episode_0370

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The morning at the mine was early.

As a military officer, I’m used to being exposed to the morning dew, but it’s roughly half an hour earlier than that.

In terms of time, it would be around 4 in the morning.

“Brother! What is your name?”

“Oh, my name is Daegu Park.”

“Yes, Daegu. The director will give you a choice, so don’t get upset. It’s inevitable that you’ll get kicked out just because you’re a rookie, so take that into account.”

“Yes, I will only trust you.”

Yeo Gwang-su, who was with me, seemed to be a person in the mining industry in his own way, and was giving me various tips.

“Most places where two candles are lit at dawn like this are offices. Isn’t there a place over there that says ‘Payment of daily wages on the day of new miner recruitment’? Those places are people who are determined to rip off new miners. These guys have no conscience and don’t know whether to pay half of the daily wage, or even half of the daily wage.”

“Oh…if you hadn’t told me, I would have been left out too.”

Yeo Kwang-soo curls the corner of his mouth in light flattery.

Newbie’s exclamation. If this is a stagnant thing, I’m completely amazed.

“Ugh, I should have told you how to find good offices… but there isn’t one like that here.”

“Brother, are you saying there is nothing that catches your eye?”

“It’s not like that…ugh. What I mean by it being a good office is that they either give you a lot of money or provide some convenience or they take a small amount of money or something like that.”

“Of course.”

“But here, they won’t give you any work unless it’s an office established by listed people through their connections or an office that pays bribes! So, is there any way to run the office conscientiously?”

I caught one case from the start.

However, it wasn’t a huge number. We live in an era where recruiting talent based on school ties, local ties, and blood ties is taken for granted. Moyongse’s mine is not a public institution and there is no reason for it to be clean and innocent.

“It’s him! Ugh. Just go in here today.”

“Yes!”

When I entered the office filled with the smell of sweat and coal, miners were sitting on the floor waiting to receive today’s work.

Yeo Kwang-soo knocked on the door of a room that appeared to be the director’s office.

“Director. Oh my~ Hello.”

At first glance, the person who appears to be the director looks like an evil business owner. In the past, he looked like he would have been on the field, but now he has a thick belly and chin, and is dressed in clean silk clothes. It is clear that he is making a lot of money.

“Hmm. Isn’t it Ms. Yeo? What’s going on?”

“Hasn’t your workload increased a lot these days? So I brought a newbie with me.”

“Newbie?”

The warden looks me up and down. I lowered my head.

“Just looking at it, it looks like Biribi…hmm. Just by looking at it, it looks like it will run away right away?”

The warden, who was trying to find fault with my physique, which was perfect for martial arts, quickly changed his tone.

“Hehe, I put in some effort elsewhere.”

“Hmm… It’s not the time to replenish manpower. I had no intention of hiring anyone. But it’s troublesome to come here so suddenly.”

The purpose of the warden who picked up various words was simple.

“Only receive 60% of the compensation! Otherwise I can’t hire you.”

I nodded, pretending I had no choice, and Yeo Kwang-soo frowned as he left the warden’s room.

“Aww, I’m sorry. That pig is so greedy.”

“It’s okay. Brother.”

“Sleep! Gather together!”

A total of twenty miners gathered in front of the warden. The warden handed me something that looked like a card from his pocket. It appears to be something like an identification card to enter the mine.

“The place where we will be working today is tunnel number 27! Everyone move!”

Twenty miners rushed outside and headed toward the mine.

The road to the mine was crowded with miners, as miners from other manpower centers also left around the same time.

As we climbed the mountain, Yeo Kwang-su continued to talk to me. I guess he felt sorry because he made a rant, but actually took him to the office and made him start working without paying his daily wages.

Well, since the warden had decided to take away my wages, Yeo Kwang-soo couldn’t have done anything sharp.

“Still, if it’s twenty-seven tunnels, today’s work isn’t bad. Since it hasn’t been long since the hole was opened, I won’t go deep yet.”

“I see.”

