Kyros stopped focusing on the status screen which caused it to disappear, revealing Dwenn and his two lackeys standing before him.

“Don’t look surprised lad. Now hand over those 5 ores and we won’t have to repeat yesterday.” Dwenn said with arrogance.

For the sake of the plan, Kyros was going to need to buy his time until he had everything ready. However, it was also not in his nature to be pushed around.

“Why do you even need them?” Kyros had been observing the three throughout the day, looking for any suspicious movements. However, what surprised him was how the three of them mined more than 15 ores, by his count alone they had mined more than 20. They were putting in a lot of effort to mine as much as they could.

Kyros was suspecting that maybe they also had the mining skill, possibly even the RPG-like setup he had. Although he wasn’t foolish enough that he would outright ask, he had to be subtle about it. Also it didn’t explain why they were extorting him for ores; they clearly had enough to for their quota. Something didn’t seem quite right to him.

“Don’t worry about that and just hand them over.”

I guess I’ll ask him indirectly.

“You need to mine them yourselves if you want to level up, you know.”

If they have the skill, they will know what I’m talking about. If they don’t, they’ll just take it as some excuse to getting out of handing them over.

“Level up? What does that mean?” Dwenn looked confused. Gaming wasn’t a thing of this world, so the concept of levelling up was lost on the three.

Ah so they really don’t have it. Then why are they trying to get more ores than needed? I’ll have to look into that.

“Oh that’s the… the… the elven word to improve your skills…” Truthfully Kyros knew less of elves than these three, however they didn’t know that.

“I’ve had enough of your nonsense; any longer and we will miss out on dinner. Hand them over now.” Dwenn was clearly agitated. He was a simple man, never learned to read or write and had a limited vocabulary. So when Kyros used a word he didn’t know, even though it was normal for him not to know elven, it had hit a soft spot and hurt his pride.

Realising he wouldn’t be able to learn anything more from the three of them, Kyros decided to hand over five of his ores. It didn’t bother him because he knew that there was no escaping it, and also he had mined 23 ores today. The increase of skill and agility made quite a large difference.

“Hah, what a good lad you are…” Dwenn put his hand on Kyros’s shoulder.

Just you wait. I’ll like to see how arrogant you are once I’m done with you!

As Kyros had these thoughts the hand on his shoulder suddenly tightened, and the next thing Kyros saw was a fist slammed into his gut.

Kyros bowed over as he coughed up blood. While he was still bent over coughing and still trying to make sense of what happened, a knee struck him in the nose. The pain nearly made him blackout for a second, however through sheer will he kept himself conscious.

“Don’t think of me as a bad guy… it’s how the world works. The weak serve the strong. You’re weak and I’m strong.” Dwenn looked down at Kyros and spoke as if he really believed he was doing only what was natural.

“Heh *cough* should’ve figured you wouldn’t just leave me alone if I handed the ores over.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Dwenn said. “Now we best be off, don’t want to miss dinner do we guys.” He spoke towards his friends.

“Dwenn. You can hit me all you want, but we both understand why you do it. It’s because you’re weak as well, otherwise you wouldn’t be a slave down here with us. In the end we are all going to die down here." Kyros spoke towards Dwenn he was about to leave. The way Kyros spoke those last words had sent a shiver down Dwenn’s spine.

Dwenn was about to refute Kyros, however when he had made eye contact with him he suddenly forgot what he was going to say. Something inside his eyes made Dwenn uncomfortable; it was something you usually wouldn’t see inside of the eyes of someone as young as Kyros. Although for all Dwenn knew, Kyros could’ve been hundreds of years old, as elves aged differently.

Dwenn decided to give a final kick into the lying Kyros’s gut before turning to leave and saying “Let’s stop wasting time with this mutt.”

Kyros watched them leave through his teary eyes which was the result of the knee to the nose.

I can’t rush this… I’ll have to put up with it for now.

Spitting out all the blood in of his mouth and dusting himself off, Kyros left the way Dwenn had to hand in his ores.

After a few minutes of walking, Kyros saw the familiar sight of the old man counting ores and handing out meal tickets.

When it got to Kyros’s turn the old man looked him up and down.

