3
In the Imperial capital of Harkenweltz, there were plenty of jobs to be found.
One of which was digging for the abundance of iron ore and rare metals directly below the capital. The Imperials were not the only ones mining. Migrants from all over the world had gathered for the job.
“Welcome to the fifty-fourth excavation point.”
This was the mining grounds.
A man in a worker’s uniform raised his voice in front of Crossweil and the other fresh recruits.
“I am the site foreman, Lavitch von Grehaim. I used to be a day laborer just like you, but my work was appreciated by the capital officials, and I clawed my way to the top. Your dreams could come true while in this job. There’s no end to the heights you can climb. Now, come with me.”
There was a gigantic hole in the middle of the capital. It was fifty meters across. Looking down from the ground level, it appeared pitch-black, ominous, and endless.
“…Are you sure this thing has a bottom?”
It was so eerie that people would’ve believed him if he said it was connected to hell or the realm of the dead. This was apparently the excavation point.
They descended into the endless pit using a lift connected by a flimsy cable. They went down—two hundred meters, then three hundred.
“These are the front lines that bolster the Empire’s prosperity.” In the quiet lift, only the site foreman’s voice sounded out. “We call it the Planet’s Navel. I’m not sure where that name came from, but you’ll mine for the iron and rare metals that are crucial for maintaining the Empire’s glory. The work seems simple enough, right?”
“…What happens once it’s all gone?” Crossweil asked—foolishly. Though he had murmured it to himself, the foreman turned to him.
“Then we’d move on to a new energy source.”
“…?”
They would simply find a new vein.
That was the answer Crossweil expected, but instead he received an indecipherable response to his inquiry. A new energy source? What did that even mean?
“Um!” The moment Crossweil attempted to ask another question, the lift clunked to a halt.
“Welcome to the world four thousand meters underground.”
The lift’s doors opened. Where the foreman pointed ahead was indeed the underground world.
The mines that opened out in front of them were surrounded by brown and gray bedrocks. Because the space was lit by the orange lights, it was bright as day, but if an accident severed any of the power supply cables, they would surely have been encapsulated by a darkness deeper than night.
“Let me show you the work you novices will be doing. Your job is to maintain the drills here.”
They craned their necks to look up at the monolithic drill. The depths of the earth were mined not by human hands but by machines. In fact, all of the people employed here were primarily there to maintain the equipment.
“How do we do that?”
“Ask the other miners. I have a meeting with the capital officials right after this. I’m the project manager, after all.”
Then he simply returned to the surface just like that. Left behind in the vein, the boys and girls, Crossweil included, looked at each other with dispirited expressions.
The excavation point four thousand meters underground.
They were C-class miners, and as apprentices, their job was to maintain the drills in the deepest mine of the Imperial capital.
“…They made it sound fancy like that, but really we’re just doing menial labor.”
There were mechanics there to repair the machinery.
Even if any of them had shown an interest in swapping out the drill bits that were used to crack through the hard rock, the miners wouldn’t have been allowed to lay a finger on the machinery.
So, what was their job, then? It was simply to transport the machine parts.
“We just put the lubricants and new parts into containers and bring the broken ones up to the surface… I mean, calling it maintenance sounds a lot nicer.”
In reality, it was just manual labor where they carried around parts that weighed dozens of kilograms. On top of that, it was boiling hot underground, and the air was thin.
“…So this is why…they have to…recruit people…”
The sweat was endless, too. Just making one round trip from one side of the mining area to the other was enough to sap him of his strength.
“It’s hot and muggy… it reeks of oil, and to top it all off…they’re breaking a lot of labor laws. No wonder they’re losing workers.”
He was getting front-row seats to where the labor shortage was coming from.
The young men and women coming to the capital for high-paying jobs were being driven to quit one after another by the intolerable work conditions.
“…I get it now. This is hell…I got myself a job in hell.”
He took a short break. He didn’t even have the strength to carry his own body weight and had collapsed directly onto the ground. Crossweil absentmindedly stared at the rock surrounding the mining site.
“Oh. Tuckered out already, Crow?”
Grinning, Eve was staring down at him. The shirt she wore looked like it’d seen better days.
“What do you think? Pretty bad line of work we’ve gotten ourselves into, right? Alice and I fell right over from the fatigue on our first day, too.”
“Crow, are you doing okay?” Alicerose gave him a worried look. Though she also wore a shabby shirt like her twin, there was something alluring about the faint sheen of sweat coating her face.
“…The difference is ridiculous. It’s like coming across an angel after seeing an imp from hell.”
“Who’s supposed to be the imp in this scenario?” Eve pinched his cheek.
The twins had been tasked with the job of carrying bottles of water and lunches to the miners. Though the work wasn’t nearly as rigorous as transporting machine parts, it still took a toll on them.
“How many years have you worked here again?” Crossweil asked.
“Hm? What? You thinking of quitting already?” Eve sat down cross-legged on the spot. “Alice and I have been here for exactly a year. I think there were originally fifty recruits, but only seven or eight ended up sticking around for that whole time.”
“…Are you supposed to be the cream of the crop or something?”
“If you stay on that long, you get a better assessment,” Eve explained. “Plus, we’re sending money home.”
“And we get free lunch out of it,” Alicerose added, letting out a small giggle. “Saving on lunch is a way bigger deal than you’d think. And you can use the facility showers, so you don’t have to bathe at home.”
“Oh, right. Alice is a regular at the showers.” A bold smile spread across Eve’s face. “She abused the facilities so much that they even reprimanded her.”
“E-Eve?!”
“But the showers here are shared between men and women. The guys always make such a big deal out of it, too. They couldn’t care less when I line up to rinse off, but when Alice does, they just let her take their spot in line. And she just thanks them and laughs about it. Must be nice, getting things only because of your looks.”
“I-it’s not like that at all!” Alicerose said. “Sh-she’s completely twisting things, Crow!”
“Quit grumbling! I haven’t twisted anything. I see you using your feminine wiles!”
“Eep?!” Eve made her way behind Alice and grabbed her twin’s curvaceous rump this time.
Alice’s scream echoed throughout the mines.
“S-stop, Eve…Crow can see!”
“You’re the one who’s always acting sexy, no matter the time or place!”
“Th-the people around us are staring, too!”
“Because you’re always showing off! These humongous things! Oh, so now you’re embarrassed?!”
The two were having a full-blown scuffle now. The younger one was blushing beet-red as she tried to flee from her older sister, who chased after her. Crossweil had gathered that this was an everyday occurrence.
“…I’m just going to keep taking my break over here,” Crossweil said, still lying on the ground. He closed his eyes.
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