Chapter 47

The mine shaft was completely blocked with soil and rocks.

Near the entrance of the shaft, the air was thick with stone dust. Just breathing was enough to feel the gritty powder between one’s teeth.

Fortunately, the shaft wasn’t dark yet. Torches still hung on the walls in various places. If darkness had fallen as well, the survivors might have gone mad.

A brief silence fell.

Only the occasional sobbing of the two children from Tuanshan Village echoed through the shaft.

But breaking that long silence, someone shouted:

“There’s a guard here!”

The eyes of the surviving prisoners widened.

Everyone rushed to where the sound came from. A guard was trembling with a cracked head, rolling his eyes.

“P-please spare me.”

As the angry prisoners approached the guard, he cried and shouted:

“It’s not my fault! We only received orders just before this happened! We’re trapped too!”

Yun-ik approached. As he had naturally assumed the role of leader while planning this escape, the prisoners made way for him.

“What did you hear? Answer me!”

“Someone came from Poison Valley. They said there were people targeting us, so all the mines had to be closed.”

“Y-y-you… inhuman b*st*rds!”

As the prisoners surrounding the guard clenched their fists, the guard wailed.

“I just did what I was told! I had no choice!”

Yun-ik gritted his teeth and asked.

“Who is targeting you?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know! I’m just a low-ranking guard! I only heard it had something to do with the Martial Arts Alliance. P-please spare me…”

“Y-y-you…”

What would such a low-ranking guard know anyway?

Though they felt indignant, angry, and resentful, pressing him further would be pointless.

While all the prisoners were glaring at the guard, suddenly a dark shadow fell over the guard’s face.

The guard instinctively looked up, and his eyes widened.

A hairy man was standing behind the guard, holding a rock the size of a head.

“N-no…!”

The hairy man gritted his teeth and brought the rock down.

Thwack!

Thick blood splattered in all directions. The guard could no longer speak and fell sideways.

The prisoners looked alternately at the guard and the hairy man.

The hairy man, holding the bloodied rock, said:

“My Bosam Sect was tortured by the Stone Forest Gang until everyone died, and I alone survived. If any of you think my actions were excessive, you may strike me dead with this rock, and I won’t resent you.”

The prisoners shook their heads with bitter expressions.

Who among them had not lost family and sect to the poison sects? Everyone could understand the hairy man’s feelings.

But killing the guard changed nothing. It only made them feel slightly better.

As a heavy silence descended, a young man among the prisoners spoke with a trembling voice:

“What… what do we do now?”

But there was no one who could answer that question.

* * *

“Let’s gather the torches first.”

At someone’s suggestion, the people in the shaft first collected all the torches in one place. Not knowing how long they would have to stay in the shaft, they needed to conserve the torches.

After collecting all the torches, the prisoners gathered in one place.

Yun-ik naturally brought up the agenda:

“The most important things are food and water. Though it’s not much, let’s collect all the rice and water and share it.”

Everyone looked at each other and then made gloomy faces.

For food, they only had one lump of rice each from the distribution earlier. There was some water available, but only enough for about two days.

Before coming to this mine shaft, they had been tortured, and after arriving, they had been given just enough food to barely survive while mining ore.

As a result, most had reached rock-bottom in terms of physical strength and were severely starved. In this state, if they ran out of food, many would struggle to survive even three days.

“We have pickaxes, so there’s some possibility. Does anyone know how blocked the entrance is?”

Jin Ja-gang could answer that.

“It’s about forty to fifty of my steps from here to the entrance.”

It was blocked more thickly than expected. Yun-ik looked around at the people and asked:

“Can we dig a path to the entrance?”

An elderly man stepped forward.

“Even if we try to dig out, soil will continue to flow down from above. We need to bring tools from the work site below and set up supports. We should keep the tunnel width to a minimum. It will take about fifteen days to reach the entrance.”

“Hmm.”

Groans escaped from people’s mouths.

Could they survive for fifteen days without food or drink?

Even if they managed to break through the blocked entrance, could they safely escape the Stone Forest Gang’s territory?

But there was no other choice.

“As the elder said, we need to bring tools, logs, and planks from the shaft below. If we take turns resting and dig day and night, we might be able to shorten the time.”

Yun-ik encouraged the people:

“Let’s be strong! We can escape from here!”

Though shadows fell across their faces, they were filled with the desperation of having nowhere else to retreat.

“Let’s try!”

“We must survive and escape!”

People began rushing down to the lower shaft to bring back the necessary items.

* * *

Since time was their lifeline, people didn’t waste it. They brought tools like pickaxes from the lower shaft, along with logs and planks.

They divided into teams: two people dug at the front with pickaxes and shovels, while three people behind shaped the supports with adzes. As the front team cleared the way, planks were placed on the ceiling, and supports were erected to prevent collapse, with work proceeding in sequence.

Bang! Clang!

The work of breaking rocks and shoveling soil continued. Jin Ja-gang helped by moving the excavated soil backward.

The only light in the shaft came from torches.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. After working for a while, when one torch went out, it served as a signal to switch with the next person, and they would share the meager food.

