Part 4: A Secret Path of The Ore Mine

A busyness cast off, a twilight resurrected. My mother visited my room before work.

Having nightwear readied on, I halted the pen from furnishing a space in my homework. Since our money circumstance was unfortunate, there was no way I didn't hear it. I turned toward the source.

Gears and sliders on the door had to holler about three seconds during the spring-doorknob turning. Heavy and thick, even when inside the house, we had to build it for a barrier against storm next season. We shall able to fix rackety hinges after the debt.

At this instant, words I wished my lips chorded out would be, {Mom, you should take a day,} once I saw how spineless her stance. Her legs swayed and had a prospect to collapse if someone touched her.

Today was the end of the week. The number of people who went to the mine declined from other days. Now or never.

Therefore, the only voice chanted through my cinched face, "have a safe day, Mom." It ostracised something vital in my soul's essence. I endured tears.

My mother stared at the unfolded floor, an absent mind for a tick before glanced up, then evacuated her impression with one smile.

I leaned around and gripped my chest. I swore I overheard something broken. <Calm down. It's just one night. Right. One night.> Before I saw her second time, the door remained open and she vanished without a word.

Some elements of me wanted to chase her and hugged. Yet here I was.

Sitting on the chair, I attached my bromuter's cable, performing simple bidding. The bot jetted out, one minute later, it came and testified my mother had truly gone. I picked a miner bag and bolted the house.

I placed liquified-scorald at the side of my helmet. It increased my body heat to adapt to extreme cold. Scorald rumored to be a component of the sun. With flying temperature, the container had to be strong enough to withstand heat. Most metal shaping technique, instead of a fire, they used a scorald since it was cheap and can be found almost anywhere.

To prevent anyone from encountered me and then arrived at my mother's ears, I crouched behind buildings, skipped next-to-next inside the shadows.

I entered the Heval Prospector shop with a modified-bot that washed all black. Since the destination was risky, I improved the fan to none-auditory for a stealth purpose and added with more armored-plates to increase its defense. If not for part-time as an engineer's assistant, I could never achieve the acceleration myself.

Whether I refused to go into school trip or rectified by chop fast money from a life-betting mine, it didn't matter. There was always a chance for me to perish in either way. I harvested back all skills I had grown during part-times to benefit even one survival percentage.

Purchased a hazardous ticket? It didn't make sense while I could do in a safe spot such as letting my mother working overtime or adding another part-time. It was late anyway. I stole money that we should pay for the debt to buy some miner kits. The only thing I didn't have yet was an excellent pickaxe.

Many shops were closed during the weekend. My legs obliged to ache first before I stumbled a naive whereabout, hidden at the back of an alley without any signboard. Staring through the front glass, I met an uneasy trigger. This was bad. The seller distinguished my mother.

"Is that you, Siqura?" The man said and stopped arranging tools when struck by the sound of a bell.

Manly, "Who?" I spoke, checking pickaxes.

My armor was bounded by many woven threads and nails around and some area had unmatched tone and color. It should obscure my identity.

"You think you can fool me?" The man put down the collection of bags, "I'm not going to sell into a kid. What do you think an ore mine is? A funfair?" he sped toward me.

However, I didn't give up and continued hauled one by one pickaxe, tried knocking the head's region.

The man snatched the pickaxe off my gloved-hand straight away. No waiting. He wanted to kick me out. The number of dying inside mine had become the main issue since last time. Even Military Faction swarm in a huge army, only three of them favored alive while losing some limbs. Two were dead a few minutes later.

"Too weak." I tried acting not-Siqura as much as I could. The fear of returning had inflicted me a strength to fight against resistance. Vibrating against the metal helmet, my voice layered. Poker face.

Since I was going to strike for a treasure, the pickaxe had to be stronger than ore's hardness. If not, it would crumble after one or two swings. All pickaxes here were useless. Perhaps, that was the reason he could only rent such an out of sight spot.

The man continued to steal his item off my hands until he grabbed my arm to lure me out, the successful killing bot established two lever-arms, holding two pistols: a plasma gun and a submachine gun. They were rotating and shifting into the target. The scanner had dots activated, staring at the man. He let my arm immediately.

As I spun around, I noticed something behind the counter, hanged a bit higher than my height. "How much?" I dragged the composite stool and climbed onto it.

"No way." He still raised his arms. "Go home, Siqura. Live is better than going hell."

"Who this lady you persist mentioning?"

"It was damn you!"

Slowly brought the pickaxe down, I tested with my bromuter. It agreed with me.

