Chapter 4: Prologue 4

Prologue 4

After eating at the cafeteria, Lark and I climbed up the stairs of the wall house with food in hand.

The cafeteria is only going to get much noisier. Adult miners dive into more dangerous places to look for skill orbs with higher stars. Although that is only to the extent of finding more 2-stars it seems. The more stars a skill orb has, the more pay you get. Then they drink alcohol by deducting it from the pay. The hard-smelling alcohol makes you want to pinch your nose. So we climbed up the stairs to get away from the smell.

The one who lives in the run-down house on the top floor is old man Hinga.

「Jii-san, we brought you some food.」

「How many times do I have to tell you to knock first, Lark?」

「Don’t fuss over it, jii-san. Things like that are useless.」

It’s our job to deliver food to old man Hinga. The old man lives in this shabby house, and the miners come to him when they need to settle disputes. He plays the role of a village chief so to speak. That’s why this person has been exempted from daily quota.

Ruffled, unkempt grey hair falls over his wrinkled face. His beard is also long, and I have never seen the old man come out of this house. There’s a toilet problem – we only have one communal toilet – so I’m sure he should be stepping out of this house.

There were only chairs for the purpose of receiving guests inside this wall house. Because even a straw bed would take up the entire space of the wall house. The old man was sitting on a chair. He politely took the wooden bowl and iron spoon I held out.

「You finally came.」

「If we don’t come, you’d end up dead, jii-san.」

「Well then, where should we start?」

Lark’s remarks did not have an effect on old man Hinga. Lark shrugged her shoulders while looking at me, and quietly sat on a chair.

The stories that old man Hinga tells in his hoarse voice while eating are knowledge of this world.

We use this time to learn a lot from old man Hinga before going to sleep. Although Lark usually doses off in the middle.

「I heard you found a 6-star, Lark.」

「Yes exactly. I wanted to ask you about that! Do you know what kind of skill【Shadow King】has? And what kind of effects?」

「I don’t know.」

「You don’t know? Aah, useless.」

「Lark!」

I scolded Lark for her harsh words, but she didn’t mind me, and looked up to the sky. Old man Hinga also didn’t seem to care at all, as he concentrated on his food. This old man still has a strong spirit.

「Everyone has equal 8-slot skill holders. Skills like【Physical Strength Enhancement★】take up one slot, but rare skills take up four or five slots, or sometimes all eight slots. We have to carefully choose the skills we want.」

「I know, Jii-san. I have two slots taken up by【Physical Strength Enhancement★】and【Stamina Enhancement★】. I have six more slots, right?」

Lark sighs while grumbling. Six more slots. The 6-star she found would fit herself perfectly.

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「The country buys all the skill orbs discovered here. And then wholesales it to the people.」

「How much are skill orbs worth?」I asked.

His amber eyes turned towards me from the other side of his unkempt grey hair.

「1-star goes for 1 silver coin. You can eat three meals at a diner in a town for that much. 2-stars are sold at 100 silver coins.」

「100 silver coins?!」

Even if you dig up ten 1-star skill orbs every day, you can eat 30 meals. Just how much profit does this mine make? By that count, even we should be making a decent amount of money, too.

「…By the way, what about a 6-star?」

「You can’t get a value.」

When I looked over at Lark, she gave me a “I told you so” look.

「It will probably be stored in the treasury of the country. In the event of a national crisis, it will be given to the most skilled personnel in the military.」

「Aah man… So the skill orb that I painstakingly found is going to rot away in a treasury, huh…」

「Skill orbs don’t rot, though.」

「It’s an expression, idiot brother.」

Lark’s wicked tongue turned to me. It would be better to leave her alone for a while.

「But normally people use all eight skill slots, don’t they?」

「Indeed. Usually, lumberjacks use【Axe Technique★★】, mages use【Fire Magic★★】, and slave traders use【Slave Master★★★】. No one fills all eight slots with only 1-star skill orbs.」

「Then, when the country is in a crisis, will there be a person who has six skill slots vacant?」

「There is a skill called【Orb Detachment ★★★★】in this world. Though there are very few of it.」

The information that skills can be removed was shocking. There may be no limit to the possibility of holding skills.