“I wonder how much longer you’ll last…” The old slave said.

“Sorry?”

“With Dwenn and his men, they’re an infamous bunch. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the bigger slaves will extort the smaller ones for their ores. However, Dwenn is known to go overboard. They say hiss indirectly killed 7 slaves, crippled them and left them for dead. Nothing has been done since it can’t be linked to him.” The old slave rattled on.

So he knows, yet does nothing. These mines truly are a cruel place.

Kyros had already guessed most of this after the events of yesterday. It was good however to note that he has killed 7 which meant he wasn’t a stranger to killing.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kyros was by nature sceptical towards people, and he already disliked this old man because of the way he regarded Rulf the day before.

“Hmm why indeed… maybe I’m just a lonely old man who wants to talk. Or maybe it’s because for the first time in 42 years, I saw a man willing to help another person even though it meant putting himself at risk. You’re not the first to carry a someone back, it happens occasionally. However, they all leave when they realise they’ll have to split their already small meals since the injured can’t mine; self-riotous bunch they are. I was quite surprised when I saw you arguing with the chef over the meals.”

“Hey! You’re worse than those self-riotous guys, you straight out told me to leave my friend to die.” Kyros couldn’t believe the hypocrisy coming from the old slave.

“Never said I wasn’t. How do you think I’ve stayed alive so long, I look after myself. Those self-riotous guys though, they only care about keeping their conscious clean, the second it gets hard they leave them to die like the rest of us.” The old slave was an honest man, not only to others but himself as well. He hated how those self-riotous slaves lied to themselves thinking they were better than the rest when really they were the exact same.

Hmm this old guy really won’t shut up.

“Right... Well here are my ores for the day.” Kyros didn’t care for the old man’s rant; to him he was just another bother.

The old slave was still rambling about the self-riotous slaves as he accepted the bag and started counting the ores. After he counted them all he raised an eyebrow and looked Kyros in the eyes.

“How many did Dwenn take off you?” The old slave asked.

“Ah 5, why’s that?”

“You’re not lying are you?” The old slave asked impatiently.

“Whatever, just hand me my meal tickets.” Kyros wasn’t in the mood to be accused of lying. He wanted to get home to rest after a day in the mines and the beating he took, also the hunger was starting to hit him.

“You really are talented… I won’t be surprised if you get out of here soon.” The old slave said with a hint of jealousy in his tone.

“To where?” Kyros had no idea of what the old slave was on about.

The old slave looked at Kyros sceptically. However, when Kyros didn’t respond he let out a sigh.

“The slave master didn’t tell you huh? Must’ve pissed him off somehow, that wasn’t smart. What did you say?”

“Nothing really… although he did leave pretty fast after I asked about getting my freedom. What didn’t he tell me?” Kyros had felt he was missing something when Dwenn was collecting more ores than he needed.

“That would do it. When he first got here he was promised freedom in return for doing all the dirty work for the old slave master. He killed the old slave master and took his position once he had found out how he had been played with.”

Answer the question old man.

“What didn’t he tell me?” Kyros was impatient.

“Oh that’s right. You know this isn’t the only mine the Mavis family owns, right?” The old slave asked for confirmation.

“Uh-huh” Kyros nodded his head, not wanting to give the old slave any chance to get side tracked.

“As you know this is only a copper mine, not of too much importance to the family. They have many mines under their banner. For example iron, silver, gold and rumoured to even have an adamantine mine. Although the more precious the ore; the harder it is to mine. The gold mine only has 50 positions. So how do they find slaves capable of mining it?” The old man asked.

Kyros was too busy processing all this new information to answer. The old slave didn’t mind though because he only asked the question to build suspense.

“They create a system where slaves who bring in the most ores each day, thus proving their skill are selected. To get us slaves to willingly mine as much as possible is the promise of better conditions in the more precious mines. They say in the gold mine, slaves have their own rooms with pillows and soft beds, even showers.” The old slave had a twinkle in his eye as he spoke of this.

Interesting…

Later that night Kyros laid in bed thinking to himself.

