Agh! I Love Mining So Much, Your Grace!
The Ashfall Mountain Range in the North.
Blanketed in perpetual snow all year round, it consisted of dozens of mountains large and small that stretched in a long arc around the entirety of the North.
It was truly a natural fortress.
The terrain was so high and rugged that not even a person's shadow could normally be seen there.
But today was a little different.
―SNAP.
Halfway up an unnamed mountain in the Ashfall Mountain Range.
Thirty burly men stood in perfectly ordered rows.
Each held a pickaxe or shovel.
More striking than anything else were the yellow safety helmets they had somehow scrounged up from somewhere.
Every last man of the North remained in position with a safety helmet on his head.
The man standing at the end of the formation shouted thunderously.
“Thirty! Count complete!”
At the very front stood a massive man draped in black fur.
Walter, known throughout the world as the Grand Duke of the North, nodded.
“At ease.”
More showed up than I expected.
And they all came wearing their safety helmets properly, just like I told them to.
With that thought, he stepped forward sharply.
“You all know why you've gathered here. Today, we'll begin developing the mine.”
Developing a mine. That was why they had gathered in the Ashfall Mountain Range in broad daylight.
But aside from Walter, the men of the North exchanged glances, and several scratched their heads.
After all, they had only seen the announcement that the mine development project was beginning two days ago.
Hiring workers for mine development. Weekly wage: thirty silver.
Most of them had only come because, once they heard there was money involved, their wives had nagged them into it.
Hardly any of them knew exactly what they had come here to do.
All they could still hear ringing in their ears were their wives shouting that if they were only going to sit around at home eating up food, they should go out and earn some money instead.
In any case, Walter addressed the men gathered before him.
“For now, you'll wait here. The moment the work supervisor arrives, we'll begin immediately, so keep that in mind. Any questions before we start?”
One of the men, who had been glancing nervously around, raised his hand.
“Um... Your Grace, is mine development normally as simple as digging into any old mountain?”
He might have been an uneducated commoner, but even he knew this much.
Wasn't mine development supposed to be the sort of work carried out after a thorough preliminary survey or something?
If they blindly dug into a random mountain like this, would they even find iron ore, let alone mana ore?
“Good question. You're right. Digging into any old mountain won't make ore appear.”
Walter answered firmly.
“But the mountain behind me isn't ‘any old mountain,’ so don't worry. Next.”
“......?”
At Walter's decisive answer, the man narrowed his eyes, a question mark practically floating over his head.
No matter how fucking hard he looked, it was just one of the random mountains scattered behind them.
The men of the North began murmuring among themselves.
“Reckon His Grace has gone a mite funny in the head from overwork, eh?”
“Goodness... Just how hard must things have been for him to end up like that......”
“Didn't Lady Lenin say the same thing last time? That he hasn't been himself lately on account of that damned debt.”
They looked at Walter with pity in their eyes.
After all, everyone in the North knew that His Grace had been running himself ragged trying to repay the North's debt.
And now, seeing him reduced to digging up bare ground—no, a bare mountain—in desperation, some of them even wiped away tears.
The men of the North were true men who understood their lord's hardships and knew how to weep for him.
“Your Grace, come by my house whenever things get hard. I don't know about anything else, but my wife brews an incredible pot of Kolheim Tea, doesn't she?”
Baldus, the young village chief of the North, offered His Grace a warm word of encouragement.
Walter chuckled and nodded.
Yeah. Thanks so fucking much, my little bastards.
Your concern is bringing tears to my eyes.
Moved by that devotion, I shall personally embrace you for it.
Walter smiled brightly, jerked his chin, and spoke.
“Everyone. Plant your heads.”
“Pardon? We were only......”
“I said plant your heads.”
“Damn it......”
See? I told you we shouldn't have brought up the Kolheim Tea.
Grumbling, they planted their heads in the snow.
Walter clasped his hands behind his back and called out the cadence.
“When I say one, ‘If I say drop.’ When I say two, ‘Then we drop.’ One!”
“If you say drop!”
“Two.”
“Then we droooop!”
That's right. Good job, my little bastards.
They should've just dropped when he told them to drop.