A high-tech bromuter. Same size but it didn't make a strange noise like my old rusted one. Gears and levers moved smoothly to changing between plate screens. I also colored it in black except for my clothes. I ran out paint half-way through but it was fine since the attire as a whole had dark-brown. It ought to have some invisible effect.

Since the man didn't assign a price, I grabbed out ten veiz ― twice amount from the expensive pickaxe in here. I looked inside my purse after I finished recounting. It had about enough for mine's fee. Mom was going to kill me if she learned this later. Unless I could apologize with a winner stake I obtained from the mine.

"Come on, Siqura. You're just a kid. Go back. It's not like I'm going to deceive with these scraps ―"

― I waved at the bot. It fired a plasma burst toward the pickaxe like water blast, my hand budged one inch. I checked the head. The pickaxed didn't break or had any scratch. It turned cold then hot before warm. "Good job, Old Man."

The man who thought I didn't have money because of my poor family hurriedly ducked, trembling behind the counter. Hopefully, he believed me and didn't go out of the way to my mother's workplace.

Five hours before mom back in the morning. Be done with business, I rushed to the mine.

"Okay," said the manager ― had a yellow hat with a low bulb. He checked the sismuter, registering my faux name. Bromuter was a portable version of sismuter. Of course, a sismuter had better accomplishment. "Ten."

I delivered the money. Uplifting the pickaxe on my shoulder, I strode to a deep section of the cave with my laser pistol as the guards crack the fence that leading to the elevator. The floor shook a bit before freaked down.

My heart donned in shaking and ticking. Sweats moistened inside the helmet, I apprehended my breath set louder. I clamped my eyes as much as my resolve and raring determination to complete the call.

"Where are you going with those dolls?"

I didn't move. All skin twisted into steel, I couldn't feel my legs.

"How about with us, instead?"

The man seemed to possess three with him. All of them had rifles and heavy weapons, added with thick armors. If I accompanied them, I might have a more reliable chance of gaining rare resources.

However, I aimed to clear the debt before the sun. The amount of a steasis energy in bot and ammunition wasn't infinity. I couldn't gear up again even I wanted to. After all, I spent every last bit of saving to the very dust.

No matter what, I had to get tenfold, plenty to flip the whole thing. Doing with a group had a counter impact.

"No thanks," I said. "I beget my prey," recited some line I heard during preparing tools for train's engineer part-time. I had no concept of what it truly expressed.

"Alright." He stood back. "You got me."

It wasn't me alone with them in the moving-elevator. All people inside appeared thoroughly contrived with all sorts of weapons. Some even had bigger bot and more protective armor. One of the things I didn't sure, what with that bot? First time I saw a spider model. Was it useful? Its legs appeared fragile to oppose its huge cannonball-body.

"Are you sure to go alone, Missy?"

My courage plummeted, my body resumed stoned at the same placement.

Wearing a wide brim hat, the man equipped with a red liquified-ore danced inside a tube in the rifle's ammunition. He quite stood out with the hat in red.

Before I could respond, the elevator stopped way far beyond the underground. If not for {belrald} in this helmet, the thin-air would strangle my lungs by now like a dying fish. The belrald emitted fresh breath, important ore for a world that polluted with dirty smoke. Occasionally, blowing sounds in the form of powdered white flowed from everybody's helmets and masks.

"Well," the man hit the button, two bulbs, raging into the red as the doors expanded out. "Stay safe, Missy." He armed the rifle, spat a burned cigarette, moved inside with torchlight and a bot of dog model.

Soon, all armed-people excited marching inside with honor to seeking hidden spoils. On the other hand, badly, persons who retreating after the expedition were wounded. Bloods poured trails behind, someone dragged him on the shoulder.

I looked back as the secured elevator mounted away. Two survivors. A gloominess quickly shrouded within soundless. The only clank of pickaxes, boots, and heavy armors echoed from out-of-nowhere.

Tucked the cable into the bot, I switched on a killing mode button. The scanner part activated two light-eyes and two guns spread out from the beginning. One eye managed one gun. This gave the bot an ability to shoot in all kinds of directions.

The cave hallway exerted for an exit from maze-paths. Many erosion-spike, thin and long, pierced from below as if tried to exhale out. For overall, there was nothing other than pitch black with bats obsessed up, dripped in yellowish drips.

I stared before me three paths that likely not developed straight. My foot stepped rear from terror. "No. I can't."

