Chapter 60: The Mine Cave

But it’s fine if she can’t fight—as long as she can run, that’s good enough!

“No worries, you two just be careful. Don’t worry about me.” If Su You didn’t have confidence, she would never put herself in danger. Since she dared to let the two of them go scout around, she was absolutely sure she could get away safely.

Seeing this, Lyle didn’t insist anymore. After confirming the area was safe, he and Lake split up, heading off in opposite directions.

To prevent Lake from messing things up, Lyle even pulled him aside before leaving to give him a few extra reminders.

Once the two of them were gone, Su You decisively pulled a pickaxe out of her backpack… Just kidding—even if this wasn’t a mine but just a rocky mountain, she would still start digging right away!

She was short on more than just ore—she needed stone too!

And she needed it badly!

Since there were no more ghostly skeletons nearby, she could dig in peace without worrying about being disturbed.

After about ten minutes of digging, Su You hadn’t collected much stone yet, but suddenly saw Lake running over from the left, looking excited.

“Lord Su! Guess what I found?” He looked like he was dying to tell her, but when he got in front of her, he decided to keep her in suspense.

Su You paused her digging, thought about the situation and Lake’s expression, and made a guess.

“You found a mine cave?” After all, this was a mining mountain—what else could make someone so happy around here?

At least, Su You personally thought it must be a mine cave.

Because if there was a mine cave, she wouldn’t have to rack her brains figuring out how to mine the ore inside the mountain—they could just dig straight in along the tunnel.

Plus, caves had another advantage: being “indoors,” they were less likely to be discovered and disturbed by other creatures.

Lake: “…”

Su You hadn’t been entirely sure, but seeing Lake’s dumbfounded look, she knew she’d guessed right.

A mine cave… that really was fantastic news.

She just wondered what kind of mine it was.

Curious, Su You simply asked Lake directly.

Lake was too excited to wonder how Lord Su had guessed. Hearing her question, he instinctively described everything he’d seen.

“I’m not really sure what kind of ore it is, because the cave is really deep, and there’s no ore on the surface. It’s too dark inside, and I was worried there might be monsters or something unsafe, so I came back first…” At this point, Lake looked a little embarrassed.

He’d just found a mine cave and rushed back, hoping to surprise Lord Su, but she’d guessed the “surprise” right away!

And when she asked what kind of mine it was, he couldn’t even answer…

“Should I go back and check again? It’s not that far.” Lake was a man of action—he’d barely finished speaking before his feet were already moving.

Su You quickly stopped him. “No need, you did the right thing. Safety is the most important thing.”

The chance of monsters spawning inside a mine cave wasn’t high, but it wasn’t impossible either. Better safe than sorry.

“No rush. When Lyle gets back, you two can check it out together.” As for her, she wasn’t going.

If there were monsters, she wouldn’t be much help; if there weren’t, there was no point in her going either. At this stage, she wasn’t planning to mine ore anyway—she didn’t have the right workbench to smelt it, so mining now would just be a waste of energy. She might as well stay here and keep digging for stone.

“Alright, I’ll do as you say, Lord.” Lake was impulsive, but his biggest trait was obedience—especially to people he trusted and who were more capable than him.

His trust in Su You went without saying. With a favorability of 75, he’d basically accept any reasonable request from her unconditionally. Even if it was unreasonable, as long as Su You could convince him, he might still agree.

Not to mention, Su You was the lord of his territory… NPCs were even more likely to accept orders from their lord.

“By the way, Lyle isn’t back yet?” Speaking of Lyle, Lake realized it was still just the two of them here. It seemed Lyle hadn’t returned.

Su You shook her head slightly. “Let’s wait a bit longer. If he’s still not back, you can go check on him.”

This mountain was huge. If Lake hadn’t happened to find the mine cave, it would definitely take more than ten minutes to scout one side, so it was normal that Lyle wasn’t back yet.

“Alright… Lord, how about I do the digging?” Watching Su You struggle with the mining, Lake couldn’t stand it.

He felt awkward just standing around while Su You did all the work, so he offered to help and let her rest for a bit.

But to his surprise, instead of handing him her pickaxe, Su You pulled another one out of her backpack—players taking things out of their inventory seemed like items appearing out of thin air to NPCs, but they didn’t find it strange. For them, it was just a reasonable system setting, nothing to question.

Back to the point, Su You had brought two pickaxes this time, including the one from the reward box tied to the quest board. After all, the two main workers were here, and no one else was taking the sandstone mining quest, so leaving the pickaxe there would be a waste.

Lake took the pickaxe naturally and started digging stone, imitating Su You.

[Obtained: Stone Fragments x6]

[Obtained: Stone x2]

[Obtained: Stone Fragments x4]

…

Looking at all the stone she was collecting, Su You felt a sense of satisfaction… Mainly because she’d been so desperately short on stone before. Suddenly getting so much made her feel like she’d struck it rich overnight.

After digging for a while, Su You saw her stamina had dropped to forty, so she decisively stopped, took a break, and picked up the stones on the ground.

“You should take a break too.”

Hearing this, Lake shook his head, saying he still had plenty of strength and could keep digging, but Su You insisted he rest.

“Aren’t you going to check out the mine cave later? There might be monsters there, so don’t waste your energy digging stone now.”"

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