A short, bald-headed boy with gray eyes was sitting at a metal picnic table and eating a ham sandwich with mustard, lettuce and pickles. It wasn’t particularly fancy, but he still smiled as he remembered the cute girl who made it for him. He went on lunch break while Jade and Oliver were arguing.

“Life is awesome, hehehe~!”

Barilo couldn’t help grinning when he looked at the tattoo on the back of his left hand, ‘Miner I’! After so many years of hardwork and effort, he actually earned his own Word!

“I’m already thirteen… I should ask Ivy to marry me. I don’t wanna end up like Ollie.”

Although he used to be jealous of his best friend, who was practically like a big brother to all the kids in the village. That was only before he realized just how much Oliver ‘sacrificed’ to protect them.

*Rumble~!*

“What the hell are they doing down there?”

The teenage boy frowned as she stood up unsteadily, then he felt his heart racing and panicked. Gritting his teeth, he bolted! The ground behind him started collapsing downward quickly and trees were ripped out of the ground as they were sucked under the sinking earth!

“Aaaaaah~!” An ear-piercing shriek came from up ahead, making him sprint faster than he’d ever run in his entire life! His light and strong body quickly reached Oliver’s backyard when he saw the houses shaking like there was an earthquake…

*Rumble~!*

The sound got even louder and the shaking was even more violent, with the foundation of some houses cracking. The Greenstone Company Warehouse collapsed directly! Not to mention the town wall that already had lots of holes, like the one near Oliver’s backyard.

“Barry!” The black-haired, brown eyed and pale-skinned girl screamed again, waving her arms at the boy who was running for his life! She was on the second-story deck behind Emerald’s house, so she could see the huge sinkhole rapidly expanding in their direction… Fortunately, after almost reaching the green picket fence, the collapse finally stopped. At least for the moment.

“Barry! What about Ollie and Jade?!”

Peridot rushed over at an inhuman speed and lifted the short boy up into the air by his suspenders, “Where are they?!”

“Ollie… Jade, they… They went down…” Barilo started crying and trembling once his adrenaline faded a bit, “I was… I was on my lunch break! I don’t know!”

“Shit! Shit! No!” Peridot threw him across the grass and walked over to the fence, leaning over and looking down the steep slope that went down dozens of meters at first glance… And that was just the sunken ground. She knew that they might be a hundred or hundreds of meters below the surface! The deepest known tunnels went down several kilometers below the surface!

“No! Jade… Jade is fine! Definitely fine! But Ollie! Damn it! No, I have to do something!”

“There’s nothing you can do to help them, Peri.” Klein walked out of the house wearing a white lab coat, black pants and frameless glasses, “If you wanna help, then help ‘us’. A lot of people are hurt. A collapse this bad, I don’t know what happened to the other mines? We need to prepare for the worst.”

“What could be worse than losing Oliver?!”

“Oliver might be blamed for this shit.” Klein pointed towards the sinkhole, “If they can’t find him, they might go after his family instead. Or they might target Verde Village as a whole.”

“Then what the hell should we do?!” Peridot glared at the tall and handsome ‘doctor’, “Run away and hide?!”

“Run and hide where? I’m just warning you to be prepared for a legal battle. Can you and Verna stand that kinda scrutiny?”

“Damn it.”

***

“Deeper… Come deeper… Inside…”

“Oliver, did you say something?”

“Ignore that. Just some horny ghosts trying to mess with us.”

*Ting~! Ting~! Ting~!*

Even after being trapped deep underground, their lives hadn’t really changed that much. The main difference was that they weren’t really ‘mining’ anymore, just digging. They didn’t need to bother with all the extra tedious steps. No mine carts or other equipment were really necessary.

Oliver quickly hammered some giant nails into the harder rock and crystal wall, after removing the nails, Jade quickly and efficiently warped everything to the sides. The ‘impurities’ usually didn’t fall out, but when they did, Oliver was heartbroken to have to toss big hunks of gold, ‘Uranium’, silver and various crystals back behind them. Then leave everything in the depths of the earth as they traveled up a steep inclined slope.

“Are you sure it’s just ghosts?”

“What else could it be?”

“Ummm, the Earth? Maybe she’s talking to us?”

“Why would she give a shit about us?”

“Well…” Jade looked back down at the dark abyss behind them, “Maybe… She wants to help us get stronger?”

“Or maybe she wants us to turn into ghosts and stay with her forever? Hahaha~!”

