The cave breathed again — and its breath was pure hatred. The spider surged forward from the shadows, her legs clicking against the stone like the ceiling itself had come to life. Her eyes — all of them — followed me with hunger. And me? I was still burning from acid, reeking of fermented booze, with no choice left but to run.
The bottle slipped from my hands, shattering on the floor like a poorly calculated plan. Alcohol ran down me like a liquid curse. I was, at that point, a walking wick.
She struck.
The first web zipped through the air like a whip. I threw myself to the side, landed badly. Scraped my arm, smashed my knee — but I was still breathing. Still moving. Instincts screamed louder than the pain.
Dodged the second shot by rolling under a fallen rock. The thing was determined to skewer me right there, but I was just as determined not to die like some rat.
I went deeper into the cave.
Think, Dante. Think!
I knew where the minerals were. I'd passed by them before — raw Silvarite veins, pulsing warmth even in the clammy darkness. Like the stones remembered the sun.
The spider followed. The click of her legs was a war drum. For every step I took, she advanced two. But I had one advantage: she didn't understand desperation like I did. She didn't know how to improvise like I did.
I remembered the corner by the blacksmiths' street, smuggling cigarettes hidden inside boxes of rotten fish. No one checks the fish. It's the smell. We actually hoped it went bad. One time, the guards showed up early and I had to fake a breakdown just so they wouldn't open the box. Spat on the guard's boot and cried like an orphan. It worked.
The cave was alive, but not aware — full of cracks, stalactites, narrow tunnels, and echo chambers. I remembered the way. I'd been here before. Somewhere deeper in, the veins waited. That weird warmth… that reddish glow in the stone. Raw Silvarite.
The ore that stores heat. That ignites.
It was a chance.
But I didn't have time. Not moving at this speed. The plan needed insane speed. Unreal strength. I needed to rip the ore out of the rock before the thing reached me. I'd dig it out with my hands if I had to. I needed... more.
That's when I felt it. A heat in my chest. Like my body had decided to take over for me.
Berserk Instinct: Activated|
I reached the vein. The torchlight flickered, dying.
| ITEM: Raw Silvarite
| TYPE: Reactive Ore / Heat Source
| RARITY: Medium-High
| PROPERTIES |
→ [Magical Fuel] – Burns for days without losing heat.
→ [Unstable] – In contact with water, produces explosive pressure steam.
| TACTICAL USE |
→ Used to forge heat-based weapons or fuel arcane forges.
→ Ideal for making bombs or pressure-based mechanisms.
→ Highly valuable in cold regions and subterranean realms.
I slammed the pickaxe with force. Shards flew like tiny embers. The heat was real. The Silvarite reacted to the strikes like it wanted to be freed. I tore out fragments with hands wrapped in the booze-soaked shirt. My skin burned — but who cared? It was fuel.
The spider was getting closer. I could hear her — louder now.
"Come on! Come on! COME ON!"
With a roar, I drove the pickaxe into the wall. Sparks flew. A hot shard jumped out. Then another. And another. I mined with the rage of someone who'd lost everything but still wanted to take someone down with him.
Grabbed the fragments with bare hands. It burned. I didn't care.
Shoved everything into the rag, crushed it in my fists, wrapped up the Silvarite shards. I turned — and there she was, the spider, staring at me like she'd already digested me in her mind.
"You wanna eat me, Clotilde?" I said, panting. "Then chew on this!"
I hurled the soaked clothes at her. The creature recoiled, confused.
With my other hand, I hurled the burning fragments, and while they were still in the air, I focused to fire off a fireball, which shot from my palm straight at the mineral. The ore's properties only amplified my spell, and what followed was… incredibly satisfying.
A crack.
A dull, wet thump of boiling flesh. A low, contained explosion — like hell whispered. And then: fire. Blazing, yellow, dancing across her body.
Her legs spasmed, scraping violently against the cave walls, and her screams… well, if spiders can scream, that sound was the closest thing I've ever heard.
But it didn't go how I imagined. She didn't drop. Didn't implode. She charged.
The damned thing came at me, even with melting skin and fire and acid spilling from her, like she was hell-bent on dragging me down with her.
My heart nearly stopped.
And then — silence.
Time slowed for a second. One of those moments when you know exactly what you need to do before your brain even kicks in. I looked that flaming nightmare in the eyes and realized: if I fell, she'd fall with me. If I hesitated, I was dead.
So I gripped the pickaxe with both hands.
"Let's dance, then."
She came at me like a burning nightmare.
I dove to the side at the last second, rolled across the ground, and in a burst of raw brutality, landed the first hit. The pickaxe tore through her blackened shell and unleashed a disgusting mix of pus and smoke. She screamed. Staggered.
I hit her again.
And again.
And again.
"This is for every drop of sweat you made me spill, Clotilde!"
The adrenaline turned me into a human hammer. Each swing came with the rage of a life poorly lived — of shady deals, betrayals, and wounds that never healed. It was me, exorcising the past on a creature that, ironically, just wanted to kill me.