How many shifts had taken place like this?

Without proper food and doing hard labor, people gradually became exhausted. Thanks to properly dividing the tasks, work progressed quickly, but they tired just as rapidly.

The first dropout was an elderly man from the Red Medicine Sect.

It happened when they were replacing the sixth torch. Despite others urging him to rest, the old man insisted on helping carry logs until he collapsed midway.

“Someone has fallen!”

Several people rushed to the old man and supported him.

The old man was so exhausted he could barely open his eyes, and with parched lips, he mumbled deliriously:

“Water… water…”

Yun-ik, with the consent of the others, put what little water remained to the old man’s lips. The old man took the water container to drink but suddenly opened his eyes when the water touched his lips.

With a severely cracked voice, the old man asked Yun-ik:

“How much water is left…?”

“Two containers remain.”

The old man looked around at the many people watching him. The remaining people were covered in dark dirt with sunken eyes, swallowing dry saliva with cracked lips.

Gulp.

They too were surely thirsty.

The old man quietly looked down at the water container, closed his mouth, and then shook his head with difficulty.

“I’m… I’m fine.”

“Elder.”

“I wouldn’t be of any help even if I survived… what remains is for you all…”

The old man smiled faintly with his parched lips.

“Let… me go.”

When people reluctantly released the old man, he slowly began to crawl away by himself.

He crawled as far as he could into a corner. So as not to be in anyone’s way.

As people watched with choked emotions, the old man reprimanded them in a cracked voice:

“What are you doing! Save time! Do you think I’m doing this so you can watch me die!”

The old man’s voice was so filled with pain that it transmitted to those who heard it.

Several people exchanged glances.

Then some of them declared their own withdrawal.

“I too… can’t go on anymore.”

“I’m sorry. Please continue without me.”

“Sob sob… I, I too give up.”

Some were on the verge of tears. They knew all too well that they were so exhausted they couldn’t even hold a shovel, and thus were of no help to the group.

Reducing the number of mouths to feed would increase the chances of survival for those remaining.

Choosing death by neither eating nor drinking.

It was by no means an easy decision. That’s why the expressions of those remaining grew even darker.

They gathered in a corner as much out of sight as possible. Being so exhausted they could barely move, it took a very long time to crawl to the corner. Some even fainted from exhaustion while crawling.

All they could do was die like that.

Wheeze, wheeze.

Only rough breathing and small sobs escaped from their mouths.

Their sacrifice both moved the remaining people deeply and shocked them.

It was all too clear that if they couldn’t escape from here, they too would end up like that. Those people were just dying a little faster than themselves.

Considering that most had been starving even before being imprisoned, it would be difficult to hold out for long.

The two children from Tuanshan Village also couldn’t escape hunger. Children exhausted much more quickly in extreme situations.

“I’m hungry…”

“I miss mommy.”

The two children had collapsed from exhaustion after crying.

Now only one lump of rice remained. And even that was spoiled.

Yun-ik stared at the children for a long time, then split the rice and gave it to them. He also gave some to Jin Ja-gang.

Jin Ja-gang shook his head. Yun-ik urged him again:

“You haven’t eaten a bite of food until now.”

“I’ve been eating plenty.”

“Are you really alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m more worried about the others.”

Jin Ja-gang had initially helped with the digging, but there was a limit to what a child could do with his strength.

But he couldn’t just sit idle with his hands down. Jin Ja-gang wasn’t a child who would entrust his fate to others and do nothing.

After thinking, Jin Ja-gang decided to help in another way.

Currently, food was the most important thing. So he had been roaming the shaft looking for something to eat.

This shaft was created based on naturally formed cavities, so occasionally unknown plants or moss grew, and sometimes water collected after flowing down from somewhere.

Jin Ja-gang tried eating these. The fastest way to know if something was edible was to try it himself.

But soon terrible stomach pains followed.

The people here were from medicinal sects. They knew well about the plants and water in the shaft. So when Jin Ja-gang said he had eaten things from the shaft, most were incredulous.

“The Stone Forest Gang is a sect that uses poisons extracted from minerals. What we’ve been mining are minerals containing poison.”

What would be the nature of plants growing or water collecting in an area containing poisonous minerals!

Without saying more, they would surely contain plenty of poison.

Yet Jin Ja-gang, despite feeling pain, was surviving by eating these…

One person who couldn’t bear the hunger and thirst tried like Jin Ja-gang to scrape and eat moss and drink the collected water, but soon vomited stomach acid and blood.

After that, Jin Ja-gang was the only one eating plants and moss and drinking the poisonous water.

That’s why, although he felt some pain, he wasn’t weakened by hunger or thirst like the others.

Jin Ja-gang wanted to help others too, but there was no way. He couldn’t find food for them, nor was he strong enough to help significantly with the digging.

Jin Ja-gang felt guilty for being the only one who could sustain himself relatively well.

‘All I know how to do is kill people.’

Jin Ja-gang’s poison was of no help in this situation.

At most, it could only ease suffering at the very end.

How many more torch changes had occurred?

At a point when they thought they were about halfway to the entrance…

The worst situation occurred.