Now I know why Dwenn does what he does, I guess I can understand him wanting to leave here. However, he will still pay for doing what he did. But if I keep handing in more and more ores, surely the higher ups will notice me and ship me to another mine. What would happen to Rulf without me here? Kyros pondered this thought for a while, until he reached an answer.

I’ll use Dwenn, guess that big lump isn’t as useless as I first thought. Although once Rulf can look after himself, I’ll carry out the plan. Kyros fell asleep shortly after this thought.

The next day after he had finished work, Dwenn and his gang approached Kyros the same as they had the day before.

“You were working really hard today, it makes me happy to know how hard you’re working to get my ores.” Dwenn said with a smug face.

Oh how good would it feel to break that crooked nose of his…

“Actually I mined some extra today, since I only need 15 you can have them.” Kyros said naively. He then followed with handing the ores over. Dwenn and his two lackeys wore shocked expressions on their faces when they saw that Kyros kept reaching into his bag to grab another ore out. By the end Kyros had handed over 11 ores. He had mined 26 today.

“HAHAHA” Dwenn laughed. “Good job.” He spoke to Kyros. “Keep the beatings light, we don’t want our golden worker too hurt to keep up the good work.” He spoke to the two behind him while staring at an ore in his hand with greed.

Kyros smirked as he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, the three had already left.

Good. This way he thinks he's using me to get out of here, but really I’m using him. I’ll give him all the excess ores I mine while Rulf heals up.

And like this Kyros’s days in the mine were spent. Every day he would; mine, give up his ores to Dwenn, get beaten by the two lackeys, hand the rest of the ores in, and finally sleep so he can repeat the next day.

Kyros wiped his dirty silver hair out of his eyes as he just finished mining the 186th ore for the day. His hair was longer enough that he could now see it, Kyros hadn’t actually seen his own reflection since being reborn. He felt his features were different but he didn’t expect how different, he was shocked when he first saw silver flash in the top of his eyesight. He now wondered what he looked like but couldn’t possibly ask anybody unless he wants to be known as crazy.

“Starting to think the broken arm wasn’t that bad haha” A familiar deep voice rang out from behind him. Rulf had been healed up and was back at mining for a week now. It had been two months since Kyros found out about the other mines from the old slave. Kyros had still been submitting to Dwenn however because he realised if he gets shipped off, Rulf would be stuck in this hell hole.

So for the past week Kyros had been giving tips to Rulf. With just the tips alone Rulf went from 15 ores to 62 as of today. It was curious how the skill system worked, every time he levelled up it was like he had gained knowledge, the sort of knowledge one could only gain by mining for years.

“You can but don’t be expecting me to give you any more of my meals.” Kyros responded to Rulf’s remark.

“Ah well that doesn’t sound too fun does it kiddo, guess I’ll keep at it haha.” Rulf had only been joking of course; in fact, Rulf was extremely grateful towards Kyros. He would lay his life down for him if he had only asked.

Rulf can mine 62 ores a day, that should be enough to move to a better mine… Kyros looked over at Dwenn and his two lackeys mining away over in the distance. I was worried with all the ores they were handing in now, they would get moved and ruin my plan.

What Kyros didn’t know was the Mavis family wasn’t a Great Family for nothing. They had reports on all the slaves, so they knew these three got their ores by extortion. However, seeing as though they were only copper mine slaves, they only knew basic information about them.

They had assumed that Dwenn and his gang had just increased their victims of extortion, thus explaining the sudden rise of ores.

Kyros decided to check over what he had gained over the last two months.

Status Screen

Name:

Kyros

Level:

15

Race:

High Elf

Mana:

100/100

Health:

370/370

Stamina

362/420

Titles:

Copper Mine Slave

Stats

Strength:

48

Intelligence:

10

Agility:

35

Wisdom:

10

Vitality:

37

Dexterity:

10

Stamina:

42

Luck:

10

Skill Name:

Skill Rank:

Skill Level:

Skill Experience:

Mining

Intermediate

2

31.45%

Determines how fast you can mine. Higher levels will allow user to mine more precious ores and gemstones.

Can now mine precious ores.

Finally… I can start the plan. Kyros’s eyes flickered with bloodlust.