While Nathan wasn't afraid of the bunny injuring him like it had done Ruben—mostly because Nathan now outclassed the bunny—he was still wary of any surprises. After all, the same harmless bunny had helped him take down the panther that had eclipsed them in level at the time.

  Plus, getting slimed by the bunny and losing control of his body system was something that he briefly considered before shrugging it off; by now, he and the bunny had been around each other long enough to form a sort of truce, even if they both preferred to avoid each other.

  Great, now I'm thinking about my choices concerning this infernal rabbit.

  Even with all these random thoughts popping into his head, Nathan didn't pause or hesitate; he simply reached for the bunny on the floor—the killer bunny. It looked nothing like the cunning predator that Nathan knew that it could be if it so wished to; no, it looked more like prey, an illusion to draw people like Ruben in before capitalizing on their foolish mistakes. Nathan wasn't Ruben.

  "Look out!" Ruben cried out.

  Nathan didn't flinch at the reasonable cry of alarm by the berserker; after all, his hands had just made contact with the bunny when it broke its innocent illusion, its mouth stretching in a skin-crawling manner as it bit at his exposed hand, the sharp rows of teeth unable to pierce Nathan's skin due to his superior constitution. He wanted to grin in the face of the bunny, but he decided not to.

  Probably because it'd become slimy and paralyze me.

  It didn't try to paralyze him, that is. The Neran rabbit gave in to its fate of being captured by the berserker as it simply went limp in his hands, glaring at him even as he pulled it to his chest, securely holding it there with one hand. Of course, Nathan had to keep his eyes trained on the innocent-looking killer; bringing the creature that close to him brought with it certain risks, like the bunny hopping off his chest and scoring a hit on his eyes. It was a worst-case scenario kind of thing, but it was well within the realms of possibility, so he simply stayed still for a moment before half-shrugging; he highly doubted that the bunny would get the better of him.

  "Moron," Daniel jabbed, "Nathan. Isn't. You."

  "Bu…but… i… it bit me… ME!" Ruben whined. "I'm the nicest person in this group; no one … or bunny, should want to bite ME."

  Well, a couple of people want to kill you for blabbing too much, but nobody is going to bite you, so I guess you do have a point.

  That's what popped up in Nathan's head at the Berserker's words, but he kept the thought to himself; no point dropping such a thing on Ruben.

  "Bite… No," Pirlo said in a bored tone. "Kill … Yes."

  My God, bloodthirsty much?

  "What does that mean?" Ruben asked, his brows furrowing.

  "Keep talking and find out," Pirlo replied.

  "Relax, Pirlo," Ciara said to the rogue. "And yep, try to shut up for a minute, Ruben."

  Nathan couldn't help but snort as the Berserker in question gave Ciara a mock salute, the act earning him a glare from the mage, the playful teen already moving on from Pirlo's subtle threat. One that confused Nathan the more he thought about it, the rogue and Berserker seemed to have started clicking as a team. He wondered if their 'friendship' was souring or if it was the rogue's attempt at a friendly joke.

  "So Nathan, you find anything interesting?" Tasha asked.

  The ranger had been laid back for most interactions, not quite as Yola had been, but still, she preferred to let others do the talking rather than engage others for the most part. Nathan understood that kind of behavior, because that had pretty much been him before.

  "Yeah, so I found their storehouse for the ore, but I think we should hit the mine before I take you there," Nathan said, his eyes trained on the bunny he cradled.

  "Ohh, what do they mine, Aluminum? Gold? Silver? … Helium?" Ruben asked, the Berserker buzzing with excitement.

  "Helium? I don't think they mine helium, Ruben." Tasha said. "In fact, I don't think anyone mines helium."

  Nathan wasn't a scientist, nor had he been a good student when it came to science-related subjects — when he'd been in high school, but he had to agree with the ranger there: helium wasn't mined. At least, not any helium he knew about, which meant the Berserker was probably wrong about his assessment.

  "Are you sure? I'm pretty sure helium can be mined." Ruben said thoughtfully.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Nathan, for the love of everything holy, please ignore Ruben and get on with what you were saying," Daniel said exasperatedly.

  No doubt the tall ranger just wanted to score one over Ruben and was trying to involve him in their little squabble. Fortunately for the ranger, Nathan shared his sentiment—the conversation needed to move on to the next segment.

  "As I was saying," Nathan said, giving the berserker a pointed look to keep quiet. " We'll hit the mine first, then I'll lead you guys into the storeroom. Any questions?"

  The group kept quiet at his words; Pirlo looked like he couldn't wait to get out of the entire settlement and catch some z's. The rest of the squad looked just as tired as the rogue, well, all except a single berserker who was buzzing with energy, a berserker who was raising his hand, presumably to ask Nathan a question, much to the exasperation of the rest of the squad.

  No words were spoken but they didn't need to speak a single word, their eyes told him all he needed to know. Their eyes begged him to ignore the berserker, but Nathan would rather let the buzzing teen get his question out now rather than face the question at an inconvenient time.

