"I'm sorry...!"
The miner knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his face.
"They said if I did as I was told, they'd give me a large sum of money... My wife is bedridden. I had no choice if I wanted to buy medicine...!"
If you really thought about it, who didn't have a sob story?
Matthias was sick and tired of these people's endless emotional appeals.
"Lock him up."
He stood and gave the order to the knight waiting nearby.
"Keep him alive until His Grace returns."
"Yes, Commander."
The moment he saw the explosion, Matthias had sealed the mine and quickly identified the cause to root out the instigator.
Thud.
He left the prison and headed toward the mine, swallowing a bitter aftertaste.
'Even though he was a miner who had worked here for years.'
He had ultimately fallen for the enemy's solicitation.
It couldn't be helped. Because they were human, they betrayed, and because they were human, they kept their word.
"Hurry, hurry! Bring all the Magic Stone Coal for excavation!"
It was like the Gallery Foreman who was screaming his lungs out over there.
The Gallery Foreman pointed at the mountain with his bleeding arm.
"Bring all the carts we have! Good heavens, are you not going to hurry it up? I'm gonna lose my mind!"
"Please calm down..."
The pharmacist sweated nervously as he tried to wrap a bandage around his arm. It wasn't easy, however, as the Gallery Foreman kept wildly swinging his arm.
"His Grace is in there right now, how can I calm down!"
The Gallery Foreman's old, wrinkled face contorted.
"He can't even take care of his own body! It's driving me crazy, really!"
He was one of the people who had been in Gallery 13 with Dane.
Because Dane had saved him, he was suffering from immense guilt. And he was frantic to rescue Dane, who was trapped inside.
"I brought them!"
"Let's begin!"
It was the same for the other miners and knights.
Even if they were scraped and bleeding somewhere, or had a broken bone, they were forcing their bodies to move.
"Ah, please at least get some treatment!"
Because of this, the pharmacist was the only one in agony. Since the patients wouldn't stay still, he had to follow them around begging them to get treated.
"I said don't touch the collapsed areas! We'll bore a rescue tunnel!"
They decided to break through a new wall, avoiding the area collapsed by the explosion. If they touched the already weakened ground, the gallery was at risk of completely collapsing.
"Here is the map!"
"Where should we detour?"
The experienced foremen put their heads together over the map.
They were accustomed to burial accidents, so they acted calmly, but they clenched their teeth as if to suppress their anxiety.
It was the first time the owner of this mine, Dane Schmaichel, had been trapped inside the gallery.
"If it's His Grace, he wouldn't have gone elsewhere. He's definitely holding his ground in that vicinity. Somehow, we need to get close to the area where the accident happened."
The Gallery Foreman's eyes gleamed as he looked at the map.
"Three days. We must definitely save him within three days."
Matthias also stepped closer and looked at the map with them.
'Damn it.'
In truth, he was extremely anxious and nervous right now.
But with his older brother absent, he was the one in total charge here. So he tried not to let it show.
"How about this way?"
"That place is too close to the collapsed wall."
"Then how about we dig here instead?"
"If we go around like this here..."
The people tried their best to come up with the optimal plan by mobilizing all their knowledge and experience.
It was then.
"Here."
A pale, slender finger suddenly jutted out and pointed to a spot on the map.
"Go this way."
The people flinched in surprise and looked at the owner of the finger.
"Madam."
Rose, with a pale face, squeezed through the crowd and stood before the map.
"This is His Grace's current location."
Rose showed everyone the screen of the Magical Device she was holding. A single red dot was visible on the grid pattern of the screen.
"In terms of distance, it's around here on the map. So we have to break through this wall."
The people's eyes widened as they looked back and forth between the Magical Device and the map. They gave her a look asking for an explanation of what this was.
"You can hear the explanation later. For now..."
The Gallery Foreman, who blocked their gazes with a single word, asked Rose.
"I forgot we had that Magical Device. Madam Grande, is that really His Grace? If it happens to be someone else..."
As if she had expected that question,
Click.
Rose immediately operated the Magical Device and changed the screen. As the screen zoomed out, several hidden red dots were suddenly revealed.
"The other people's dots are gathered here. Everyone has their cubes right now, right?"
At those words, the foremen looked at each other, and
Rustle.
They took out the cubes they had already been issued from their waists. When they counted them, the number matched the dots on the screen.
"Gasp..."
"Th-then does this single dot mean...!"
Rose nodded heavily as if certain.
"Yes, His Grace's location is certain. In terms of direction and distance, this is the only possibility."
"Oh my...!"
The Gallery Foreman, with a moved expression, tried to grab Rose's wrist, but
"Ahem, I almost made a blunder. As expected, you're a truly remarkable person."
He tactfully withdrew his hand.
"Alright! Then let's bore through this wall and shout right away! It's the closest path to Gallery 13!"
The Gallery Foreman shouted vigorously and looked back at Matthias. His flashing eyes assumed Matthias would naturally agree.
"...Let's begin."
Matthias also nodded silently.
From then on, things progressed at lightning speed.
