Chapter 126 Tail Dilemma

----------------------------------------

"So, those are Titan ores, huh?" Edelweiss muttered, her face looking uncomfortable as if she had seen them before and was unwilling to talk about it. The dwarves continued to dig the ores that we had come all the way to this hellhole for. Lhorne, Our dutiful ranger, made the journey inside the cave easier, but it still took two days to get here.

"Hmm? Have you seen them before?" Lily asked. The digging was done by Helmet and his two henchmen while the others stood guard, just in case other Titanite Abyss went in. However, their work was in vain as Lily had cleared this room of those pests.

"Umm, yeah," Edelweiss said uncomfortably.

"Oh, where is it?"

"I am afraid they were already eaten by some kind of worms. Sorry, but I didn't know what Titan ores look like, so I didn't clear out the worms in advance."

"I see."

"But I must say, Lord Lily, I am impressed you managed to clear those worms. We had a hard time dealing with four of them? How many were you facing to clear this massive room? Was it especially vulnerable to fire magic?"

"Ah, no. You just need to penetrate their brain through their eyes. It was their weak point," Lily said. I was thankful once again for my appraisal ability that pointed out their weak point. Without it, we would have had trouble, especially with Nora injuring her legs at that time.

"I see. I think I can do that. Thanks for telling me," Edelweiss smiled.

Five hours later, the room had been cleared of Titan ores, and we proceeded to the next one. The mining on Lily's part was uneventful as she had killed all the worms, but when we stepped into the rooms from Rhegar's reports, Titanite Abyss worms were still chewing on the few Titan ores left.

"Argghh!! Damn it!" Sig yelled as he cursed the worm for taking his precious ores. Now that we had full force, exterminating the worms was easy. In fact, Lily didn't even get any screen time as Edelweiss flared her spells and killed over three worms immediately, while the others used their crossbows to aim at their eyes and dispatched another two worms.

"Sorry, but before we learned of these insects' weakness, we could not beat them. We tried, but shamefully ran away!"

"These stones are sacred, and these worms were killing them! We should be glad to sacrifice our lives to protect these stones from these pests!!" Sig shouted. Everyone except the dwarves frowned at him.

"Ahh, sorry. I am just angry. My apologies." Sig retracted his statement and thanked Rhegar for stopping his men from killing themselves in vain.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"That was a bit over the top…" Lily muttered. She stood at a distance as Sig tried to breathe out his fury.

"That is just how they are, Lord Lily. I think they value stones as much as Tailfolk value their tails."

"Ahh, I see. Then let us kill these worms quickly! I will march ahead!" Lily, Sana, Alith, Mark, and Rick went ahead and searched for another swarm of worms. After spending two days mining at Lily's Titan ores pocket, we went into Rhegar's. The journey was quite rough as we had to travel all the way back into the jungle biome and then spend another day in the caves leading to Rhegar's Titan ore pocket.

"Hmm…." Alistar frowned as he stood with Niece and Sig, deep in conversation. He gazed up at the ceiling, but no shout or moan escaped his lips. His frustration was palpable, even from a distance.

"What's wrong with him?" Mark asked.

"Maybe we're short on titan ores because these worms have eaten them all?" Alith and Sana joined in the conversation.

"What happened?" I asked, curious.

"We filled our quotas, but Sig asked us to exterminate all the worms in the other rooms, too," Alistar replied.

"Oh, more mining?" Mattheus' eyes lit up at the thought of gold.

But everyone was silent, unwilling to address the elephant in the room. I sighed, sensing that the dwarves had asked us to kill all the worms but not touch the ores, as they considered them sacred.

"That's ridiculous!" Mattheus exclaimed. "Why should we work for free?"

"You have been paid with over 700 kilos of our titan ores," Sig replied.

"Listen here. Those worms were eating your treasures! Those titan ores can be turned into special weapons or armor! Why would you let them be food for these pests? At least take them!" Mattheus raged uncontrollably, slamming his sword down with a red face. "I don't even want those titan ores! They are useless to me unless they are fabricated into armor or weapons. But leaving them here just so the worms can eat them?!"

"Your greed is showing," Alistar retorted, staring at him coldly.

"But look at those ores eaten by worms! Even if it was not for me, I am still angry!" Mattheus replied, still fuming.

Titan ores were sold for over a thousand gold for each gram, so I was sure Mattheus was lying when he said he didn't want them. But I guessed anger had gotten into his head, and he spoke whatever was on his mind. While I was not as greedy as he was, I was also miffed at the dwarves' behavior.

"We should not take more than we need," Sig replied, frustration etched on his face. "Greed is not healthy. It will defile the mountain."

"Fuck it!" Mattheus stormed off, unable to listen to any more of the dwarven bullshit.

"While we do not share his greed, we put our valuables in a vault. I suggest you mine every titan ore here and put them inside a vault," Edelweiss suggested. "That would make future trading easier too."

Lily, a pure girl without greed, just watched their exchange.

"No. Stones from the mountain should not be disturbed. And those worms are pests. We should kill them all," Sig insisted on his hardheaded decision.

"King Sig, if you don't want to disturb the mountain, then you can simply leave the worms be, right?" Lily finally chimed in, breaking the impasse in their debate.

"That's what we've been telling them all along. If they value the rocks, they should carry them with them. If they want to be in sync with nature, they should just let them be," Edelweiss added.

"But if we leave them alone, those worms might eat all the ores in this mountain!" Sig shouted.

"Then kill the worms and take the ore for safekeeping!" Mattheus shouted from a distance, still seething with anger.

"Alright, I will tell you why I wanted to do this," Sig said, finally revealing the reason behind his request.