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My first day at the mining slave came to an end. And my trolley remained just the same, no more mining for me. I literally gave up learning that I won\'t make it.

That\'s totally me. I preferably didn\'t like to work in vain. Knowing the result won\'t change no matter what I do, I rested for the rest of the hours and prepared for the beating to come.

Ten lashes didn\'t seem that hard to me, after everything I went through these few days. But this world has magic. Ten was more than enough to kill me if they desired it.

I was hoping they were in need of slaves to beat them to death at the very beginning.

The horn blared at a certain point. I thought of that as the sunset, even though we weren\'t under the naked sky and had no way of knowing when it was day or when it was night.

I stood up from my resting place and found Cameron wasn\'t done yet. He would need some time to meet the quota. I thought of waiting for him, but decided against it. There was no point in taking someone to watch as you get beaten.

Besides, we didn\'t know each other very well, nor did we talk much after my dilemma appeared. He was busy with his own thing, much less worried about someone else.

So I crept, pushing the trolley before me. Tens of other folks were doing the same, most of them struggling with their trolley being filled with magical crystals. I found some were even helping others by covering for them if they get an excessive amount of crystals.

Also, it seemed, the quota for everyone wasn\'t the same. I had seen many people carrying less and even more than the half-trolley full of crystals.

The guards weren\'t stopping them to get them to the lashing stand. Unfortunately for me, they stopped me after finding my trolley almost empty, except for a couple of dozen crystal stones.

The guards grunted at me and were about to lead me to the stand for the punishment. However, another one of the guards stopped them, pointing towards a particular stone on my trolley. It stood out among the few others, as it had a deeper orange colour, reflecting the lights drawn to it.

It was exactly the crystal, Number 197 thrown to my trolley.

The guard that stopped the others threw a peculiar glance at me, picking up the orange crystal. Then he said something in his native tongue that I couldn\'t understand.

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you too," I told him in a tired tone that he couldn\'t understand.

Then they let me go. See, we\'re at the perfect wavelength.

I blinked at the incredulity of the situation. It seemed the deeper orange crystal was worth more than the other ones. I found them collecting that to their order while leaving the rest of the dim stones elsewhere.

I concluded that a single fist-sized orange crystal stone was worth enough to meet my current quota. Looks like Number 197 still had some softer bones on her body than she admitted. Obviously, she did it intentionally, knowing I didn\'t understand the worth of these crystals.

Still, I was really thankful to her. I took a mental note to thank her for that the next time I met her.

I didn\'t eat outside with the others after that. This time the foot was a bit better, the same old dumpling-like thing with a sour soup, which tasted like a godsend compared with the bland dumpling.

At a later time, Cameron came to apologise. He explained everything fairly. Why couldn\'t he help me? And he would try if he can from now on. Well, I understood all that, as I forgave him completely with my excessive generosity and kindness.

Jokes apart, we talked for a few more minutes as we discussed how I was saved from lashing. He was definitely startled to know the other crystal was worth so much. All three of us were safe from the beating today. Huh, it seemed the Insane 303 made it too, with his own power, nonetheless.

We discussed what to do in the future for some more time. Then Cameron went to his own room. About an hour later, the lights were turned off and complete darkness enveloped me in his prison cell.

There is no escape, the darkness told me.

***

I woke up early the next day, not to my merit, but because of the monstrous horn blaring like the other day.

The day progressed like the previous one. Nothing too special to take note of.

It would\'ve been about the same as well if Number 197 came and threw another orange crystal into my trolley. Unfortunately, nobody came to my rescue that day.

I tried my best to find the orange crystal, trying to move into the hotter region. However, I couldn\'t even endure a couple of minutes halfway to that point. I would turn a full piece of human steak before I could find anything there.

Getting nowhere with that, I remained quite close to my last day\'s spot, hoping to find Number 196 and 197 as they came out to rest at some point.

They did not come.

Even near the end of the mining hours, they didn\'t come, bringing my anxieties to the verge of collapse.

Well, it collapsed, as I accepted on getting the ten lashes. Yeah, my mind works like that. Get used to it.

However, accepting it didn\'t change much. Well, my anxiety didn\'t get worse. And I heard somewhere, accepting the pain makes it less painful.

Whoever said it, they were wrong altogether. They definitely didn\'t get lashed by those monstrously powerful guards to speak such words.

Well, they probably spoke those words in other sense, not what I was dealing with.

I went alone to get my share of beating today as well. They didn\'t even have to check the trolley to know I barely mine anything. So they brought me along to the punishment stand among the eyes of the tens of other slaves.