“There is also a trolley at the entrance…”

After climbing the mountain for a while, we arrived at our destination, the tunnel. We stood in line to receive cards from people who appeared to be supervisors.

“I have to pay for the rental fee for the tools I need to use today, so take out three coins in advance.”

Do you also charge tool rental fees?

Yeo Kwang-soo was about to say something when he saw my gaze.

“There! What are you talking about!”

However, the supervisor’s stern attitude as he rolled his eyes and shouted made him keep his mouth shut.

After handing over three coins, I was handed a shabby basket and a pickaxe, and I stood in line.

“Today’s quota is ten carts! The amount of work is not small, so you need to move quickly!”

The miners were buzzing.

“No? Ten carts?”

“Even though it is a new vein and the route is short…”

“Noisy! It’s time to complain, so move quickly!”

The tunnel we entered while listening to the supervisor’s call.

A stagnant and heavy air, different from the outside, welcomed me.

Yeo Gwang-su came to my side and grumbled.

“It looks like you got very unlucky today.”

“Yes?”

“Why are those lazy guys rolling their eyes? It seems like even high-ranking people are visiting the new mine. So, aren’t those guys doing that shit because they have rolled their eyes?”

It’s a visit from high-ranking people.

It was certainly possible because the supervisors’ attitude was unusual.

“Move quickly!”

Work began in an atmosphere of rigidity, with supervision from supervisors.

“I want to tell you about the texture, but I can’t stick to you in this atmosphere. This is where the iron ore is, so just dig in this area and act while being aware of the surroundings.”

“Yes.”

He settled down in a suitable place and hit the wall with the pickaxe at a similar speed to other miners. As I was crushing the rock with a pickaxe, a miner holding a candle came up behind me and picked iron ore from the rock I had crushed and put it back in the basket.

“What! Why is this the only iron ore I can find?”

“Oh my, the iron ore just comes out when you hit it…”

“Then go somewhere else quickly!”

The supervisor who had been scolding the miners as they followed the workers picking iron ore from the fallen rocks came up to me.

I was a little nervous, but the supervisor who was examining the rocks in front of me turned around without saying anything.

It seems that the spot that my brother identified was a mineral vein.

I glanced towards Yeo Kwang-soo and our eyes met.

Since he couldn’t even say a word in front of the director, I thought he was just a man who only paid lip service, but he seems to have been a skilled worker who could identify the exact mineral vein with just a quick glance.

okay. As expected, mites stick close to stagnant water and suck the honey.

As expected, stagnant water!

When I nodded with that look in my eyes, Yeo Kwang-soo rubbed the bottom of his nose and grinned.

Apart from the warm air between me and Yeo Gwang-su, the atmosphere in the tunnel was not good.

It’s been about an hour since work started, and only now has one truck been filled.

A dark vein.

It wasn’t easy to check the miners’ complexions if you strained your eyesight, but it was obvious that they were dead without even needing to check.

Because a bombshell dropped from the supervisor’s mouth.

“If the quota is not met within the working time, no work voucher will be issued!”

“No, what do you mean?”

“Where is the law like that!”

“Noisy! It’s time to complain, get moving!”

It was an unreasonable quota even for me, who entered the mine for the first time today, but the miners had no choice but to play quickly while cursing under their breath.

In the end, the supervisors are A and the miners are B.

Judging from the supervisors’ attitudes, it seemed as though a high-ranking person was planning to visit, just as Yeo Gwang-su had expected.

If you need to mine a lot of ore, just ask them to work overtime and that’s it.

However, when I saw the miners struggling to somehow squeeze in time, I could sense the intention to create the painting according to the time of the visit of a high-ranking person.

“Hmm.”

In that situation, I looked at the pickaxe, the wall, and the iron ore I had dug up.

What is the state of flower scenery?

This is a level where you can handle this.

So what is winning?

It refers to the ability to manipulate the energy of nature.

And in order to deal with the energy of nature, it was natural to first feel the energy of nature.

The energy of iron ore was very familiar to me.

This is because I learned how to see the vein of iron, which I learned while receiving special training in sword techniques from Tang So-yeol.

