The absolute silence of the coal shaft returned, heavy and suffocating. Ensuring that my hunter instincts could no longer sense any immediate threat or shifting mana signatures nearby, I finally allowed my exhausted body to relax. I sank down onto a flat, damp boulder, unstrapping the brass lantern from my thigh and setting it firmly on the rocky ground between my boots. Its warm, golden flame flickered, casting long, erratic shadows against the coal-dusted walls. With a practiced motion, I securely strapped the Death Chant Shotgun back onto my spine, letting the crimson-etched steel cool against my cloak.
I carefully unrolled the tattered, leather-bound parchment I had ripped from the dead miner's pocket. Beneath the lantern light, I was shocked to discover the meticulous, staggering level of detail sketched onto the page.
This map hadn't been drawn by a regular low-wage laborer; it belonged to a highly experienced veteran surveyor. He had mapped out the entire subterranean network with absolute geometric accuracy six years ago, likely drafting his final desperate annotations just as the bio slimes first breached the lower containment zones and conquered the facility.
According to the surveyor's legend, the Caria Mines were a colossal, multi-tiered industrial network connected to several massive mineshafts. Each individual tier descended deeper into the earth, landmarked exclusively by the unique ores and wealth they produced for the kingdom. There were exactly five major mineshafts, structured like a descending stairway into the abyss:
Mineshaft 1: The Coal Mines (Current Location)
This was the uppermost layer where I currently sat, a labyrinth of dark, dusty tunnels built strictly to extract standard fuel and coal for the capital's furnaces. It was the safest zone, though now entirely overrun by scattered bio slimes and puppeted corpses.
Mineshaft 2: The Copper Mines
Descending past the coal veins lay the copper sector, a massive industrial hub where miners extracted raw copper. It served as the primary source of the raw materials used to mint the kingdom's copper currency. According to the notes and timeline, this was the exact sector where Nautilus's six Capital Knights were last seen alive before they were flayed and corroded by the A-rank blue-green horde.
Mineshaft 3: The Silver Mines
Deeper still was the silver tier, a glittering but treacherous network mined for high-grade silver, producing the very materials used to forge the silver pieces currently sitting in my new goat-hide purse. The surveyor noted that this was the absolute farthest distance any standard military scouting party or high-tier knight brigade had ever managed to breach before being violently pushed back by the toxicity of the lower levels.
Mineshaft 4: The Gold Mines
This was the deepest official mining sector, plunging kilometers into the crushing dark of the mountain range. It was mined for pure, royal gold… the material minted into the expensive gold coins I had just sacrificed for Zenni's future. The map indicated that this suffocating depth was where the high-ranking monsters and the original bio slimes first originated.
Mineshaft 5: The Jewelry Mines (The Root of the Plague)
At the very bottom of the map, plunging into a terrifying depth closest to the planet's mantle… yet magically insulated so the temperature remained bearable… lay the forbidden fifth tier. It was a legendary basin of raw, uncut diamonds, rubies, and precious gems, acting like a gold mine but exponentially more valuable, supplying the capital's nobility with all their luxury materials.
My lone jade-green eye locked onto the heavy crimson ink the surveyor had circled around this final sector. Based on the classified details Nautilus had shared with me in the windowless principal's office, the true, ancient source of the bio slime infection… the central entity that had been festering and gathering mass for six years… was located exactly here.
I stared at the map, the golden lamplight reflecting in my single eye. The puzzle pieces were finally connected. The slimes weren't just a random ecological disaster; they were an ancient, corrosive cancer born from the highest concentrations of wealth deep within the jewelry mines, and they had slowly eaten their way up, mineshaft by mineshaft, consuming my family in the process.
According to the heavily detailed annotations, the Caria Mines were not a single, continuous excavation but a colossal, interconnected network of five distinct mineshafts. Each level descended deeper into the earth, organized and landmarked by the specific wealth and ores they produced for the kingdom.
The first mineshaft, which I was currently resting in, was the Coal Mines. This uppermost tier was a sprawling, soot-choked labyrinth designed solely for the extraction of industrial coal to fuel the capital's massive foundries. Because of its proximity to the surface, the air here was still breathable, though the slimes had clearly begun their upward migration, turning the black coal veins into a breeding ground for their initial vanguard.
