A Single Mother's Farm of the Gods
Chapter 217: Back to the Mines [III]

Chapter 217: Back to the Mines [III]

This is the first time Elaina has the urge to continue delving deeper into an unknown territory. She can sense danger but it wasn’t as dangerous as she felt it would be and it is something that she can handle by herself. She is confident with her sword in hand and even if it is something she can’t handle, she can just run away before things get grim.

Elaina continues to strike a few nodes here and there obtaining random gemstones and a few copper and silver. She doesn’t need the excess stuff she has right now, but that doesn’t mean she can’t sell them to someone. After all, if sold in bulk, they sell quite a lot and that will be something that Elaina would like to have to accumulate enough balance. That way, she can soon afford to have a new barn built for the wild cows. With how fast Jacob works, she is not worried the cows will suffer in the cold anymore.

After checking for the ores one by one, when she breaks one of them, a tunnel that leads to the next floor appears. She checked the area if the tunnel would not collapse after it appeared under the node all of a sudden. But thankfully, it seems things are good and it will not collapse anytime soon.

Even though she did not need to go deeper, Elaina decided to descend to the third floor.

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As soon as she went down, the mine suddenly smelled putrid. It is very bad for the nose, but it is tolerable. But smelling it for long will feel bad. Elaina wanted to go back up again to leave but when she checked the place where she came from, it suddenly closed by some kind of green mucus, covering it. But it seems to be doing so temporarily.

Completely descending, Elaina soon saw a variety of monsters down under. Skeletons and slimes. No...it is more like skeletons covered in slime. Their bodies are covered in slime while the skeletons are inside the slime themselves. It was like they got devoured by a slime and they were dissolved underneath the corrosive liquid of the slime and got digested instead.

Their numbers are also not to be scoffed at as she sees more than a dozen of them walking weirdly toward her.

"[It seems you needed to defeat all monsters here before you can descend or ascend again, Elaina. This place has been overrun by monsters from the looks of it.]" the Goddess of Taming said.

"Overrun huh? That’s annoying. But not something I can’t deal with."

Elaina kicked the nearby skeleton so hard that the skeleton covered in slime was sent flying and landed hard on the wall, causing it to break into pieces. However, it seems the slime is keeping it intact so even if she destroys the skeleton to parts and pieces, as long as that slime remains, the enemy will not die.

Squinting her eyes, she soon saw a slime nucleus underneath the ribs of the skeleton, allowing it to survive fatal attacks for once.

"Huh...pretty clever. But not enough defensive properties to protect itself."

Elaina comments before she smashes the rib cage of the skeleton with her foot in one single stomp, causing the nucleus inside it to be squashed alongside the ribcage. The slime that was attempting to rebuild the skeleton dies afterward, killing it in the process.

"Who is next?"

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CRACK!

"That should be the last one."

Elaina flicks her sword to the side, getting the slime rid of the blade before she puts it back in her scabbard. As the monsters disappear after dying, one of the patches on the ground breaks off, revealing another tunnel that leads to another floor while the floor above where Elaina came from has finally reopened again.

Not only that but a treasure chest suddenly pops out after the entrances and exits have reopened for access as well.

"A treasure chest?"

Elaina poked it a few times with her sword in case it was a mimic. Mimics might be pretending as treasure chests and it would be too much trouble if she encounters that one after checking the treasure chest for its contents.

"It seems to be safe," Elaina stopped poking with it again after it didn’t show any sort of reaction.

"[It seems this mine rewards those who clear the places overrun by monsters with some of its treasures. Take it, Elaina. It’s your spoils."

She is not so well versed in dungeon diving but she heard tales about people obtaining items while exploring places like dungeons. Perhaps this one is also the same thing?

But since it is hers for the taking and it is not a mimic, then there is no problem for her to take it for herself.

Elaina opened it up and soon saw multiple things inside. A pouch that contains various gemstones and gold which she can use for payment, adding up to her coin coffers back home. The other one is an eyeglass. It didn’t have any sort of weird contraption attached to it and it seemed to be a normal eyeglass to her. It doesn’t improve her eyesight, and it doesn’t seem to do anything aside from being a cosmetic.

"Isn’t an eyeglass cosmetic like this useless? I can buy one in the store for just a few gold if I want to."

"That should be fine, Elaina. At least you got some gold and gemstones, yes? That is more important I must say."

"Well, it is very important, I guess."

"[Also, I am not very good in fashion but you look very good with glasses, Elaina.]"

"Huh...Good with glasses huh? I will treat that as a compliment then."

Hearing the praise she got from the Goddess of Taming, Elaina is secretly happy that she was being praised for wearing one. She is not sure how it looks at her but if a god is praising her for wearing one, it must look good at her.

Because she is still curious, Elaina decides to continue descending further. If she descends up until floor 5, then she will stop there and she will return to the top. That is what she decided.

Descending on the 4th floor.

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The 4th floor is just the same as the other floors except for the overrun floor. It is full of nodes but this time, it seems that there are some crates here and there scattered. Fearing that something was currently hiding in those crates, Elaina started breaking them one by one, revealing their contents, which turned out to be a false alarm but seeing the contents, Elaina had more reasons to break those crates one by one.

"This is the first time I have seen crates contain quite a lot of something. Each crate she destroys spits out random stuff. Most of them spit out random gemstones that are already processed which is expensive as it is already processed. If it is sold as it is, it will fetch more money compared to the unprocessed gems.

Not all crates carry gems, some of them carry some food. Canned food to be precise.

"Canned food?" Elaina frowned as she checked them one by one.

"[Those are preserved foods made from various goods like meat and vegetables right?]" the Goddess of Taming asked.

"Indeed. But canning has yet to be fully developed and it is still not a very good time for canning to be finalized. How are these things here?"

"[Ah, those are called Emergency food, Elaina.]" the God of Farming explained.

"Emergency food?"

"[It is something the dungeon or a labyrinth drops for adventurers and mercenaries to eat. Don’t worry, they are pretty safe and they are good to be consumed. This is also the main origin as to why canning exists in the first place. However, based on the tech of your world, the way the canning works here is much more advanced than the canning you know. You can safely eat that or bring it with you on the surface. It will be a good emergency food in case you run out of food.]" the God of Farming explained.

"[How did you learn that?]" the Goddess of Taming asked.

"[I studied it once because I don’t understand how it works and how it managed to handle vegetables and other crops greatly to the point that they don’t get spoiled once they are inside the can. You can say that I have some extensive experience in checking what they are capable of and what they can give you. But don’t worry, Elaina. It is safe to consume. Don’t hesitate to carry a few with you and store them somewhere safe.]"

Hearing his explanation, Elaina nodded and put the canned food in her inventory. The Goddess of Taming just sighed and let Elaina do her thing. Since she is now sure they are useful, Elaina planned to have a few of them stocked in the future. After all, this will be a good way to store some food and keep it fresh for a while.

Elaina smiled. It seems the mines don’t just hold the secrets of the gems but of the canned goods as well. And for her, this is a big win.