I grasped the pulse of the iron ore I had dug up and at the same time opened up my senses.

Ah, I feel it.

I began to feel the breath of iron ore buried throughout the bedrock. Since I was able to identify the presence of iron ore inside the bedrock rather than on the outside, I immediately decided where to put the pickaxe to remove this large lump at once.

Sigh!

As if possessed, I picked up the pickaxe and cut the top part.

thud!

A lump of iron ore that had been densely congealed in the bedrock fell with a heavy sound.

“Hey, it’s Wang Geon. It’s Wang Geon.”

At the sound of a thigh-sized bundle of iron ore falling, a miner carrying the iron ore approached and let out an exclamation.

I moved my hand again.

Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!

Coo!

Although it did not hit the bedrock a few times, the heavy iron ore fell once again and made a loud noise.

Even though the rock that makes up the mine is not hard.

However, if the hardness of iron ore is like stone, the hardness of bedrock could be like soil. The size of the iron ore was perfectly determined, the rock above it was accurately targeted, and then extracted using the principle of a lever.

Efficiency is on a completely different level than when meaninglessly curving the rock without knowing whether there is light or not!

“After.”

I took a deep breath and thought.

If we continue to use the pickaxe as is, will we be able to fill ten carts by the end of work?

My intuition whispered.

It’s possible.

That’s why I moved my hands as if I was possessed.

puck! Pow! puck! Sigh!

thud! thud! thud!

Heavy iron ore that falls every time you move your hands! I could feel the people loading the iron ore into the mine car watching me with wide eyes.

“ya! This is a bonanza, a bonanza!”

“Look at this! It’s such a big chunk of iron ore, but there’s not much rock to remove it from!”

As lumps of iron ore fell, miners began to rush to transport the iron ore.

puck! puck! puck!

thud! thud! thud!

Find the mineral vein and chop it with a pickaxe.

The more the process was repeated, the more proficient I became, and my curves and movements became less cluttered.

“ya! The quality of the grain is truly amazing!”

“How is it so fast and accurate?”

“What are you doing! Let’s move it quickly!”

More and more miners are joining me.

I can feel the atmosphere changing behind me.

At this rate, we can fill all ten carts within time!

The miners moved in unison with the hope that they would be able to overcome their hardships and escape the situation of not being able to receive daily wages.

puck! puck! puck!

thud! thud! thud!

I was so obsessed with it that I dug out the light for a long time.

As I was engrossed in the process, forgetting the passage of time, someone squeezed my shoulder.

When I looked back, Yeo Kwang-soo was looking at me with eyes full of turbulence.

“You did it…!”

“Ah…is that so.”

“Yes! Ten tramcars…! It’s all filled!”

When I looked back, the miners were staring at me. In the dark mine, only the particularly sparkling eyes could be seen between the soot-covered faces.

There was some emotion in their eyes.

That was a sense of accomplishment.

A feeling that can only be felt by those who have attempted the impossible and succeeded.

The miners who achieved the feat of transporting ten carts within a limited time were exalted by the sense of accomplishment.

The supervisors, who had been working hard and losing their temper, were overwhelmed by the miners’ atmosphere and were curled up in a corner, just watching.

hmm.

I feel like I need to say something.

I said as I put down the pickaxe.

“Let’s go. To receive proof of our work.”

“Wow!!”

“Gokshin! Gokshin!”

“Fantasticism! Fanaticism!”

The miners shouting for the mine shaft to leave and crying out for their greed and fanaticism.

I was grateful that he liked it, but my English wasn’t very good.

After all, the God of Tao is the best.

As I was thinking that, the miners suddenly started pushing me.

We were forcibly transported out of the mine shaft in a mine car filled with bumpy iron ore that had a ride that made you feel like you were better off walking.

And what caught my eye as soon as I left the tunnel.

“Daehyeop, this is the newly dug tunnel number 27!”

“As you can see, the mining amount is very good!”

“Hahahaha! Thank you for your hard work!”

It was Mo Yong-mo, who was bursting out in laughter.