All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 313: The Deep Hollows

The public guild floor remained quiet until Loccy asked whether top-twenty Rankers received free lunch.

Several adventurers looked toward the new badge on Hajin’s coat, waiting for an answer from somebody who understood rules that had changed minutes earlier. Allen left the hearing chamber behind them and pointed toward the ordinary meal counter.

"He pays the same rate as everyone else," the guildmaster said, handing Garret the sealed decision copies, "twenty measures threat, not soup privileges."

"Then ninety-six was cheaper," Loccy replied, following Juna toward the counter, "they should have warned us before changing it."

Hajin collected the witness travel release while the room slowly remembered its own conversations. Every nearby voice remained lower than before, which made the number more inconvenient than its weight against his coat.

They left the capital within the hour after Cassie secured her mountain case for the return journey. Hans carried the campaign records, while Juna kept the rank decision beneath the custody packet Marrick needed for the regional archive.

The eastern gate opened its central lane when a guard noticed Hajin’s replacement badge. He used the cleared road without stopping the carriage, deciding rank twenty could earn its first useful result by shortening the trip home.

Their wheels crossed the Sixth bridge late that afternoon as workers changed the watch rotation. Recognition reached the gate crew before the carriage stopped, drawing people toward the road until Hans ordered everyone beyond the marked arrival lane.

Marrick waited outside the command house with the mine foreman standing beside him. Neither looked at the badge for more than a moment, while the foreman held a severed safety line across both palms.

"Lower Third missed its return bell," Marrick said, keeping the public rank register closed beneath his arm, "five workers remain below the mapped face."

Hajin stepped down before Juna opened the carriage door fully, taking the line without touching its split end.

"When did they miss it?" he asked, following the darkened fibers toward a flattened metal clasp, "start before somebody decided to rescue them alone."

"Second afternoon bell," the foreman replied, turning the clasp toward him, "Bren’s crew entered through the lower work face with one signal line, five lamps, and the ordinary tool count."

The crew had been clearing a narrow gold seam opened before the siege, staying above the third support brace. Every shift returned one hammer signal each half hour, then withdrew when the haul bell sounded.

At the second bell, the upper team received three evenly spaced impacts from beneath the working floor. Bren answered with the mine code, but the next sound came from deeper without matching any registered response.

"He ordered his people back?" Hans asked, taking the shift map from Marrick, "the report needs the last decision we know was his."

"He sent four workers toward the return ladder," the foreman said, pressing one thumb against Bren’s mark, "then the line pulled downward and every lamp disappeared from the face."

Two haul workers recovered the loose end after it stopped moving, finding the clasp compressed into a thin strip. They approached only as far as the third brace, where another impact struck beneath their feet and made the support pins shift.

Both returned without crossing the damaged line, then closed the lower route under existing mine procedure. No second crew had entered, leaving the five missing names unchanged since the alarm.

"Good," he said, marking the closed brace upon the map, "five are missing, we do not improve the number by feeding it rescuers."

Loccy lowered her hammer after hearing that nobody else remained below the damaged working face. Cassie took the sealed records toward the Witness Office, though her attention stayed on the mine line until Jonas plus Toby joined her.

Lana crossed from the registry with Ash holding two fingers around her marked wrist. He noticed Hajin’s badge before the severed line, reaching toward the new number until Juna caught his hand.

"Mine?" Ash asked, looking between the waiting carriage and the foreman’s lamp, "Daddy go?"

"I am checking the missing crew," Hajin said, crouching until they faced each other, "you stay with Lana inside the registry."

Ash watched him for several seconds before taking hold of Lana again. No halo, Ringlet, designation notice, or distant mountain response appeared around the child.

"One mine bell means move everyone into the command house," he told Lana, returning the damaged line to the foreman, "two means take the clinic road west and do not wait for us."

"Marrick copied both routes after the Gate alarm," she replied, leading Ash toward the guarded entrance, "I will keep the night register with me."

Hajin sent Marrick ahead with orders to keep every worker above the first exterior brace. The carriage continued toward Gold Mountain with Hans beside the driver, while Juna crouched near the rear step and tested every change in the wind.

The mine entrance came into view after the road bent beneath the eastern ridge. Ore carts stood locked outside their sheds, leaving the cleared approach occupied by miners holding lamps instead of tools.

No panic moved through the waiting crews because the foreman had given them positions. Fear remained visible anyway, keeping every face turned toward the shaft whenever another sound entered the mountain.

Hajin crossed the first brace with Divine Eye open, finding ordinary support mana plus the old heat of mined gold. Nothing beneath the mapped face carried a monster core, spell route, or living signature he could identify.

The severed line had passed around the third support post before being dragged downward. Its fibers remained intact until the final handspan, where every strand had been pressed together without burning or blade damage.

"Something closed upon it," Juna said, rubbing the flattened clasp between two claws, "I cannot smell blood from here, but the air is coming upward through another space."

Hans measured that draft against the work map, finding no registered hollow beneath Lower Third. The nearest natural pocket ended forty paces north, separated from the crew’s face by untouched ground.

Three impacts reached them while he held the map against the support post.

Each strike came through the floor with the same interval, lifting dust from the braces without carrying a human signal pattern.

"That is what answered Bren," the foreman said, staying above the closed route, "same spacing, same depth, and it never answers our code."

Hajin struck the support post twice, waited, then added one longer hit with the borrowed hammer. The registered rescue code traveled down the mapped shaft before fading beneath them.

Silence remained for several breaths, letting several miners shift toward the entrance before five impacts returned from somewhere beyond the lower floor. The final strike bent one old nail outward from the third brace.

"It counted your signal and added two," Aria said, projecting the intervals beside the map, "but I still cannot find the source."

"Then stop talking to it," Hans replied, drawing one route from the entrance toward Lower Third, "anything learning the code does not receive another lesson."

They prepared a three-person descent while the upper crews installed a second retrieval line outside the damaged section. Loccy remained at the main brace, where Burdenfall could hold the connected approach if the buried hollow shifted again.

Juna took the forward position because the rising draft carried traces Divine Eye missed. Hans claimed the center with the map plus rescue wedges, leaving Hajin behind them with his Rings closed and the Chain stored.

Another impact struck beneath Lower Third before they crossed the first descending brace. This time, something struck back from farther inside the mountain after it.