Chapter 75

The journey to the abandoned mine was as uneventful as soshyan had expected.

Since they left the city, they have been attacked only once by blind and angry rebel farmers, and occasionally by local wildlife hungry or stupid enough to attack the astats.

If soshyan called a mortal escort and let the mortals take care of everything, the journey would be much easier, but in this way, the news would spread quickly.

They'll be known before they find their target.

Finally, he judged that it would be better for them to enter by themselves. He just asked West to send several people and a housekeeper, and ordered the other party to keep their appearance and itinerary strictly confidential until they allowed them to publicize.

Soshyan believed that, at least for a short time, the man did not dare to disobey his orders.

The mine, called "dead man's heap", is a typical primitive vertical excavation site. Its main body is located below a mountain with an average altitude of thousands. After passing through the passage for workers to enter and leave, the living area of the mine is located at the edge of a huge pit. The weak light spot on the top of the huge cave provides extremely limited lighting, which is far from enough to illuminate the whole huge pit.

A large number of wooden tracks and elevators are densely distributed at the edge of the huge pit, from which workers go down to the bottom to dig for minerals exposed outside the rock stratum.

In addition to iron ore, precious metal minerals such as copper, lead and gold and silver are also produced here. According to housekeeper West, the mining area once had 30000 miners who mined these deep underground wealth day and night.

Although this is an agricultural world, the most basic smelting industry is still available. Many of the minerals excavated have become agricultural tools or household appliances, and precious metals have become the ostentatious decoration of landlords' families or individuals.

However, decades ago, accidents began to occur frequently in the mine, miners often disappeared underground for no reason, and the output of minerals was getting lower and lower.

Finally, after a large number of miners disappeared and died, the owner of the mine abandoned them, and the miners lost their jobs and left one after another.

In order to prevent further accidents, the nearby landlords chose to close it, that is, the rock and wood barricades piled up at the entrance before soshyan came in.

"There's a hole there."

Standing at the edge of the huge pit, almin suddenly pointed to the rock wall 100 meters below.

"It looks like it was chiseled out, but... It's not necessarily too smooth."

"I see it."

Soshyan kicked a pebble down the cliff. It should fall to the bottom in more than ten seconds, but the ceaseless sound of the nearby underground river swallowed up any possible echo.

"Be careful."

Sol followed soshyan carefully to the edge of the cliff.

"I guess the bottom must be at least two kilometers below here."

"I wish there was a ladder."

Soshyang sighed and tried to make others think he was joking.

Of course, there is no ladder.

But at the end of the cliff, there is a lift that can be used according to the housekeeper, which extends down to a series of rock platforms, forming a simple and irregular passage.

This relieved soshyan.

It's too deep here to tell whether it's rock or extremely old concrete, but anyway, the surface is loosely covered with a layer of moss, and it will slip every time.

Looking at the elevator swinging gently in the breeze, soshyang was a little uneasy, but after checking the power system, he found that it could still be used normally, so he was relieved.

Fortunately, when it was repaired, it was very strong - someone nailed rivets on it for fixation. It was easy to stand on the four astats. It should have been a freight elevator used to transfer minerals.

"Leave two people on top, and the others go down in two batches. Sol and I take the lead, Calvin and Levi follow, and almin, you take the second batch."

After a simple deployment, soshyan and the other three boarded the elevator.

At the moment astat stepped on, the iron elevator made a painful squeak, and a large number of pieces of rust and dust fell from the unused support for many years and hit the silver gray armor.

Soshyan stood for a few seconds. After confirming that there was no problem, he nodded to sol.

The second Star Warrior went up, and the elevator platform suddenly sank a little.

But it held on.

Then the third and the fourth.

After confirming that there were no more problems, soshyan made a gesture to alminby, and the other party immediately started the elevator.

With the roar of the engine and a large amount of black smoke from the exhaust port, after sleeping for decades, the power system revived again, rotated the winch and slowly put down the cable with the thickness of an adult's forearm.

The lifting platform sank slowly.

Everything went well. Two minutes later, they arrived at the first rock platform.

From here on, they had to walk on their feet. The miners built many small tracks for transportation.

There is at least a kilometer below.

After the elevator was pulled up, soshyan waited on the rock platform for a while, and the three people led by almin soon arrived here.

"Which way do you think we should go?"

After observing the terrain, soshyan looked at sol nearby.

The road bifurcated, and the main road continued to go down along the railway track, while another narrow and broken path, which could barely stand, meandered roughly horizontally into the darkness.

"I propose to go along the main road."

Sol was silent for a moment and then expressed his opinion.

"That path is not even a road. Our team will betray and form a line that can't support back and forth."

"Agree."

Almine nodded

"It looks like a crack in the rock. People mistakenly think it's another way."

"Wait a minute."

Soshyan lit the path with the tactical lights of his helmet.

"There are traces on the road. It looks very fresh. Someone may have walked along there."

"Sir, there are footprints on the main road."

Almin also pointed to the main road with lighting equipment, and there was indeed some trace similar to footprints on it.

"It looks like complete footprints, not those on the path. It may just be the marks of falling stones."

"Has anyone been here recently?"

Soshyan had new questions, but every moment they hesitated, the more time they delayed the completion of the task.

Then he shone the light deep, hoping to shine more traces.

A faint reflection came from a pool full of poisonous gas and mixed sewage. Some shadow spots were obviously printed on the cliff, shaking uneasily outside the range of the light column.

Soshyan turned the beam outward and found a long string of stepping stones across the pool.

"We need to be careful. It looks like those pools are not shallow."

"No doubt."

Sol agreed.

"I estimate that the average depth is between ten and twelve meters."

Soshyan turned and decided to continue down. Then he extended the light column over the cliff to check the downward route for the last time.

Suddenly, he found that a large cliff seemed to be moving. At first, he thought it was a landslide, but then he realized that something else had actually happened.

"Enemy attack!"

Before he finished, he had pulled out his explosive pistol.

At this time, the shadow spots he had noticed before were climbing up the cliff at a speed almost beyond common sense. He pointed a shadow spot with the illumination of his helmet to confirm his guess.

"It's a group of underground creatures!"