The hand dragging Nathan let go. The Seer quickly rolled over and protected his head, but instead of a punch, he was asked a question while being encircled by the miners.
“How was your week?” It was the young man who’d talked to him after he got beat up by Grega.
Confused, Nathan didn’t respond.
“Don’t worry, as you’ve seen, as long as you do what we ask of you we won’t hurt you,” he reassured the boy.
“Then what do you wa…” Nathan caught his haughty tone, “Then what do you need me to do?”
“Still a bit arrogant, but that’s fine, you’re learning. Come here, I’ll help you.” He waved Nathan over.
Nathan didn’t move but seeing Grega’s dangerous stare in the corner of his eye, he crawled over.
The young man squatted down to Nathan’s level. “First, I’d like to thank you for being able to convert four buckets of crystals a day. Thanks to you, we’ve made good progress and have moved down a level in the mine.” He pulled out a crystal shard from Nathan’s hand; he grimaced. “But because of that, we’ll need you to do a little something for us. It’s not too much, but it’s still something.” The young man’s smile disappeared, leaving way to a cold, dispassionate stare. “What we’re saying is that we’ll need you to go through five buckets a day. Can you do that?”
Nathan pulled away his hand, but the man caught it and ripped out five shards, leaving the top half of Nathan’s hand a raw patch of pink skin.
Nathan screamed in agony. The movement of the air passing over his hand felt like he’d been stabbed with a thousand daggers. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” He yelled. He’d never refused anything, so why did they have to hurt him like this?
“That’s good. Some seers are really made for this line of work, and it seems like you’re one of them” He released Nathan’s hand. “Good night.”
Nathan crawled back to his corner. It took his three hours to fall asleep.
#
It took Nathan three days to reach the miners’ desired output. In that time, his body was covered in bruises and his hands in crystals. He had stopped questioning why he’d fallen into slavery, but he hadn’t stopped wondering why they took out their anger on him.
Thinking he’d be forever alone in this world, he began to see his work in a favourable light, like a perpetual training session, recently, the Overseer had begun to talk to him. It was always unprompted and odd, however, he couldn’t ignore him, as he too could do whatever he wanted to him.
#
“Are you angry?” asked the Overseer on the fourth day.
Nathan took a bite of the fish. He didn’t rush to eat; he needed a break to let the dissolving liquid cool, he’d recently realized that when cool it acted as a pain suppressor. “Yes,” he answered.
“Don’t you think the miners are angry as well?”
“I don’t know.” Nathan remained focused on his meal to get back to work in a timely manner. He didn’t want to face the miners’ wrath.
“You can ignore it, but you can’t deny it. They, too, are angry and the only way they can vent out their anger is violence.”
Nathan finished his last fish and chugged his water. “Then why me! Why not the mages and the people from the continent. Why me?” He didn’t have the strength to yell anymore.
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The Overseer laughed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t, but why do you make it out as if they’re mad at you specifically? It could be everyone. You know that young man who’s always giving out the boss’s orders, well he was the one they beat on in between the last seer’s relocation and your arri—.”
“Relocation?” asked Nathan, “Can I also be relocated?” He asked, desperate to leave that hell.
“Of course, you just have to ask, and then the higher-ups will consider it.”
“Then I’m asking now. I want to be relocated.”
“Sure, they’ll consider it, but they won’t necessarily accept. Practically all seers are asking for relocations, so they do so based on merit. The more crystals you can go through in a day, the higher your odds of being accepted—.”
“How many buckets should be enough?” asked Nathan, full of excitement and hope.
“Ten,” it was a curt answer.
Nathan turned to his bucket. He was already going through five a day; it shouldn’t be too hard to go up to six. He just needed to put a bit more effort into his work. Just like how he improved at dissecting animals, he would surely also improve when it came to crystal conversion. “OK, thank you for the info. I’ll get back to it.” Nathan put down his plate and grabbed two, no three crystals.
He jammed the third crystal between the two others and lowered them into the liquid, wrapping his aura around them, trying to expand his coverage throughout the viscous liquid. The crystals began to flake, and it did so faster, and faster, but the heat also increased in consequence.
Nathan’s hands burned, and the ever-smaller shards pierced more of his skin. It hurt like hell, but at least he now had a self-serving goal.
#
Two days later, the Overseer struck up another conversation with Nathan. “I just remembered. I didn’t get to tell you why the miners were angry.”
Nathan used one hand to eat and the other to continue converting the crystals into energy. “Why?” he asked, slightly annoyed at the distraction. The other day he’d gotten one crystal short of finishing the fifth bucket.
“Doing it this way isn’t interesting. Ask me why you think they’re angry at you.”
“I don’t know,” muttered Nathan, not paying attention.
The Overseer slammed his fist on the shack’s door. “Cut it out if you don’t want me to come in there and beat you. The only reason I don’t is, so you don’t become a sissy and bend over backwards to everyone’s command.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if I did become like that?”
The overseer banged on the door once more. “Look, I’m asking a question and waiting for an answer. Whom do you think they’re angry at?”
Nathan wanted the Overseer to leave as soon as possible, so he played along. “At the world perhaps, but probably the mages.”
“Wrong! They’re angry at the seers. It’s as simple as that.”
Nathan went along with his words, not paying too much attention, staying focused on the crystals. “Why?”
“What is the role of the seers?”
“To… To know the past, present, and future. To protect one’s village…” Nathan understood where the Overseer was leading him. But strength was strength, and the seers didn’t have enough to go against the mages. A third-ranked mage was able to take down a troll, while the village would at most hide behind their walls and barely fight it back. Seers didn’t have a chance.
“Yes, and, of course, they wouldn’t hate them if they fought and protected them with the best of their abilities, but that’s not the case, is it?”
“What do you mean?” asked Nathan, picking up three new crystals.
“Bregva still stands, no? Now, let me ask you, how many mages did you see there?”
“One…”
“Do you think a single mage can hold down the Darquo’s largest town? You are young, yet you’ve lived through more than our forefathers, you understand what this means.”
Nathan didn’t let this affect him, he continued to convert the crystals.
“You can’t speak, can you?”
“No, I can. They sold out their own people, is what you’re saying.”
“NO! You sold your people! How can you not understand this, how do you have such a distant attitude for a kid?”
Nathan took three more crystals. “I didn’t do anything.” That’s all he had to say. Still, he did wonder why the Overseer had suddenly become nicer and more talkative in the past week. “I understand what you’re talking about, but why are you talking to me about this? Is there something you want me to feel? To understand? I appreciate it, but why?”
Nathan didn’t get an answer, and for the next four days the Overseer shut up.
Well, it didn’t matter to Nathan; instead, he was more interested in the fact he might be able to empty a sixth bucket soon enough.
He had realized that if he emitted a more constant wave of mana, one not so concentrated near his hands, he could better dissolve the crystals. Not only was this because it better spread the generation of heat and so keep his hands cooler and painless longer. It also better broke down the smaller shards floating about the liquid, reducing the number of shards in his hands.
Knowing this, he was sure he could not only dissolve more crystals at a time, but also reach the ten-bucket mark within the next couple of months. And so, liberate himself from that wretched igloo.