"Ah?"
The old man opened his mouth wide, and the pickaxe in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter at his feet.
"What are you doing over there! Want to get whipped?!"
Only when the overseer shouted loudly from afar did the old man hurriedly pick up his pickaxe and start banging it haphazardly against the rock wall.
He mechanically repeated the actions he was performing, but then quietly leaned closer to Por: "What did you just say! Are you trying to fool this old man!?"
Por continued working with his hands, his tone so honest that it was impossible not to believe him. "I absolutely didn't lie to you, my good brother is currently outside Pejite City, busy helping refugees."
He already knew Kamlin's current situation in Pejite from the information shared by the Divine Tree, which was also an important motivation for him to desperately find out the details of this slave mine and complete the princess's mission.
He didn't want that kid to come back and show off in front of him; he also needed to make contributions and strive to become one of the " Golden Folk " who were more favored by the Divine Tree as soon as possible!
Upon hearing Por's unwavering answer, the old man's eyes dimmed.
"Sigh... was it still too late after all?"
But then, the old man suddenly turned and stared at Por.
"No, if Pejite's accident happened a few months ago, why haven't I seen any signs of Gore mobilizing manpower or resources on a large scale? What exactly is the situation with Pejite? Explain yourself!"
Seeing that the old man was determined to persist, Por had no choice but to quickly retell the story he had told countless times to all sorts of people in the tavern over the past few days.
"Insect tamers, and Tolmekia? How did they get involved together? This doesn't make sense—"
He pondered the two names, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper, the wrinkles on his face, stained with white stone powder, deepening.
Por immediately understood the deeper meaning in the old man's words. Could there be another hidden story behind the already perplexing Pejite incident?
"Old man, are you saying this matter has nothing to do with the Empire?"
This piqued Por's interest; the information the old man possessed might even be related to his mission.
The old man was about to speak when he heard, "Still daring to slack off!"
Snap!
The whip whistled through the air and struck the old man's bare back squarely, leaving a bloody welt where the flesh had rolled back.
The old man let out a muffled groan, his forehead covered in cold sweat, but he stubbornly refused to scream.
He swung the pickaxe with incredible speed, even more energetically than Por had before.
After whipping the old man, the foreman then slapped Por hard on the back and arms twice more.
"Hmph, boring."
Seeing that the two men were just working silently after being beaten, the foreman assumed that the young man was just as tough as the old man and could endure pain. He turned around and went to inspect other areas while grumbling and cracking his whip.
Por's face darkened. If he hadn't spoken up, this selfless old man wouldn't have been beaten.
At that moment, a rough, stone-dust-covered hand gripped Por's sleeve tightly, and the old man slowly shook his head at him.
Here, every smart person who has survived a week knows that the more you scream or resist, the faster you die.
The overseers and guards didn't treat the slave laborers as human beings at all, and any tools that weren't handy were naturally "discarded".
Por's chest heaved a few times, but the coldness in his eyes did not dissipate.
The clanging and banging sounds echoed continuously in the vast underground space, blurring the passage of time, with only exhaustion accumulating.
About four or five hours later, the loud-voiced supervisor finally blew the whistle.
"Shift change, free time! Next group of useless idiots, get over here right now!"
The group of slave laborers, including Por, felt as if they had been granted a pardon. They dragged their legs, which were linked together and unable to take big steps, slowly toward the edge of the mine.
There were several crude cave dwellings carved into the rock face, lined with tattered, dirty felt and hay.
They lined up at the guard's station to receive a large piece of coarse bread, a bowl of gruel, and a leather bag of cold water—that was their meal.
Of course, the guards didn't forget to chain the newcomer, Por, to prevent him from escaping.
As for the so-called "free time," it simply meant resting in this cave dwelling, which reeked of sweat and mold, crammed together with more than thirty other people.
Por tasted the porridge in his hand and found that although it tasted terrible, it was actually a meat porridge made from aged dried meat and grain. It seemed that the owner here had put a lot of thought into preventing the precious slaves from dying too quickly.
Based on the shift change schedule, it should be late at night outside, but deep within these ruins, which are always illuminated by searchlights, there is no distinction between day and night.
Nearby, several slave laborers saw the whip marks on the old man's back that had torn and bleeding, and immediately surrounded him.
Some people whispered words of comfort and concern, while others carefully dampened their clothes with their own water to wipe away the blood and grime around the old man's wounds.
It seems that this experienced old explorer, who knew how to survive, held a high position among these desperate slave laborers.
The old man waved his hand. "My old bones can still take it. You go and check on that new young man; he's got delicate skin, don't hurt him."
"Don't worry about me, I'm wearing leather armor, a few lashes won't hurt me at all," Por quickly assured him that he was fine.
Because he was conscripted on short notice, the guards only took his weapons and small bag, making him stand out among the scantily clad slave laborers.
The old man, however, assumed he was just a young man trying to save face and said sternly, "Young man, don't be reckless in this situation! Infection here can be fatal."
Seeing that he couldn't explain it clearly, Por simply said, "Oh, I'm really not injured. You don't believe me? You don't believe me? I can heal your wounds."
"Cure? How can it be cured? This godforsaken place doesn't even have a clean spot—" The old man's eyes widened suddenly before he could finish speaking.
Por knelt on one knee, raised his right fist to his forehead, and a warm golden halo quietly spread in the cell.
A miracle happened.
In just a few breaths, the still-bleeding whip wound was reduced to a faint pink mark, as if it had healed for several days.
Not only that, the old man felt that the backache and stiffness in his joints accumulated from his work were swept away with that warm current, and he felt as if he had become several years more relaxed.
The golden light's effect wasn't limited to the old man; all the slaves in the prison were also baptized.
For a moment, the cave dwelling fell into a deathly silence.
The guards outside were patrolling routinely along the iron fence, their footsteps approaching and then fading away, unaware of the brief anomaly inside the cave.
The old man slowly turned around, his eyes filled with an extremely complex expression, containing a hint of doubt, but mostly shock.
"You... you are the forest—no, who are you?"
The old man dismissed his first thought; the rumors said those guys were all blond and blue-eyed, but this young man had black hair.
"My name is Por, and I am Blessed Warrior under the command of the god known as the ' Erdtree '."
Por straightened his back and proudly announced his identity.
"And I came here following the will of the gods to rescue you."