「That said, we slaves are tied by contract magic and can’t use skill orbs, can we?」

「Obviously. Extremely useful and rare skill orbs such as “Holy Swordsmanship” and “Eight Elemental Magic” are traded for large amounts of money. They can’t possibly let the slaves who find it to use it.」

「If you have skills, you can open up any future for yourself. But people like us don’t even have a future where we can have skills.」

「As long as you’re here as a slave, it’s presumptuous to hope for the future.」

Lark began laughing when the old man said that. But her laughter felt empty to me. I am not sure how, but I just knew that Lark wasn’t really laughing.

「Old man Hinga. The highest skill orbs are 8-star, aren’t they? What kind of skill do those have?」

「…You should not assume outrageous things like that.」

The old man’s eyes suddenly trembled with fear. But his eyes reflected more wisdom than ever before, and I started doubting if this person should really be in this place.

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「There are more than eight stars…」

「What?」

「Those are things that humans can’t handle. I’ve seen it once before. The Overlimit Skill Orb which is slumbering in the warehouse of this mine.」

By warehouse, he probably means the “Skill Orb Warehouse”.

The inspector checks the skill orbs we bring, makes an inventory, and carries it to the warehouse. The warehouse is the only stone building in this place where everything else is a wooden construction. Its double-sided iron doors are quite rusty, but they have an imposing aura that gives the impression of never letting any trespassers through.

At the end of every day, the warehouse is opened in the evening to carry in and store the excavated skill orbs. However, the surroundings are guarded by mine soldiers. They are all equipped with small silver shields which look like the lid of a pot, and wear pointy iron helmets.

The Overlimit Skill Orb is inside that warehouse?

I’ve never heard of it before.

「What kind of skill–」

「That’s all there is to that story. Come on, leave now. And go to bed early today. You might not be feeling sleepy, but if you lie down on your bed and close your eyes, sleep will eventually come.」

**Ground Rumbling**

There’s that noise again. Sand starts falling from the ceiling.

「Don’t incur the wrath of the mine.」

The old man said with a scary face, but it didn’t work very well. Lark was already dozing off beside me.

I was content with my life.

And I thought the unchanging days will continue as usual.

「Let’s go into this Raccoon hole today.」

「But we explored this last month and there was nothing here.」

「Some new ones might have grown inside. Jii-san said skill orbs grow late at night, didn’t he?」

「I don’t like it because there are cliffs here…」

「These are the kind of places where you can find a rare skill orb. That’s what my nose says!」

「Okay, okay… Let’s do it.」

「Next time I find a rare skill orb, I’ll make sure to hide it.」

I followed Lark and went down a passage which was a bit wide for a raccoon hole. Although it would be a bit unforgiving if an adult tried to pass through.

When we reached the cliff, my feet started trembling at the thought of the foothold breaking off. Lark said it won’t collapse because we were in a dungeon, but things would get ugly if the ground starts rumbling at this moment.

Wind blows from the bottom to the top of the cliff, or more accurately, from the pit.

I heard voices from far below. It seems that a few adventurers were fighting in an open area projecting out into the pit, several levels below us.

「Oh, look there. It’s a flashy mage.」

「Wow…」

An explosion occurred and the flames brightened the area for a moment. The adventurers were fighting against monsters which looked like monitor lizards.

「We should get going.」

「Y-Yeah…」

「What? Do you want to become an adventurer, little brother?」

「No, I just…」

It is “presumptuous” for someone in the position of slave to hope for something, is what Old man Hinga said.

「…The atmosphere in the lower levels is completely different than the places we go to, isn’t it?」I asked.

「That’s what I heard. Apparently there are huge waterfalls, mirrors reflecting your image, and passages where the wind blows so strong that you can’t open your eyes.」

「Whoa.」

「There are also scary monsters over there. But in return, you can easily find rare skill orbs.」

「All that has nothing to do with us at the moment.」

「…That’s right. Not at the moment.」

-But little by little, change came to my unchanging life.

Like how Lark sighs every now and then, lamenting her failure.

Like how old man Hinga’s eyes reflect wisdom, occasionally.

I too, not sure why, desired for more knowledge.

If you think about it, all these events might be working together like small gears, producing a greater power. If I mentioned this to Lark, she would ask where I learned such things.

「Aah… We found zero skill orbs after walking forever!」

「That’s why I told you. I don’t want to walk back to that cliff again.」

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「Aah… It can’t be helped. Did my nose become dull?」

And Lark sighed again.

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