Mr. Death in the Steam World

Just a few days after that day, those people came to the door.

They were dressed in black robes and spoke with a southern accent. They dragged her out of the shack and shoved her into a carriage.

She remembers crying and shouting the whole time, but no one dared to stop her.

The men in black robes locked her in this stone building.

She pounded on the door desperately, shouting until her voice was hoarse, but no one paid any attention to her.

She tried to escape twice.

The first time was on the sixth day after she was locked up. The person delivering food was distracted when they opened the door, and she squeezed out through the crack in the door.

She ran for her life, but a child's feet are no match for an adult's, let alone those of a mercenary who lives on the edge of a knife.

Before long, she was caught up, pinned to the ground, and dragged back to the stone building.

That man, the one whose eyes always held a contemptuous smile and whose whole body exuded a fiery aura, squatted down in front of her, pinched her chin, and said, "If you run again, I'll break your legs."

The second time was half a month later.

She was more careful than last time, and she observed the shift changes of the men in black robes, but she still couldn't escape. She was caught as soon as she reached the edge of the mine.

This time, she was beaten so badly that she almost died.

But for some reason, those people seemed not to want her to die, so after confirming that she would not dare to do it again, they healed her injuries.

The girl slowly stood up from the corner. Her legs were numb from being curled up for too long, and she swayed as she braced herself against the wall to avoid falling.

She crouched down, stretched out her fingers, and dug her nails into the cracks in the stone wall, carving them with force.

Snap, snap, snap.

Stone chips fell softly from her fingertips, landing on her dirty skirt.

There are already dozens of scratches on the wall.

The scratches were arranged neatly, with a horizontal line connecting every five scratches to form a symbol.

The girl looked at the scratches and counted them one by one with her fingers.

She has been locked up here for a long time.

The first two times she tried to escape, she ran on a survival instinct, without a plan or direction, only knowing that she could run as far as possible. As a result, she was intercepted at the edge of the mine each time.

But things are different now. She told herself that she was no longer the little girl who only knew how to cry when she was first locked up.

She figured out the pattern of the black-robed men's shift changes, knew that the mercenary with a scar on his left cheek would always doze off before changing shifts, knew that the tall, thin mercenary would frequently go to the toilet after drinking, and knew that there was more than one mine tunnel leading to the surface.

She even remembered the rhythm of the bespectacled man's walk—his unhurried, neither too fast nor too slow, neither too light nor too heavy footsteps would echo in the corridor before he came to the stone building each time.

The girl sat down on the tattered blanket, closed her eyes, and began to draw a map in her mind.

After exiting the stone building, turn left, pass through a section of unlit mine tunnel, then turn right twice. You will see a rubble slope left by a landslide.

The scree slope was difficult to climb; she had fallen several times there last time. But there was a narrow crevice there, too narrow for an adult to squeeze through, but she could.

If we can squeeze through that crack, we can bypass the tight guards around the mine.

and then?

She opened her eyes and her gaze fell on the flame flower mark on her wrist.

Although she didn't understand why the man wanted to imprison her, nor did she understand what those words about gods, candidates, and agents meant, she knew that as long as she was still in this stone building, and as long as the mark on her wrist was still glowing, that man would still need her.

As long as he needs her, she will not die.

This was the first lesson she learned from the shantytown: useful people will not be discarded.

She had seen too many shantytowns; the mines needed miners, so the miners wouldn't be abandoned.

The factory needs female workers, so they won't be fired.

She used to only be able to help her neighbors mend clothes and take care of their children, so she was the most useless one—that's why she was the easiest to be discarded.

But things are different now. She's useful, even though she doesn't know exactly what that damn usefulness is, but she's useful.

This time, however, she doesn't intend to simply escape.

Her two experiences of being caught taught her one thing:

With the entire mining area under that man's control, even if she escaped the stone building, the mine tunnels, and reached the surface, she couldn't possibly run out of Ironcrown City barefoot.

She would be brought back again and again until the man's patience ran out, until the mark stopped shining.

So what she needed wasn't to run away, but a way to make that man truly stop.

The girl stood up, picked up some pebbles from the corner of the wall, and began to draw the terrain around the stone building on the muddy ground.

The last time she saw the shantytown was when she was being crammed into a horse-drawn carriage.

The little girl with braided pigtails stood at the entrance of the shack, clutching half a piece of unfinished black bread in her hand, her mouth wide open and her eyes wide.

She didn't know the girl's name, only that she always led a group of children younger than herself around the mining area. She was very bold and even dared to talk back to the mine's foreman.

I don't know how she is now, I don't know if the people in the shantytown think she's dead or have forgotten her.

The girl sniffed and rubbed her eyes hard, forcing back the sudden surge of soreness.

Now is not the time to cry. Crying is the most useless thing; she has cried too many times in this stone building, and every time it has been to no avail.

Crying won't soften the hearts of those in black robes, crying won't get her to drink an extra bowl of porridge, crying won't let her escape.

She looked at the map one last time, then wiped it clean with her hands.

She thought to herself, "I, Melina, must escape this place, and then..."

The girl was kind; even after suffering so much torment, she couldn't even bring herself to say hurtful words.

She silently resolved to make those guys who had imprisoned her for so long pay the price.

......

Meanwhile, in front of the stone building in the mine.

"Father, why aren't you asleep so late?"

Old Sidwin didn't answer, he just stared at his son's face for a long time.

His eyes held weariness, disappointment, and a hint of unfamiliarity that even he himself was unwilling to admit.

Is the person in front of him really his son?

"How long are you going to shut down the mine?" he finally asked, his voice hoarse.

"The Chamber of Commerce is pressuring us, the shareholders are making a scene, and Catherine sent me three more telegrams today. Do you know what people are saying about the Ashton family right now?"

Sidwin stopped and turned to the side.

The gas lamps in the mine cast interplay of light and shadow on his face, dividing his smile in two.

Half of it was the proper smile befitting an Ashton family heir, and the other half was a kind of almost manic fervor.

"Soon," he said. "In a few more days, the Ashton family won't have to be beholden to anyone anymore."