“I vaguely remember that life wasn’t as hard as it is now when I first came here.” The old miner leaned against a rock and spoke slowly.
Roland asked, “What was your life like back then?”
“It was the same two-shift system—working seven or eight hours a day, then the next batch took over while we rested. But back then, the supervisor wasn’t One-Hand, but another fellow with a good temper.”
“One-Hand?”
“The one sleeping up there. His real name is Vance, but we all call him One-Hand. Someone like him deserved to have his arm chopped off by a goblin.”
So Vance lost his hand to a goblin, Roland thought. That sort of information might not be useful, but it could still lead to deeper rumors.
The old miner took another swig of liquor. He wanted to continue, but couldn’t hold back a fit of coughing. Blood splattered into his palm, mixed with some unknown blue fragments, jelly-like in appearance.
From that stuff, Roland could faintly sense a weak magical power, so she asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Magical Corrosion Syndrome. Anyone working this job ends up with it. Not fatal, but it’ll kill you all the same.”
“Could you tell me more? Maybe I can help.”
“You really are warm-hearted, but the noble in charge of this mine can’t even be bothered to care about us. What could you possibly do?” The old miner gave a self-deprecating laugh.
“I don’t know the exact cause either, but I heard from the older generations that ordinary people shouldn’t be exposed to raw magic ore for too long. Otherwise, the magic seeps into your body bit by bit, turning your organs into something much like the ore itself.”
“It starts with coughing, then your skin starts to glow, and finally your whole body aches so much you don’t want to move at all. If it’s serious, you even get hallucinations, driving you to walk unknowingly toward death.”
Roland took out her notepad and charcoal, writing down everything the old miner said, planning to use it to improve the miners’ working conditions.
“Anything else?”
“There’s no shortage of people whose lives were ruined by Magical Corrosion Syndrome. I came here in the first place because I was enticed by the pay. In just a few years, my wife and kid ran off with someone else, leaving me half-dead like this.”
“I can understand.”
“No, you can’t. I can tell you’re a smart person, but being smart doesn’t mean you share our perspective. Unless you’re willing to stay in these dark, sunless tunnels for ten-plus years, you’ll never really understand what it’s like.”
“Why do you think that?”
The old miner pointed to a bare-chested young man and said, “See him? That’s Leno, the hardest worker here. But he’s not working hard for himself, nor for the noble lords, but to save up enough for his bedridden family’s medical expenses, just so the church might be willing to treat them.”
“There are plenty like him here. But this is just a small mine. Across the whole Empire, there are countless mines, countless miners. Which of them isn’t forced to risk their lives for their own reasons?”
“You can roam around, recording what you see and hear without a care. But we have to wear shackles and dig like prisoners. That’s what we mean by ‘standpoint.’ Without sharing the same standpoint, we can never truly understand each other.”
After those words, silence fell between them.
Though Roland was a noble, she had worked in her previous life, endured the hardships of both study and life, so she could naturally understand the suffering of the common folk. It might not be on par with what these miners endured, but in essence, it was the same.
That was why she wanted to fully understand the current state of the mines, and do everything in her power to improve their conditions. That was what a lord should do.
“I’ll take you for a look inside, to the tunnels, so you can see what kind of world these people really live in.”
Roland did not refuse the old miner’s offer; in fact, she welcomed it.
The old miner got to his feet, drinking as he walked into the mine, with Roland following close behind.
When they entered the tunnel, all around was pitch black, with only the oil lamps hung from wooden beams barely illuminating the way. The air was heavy with the stench of sweat, mixed with other unidentifiable odors. The environment was damp and cold—nothing like the relative warmth outside.
“Are you cold?” the old miner asked, though he knew the answer. “It only gets colder the farther down you go.”
As they went deeper, the number of oil lamps dwindled. Instead, pale blue crystals grew out from cracks in the stone, emitting a faint blue glow in the darkness, becoming the only light source underground.
The miners, bent at the waist, were chipping away at the rock with pickaxes. Others picked up the broken ore from the ground and tossed it into the waiting minecarts. When a cart was full, it was hauled away along the tracks back to the surface, then returned for more.
Some of the miners were barely in their teens, while others were old and white-haired.
Everywhere, exhausted workers slumped against the tunnel walls, but were forced to pick up their pickaxes and return to work. The unending chorus of coughing was like a never-ending requiem, declaring that their bodies were already riddled with scars.
“See them? They’re struggling to survive, trading their lives for wealth, pouring their blood into the great machine called the Empire, so the nobles in the palace can enjoy their luxuries.”
“Do you hate all this?”
“Hate? Hate who? The nobles who give us jobs? The petty supervisors who throw their weight around? Or my own mediocrity and helplessness? We don’t even have the right to hate. If we want to survive, we have to numb ourselves.”
When Roland reached the very bottom of the mine, all she saw was glowing raw magic ore. The stuff clung to the earth like maggots on rotting flesh, as if it was part of the world itself.
A great crowd of workers had gathered here to mine, and the temperature inside was so cold it was beyond human endurance. Dressed in just linen clothes, Roland couldn’t take it, shivering violently, hugging her arms to conserve what little warmth she had.
But the miners seemed completely unfazed by the cold, as if they had long grown used to it.
Until one man finally couldn’t hold on. His pick had just been lifted above his head when he collapsed to the ground, causing a ripple of commotion among the crowd.
Roland hurried over to check on him.
The man’s consciousness was fading, his skin was cyanotic, his lips and fingers were as blue as a corpse. Without treatment, he would almost certainly freeze to death right here.
“We have to get him back to the surface!”
But the old miner said, “Why get involved? His life or death has nothing to do with you.”
“How can you say that? He’s about to die—are you just going to do nothing?”
“This isn’t the first time. A few people dying is normal. It just means his constitution is weak.”
“If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself.”
With that, Roland wrapped magic around her hands, flipped over a nearby minecart, dumped out its contents, and tried to drag the man inside.
There was a glimmer of emotion in the old miner’s eyes. He sighed, and finally his heart softened. “Let me help.”
Righting the cart, the two of them lifted the unconscious miner into it, then dragged the cart, running back up the tunnel.