  "Yes, Ruben?" Nathan asked tiredly.

  "What do I get if they were actually mining helium?"

  Nathan couldn't believe his ears, and by the looks on the faces of the rest of the squad, they also couldn't believe what the Berserker had just said. It wasn't ideal, but Nathan knew he'd rather just give the Berserker an answer now and let the issue die down or risk the possibility of a hyped-up teen hovering behind him.

  "I'll personally get you a pizza," Nathan said, gritting his teeth. "Alright, no more talking. Onto the mine"

  Ruben looked like he wanted to talk back, but he swallowed the words when he saw the glare on Nathan's face. Sure, he'd be patient enough to entertain outlandish questions by everyone, and while his patience was usually more than up to the task, Ruben had pushed the virtue so much that Nathan was surprised that he hadn't snapped.

  With a snort, he cleared his mind, focusing on the road even as he trudged through the dirt floor; blood had started to cake on his body.

  But Nathan didn't mind, and by the looks of it, neither did the bunny he cradled nor the squad behind him. The mine loomed up ahead like the one place that held all the answers to the questions that plagued Nathan.

  "We're here," Nathan said.

  A couple of grunts came from behind him, probably the squad's way of acknowledging his words. Nathan didn't turn back to confirm; he simply kept his eyes trained on the entrance of the mine. A blue glow pulsated from within the mine, the source beyond his gaze.

  Same glow as the nightlight. This has to be it.

  "Be alert and watch your backs," Nathan warned. "Most importantly, watch out for traps. We have no idea if they have any lying around."

  Yes, it was a mine, but to Nathan, everything on earth since the beginning of the apocalypse had been weird and out of the norm; heck, he'd never heard of, or seen ore that glowed in his life. His warnings might've been out of pocket before the apocalypse, but with the way the world was right now, it was understandable why no one argued with him.

  Sword in one hand, bunny in the other, Nathan walked into the mine. He could tell that the entrance had once held the glowy ore in its wall, but it'd been picked clean by the miners. The inner mine walls were nothing but the normal dull brown of the earth, the blue glow pulsating from somewhere deeper within the mine illuminating the place.

  Discarded pickaxes littered the floor of the mines. Sparing a glance at the tools, he came to the conclusion that most of the discarded pickaxes were actually useless; their tips had become blunt from overuse, and others were in worse states. There were a few pickaxes that were still in reasonable condition, but more often than not, the pickaxes littering the floor were useless.

  Pickaxes weren't the only things in the mine, there were also crates, empty wooden crates lining the side of the wall, no doubt they'd be used to transport the ore that would be gotten from the mine, it appeared that the miners had a crude but effective working system down in the mines. On a hunch had a thought on how they moved the ore that had been picked out of the mine, they probably pulled it off by passing crates with ore from miner to miner till it reached the miner at the entrance of the mine who'd then take it to wherever they stored it, at least that was how he thought they pulled it off.

  "Are you guys feeling this pressure, or am I the only one?" Ruben asked, the berserker's voice strained.

  Nathan was ready to snap and tear into the blabbering Berserker when he realized that his words were actually true. After about a minute of walking into the mine, a certain pressure had started to descend on his shoulder; he hadn't really felt it because it was light, and when he had, he'd chucked it up to gravity—the mine sloped downwards.

  It wasn't; this wasn't the work of Earth's gravity; something else was at play. He stood still, causing the rest of the squad to pause in their tracks, watching as Nathan briefly closed his eyes before opening them. The Berserker wasn't one to randomly stop in his tracks, so the rest of the squad refrained from questioning his decision.

  For Nathan, the pressure wasn't really much; it was like having a toddler piggybacking on him. The others in the squad had it worse; Diane was openly panting, the priestess was red in the face, and the others were better off, a little bit out of breath but certainly better than the priestess.

  Weird, I wonder how the miners worked in these conditions.

  "Ruben is right; keep your eyes peeled for anything suspicious," Nathan said as he opened his eyes. "Diane, do you need a minute? "

  "No ... Let's keep moving," the priestess replied.

  Nathan didn't want to look down on her and repeat his question; already everyone knew that she was the weakest in the squad, and if everyone knew, then the priestess knew, and if she was saying that just to let them know that she wasn't going to be a liability to them, then he wasn't going to undermine her decision.

  "Okay, eyes wide and body alert. Let's go," Nathan said.

  The blue light got brighter the deeper they walked into the mine; it wasn't blinding, but it was definitely increasing in brightness. It was a soft blue, pulsating glow, pleasing to the eyes. It took about five more minutes for Nathan to discover the source of the glow: a rich vein of glowing ore—Tora. His eyes went wide as he came face to face with the ore.

  "Unbelievable," Pirlo whispered.

  "Told you it wasn't helium," Daniel said in awe.

  "Who cares? We're going to be rich!!!" Ruben said excitedly.

  "So, so rich," Ciara said.

  Rich?