Mikan blinked, glancing back into the depths of cave she progressed through. "Somehow I get the inkling we've been in here for around three to four months."

Her pet finch, resting on the nest on her head, simply stirred a bit. It gave no actual decent response, though.

That didn't make her feel any safer. "Fat lot you are, pet companion thing. Can't even hold a decent conversation..."

In the time she's been exploring the underground, the girl didn't have much else to do to keep her motivation up. One new thing she discovered was that things like blocks were also eligible for research and duplication, although they required a huge number of a hundred. ...of course, it was easy to meet that number considering everywhere in the cave was essentially harvestable, with her trusty iron pickaxe!

...how should she go about enhancing her equipment? The girl knew that in these sort of games, players typically start gathering materials and then crafting better things to get stronger, sort of 'progressing' through the game.

The girl currently had no means of crafting at all, though. ...except that workbench she made back at the spawn point, but she wasn't going to go all the way back just to get it from Andrew.

Speaking of which, hopefully he was doing fine.

Enemies didn't seem to bother attacking NPCs, so she supposed he's safe.

...golly, she must be so bored.

"...Fino, please talk to me," the girl cooed quietly as she glanced up.

The finch just continued sleeping, no enemies in sight for it to attack.

"Jerk." Mikan sighed and continued walking forward. The cave's grounds were descending slowly, but she didn't have to worry about falling. Regardless, there was something eerie about going underground, and she just couldn't quite put a finger to what it exactly was.

And then, she heard it. A quiet, wet, slap somewhere behind her.

The girl twisted her head around in a hurry, her heartbeat getting faster.

Something was here. Something was behind her, where she came from.

Her eyes widened when she realized the terrible situation she was in. Fuck! It waited until I was deep inside, then covered my only escape! Smartasses... what should I do!? The girl found she was unable to move, rooted in slight fear and - admittedly - curiosity. Just what was chasing her into this cave?

Images of the disturbing, flesh-like creature from outside flashed through her head.

...on second thoughts, fuck staying around to see it. The girl twisted around and began running again, until she tripped. "Aaaaghjrbtgrhbg!"

Her face colliding painfully with the ground, the girl groaned as she got up.

Meanwhile, Fino finally reacted, and suddenly flew towards the shadows.

"Fino! No!" Mikan called, before remembering that the pet familiars don't take damage. "...Fino?" At least, she hoped that was how it worked.

Then... the figure being attacked came into clear view of her torch's light.

It was just another slime.

"...what the hell," the girl muttered, pulling out her sword. "S... scaring me like that, jeepers peepers. Don't do that," she said and attacked the slime. Few strikes later, the slime exploded into puddles of water splashing around them. The girl sighed and apologized in her head for killing the slime, before collecting the coins and gel it dropped.

And then she noticed parts of the cave walls glistening.

She blinked. Now that Mikan looked properly... some parts of the wall weren't just dirty or stone or whatever the underground was made of. They were... well, she wasn't sure what exactly they were called, but these were definitely small pockets of ores embedded into the wall... no, the ground as well.

Actually... Mikan looked around again. Now that she knew of them, there were a lot more glistening spots around the cave interior, even in the direction she came from.

The girl had simply brushed them all off as shining from the light given off by her torch.

Now, though, she just came to the realization that this was basically what she needed to be able to enhance her status, her equipment, etc.

Mikan pulled out her iron pickaxe. "Well, hey, guess it's time to work. What's mine shall be mined and... be mine." She paused for a while, snickering to herself, before she began what she could. Her current priority here wasn't to collect enough ores to build better equipment, however.

The inner corrupt self within her cackled.

I'll throw all of these into research and duplicate endless supplies of them! she thought. Ahaahahaha!

Then, after a while, she checked her inventory.

"Copper Ore... hm." The girl blinked. Wait... isn't copper items weaker than iron items...? The girl frowned. "...did I just waste my time here?"

Mikan put her pickaxe away and sighed. Oh well.

But then she noticed a differently colored spot further ahead. Curiosity led her to mine them, and she checked them again.

"Lead Ore... maybe it's better than Iron Ore?" she said. "...maybe."

Pocketing them again, the girl looked around and wondered what the time was outside.

"...y'know, maybe I've gotten enough stuff here anyways," she said. Although she probably couldn't make anything better than her current iron tools, she didn't actually have armor, so maybe that was a good start, not her weapons and tools. Grinning, she pulled out her Magic Mirror item. "Guess it's time to head home and see what Andy's up to."

With a wave of her magical tool, her body glowed white and disappeared without a trace.

...

The sight of her ordinary, boring house was somewhat nice to see. Mikan smiled as she materialized, feeling somewhat proud of herself for building that house.

Even though it was mostly under Andrew's guidance.

"Wonder what he's up to." The girl went over to her first house and lifted her hand to knock on the door, until it opened right away. No one was opening the door for her, so... "Wow, automatic doors that aren't machines. This game's convenience is amazing," she said before walking in, the door promptly closing by itself. "Hello?"

"Oh, Ms. Mikan, you're back," the familiar blonde man greeted. "That was... quite fast," he said. "It's only been a day."

Mikan narrowed her eyes. "A day of exploring the wilderness by myself is a lot."

Andrew chuckled. "Well, if you say so. Anyways, guess what?"

"What?"

He gestured to another person who was in the house, who she somehow didn't notice until pointed out. "We have a new tenant."

Mikan stared. This new person was a man in yellow or brownish robes and hat, and sporting a white beard that told her he was old, but not that frail. "...who are you?" she asked.

The old man grinned. "Greetings, young miss. I'm from the Merchants' Association - you may call me Howard."

"...alright," she replied. "And you're here because..."

"I've been sent here to help you with your quest, your prophecy, to free our world from a terrifying curse, a terrible prophecy."

This got her attention. "A what now? I didn't hear anything about this."

Andrew shrugged, feeling more interested in the conversation now. "I'm afraid I do not know anything of this either. Please, do continue."

Howard nodded. "You see, long ago, the Merchants' Association discovered something terrible," he explained. "The observation that monsters carried money made us curious and prompted many of our organization to look into it, and after a long time, we've come upon a horrible conclusion."

...I can think of slightly unsettling reasons, deep lore wise, Mikan thought, gulping in suspense. Surely he wasn't going to say that the monsters were all formerly humans, right? That'd be... well, she wasn't sure how she'd feel about that.

"What is that conclusion?" Andrew asked.

Howard took a deep breathe. "You see... we've realized that..."

The other two drew closer, intensely focused on the story.

"That... that we don't have enough money!" he said.

Mikan blinked.

Some seconds later, she narrowed her eyes.

"...you're just some greedy old geezers, god damnit!"