Chapter 60: Miners of the Iron Mine (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 60: Miners of the Iron Mine (2)
Morcan’s prejudice stemmed from a single, simple fact: Roman had never shown an ounce of interest in the iron mine before.
Whatever had suddenly prompted the young master to volunteer for manual labor, Morcan couldn't bring himself to view it favorably.
'He's looking down on us,' Morcan thought. 'We sweat and bleed every single day just to make a living. We dedicate our entire lives to this dark pit, yet Roman Dmitry waltzes in like he's on a picnic. If he had strutted into the forge with that kind of attitude, Hendrick, the master blacksmith, would have chewed him out and tossed him into the street.'
Jacob was a gentle soul, too soft to refuse. Morcan, on the other hand, resented Jacob for accepting Roman, and he resented Roman for showing up at all.
On the first day, Morcan made his irritation known. He deliberately set up near Roman’s designated spot, keeping a hawkish eye on the young master to catch him slacking off. But Roman worked far more diligently than anyone expected. Morcan had assumed the noble would just swing a pickaxe a few times for show and then loaf around. Instead, Roman threw himself into the grueling labor with the same intensity as the veteran miners, easily meeting his daily quota.
It was completely unexpected.
The boy did nothing but work, and work hard. Sure, Morcan occasionally caught him chatting with the others, but that was hardly a sin in the mines.
'Did he really come down here just to help? Or did Lord Romero order him to suffer alongside us as part of his successor training? The first makes no sense, and the second is completely out of character. Even Rodwell Dmitry, the second son, endured all sorts of hardships in the forge since childhood but never once showed his face in the iron mine. Why is Roman Dmitry doing this now, when even the family's most promising successor never bothered?'
No matter how much Morcan chewed on it, it was strange. It seemed like a move devoid of any clear purpose. At first, he had chalked it up to some eccentric form of successor training, but that explanation never fully sat right with him.
Then, Morcan heard a rumor that shattered his assumptions.
"I heard from a servant up at the main castle that Lord Romero never ordered Roman Dmitry to work in the mines," a coworker whispered one day. "I have no idea why the young master is going out of his way to suffer like this, but it definitely wasn't someone else's decision."
It wasn't by someone else's will.
Morcan had been viewing Roman through a thick lens of prejudice, but the moment he heard those words, that lens cracked. He began to see the young master in an entirely different light.
...Just why?
*
A week passed.
Roman remained remarkably diligent. He integrated seamlessly with the workers, causing zero friction, and not a single person had a bad word to say about his work ethic. The bitter dissatisfaction Morcan had harbored on that first day vanished like smoke. Seeing Roman cast aside his noble status to eat the same coarse food and toil in the exact same dirt made it impossible to dislike him—unless one harbored pure, blind malice.
His reputation naturally shifted.
They say Roman Dmitry is actually a pretty decent guy.
Whenever the miners gathered by the shaft entrances, they would shoot glances at Roman and murmur among themselves, their attitudes warming by the day.
Under these circumstances, Morcan could no longer suppress his curiosity. Of the three successors of Dmitry, Roman was the only one to ever set foot in the iron mine. Morcan had to know what thoughts and purposes drove him.
And so, he approached Roman for the first time.
"May I ask you a question?"
Roman paused his work, looking at Morcan. "Do you want the idealistic answer, or the realistic one?"
It was an unexpected response. Morcan had braced himself for a long-winded, noble-sounding excuse. Faced with a choice that sounded like it had been prepared in advance, he fell into deep thought.
Idealism and reality. He wanted to know both.
"Could you tell me both?"
"Then I shall start with the idealistic one."
Idealism. Just as he had told Hans, it was an incredibly sweet-sounding concept.
