Manual labour.

That was the punishment that former Underlord Holt had been sentenced to for his crimes against the Eastern Caverns. He thought he'd gotten off easy with a simple imprisonment in an Imperial Palace's cells, but suddenly spending the rest of his days locked in a cell seemed a lot more appealing than having to mine Auroris crystals all day!

Even when she was no longer under the Emperor's influence, Master Lian continued to play the role of the one inflicting punishment on Holt. So rather than staying as a useless inmate in a cell, it was Master Lian's idea to find a way for Holt to earn his keep. By making him work!

Holt's sentence was narrowed to two options. It was either working in the mines to provide crystals for the caverns or working in the palace kitchens. But since Holt was not a trustworthy person and had proven his ineptitude countless times, Master Lian had decided that the former lackey of the Emperor would not be entrusted with food preparation duties.

"So you're the new recruit!" The lead miner called out Holt as he entered the dimly lit mine.

"Regrettably, yes." Holt answered, with a voice that made it obvious that he didn't want to be there.

"Welcome to the team! This should help you get started." The miner tossed a pickaxe at Holt from a short distance, trusting that he would catch it.

Despite being surprised by the miner's sudden action, Holt quickly reached out to catch the oncoming object before it could fall to the ground. But like so many previous tasks, he bungled that one too and despite catching the pickaxe with both hands, Holt then subsequently managed to drop the pickaxe, handle first on his foot.

"Aaargh!" Holt howled in pain and clutched his injured foot, hopping on one foot to stabilize himself, failing miserably. Unable to keep his balance, Holt fell backwards and landed on his rear end, much to the amusement of the other miners.

"Help me, you fools!" Holt cried out to the miners collectively laughing at him, furious that his misfortune had entertained them.

"What's his problem?" One of the female miners asked, as she entered the scene.

"He dropped a pickaxe on his foot."

"A rookie mistake."

"And on his first day too!" One of the miners added.

"Thanks for the laugh, mate. We needed that!" The lead miner smiled and helped Holt to his feet. He then turned to the woman who had inquired about Holt and introduced him to her, "Holt, this is Ruby, she's going to show you how we run things around here."

"Charming." Holt sneered. Unable to resist making a sarcastic remark.

Once they had chosen a rock to extract crystals from, Holt lifted his pickaxe and apathetically struck one of the crystals with the least amount of effort possible. To nobody's surprise, it didn't even budge.

"You're going to have to hit it harder than that, if you want to get the crystals out!" Ruby advised him.

"OK then, how would you do it?" Holt admitted defeat and asked her.

"Like this!" Ruby swung the pickaxe and struck the crystal down hard, dislodging it from the rock.

"Impressive." Holt reluctantly muttered.

As the rest of the day passed, Ruby found herself observing Holt as he worked. So did the other miners. Who could blame them? Whether he was calling people fools and imbeciles, or whether he was slowly pushing a trolley with a slouching posture, Holt's lazy and cantankerous efforts were strangely entertaining.

"Alright lads, time to go home!" The lead miner called out, signalling the end of their shift, to the delight of the miners.

"At last! The moment I've been waiting for has finally arrived!" Holt declared ominously and then dropped to his knees groaning and collapsed on the ground, flat on his face. After a hard day like that, Holt hoped that Master Lian would have a change of heart and reconsider his sentence. And for his sake, that it would happen soon…