Ping!

Somehow, Rino was getting more familiar with this sound. Kragami took charge of the kitchen and made the good stuff that Rina liked to reward her for the business trip that went smoothly.

The windmill project was almost finished so the earth gnomes offered to leave Town Zera for a while to build the waterwheel and fit the grindstones for Kragami. Ubel also left after carving the patterns into the windmill's grindstone to resume his mountainside statue project. Rino promised to regularly send food to Noir Province and gave Erika orders to let him know who deserved the reward at the end of the month when the moon was the fullest.

Checking his updated quest, Rino was only expecting the daily quest to update. However, he was surprised to see that he now had a new side quest.

===

Side Quest #23

Objective: Increase Town Zera's Population

3,000/10,000 Population

Reward: Harvester Information

===

Harvester information! The mentions of harvesters in the dwarven library were vague, but Rino only managed to figure out how they looked. Those air jellyfish creatures were called harvesters, but apart from what Rino saw, he did not know much about them and their significance in this world, even though everyone feared them.

The town's population was huge, but the goal that the gods wanted was much higher. Where would Rino find ten thousand citizens to reside in his town? Also, thinking about arrangements to accommodate that many people made Rino's head hurt.

Shoving this out of sight and mind, Rino decided to check on the other quest that was updated.

===

Daily Quest #24

Objective: Mine some ores

Time Limit: 3 Days

0/1 Coal ore

0/1 Copper ore

0/1 Tin ore

0/1 Iron ore

Tutorial here.

Reward: Smelting Recipe

Penalty: Deduct 24 hours of sleep upon failure and [Curse of Overtime] until quest is forcefully completed.

===

Oh, yes. Rino knew where this was going now. That ore appraisal was just a start for a whole new broken down chain quest. From mining to smelting, Rino confirmed that they were moving to metalworks now.

Metalworks was a rather advanced craft in his previous world that only the dwarves were good at. The blacksmiths in the empire could only make blunt weapons that were heavy and so ridiculously priced that only adventurers would buy them. Nobody else could lift them or use them in their daily lives.

However, there were only three days to complete the quest. Rino knew how smelted ingots of these metals looked like, but he never toured mines when the dwarves were working. His friend claimed that it was too dangerous and many accidents happen even for the most experienced miners. Hence, Rino had zero idea how natural ores looked like. From what he was told, they looked like normal rocks but smelled different.

Yawning after a great nap, Noir looked over to Rino, who was staring at the fireplace in his stone cottage. The black cat stretched and gracefully walked over to the lich, who appeared deep in thoughts.

"What's on your mind?"

Normally, Rino would drop everything to give Noir his undivided attention. It wasn't often that the black cat visited or paid him any attention. However, he was now a responsible lord of many undead. Duty was a priority, and Rino was still somewhat awkward about seeing Noir around. He did not know how to tell the black cat he saw his master in a different dimension while harvesting crops as part of his punishment for failing to meet a deadline.

According to Noir's master, the black cat must still be grieving for her passing and roaming around trying to find a direction in life. Noir was strong. Rino didn't doubt that. He learned from a magician far more powerful than Rino. It was only natural that Noir didn't want Rino as his new master. In the black cat's eyes, there was no better master than the magician Rino met. He promised to take good care of Noir, but the black cat was a wanderer who did not wish to settle in one area.

"Hey, what do you think about staying in this town for a while? I know you're a very busy cat, but there are still a lot of things that I have not shown you."

Whatever Rino was going to say, Ace didn't think it would be trying to persuade a black cat to stay in his town.

"Why do you want me to stay? I've seen everything there is to be seen here. It might be bigger than the potato farm, but it's easy to travel everywhere within a day. Besides, there are still many areas in development. I'll come back when it's done in a few months."

Sulking, Rino turned away. Finding it odd, Ace leapt into Rino's lap, but the lich refused to meet his eyes.

Indeed, Noir had a point. There wasn't a reason for the black cat to stick around. Rino simply wanted Noir around more. It was a very long time since the black cat came by, and he just wanted to monopolise this furball. His possessiveness wasn't warranted or reasonable, so Rino could only sulk. Noir wasn't his, and the black cat had the freedom to choose where he wanted to go.

Ace initially came down to enjoy the premium food that Rino and his town members made because the offering system was too broke to accept them. However, seeing how sad Rino was when he thought about Noir's departure, the god of prayers felt slightly bad about it. Ever since Phil became a system administrator, he received more divinity than when Ark was solely in charge of the system.

Snuggling beside the lich, Ace played it coy. It wouldn't hurt if he remained here for a while. The next phase was metalwork, and Noir supposed he could remain here until it was completed. Stephanie and Phil were in charge of this phase anyway. He had plenty of time to relax. If prayers needed answering, he could always disappear for a few hours to attend to them before returning. His presence here can only be a good influence on Rino so the other gods should not have complaints.

"I want to eat crispy giant quails."

After the declaration, Rino stilled. Then, he slowly turned to look at the cat snuggled beside him. A huge grin grew invisibly, and he felt his heart warm at the implied meaning behind the whimsical demand.

Patting the black cat gently on the head, Rino listened to the feline purr and drift off to sleep again under his touch. He wasn't sure if bony fingers were comfortable, but Noir did not seem to have a problem with it.

Going back to his tutorial, Rino scrolled down to read the methods of mining for ores. He knew the cave he would be visiting to search for ores. In fact, the tutorial gave him a map of the ore sites. How useful!

With his ore appraisal skill obtained as a reward from the last quest, Rino deemed the mission easily completed. It wasn't becoming for a king to mine for ores personally, but everyone else in his town and territory had assigned jobs. Nobody else had enough talent to help him with this, and there was a very tight deadline to fulfil.

The first thing Rino needed was a pickaxe or mining tool to harvest those ores. At the same time, he should start preparing the mana web array linking to the abandoned dwarven caves. The basics array was already established because he needed to tap into their sewage tunnels for his flood contingency plans.

Noir took a peek through half-closed eyelids as Rino pulled out his sketchpad to start making plans. The lich worked quickly and efficiently as Noir remained curled up beside him. Rino had no idea when the black cat crawled into his lap, but the weight was rather comforting and inspired him to work better.

By the time Rino finished mapping out the main mana web networks and strategic teleportation points in the abandoned dwarven mine, the sun outside his barrier had already gone down.

Feeling refreshed, Noir stretched and demanded food. Not one to deny his favourite cat's request, Rino got to it, and they settled for some bunny skewers. The magically grown grass was finally proving useful, and Rino liked how Quasimodo scheduled the animals for breeding and grazing according to the newly implemented cookhouse menu.

"What are you going to do tonight?" Noir asked in between bites of rabbit meat.

Rino tore out a page from his sketchpad and showed the cat. There was nobody else in the kitchen at this hour, so Rino felt no need to conceal his plans.

"Ore hunting. I need to locate several ore veins and set up a magic array network for easier access in the future. It gets complicated inside, so I'm adding restrictive barriers to prevent miners from straying into territories they shouldn't be in. Do you know anything about the dwarven mines?"

Smirking, Noir cleaned behind his ears and licked his lips.

"A little. However, I've never been to it before. I could, however, act as your ore sniffer. What kind of metals are you looking for?"

Thrilled that someone was saying the same thing that the dwarves in his previous world did, Rino listed the ores from his quest, and Ace pretended to memorise them. Truth be told, he already knew where Phil hid them in the mine. He saw the finalised design and helped the god of landscaping hide some of the more precious minerals for the later part of this mining quest phase.

Rino was in for a huge surprise, and Ace looked forward to telling Phil about the lich's reaction.