Played by a group of men, a mutant ant ― ten times bigger ― attempted to escape. Just seeing its mouth's talons, the sting would be unbearable. One of the men rioted a laser, exploded its head. They began venturing to the handmade-stairs at the middle path.

The left path appeared leading to more mystery. Just another cave passage where the mutant ant arising from. The last one was super dark with no shadow, and no one tried advancing toward there.

I chose the third since it didn't look like it exposed to danger.

Ten seconds later, I already found ores lying in the cave's wall. As pickaxe tapped in, another ore was spotted beside. Then more inside. There were too many for being sp close to the entrance. Why then no being endeavored to explore here?

A sneak attack from a mutant dog with two heads tried to bite my neck inside its thin tooth yet a lot. The bot sensed the trouble and extricated with a plasma gun. The liquid appearance thrust it into the wall, crushed in one shot after turned into ice then heated.

Something crawled on the ceiling, ate normal-bats to create chaos. Bats dropped and boomed away visibility. A mutant mole with its drill nose, able to penetrate the strongest armor in this world, dived straight down into my head.

I dodged, it dug into floor half-way through. Stuck inside, its body continued rotating for a few seconds. Pulled back, it ran away. At least that what I thought.

Another mole baited me with a surprise attack from behind. Its ally drove the drill to my head again for instance kill, scratching against the helmet. Thank goodness. It didn't destroy my protection. I could respire fine.

My bot continued shooting which I reckoned three moles. The problem with them, they were very much love to give a shock attack rather than head-on. As if, they knew how their drill-noses had a weakness for a consecutive attack.

If I kept doing the same, my ammunition would be emptied in no time. So I averted from the smell trace with a tear grenade. The moles fell from the ceiling, wriggled from poison gas. The bot targeted a high priority enemy. Soon, we won the battle.

The more I collecting ore, the more pleased I was having a fat-bag. Of course, mutants enemies feeding on the way no matter where I ended. Since there was no maze here, only one unbent-path, it was harder to get lost.

I dramatized pickaxe, my bag added more and more. How easy to earn money. Why I never did this before? Maybe rumor about the ore mine was a dangerous place only to prevent people from a secret of wealth.

As I retained examining every type of rare ores, my pickaxe hit something, bounced with deep sound instead shallow.

All mutants ran away at the echo sound. Ants, bees, grasshopper, rats, moles, dogs, snakes...and some which I didn't sure whatever animal it got the gene.

"Iron?"

The echo was similar like when an engineer knocked a tank with a hammer. Cave wall pitched black as the rest. I dug the dirt layer with my gloved-hands until I reached a portable shovel because of the stain's hardness. Doing with a pickaxe, created more noise. Even mutants scared for it because of an unknown reason, there might mutants that not impressed.

A text was visible beneath, decayed in neat and arranged words. I couldn't read. It seemed not from my language.

I used bot's scanner for material, data transmitted into bromuter. It indicated iron too. Nothing, extra.

As I continued digging around, there was another text beside. My hand-shovel touched something, a dim light-evoked under the dirt. Cleared out, there was a screen with almost like a sismuter.

In bromuter, every plate screen had about 100 small bulbs for maximum performance. Whenever I sought to switch a screen, the gear rotated and used a lever to pull another screen with different composition or design.

For instance, the bromuter showed a plate with the title of {scanner}. The list on plate printed a code ore, a common material, and their hardness. Then, I balanced the number of 100 bulbs next to the list. Lesser was more beneficial. The bot skimmed the exterior, right away, next to the list of the common material, the fourth bulb lit up. It was code for a glass.

For this screen on the wall, the glass emitted a collection of small lights, formed various information without need alter to different plate screen. Just one was enough. Below of it, appeared like a drawer.

I pulled, numerous small buttons composed on a giant board. Every button had one character, some were similar to what wrote on the sidewall. My finger pressed a button. Same character created inside the screen at the corner. I hit the bigger button at the center. The whole panel exchanged to red for about one second, blinking before backing to green.

Was it me or this word seemed familiar?

"Error." I pronounced without a biting tongue. "Wrong password... How?"

Without thinking hard, I understood words very well for my inadequate vocabulary, even had trouble to even spell a foreign phrase.

<{Error}, a fault. {Password}, a lock.> Instead of a key, I needed a code to type on this sismuter-alike, a machine that excellent in high-speed and complex calculations automatically.

At the edge of the buttons-board, there were two ports for cable. They had different shapes respectively. It matched one with a bromuter. However, because I thought the exploration would be filled with ores only, I didn't bring any plate screen for hacking. Thus, the bromuter failed to transmit a response, the current plate lifted into inside but not picking up any.

