Episode 75 [ Mine (1) ]
“This is Lieutenant Samuel of the 16th Colok Assault Infantry Brigade.”
One of the officers who was lying down stood up writhing.
He broke into a sweat just by getting up. He didn’t look in good shape.
“This is Marcelo. By the way, do you mind?”
“I guess it would be difficult to say more. “I’ll have to ask the lieutenant of our aviation corps.”
He gasped for breath and fell unconscious.
Marcelo and Jinhyeok looked at the people lying down with worried expressions, then looked at the young officer who was alone and fine.
“This is Lieutenant Louis from the Brigade Aviation Corps.”
A tall-looking British man held out his hand to Marcelo. He was a prince of the British royal family.
Once again the group exchanged greetings and the prince asked the group a question.
“Where are the others?”
Marcelo and Jinhyuk looked at each other with embarrassed expressions.
“There are only three.”
“yes?”
The prince’s eyes widened.
*
While the soldiers were talking, Lava moved slowly into the cave.
They were all either sick or talking to those who had come with the boy. No one seemed to notice the boy moving. Heart pounding.
Heart pounding.
He was running wild.
Lava passed between the patients holding on to his pounding heart.
Then he arrived inside, in front of the open door.
Fortunately, the inside of the cave was very dark due to the clouds.
Crashing.
He entered the open iron door. We went in.
An old railroad and a minecart built at the end of the railroad. And supports that looked like they were about to collapse.
It was a very shabby mine, but the boy knew this mine well.
Unlike other mines, Captain Zainab had the villagers dig it out without the knowledge of outsiders. It was a mine. The boy went inside, holding
the swaddle
on his back in his hand.
The sound of the boy’s footsteps echoed in the empty mine.
The inside was barely visible. But the boy knew the inside of this mine as if it were his own home. Even if he couldn’t see, he could run. It seemed like it had
gone in somewhat deep. The boy stopped walking and unwrapped the wrappings.
Inside the wrappings was a round stick and dynamite.
It was the dynamite given to explode when the mine was discovered.
The boy took out a lighter from his pocket.
Tap, tap.
Unlike usual, the lighter didn’t turn on properly.
I couldn’t see clearly, and water droplets were falling on my hands.
“Nah, huh.”
Lava barely realized that he was crying.
He wiped his tears and turned on the lighter again.
Hwareuk.
Lava held the lighter to the dynamite wick.
“If it’s not this much, the people at the entrance will be fine.”
The boy intended to die alone.
They were monstrous people. It was impossible to explode dynamite in the presence of those people.
And Lava did not want to take other people with him when he was dying.
‘If I throw it inside and run away, I might be able to survive…’
Chijijijijik.
As I watched the burning wick, I thought about that for a moment, but thinking about the future, I couldn’t live. There was no way Zahinab would have saved his family if he had been captured and dragged away instead of dying.
I had no choice but to die anyway.
Lava grabbed the dynamite and prayed one last time.
So that even though he dies like this, his family can survive.
Chijijijijik.
Even while Rava was praying, the sound of the wick burning continued to be heard. It was like
the wick
was completely burnt. Lava gritted his teeth.
But no sound of a bomb exploding was heard.
Instead, a human voice was heard.
“Open your eyes. “I need to hear your story.”
The boy’s eyes widened at his fluency in Swahili.
Gyeonghoon was standing in front of Lava.
Thanks to the flickering light of the lighter, he looked like a devil from hell.
The color disappeared from Lava’s face.
Ta-ta-ta, just right. Hiccup.
Lava clinked his teeth together and even hiccuped.
-I think we need to change the atmosphere. Rather than hearing an answer, I feel like I’m going to faint.
Kyung-hoon shook off the burnt wick from his hands and took out a long LED lantern from his backpack.
The inside of the cave became brighter.
Kyung-hoon took the dynamite that Lava was holding, whose wick was missing.
When the light came in, Lava stopped shivering. Instead, the boy looked like someone who had given up everything.
“It seems you didn’t know much about the Awakened. There’s no way we wouldn’t know if it was moving so quietly. Moreover, since you can see without being affected by the light, there is no way you won’t be able to see it going into the mine.”
Moreover, since he had been suspicious from the start, the boy’s plan could not have come true from the beginning.
“Am I going to die like this?”
Lava said in a low voice.
“Hmm, I was thinking of doing that a while ago… but seeing what you’re doing makes me really confused.”
I secretly followed him for no reason and ended up listening to the boy talking to himself.
I couldn’t help but feel reluctant to just kill the boy who wanted to die alone and avoid others.
“Tell me what happened. “Let’s hear the reason.”
Lava raised his head and looked at Kyung-hoon.
Rava himself failed. If I close my mouth and die here, will my family be able to live?
That couldn’t have been possible. Zainab was not a generous person.
I didn’t care if I died, but I couldn’t let my family die.
The boy had his last hopes up and told everything to the man in front of him.
After a while, the boy and Gyeong-hoon came out of the mine again.
When they came out through the door into the cave, people were staring at them.
“Did you catch it? “What on earth were you doing hiding inside?”
Jinhyuk asked Gyeonghoon as he appeared.
As Kyung-hoon said, Jin-hyuk and Marcelo. And all the awakened people, including Prince Louis, knew of the boy’s actions.
“They tried to collapse the mine entrance.”
“yes? Is there a monster inside? “What is in an abandoned mine like this that causes it to collapse?”
Jinhyuk and Marcelo looked puzzled at Kyunghoon’s words.
But Lieutenant Louis seemed to notice something.
“I guess it’s because it’s not an abandoned mine. “They probably did it to hide the gold mine.”
The lieutenant took out a small piece of stone from his pocket. The pieces of stone were encrusted with sparkling gold dust.
