With tension apparent on Akia’s face, Lea’s trembling voice called out to him for a moment.

With a deafening roar, the entire mine shook again.

“W-What? Could it be… collapsing?”

As if finding it hard to believe, the eyes of the two intertwined.

“We need to get out of here quickly.”

As if signaling Akia’s words, the two hurried their steps to exit the mine.

With a creaking sound, the supports holding the ceiling began to show signs of giving way. Lea, watching this, turned pale.

“Duke, it seems like the mine walls are going to collapse…!”

“Lea!”

Akia, surprised, grabbed Lea’s hand and rushed towards the entrance with all his might.

On the shaky ground, the two repeatedly stumbled and fell, but when they finally reached the entrance, they abruptly stopped.

“The entrance…!”

The sound of something collapsing a while ago was the entrance.

Certainly, when the search team left, there was a narrow passage. However, the entrance to the mine leading outside had long been buried under a pile of rocks.

Then.

Lea, who was staring at the entrance in despair, was startled by the sound of something collapsing. The Duke, noticing this, seized Lea’s wrist.

“Come this way!”

The place Akia led them to was Room 0, not far from the entrance.

As they entered the room, a large rock fell from above, covering the spot where the two had been just moments ago.

If Akia hadn’t pulled her away, if they hadn’t rushed into the room, they would have been crushed under that rock.

Thinking about that, Lea shuddered all over. And as darkness, as black as coal, approached with the blocked entrance, her vision blurred.

“Ugh…”

Lea grabbed her throbbing head and slowly raised her eyelids.

“Where is this…”

“Are you coming to your senses?”

As the hazy view gradually brightened, Akia, sitting next to her, came into view.

White salt debris scattered in his hair.

And the bruises on his smooth face clearly showed the aftermath of the recent accident.

Lea slowly sat up. Next to the boulder where the two were sitting, a single candle illuminated the space.

“Duke? Where is this…”

As she questioned him, Lea looked around. In response to Lea’s question, Akia answered in a subdued voice.

“An empty room.”

“An empty room?”

Lea, blinking her eyes, sighed as if she had realized something.

‘Right. We came inside before it collapsed.’

“Is this Room 0?”

“Yeah. It’s the first place where mining was completed.”

In the salt mine, after mining salt, they would set up supports in the empty space, and that sight resembled a room, hence the name.
From Room 0 to Room 5, the higher the number, the more recently the mining in the room was completed.

‘It seems like this place didn’t collapse.’

Fortunately, the room they took shelter in seemed to have avoided a major disaster.

“Are you injured?”

“I’m okay. How about you, Duke?”

“As you can see, nothing major.”

Just like her, the Duke also seemed relatively unharmed, except for minor bruises.

Akia, who had been looking at Lea, stood up from his seat.

“Indeed, as I thought, this place is fine.”

At Akia’s low voice, Lea scanned her surroundings. As he said, unlike other spaces that were almost like a battlefield, Room 0 seemed relatively intact.

“You knew this place wouldn’t collapse?”

“When I examined the collapsed materials, the supports in other rooms were already decayed.”

“The wood was rotten? That can’t be!”

In salt mines, wooden supports were used instead of iron ones due to the corrosive nature of salt. The wooden material used as supports wouldn’t decay in a lifetime due to the salt’s properties.

‘But if the wood is rotten…’

Lea furrowed her brow at the unbelievable fact.

“Before coming here, I looked into the records we purchased from here. However, there were more than a couple of strange things.”

“Yes?”

“As you know, the usual cost of one piece of wood is about one silver coin. However, the cost of the wood used here was less than fifty copper coins.”

“How is that possible? Support beams here are made from the highest-quality wood from Croathaea…”

Lea couldn’t finish her sentence as she was struck by the thought that someone had intentionally used cheap wood.

“Embezzlement.”

There was no doubt that someone deliberately used inexpensive wood. Reading her expression, Akia nodded.

“This was premeditated embezzlement. Probably someone among the overseers intentionally embezzled the budget.”

“…”

“The salt mine here at the Duke’s territory is nothing short of a cash cow.”

Lea silently nodded in response to his words.

“So, what should we do now?”

“At the moment, all we can do is wait for the rescue team. Don’t move unnecessarily. We don’t know how long we’ll be trapped here.”

With no food or anything else in this situation, the only option was to conserve energy. So, the two of them sat there, staring blankly into space.

How much time passed like that? The silence was so profound that only the sound of droplets falling from the ceiling, melted salt, could be heard.

Lea raised her head, buried in her knees, to look at the Duke. Whether lost in thought or not, he leaned against the rock with his eyes closed.

‘Strange.’

The unrelenting thirst that had been tormenting her since earlier made Lea swallow dryly.

‘Why is it so hot…?’

Although she had been feeling it since earlier, it was excessively hot inside the mine. Lea wiped the sweat dripping from her forehead and furrowed her brow.

Her face was already flushed, and her hair was soaked with sweat. If it weren’t for the Duke in front of her, she would have wanted to take off the dress she was wearing immediately due to the heat.

However, unlike Lea, who was hot, the Duke, leaning against the rock with his eyes closed, seemed perfectly calm.

‘Am I the only one feeling this hot?’

Lea, thinking that she might be sitting in a particularly warm spot, tried moving to another place, but nothing changed.

Amidst the recurring sound of fanning, the Duke’s quiet voice echoed through the cave.

“Stay still. Don’t waste your energy.”

‘How can I stay still?’

Without fanning, it was impossible to sit still in the intense heat.

Moreover, her mouth had been parched since earlier. In the end, unable to overcome the heat emanating from her body, Lea, breathing heavily, said to the Duke,

“Duke, it’s too hot for me.”