He got rid of the hammer and conjured up a strong pickaxe made entirely of steel. With a loud shout he started furiously tearing apart the rocky walls ahead! Every swing created lots of sparks… He still wore a mask with an air tank on his back, but he never used any ear protection. And he was completely shirtless, sweating profusely from the intense heat. Instead of sweating, the stone girl released most of the water inside her body in the form of steam. Making the air even more humid and dangerous.

*Boom~!*

“Hahaha~! Look! Another tunnel! Yes!”

“Yay~!”

The two of them were really excited when they finally found yet another tunnel section, especially since this one seemed pretty long and spread in various directions. Up, down, left, right… Obviously they chose the steep slope that was leading upwards. The only issue was the size.

“Should we crawl or?”

“I can fix it!”

Jade was about 2 meters tall now and a lot more mature than before. Unfortunately, that also meant she had an even harder time fitting through most of these cramped tunnels. The good news was that she could push and compress the rocky walls around them.

“It’s probably better if we just climb.”

“Can you survive with me in a tighter space, Ollie?”

“Uh… True.”

Oliver was only wearing some pants, not because he was afraid of being ‘seen’ naked, but because he didn’t want to expose his genitals to tiny pieces of rock. His chest and arms were covered in plenty of painful little cuts, scraps and burns. Fortunately, after becoming a Uranium Miner VI, his resistance to heat and overall strength has improved dramatically.

Jade also needed to wear clothes, but they weren’t things that Oliver conjured. Instead, she transformed some green limestone into a tight sports bra and tight shorts that clung to her body. It was stone, but it almost looked like thin cloth under her manipulation.

She walked ahead and moved her hands around in circles. When those glowing orange palms and fingers got close to the stone, it warped and twisted, compressing to the sides and above. Those dainty feet also glowing bright orange, but not quite hot enough to melt the ground, fortunately. Otherwise Oliver would have even more trouble.

Instead of following after her immediately, he leaned up against a rocky brown wall and conjured up a simple bottle of water. He reached out with his left hand and the glowing green dust swirled around his fingers. Unscrewing the lid, he sent those tiny crystals into the water and shook it up. Then he took off the lid again and smirked, guzzling down the glowing liquid. Amazingly enough, the water he conjured always seemed to be right out of a refrigerator. Sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder: “Hey Jade, do you ever think that maybe conjuration… Actually just summons something from the real world? Like maybe we’re stealing shit from some unlucky bastards on the other side of the world?”

“My Papa told me that conjuration was… Cheating.” As she said that, the stone girl stopped for a moment and turned around. In her glowing orange hand a big white dog made of marble appeared, “It’s like… Borrowing power from the world to achieve a temporary miracle. Part of the share comes from us, but a greater portion comes from the world around us or… Some higher being. Maybe a God. Or the Devil. Nobody really knows. At least Papa didn’t know, or didn’t tell me.”

“Grandpa and Klein said the same thing.” Oliver snickered, then he conjured up a can of baked beans. He didn’t bother cooking it, just used the convenient tab on the top to open the sealed can and used a metal spoon to eat it. He also sprinkled on some glowing green dust as a seasoning, to make it ‘spicier’.

“You hungry or thirsty?”

“I’m fine, Ollie. You shouldn’t waste your strength on me.”

“It’s not a waste to make you feel better, Jade.”

He created another big plastic bottle of water, plastic rather than glass, because the lighter material required less energy to conjure. Though the energy he spent on the water itself couldn’t be recovered. As for the beans, Jade really didn’t like them in the first place. Unfortunately, baked beans was the only ‘food’ that Oliver knew how to create with his abilities. Not like he couldn’t cook other things or had never seen cans of other things, just that for whatever reason, it was the only thing the world recognized as ‘Miner’ related food.

It was strange, because realistically, ‘Miners’ ate all kinds of different foods. Even just in Verde Village, they had a wide variety of delicious pastries, fresh meat and other things to choose from. Why only baked beans in a can? It made Oliver really suspicious about the ‘source’ of conjured goods.

“Here, even if you don’t ‘need’ to drink, it can still help you keep your temperature down.”

She obviously couldn’t hold the bottle with her almost molten hands, so Oliver placed it to her lips and helped her drink. Jade didn’t even get embarrassed anymore. The two of them have ‘lived together’ for so long already. First she was just a statue and barely conscious, but for the past 2 years since she woke up, the two of them have been almost inseparable.

“Thanks… Ollie, I’m really scared.”

“Of what? Confined spaces? Hehe~!”

“No… I’m afraid to find out whether everyone is okay or not. What if we killed them, Ollie?”

Oliver smiled wryly, wiped the sauce off his clean-shaven cheek with a rag and put his mask back on.

“I’m more afraid that those bastards are in trouble and need our help, but we’re down here taking our good ol’ time digging to the surface.”