“It’s gold ore. “I found it inside that mine.”
The lieutenant and his party discovered this cave and searched the inside and outside of the cave for safety.
I dug out the artificial rock pile inside the cave and opened the locked iron door to enter the mine. The lieutenant discovered gold ore there.
Kyunghoon glanced at Lava.
The boy looked at the gold ore the lieutenant was holding and sighed.
Kyunghoon ruffled Lava’s hair.
“Unfortunately, your story doesn’t seem to be that new.”
What the boy said in the mine a little while ago was not that different.
The story was that the ruler of this village took the family hostage and ordered the gold mine entrance to be destroyed.
I said this with some glimmer of expectation, but they already knew.
“Hmm, it’s a gold mine…”
Kyung-hoon stroked his chin while looking at the gold mine. It was a goldmine that others had also discovered, but thinking differently seemed like it would help him.
-I think it will be of great help in doing precious metals business in Korea. Until now, hiding the source of gold has not been easy, but registering this mine as the source can avoid many legal problems.
“For that to happen, other people should not be able to know the amount of gold coming from this mine.”
-There is a need to monopolize.
It seemed like there was something to do back in the village.
While Kyunghoon was lost in thought, Marcelo approached him.
“We have informed the village and the royal family that we have arrived.”
Kyunghoon nodded without anyone else noticing. Marcelo continued.
“From what I heard, there is a problem with withdrawal.”
“It’s because of the patient, right?”
Marcelo nodded in response to Kyunghoon.
Patients who had difficulty walking had to travel 40km through a jungle infested with monsters.
Even though there were four awakened people, it was impossible.
But Kyung-hoon didn’t seem too worried.
“I guess I’ll have to charge the British royal family extra.”
Kyunghoon took out small bottles from his backpack. Little brown bottles. If it had been branded, it would have seemed like a fatigue reliever.
“I’m sure it’s not like a fatigue medicine, is it?”
Kyung-hoon answered Jin-hyuk’s question.
“It’s a potion.”
It was one of two potions that Jin Xiawei made from gallbladder.
One is a stamina potion that heals wounds. Another is a recovery potion created while trying to make a healing potion to treat illness.
Although it did not cure serious illnesses like the healing potion that Kyung-hoon had, it was an immediate cure for those suffering from mild illnesses.
Jin Xiawei complained that it wasn’t worth the money, but it was perfect for combat.
“The problem is the taste…”
After trying it, Kyung-hoon also learned why the potions in the other world had various flavors added to them.
Kyung-hoon distributed the potions to the people.
“Ugh! The taste…”
“! #$!#$!”
“Oooh! Wow!”
It was so tasteless that the exhausted sick people cursed and almost vomited.
The awakened people who tried to eat it because they thought it would help were horrified and put down the bottle.
Strangely enough, the coughing stopped right away. Those who had fevers went down, and those who were lying down from exhaustion opened their eyes.
Not only the patient but also the awakened people looked surprised.
Marcelo, in particular, looked at the potion with strange eyes.
“Does this also resemble the person who made it?…”
Ignoring Marcelo’s muttering, Kyung-hoon gave instructions through his earphones.
“We need to recover our stamina, so let’s fill our stomachs with combat rations first. “We will leave tomorrow.”
Marcelo spoke to everyone on Kyung-hoon’s behalf.
Gyeonghoon and his group took out combat rations from their backpacks. Adding in the remaining combat rations of the British army, I was not envious of the dinner.
And Gyeong-hoon’s group also got to taste the infamous British army’s combat rations.
***
While Gyeonghoon and the British army were resting in the cave,
huge two-legged beasts appeared at the hidden wolf’s nest that Gyeonghoon and the group passed by.
A bipedal animal full of black fur. It was a gorilla.
Five or six gorillas settled down around a rock colony.
Then, a gorilla with golden fur appeared from the jungle.
It was a gorilla that seemed to have a bigger belly than other gorillas.
The gorilla looked inside the abandoned nest and tilted its head.
Then the golden gorilla sniffed inside the nest. It was a smell.
After a while, the gorilla raised its head and looked north.
This was the direction Kyung-hoon and his group were heading towards.
Kuong!
The golden gorilla screamed and walked north.
Other gorillas also followed the golden gorilla towards the north. The gorillas entered the jungle.
The moment the gorillas were no longer visible,
shoo!
In the jungle, a stone the size of a human head was shot towards a group of rocks.
It was like a cannonball fired from a tank. The stone flew in a straight line and hit the rock right above the nest.
Kuang!
The rock shattered. The rock collapsed. The nest was covered by broken rocks.
***
“Didn’t you hear something?”
-There’s no way you can hear it in here.
Eve responded bluntly to Kyung-hoon’s words.
As expected, Kyung-Hoon had been inside the mine for a long time.
There was no way I could hear the noise outside.
-But is there something there?
Kyunghoon grinned at Eve’s words.
“You said no one outside of town knew there was a gold mine here.”
-yes.
“And there is no trace of gold being taken out in the ledger searched online.”
-yes.
Everything was as Kyung-hoon said.
“Then you’re saying that even though we dug this deep, there was no gold found.”
– I couldn’t find it officially.
“Where is the gold? “Why did they ask us to block the entrance to the mine again, which we can’t dig out now?”
Kyung-hoon asked Eve as he ran through the dark mine.
-The probability of remaining here is over 30%. I agree with the owner.
Empty. Empty.
Kyung-hoon, who had been running for a while, stopped. It was a dead end.
One of the many mining tunnels.
Kyung-hoon stamped his foot again.
Empty. Empty.
Kyunghoon raised the corners of his mouth.
“found.”
