A Cave King’s Road to Paradise: Climbing to the Top with My Almighty Mining Skills! Volume 1 (eBook)

Hajime Naehara (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-0394-2 (ISBN)

Infos

In a world where crests decide one's fate, Prince Heale is born with Cave King-a crest just as worthless as he is. Deemed a disgrace to his family, he's exiled to a barren, deserted island with not a plant nor soul in sight. Alone, miserable, but determined to survive, he reaches for a pickaxe to expand the cave he intends to make his new home-and discovers the true power of his crest!

It turns out Cave King makes cavern mining as easy as breathing. And as Heale digs deeper into the island, he discovers one otherworldly mineral after another. Who's worthless now?

But valuable ore isn't the only thing Heale finds on his mining adventures. He soon befriends slimes and saves goblins that wash ashore. And together as one big family, they'll work to overcome any challenge on the road to developing the island into their own little paradise.

Textauszug

Chapter 1: Banished to a Remote Desert Island!

A crowd crammed into the courtyard. The moment I’d recognized them, I’d quickened my pace, dreading that my siblings might make fun of me yet again.

I, Heale Sanphales, am the seventeenth prince of the Sanphales Kingdom. Accordingly, the siblings I was trying to evade were also princes and princesses of Sanphales.

Strange, wasn’t it, for me to run away from my own kin? The reason was simple. I was useless trash—everyone agreed, myself included.

People of note in this world, without exception, had some sort of ability that set them apart. An example would be an impressive aptitude for magic. On the other hand, I’d been born with a mana pool that was more like a shallow puddle, and I was far from what you would call talented either. This earned me the disdain of both my father and siblings, and they considered my existence to be a humiliation for the royal family.

I had been aware of that fact even in my earliest memories, and I had relentlessly practiced swordsmanship and magic for days and nights on end in an attempt to make up for what I lacked from birth. All because the king, my father, had once told me that royalty must be strong and exceptional.

The Sanphales Kingdom was a superpower of the Barleon Continent. The continent itself was home to five major nations with smaller, minor nations splitting the rest of its territory. But Sanphales stood above the rest, boasting both abundant wealth and an indomitable military. As royalty, those that reigned over such a country, it was our duty to be strong. I had wanted to live up to these expectations, and to this day, I’d poured in all the effort I could muster.

However, after all that, the fruit I reaped now at the age of fifteen was the miserable label of being the most useless among all the heirs to the throne. In the field of magic, spells that would have been spectacular in the hands of a decent mage turned into party tricks when I cast them. A spell that was supposed to summon a raging inferno, for example, would only be as effective as a candle’s flame. The mana pool we drew from to use magic was said to be decided from the moment one was born, and mine didn’t increase no matter how much effort I put in. In the art of the sword, I probably could compare favorably with a regular soldier. But I was far from the level of those who could truly take pride in their swordsmanship.

I can already hear the accusations. “You didn’t work hard enough!” right? The cruel truth was that there was a decisive factor in this world that had dictated my failure from the very beginning, no matter how hard I tried to overcome it.

The reason for all this contempt on my shoulders was the faint crest on the back of my right hand.

Every human was born with a mark we called a “crest.” They blessed their holders with a specific gift, such as enhanced physical abilities or some other special talent. From what I had heard, apparently, some species of monsters also had crests.

Many of those within the royal family had crests with magnificent titles like <Sword God> or <Sorcerer King>, and they would bless their holders with powers true to their name—in the form of sword skills or enhanced talent in magic respectively. But if you looked at it from another angle, this meant that a person without <Sword God> could never hold a candle to them as a swordsman.

As for me, someone surrounded by siblings with sublime crests...I was born with <Cave King>, an obscure crest with unknown effects. I had heard that during my birth, it was so unprecedented that it had caused a stir, both inside and outside the royal court. Crest clerics were in charge of deciphering the crests of infants, and the one who had been assigned to me had nearly been executed on grounds of treason. I wish I could say that had been the worst of it, but the citizens of this country even started rumors that my mother, the queen, had committed infidelity. These rumors had permeated all social circles, regardless of social standing.

Starting from the moment of my birth, I had been the target of my entire family’s scorn and ridicule. My mother, my father, my sisters, and my brothers all shunned me for my existence.

So you couldn’t blame me for wanting to leave as quickly as possible. But then again, I was used to this. Minimizing the sound of my footsteps, muting my voice, and sneaking around were all a part of my daily life. Nobody had noticed me slipping around between the shadows of the hallway.