"Dmitry is a mining city," Roman began. "Just as the people of Lawrence make their living through agriculture, the people of Dmitry rely on the iron mine for their livelihood. That is why I wanted to experience your daily lives firsthand. To understand what it truly means to live as a person of Dmitry. Rather than trying to understand my people through dead knowledge—looking at statistics from a safe, comfortable distance—I wanted to learn the reality by bleeding and sweating alongside them."
"...Is there really a need to go that far?"
"There is. As long as my surname is Dmitry, it is my duty."
It was a flawlessly idealistic answer. It was exactly the kind of rhetoric one yearned to hear from a leader, and for a brief moment, Morcan felt his guard drop completely.
But then, what was the realistic answer?
"The realistic reason," Roman continued, "stems from the fact that I am not the master of Dmitry. Even if this land has amassed vast wealth, that wealth belongs to my father, not me. Therefore, I intend to find out exactly how much wealth Dmitry has accumulated, how its foundation operates, and what I, as the eldest son, can do to increase it."
"What do you mean by that?" Morcan frowned. "If your father is the master of Dmitry, won't this land eventually belong to you anyway, Young Master?"
"No."
Father and son. It was a bond of blood. However, that did not mean a son would simply inherit everything his father owned.
In his past life, the Heavenly Demon had twelve children. Although he passed down the formidable background of being a descendant of the Heavenly Demon to his sons, they had to fight and bleed to achieve anything for themselves. He had learned back then that even father and son were ultimately separate entities. To take what belonged to the father, a fitting price had to be paid.
"Let me ask you," Roman said. "If I were to demand hundreds of gold coins from my father right now, how do you think the Lord of Dmitry you know would react?"
"Naturally, he would ask for a reason. Hundreds of gold coins is by no means a small sum."
"Exactly. That is why I came to the iron mine. If I can find a way to contribute to Dmitry's daily operations—to increase its value—I will earn the right to rightfully demand 'my share' from my father. It is a privilege of being his son, yes, but at the same time, it is a method to actively seize my own rights. I will need a vast amount of money and manpower for what I plan to do in the future. Rather than building my foundation from scratch on barren ground, I have decided to utilize my father's wealth and background."
It was an excessively honest answer. Ideals were just ideals; Roman had laid bare his true, calculating objective without a hint of shame.
Faced with such an absurdly audacious declaration, Morcan had no choice but to burst into laughter.
"Bwahahaha!" He roared, throwing his head back. "So that was the reason! Paying a fitting price just to rightfully demand what belongs to your father... I truly never would have imagined it. I simply thought you came to the iron mine for standard successor training, Young Master Roman. My simple mind couldn't even begin to comprehend your deep intentions."
Roman's answer could have been highly offensive. After all, it meant he was merely using the miners and their grueling labor as a stepping stone. But Morcan interpreted Roman's words in an entirely different light.
'Young Master Roman came to the iron mine, not the forge, to find a way to elevate Dmitry. That means the work we miners do is the true core of this land. He deemed our work valuable enough to willingly cover himself in dirt and rock dust. Good. If that's his game, I have no reason to stop him.'
Recognizing their value. That was more than enough.
The miners craved recognition above all else. Without them even realizing it, resentment over their subtle discrimination compared to the blacksmiths had festered, erupting as hostility when Roman first arrived. But now, Roman was openly acknowledging the absolute value of the iron mine and planning to utilize it to its fullest potential.
How sweet those words were to a veteran miner's ears. If this was Roman's true goal, Morcan was more than willing to be used.
Morcan wiped a tear of mirth from his eye. "So, what is it you wish to know? I will answer everything to the best of my knowledge."
From the very first day until now, Morcan had been consistently hostile. Finally, he completely dropped his guard.
*
From then on, the conversation flowed smoothly. Roman asked a barrage of questions: the estimated reserves of iron ore, the daily production volume, the specific methods of excavation, and the distribution channels. Morcan answered the endless stream of inquiries diligently.
