The cause of the incident was that at the end of last year, a batch of ores with very low iron content were produced in the Pansnake Mine, which was extremely inconsistent with its reputation for rich vein deposits, which attracted the attention of the family steward Etna.

At first, the steward in charge of mining affairs thought that the Snake Mine was close to the limit of mining, and immediately sent the family's carefully trained engineers to explore it, and it turned out that the rich vein still had at least thirty years of excavation redundancy.

Etna breathed a sigh of relief, relieved that he had been able to retain his position as steward, and after a regular written report to His Excellency the Earl, he disposed of some of the lean mines at will, without paying attention to them. After all, it is entirely possible to occasionally dig up a low-level ore in a vein, and it is not unusual.

The remaining low-content iron ore has little value, so it has been idle in the warehouse for more than half a year. Until one day, Master Elliot's alchemy assistant, Bunolu, came up with the idea of hitting these poor mines in order to experiment with a recipe for blasting powder used in mining.

The new formula failed, and there was no merit in either explosive strength or destructive power, in order to save face, the master's alchemy assistant carried out magnetic liquid ingestion, and unexpectedly found that the absorbed iron powder particles were crystallized, which meant that Bunolu knew best that this batch of poor ore had been used.

Master Elliot, who learned of this, used different methods to confirm it repeatedly, and decided that it was the siphon effect of a change-type spell, or some kind of extremely clever alchemy.

The master alchemist concluded that there was a relic of an old era hidden underground, so he secretly ordered the excavation of the bottom of the cave at different angles, without any concern about the original step-by-step operation plan.

The spiraling downward spiral, the highly regular ropeway has been replaced by an ant-nest that expands in all directions, causing the rock formations covering the veins to be extremely brittle, and there are many incidents of collapse due to uneven pressure distribution.

In half a year, a total of eleven times before and after, nine of which collapsed in a small area, due to the small impact, were all sealed and locked, and it was strictly forbidden to leak to the outside world. There were only two large-scale collapses that even the citizens of Eastwood felt in the city, and they could not be covered up, so they had to be handed over to the city guards for emergency treatment.

Lacking the guidance of veteran miners and having no relevant experience, the city guards were not properly handled when cleaning the mine, resulting in a secondary collapse, and twenty-three 'knights' returned to the family cemetery on the spot.

Afterwards, the Earl of Eastwood, who paid a large sum of money out of his own pocket, was held responsible, and the alchemist Elliott and the mine steward Etna teamed up to put the blame on the mining hire.

After the miner's head recounts the past, he then talks about the underground cave that he discovered not long ago. This underground cavern once attracted the attention of the alchemist Bunolu, but after he entered it with dignity, he only hurriedly toured it, and immediately left in a hurry to return to the surface, but sent another overseer to control it.

As a result of the repeated mining disasters, the hired workers have suffered heavy losses, especially the senior 'elderly', who have ended their modest lives early, and their families have received little or no bereavement benefits.

In order to ensure a slight increase in production on the basis of the original production as their own credit, the overseers went crazy to squeeze the labor of the hired hands, and many young men who had been physically strong were so thin that they could barely become human after dozens of days of excavating their lives.

Not long ago, a young man who had just arrived to replenish the shortage of manpower discovered a hidden stairway in a crack in the rock wall of an underground cavern, and opened this hidden rock chamber.

Bunolu, who was the first to learn of the situation, ordered the supervisor to raise a butcher's knife against the relevant insiders in order to prevent the news from leaking.

Just as all the hired workers gathered in the underground cavern, and the overseers were about to drop the ignited explosive powder shells and solve them in the name of collapse, the hired workers who found that something bad was not going to sit still and immediately fought back.

The life-and-death struggle in the middle of the tunnel caused a violent explosion that led to a partial collapse of the rock formation, followed by a chain effect, triggering the worst collapse in the history of the Snake Mine.

The underground cavern shook violently, and everyone staggered through the stairway to the rock chamber, and due to the unfamiliarity with the situation, they triggered the gargoyle chase in the temple, and it took a lot of blood to retreat and reseal the door.

Most of the hundreds of mine workers were wounded, with injuries ranging from severity to severity, and only ten young men were still in good health, and the veteran foreman volunteered to take all the blame, hoping that most of the wounded would return to the surface alive and not die in the mines for some ridiculous reason.

Aldrich Triss listened to the events before and after, and the letter that extended from his pillar of honesty did not perceive the lie, and what this meant, the Knights of Virtue knew best.

The foreman of the hired man, who is not good at words, is only stating the facts in plain words, but Aldrich is fully aware of the thrilling parts of the process, and the viciousness and greed of the schemers are indeed beyond the imagination of ordinary people's reason.

There was nothing wrong with the mine workers, it was just some unscrupulous people with a desire for profit, but those people were all big people with status and status, and Tris believed that everyone present would quietly disappear for various reasons except himself, even if they made it back to the surface alive.