Or, at least, that was what I had assumed until I heard the usual jeer, and it drenched me in a shower of dread.

“Hey, trash!”

My shoulders trembled. Then my other siblings began laughing. But today, their voices weren’t directed at me for once.

What’s going on? I hid behind a pillar and peered in the direction my siblings were facing.

There was a creature with black wings there, weighed down by chains. Its round body was about the size of a human head, and purple fur covered its skin. It had small limbs and a tail, as well as two horns.

Ah...a monster. I didn’t know what kind it was, but I could be sure that it was a rare sight in Sanphales. Here, humans were hostile towards monsters, and one could never find one in human settlements. One might come to the conclusion that there were no monsters within our borders, but that wasn’t really the case.

Instead, they took up residence in places away from human civilization, such as forests or mountains. They were by no means a force that could be ignored since there were enough of them to make attacks on human territory from time to time. Because of this, even the people of Sanphales knew the identifying traits of the most common monsters. As for me, I had gained this knowledge through books and the like.

Vile insults poured out from my siblings’ mouths, aimed at the rare creature.

“The longer I look at this thing, the uglier it seems.”

“Huh...it can’t understand what we’re saying, and it’s practically useless. Come on, dance for me!”

One of my siblings threw a rock at it. Almost like a chain reaction, everyone else followed his example, pelting the monster with rocks. The creature seemed to wail in pain, but they didn’t care at all.

In truth, this wasn’t anything unusual. In Sanphales, pretty much everyone deemed monsters wicked beings and treated them as they saw fit, just like this.

Personally, I didn’t think it should truly be so clear-cut. There were indeed some aggressive monsters that attacked humans, but the opposite was true as well. Skirmishes with monsters increased year-over-year because people were snatching away their habitat. And some hunted them purely for the sake of glory, especially those who went on expeditions into mountains and forests where humans had no good reason to enter.

Attempting to end all conflict would be a naive struggle. But when you get to this point, it’s no different from tormenting a person who can’t even fight back. How is there any meaning in this? I told myself that I was different from my siblings and that I would never cause such meaningless suffering.

And then...I left. I know, I thought, clenching my jaw. No matter what I might declare to myself, I’m powerless, and all these words do little more than make me feel better. At the end of the day, I can’t even make one objection against my father and older brothers, because they are superior to me.

Though I tried to quickly leave the area once again, in the end, I couldn’t take a single step forward. I was haunted by the question: Do I really want to keep running away like this?

And perhaps there was another reason as well—the monster, who couldn’t even begin to put up a resistance, reminded me of myself. At this rate, it will... This thought nailed my feet to the ground, and I remained still in the end. I forced myself to stay put, and I stood there for a long while, gritting my teeth as the cries of pain echoed. Eventually, both the wails and the jeers quietened down.

“Rare creatures sure are tough, huh?”

“That just means we can squeeze more fun out of it. Let’s come again tomorrow.”

From the sounds of things, my siblings had gotten bored and were heading back towards the royal court, leaving behind the monster in the cage. I observed them warily, and once I was sure of their absence, I ran over to the cage. When they threw it back in prison, the wardens would constantly be on the lookout. This was the only chance I had to set it free. And if they keep torturing it like this... I needed to get it out of here while it still had the strength to do so.

The monster was curled up on itself, and it peered at my face nervously.

“Give me a moment. I’ll let you out right now,” I promised.

I inspected the lock. Ah, this is locked with magic, which means that I need to unlock it with magic too. I knew the spell, but the problem was my feeble mana. It just wasn’t enough. Don’t think that. I might as well try. I nodded to myself before placing my right hand over the lock and casting the unlocking spell, Pick.

But it wouldn’t budge.

“Darn it! Open up already!”

I repeatedly tried to squeeze every last drop of mana from my body and...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.4.2023
• Reihe/Serie: A Cave King’s Road to Paradise: Climbing to the Top with My Almighty Mining Skills!
• Reihe/Serie: A Cave King’s Road to Paradise: Climbing to the Top with My Almighty Mining Skills!
• Illustrationen: Hatori Kyoka
• Übersetzer: Zihan Gao
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: Friendship • Heartwarming • Light Novel • Magic • male protagonist • monster taming • Overpowered
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-0394-7 / 1718303947
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-0394-2 / 9781718303942