Clang! Clang!
The sound of chains grinding mixed with the sharp, heavy strikes of pickaxes echoed nonstop.
In this mine, people stood shoulder to shoulder, their eyes blank as they worked like machines.
No voices, no tears, just hollow bodies stripped of souls, moving only by command.
An old slave tripped over a rock and fell to the ground. He tried to stand, but…
Bang!
A deafening gunshot rang out, and his body collapsed into a pool of blood.
The slaves around him didn't even flinch. There was no fear, no pity. This kind of thing happened every day—they were long used to it.
"Slaves exist to work, not to make mistakes." The guard blew the smoke off his gun barrel before holstering it, his voice stern and cold.
His gaze swept over the endless line of frail slaves, and his brow furrowed slightly.
"So many dead today. At this rate, we'll never meet the quota from the higher-ups."
While he muttered in frustration, another guard came up beside him and whispered into his ear.
"Cut their rations later. Those worms are already spent anyway. There's no point in wasting supplies. We'll split whatever's left. The higher-ups plan to replace them soon."
A greedy grin curled on the guard's lips. Slave rations weren't worth much, but money was money. And in large amounts, it added up.
"What are you all standing around for? Get digging! Move it!" He barked, his whip slicing through the air with sharp cracks.
In that suffocating, soulless place, tucked away in a shadowed corner, sat an old man and a boy who looked… different.
Though both were thin and frail, a faint glimmer flickered deep within their eyes—weak, but still alive.
"Have you ever heard of freedom?" the old man asked, speaking casually as he worked.
"You keep going on about that. Can freedom be eaten or something? Why can't you let it go?" The boy muttered with a pout.
"It can't be eaten, can't be touched… But I've heard it's something wonderful," the old man replied absentmindedly, though a faint spark of ancient curiosity flickered in his eyes.
Years ago, there was a young slave who met an elderly nobleman. The noble looked at him briefly, then held out a small box and said,
"Do you want freedom?"
"No, sir," the young slave answered sincerely, kneeling down.
A slave must kneel before a noble. That was the rule.
And deep in his subconscious, the boy had long accepted that rule as natural.
But this old noble was different from the others. He was strangely patient.
"Do you even know what freedom is?" the noble asked calmly, his tone giving away nothing.
"No, sir," the boy replied, his forehead still pressed to the ground, not daring even a glance upward.
The noble paused, his gaze drifting off into the distance as if recalling something long forgotten. Then he sighed softly.
"I don't understand it either. But once, someone told me he was the freest man alive. I never understood him, but I could see… he was happy."
A blurred face surfaced in the old man's memory. A face he could no longer picture clearly. But that smile... was something he could never forget.
The boy froze, a strange emotion rising within him, one he couldn't put into words. Just a few sentences, yet they stirred something completely foreign in his heart.
From the moment he became aware of the world, the chain around his ankle had never left him. Day after day, he dug in that dark mine, never seeing the sun.
But now, for the first time, he wanted something. He wanted to know what freedom looked like.
"Take this. If you can't use it, then when you grow old, find someone who can. I have a mission for you. If you can… free this world. If you can't, then find someone else who will." The old noble's eyes locked onto the boy's as he spoke.
The air around them fell eerily silent—as if even a falling needle would shatter it.
"I will do it," the boy said, slamming his forehead against the ground. A noble's command was absolute, even if it meant dying to fulfill it.
Decades had passed, and the boy from long ago had become an old man, one foot already in the grave. Yet freedom… he still hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
"Freedom… is supposed to be happiness. That's what I once heard… but I still haven't seen it myself," the old slave said, his voice faltering as memories surfaced.
"Happiness, huh? Aren't we happy enough? So that means we're free, right?" The boy tilted his head and spoke after a brief pause.
The old man was stunned by that answer and then slowly shook his head. "You're still too young. You don't understand what happiness really is. When every single day of yours is the same, how could you?"
The boy didn't respond, only nodded a few times. To him, freedom or happiness didn't matter much—neither could fill his stomach.
…
"The descendant of the gods will soon visit our kingdom. This is the greatest honor bestowed upon us. Therefore, we must cleanse every last insect from our land so as not to defile His Holiness," the king declared solemnly from his golden throne.
The nobles below all nodded eagerly in agreement, feigning pious devotion toward the divine heir. But among them, a few faces showed hesitation.
"Your Majesty, if we exterminate all the slaves… our mineral supply will be completely halted for quite some time."
"You're being foolish," the king replied with a faint shake of his head, his eyes filled with reverence. "If there's a shortage, it will be the commoners who suffer, not us. Do you realize how many years it's been since a divine heir last graced our kingdom? We must welcome Him with utmost grandeur."
The descendant of the gods—supreme among all beings. Legend said that in the beginning, the gods created this world, and their descendants established the World Government to preserve the divine order born from that creation.
It had been nine hundred years since the founding of the first World Government. Now, that government was considered justice itself—the one and only truth of this world.
That very night, flames burned fiercely across the slaves' quarters—lit as a symbol of reverence for the descendant of the gods.