Greg fell asleep before he could hear the rest of their argument. He could only remember the comfortable weight of someone's coat on him and the sound of Bork telling Felix to stop whining and bitching about everything else.

The smell of something cooking and the sound of joyful conversation woke Greg up. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the sun was shining through the cave entrance.

This meant that it was already morning. He was alive, even though his body hurt in places he didn't know it could, and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

"The sleeping beauty has finally risen up!" Felix said with a smile as he poked something over the fire. "We kept some breakfast for you. It tastes delicious, but not as good as Lylia's cooking."

"I don't know if that's sarcasm or not because I'm the one who makes the food." Bork said while drinking his water.

Greg slowly sat up and took a bowl of something. It looked like porridge with dried meat and vegetables in it. "What happened after I passed out?"

Bork checked his gear and said, "A few more ghouls showed up. But Felix and I took care of them with the pickaxes."

"That trick with the earth trap works really well. By the time they stopped coming, we must have buried at least thirty of them."

"Thirty?! That many!?" Greg said, "Holy fucking shit, and the fact that guys made it out alive is insane."

"Yes, and I've been thinking about why. Cave ghouls usually stay in the deepest parts of caves, and they don't come close to the surface unless something makes them."

Felix asked, "Like what?"

"Something bigger and scarier than they are," Bork said in a sad voice. "That means we might run into whatever scared them if we keep going deeper."

Felix said, "Or we could go back to the village and tell them there are monsters in the caves."

"After we traveled all this way?" Bork said. "No fucking way!"

"We're almost at the deep veins! We'll have enough ore to live like kings in just a day or two of mining!"

Felix said, "If we don't die, that is..."

"That's what the magic pickaxes are for!"

Greg stood up after breakfast and tested his body. He was exhausted after using the Instant Forging skill, but now that he knew what it could do, he felt better about going on.

Greg said, "Alright, let's keep going, but we need to be careful of our surroundings. We back off as soon as we see something we can't handle."

"Agreed?"

"Agreed," Bork and Felix said at the same time.

...

They kept digging deeper into the cave system for the rest of the day, and Greg was glad they didn't see any more ghouls. Whatever had been pushing them to the surface had either moved on or was happy with the land it had taken.

The deeper they went, the more valuable the ore deposits became. They found deep veins of iron that were so pure they almost glowed, star copper in amounts that made Bork cry with joy, and even some pieces of adamantine stuck in the rock walls. The modified pickaxes made the work easier by cutting through stone like it was soft clay and finding ore from even farther away than before.

Bork kept saying, "This is wonderful," as he carefully pulled out a very large piece of adamantine. "I've never seen deposits this rich before. This part of the cave is like a treasure chest that hasn't been opened in hundreds of years."

Felix said, "Maybe no one has touched it because of the ghouls."

"Boss took care of the ghouls, so they're not a problem anymore!"

They made their way through several large rooms, each one full of interesting rock formations and glittering ore veins. Greg actually liked mining again.

He liked breaking rocks and finding valuable materials. Making magical items could never be as meditative as this.

As the day went on and their packs got heavier with ore, they came across a passage that seemed to slope down more steeply than it had before. The air here felt different, cooler, and older, as if they were getting closer to something that had been hidden away for a long time.

"How much deeper do you want to go?" Greg asked Bork.

"Just a little more," Bork said. His dwarf instincts told him that there was something worth finding. "I can feel it, Boss. There's something special about this place, especially in the winter!"

Felix said, "That's what people always say before something bad happens," but he went anyway.

The passage led to a room that made all three of them stop in their tracks. This room was clearly man-made, unlike the natural caves they had been exploring.

The walls were smooth and had detailed carvings on them. The floor was made of stones that had been carefully put together.

But what really caught their eye was in the middle of the room. It was a place to work.

There was a real blacksmith's shop with a forge, an anvil, tool racks, and even a small living area in one corner. The dust on everything was thick and showed signs of age, but the dry cave air kept everything safe.

"Wow," Greg said as he slowly walked into the room. "Someone lived down here."

"Not just anyone," Bork said, pointing to the corner. "Look."

There was a skeleton sitting in a chair at a small table in the corner. It was wearing the remains of a blacksmith's apron, and one bony hand still held a hammer that had been worn smooth from years of use.

Felix said softly, "He died here... by himself in the dark."

Greg walked closer and looked at the workshop like a pro. It was clear that this blacksmith knew what they were doing, because the setup was excellent.

The forge was a work of art in engineering that was meant to burn hotter and more efficiently than anything Greg had ever seen. The anvil was made from one piece of star iron, which is very rare and valuable.

But what really got his attention was the little, see-through thing that was bouncing around next to the skeleton. It was about the size of a big melon and looked like it was made of some kind of jelly-like substance that wobbled and jiggled with each bounce.

Greg could see what looked like a perfectly preserved hammer floating in the middle of its clear body. "What the fuck is that...?

"Is that a slime?" Felix asked, his voice full of excitement. "A real slime? Like in RPGs?"

Bork said, "Looks like it," with caution. "But I've never seen one like that before."

"Most slimes are hostile. This one doesn't seem like a threat at all."

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