"Kid, this is the second time I've caught you. Last time, you told me you had a drunk for a father and a mother bedridden with a serious illness, so you had to go out and work alone. You even said you were twelve and only looked small because you were malnourished."
Oleg looked at Chu Mu and continued angrily:
"I let you go that time, but I kept my guard up. Later, I made a special trip to the Orphanage in Rivet Town to investigate. And what do you know? You really were one of their kids. You're only six this year-you doubled your age!"
"Oh, I was wondering why the Old Director suddenly grounded me for a week. So that was why." Realization dawned on Chu Mu.
"And as soon as that was over, you sneaked out again? Good thing I had the sense to keep an eye out for you here. Sure enough, I caught you! What do you have to say for yourself?" Oleg stared sternly at Chu Mu.
"I think... um..." Chu Mu stammered. "I think you're pretty suspicious, mister."
"Huh???" Oleg's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Stop being a smart-ass!" Oleg grew even angrier. "Do you know how dangerous the work in these mine tunnels is? What if they collapse? You'll be buried down there! Do you think those heartless bastards will rescue you? They'll just cut the rope, seal up the entrance, and pretend nothing happened! You'll vanish from the face of the earth!"
"How scary!" Chu Mu put on a frightened expression.
"Do you actually understand that you should be scared?" Oleg was furious. "Even if you're lucky, even if you luck out every single time and make it to adulthood without a scratch, do you think all those years of mining won't damage your body? Take pneumoconiosis, the most common disease among miners-you're guaranteed to get it. Then, in your twenties or thirties, in the prime of your life, you'll be stuck in a hospital bed, an invalid!"
"But even if I don't mine now, won't kids from the Orphanage like us still have to do this kind of work when we grow up?"
At Chu Mu's words, even the air seemed to grow quieter.
Oleg's face twitched sharply a few times. He wanted to argue, but there seemed to be nothing he could say.
In the end, he could only say helplessly:
"But at least you're still young now. The Orphanage will feed you, so you don't have to work down in the mines. At least you can have a relatively happy childhood."
"Childhood... People like us, with no father or mother-no one would care if we died. What childhood do we have?" Chu Mu stubbornly raised his head to look at Oleg. "Officer Oleg, for me, childhood was painful to begin with."
At that moment, the boy's clear gaze was like a knife, stabbing deep into Oleg's eyes.
Unable to bear it, Oleg turned away and sighed:
"I won't tell your director about this. Don't come to the mines again."
"Okay, Officer Oleg. You're a good man." Chu Mu nodded, slung the empty woven ore sack from the ground over his back, and slowly walked away until he disappeared from Oleg's sight.
Oleg looked at the soldiers beside him and said sternly:
"Keep a close watch on this place from now on. Don't let a single child in!"
"Yes, sir!" The Silvermane Guards saluted.
Then one of the Silvermane Guards said with a smile:
"Sir, I don't think he'll come back anyway."
"Why?"
"Once someone like him has been singled out by the Silvermane Guards, no one at the mines will dare hire him. Even if he comes, they'll chase him away."
"Then what else can he do? I mean, when he's an adult?"
"No idea. Scavenge for trash, probably. Didn't he take a woven sack with him? These kids are like rats in burrows. They always find work somewhere. Don't worry about what they'll do as adults. How many people in the Underworld even live that long? You're just too softhearted, sir. You'll get used to this sort of thing."
After hearing the Silvermane Guard's joking remarks, Oleg said nothing more.
But his once-straight back stooped at that moment.
He felt utterly powerless.
Chu Mu's last words echoed in his ears-
Officer Oleg, you're a good man.
The boy hadn't blamed him for cutting off his livelihood. Instead, he had thanked him.
That made Oleg feel unbearably miserable.
Why had being a good man and doing a good deed only ended up hurting someone?
Why hadn't the person he'd hurt cursed him with all his might? At least then he might have felt a little better.
This world was rotten. Utterly rotten!
The Great Dump.
The moment Chu Mu stepped inside, his legs began trembling uncontrollably.
City Hall would never install heating equipment in a place used to bury garbage!
Fortunately, it was underground. Even without heating, it was much warmer than the surface.
At least he could just about move.
"I won't freeze to death within half an hour," Chu Mu murmured to himself.
From experience, Chu Mu knew half an hour was enough to make a circuit. Once he found a target, he would return to warm up, then continue digging after his body had recovered some warmth.
Though most of the dump was garbage, there was still a chance of finding something valuable.
Stories like that often circulated in the Underworld: someone had dug up a treasure from the pre-war era, sold it at the market for an astronomical price, become rich overnight, and moved their whole family to the Upper District.
But scavengers had been picking through the dump for hundreds of years. By now, there had long since ceased to be anything good left here.
Chu Mu held out no hope of that either. If he could find some scrap parts and sell them by the pound to a scrap dealer, he could get one Winter City Shield per pound.
After buying the parts, those merchants would pick out the good ones and repair them, then sell each one for dozens of Winter City Shields.
The difference in profit was dozens of times over.
All Chu Mu could do was sigh that technical skills were priceless.
If he could learn a trade, he could change his fate outright.
Unfortunately, in the Underworld, people guarded technical knowledge fiercely. They would not readily teach others the skills they depended on for their livelihoods.
Chu Mu sighed at this hopeless world, but there was nothing he could do.
Having come to the Great Dump, he also made a point of visiting an old friend.
"Svarog, I've come to see you again."
Chu Mu approached a heap of metal wreckage and swept away the snow covering it.
A massive humanoid robot lay buried beneath the wreckage, with only his head exposed.
Chu Mu had thoughtfully propped a few steel plates over his head to shield him from the wind and snow, but they did little good. Within half a month, snow would cover the plates again.
So Chu Mu came regularly to clear the snow and chat with his old friend.
Though he called him an old friend, they had only known each other for a year.
Still, Chu Mu had few friends in this world and was young himself, so Svarog truly deserved to be called his old friend.
Even if he was a robot.
"You, are, six days, eight hours and seventeen minutes, twenty-four seconds, later, than last time."
Svarog's speech module seemed faulty, but Chu Mu knew it was already one of the least damaged modules in his body.
Heaven only knew what this robot had been through!
"Sorry. Something happened, and I got grounded at the Orphanage." Chu Mu felt a little embarrassed.
"There is, no need, to apologize, to me," Svarog said, word by word.
"No. I promised you I'd clear the snow once a week. If I promise you something, I'll do it. Unless I die someday."
On the boy's lips, death seemed an utterly ordinary thing.
"You, will not, die." Svarog quietly watched Chu Mu.
"No, Svarog." Chu Mu shook his head and looked toward the distant Core Furnace, at the very center of the entire underground world. The enormous furnace resembled a towering pillar holding up the sky, linking the worlds above and below.
The boy's voice was featherlight:
"Svarog, I'm going to die soon."
The red light in Svarog's eyes flickered sharply. In the end, he said nothing and looked toward the distant Core Furnace alongside Chu Mu.
Perhaps companionship was all he could offer.
The dying boy and the battered robot gazed together at this world clinging to its last breath!
Before you continue