"People say Dmitry's iron mine is the largest in the kingdom," Morcan explained. "But in reality, it's more than that. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it the largest on the entire continent. The Cairo Kingdom is located in the northeast of the continent, and Dmitry lies at its absolute northeastern edge. People call Dmitry the 'end of the continent,' but the reality is different. The countless mountain ranges stretching beyond the northeast have simply never permitted human passage, which is why mapmakers had no choice but to draw the border using Dmitry as the baseline.
"Those mountain ranges are the true source of Dmitry's wealth. Because it is an uncharted world, we haven't recklessly developed it, but from what I've gathered during my time here, there are still over a dozen massive, completely untouched iron mines out there."
It was astonishing information.
Beyond the northeast. The treacherous region known as the Endless Mountains was the true foundation that had built the Dmitry of today. Countless iron mines. Top-grade iron ore. They even possessed the elite blacksmithing technology to process it. Dmitry held every single condition necessary to amass unimaginable wealth.
Roman already knew the scale of his family's wealth was immense, but this far exceeded his expectations.
'A true tycoon of the northeast. People say Dmitry's wealth is endless, yet even that is an understatement of its true potential. This means that if I present a justifiable cause and pay the right price, my father has the capacity to support my ambitions wholeheartedly.'
Morcan's explanation didn't stop there. When asked about the daily production volume, he sighed.
"Actually, considering the sheer scale of the reserves we have, Dmitry's production volume isn't exceptionally high. That is the main reason we don't sell raw iron ore to outsiders. The working environment is simply too dangerous. Because we prioritize working safely, the pace of excavation naturally slows down, directly resulting in lower production."
"From what I've experienced so far, the safety facilities seemed quite sufficient," Roman noted.
"That is true. Baron Romero has provided a tremendous amount of financial support to ensure we work as safely as possible. But mining is inherently dangerous. Earthquakes occasionally ripple through the mountain ranges of the northeastern region. Every time the ground shakes, we can't dig deep because the shafts might collapse. If an actual cave-in occurs, we have no choice but to halt all operations for days. But this isn't the kind of problem that can be easily solved with money. How can mere humans stop a natural disaster?"
It was a painfully realistic problem. Despite possessing the absolute best conditions on the continent, Dmitry could not fully exploit them due to environmental safety concerns.
And that was exactly the kind of answer Roman had been waiting for.
The safety issue. It was an incredibly attractive bottleneck to solve.
Roman's eyes gleamed. "If... we were to completely solve the safety issue, how much profit could Dmitry gain?"
"I cannot say for certain, but I am confident that production would increase by at least fifty percent," Morcan replied without hesitation. "The only reason we don't deploy a massive workforce into the iron mine is that we cannot guarantee their survival. We only send as many men into the shafts as we can safely manage. Because we are always cautious, our production has never been able to keep up with the sheer size of the reserves. In that regard, Lord Romero is truly a great man. Even with astronomical profits dangling right before his eyes, he prioritizes the lives of his workers above all else."
Just as Morcan said, Baron Romero was a fundamentally good man. Had he been a tyrannical lord, he would have ruthlessly shoved thousands of workers into the deepest shafts, uncaring if they were crushed to death in sudden cave-ins. But Baron Romero was different. He did not covet blood-stained wealth. He was content with his current prosperity and genuinely cherished his people.
It was because of this that miners like Morcan remained loyal. Even though they knew the work was perilous, and even though quiet resentment built up over their subtle discrimination compared to the blacksmiths, they always swallowed their complaints and swung their pickaxes out of profound gratitude toward Baron Romero.
'I found it,' Roman thought. 'This is what I can do for Dmitry.'
The chronic, unsolvable problem of the iron mine. If he could eliminate this danger, Dmitry would reap astronomical benefits.
It was then.
CRASH!
RUMBLE!
The deafening roar of a collapse echoed from deep within the tunnels. It was the terrifying harbinger of disaster.
Knowing exactly what that sound implied, Morcan's face turned deathly pale.