Bang! Bang!
They punched holes in the wall, detonated the Magic Stone Coal for blasting, cleared away the broken boulders, and erected pillars so the path wouldn't collapse.
It was familiar work they always did in the mine. However, they ignored mining and focused solely on opening a path quickly.
Bang!
Noise and dust erupted for hours.
The people worked nonstop, taking shifts to relieve each other.
....
Rose stood like a statue, merely watching the scene. Matthias stared at her from a step away.
'If it weren't for Madam...'
Usually, they couldn't even figure out where the buried person was trapped, so they would agonize over it for a long time looking at the map.
After much deliberation, there were even times when they started working in multiple places simultaneously.
But thanks to that Magical Device Rose brought, as well as her judgment, the work speed had increased incredibly.
At this rate, it might be possible to rescue Dane within three days.
However.
'...Did she know?'
How could she have brought that Magical Device right at the exact moment the accident occurred? If she hadn't known this accident was going to happen...
Matthias, who did not know that Rose had regressed, was simply suspicious.
'If she was a woman who had come in under the orders of the collateral relatives.'
Everything would be explained. But something didn't sit right with him. With just that, he couldn't fully understand Rose's actions.
A few hours later.
Bang!
Even when the sun set and darkness fell, the work did not stop.
Click.
Rose, who had silently been watching the scene, put on her glasses. Then, she sat at a desk in the corner and began writing something on a piece of paper.
"Cough."
Rose glanced at Matthias but didn't stop her hand.
Matthias examined the paper Rose was writing on from behind. Complex formulas and functions ran rampant.
'I have no idea what this means.'
As the night deepened, Helena, who had been hovering around, yawned.
"Madam, aren't you going in? You should go to sleep."
"Go in and sleep first. Sir Matthias will watch over you."
....
Matthias silently nodded at the pointed remark. Regardless, it wasn't a wrong statement.
Scribble, scratch.
Rose kept writing something, changing sheets of paper all night long.
'What in the world is she doing?'
She was so engrossed that there was no time to speak to her.
Matthias watched Rose before he accidentally dozed off.
"...ias."
He startled awake at the sound of Rose's voice. It was already dawn.
"Sir Matthias."
"...Yes."
As he tried his best not to show that he had been sleeping and met Rose's eyes,
"-!"
Matthias flinched in surprise without realizing it.
Rose's face was haggard. Over her slightly darkened under-eyes, only her large green eyes shone eerily.
'...Andersen?'
For a moment, Matthias saw Andersen—who had come to report his research to Schmaichel Castle—in Rose's appearance.
"Madam, did you happen to stay up all night?"
"Yes. But that's not important. First, come this way."
Rose gestured to Matthias and led him to the excavation site.
Having worked straight through the night and day, they had dug quite deep.
However, the distance for the carts to travel had grown considerably, so the miners' faces showed clear signs of exhaustion.
"The current excavation method requires us to detonate the Magic Stone Coal and then move the broken rocks, which takes up a lot of time. It's too inefficient."
"But this is the only method we have."
"That's why I'm making a proposal."
Rose pushed her glasses up with a click and spoke.
"The Resonance Crushing Method."
"Resonance... what?"
"Did you know that each magic stone has a specific wavelength? Ah, you wouldn't know."
"...?"
Matthias thought.
'She's even starting to sound like Andersen?'
But he was so daunted by Rose's eerily shining eyes that he couldn't argue. Rose somehow felt a bit frightening right now.
So he just nodded as if telling her to keep talking.
"If we embed the Magic Stone Coal in positions calculated by the formula and detonate them at precise time intervals, we can resonate them with the specific wavelengths of the magic stones inside the wall."
"Hmm..."
As unfamiliar terms poured out, Matthias found it difficult to understand what Rose was saying.
"So what does that mean?"
"It turns to dust."
"Excuse me?"
"That wall turns to dust."
....
The question, 'Are you certain?' surged up to Matthias's throat. But instead of letting it out, he remained silent.
Because Rose's eyes were those of someone who had spent the entire night tearing apart and revising formulas dozens of times and punching a calculator hundreds of times.
"Let's give it a tr—"
Just as he was about to open his mouth.
"I don't care if you doubt me."
Rose said in a cool voice.
"But don't forget your purpose. The most important thing right now is saving His Grace."
In this moment, Rose was Rose Schmaichel, wearing the face of a genius magical engineer.
"We have nothing to lose anyway, right? Let's test it."
A cold smile spread across her face, filled with conviction.
"If we don't save His Grace quickly, I won't be able to report my failure or anything to him, will I?"
Matthias was speechless.
Knowing she was aware of his suspicions yet speaking to this extent, he felt he understood what Rose was trying to achieve.
Rose possessed the will to save Dane, and a madness that surpassed it.
The one who had stayed up all night doing everything she possibly could was Rose, not him.
He was simply overwhelmed by it.
"...There is no need to go that far."
Matthias barely spoke, exerting whatever pride he had left.
"Do it. The Resonance Crushing Method."