Directly beneath this layer lay the second mineshaft: the Copper Mines. This was the industrial heart of the upper excavation, a sector where miners historically extracted massive sheets of raw copper. Crucially, the map indicated that this level housed the primary smelting facilities that acted as the sole producer of raw copper coins before they were shipped to the royal treasury to be officially minted. My chest tightened as I read the miner's frantic marginal notes regarding this sector; this was the exact boundary where Nautilus Cotton's six high-tier Capital Knights had been last seen alive before they were ambushed, flayed, and dissolved by the corrosive blue-green swarm.
Descending further into the oppressive heat of the mountain, the third mineshaft was marked as the Silver Mines. This labyrinthine network of glittering veins was dedicated entirely to the extraction of high-grade silver, serving as the cradle and producer of the very silver coins Nautilus had advanced before I left his office. The veteran miner had written a stark warning across the borders of this sector, noting it as the absolute farthest distance any royal knight or surface expedition had ever managed to reach during the initial containment breaches six years ago. Beyond this point, the dark became an untamable war zone.
The fourth mineshaft was the Gold Mines, a deep, pressure-cooked abyss where the natural order of the mountain completely dissolved into a nightmare. This was the deepest functional sector of the old industry, mined exclusively for the pure gold that was melted down and minted into the kingdom's most expensive currency, the royal gold coins like the ones I had just surrendered for Zenni's future. The map's ink turned erratic here, detailing that this golden abyss was the true birthplace of the A-rank bio-slimes and other high-ranking, undocumented subterranean monsters that had originally butchered the workers. My heart skipped a beat as I stared at a dark crimson stain near the central gold repository on the map; this was the harrowing landmark where my mother, Linera Rynd, was last seen alive, desperately fighting to give her unborn child a chance to survive.
Finally, at the absolute pit of the structural grid, lay the fifth mineshaft: the Jewelry Mines. This forbidden sector sat dangerously close to the tectonic mantle of the planet, yet the map explicitly noted that the surrounding volcanic vents kept the chambers pressurized and exceptionally humid rather than too hot for biological life. According to the notes, this deep sanctuary acted like a gold mine but was infinitely more valuable, a geological anomaly where every mineral mined was of the highest gem-grade caliber, meant solely for the royal family's jewelry. It was here, in the suffocating luxury of the earth's deepest pocket, that the true source of the catastrophic bio-slime infection had been silently gathering and mutating over the last six years.
This map confirmed exactly what Nautilus had suspected from the surface: the ancient, central heart of the plague was anchored in the jewelry mines, pulsating in the dark and pushing its corrosive children upward to consume Caria from the inside out.
I folded the surveyor's map with a crisp, decisive snap, sliding it safely back into my new, sturdy goat-hide purse alongside the Registry of the Condemned. I reached down, firmly strapping the flickering brass lantern back onto my right thigh, and unhitched the Death Chant Shotgun from its harness. My index finger traced the glowing crimson runes along the barrel; the low-grade copper ring was humming steadily, and the internal chamber was once again fully reloaded with eight heavy, volatile shells forged from my own blood.
I stood up, rolled my shoulders, and stepped back onto the main tracks.
The path through the first tier didn't stay level for long. Just a few dozen paces ahead, the flat cobblestones gave way to a steep, yawning decline. The heavy iron rails plunged sharply downhill, disappearing into a dense, freezing fog that smelled heavily of sulfur, wet rust, and the metallic tang of old copper.
I was officially leaving the coal sector. The steep incline of the tracks was leading me directly down into the belly of the beast: The Second Mineshaft.
As my heavy boots clicked against the iron ties, the temperature dropped, and the air grew visibly thicker. I could feel the residual weight of the high-tier magic that had clashed down here just days ago. This was the graveyard of Nautilus's six Capital Knights. The walls here began to show streaks of raw, green-tinted copper ore… and interspersed among them were fresh, damp trails of pulsing blue-green slime, glowing faintly like toxic veins in the dark.
I tightened my grip on the shotgun, my single jade-green eye scanning the shadows of the descending tunnel. I stepped past the threshold and into the copper mines, perfectly silent, completely lethal, and ready for whatever flayed horrors were waiting for me in the mist.