Chapter 4
After dinner, Lark and I carried a meal for one up the stairs of the wall dwelling.
The commotion in the dining hall would only grow from here. The adult miners went deeper into more dangerous areas in search of Skill Orbs, and in exchange, they apparently found more stars—though it only meant going from our one star to two. Since more stars meant bigger rewards, they had the cost deducted straight from their rewards and spent it on alcohol. It was foul-smelling liquor that made me want to pinch my nose. We climbed the stairs as though fleeing the smell.
Hinga was the old man who lived in the ramshackle shack on the top floor.
"Old man, we brought your dinner!"
"Lark, how many times have I told you to knock?"
"Who cares? It's not like he's some stranger. Why bother being polite to an old geezer?"
Delivering meals to Old Man Hinga was our job. He lived in this ramshackle shack and served, so to speak, as the village headman, settling things whenever the miners got into disputes. In return, he seemed to be exempt from the daily quota.
His wrinkled face was framed by unkempt, shaggy hair, and his chin beard was long. I'd never seen him leave the house. But given the toilet situation—there was only a communal toilet—he must have gone out at some point.
The wall dwelling was so small a straw bed would fill it, and this was probably the only one with a chair for guests. Hinga sat in the chair and carefully accepted the wooden bowl and iron spoon I held out to him with both hands.
"Ah, you've come."
"If we didn't come, you'd starve, old man."
"Now, where should I begin?"
Lark's flippant remarks never got a reaction from Hinga. She shrugged at me, then obediently sat in the chair.
As we ate, Hinga spoke in a hoarse voice, teaching us about the world.
We used this time before bed to learn all sorts of things from the old man—though Lark usually fell asleep.
"Lark, I hear you've found a six-star Skill Orb."
"Yeah, yeah! That's what I wanted to ask about! Old man, do you know anything about a Skill called 【Shadow King Swordsmanship】? What does it do?"
"I don't."
"You don't know? Ugh, you're useless!"
"Lark!"
Her language was far too foul, so I admonished her, but Lark ignored me and tilted her face toward the ceiling with an "Oh, man," while Hinga showed no sign of caring and immediately ate the meat first. The old man was still full of energy.
Everyone has an eight-slot Skill Holder. A one-slot Skill like 【Strength Enhancement★】 is fine, but rare Skills use four slots, five slots, or even all eight, you see. Skills must be chosen carefully.
"I know, old man. I have 【Strength Enhancement★】 and 【Stamina Enhancement★】, so that's two. That means I have six left, right?"
Lark was muttering another "Oh, man." Six slots left. The six-star orb she'd found fit them perfectly.
The country buys up every Skill Orb that is excavated, then distributes them to the people.
"How much are they worth?"
When I asked, a pair of eyes turned toward me from behind his shaggy white hair. They were amber.
"One star is worth one silver coin, enough for three meals at a diner in town. Two stars are worth a hundred silver coins."
"A hundred?!"
Even if we excavated ten one-star orbs every day, that would be enough for thirty meals... Just how much profit did this mine make? Thinking about it, that meant we were earning a fair amount ourselves, didn't it?
"...By the way, what about six stars?"
"It has no price."
"..."
When I looked at Lark, she looked back at me as if to say, "See?"
"It would probably be placed in the national treasury. Should a national crisis arise, it would be given to the finest swordsman in the national army to use."
"Oh, man... The Skill Orb I went to all that trouble to find will just be left to rot in the treasury..."
"Skill Orbs don't rot, do they?"
"It's just a figure of speech, stupid little brother."
Lark's sulky barbs were now directed at me. It seemed best to leave her alone for a while.
"Um, Old Man Hinga. Ordinary people use all eight Skill slots, right?"
"Indeed. Lumberjacks use 【Axe Technique★★】, mages use 【Fire Magic★★】, and slave traders use 【Slave Master★★★】. Hardly anyone fills all eight slots with one-star Skills."
"Then, when the country is in crisis, are there people with six empty Skill slots?"
"There is a Skill called 【Orb Attachment and Removal★★★★】, though few people in the world possess it."
The revelation that Skills could be removed was a shock. Perhaps Skills held even more potential than I'd imagined—perhaps their possibilities really were limitless.
"But we slaves are bound by contract magic, so we can't use Skill Orbs, right?"
"Of course. Extremely useful and rare Skill Orbs like 'Holy Swordsmanship' and 'Eightfold Magic' are traded for enormous sums. We have to make sure a slave who picks one up can't use it."
