Prologue 4
After eating at the cafeteria, Lark and I climbed up the stairs of the wall house with food in hand.
The cafeteria is only going to get much noisier. Adult miners dive into more dangerous places to look for skill orbs with higher stars. Although that is only to the extent of finding more 2-stars it seems. The more stars a skill orb has, the more pay you get. Then they drink alcohol by deducting it from the pay. The hard-smelling alcohol makes you want to pinch your nose. So we climbed up the stairs to get away from the smell.
The one who lives in the run-down house on the top floor is old man Hinga.
「Jii-san, we brought you some food.」
「How many times do I have to tell you to knock first, Lark?」
「Don’t fuss over it, jii-san. Things like that are useless.」
It’s our job to deliver food to old man Hinga. The old man lives in this shabby house, and the miners come to him when they need to settle disputes. He plays the role of a village chief so to speak. That’s why this person has been exempted from daily quota.
Ruffled, unkempt grey hair falls over his wrinkled face. His beard is also long, and I have never seen the old man come out of this house. There’s a toilet problem – we only have one communal toilet – so I’m sure he should be stepping out of this house.
There were only chairs for the purpose of receiving guests inside this wall house. Because even a straw bed would take up the entire space of the wall house. The old man was sitting on a chair. He politely took the wooden bowl and iron spoon I held out.