Who were they to talk back?
And what was that?
He'd gone funny from overwork?
These bastards really would say anything right in front of the grand duke.
This was why he couldn't afford to indulge them.
Of course, despite what he said, the mere fact that they could talk like this in front of Walter showed just how openly and closely he usually interacted with them.
“What? You're not bending your arms properly? Isolate, bastard! Isolate the traps!”
“Isolaaate!”
Or perhaps not.
In any case, some time passed.
After finishing their light(?) warm-up, Walter spoke with his hands clasped behind his back.
“See? Warming up like this keeps you from feeling cold. Isn't it nice?”
“......”
“Answer me.”
“It feels greaaaat!!”
A thunderous reply erupted.
Walter nodded in satisfaction.
That's right. Good job, my little bastards.
“Good. Anyone else have a question?”
“......”
Silence settled over the mountainside.
But only for a moment.
Who were they, after all, if not the indomitable men of the North?
―SNAP!
One man bravely raised his hand.
Walter tilted his head and spoke with interest.
“Spit it out. If it's more bullshit, this time I'll have you strip to the waist and run through the snowy mountains.”
“......!”
At those words, the other men all widened their eyes and glared at the one who had raised his hand.
But his hand was already up. There was no helping it now.
He asked cautiously.
“Then will Your Grace personally serve as the foreman?”
“......”
Every other man tensed as they waited for Walter's answer.
One wrong move, and they might end up running through the snowy mountain before they even began working.
Walter remained silent for a moment before looking behind them.
“Ah, yes. There he is now.”
A group appeared behind them with the soft crunch of footsteps over snow.
There was Lenin, the grand duke's secretary, whose icy silver hair was her pride.
Beside her stood a tall, handsome young man and a red-haired mage gasping for breath.
“Huff... huff, huff... Are... we... there yet?”
“Yes, we've arrived.”
The red-haired mage was Rubia.
She had come along to observe after hearing that they were developing a mine.
Unfortunately, she seemed to have overlooked the fact that her stamina was worse than a lugworm's.
“Haaaaah... haaah... hah!”
Clutching her trembling legs, she collapsed to the ground the instant Lenin told her they had arrived.
The handsome young man clicked his tongue at the sight.
“Tsk, tsk. A youngster should not be wheezing like this already.”
Of course, he himself looked to be in his mid-twenties, but Walter answered him flatly.
“My, it must be wonderful being so old.”
“What was that, brat?”
“Anyway, it's been a while. You somehow managed not to die, old man.”
The old man, as Walter called him, furrowed his brow and muttered.
“L-Look at the way that brat speaks.”
“If you don't like it, become the grand duke yourself. You talk too much for someone doing hard labor in the North.”
“You rotten bastard!”
He swung his staff through the air, sending his long hair fluttering.
The long ears that had remained hidden until then came into view.
“Then give me back those sunglasses or whatever they're called that I made!”
“Damn it, why's an old fart like you being so petty? Have you gone senile?”
His name was Luciel Freesia.
He was an elf doing hard labor in the North and the master craftsman who had made the sunglasses Walter favored.
He had also taken part in countless mining projects.
That was why he had been chosen as the foreman overseeing today's mine development.
Though in truth, it was closer to Walter having simply dragged him here against his will.
Walter tossed the mine map toward him.
“Take this instead of the sunglasses.”
“Bah. If that brat weren't the grand duke, I'd...!”
Despite his words, Luciel examined the map with practiced ease.
A moment later, he hummed thoughtfully and looked at Walter.
“......Are you sure about this?”
According to the map, the mountain before them was a mine containing a vast quantity of mana ore.
But mana ore was not some common dog's name, nor was it found that easily.
Even so, Walter nodded calmly.
“Have your old eyes finally gone bad? It says it right there. Mana. Ore.”
“That bastard always has to put it like that......”
Walter smirked and continued.
“Anyway, the information is reliable, so trust me. There's a Mine Centipede nest nearby, but they should've taken their queen and moved by now.”
“How do you know that?”
Because I've regressed.
Walter muttered inwardly as he looked at the snowy mountain behind him.
