Talgash Grubling Hide]. 

"And this is just a grubling? What the hell does the adult, full-sized version of this thing looks like then?" I looked at the loot tab. Something was familiar. I think I have seen Talgash somewhere. I opened my quests tab and checked all of my quests. The loot I got were part of one of my collection quests from Sumuel. A step in the right direction. 

My trip to the end of the third level did not go smoothly. I encountered more of those grublings. I avoided fighting more than one of them at a time. My Spirit wouldn’t be able to keep up with how fast they were able to melt my shell. I had to take several detours to avoid groups of those fuckers. A silver lining was that during my detours, I came across some minerals and ores that I was able to mine.

I also came across a party of five who were looting the corpses of four grublings plus one even larger and even more mutated looking than the grublings. Pretty strong players, I guess.

The entrance to the fourth level was barricaded. In the large open space in front of the entrance, the Miners had made some makeshift mini-fort. There were corpses of monsters strewn all around. 

I spotted a couple of bonfires inside the fort while the NPCs roasted some meat. There were also many players who were interacting with the NPCs. I thought that there were only a few Mardukryon players, but it appeared that I was off in my estimates. This must be a record high for most players I have met in one day. I checked my friends list to see if Nicole, Justalyne or Mephisto was online. Nope, they were offline.

I stepped inside the fort. 

This was like a small village. The Miners probably built this to stem the tide of monsters going up the mine since the Hunter-Warriors, the NPC ones anyway, were unavailable. I suspected that the players were selling their loot to the NPCs here. There was also a stall with tools. A place to repair our gear? This is so convenient. This was probably all for the small event.

I checked out the entrance to the fourth level. Large spike barricades blocked it off except for a narrow opening. A couple of small monsters ran out of the fourth level right into spike traps set by Pathfinders. The Pathfinder player who set the trap didn't even move from their spot. They were probably surfing the internet while leveling up.

“My friend,” a voice said. Someone patted me on the shoulder. 

“Hey, Balasi,” I said. Even without reading the name on top of the NPC, I recognized that this guy was Balasi, the dumbass who failed his first Trial of Fire. But I enjoyed my time saving him so I was fine with him.

Balasi said, “Are you here to help us out?”

“Us? Oh, you’re a miner.”

“Yes. I chose to be a miner,” Balasi said. He leaned close to me and cupped his hands near his mouth so that others wouldn’t hear what he said to me. “Don’t laugh. I’m about to tell you my secret. I know I can trust you, right?”

“Of course, you can trust me. I saved your ass. I’m your bro!”

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “There were many attempts to get past the Ice Tunnel since the Elder has exited the mountain but no one was successful. My father told me that the path the Elder took already cave in when he used it to return to the village. There are other paths inside, but many strong monsters guard them. The caved-in path was our best chance.”

“Caved in? Why?”

“My father said that a large monster collapsed the path when it chased the Elder.”

“That’s pretty much it, then? We’ll have to dig our way through. That’s why you became a Miner?”

Balasi shook his head. “Not through the Ice Tunnel. Don't laugh. I think we should tunnel downwards, following the mines. Somewhere-”

“Balasi,” an NPC shouted. “What are you doing over there? Time to work.”

“I have to go now,” Balasi said. “The miners are forming a group to go down and sweep the fourth level again. The critters keep on coming back. We have to keep them in check or else they will swell up in numbers and spill out of the mines and to our village like what happened last time.”

“Yeah, like last time,” I said with a smirk. I walked with him to another part of  their makeshift base. Many NPCs armed to the teeth congregated near a small wooden stage. Their NPC Leader stood on the wooden stage, rallying his troops. Players were also present. Safety in numbers, eh?

“This would have been dealt with quickly if the Hunter-Warriors didn’t have to go yesterday. It’s a good thing that many young warriors have helped us,” Balasi said, pointing at the Players.

“I want to help too,” I said. Then I had an interesting idea. “How about you come along with me? We will still be part of this clearing group. Let's just pair together since we're such a good team. We passed the Trial of Fire, right?"

[Invite Lvl. 14 Mardukryon Miner: Balasi to party] 

[Accepted]

I said, "Holy shit, this is actually allowed? Cool."