I had to return another day. With the mysterious capability of a foreign language, maybe my father or someone taught me when I was young.

Anyway, my bag was more than sufficient to meet the debt, I had no fear now. I left toward the entrance.

Hm?

About two minutes of walking, for some reason more paths blended with darkness. With the memory system on the bot, it showed me a way back. But, I ended in the same location. Trying to figure for a second time, I came to the place with that unique-sismuter again.

Soon my body overheated after rummaging around, testing every path I could do. Numbness worked toward my legs, I recalled an answer that had been thumped a long time ago. My eyes wandered into shadow, the number of paths continued increased with no absolute difference. Even I littered colored ores on the way ― it didn't make sense ― I found the ores back from where it started.

My chest tightened a lot. A pain carved to my body from mining ores all-night had been heightening, rashes and aches mixed with heavy sleepiness about to fling in. I couldn't drop in this mine. It was the worst possible place for a nap.

An unexplainable course pushed my resolve to the wall. The dirt torn off easily, the whole mine quaked. The gap opened, one human-alike stepped out.

<W-What was that?> Instead of asking for help, I found myself, hiding near the sismuter-alike without see the total figure.

The man stomped against the floor cave, a smell of powdery-burning sipped into my helmet. He didn't stop or make any strange move other than abode moving forward in the same designing speed.

I buried my head and glued my hand to my mouth when the man's body visible at the corner of my anatomy-eyes.

The more I shut my mouth, the harder it wanted to shriek. I raked my eyelids, forced to look away. But it dissented. They pointed and aimed straight toward the most absurd and laughable creature I ever saw. Why tears then?

It wasn't a man. It wasn't automaton. And I had a reason it wasn't mutant animals as well.

A steasis-color flame had a brighter habit than its body, I could feel a precise outline curve on the elements inside. Single-step born into a clank when two hard surfaces clashed together. Numerous series of teeth closed inside its head had been flashed out to the world. The flame fondling the body excreted some ashes and flares.

I couldn't breathe. My heart didn't slow down even with a strong belrald.

No matter how many creatures existed, I never saw in my life a mutant human. Was it human in the first place? But that was a human skeleton, probably male.

My legs pushed against the ground, attempted to squeeze into the wall, hiding at the safest spot ― I could think of ― at the corner. An overwhelming unjust-motion crept into my eyeballs, whipping watery oblivion more piercing.

It was too much for me to bear. This wasn't something everyone could handle. Simply having one walking next to me just now, my body didn't stop shaking before the presence.

The gate beside me was gently sealing its passage, the radiation from the flame polished into the cave, increased the strikingness of the appearance as if coming from otherworld or alienate-plane.

Squirming at the place, my pickaxe suddenly tripped to the ground. It made the skeleton halted about turning to here.

I leaped inside a narrow space on the gate, before it crashed. I leaned down, my legs weren't able to calm. The whole body became unstable, the sleepiness faded.

<What was that? What was that thing? Why it was here?!> I pulled my knees to my chest.

There was a hidden underground basement, enormous as if there was a city here, filled with numerous tubes or capsules sized human. With someone inside, drown in a muddy liquid. Some with freshwater seemed newest. As the water gradually changed color, the human's part turned into the bone to some of the tubes.

Stood on the rusty-platform that screwed to the wall at high, there was a huge gate at far. Very huge compared to the whole. It closed currently.

Apart from building, only inside the capsules appeared active despite the condition of brownish and greenish mud everywhere, like if someone left this place a long and long time ago to function mechanically.

I had to get out of whatever conspiracy down here. It was a mistake to fetch a quick fortune into this mine. Somehow, I understood why many people went missing for a testing fate to this ore mine.

My legs jumped to the front when something knocked against the entrance. I looked behind with scattered breathing.

Then I heard a scream outside. Not a pain. Not a helpless. From one note I could sense it was angry after I came here.

As I froze in place, another knock came after, I lost my posture, and bounced into the platform's path where many small gates lead into various location in the mine. It was clearly from names such as {Mine K4 - Gold}, {Mine Y4 - Engine Room}, {Mine J4 - Reservation Support}...

"This doesn't make sense." No word appeared strange(or foreign) for me.

From the signboards, this floor seemed on fourth. Stairs were leading to above and below but what I looked for was an exit.

I found it. I ran to the area, never care to step. It made rust noise, some screws torn off from one light punch. One by one the platform's part behind me fell and made a loud noise to trigger an alarm. If it had one.