"With a Skill, you can carve out any future... But we don't even have a future where we can obtain a Skill..."
"As long as you are here as slaves, hoping for a future is presumptuous."
"That's for sure," Lark said, bursting into laughter. But her laughter sounded hollow to me. I couldn't say exactly why; I just had the feeling that she wasn't really laughing.
"Old Man Hinga. Eight stars is the highest, right? What kind of Skills are there?"
"Do not ask such an audacious question."
Suddenly, the old man's eyes trembled with fear. Yet those eyes looked far wiser than they had before, and I found myself wondering whether a man like this really belonged in a place like this.
"There are stars beyond eight..."
"Huh?"
"They are things humans cannot wield. I saw one once... An Overlimit Skill Orb beyond human ken, lying dormant in the back of this mine's warehouse..."
By "warehouse," he presumably meant the "Skill Orb warehouse."
The Skill Orbs we brought in were checked by an inspector, cataloged, and taken to the warehouse. It was the only stone building in this area, which otherwise consisted of rows of wooden structures. Rust covered the double iron doors in places, but they radiated a powerful determination to keep intruders out at all costs.
At the end of the day, around dusk, when the excavated Skill Orbs were brought in, the warehouse stood open. But mine guards surrounded it. They all wore silver bucklers shaped like pot lids and pointed iron helmets.
There was an Overlimit Skill Orb beyond human ken in that warehouse?
I'd never heard of such a thing.
"What kind of Skill—"
"That's enough for today. Now go home. Get to bed early. You might not be sleepy, boy, but if you close your eyes in bed, sleep will come eventually."
Rumble, rumble, rumble...
There was another earth tremor. A little sand trickled down from the ceiling.
"Do not incur the mine's wrath."
Hinga said this with a grim expression, but it had little effect. Lark was already nodding off beside me.
I was—content with my daily life.
And I thought these unchanging days would continue forever.
"Oh. Should we try this Badger Hole today?"
"Huh? We went in here last month, and there was nothing."
"Something new might have grown there. Didn't the old man say Skill Orbs are born late at night?"
"I don't like it because of the cliff..."
"It's precisely in places like that that you find rare Skill Orbs. My nose says so!"
"Yeah, yeah... Fine."
"Oh, man. Next time I find one, I'm hiding it for sure."
I followed Lark through the Badger Hole—or rather, a passage a little too large to be called one. It was still a little too narrow for an adult to pass through comfortably, though.
When we reached the cliff, I couldn't help nervously wondering whether the ground underfoot would collapse. Lark said, "The dungeon isn't going to cave in," but if an earth tremor hit us here, that would be really bad. Definitely.
The cliff—or rather, an enormous vertical shaft—had wind blowing up through it from below.
I heard voices from far below. Apparently, adventurers were fighting in what looked like an open area jutting out into the vertical shaft, many levels down.
"Ooh, ooh. They're using some flashy magic."
"Amazing..."
There was a booming explosion, and a gigantic flame lit up the open area for an instant. Several monsters resembling giant lizards were there, and the adventurers were swinging their swords.
"Come on. Let's get going."
"Yeah..."
"What is it? Do you want to become an adventurer, little brother?"
"Not really."
——As Old Man Hinga had said, wanting anything as a slave was 'presumptuous.'
"The deeper areas, beyond where we go, have a completely different atmosphere, right?"
"Apparently. Supposedly there are places with gigantic waterfalls, places with mirrors that reflect your own image, and passageways where the wind blows so hard you can't keep your eyes open."
"Wow."
"They say there are vicious monsters everywhere down there. Apparently, that also makes it easier to find rare Skill Orbs."
"That had nothing to do with us right now."
"...Yeah. Not for us as we are right now."
——But.
As Lark lamented her mistake with another "Oh, man."
As Hinga sometimes wore the eyes of a sage.
As I began, for some reason I couldn't explain, to crave more and more knowledge.
Even amid our unchanging days, little changes began to appear.
Looking back, perhaps every event meshed together like a set of tiny gears to generate a great force—and if I said something like that, Lark would surely ask, "Where do you hear things like that?"
"Aah! We came all this way along this endless path and found zero Skill Orbs?!"
"I told you so. I really don't want to walk all the way back past that cliff again..."
"Can't be helped. Maybe my nose has gotten dull?"
Lark said, "Oh, man," one more time.