Roy was filled with regret.
Deep, gnawing, soul-crushing regret.
At this very moment, he was sitting in his personal workspace, wearing a pair of orange-tinted protective glasses. On the small floating screen beside him hovered the appraisal panel of a pale green crystal resting quietly on the table.
That crystal had been brought back earlier by Smith and his exploration team.
There was no mistake.
It was that crystal.
Thorium
Effect: Can be used in Alchemy synthesis, item crafting, and magic doll creation.
Description: A mineral second only to the legendary "Mithril." It possesses exceptional magical conductivity and is one of the top materials for crafting high-grade magical equipment.
When Roy had first received the appraisal results, his mind had gone completely blank.
An ore?
No.
This was not merely an ore.
To an ordinary survivor, it might be a rare material. To a craftsman, it was a treasure. But to a merchant—especially one with Roy's instincts—this was something far more terrifying.
This was a means of production.
Something capable of shaking markets. Something that could control supply chains. Something that could quietly influence prices, power, and alliances across the entire Abandoned Land.
And yet—
Roy had given away seventy percent of it.
Seventy.
Percent.
Leaving himself with a meager thirty percent, as if he were generously tossing away gold bars like worthless stones.
What hurt even more was the terrifying implication hidden behind this discovery.
There was almost certainly more.
After all, the number of Mountain-Eating Beasts was directly tied to the number of forked intersections within the underground tunnels. Each intersection could very well hide another beast, and each beast was effectively a walking, living random mineral deposit.
Sure, the appraisal results claimed that the minerals were "random."
But randomness did not mean worthless.
Who could guarantee that the next beast wouldn't contain something even more valuable?
For a merchant, this realization was more painful than death itself.
Originally, Roy had assumed the cave might contain some ordinary ores at best—or perhaps just serve as a natural passageway. Never, not even in his wildest dreams, had he expected a mineral described as "second only to the legendary Mithril."
Just those first few words alone were enough to make one's heart stop.
Still… there was one small mercy.
Most of the people sharing ownership of this discovery had little interest in market manipulation.
Smith's collector team, for example, would eventually hand over their allotted ten percent to Roy anyway, trusting him to convert it into usable profit.
As for Natasha, she lived for combat. Strategy, finances, and trade bored her to death. Roy was confident that if Natasha knew he was handling the logistical and economic side of things, she would feel nothing but relief.
And then there was Arya.
She barely needed explanation.
Like Natasha, Arya lived almost entirely within her own world—either brewing potions or conducting arcane research. Recently, she had been forced to attend Professor Sai's lectures, and as a result, even her potion work had become noticeably perfunctory.
All things considered, the majority of the thorium was effectively under Roy's control.
From a long-term perspective, using it to influence the market was not impossible.
Of course, that was a future concern.
The Abandoned Land was still too small. The market itself was underdeveloped. More importantly, there was not a single individual capable of crafting high-level magical items using thorium.
Thinking this way was little more than self-comfort.
But comfort, however fragile, was better than none.
After analyzing the situation repeatedly, Roy finally forced himself to let go.
There was no other choice.
Neither Arya—the "major shareholder" of the group—nor Natasha were obstacles he could simply bypass.
Even though Natasha had not contributed much offensively during this mission, her injuries were real, and the Wind Wall she had deployed had saved lives.
Smith's exploration report also painted a clear picture of the risks involved. The situation had been far more dangerous than it appeared on the surface.
No matter how painful it was, Roy had to accept it.
With a resigned sigh, he packaged the thorium crystal and sent it to Arya through the system interface, attaching a short message.
Roy: "Remember to wear protective glasses before taking this out. Otherwise, your eyes won't be able to handle it."
That line had originally come from Smith.
Roy hadn't understood it at first, but after reading the detailed exploration report, everything made sense.
So for Arya's sake—and frankly, for his own peace of mind—he forwarded the warning word for word.
He also sent the full exploration report along with it.
After all, no one knew the exact total quantity of thorium yet. With that report in hand, Arya would have no reason to accuse him of deliberately obscuring numbers.
And indeed, after reading it, Arya had nothing to complain about.
In fact, she felt something closer to delight.
It was like receiving a pillow just as sleep overtook her.
Thorium.
A mineral ranked just below Mithril and a handful of other legendary ores.
Its extraordinary magical conductivity would drastically reduce the difficulty of creating magic dolls in the future.
Without hesitation, Arya put on her glasses and carefully retrieved the crystal.
The pale green block felt heavy and cool in her hands. Light passed faintly through it, giving it an almost dreamlike translucence.
If one ignored all of its added value and looked only at its appearance, Arya felt confident that no gemstone on Blue Star—no matter how heavily advertised—could compare.
She examined it repeatedly.
Slowly, the joy on her face faded into calm contemplation.
Thorium was precious.
Thorium was rare.
Thorium was powerful.
But it also had a flaw.
A very troublesome flaw.
It was too hard.
According to the records in Basic Mineralogy, thorium could not be melted using ordinary furnaces. It required either a specialized high-grade furnace or a uniquely structured Alchemy Array.
Unfortunately, Arya had neither.
Alchemy required liquids or powders. Solid blocks of ultra-dense ore were, at her current stage, almost completely unusable.
She couldn't even scrape a thin layer of powder off the surface for experimentation.
Still, having it was better than not having it.
Resources were resources.
After a brief pause, Arya sent a message.
Arya: "Give me one hundred jin."
Roy blinked.
Roy: "Can you actually use it?"
Arya: "No. But I need to store some for future research."
Roy: "No problem."
After a moment of thought, Roy added another question.
Roy: "How dangerous is this ore? Can it be touched directly? Are protective measures needed during mining?"
Arya replied almost immediately.
Arya: "It can be handled directly. No need to worry. As far as I know, its only real issue is hardness. It requires a specialized furnace or Alchemy Array to process."
Roy let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Roy: "That's good. Then mining it won't be a problem. Getting a hundred jin back is manageable."
With Arya's assurance, Roy finally relaxed.
After all, discovering a treasure mountain only to find it untouchable would have been worse than losing money—it would have robbed him of sleep.
As for Arya taking a hundred jin, that was trivial.
A major shareholder taking materials from her own operation was perfectly reasonable.
Thanks to Roy's clarification, Smith also felt far more at ease.
When his eyes had been temporarily blinded earlier, he had genuinely worried that the ore might be radioactive or otherwise hazardous. That fear was the only reason he had allowed Lisala to retrieve a sample while fully armed.
Now, it seemed those fears were unfounded.
If the thorium had been truly dangerous, every single one of them—including Natasha—would have been in serious trouble.
With the tension finally easing, Smith asked the question that mattered most.
Smith: "So… do we need to hunt the Mountain-Eating Beasts at the other intersections?"
There were many intersections left unexplored.
If each one held a beast, and each beast was equivalent to a random mine, then their future operations would change entirely.
Their collector team would effectively become a mining team.
This wasn't a small decision—it would determine their long-term direction.
Smith looked at Roy, waiting for his answer.
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