The Snake Mine has enough blood, but as long as it is profitable and continues to exist, it will continue to devour fresh life like the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the gates of the abyss.

The lives of the hired men were merely numbers on a series of statistics in the eyes of the powerful men of Eastwood, and although they were bloody and full of fishy stench, every gold ouma that profited from the ore still shimmered with the glow of gold, and the smell of wealth escaped.

"In a way, the destruction of the Snake Mine Cave because of this rocky chamber is a good thing. I have experienced the collapse of the Mayers textile factory in the workshop area, and some of the employees who were nearly squeezed by blood and sweat turned around and destroyed the water-powered weaving machine, causing the Mayers family's industry to shrink slightly. ”

Speaking of this, the foreman's face showed a little pleasure, but Tris's topic changed abruptly:

But they still had to go on with their lives, and a textile factory in the workshop district closed down due to poor management, and another factory took its place to take over the scattered weavers. They had no choice but to continue to be employed, and their sweat-earned labor continued to be squeezed until they were dying, and on their way home from work, they suddenly collapsed and were taken to the cemetery outside the city by a black carriage. ”

When the truth was spoken, not only the foreman's expression became sad, but even the others were at a loss.

A young and vigorous young man thought for a moment and blurted out his heart bluntly, "Let's just run away, wander in the wilderness, or join Robin, the madhat of Hilde's Forest, it is said that no one can defeat this group of green forest heroes who rob the rich and give to the poor." ”

Aldrich shook his head slightly, and then nodded again: "It's a pity to be an outcast, adventurers and mercenaries will gladly take your lives in exchange for a generous bounty." As for the Mad Hatter, it was a good idea, for Robin, who had been a royal descendant and of noble blood, worked tirelessly against the Viscount of Notting Hill, who had taken his land, and used his skillful archery and cunning to reclaim the hard-earned money from the profiteers who had made a fortune, and poured most of it into the relief of the suffering poor. ”

"The question is how do you get out of here, and it's not easy to disappear silently under the noses of the city guards. ”

The foreman's gaze immediately fell on the young man who had been silent on the left behind him, he was the first to discover the crack stairway in the rock wall of the underground cavern, and he was familiar with the rock chamber beyond the comprehension of ordinary hired people, as if he had lived here for some time.

Tris's gaze followed the direction of the foreman to look at the restless young man, as if he felt some kind of unbearable pressure, his shoulders collapsed slightly, but he still straightened his waist: "I swear in the name of the god of animal husbandry that I believe in, there is a secret passage to the ground in the rock palace, and the exit is in the cold mountain far away from the snake cave. ”

Aldrich stared at him tightly: "Are you sure there is this secret passage." Because I just came out of the rock palace, and the two alchemical statues guarding the bronze gate inside are not easy to deal with......"

"Lord Knight, it can be easily seen from your neat clothes that those two gargoyles can't help you at all, and since you can easily solve our three partners in one turn, the gargoyles in the rock palace have a high chance of being killed by you, so why should you deceive us?"

The young man was a little proud of his eloquence, and he did not expect that Tris, who was in front of him, had a little knowledge of the immortals of the old times because he was well versed in the knightly code.

'Cadhusius, the god of animal husbandry...... Kadusius is the theocratic weapon of one of the twelve main gods of the sacred mountain, the source of alchemy. ’

A unique noun connects the fragments together, and Tris vaguely feels that there are other hidden secrets to be discovered, especially this young man, who has a certain quality that is very different from the ordinary mine hire, and his whole body exudes a sense of wit.

'Heir?'

Aldrich's mind suddenly flashed a spark of inspiration, and he sighed secretly, suppressing his curiosity to pursue the young man's identity.

The Rock Palace does not enshrine any statues of the Immortals, which is consistent with the invisibility of the Thieves' Protectors. The alchemy laboratory behind the bronze gate is simply the most direct evidence. Although it had been abandoned for a considerable period of time, the mysterious alchemist was nowhere to be found, leaving behind an iron-shelled book suspected to be related to necromancy. Because it contains an extremely high concentration of negative energy and is too evil, I am afraid that it is not an ordinary alchemy experiment.

"I said that two-headed alchemy gargoyles are not easy to deal with, but for you, for me, with a little effort, they are toys that can be disassembled empty-handed. You're right, I was able to leave the Rock Palace unscathed, and I had destroyed the two alchemical statues. ”

A flash of surprise flashed in the young man's eyes, and then he clenched his fist happily and waved it in front of him, "That means that the once dangerous Rock Palace is now very safe, which means that the obstacles that stood in our way have been removed, and we can leave the Snake Mine." ”

The hired men around him, infected by the hope contained in his enthusiastic words, could not help but cheer, but Tris did not stop, watching quietly, not wanting to say a word.