"Don't... don't move too much, lad. Your oxygen... it's too precious to waste."
The raspy voice startled Klein. In a stifling corner of the tunnel, leaning against a pile of jagged rocks, sat an old man whose body was little more than bones wrapped in dark, leathery skin. His name was Hobb, a slave who had been in these mines since before Klein had even seen a blue sky.
Hobb coughed violently, spitting out a foul-smelling black fluid. The shackle on his ankle flashed a deep, angry red, emitting a weak beep-beep-beep—a sign that his life was being counted down in minutes.
"Old Man Hobb?" Klein approached, trying to regulate his own shallow breaths. "Bruno took my Core. I have no oxygen time left."
Hobb smiled bitterly, staring up at the cavern ceiling as if it were ready to collapse. "Bruno... he is just a tool who thinks he's free. Down here, if you have no market value for AI Corp, you only have two fates: become a tool, or become a meal."
Hobb's trembling hand reached into his torn cloth pocket. He pulled out a dirty rag containing a small piece of bread covered in greenish-gray mold.
"Eat this," Hobb whispered.
Klein froze. "This is your only food ration for the next three days."
"I'm already 'food,' Klein. I can feel it... the monsters have already caught the scent of my death," Hobb forced the bread into Klein's hand. "Listen to me. You are a Merchant. In the Upper World, they despise you because you cannot kill. But here, in this darkness... a Merchant is the only one who can calculate value. Find a way to sell your life for more than the cost of your death. Do not die as trash."
As Klein's fingers brushed the moldy bread, his eyes suddenly throbbed. A thin, nearly transparent holographic layer appeared over the bread.
[Passive Skill: Eye of Desire - Activated (Partial)]
[Target: Moldy Bread (Organic Waste)]
[Value: 1 Point]
[Note: Very low value, but contains minimal caloric energy.]
Klein blinked. He looked around. The cracked stone walls showed [0 Points], while his rusted pickaxe showed [0.2 Points]. His world had transformed into a series of cold, statistical figures.
Wiuuuu! Wiuuuu! Wiuuuu!
Suddenly, an emergency siren wailed throughout the mine shafts. The dim neon lights flickered and surged into a blood-red alarm.
[Warning! Anomaly Alert!]
[Rift Instability: Critical Level!]
"Dammit! Everyone back to the safety zone! Now!" Garek's voice boomed from the wall speakers, but his tone was no longer arrogant—it was pure, unadulterated terror.
Through the gaps in the tunnel, Klein witnessed a sight that made him sick. In the distance, Overseer Garek and the AI Corp guards stood atop an emergency teleportation platform.
"Overseer! What about us?!" a slave screamed from the distance.
Garek didn't look back. He pressed his access card into the panel. "Sector 4-B is considered an acceptable loss. Isolation Protocol activated."
Zzzzt!
Blue light enveloped the overseers, and in an instant, they vanished, leaving thousands of slaves locked inside tunnels that were beginning to vibrate violently. A gargantuan steel door at the end of the shaft slammed shut with a soul-shaking thud. They had been discarded.
"They... they really left us," Klein muttered, his hand crushing the moldy bread into crumbs.
"I told you, lad..." Hobb coughed again, his voice now nothing more than a whisper. "To them, we are... just numbers..."
BRAAAAKKK!!!
The stone wall in front of them exploded. It wasn't shards of blue Core that burst forth, but a massive black claw, scaled and tipped with nails as long as swords. The claw moved with impossible speed, tearing through the air.
"Hobb!" Klein shouted.
Before Klein could pull the old man away, the claw impaled Hobb's chest, lifting his frail body as if he weighed no more than a feather. Hobb didn't even have time to scream. His dim eyes looked at Klein one last time, his mouth