Malphegor
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OP: AMP Ch. 10
🕑 Added 2025-08-13 00:19:30 +0000 UTC"Marcus came up earlier looking super excited, kept saying he'd struck it rich or something. Then he went over there to chop down trees and started making tons of storage crates. I saw him running back and forth from the ship looking exhausted, so I thought I'd help carry some stuff for him."
Alvida picked up one of the crates from Kira's hands, and immediately felt its unexpected weight.
"How the hell did you manage to lift this thing?"
"Am I not supposed to be able to?" Kira tilted her head in confusion.
Alvida didn't say much more. She opened the crate and found it packed tight with identical blocks that she didn't recognize, but considering Marcus had filled an entire container with them, they were obviously important.
"I'll help too."
Kira nodded excitedly and led Alvida down into the underground complex.
"Aren't we going back to that corner area from before?"
"That section's already been cleared out."
"I see."
Alvida didn't think much of it and kept following.
The blocks had sharp, geometric edges, but surprisingly they weren't actually dangerous, even if you bumped into them carelessly, they wouldn't cut your skin.
Soon, they reached the bottom level, which opened up into an unusually spacious underground chamber.
In the distance, Marcus was mining away. Whenever the lighting got too dim, he would place torches, and the systematic placement was oddly satisfying to look at, like something that would make anyone with OCD feel at peace.
Near the entrance were rows and rows of storage crates, neatly organized but not connected together.
Kira picked up one of the smaller crates and slowly began climbing back up the stairs.
Alvida approached the larger storage containers and reached out to lift one. Previously, she'd tried moving the big crates but found them immovable, like they were somehow fused to the wooden floor itself.
Now, though, she could lift them effortlessly.
Was it a size issue? Were the larger containers simply unable to be moved when they were full?
She opened one to check the contents, same stuff as before. Stone blocks with khaki-colored specks scattered throughout.
Weird, but whatever.
She closed the lid, grabbed one crate in each hand, and started moving briskly like a pro.
This made Kira incredibly envious, but she dutifully continued carrying them one by one, making slow but steady progress.
Eventually, after what felt like hours of hauling cargo, she collapsed on the ground in a sweaty, exhausted heap, staring blankly at the ceiling with dead eyes.
"Alvida... not only are you gorgeous, but you've also got such amazing stamina... I'm so jealous..."
Alvida, who was also breathing a bit heavily herself, heard the compliment and immediately lifted her head proudly, the corners of her mouth turning up in satisfaction.
All her fatigue vanished instantly.
"You need to work out more. You've only been at this for a couple hours and you're already wiped out? I had such high hopes for you too." With that encouraging comment, she headed back down without waiting for a response.
Lying on the dirt floor, Kira felt deeply moved by Alvida's words. Being believed in and encouraged... this was only the second time in her life someone had expressed confidence in her abilities. The last person had been Koby.
Gritting her teeth, she struggled to her feet and stumbled back to work.
They kept at it until dusk, when golden sunset light began filtering down into the underground space, painting everything with warm amber tones.
Kira had long since passed out on the ground from exhaustion.
Even Alvida was too tired to speak.
Only Marcus looked completely satisfied with his day's work.
He'd never encountered such a dense concentration of ore veins before. It was like hitting the geological lottery.
"What exactly have you been doing down here all day? What are all these things?" Alvida asked, pointing to the crates that were now stacked almost as high as their ship.
"Iron ore, gold ore, this is the richest mine I've ever dug into. I just couldn't stop myself." Marcus didn't mention that there was still a massive amount of ore left down below. The veins seemed practically endless. If he hadn't run out of wood to make more storage containers, he'd probably still be going.
"Gold?!"
Alvida latched onto that keyword immediately, pointing at the towering pile of crates with wide eyes.
"You're telling me all of this is gold?"
"Well, just a little bit. Barely enough to fill two crates," Marcus said casually, trying to recall the exact amount.
Two crates?!
Alvida felt like she couldn't breathe properly.
She knew exactly how much those containers could hold. Don't be fooled by their modest size, each crate could store 27 different types of items, and if they were identical items, they could stack up to 64 units each.
She wasn't exactly a math genius, but even she could figure out that was over five hundred pieces of gold ore!
"How much gold can you get from smelting just one ore?"
"Hmm... not sure. But hang on, let me check." Marcus quickly built a furnace and started the smelting process.
Soon, a single gold ingot appeared before all three of them.
"Here, for you." Marcus casually tossed it to Alvida.
She fumbled to catch it, surprised to find it wasn't hot at all despite just coming out of a furnace.
She examined it from every angle, then finally bit down on it with her teeth, leaving a distinct tooth mark.
"It's real gold!"
Alvida was nearly overwhelmed with joy.
The gold ingot in her hand wasn't particularly large, a standard rectangular bar, probably about 25 pounds, which was pretty typical for high-quality gold bars.
And judging by its purity... based on current market prices... Just this single gold bar was worth around 30 million berries.
And that was being seriously conservative with the estimate.
She had raided merchant caravans before, and most of the gold she'd gotten from them was just gold-plated surface coating, not very pure at all.
But this radiant ingot in her hands... she could feel its purity.
She swallowed hard, staring at the full crate of gold ore with glazed eyes.
Beside her, Kira was also gaping at the gold bar, completely stunned. She had never seen such a massive chunk of pure gold in her entire life.
"This... this is...!!"
Both girls were completely speechless.
Meanwhile, Marcus was frowning about a completely different problem.
Smelting iron ore into ingots was way too slow for his liking. Especially with that whole crate full of iron ore waiting to be processed...
Just thinking about it gave him a headache. At least he'd mined plenty of coal on the previous island, that should be enough fuel to process all the iron.
"Guess I need to set up a proper furnace array, huh?"
Scratching his head, he debated whether to build the setup here or back on the ship.
When he turned around, he saw both girls still standing there looking like their brains had completely short-circuited.
"What's wrong with you two?"
"This... this gold..." Alvida pointed dumbly at the ingot in her hand, unable to form complete sentences.
"Oh, you want to keep it? Sure, go ahead. I don't really need it anyway."
Alvida suddenly felt like she had fallen into an ocean of treasure, her brain was about to explode.
"You're giving it to me? Just like that?!"
She stared blankly at the gold bar in her hand.
"Oh, by the way, is it okay if I modify the ship a bit more?"
"No problem! Go ahead! Do whatever you want!" Alvida responded without a shred of hesitation, still clutching the gold bar like her life depended on it.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. Back when he'd first started modifying their ship, he'd kept expanding and adding more and more features until they'd made him stop, claiming the sails wouldn't be able to move such a massive vessel.
Thinking about it now, he decided he should probably scale back some of the less useful rooms he'd designed. He'd gotten a bit carried away with the interior layout.
So he got to work on the renovations.
By the time he had completed an entire furnace array and even connected it to an automated storage system, Alvida was still standing on the shore in a daze, staring at the gold bar like it might disappear if she looked away.
"Hey!"
"Aren't you guys hungry?"
Only then did both girls snap back to reality, their stomachs responding with loud growling sounds.
Come to think of it, none of them had eaten anything all day.
Marcus walked over to the furnace array, which had already finished smelting two full batches of gold ingots while he'd been working on the ship.
"Still pretty slow," he muttered as he placed the ingots into his inventory.
Seeing Kira's envious, puppy-dog expression as she watched all that gold disappear, Marcus smiled and tossed a gold ingot to her as well.
Startled, she hurried to catch it, but after a whole day of exhausting manual labor, her trembling hands just couldn't manage it.
The gold bar hit the ground with a solid thud, sending dirt flying everywhere.
