An Isekai Story

Beneath the gleaming casinos of the Gilded Abyss lie the Contractual Mines—an endless, choking labyrinth of jagged rock and magical residue, where light dares not linger. Here, workers bound by infernal pacts mine crystalline veins of soul-reactive ore, a substance essential to powering the Syndicate’s cursed technologies. Each pickstroke echoes like a broken promise. Overseers, once mortals themselves, now wear demonic forms tailored for cruelty, enforcing quotas etched in blood-bound scrolls. There are no days or nights down here—only the flicker of branded torches and the dull red glow of molten veins. Escape is a myth whispered between coughs and broken teeth. The contracts that bind the miners are said to warp memory and will, making some forget they ever lived free. For Xylos and his cabal, these mines are not just a resource—they're proof that misery, too, can be monetized.

The mines stretch like festering wounds into the bedrock, their walls slick with iridescent mineral sweat. Chains clink softly as dust hangs thick in the air, lit only by a crimson luminescence that seeps from fissures in the stone. Bent figures shuffle through shadowed corridors, their faces masked in soot and despair. Runes pulse faintly from the ceilings, binding souls to labor, while horned silhouettes loom behind scaffolds, watching with infernal patience.