After hearing Natasha's account, Seele's expression darkened.
"How did things get to this point?"
Natasha explained, "It's said that the First Mining Team discovered a batch of geomarrow veins, with astonishing reserves… Preliminary estimates say it's probably the largest deposit found in nearly thirty years."
Seele blinked twice. The importance of geomarrow veins to the survival of the people in the Underworld went without saying. Even she felt shocked and found it hard to believe such news.
"Seriously? Something this big, how come I haven't heard a single word about it?"
"They don't want to make it public," Natasha shrugged.
"Most of the mining areas have been contaminated by the Fragmentum, and a lot of people lost their jobs. If this news got out, miners would probably be fighting their way in.
"But the mining team can't hide it from the drifters around here. After all, they're not blind. Some hooligans wanted to take advantage of this to make a quick buck and extort hush money from the mining team… and that crossed their bottom line."
Stelle shrugged and said, "That's the price of keeping secrets."
"Mm." Natasha nodded.
"Your thinking isn't unreasonable. It's just that the underground is going through a very difficult time right now… and in the end, these two groups clashed violently, with heavy losses."
Then Natasha asked everyone, "Did you come here to resolve the conflict at the mining site?"
"That wasn't their original intention," Seele said.
"These people have something they want from Chief Oleg, so I brought them here."
After that, Seele turned around and looked at the Trailblazer squad. "Since you're asking for help, lending a hand along the way shouldn't be too much to ask, right?"
March let out a sigh and then complained to her companions, "…That makes us sound pretty utilitarian!"
Stelle had originally opened her mouth, ready to say something to Seele, but after hearing March's words, what was about to come out immediately turned into, "Not interested. Goodbye!"
After that, the little Stellaron baby put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin.
March, standing behind Stelle, was completely stunned, eyes wide open, mouth agape, staring at Stelle in utter shock.
As everyone knew, Stelle was either messing around, or on her way to messing around.
Everyone on the Express knew this.
But Seele, who was only meeting them for the second time, didn't know. She crossed her arms. "Suit yourself. I won't force you."
Natasha smiled and said, "Hehe, I think these few are all kind-hearted people."
Then she looked at the members of the Express again. "As you can see, the situation underground really is… very difficult. If it's convenient, I hope you can help the people down here."
Compared to Seele's straightforward way of speaking, Natasha's approach sounded much more skillful.
She praised them on one hand, while on the other hand expressing difficulty and asking for help.
Even if you looked at it from the most cynical angle, at least she put people on a very high pedestal right from the start.
Hearing Natasha's words, Stelle immediately nodded.
"That's true. There's no one more loving than us from the Express crew!"
Nero spoke up at this moment. "But honestly speaking, whether it's the drifters or the miners, I don't really want to help either side…"
Seele turned her head to look at Nero, while Natasha directly squatted down in front of him and asked, "Then what do you want to do?"
"Me…" Nero suddenly put on a rather serious-looking expression.
"I've decided to beat up everyone in both groups! As long as everyone gets knocked down first, no one will get hurt because of fighting."
"Huh?"
Seele was the first to freeze.
All along, she had thought she was already radical enough, but suddenly she felt that she was still somewhat conservative.
"Are you serious?"
Natasha also looked at the boy in front of her with some shock. Compared to underground kids like Hook and Clara, the mental state of this one Sampo brought down seemed unexpectedly… beautiful.
As the saying goes, the more unconventional the mind, the broader the thinking, and people with a "beautiful" mental state can always find special solutions from special angles.
"Of course I'm serious." Facing Natasha's doubt, Nero nodded, and said very earnestly and righteously, "Helping either the First Mining Team or the drifters won't really solve anything.
"For the sake of the people in the Lower District, it'd be better to directly hand the so-called 'ownership' of the vein to Wildfire."
As he spoke, Nero looked at Seele. "Doesn't Wildfire handle resource distribution? Shouldn't this kind of thing be handed over to you?"
"As for how job quotas and resources should be allocated, and whether things are balanced, that's all stuff you should handle, and things you've long been used to doing, right?"
Seele raised a hand and scratched her head, a smile appearing on her face. "Heh. Yeah, that's right. This is a responsibility Wildfire should bear."
"Got it, then let's just beat everyone up!"
Stelle's eyes lit up as she pulled out her bat.
Behind her, March half-lidded her eyes and raised a hand to knock Stelle on the head, complaining, "That's all you remembered, huh?"
Dan Heng let out a soft sigh and said nothing.
Not long after, the group set off.
Seele thought that the newly discovered large vein was probably the center of the conflict.
So she decided to go to a higher place first to take a look and observe the situation.
Therefore, instead of directly crossing the barricades and heading deeper into the mining area, everyone followed the steel platforms up to higher ground.
Then, when they reached a steel bridge, they discovered that at the edge of one end of the bridge, a person dressed like a miner was lying on the ground, completely motionless.
If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of his chest, everyone might have thought it was a corpse.
"That person up ahead… is he sleeping?" March asked, a little confused.
Seele shrugged. "Let's go take a look. Maybe he needs help."
"Huu… huu… ah… ah..."
The man lay on the ground, snoring nonstop.
"He can sleep like that… what amazing sleeping skills!" March exclaimed.
"I don't think it compares to Teacher Dan Heng," Nero said. "Teacher Dan Heng can even sleep lying on a rope."
March rolled her eyes. "There's nothing Dan Heng can do that would surprise me."
Stelle also nodded from the side. "Yeah, who knows, maybe Dan Heng can even fix elevators now."
Dan Heng, "..."
Maybe the light cone 'Only Silence Remains' could use an update.
After that, March called out to the person on the ground, "Hey hey, wake up! If you keep sleeping, mushrooms will start growing on your butt~"
The miner was woken up. He groggily climbed up from the ground, his eyes squinting into thin slits as he tried hard to open them. His gaze swept over the faces of the group, and finally stopped on Seele.
"…Mm… hm? Mushroom soup, where's the mushroom soup? Miss Seele?"
Seele frowned tightly and scolded him, "Why are you sleeping here? Do you have a death wish? Hurry back to the rest area and take shelter!"
"Take shelter…" The man, Zala, blinked, then his body shuddered and he suddenly woke up.
"Oh! I remember now! A bunch of punks popped up from who knows where and started fighting the mining team…"
"I was dead tired at the time. I didn't run more than a few steps before one of them caught me. Luckily, Wildfire stepped in, otherwise even these work clothes of mine would've been stripped off."
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