Chapter 193: The Saint of the Mine
It wasn’t a powerful electric current, just enough to momentarily disable a person.
Ramin moved out from behind Juran and sprinted toward the Fang agent. She reached out, put her arm around the Fang agent’s neck, and twisted their head with force. With a cracking sound, the agent collapsed.
Aganin looked at the two of them with a bewildered expression. “Who are you people…”
Ramin grabbed the gun from the agent’s hand and took off their ammunition pouch and sheath.
Then she walked over to Juran and said, “Was that magic? You could have mentioned something useful like that earlier.”
Juran tapped on his antlers and replied, “I told you there was a spirit here.”
Ramin had never thought Juran resembled Hwee-Kyung, but at this moment, they seemed similar.
‘It’s their eyes.’
Ramin handed the ammunition pouch and revolver to Juran and turned to Aganin.
“Can we meet that Saint right away? Is that possible?”
***
First, Ramin concealed the dead body, then she, Juran, and Aganin left the laborers’ lodging.
According to Aganin, the Saint remained deep in the central camp within the mine in the slave labor camp, without ever coming to the surface, under the surveillance of the guards.
“Is it difficult to sneak in then?”
“Not exactly. In fact, nighttime laborer groups do go around when it’s late, so it should be possible to slip in with them. But more importantly…”
“More importantly?”
“I can only guide you this far. I don’t know if that person truly was a Fang agent, but someone was killed, so it won’t be long before the others find out. No, they might already be at the lodging…”
Ramin snorted and said, “So you think you’ll be okay if you return now?”
“Hmm…”
“It might be better to come with us and say that you were only doing this because we threatened you.”
Aganin sighed and agreed with what Ramin said.
They had to go down the wooden staircase built alongside the deep vertical tunnel of the mine. It wasn’t narrow, wide enough for four pulleys to be installed outside the wooden staircase’s railing, connecting the tunnels above and below. During their descent, Aganin encountered guards and managers, but he managed to deceive them by claiming that Ramin and Juran were there to supplement the night shift workers or that they were technicians for maintenance.
Aganin said, “It seems the Fang agents haven’t come in yet. If they had, things would have been even more chaotic.”
“Isn’t that a good thing then?”
“No, they would start the search later on, so that means our escape routes would be blocked. No matter how talented you two are, how do you plan to get past all those guards?”
Ramin couldn’t figure out a way now either.
‘Wouldn’t Night Sky think that it would be okay for me to just die here?’
Perhaps that was true. However, this was a trap Ramin chose herself. There was no turning back now. This was shaping out to be a suicide mission, but she wasn’t very surprised. She had known that things could end up like this.
‘Maybe I even wished for something like this to happen.’
Ramin thought she had lived a rather dreadful life. Even after her painful childhood, the only good times she had were the brief periods when she was with Hwee-Kyung and her teacher. Apart from that, she lived as a monster who didn’t fit in anywhere, and when she came to the southern continent, she lived as an outlaw. She had never been able to afford the luxury of thinking about complexity while fighting to survive the pressures of the world.
Then, one day, the world suddenly changed. The Empire accepted Vampires and made it possible for them to live without harming others. Despite Ramin’s lack of social skills and her almost animal-like nature, the Empire pushed her into a higher education institution.
When she no longer had to struggle for survival, Ramin gained some leisure, and leisure made people think. Such thinking was unfamiliar to Ramin, but thanks to that leisure, Ramin got to do something that she hadn’t been able to do until now. It was regret. After regaining the time that would have otherwise been entirely occupied by her fight for survival, she adapted to the ethical standards suitable for city life, and she reflected back on the life she had led, which was several times longer than others’.
‘I should accept this if this is the end.’
Ramin thought this journey might be her end, a price for her sins.
‘But…’
Following the straight vertical tunnel, a horizontal one continued.
Ramin looked at Juran’s back, who was in front of her.
‘There are innocent people here too.’
When Juran turned around, Ramin jumped, thinking that he had felt her gaze, but that wasn’t the case.
Juran said, “Apparently we’re close. Right there, just ahead.”
Aganin said, “But the central camp is a bit further from here…”
Before Aganin could finish his sentence, there was a noise ahead. It was the sound of a pickaxe. The sound came from one of the split paths.
“There must be nighttime workers here.”
Juran said. “It’s over there. Let’s go.”
When Aganin tried to say something, Ramin said, “If you want to go back, you can go back,”
Aganin then hesitated and said, “…No, I’ve come all the way here, so I’ll continue to guide you.”
The three of them pressed their bodies against the edge of the tunnel and moved forward. Leading at the front, Aganin turned back and put out the oil lamp before gesturing silently. The three of them hid behind a pile of rocks and looked ahead at the tunnel.
“What a useless bunch,” said a Kobold.
The species that looked like a sewer rat held a short whip in one hand and expressed annoyance towards the laborers in front of them.
“You can’t do it anymore? Who are you to decide that?”
One of the laborers kneeled and replied, “But Chief, it’s been more than half a day since the next shift workers should’ve come down, but didn’t. We’ve been here for more than a day.”
“Didn’t the higher-ups say that they have their reasons? Regardless, we still need to meet today’s production quota, and yet you’re slacking off like this?”
“We’re not slacking off. We’ve gone without water, let alone food. It’s only natural that we collapse.”
There were three other laborers lying on the ground behind the laborer who was talking. They seemed to have fainted.
