Even though they said they didn’t want to get paid, Oliver still forced each of the kids to pick their favorite sculpture and gave it to them as a gift. Whether they kept it in their house as a collection or sold it to Verna’s parents later was up to them. Though it’s more likely that their parents would decide on those kinds of financial decisions involving dozens to hundreds of gold coins.

“Phew~! Good morning, Stone Sister~! Morning Marble Mother!”

When Oliver woke up with the sun shining in his bedroom window, the first thing he saw was a crying gray face made of stone. The bald girl had her eyes closed and her arms stuck together above her head, laying on her side and facing him. Behind her back was a white marble statue of a woman that looked very similar, opening her mouth as if to curse at the two children.

“Don’t worry, Mother, I didn’t do anything to your daughter last night. We just had a sleepover. That’s all. Now go back to your room. Sis, you can stay in bed and keep resting. I know you need your beauty sleep.”

He pushed the girl onto her back and kept her under the covers. Then he easily picked up the heavy marble statue and carried her downstairs to a guest room, which had basically been transformed into a storage room for a bunch of different sculptures. Mostly different kinds of animals and mythical beasts, but there were also a few other women that looked eerily similar to the ‘Marble Mother’. Just that they had more gentle or blank expressions on the faces and were made out of various different materials, from pale green jade to a smooth blue, brown and white granite. 

Behind the house was a special storage shed for those yellow and green crystals. The last batch was already sent away with the caravan to Kale Town, so the only thing sitting inside of there was that single huge piece of yellow crystal. Although they were usually turned into jewelry, there were also many people who liked collecting larger crystals and other minerals as they were. Gold nuggets were also very popular now days. They were also extremely rare, because people in the past would always just melt them down into fine gold. A large gold nugget might be worth ten times its actual value in fine gold, which was how quite a few lucky people on Greenstone Mountain got rich in the past.

“Glow Stones are always so beautiful in the dark.”

“You have to charge them in the sunlight first though. Only a Miner like you would be able to see them glowing normally.”

Oliver and Klein stood in the dark shed, looking at the glowing green crystals. For Oliver, the minerals were very bright, but for Klein, he was just staring blankly into the darkness.

“Turn on the damn lights!”

“Alright, alright, why are you so angry?”

“Sorry. It’s not you. It’s just… Yesterday Ivy’s father died. Today, I had to go to another village nearby. I saved most of them, I just… Never mind. You get the point.”

“Yeah… Sorry.” Oliver sighed and pulled a little chain, turning on a simple electric lightbulb that was dangling from the ceiling. The whole shed was quickly illuminated, revealing the huge 350 kilo yellow crystal cluster.

“Holy Hell! Damn it, I should’ve helped you carry shit back yesterday!”

“Hahahaha~! I know, right? Too bad~! How much do you think this would be worth?”

“At auction? If you managed to sell it to one of those damn Nobles? Maybe… A hundred thousand? No, maybe even a million gold wouldn’t be impossible!”

“Awesome! A million sounds like a lot, right?”

“No, not awesome, you little idiot! How many people know about this?!”

“Uh… Well, we came back pretty late yesterday, so not many people saw it. Why?”

“So your little friends already saw this shit? Damn it…” Klein face-palmed with his right hand and sighed, “A million is a thousand thousand. That’s not ‘rich’ money, Oliver. That’s murder everyone in this village money!”

“What?! Then what do we do?! Hide it?!”

“What use is hiding it?! We need to get rid of it, publicly!” Klein glared at the silly brat and explained, “The Greenstone Mining Company’s caravan is coming back tomorrow. We’ll just sell it to them for a few thousand gold and be done with it. Whether they can make it back to Kale Town is their own luck.”

“What if they blame us if something happens later?”

“What’re they gonna do? Advertise that they lost a priceless treasure to random bandits on Greenstone Mountain? They’ll probably send a private army to go deal with whoever is stupid enough to steal from them and nobody will ever hear about it.”

“What if they just kill everyone in Verde Village to make sure nobody knows about it?”

Klein rolled his eyes and complained, “They’re still a serious company, okay? Besides, this stupid rock might end up becoming a National Treasure in the future. Or some kinda cultural artifact. Either way, the Greenstone Mining Company will probably only make less than a  hundred thousand off it. Is it worth a hundred thousand gold to massacre a village? Let’s not even go that far. A single genuine Miner like you probably brings them more than a hundred thousand gold a year. If they’re caught murdering a Teacher and a Doctor as well, they’ll have to deal with the Ministry of Education and the Medical Union. Anyway, the point is that you’re worrying too much.”

“Whose fault is that?! You’re the one telling me that people are gonna murder us over this damn crystal!”

“Hahahah~!” Klein grinned and patted the kid’s messy white hair, “Let’s go eat lunch. Emy’s probably getting impatient.”

“Don’t touch my hair!” A metal hard-hat appeared over his scalp and pushed away that pale hand.

“You’re really good at Materialization.” Klein grumbled, “I didn’t figure out how to Materialize medical tools and equipment until I was Rank 5.”

“That’s because I’m more talented than you! And I work a lot harder!”

“Little Bastard, do you have any idea how hard it is to be a Doctor by nineteen?!”

“Is it harder than being a nine year old Miner?!”

“Uh…” Klein coughed and cleared his throat, looking away from the little boy as they left the shed.

“Sure is bright out here…”

“I win!”

“Yes, yes, you win the hardship award. Congrats. Your life is worse than mine.”

“Asshole!”

“Hahahaha~!”