“One day, you might end up living outside the mine. If you learn the language, you could easily fit in where normal people live….”
As she stared into the boiling pot of potatoes, Heesoo felt a lump rise in her throat.
“Minjoo, have you… by any chance….”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever seen… ‘them?’”
“Them? Who?”
“The things outside the mine. Those things.”
Zombies.
Maenoks.
They had never discussed the zombies before.
Heesoo usually just listened when Minjoo talked.
But Minjoo had never once brought them up.
Maybe she didn’t know they existed.
“What are you talking about? What’s outside the mine?”
“….”
Before answering, Heesoo looked into Minjoo’s bright, hopeful eyes.
In them, she saw dreams of a better future.
What would Minjoo think if she told her about the zombies?
She probably wouldn’t believe her.
Even if she did, Heesoo couldn’t fully explain them.
No, those things couldn’t be understood through words alone.
They were creatures that had lost the concept of death.
When Heesoo faced them, she wanted to die—yet at the same time, she was terrified of becoming one of them and couldn’t bear the thought of dying.
Zombies utterly drained all her desire for life.
The mere existence of those inexplicable creatures left her unable to hope for death or survival.
Just thinking about them sent shivers down her spine.
Heesoo turned her head away.
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“What? Come on, don’t stop halfway—you’re making me curious!”
Just forget it.
But how do you even know there’s a place where normal people live outside the mine?”
“Well… that’s….”
Minjoo hesitated, an unusual reaction for her.
The trembling of her lips was faint but noticeable.
Heesoo quickly waved it off.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if it’s hard.”
Minjoo’s anxious gaze shifted from the boiling pot to Heesoo.
“Heesoo, actually….”
“Yeah?”
Minjoo lowered her voice, as though she were sharing a forbidden secret.
Despite the fact that no one else here could understand their language, she spoke as if the walls had ears.
“Before I was brought to this mine….”
BOOM!
Before she could finish, a deafening explosion erupted from within the mine, the sound tearing through the air.
A thick plume of smoke billowed out of the entrance.
“Kyaaah!”
Heesoo curled into a ball, trembling uncontrollably.
Thankfully, the explosion was followed by silence.
Regaining her composure, she quickly extinguished the fire.
The potatoes weren’t fully cooked, but the risk of another accident was too great.
The blue flames were stubborn and required a significant amount of sand to snuff out.
“Oh, that scared me.”
Minjoo said, clutching her chest as she exhaled shakily.
Since they worked in a mine, explosions like this occasionally occurred inside.
“I thought it was strange earlier when I saw people leaving the mine in a line.”
Minjoo said.
But not everyone had left.
Many workers, especially the Outsiders, were still inside.
‘Would they be okay?’
Neither Heesoo nor Minjoo dared to voice their thoughts.
Discrimination in the mine was obvious.
The criminals were locals, and though they had committed crimes, they were handled with better treatment.
Outsiders were not.
Heesoo felt her spirits sink lower.
How had she ended up in the Dark Hole, only to be dragged into that miserable life?
Outsiders were treated like slaves; their lives were worth less than a speck of dust or the potatoes they were cooking.
“We should get the fire going again.”
“Yeah.”
The two began striking flint to reignite the fire.
He strode over with his whip in hand and swung it without warning.
“Putain de pute stupide! (You stupid bitch!)”
“Aaagh! Stop! Please!”
“Ce n’est pas un feu normal! (This isn’t an ordinary fire!)”
“Ow! It hurts! Please, stop!”
The overseer whipped her repeatedly, far more than usual.
He was clearly furious about something.
“Pour fleurir le feu bleu, Nous avons besoin de l’aide du chevalier saint! (The blue fire requires the help of a holy knight!)”
It was just a fire; they could relight it.
Heesoo couldn’t understand why he was so enraged.
“Please… spare me… please… Aaagh!”
“Ta geule, Salope! (Shut up, bitch!)”
By the time her back was raw and bleeding, Heesoo collapsed to the ground, convinced she wouldn’t survive if it went on any longer.
Just then, a piercing scream shattered the air.
“Aaaah!!!”
It wasn’t Heesoo’s.
The overseer stopped whipping her and turned toward the source of the scream.
In that moment, Heesoo struggled to crawl away from the overseer’s whip.
Someone staggered out of the mine’s entrance.
He was an Outsider.
His tattered clothes were unlike anything from this world, and Heesoo recognized them immediately.
But his body was mutilated beyond recognition—one arm was missing, and his head was twisted in a grotesque angle.
Heesoo knew instantly what he was.
“Maenok! Maenok est là! (Maenok! There’s a Maenok!)”