“Shut up.”
The Kobold chief took out a pistol and pressed it against the laborer’s head.
“All you need to do is pull the mine cart up the slope, right?”
“But we alone don’t have enough strength…”
“Alright, enough. You need to work. We should remove the ones we don’t need.”
As the Kobold approached the ones who had fainted, the laborers moved away, daring not to get close to the Kobold.
At that moment, someone approached from the other side of the path. It was a Human woman. Her clothes were more rags than fabric, similar to the state of what the other laborers were wearing, but at least they were proper clothes. She wore the commonly accepted priest attire, which loosely covered her body. However, there was a leather collar around her neck, which was connected to two chains, and there was someone holding those chains. There were also other armed people who seemed to be surveilling her.
The woman’s face was covered with a cloth, but Ramin knew who she was even before Juran spoke. It was because of the antlers on her head.
“…Hwee-Kyung.”
Hwee-Kyung then said with dry lips. “I will help.”
The Kobold stopped.
One of the laborers said, “No, Saint. Even if you help, the mining cart is in front of the uphill…”
“I can push from behind.”
“From behind? No, it’s okay. If we don’t have enough strength, the cart will fall backward. It’s too dangerous.”
When the laborer protested again, the Kobold whipped the air.
“You damn thing. Who are you to reject it when that thing is offering to help? Hey you, monster. Can you really do it?”
“Yes.”
“Then go ahead and try.”
Ramin thought that was ridiculous. There were eight laborers, but only five of them could move. Yet there were six guards around Hwee-Kyung. If they really had to pull up the mining cart, it should have been the guards watching over Hwee-Kyung, not the laborers. But as Hwee-Kyung walked toward the mining cart below, the guards released the iron chains.
Hwee-Kyung went down, the chains making sounds as they dragged across the ground, and the laborers who could still move followed.
The large mining cart was about the height of a person, and it was parked in front of an uphill that was roughly 30 degrees.
Ramin was surprised when she saw that there was no power mechanism attached to it.
Although they were mining resources for the Union Kingdom, in the end, all the elements served as a form of punishment.
Without a word, Hwee-Kyung placed her hand on the cart, and the laborers pulled the ropes connected to the mining cart. The cart hardly moved as if it were resisting. Only when the laborers used their strength—almost screaming while doing so—did it start to ascend.
Ramin could hear Hwee-Kyung breathing in.
The sounds of their efforts, their groaning, and the slow, grinding noise of the cart crawling up the rails continued.
When the cart was about halfway up, the Kobold whipped the laborers and said, “Are you still slacking off?”
Then one of the laborers slipped and fell, and given how precarious the situation was, it wasn’t unusual for that to happen at any moment.
The cart struggling to ascend slowly began to fall backward. However, something worse happened.
“Saint!”
Ramin bit her tongue.
One of the laborers, who was concerned about Hwee-Kyung, rushed to the back of the cart, but Hwee-Kyung had already managed to get out from behind the cart. Not realizing this, the laborer was moments away from getting crushed. However, that didn’t happen. Instead of simply coming out from behind the cart, Hwee-Kyung had put her foot between the cart’s wheels and the rails. There was a slight crunching sound as her flesh and bone got crushed between the metal.
Hwee-Kyung suppressed a groan and took a deep breath.
“Oh my, Saint…”
“What are you doing? Hurry and pull!”.
Both the laborer who had fallen and Hwee-Kyung, whose foot was stuck, started pushing the cart again.
The Kobold laughed and mocked them, saying that she did something stupid.
When Juran couldn’t stand it any longer and was about to rush out, Ramin grabbed his shoulder. Ramin lightly tapped her own chest and drew a semicircle with her hand. Then, she pointed at the Kobold. It was a signal that he should move when she went around and attacked. Juran nodded.
Fortunately, the cart, after crossing the steep section, managed to go over the uphill slope. Hwee-Kyung limped while gripping the wall. Then she bent over, pulled the cloth back away from her face, and vomited.
“Stupid. You stick your foot in for nothing?”
Hwee-Kyung spat once and put the cloth back over her face.
“Don’t be misled by such words, everyone. The One Who Stands Behind knows all of our pain…and everyone will be rewarded.”
After saying so, Hwee-Kyung started walking again without the need to support herself with the wall, albeit with a slight limp. The laborers looked at Hwee-Kyung’s foot and whispered among themselves. Hwee-Kyung’s foot, which had been all broken bones and ligaments, was already healing. They could see the flesh regenerating under the torn skin.
The Kobold chief then said to Hwee-Kyung’s back, “Do you really not know, or are you pretending not to know? If the One Who Stands Behind is such a powerful god, why are they just watching you all suffering here? Why don’t they just get you out?”
Hwee-Kyung stopped abruptly. “Because the One Who Stands Behind wishes for us to be punished.”
“Isn’t that funny? A god who wished for their believers to be punished. Now I want to see that again.”
Hwee-Kyung stood silently. The guards next to her didn’t stop the Kobold and whispered among themselves while glaring at Hwee-Kyung.
The Kobold continued to say, “Last time, I saw you come back to life even after your neck was half severed. Since then, I always wondered how you could be killed. What happens if a bullet goes into your head? Aren’t you curious?”
“That’s…”
“Didn’t you say your god wishes for punishment anyway?”
The Kobold aimed at Hwee-Kyung’s head with their pistol.
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