CHAPTER 1000: A BIG PROBLEM (2).

"Is he..."

Alvi shook his head,

"Leave him be. Do your best to assist him if the need arises, but other than that, act like he isn’t here." He said, addressing the man beside him, Bard, his second in command in the mines.

Bard hummed thoughtfully, "I see..."

Alvi nodded,

"On another note... How is the progress?"

Bard’s expression turned serious,

"Everything is moving smoothly and according to schedule. Very soon, we’ll have enough resources to build a second Valestorm."

Alvi went silent,

"That is not enough."

Bard’s eyes widened,

"N-not enough you say?"

Alvi’s expression was frigid,

"Yes. Not nearly enough."

A bead of sweat slid down Bard’s temple,

"Then we could try to raise our output by at most twenty percent, but I think that is the best we can do at the moment."

Alvi shook his head,

"I can summon as many sandworms as you need. We might also need to expand the surface area..."

He was silent for a moment, then he nodded,

"Yes it can work..."

He turned to Bard, "A two hundred percent increase before the week runs out."

Bard smiled bitterly,

"Boss, I can’t tell if that is a joke or not."

Alvi raised a brow,

"I am most definitely not joking."

Bard sighed,

"Even if you aren’t, we can’t afford to work our men down to the bone. That might even reduce efficiency."

Alvi snorted,

"I don’t care what you have to do. Recruit more workers? Make use of summons? It doesn’t matter what we do. Of course, I am not so unreasonable to leave this all in your hands."

Bard heaved a sigh of relief,

"Boss... You really are an ambitious man, even though you are so nice!"

Alvi chuckled, "Of course I am."

Bard nodded furiously, bootlicking passionately,

"Then what actions are you planning to take?"

Alvi smiled, "We do not have enough human hands. That means we will have to look elsewhere to solve the issue of labor."

Bard frowned, "You mean summons?"

Alvi thought about it for a moment, then shook his head,

"The energy expenditure for maintaining a summon is rather costly. Plus, there aren’t a lot of summoners."

"Then..."

’Then why suggest it in the first place?!’ Bard tactfully left that unsaid.

Alvi cut him off,

"Contracted beasts."

Bard placed a hand on his face and furiously caressed his facial hair,

"I see. If that is then it could work. But..."

Alvi smiled, "I already know what you are about to say. Wouldn’t that be even more resource consuming than summoning beasts from the aether?"

Bard smiled weakly,

"You took the words right out of my mouth, boss."

Alvi shrugged, "I have a plan. A foolproof plan. One that will solve all our problems at once."

Bard blinked,

"And what could that be, pray tell?"

Alvi grinned, "Spread the word. Create a quest board!"

A confused expression appeared on Bard’s face,

"A quest board?’

Alvi nodded,

"Yes. A quest board."

Bard’s confusion seemed to deepennfor a moment. Then it began to change slowly as the light of realization filled his eyes,

"Boss! You really are a genius!" He said, bootlicking even more aggressively than before.

Alvi chuckled confidently,

"Of course I am."

"We will create a quest board and post our quest to all the hunters of Valestorm; gather beasts that can be contracted to work in the mines."

A twinkle appeared on Bard’s eyes. He could practically see all the possibilities,

"Although the name could use a little work, I believe this might be game changing for us. No, not just for us— For humanity!"

***

Descending down the shaft, Cain occasionally sighted miners and their steel carts filled with all sorts of pre and stones.

Although the main output of this quarry was the special used to make the buildings in Valestorm, that was not the only thing within the mine.

Occasionally, here would be deposits and veins of special magical stones and ores found. However, in this mine in particular, those weren’t very abundant.

Most of the miners seemed surprised to see him, especially since all the defensive gear he had, was the dark leather armor.

He didn’t even wear a helmet. In the case of a tunnel collapse, he would be in serious danger.

One of them even offered to hand him a helmet, but he respectfully and curtly declined. He absolutely didn’t want to wear those nasty looking things.

Eventually, no one seemed to want to bother him anymore. After all, he looked like a hunter. And a powerful one at that.

Eventually, he arrived right in front of the abandoned tunnel.

He had thought he would see a large ’CAUTION’ sign right in front, but it just looked like all the rest.

Closing his eyes, he opened the {Beholder’s Eye} and spread his senses forth.

Sure enough, just as Alvi had said, the tunnel was rather unstable.

Since it ran deeper than the others, it didn’t have a lot of stability. Even worse, the {Sandbile Worms} seemed to have issues with properly using their stomach acids on the rocks that existed this deep in the ground.

Luckily, Cain knew of something that worked even better than the {Sandbile Worms}.

And that was a terror-inducing creature that went by the name, Pudding.

Reality itself shook and trembled as a magic circle appeared behind him.

Cain’s face controlled with a twisted grin.

"What is this?!" Feeling the rumbling coming from deeper down the mine, a miner dropped the tools in his hands and took a frightful step back.

"Could it be another collapse?!" Another one exclaimed with a pale face.

"Damn it! Everyone, out!"

All the tunnels were immediately filled with the sound of hurried footsteps as all the human miners began making their way to the surface in an organized panic.

Meanwhile, Cain, the cause of the pandemonium had an excited look on his face as he lightly patted Pudding’s rear end,

"Time to work your magic, little one. Lead the way!"