I could still hear the living skeleton scratching from the gate even though my distance seemed far.

The exit had narrow stairs straight to the ground, I could see a hint of the smoky night sky. The stairs were super long that might took many rests to climb. Without waiting, I ascended in haste.

I ought to know it wasn't easy.

About half on the way my feet somehow made the door behind shut tied, the whole stairs crumbled or moved as elaborate self-reactive trap. Several clicks crept behind walls, stairs pulled into the wall, opened hole toward spikes with corpse-skeletons stabbed on them. All wore like an explorer. From a number of them alone, it was a perfect trap to give a hundred percent dead. Probably to keep secret about the capsules or huge gate that might open to someplace. The walls between stairs attracted together to smash and grind anything into a thin slice of aluminum.

My bot attempted to lift my body, but it didn't design for hauling a heavy object more than two books. Falling with me as the bot lost pattern for its programming, it radiated uneasiness beep.

I had no notion what kind of feeling I had now. I didn't sure if I cried or relieved it would end soon. But my brain couldn't give me an answer to the indisputable solution. Was it here I'm going to die? At this dark and gloomy place? Why did I decide to enter this mine?

Oh. Yeah. If Erika didn't force me, I might never intend to the school trip and worked until all debts settled.

True. It was her fault. In the first place, I didn't remember much of our childhood. When we first met? More importantly, why I thought Erika as a cousin? Wait a minute? Who was Erika? Why I didn't have any history or memory of her?

Why I had to get this now?

If it happened differently, I should have free from debts and then had a cake with mom to celebrate how all this madness had gone. What a funny life. Mine. I wondered if there was a happy moment in my life. Sorry, Mom.

<Debts?> Mom? What happened to her if I left her with debts? I used all the money we had.

Rummaging throughout dark while stuck in a loop, suddenly a noisy glitch blended with gears rotating sound. I saw one blink of glowing lines. A pink. It moved in random but for some reason, it had meaning to the pattern.

Soon, the bot withered off in a pink radiance as if fire burning leaf, morphed into a single staff. I reached unconsciously, then gripped into it as my last chance. One-touch, I had assaulted with a deep nostalgia like a bird freed from an isolated cage.

The wall continued shutting together, halted when the staff locked in between. A wood sound was breaking slowly.

Numerous information penetrated through my eyeballs and absorbed into my fragile brain. I could feel the cold motion. I described it as peaceful, my fear somehow reduced when I knew what to do.

"{Sicrony: Gangon}!" I tuned a Hardening Armor spell.

Six magic circles lit the space with blue mana, compressed into a ball and tossed toward the staff. The staff emitted a green vibration once before the spell was over. It strengthened the staff's support, stopped the walls from decreasing the passage.

I had questions. A lot. And the first one, did I cast magic? Sorcery? Which one?

My hand slipped off the staff from a sudden tremor, probably a second trap mechanism was about to formulate.

Before my body touched the spikes below I raised my bracelet, maintaining my next spell, "{Tanimize Siclony Quim: Eagelin}," pronounced Aerial Wings quickly as possible, activated second-tier magic to my body.

A magic circle evolved into two blue radiance lights burst behind my back, flapped my body up. I surprised my mouth to pronounce magical words fluently without biting tongue one or two.

"{Tanimize Sicrony: Vizeleass}." I cast Speeding Rush toward myself, increased another acceleration of my magic wings after quim(speed). The wings thundered toward the entrance, left staff behind lock-in between to build some time.

Spigen in bracelet was blinking and decreasing in brightness ― based on observation ― it had two mana points.

The walls began shaking, spikes below suddenly unattached and galloped to the ceiling and another from above.

Flying left and right, I dodged every attack, waving my hands for extra support. It lessened wings' focus and speed.

Just a little.

One spear came toward my head, I rolled to right. My eyes lost attention to the side. The spear pierced through my bag, ores fell off. I pulled my legs to the front, faced back, and dashed before they dropped too far.

Reached one by one, I bounced in multiple dynamic, centered to the last one. A spear clanked it to up, passed through my half-transparent wing. My legs landed on the sidewall, I sprung immediately for ascended.

<What should I do? Should I use {Shudovo}?> However, Pseudo Soul required a constant supply of mana, since my current proficient of it could summon for three seconds after cast. I didn't train enough to increase at least 30 seconds of summoning duration.

While in deep thought, somehow I caught it due luck, one of spear knocked it to my hand. I poured all ores to other storage. The holed bag was normal in the mine, so I had an extra.

