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The last female companion in Eula's memory who had crossed over to support Sora was now upset and irritable due to withdrawal symptoms.
When Eula tried to save Silva and tell her the dangers of blindly believing in Sora, in the tunnel beneath their feet, there were scattered footsteps, the friction sound of dragging heavy objects, and complaints, as if deliberately coming from there.
"Come on, Sambo, stop blocking us. If you hadn't said we could get some meat, Chief Oleg wouldn't have sent us to drag these heavy raw ores with you. This is more tiring than fighting. Do you still want to raise the price?"
"Hey, don't worry, everyone. This is the only known passage that can get to the upper level. It's also the supply channel that Old Sangbo has been reluctant to announce. Can you be more generous with the share?..."
"...You didn't tell us before that this road leads to the upper level... No wonder I felt that the uphill road was too long."
Judging from the noise, Sambo did not openly tell the delivery personnel he brought with him -
But there was still some excitement in the voices of the other visitors, as if it was because of the connection that Sambo had exposed to them through this smuggling channel.
"Who is the transaction partner you are talking about?"
"He is the master of the upper class district. However, he is no longer an official. I wonder if you have heard of the name of the garrison commander Lang Dao~"
"We don't make deals with the Silvermanes, those bastards—"
"Wait, Sergey, he said that Landau is no longer an official person, and the transaction can continue. He has also told us the channel. The information about the channel itself is a windfall."
"Hmph. What if they set a trap and rob the thieves?"
"Don't forget the boss's instructions. Go out first. I'm already feeling a bit cooler. Get out of the way, Sangbo. We'll split the profits as we agreed before. We won't give you a cent more. If you want Dihuo to compensate you for this smuggling route, go and ask our boss in person. We'll just deliver the goods."
"Hey hey!! How can this be? Even an extra five cents will do! Ouch!!"
The blue-haired man cried out in pain as if he was pressed against an iron wall, and then the floor in front of Kong was turned up. The metal pipe on the lower level was crowded with people. The interior, which was supposed to have no light, was now illuminated, reflecting the wolf-like eyes of the people.
There was plenty of space in the pipe under his feet, enough for a dozen men to walk side by side, and below his ladder, a cart of orange-yellow minerals was emitting a warm glow.
"...A young boy? Hey, are you here to pick up the goods? Is that Lang Dao playing a trick on us?"
"The stuff is all in the corner - if you don't trust me, just send a few people to exchange the stuff and leave."
Although Kong and Heita, who was glaring at people with their noses, did not look like contact persons, the man who emerged from the ground immediately widened his eyes when he looked in the direction of the other party's thumb.
"…Meat? There really is such a thing??"
The frozen meat sealed in a transparent bag in the corner revealed an attractive pink color, which made the man, who looked a little malnourished, swallow hard.
"The first batch only delivered 700 kilograms. We have limited manpower and can only bring this much. But with the first transaction, we can use the robots. You guys prepare the remaining marrow fluid and deliver 200 barrels on time tomorrow. We will give you one ton of meat in return."
Ignoring the redness and swelling on his forehead, Sora rubbed his hands and came over to act pitiful, and discussed things with the leader alone.
194. Someone wants to intercept! Brothers, grab your weapons!
Looking at the bags of meat, the transporters' eyes widened - the wealth of the world above seemed to be far beyond the imagination of the lower class people.
But unlike what Kong guessed, these guys with fierce eyes and greed on their faces resisted the urge to rob. They seemed to care a lot about maintaining the stability of this trading route.
Although these people seemed to be living a miserable life, they had a long-term vision. Although they behaved like gangsters, they drew a clear line between themselves and certain dirty things at key points, which made Kong quite interested in the "Boss Oleg" they mentioned.
"Before you brought them up here, you didn't tell anyone that we were coming to the upper area to trade?"
At the same time, he glanced at Sambo - this guy said that he was quite influential in the lower class area, but no matter how you looked at it, the gangsters didn't take him seriously at all.
"I thought I could just let Dihuo put the goods at the exit, but they insisted on doing the transaction face to face... I am really touched by their spirit of business contract."
However, he didn't dare to move at all - his plan to take a cut from the profits was completely ruined.
"Okay, you've worked hard, so these are for you."
Although he was a believer in happiness, Sambo kept his word, so Kong temporarily put aside his prejudice and gave him some benefits.
