“Hehe! Found you, Bea! So this is where you were hiding today?”
At the voice that rang out, the girl now known as Beatrice got up.
When she lifted her head, which she had bent so that her hair wouldn’t show, she saw Evangeline’s mischievous face grinning at her.
Beatrice laughed like the person in front of her and spoke.
“Hehe, I got caught again. It’s amazing how Eva finds me no matter where I hide! So, what are we playing today?”
Now, after finishing their daily tasks, hanging out with Evangeline had become a part of Beatrice’s routine.
In her life, Evangeline had become an inseparable presence.
“Then let’s have a race today!”
“A race?”
“Yup! The first person to reach this secret base wins! Okay, ready, go!”
“Hey, you can’t just start all of a sudden like that!”
Every time Beatrice met Evangeline, she learned new games from her.
From hide and seek to races, shadow stepping, and rock tossing, and so on.
Evangeline, who always introduced her to exciting things, was both an object of admiration and a mystery to Beatrice.
Despite likely having a similar upbringing, how did Evangeline know so many games?
One day, when Beatrice curiously asked about it, Evangeline smiled and replied.
“Hehe, I learned about all of them from books.”
“Books?”
“This thing, this thing! There’s tons of stuff written in here about games and other things! I had a really hard time learning how to read the letters just to read this.”
Hearing that, Beatrice looked at the object Evangeline had been holding—a book.
It was covered in little black spots, making her wonder what it was, but it turned out to be quite useful.
While she was thinking about that, another question suddenly popped up in Beatrice’s mind.
“But Eva, where did you get that book?”
She asked this question because it clearly didn’t seem like something a slave living here would possess, and Evangeline laughed before placing her finger on her lips and replied.
“Shh, I actually snuck it out from Davis’s barracks.”
“…Huh?!”
Upon receiving that answer, Beatrice couldn’t help but be flustered.
She had just heard that she had stolen something—not just from anyone but from Davis, the owner of the mine?
The old man had warned her that Davis was a scary person, and to be careful…
“…Is that okay?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. There are dozens of similar books in the barracks. One of the uncles I work with told me that wizards like Davis often display books they never read to show off how smart they are. It seems to be more of a decoration. Just look at how he doesn’t even notice when I took one.”
Beatrice asked out of concern, but Evangeline replied in a calm voice, as if to say not to worry.
Then, she followed up with a sly grin and muttered.
“It would be a waste to use a book just as decoration. It’s like a treasure to me, teaching me a lot. So, reading it is something nice for the book too, right? If I do get caught someday, I’ll just say I’m sorry.”
Evangeline’s overly carefree response made Beatrice feel a bit foolish for worrying just moments ago.
More than that, she began to find the book, which Evangeline called a treasure, intriguing.
If she could learn to read that, could she become like Eva?
Could she find out more about Eva?
With those thoughts in mind, Beatrice begged Evangeline.
“Um, Eva. I want to read that book too. Can you teach me how to read?”
“Huh? Of course, I can! But learning to read is tough, so it might take a while!”
“That’s fine, I’ll work hard.”
So Beatrice began to learn reading from Evangeline.
“Wow… Bea, are you some kind of genius written in that book or something?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“That’s amazing! It took me forever to learn letters, but you’re picking it up so fast!”
Fortunately, Beatrice seemed to have a talent for it as she quickly learned to read well enough to enjoy books.
Thanks to that, she gained knowledge about various things she hadn’t known before.
However, what Beatrice truly valued was not the knowledge itself, but rather understanding a bit more about Evangeline through what she learned.
And certainly, the knowledge gained through the book helped Beatrice understand Evangeline a little better.
“Bea! Look at this! They say this is fire stone! If you hit it on the ground, it catches fire! Let’s play with it today!”
“…That feels like we’ll definitely get in trouble if we get caught.”
“This secret base isn’t easily visible from outside, so it’ll be fine! Okay, if you hit it like this… Ah, it lit up! Look, hehe. Isn’t the flame beautiful?”
“…Yeah, it is pretty.”