A crevice of light barely glared toward here. My body was unable to squeeze out. I stopped, looking for a button or lever around. It was one path, no hidden place anywhere. I couldn't find anything to peel open.

As magic specialized in support, there wasn't a knockout spell for me to cast enough mana to move this boulder. I could hear the sand wind outside, still dark.

"Someone?! Anyone?!" Like someone wandering in wasteland during a safe period. My arm didn't freeze. Added by air pollution, it was sure hard to see.

From far, the staff was about to lose as the walls neared together a bit. The effect duration would be over soon. Wood cracked mixed in gears of the pendulum clock. Very loud. Like ship construction in process. Whoever built this trap, it didn't make in half-hearted.

I had one shot to pull this. "{Sicrony: Ensen Spigen}."

The staff cast by itself, {Sicrony: Aerial Float}, downgrade version of Eagelin. The staff flipped and boomeranged toward the owner, flew with the same speed, unable to change direction for evading spear attacks. This created another chunk of woods, destroyed bit by bit, my staff.

It was fine. Magic cast by spigen, not the staff. It was created to withstand against knockout of a more powerful spell.

The bracelet spigen finished to the very margin of mana point, turned grey with leftover one mana point. My shoulders began to touch the walls about to flatten my ribcage in a few seconds. Facing the entrance, the staff arrived in my hand behind. My skull.

"{Sicrony: Gangon}," building protection to my body, the wall didn't able to press me, ceased from going further. It was also important for my next spell. "{Tanimizer Sicrony Dexim}," lifting my staff, one magic circle erected under my feet while other four blanked with an incomplete spell, entered and reentered through the wall, "{: Folum}." The four circles produced at the edge of the main circle stood, drew different symbols and patterns inside.

The Earth Bomb spell cast to the boulder detonated an explosion spiral with red and orange stringing out. I held staff firmly so it didn't pass out. The staff was about to break.

"{Sicrony: Gangon}" I cast again protection but to the staff. <Please hold on.>

The boulder flipped to side through knockout output, Hardening Armor covered the force from blowing me back. As I slipped outside, sand dusted to the area. The staff transferred into a broken bot, my bracelet turned into dead bromuter. At the same time, my knowledge of magic not disappeared but it felt as it was going to hibernate once again. Now I remembered back my memory with Erika. Why I forget? All my past also came about this world. It was more like magic felt distance somehow.

I thought I could rest for a minute, but it appeared I spent inside the mine for the whole night, the sun was about to perform. Scouting the area, the city was far away. There was no way I could run there and jumped to the nearest building.

I opened my bag, picked a hardened-colrald container and replaced scorald that used at the side helmet. Bromuter switched into a saving mode, focused the last steasis for a crucial function. I scavenged bot remains, wiped broken parts for heval, a battery used to store steasis.

The sun was visible at an inch, the land of sand created unclear smokes with fires shadow laid along.

I crawled behind the boulder as the sunlight passed, poked into my sleeve and burned a hole and incinerated a small bite to my wrist's skin. Broken parts that shown to the sun melted into lava or liquid metal. Even my bot required colrald. Boulder heated up, quickly shocking my back through a static charge.

Found an heval, I slotted into the bromuter and turned on. Pushed cable to the helmet, the screen of {Adaption Environment} displayed, had sixty small bulbs to indicate one bulb per second. I prayed and squeezed as the shadow for the boulder shortening and decreasing my safe zone. The sun was more active in the morning, and slowing a bit when reaching to the sky.

The drastic change of two environments had put me to a heavy mood, my eyes were starting to fall more and more to sleep. Eventually, I lost to temptation.

I returned about two hours later after wake up. It was probably the most state I wished it hadn't befallen. My mind filled with a temporary understanding of the knowledge that I had no memory having learned. Although I was grateful the colrald injected to my blood barely before the sun, my index finger and wrist got burned. It still stung. My throat dried and thirsted.

Once I back, I hoped I could jump to the bed right away, seeing how the experience had driven the best of my capacity. Until, my mother's friend waiting inside, only to bring a piece of bad news about my mother fainted during working in the factory. <Why I didn't stop mom last night?>

I rushed out and rode the steam bus ― without exchange my dirty clothes ― to the kingdom. It was the only place with the best high-quality-equipment hospital.

The bad news had found to be even worst. The doctor said my mother required immediate treatment that going to cost a lot of money. All that I had in my hand. I sat outside the room, gazing on-street through the thick window.

What with mining all night was about?