Credit points cannot be spent here, and Sambo still needs to live in the lower area, so only light and valuable things are suitable as rewards.
Kong threw him a whole bag of spices that he had purchased in the space station before. When Sambo smelled the slightly pungent aroma, his eyes suddenly lit up and he buried his head in the sports bag. When he raised his head, his mercenary smile was no longer fake.
It can be said that underground, the value of this package of seasonings is far greater than several batches of meat delivered to Dihuo, and it can indeed improve his living standards.
"As expected of Ling... As expected of Dr. Kong, you really understand the market!"
"It should be enough for you to enjoy yourself for a while. If you need any other benefits, you must tell me in advance."
"Hehe... no problem. This way I can be considered to have made back my investment."
After making Sambo no longer depressed, Kong called on Eula and Silva to move some of the crude ore from underground first - these porters were still wearing the equipment they wore when working underground, and their thermal insulation performance was very poor. Just now, a gust of cold wind blew in through the broken windows, freezing them straight.
They had very little flesh on their bodies and lacked fat intake - in order to adapt to life in the lower class, their bodies had become less capable of withstanding the cold wind.
"It's so cold on the ground - from what I remember, the temperature difference between the upper and lower levels shouldn't be that big!"
"Idiot, this area must have been abandoned. There are almost no signs of human activity. And you were just a kid before the layer was closed. You don't remember shit!"
These rough workers, called "Earth Fire", struggled to lift the minerals in the subsequent passages and the carts to the higher part of the floor, but saw Kong and Eula each holding one handle and lifting them up. The disdainful look they had just shown immediately disappeared:
"Hey, kid, don't let us take the cart away! We want to push it back and use it again!"
An old man with a white beard saw Kong trying to take their tools and immediately spoke out to stop him.
"……what?"
This time, Shiluwa couldn't do it:
"You guys... this car looks like it was removed from the tail of a mining robot. Why don't you lend it to us to transport the goods?"
She knew that life underground might be difficult, but to the point where they wouldn’t even lend her a cart to strap the robot to... wasn’t that a bit too tragic?
Or are these guys planning to raise the price...because of their previous misjudgment?
She looked into the old man's eyes - although they were ferocious, there was a hint of uneasiness in them... The other party had completely not considered the possibility that the consignee would need these carts to be handed over to the robot for reuse and transportation.
“But if we don’t hook up a vehicle, how can the robot deliver the goods to the camp?”
Xiluwa had seen those self-disciplined guys in her brother's camp. They were very versatile but needed a lot of patches and various external equipment to cope with the logistics work. It was indeed her unpreparedness that she did not let Kong prepare the accessories in advance... After hearing what the old man said, she immediately became melancholy.
The so-called "rough ore" mentioned by Beloberg officials and Silvermane Iron Guards are all unrefined earth marrow boxes held in pulley boxes that can be towed by robots and put directly into the furnace. However, the rough ore provided by these people is the real rough ore. It is not packaged and sorted. It is transported in the same state as it is mined, retaining the purest original flavor - you can see there is still some dirt residue on it.
All along, Xiluwa never considered herself as the "eldest daughter of the Landau family", but after spending too much time in the City Builders' Research Department, and immersing herself in music creation and mechanical research after the laboratory was closed, and influenced by her younger brother, she had long forgotten how rough "rough ore" could be for the workers in the lower areas - and she never imagined that these cars that looked like they were about to rust could be considered one of the few "assets" of a worker in the lower areas.
"I don't care, but you want the 'rough ore', but you didn't ask for the container as well."
"Brother...pay some money and leave the cart. I can give you some Winter City shields."
Since the other party was not raising the price out of hand, Xiluwa thought it was acceptable to solve the problem with money.
But the person in charge of the underground fire seems to be in a more difficult situation——
"Girl, these cars... were all gathered together in the mining area. They must be returned to the miners during the day. We, the underground fire, have always borrowed and returned them. Now we have to go and talk to those people and make things clear. I'm afraid it will take some time."
The old man stroked his sparse white hair and pointed at the white marks on the car: "Look, they are all marked with the names of their owners... Why can't you be more thoughtful? Now we can't contact the people below, we have to send someone back to run errands, and we have to get the boss's approval..."