Evangeline was a curious child.
Sometimes, her overflowing curiosity led to troublesome situations.
Like that time she sneakily peeked inside adults’ tents during nighttime fun and got chased away.
But Beatrice didn’t mind Evangeline’s curiosity.
If she didn’t have that curiosity, they wouldn’t have discovered sparkling crystal caves during their cave explorations or seen such beautiful flames like this.
“…Eva, are you drawing again?”
“Yup! I’m drawing the flame I just saw.”
“You really love drawing, don’t you, Eva?”
“I love it a lot, hehe! Bea, I’m going to be a painter someday!”
“A painter… a person whose job is to draw, right? But technically, we’re mine slaves.”
“Well… even if we’re mine slaves, if I can draw well, can’t I call myself a painter? Anyway, if I want to be a painter, I need to practice hard!”
Also, Evangeline loved drawing.
While she enjoyed playing, she equally loved doodling sometimes, capturing impressive moments in drawings.
Of course, there was no paper or art supplies, so her drawings were done on the ground or walls with stones or twigs.
Typically, her drawings were monochrome, but if she felt exceptionally satisfied, she would crush colorful stones she brought from somewhere and use the powder to color her art.
It seemed she was particularly fond of today’s flame color, as it was painted red.
Though it looked rough, Beatrice still liked Evangeline’s drawings.
Looking at Evangeline’s art, and watching her create it, conveyed the joyous emotions she felt.
Thus, just watching Evangeline draw was as enjoyable for Beatrice as playing with her.
“So, your dream is to become a painter, right?”
“Um… no, I want to be a painter, but I have a different dream.”
“What is it?”
And Evangeline had another dream.
“…The sun. My dream is to see the sun.”
Evangeline said.
“I read about it in a book. Outside, instead of a ceiling covering everything above, there’s a sky, and a huge flame called the sun floats in that sky. The little flame I just saw was so pretty. So, the sun, which is a flame much larger than that, must be extraordinarily beautiful, right? I want to see that. I want to come back and draw it right here.”
Her dream was to see the sun and then draw it.
Pointing to the last blank page in the encyclopedia filled with words, Evangeline expressed her desire to paint the sun on a single empty sheet.
From that, Beatrice could feel how much she was longing for it.
But Beatrice knew that dream was one that could never come true.
“But Eva… outside…”
“I know. Davis won’t let us out.”
They were slaves.
And their owner, the owner of the mine, the wizard Davis, would never allow them to step outside this mine.
All the slaves knew.
Davis had placed a spell that would ensure anyone entering the mine without permission would die instantaneously.
With that spell, and as long as Davis was around, Evangeline was destined never to step outside and see the sun.
“But there is a way.”
Still, Evangeline spoke as if there was still hope, her eyes sparkling.
“If we get permission to go out, then it should be okay, right?”
“Permission…? How?”
“Bea, do you know what this is?”
Evangeline asked, pulling something out from her clothing.
When Beatrice saw the black coin Evangeline pulled out, she nodded.
“I know, that’s a Davis coin.”
The Davis coin was a sort of reward given by Davis to the slaves.
Since they were slaves, they didn’t get paid for their work.
However, for some reason, Davis gave Davis coins to slaves who worked hard or discovered valuable minerals.
And he exchanged those coins for items that couldn’t be found in the cave or days off from work, so the Davis coin served as a pretty significant currency inside the mine.
But what did this have to do with her dream?
As Beatrice made a puzzled face, Evangeline explained.
“Someone asked when Davis first distributed these to the slaves if collecting a lot of these coins would let them go outside. And Davis said…”
“If you collect 100 of them, I might consider it for about 5 minutes.”
Davis’s intention was obvious.
He wanted to show that you wouldn’t get many coins and having to gather 100 to get 5 minutes was clearly meant to tell them not to have thoughts of leaving the mine and to use them for something else.
But Davis probably didn’t know.
In this dark underground where not a single ray of sunlight entered,
“100 coins, I’m going to collect them and go out!”
That one serious girl dreaming of 5 minutes would arise.
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