Phase 1~

The crowd rushed in desperately, each member of the Gya crew entering a different cave entrance, guided only by Draven's advice: “Get as big a piece as possible that we can move.” Since mining near the entrance was prohibited, people tried to reserve the closest possible spots and started mining.

“I told you to come first. Why did you have to stop for so long?” Mihak complained as they couldn’t find a spot and kept moving deeper into the cave.

“It’s not my fault. I haven’t eaten anything since morning, and there was free food at the refreshments corner. It’s a regret I saw it at the last second,” Vel replied, slapping her full stomach and looking for a spot. They finally found one much deeper in the cave, with no one else around.

“Be happy. It’s all your area. Mine as much as you want, hahaha!” Vel started laughing loudly and went deeper to observe the area.

As time passed, the anxiety hidden within every miner slowly began to resurface. They started mining with their pickaxes, something Mihak was particularly skilled at. With each strike—“takkk, takkk”—Mihak became more lost in his work, surrounded only by his presence. He continued mining, his mind full of questions of death and fear.

On Guta’s side, his team somehow secured the closest spot to the entrance of another cave, he was sitting within range of his miners in case of an emergency.

“Executive, why did you let people like us live with you?” one of the miners named Pho asked Guta while mining.

“....Who knows,” Guta said, glancing at him.

“Is it because you’re also afraid of being alone or because it’s more fun with everyone?” Pho continued to ask.

“...Don’t talk too much while mining. You might break the ore,” Guta replied.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just that I’m a little afraid of what happens when I get lost and no one is around me,” Pho said, refocusing on his task.

“Why did you start mining if you’re afraid of it?” Guta asked.

“In hope of living, haha. I guess that’s a little corny,” Pho laughed a bit and went back to his work.

“Tingg,” the sound of metal hitting the ore. “Looks like we’ll be the first ones to find it. Haha, I’m in luck today,” said Balloon while laughing.

“Don’t try to imitate the boss. You don’t look greater than a monkey now. Better help in taking it out,” Draven shut him down.

“Oo, let me help,” Balloon said, giving a hand to take it out. “Was I really looking lame? I thought I was looking great,” he asked Draven with a nervous smile.

After extracting it, it seemed to be about 20 kg of iron ore. ‘Tch, bad luck’ Draven clicked his tongue and told everyone to look for the remaining hour left.

“Look at that color, that beauty, that shine—it’s definitely a silver ore, around 30 kg. It might be my largest discovery,” Stark appreciated the ore in some other cave.

“Cannot deny that, but we have to carry it out,” Momo added while combing his hair. Many miners found silver ore, with some lucky ones finding up to 60 kg, while others found smaller amounts in grams.

“We really are not in luck today. The first one was too small, now this one is too big,” Draven sighed, looking at the seemingly endless copper ore.

“This might be too large to carry out. Call the boss, her team must have finished by now,” Draven said to Balloon. A few minutes later, Balloon reached the hall and was shocked to find almost all teams had already arrived, with only a few still missing. Some teams had broken large ores into smaller pieces, while others managed to keep theirs intact.

“What is the condition, Draven?” Vel asked.

“It looks about a ton, with copper, silver, and other mixed metals,” Draven quickly replied.

“Boss, it may take more time to take it out,” said Etir.

Vel approached the exposed part of the ore. She took a large step forward, rotated her hip, and “Bang”—she punched it hard, crack start to appear and breaking the exposed part off the whole ore, revealing the shiny inner core.

“Quickly grab the largest piece and come out!” she commanded and left for her position.

“Won’t it be better if we take all the pieces?” Etir asked.

“Can you carry them?” Draven retorted.

“Help pick this one piece, everyone,” Draven instructed, as everyone grabbed and carried it quickly.

As they were leaving, Draven saw a depressed team but ignored them. Etir paused and said, “Hey, you unlucky ones, you seem to have found nothing. Go deeper; you’ll find pretty big chunks of polymetallic ore that seems to have been abandoned. Go quickly, or someone else might take it.” he continued to leave.

“Why would you increase our competition, you dumb...” Draven shouted over etir, carrying the ore to the hall where everyone was standing and finally took a breath.

“You guys are finally here,” Balloon said, relaxing.

“Why you... leave it,” Draven replied, irritated by Balloon but more intrigued by checking everyone’s loot. "how did they manage to carry it, look around atleast 200kg similar to ours but with less silver" draven mutter while looking at competitor' ore and everyone seem to amaze him and then he looked at his own crew's ore

“How in the hell did you carry that out here? And how did you find it?” Draven asked, surprised by Team 1.

“About 80 kg, and on top of that, highly concentrated,” Mihak bragged.

“The time for the first phase, part 1, is complete. The ore your team has found will be ranked based on rarity, concentration, and weight. Each ore will be given a token value. If you obtain a piece of another team’s ore, you will get a token for that piece, and the other team’s token value will be reduced. For the second part of phase 1, all teams will leave one member behind with their ore while the rest will move through the gate for phase 2,” Qwert announced, pointing toward the gates.

Many teams were disqualified for not meeting the 20 kg requirement or because they divided their large ore to carry it easily. Soon, everyone left, and only one person from 1006 teams stayed behind with their ore in a large hall. The remaining members looked strong enough.

“Why did we leave our assaulter behind?” Etir asked Draven as they traveled through the gate.

“I have my doubts, but the hall was closed with no place to hide. It’s best to leave someone to protect the ore,” Draven replied. “But I have my doubts about the boss,” he continued, worrying.

“No, I’m staying. I’m strong enough too,” Mihak said, tightly hugging the ore as others tried to separate him.

“You better not leave that ore for a second, Vel. My golden honey, I will see you very soon,” Mihak said, getting emotional while leaving.

“Draven, I’m still worried about leaving it with Vel,” Mihak said.

“Don’t worry, fuzzy head, our boss is the strongest. But yeah, there might be some unexpected cases,” dwart the giant replied.

[^11]: The value of each extracted metal varies in each sector, and the transportation of extracted metal is considered illegal without government permission.