She tried to grab me. Too late.
With the final blow, the spider's head burst in a wet pop. And then she collapsed. A pile of charred legs and foul-smelling smoke.
I stood there for a moment. Body shaking. Blood pounding in my ears. Fire still crackling on the ground around me.
And me, filthy, scorched, face covered in soot, staring at the smoldering corpse that almost ended me.
But didn't.
"I beat you!"
And I spat on the spider.
Then the berserk effect wore off, and the system decided it was a good time to remind me I wasn't doing great — as if I couldn't already feel it in every cell of my abused body.
| STATUS |
| Class: Urban Survivor / Beginner Adventurer
| Race: Half-Orc
| Level: 5
| Condition: Exhausted, partially burned, covered in soot
| Health Points (HP): 19 / 70 (Severely injured, critical state)
| URGENT NEEDS |
→ Rest to fully recover HP and remove penalties
→ Clean clothes
→ Bath or thorough cleaning
→ Burn treatment
→ Food and clean water
The world spun like a busted carnival ride — I felt drunk out of my mind.
My legs trembled. My chest heaved. And the taste of ash and blood filled my mouth like death itself had shaken up a custom cocktail just for me. The smoke still hung thick and hot in the air, and the stench of roasted spider clung to my skin like some old shame.
I tried to take one more step. Just one. A single step away from the incinerated carcass of the Spider. But there was no glory. No celebration.
There was collapse.
I kissed the ground. It felt like falling into the arms of an old friend — exhaustion. And this time, she came without mercy. My vision blurred, like someone had poured hot oil over my eyes. My ears rang, and my body felt like it was being dragged by invisible chains toward nothingness.
I laughed to myself, on the edge of consciousness: thinking about how I was going to protect my ass if some nasty goblin showed up.
And then, darkness.
Literally.
Three new resources.Two hands nearly broken.One mind already theorizing how many bombs, profits, and tricks could come out of it all.
It was official.The real monster in the cave was magical capitalism.
My arms trembled, my breathing sounded like an old furnace leaking smoke, and even my pickaxe creaked in protest. But greed is a demanding mistress, and the rush of mining something valuable was like a second breath.
So, even with my body begging for rest, I kept going.
That's when I found coal.
Yeah. Coal.Black, dull, dirty — the most worthless rock after my self-esteem.
"Oh, great," I muttered, almost spitting black dust from my mouth. "The trash of mining. The poor man's campfire fuel."
I tossed a chunk to the ground. It cracked easily. Pure stuff.
For a second, I thought about ignoring it. But something nagged at me. A dumb thought, deep in the back of my head. A memory from my past life.
Coal… carbon… diamond.
I froze. My pupils probably dilated.
"Wait a sec…"
Coal and diamond are made of the same thing.Carbon. The difference? Structure. Pressure. Time. Temperature.
Useless raw matter turning into the ultimate status symbol.Low becoming high. Dirt turning to jewelry.Sounded familiar.
And I started thinking — if this world has magic, alchemy, arcane systems, and even goblins born out of dirt… then why the hell hasn't anyone thought of turning coal into diamonds?
Maybe someone tried and failed. Maybe the technique was a secret.Or maybe… no one's thought about it with the desperation I have for money.
In my past life — in the world we call "real," where people think a $30,000 watch makes them better — this was a thing.Several, actually.
Turning carbon into diamond wasn't just a magic trick. It was science.And science that, by the way, some companies were already using to make lab-grown diamonds from human hair.Yeah. Hair. The crap that clogs drains.
Pieces of people turning into jewels.I always found that poetically offensive.
I remembered the basic process: HPHT — High Pressure, High Temperature.Insane pressure. Absurd heat. Recreate the conditions of the Earth's deep layers.
They took the carbon, put it in a specific hydraulic press, and simulated hell until it aligned into a perfect crystal.Slow. Expensive. Controlled.
But then there was CVD — Chemical Vapor Deposition.More modern. More elegant.You take carbon gases, deposit them on a substrate inside a chamber, and with the right conditions, the carbon organizes into diamond.Layer by layer.
None of that was magic. Just total control over variables.
Then I looked around.
A world where fire comes from your hands.Where stones store emotions.Where poison sings.
And I asked myself:
Has no one thought of this here?
Or is it that no one knows enough about carbon?Because… I do.
I might not be the strongest.Not the prettiest.But I was smart enough to turn trash into treasure.
If I could figure out a way to simulate pressure, heat, and structure... maybe with runes... maybe with alchemy... maybe with enough magic and shameless ambition...Then I wouldn't just have a new business.I'd have a magical diamond monopoly.
I smiled again.
I stared at the coal for over a minute. Sitting there, tired, filthy, but with eyes glowing like they'd already seen the first gem.
The idea started forming like a spell.A plan. A possibility.
"This. This could work."
And right there, covered in dust, surrounded by dead monsters and rare minerals, I had the thought that would probably change my life forever.
Now how I'd get information about those runes… that was the real question.