"…I'm so sorry, I didn't realize the situation downstairs was so bad that we couldn't even rent a cart…"
Feeling a little embarrassed by the gloomy faces of those who were taking over the underground and fire operations, Shiluwa could only apologize to everyone again and again - this apology was to the lower levels and to the train crew, for his own assumptions.
After all, she had said nicely before that she wanted to be the local consultant for the company and that she was familiar with the Belloberg area.
And Sambo - the bastard must have known about it, but due to his joyful nature, he did not alert the train crew at all.
"Tsk, she is indeed a young lady from the upper class district, she knows nothing——"
"Shut up, you idiot—well, it's not that serious, girl. It's just a little trouble. If the price is right, let those guys know... How much can you give to the Winter City Shield? If you can give a day's wages, those guys should be willing to rent it."
The old man still didn't want to lose a group of partners who could provide a stable supply of food, even if this route would inevitably be attacked by the Silver Mane Guards in the future - he called two of his men and prepared to let them go back to the lower level to inform them.
"Sambo, how much is it to rent a cart for a day?"
Sora could only ask another "Old Beloberg" who was trying to weaken his presence.
"Thirty to forty Winter City shields. But only those who don't work in the mines rent them out. Miners trust their harvest more after a day's work."
Sambo had just received the benefits and revealed the whole thing without hesitation.
"Shiluwa, give them enough money to keep them from working for two days. Take it out of the activity funds, and I'll convert it into supplies for you later. Let's transport this batch of ore first, the robots will be here soon."
Sora sighed, "The opposition still needs to go underground to find allies. This 'Underground Fire' is a reasonable organization. Don't create trouble... Please, everyone from Underground Fire, if the carts are damaged, I will compensate the workers with new carts with better quality."
"You are a good talker, kid - well, I will take the responsibility for our cooperation... Well, the delivery man hasn't come yet, do you need someone to help you look after the goods?"
The old man finally put on a smile.
"Then I'll trouble you."
On the other side, Heita, who originally treated all the members of the Earth Fire as monkeys, immediately widened his eyes - waiting with interest for Kong to get angry.
But Kong just smiled and didn't get angry. He even took out a few energy bars that Paimon had secretly kept from his backpack and handed them to the laborers.
"Ah, that's my snack!" Paimon made a sound like a leak when his snack was taken away by Kong.
"Aren't you afraid of catching yourself on fire by eating energy bars as snacks? I'll confiscate these and replace them with something lower in calories later."
"Anyway, I won't gain weight no matter how much I eat - can you tell me which snacks are low in calories?"
Paimon's cute appearance quickly attracted the attention of these workers.
Strangely enough, the little guy's chattering made the Earth Fires, who had just sneered at the "upper-class masters" and the "golden-haired men who looked like humans", relax a little.
Black Tower, who was expecting Kong to explode, couldn't accept it even more - he had called Kong a brat in the past but was slapped in the face with a cone of light by him. Why was Kong so tolerant of another group of people who offended him now?
"…Have you been doing too much lately and your self-esteem has been shattered? Dr. Sora?"
"? Are you talking human language, Black Tower? What do you mean your self-esteem is shattered?"
In the public channel, Heita's doubts almost solidified into reality, but her irritating words remained unchanged.
"He's already pointed his finger at you and insulted you, and you don't want to teach him a lesson? When did your temper become so good?"
“I just don’t want to embarrass those in need because I can always see myself in them.”
"...You can't see your shadow in me?"
Heita became inexplicably jealous again.
"You have forgotten how hard it is to survive because of your comfortable life and talent bonus... A week ago, I was still worried about whether I could survive. Black Tower... I can definitely empathize with them."
Sora raised his eyes, walked over under Eula's amused gaze, and shoved an energy bar into the puppet's mouth in a seemingly rough but actually gentle manner:
"This thing looks disgusting at first glance, but they still eat it voraciously... I don't ask you to stand on the same side as them, just don't laugh at them."
"..."
With her mouth stuffed, Heita glared at Kong deeply, but seeing that there was no air of showmanship in him, the doll silently chewed the energy bar into her stomach. The sweet taste should have made her feel nauseous, but unexpectedly, this time, she finished the whole bar after Kong fed her.
"Of course I won't. They can't please me." After enjoying Dr. Kong's first feeding play, this guy was actually in a much happier mood.