'Regardless, is everything for the next stage of the plan?' Zhen Liu asked while gripping the handle of the hammer on his hip. 'Or should I try and cause another distraction?'

[We're actually in the process of being ready. We still need to clear our the rest of the miners, and prepare the charges.]

'Right...and that's going to take how long exactly?'

[Probably the time it'll take for the Knock-Off and his entourage to ride the palanquin down the mine's entrance.]

'I was wondering why this guy hadn't taken the time to step off of the palanquin yet...wait, unless...'

________________________________________

*Bing-Bong*

...

|Huh? Why'd you pause the story? Why do you have a bat?!|

Stand still, I'm punishing you for that god awful rhyming title, especially for something like this.

|No!|

GET BACK HERE!

...

...

•Huh...I guess I'll take over for this bit...•

Shuffle, shuffle.

•Uh...despite the oddly whimsical nature of the title, the following chapter might be considered a bit...heavy for some people. The writer apparently wanted it to title it as such because..."if those hacks at W•rner Br0thers can get away with weird titles for their episodes, I can too."•

•I can't tell if that's a legit criticism or jealousy...anyways, please be ready to handle it with a grain of salt. Okay, back to the chapter.•

*Bing-Bong*

________________________________________

"Oi."

"..."

"Oi!"

"..."

"OI!"

"...huh?"

"Get up. We gotta move."

"Oh...okay."

At the behest of his fellow slave, Pebble eventually rolled off of his filthy straw mat and got to his feet.

The bag under his eyes and stunted physique indicated that he hadn't slept well in years, but the lack of light in his eyes made it clear that he lost the ability to care about such things.

It was hard to believe that Pebble was only nine years old, since he looked no bigger than a five year old.

"So what's today assignment...? Are we going to the eastern tunnels or western tunnels...?" Pebble asked his fellow slave, the tone of his voice indicating that this phrase was more akin to robotic memorization rather than posing a proper question.

Pebble had heard the grown-ups ask this question amongst themselves in a couple variations, and just assumed this was normal conversation.

As such, Pebble was mildly surprised when he was told something that didn't fall into the usual answer dynamic.

"Neither, we're going to go hide."

"What...?"

Pebble's fellow slave was another boy by the name of Boulder that was a couple years older than he was, and if one were to look at the pair from an outsider's point of view, they would notice that they had similar features with one another.

However, they would also notice that while Boulder showed evident care for Pebble, the look in Pebble's eyes suggested that he wasn't even sure who Boulder was to him in any capacity beyond: "I know them?".

"But what about the overseers?" Pebble asked, in that robotic tone once more. "They're going to be upset with us if we don't work properly..."

"It's...it's fine, little brother. The overseers...said that they'd let us hide. For a game."

"Ah...okay...what's a game?"

Hearing this question caused Boulder to momentarily pause.

"It's...it's something that people do to have fun?"

"Ah...what's fun?"

"..."

Two years ago, questions like these were non-existent.

Once upon a time, Boulder and Pebble were simply brothers from a small farming village in the middle of nowhere.

Their names at the time were Kyle and Samuel, and they were happy living a simple life with their mother and father. But alas, life has a tendency to be...rather cruel.

Without warning, without reason, the brothers were swept up in a bandit raid, dragged to the City of Slaves, and forcibly separated from their parents before being sold to the [Mines of Malevolence] within the span of a week.

One week was all it took to take away an entire lifetime of [Freedom].

And that's when things went from terrible to absolutely hellish.

Over the span of two years, two short years, the relationship between the brothers turned into vapor.

This relationship decay wasn't due to any fault of the eldest, rather, it was due to the youngest slowly forgetting he had a brother.

That he had a family in general.

"Come on Sa-Pebble. We need to go now."

"Whatever you say..."

The change was unnoticeable at first, Kyle would call out his brother's name whenever they needed to do some task and he would be a little in realizing he was being called out to.

This was fine, he told himself, children had a tendency to forget that they were a specific name until they grew a little older.

But that small [Hope] burned out when Samuel got smacked around by one of the kaijin and was called an "insignificant pebble".

After Kyle rushed over to make sure his brother was okay, he noticed the latter had this weird aura to him.

"Sam! Sam! Are you okay?"

His brother looked at him for a couple of seconds before asking a question of his own.

"Isn't my name, Pebble?"

"What?"

From there, Kyle learned the true evil of this mine.

Asking around, he learned that those who lived and worked in this mine, exposed to the weird aura of the monsters and their masters, who eventually be filled with a type of [Disgust].

A very strange type of [Disgust].

This [Disgust] would cause one to hate their identity to the point of forgetting it, it would cause one to lose all sense of [Wonder] to the point that they'd stop thinking beyond the simplest of thoughts, and it would eventually cause one to hate the idea of daily survival needs and moving to the point of pure apathy.

At this point, the afflicted was basically dead in all but name, so the oh so loving kaijin would throw them into the corpse pit alongside the truly dead.

Disturbingly, this [Disgust] would not extend to one's ability to breathe.

So the very last thing that these waking corpses would ever smell, ever breathe, would be the rotting smell of a thousand corpses.

It should go without saying, that Kyle was less than pleased about learning of this sorrowful fate afflicting his little brother.

"There has to be a way to fix this, right? No curse is unbreakable, no disease incurable, right?!" Kyle asked these older slaves, repeating something that he had heard his mother say a hundred times before.

But alas, they didn't know.

Making the whole thing worse, they explained that this affliction was random in the time it took to affect someone.

Some old bastards on their last legs seemed to be cognizant all the way way to the end, while young bucks with genius level cultivation seemed to succumb in less than a week.

And all the while, the loved ones of these sorrowful victims had no choice but to pick up the broken pieces of their loved ones, utterly helpless and useless in being able to help them.

Such horrendous circumstances, has a habit of making the most fearsome of fighters.

"No...no! I'll find a way, no matter the cost!"

Not wanting to lose his brother, his only family left, Kyle did all he could to try and figure out a solution.

Thankfully, he didn't have to do that.

"Boulder, why are we going down this tunnel? The overseers forbid it," Pebble asked.

"Well...the overseers aren't here right now, so it's okay," Kyle lied as he continued to lead his brother down deeper into the mines and to the designated safe area. "And besides, has Boulder ever steered you wrong before?"

"Well, no..."

Over the span of two years, Kyle had done all he could to find a solution not just for his brother, but for all of the other slaves in the mines who were suffering from this syndrome.

Much to his strained delight, he learned that when slaves ended up in the situation where they ended up forgetting their sense of identity, that their loved ones manage to maintain relations by going along with their new ones.

Once he learned this, Kyle decided right there and then to change his name from Kyle to Boulder...at least, whenever he was around his brother.

But in recent days, he had been going by Kyle again.

"Okay, Pebble, you stay right there."

"Whatever..."

After much walking, Pebble and Kyle found themselves standing in front of an odd door that seemed to be repel the surrounding aether in a camouflaging manner.

Remembering his lessons from the leaders, Kyle coated his fist in [Chaos] before knocking in a rhythmic manner.

[Password?] A voice as sharp as razors whispered shortly after the knocking.

[Down with the tyrant.]

[Approved.]

Opening the door, Raquel (Razorstella) made a cursory glance at Kyle and his little brother.

[You came just in time, we were about to lock down the bunker for the others] Raquel informed the brothers. [Come on, we have a few things to take care of.]