Russell’s words echoed through the factory building.
The investigators exchanged looks, but none of them spoke.
The mood was clear—no one wanted to do heavy manual labor.
Seeing the situation turn awkward, the team leader quickly stepped forward.
“Dig, dig, dig.
As long as it can be dug, we’ll all do it together.”
He wore a polite smile, but it was obvious that none of the other investigators even moved a step forward after glancing at the strange-shaped pickaxes on the ground.
Watching their reactions, Russell smiled.
Then he said nothing, turned around, and walked straight toward the factory exit.
“Wait—hold on, raider… no, sir, where are you going?”
“I’m going to help.
I’ve given you the tools and the route.
If we don’t make it back, you’ll have to get out on your own!”
With that, Russell left without looking back.
The group was stunned.
What they were all thinking was the same: he was an elite combat operative from Section Six—why was a Hollow Raider getting involved in this?
But everyone quickly realized that if Tsukishiro Yanagi and this man didn’t return, they would really be trapped here to die.
“Wait… he just left like that?” The young technician who had spoken earlier pointed toward where Russell had disappeared, his expression half shock, half anger.
“He’s just going off to play hero and leaving us here?”
“Didn’t he make himself clear?” The team leader picked up a stone pickaxe from the ground and weighed it in his hand.
“He gave us the tools.
He gave us the route.
If he comes back, he’ll take us out.
If not—dig ourselves out.”
“But…”
“No buts.” The team leader interrupted him.
His tone was still calm, but noticeably colder than before, completely devoid of his earlier conciliatory warmth.
“The Vice Section Chief told us before she left to follow his instructions.
Now he’s gone, and the instructions remain—dig.
Or does anyone here have a better idea?
Speak now.
Anyone?”
Silence.
The wind outside the factory howled in through the openings.
After five seconds, the team leader bent down, spread out the bundle of stone pickaxes, and arranged them neatly in front of everyone.
“Then we dig,” he said.
People always compromise.
When opening a window feels too much, they tear off the roof—and suddenly opening a window seems acceptable.
So a man in his early forties, a data analyst with thinning hair, stepped forward and picked up the first stone pickaxe.
He was the oldest in the group.
Normally, as a senior employee, he wouldn’t even bother replacing the water cooler in the office.
Yet now he stood in the tunnel, holding the pickaxe at the marked coordinates on the map.
He looked down at the crude tool in his hand, then up at the rock wall ahead.
His expression was complicated.
Finally, he turned to the team leader behind him.
“Can this thing really break rock?”
The team leader didn’t answer.
He just nodded.
…Just dig.
How would I know?
Seeing that the leader wasn’t speaking, the man resigned himself and swung the first strike at the smooth wall.
The expected image of the pickaxe shattering did not appear.
Instead, there was a dull impact that was almost inaudible.
The pickaxe left barely any mark, but the wall itself began to fracture.
The analyst froze.
He lifted the pickaxe and examined it closely.
The stone edge was completely intact—no chips, no damage.
Then he looked at the fragments on the ground, then back at the pickaxe, muttering, “The hardness is wrong…”
A female technician specializing in materials analysis stepped closer, studying the cracked wall.
“This isn’t ordinary sedimentary rock.
The silica content is high.
Mohs hardness is at least six.
If the pickaxe were softer, logically the pickaxe should have broken first.”
“But the rock is breaking,” the analyst said.
“I can see that.” The woman stood up and stared at the pickaxe in his hand, her expression shifting from suspicion to confusion.
“Can I try it?”
She gripped the handle, took a deep breath, and swung it at the wall.
The weight felt normal, but the impact was entirely different from what she expected.
Instead of the usual jarring rebound of a blunt strike against hard rock, she felt something far smoother—like a blade cutting into frozen butter.
The resistance was much lower than expected, and each strike produced a controlled, spreading fracture.
It wasn’t as efficient as a pneumatic drill, but far beyond what any manual tool should achieve.
“There’s something wrong with this,” she said, stopping and lifting the pickaxe to examine it.
“Unfortunately, without instruments, I can’t determine what it’s made of.”
“It looks like basalt, but basalt shouldn’t have this hardness—below six on Mohs.
Unless it’s been Ether-enhanced?”
More and more people gathered around.
Another pickaxe was taken from the spare pile and swung through the air.
It felt no different from an ordinary stone tool.
But when it struck the rock wall, the same result occurred—the stone cracked, not the pickaxe.
“The handle too,” another technician said, inspecting the wooden shaft.
“No carbon fiber reinforcement, no shock absorption structure, not even varnish.
But when I held it earlier, it adjusted slightly to my grip, and the vibration was much weaker than expected.”
The tunnel soon filled with murmured discussion.
Some tried to explain the force transmission from a mechanical perspective.
Others debated whether the material was an unregistered Hollow-derived mineral.
Some even pulled out portable terminals to compare it against all known tool manufacturing data.
But none of the explanations held up.
It was just a strangely shaped piece of stone tied to a wooden stick—but it achieved something no combination of stone and wood should ever be able to do.
“Who exactly is that fox mask guy?” someone asked quietly.
No one answered.
Because no one knew.
“Stop thinking about it,” the team leader said, glancing at his watch as he cut off the discussion.
“Think about how long you have left to live instead.
Start digging.”
That sentence was like a bucket of cold water poured over everyone.
The discussions died down immediately, and they began rotating to dig along the marked route.
Soon, when the first piece of rock was chipped away, the investigators discovered that it turned into a small gray block upon impact, falling to the ground with a dull thud.
However, the gray block seemed to be Ether-based—it couldn’t be picked up at all, and within thirty seconds it dissolved into the Ether-rich environment.
★ ★ ★
Shilling time!