Who could have imagined that a mana ore deposit lay this close to the North?
‘It happened right after that so-called Hero discovered Alkein's tomb.’
The royal capital considered the possibility that other relics might also exist nearby.
It ordered every surrounding snowy mountain to be torn apart.
After all, this was where the Grand Alchemist Alkein had established his base.
Most of the kingdom's scholars expected that there would be something else in the area.
And their prediction proved spectacularly correct.
Astonishingly, the snowy mountains surrounding Alkein's tomb contained vast quantities of mana ore.
When he thought about it, it wasn't all that strange.
Mana ore was necessary for alchemical research.
But who would have thought it was buried in the North, and in snowy mountains blanketed with perpetual snow at that?
Until then, the North's harsh environment had left most of it undeveloped or rarely visited. Walter had also been too busy repaying debts and holding off monsters and barbarians, so no one had discovered it.
‘Anyway, once the mana ore was discovered, I could finally breathe a little easier.’
Of course, ownership belonged to the kingdom, so he had not received all the profits. Still, developing the mine and extracting the mana ore had earned him enough to keep food on the table.
But what about now?
‘The Hero of the Kingdom is nowhere in sight, and even Alkein's tomb hasn't been discovered yet.’
Walter was the only person who knew mana ore lay buried here.
In other words, the mine would belong entirely to the North from now on.
Which meant it would belong to him.
Fuck. Hallelujah.
‘More importantly, considering the current price of mana ore, even if I properly develop just one mountain......’
This works.
This absolutely works.
And if Northmedi got established as well?
“Heh heh heh...!”
There could be no greater jackpot.
The thought alone was already so thrilling that his hands had begun to tremble.
Walter gave a sinister chuckle and planted a hand on Luciel's shoulder with a solid thump.
“Enough. Just trust me. I'm telling you, it's definitely there.”
Walter clapped his hands and announced the true start of the work.
“All right, then. As I said, we're starting immediately. Understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
The men of the North answered thunderously.
They formed ordered rows and marched into the mine.
Before long, Luciel also unfolded the map and walked inside, still deeply suspicious but with no other choice.
***
Only Lenin and Walter remained at the entrance.
Along with Rubia, who lay collapsed on the ground.
Lenin glanced at Rubia, who was face-down and completely motionless.
“Your Grace, what should we do with this?”
Or I can carry her instead.
Lenin offered.
But Walter waved a hand as though telling her not to bother.
“It's fine. I'll carry her.”
“......!”
Rubia, who had been crawling along the ground all this time, twitched.
At this rate, could this be what she had been hoping for—a princess carry?
Haah, I suppose it can't be helped.
“Heh heh......”
A devious chuckle she couldn't suppress slipped from between Rubia's lips.
Then, as though she had no other choice, she primly held both arms out toward Walter.
“I-I'll allow it just this once because there's no other choice, all right?”
Whether it was from the cold weather or not, her cheeks had turned somewhat red, like her hair.
Walter replied impassively.
“Then pardon me for a moment.”
―GRAB.
Walter seized her arm without hesitation.
Oh my, that forceful, rugged masculinity.
‘Ah, I'm getting drunk on His Grace's testosterone!’
Rubia beamed dreamily, eagerly anticipating the princess carry that was about to come.
―HEAVE...!
Walter grabbed her around the waist, hoisted her up, and slung her over his shoulder.
The sight resembled the beautiful princess carries from novels.
Or rather, it looked like he was carrying a sack of rice.
“......?”
“Tell me if you're uncomfortable.”
“No, wait. No.”
Before she could protest, Walter strode forward with the sack of rice—no, Rubia—over his shoulder.
“Let's head in, Lenin.”
“Yes, Lord Walter.”
Lenin followed behind him, and a fleeting expression crossed her face.
A faint smile hung on the lips of the woman who had remained expressionless all this time.
Then she whispered quietly enough that only Rubia could hear.
“It won't be easy.”
“......What?”
“The mine development. Unless...”
Lenin glanced at her lord and Rubia, then smiled.
“It could be something else.”
Lenin looked strangely pleased as she said it.
With light steps, she passed Rubia and headed forward.