A Single Mother's Farm of the Gods
Chapter 239: Beyond the Depths

Chapter 239: Beyond the Depths

The musty smell of the mines is still present, but this time, it is much less intense than the smell that Elaina is smelling right now.

"Smells awful, There must be a nest of monsters on this floor."

As she fully descended and landed on the ground, the previous path that she emerged from was closed in by a bunch of black hair-like things and solidified, sealing her only exit. She has seen this phenomenon before and it happens when the floor is overrun by monsters.

"Another floor that got overrun," Elaina prepares her weapon as she explores her eyes to the surroundings.

She has made a lot of haul from the mines just by retracing her steps as she started from the beginning. Despite only meeting slimes so far, she has continued to dominate each floor with her sword without much difficulty. But on this floor, it seems a new variety of monsters is living in the area.

Walking around, she suddenly squashed something beneath her feet and when she checked what it was...

"...An egg?" Elaina frowned.

As soon as she realized it was an egg, she noticed a few movements behind her. Without hesitation, she quickly swings her sword, slicing the one who was about to ambush her.

She stood up and saw that the one she sliced was a bug. One with wings and a pointy needle sticking out of its abdomen. It seems that this one has a stinger for fighting enemies or for attacking them in ambush.

"This looks like a bee...but with a mana stone, this is also a monster..." Elaina grabbed the fallen mana stone from the monster’s body and cautiously moved around as she was not going to let another bug ambush her.

She treaded slowly as she walked around. She found a few eggs here and there which prompted her to destroy them. It sounded like tripping a big danger trap but she was quite sure that things would be more dangerous if those eggs suddenly hatched when she left them all alone. Sadly, these eggs did not drop a single mana stone that she needed.

"I wished these eggs would have dropped some eggs if destroyed."

As she continues to move around, she soon realizes that the whole place is just littered with eggs and nothing else. As soon as she destroyed the last batch of eggs, the path to the next floor opened.

"Huh...so it was only overrun because the place was teeming with monster eggs? Then the bug I killed earlier might have hatched on that one. Those eggs would have hatched at one point as well since some of them have some developing embryo as well."

"[Elaina, seeing those bees made me realize one thing. Although I have not tried it, perhaps you can tame one in the future and allow them to help create honeycombs and harvest honey in the future?]" the Goddess of Taming asked.

"[Hey, you should try it yourself first before letting Elaina do it. That is a dangerous task you are letting Elaina take. I don’t want her to get injured just to fulfill some stupid task that has no certainty of achieving it!]" The God of Farming firmly showed his disapproval.

"It’s fine, God of Farming. We should take note of that since honey is a good resource and having something that would be able to produce honey would be a big blessing."

Since the path to the next floor appeared, Elaina climbed down the ladder, and the stench that was lingering earlier disappeared entirely. She looked up over the previous floor’s gap and shook her head. It seems those eggs were causing the bad smell.

"[How many mana stones have you gotten so far, Elaina?]" the Goddess of Taming asked.

"Around 15 so far. The majority of the mana stones that I got are from the slimes and only one from that bee earlier," Elaina said as she recalled how many monsters she had defeated so far.

"[It’s a pitiful number. That wouldn’t be enough. We apologize for not being able to help in this Elaina but if we did use the mana stones ourselves, the tree would be detectable by the Ice Lord as a result and we don’t want that kind of thing happening.]" the Goddess of Taming said.

Elaina scratches her head. This is indeed a chore to do but if she can protect her children and every people she loves, then the sacrifice is worth it.

After her little chat with the gods, Elaina continues to explore and this time, there are no more slime monsters in the area, but the bees from earlier. They are fast and their buzzing noises are very noisy, zipping through the air.

But unlike the slimes where defeating them by destroying their cores would deal with them, the bugs are much easier to kill as slicing them to pieces would drop them dead. The only downside is that they are fast and can attack if not preemptively attacked. Not only that but they also swarm. If not for Elaina’s swift swings and precise attacks, these bees would have harmed Elaina a lot.

On that floor alone, she killed at least 10 of them.

"That was a lot," Elaina looked around as she made sure the area was secure.

Elaina then glanced over at the carcasses of the bugs and checked if there was any usable stuff she could get. However, aside from the stinger that can be taken off, nothing from their body seems to be useful in any way.

Elaina decided not to carry any stingers with her. She has no use for it and the guild would be suspicious of her on where she has gotten these stingers.

"[It’s a shame to leave those stingers behind.]" the Goddess of Taming said.

"[Indeed. You take those stingers. That stuff is good medicine and a good antidote for paralysis if grounded to powder. Take them back with you.]" the Goddess of Medicine demanded.

"These stingers are ingredients to paralysis antidotes?" Elaina was surprised.

"[Not all of them. But this one should work well as one. They should work well and can be used or sold to adventurers.]"

Hearing that, Elaina didn’t waste her time and gathered every single stinger that was not destroyed and put them all in her storage bag. She will then ask Julia if she wants some of them while also keeping a few.

Since the stingers were so easy to detach without the need to worry about destroying the carcass, as long as the stingers are intact, then it should be fine.

Knowing this piece of information, Elaina decided to clear the subsequent floors afterward.

Compared to the slimes which usually spawn at least 3 or 2 per floor, it seems that the bee monsters would spawn at least 7 to 10 per floor. Allowing Elaina to rack up around 40 pieces of mana stones by the time when she arrived at the 10th floor of the mines.

When she arrived and landed her feet on the 10th floor, Elaina’s attention was shifted to the elevator sound that echoed around the place.

"Another elevator...it must be connected to the elevators," Elaina sighed in relief. She can go back to the top floor anytime she wants or jump to this floor if she comes back here next time.

Since the 5th floor was a hot and cold hotspring, Elaina expected to see another hotspring again...but it seems she was wrong. Instead of a hot spring...she found a wide body of water. Not only that but the place is teeming with fish and the waters are so deep that even checking the depths from the ground is impossible.

"[An underground fishing spot! That’s a good find!]" the God of Fishing commends Elaina.

"Are there areas similar to these?" Elaina asked.

"[It’s not a common thing...but they do appear from time to time. Just make sure to remember this as this place might be a good place to start catching new fishes and perhaps even discover some fishes that even I have not discovered or caught.]"

Elaina nodded and stared at the water for a bit. She is not sure if something is lurking underwater but she is also a bit curious if there is something below the waters.

"As much as I wanted to know how deep this water hole is, I would rather make myself safe here on the side of the water and stay away from the water as much as I can."

Elaina sighed. There is some fear in her mind as she stares over at the depths of the water. She felt that she fears what is underneath the dark waters and what dangers lurk beneath.

"No, no. I don’t have thalassophobia. But I would rather not dive there until I am sure that there’s nothing down there that would devour me."

After that, Elaina moved away from the water. She doesn’t have a fishing rod, nor does she have a spear she can use as an alternative for spearfishing with her so she will have to fish another day.

"Let’s continue to the next floors and finish this task as soon as possible."