Half an hour later, Alason and Jacob were standing at the scene of the accident. They were looking at a huge circular pit, more like a portal to hell. There were dead people under the rubble of the stone. No one has pulled them out yet. Alason shook his head, put his hands on his hips and said:

"What do you think, Jacob?"

"If there was solid ground under the road, this wouldn’t have happened."

"That's what I'm thinking about."

"What are we going to do then?"

"Find somewhere some miners or simple hard workers who are ready to help and dig a little earth."

"For free?"

"No. I'll deduct their bonus from your salary."

"Understood. It will be done."

While Jacob was busy with the order, Alason went into the shade and dozed off. He did not see any dreams, only blackness and peacefulness. He woke up from the shouts of a crowd of people who ran up. Everyone was standing around the pit and pointing down with their fingers.

Alason approached the crowd and ordered everyone to move away, then scolded the police officers who were not doing anything at that time and ordered to cordon the territory off; suddenly the road begun to collapse further. Everyone jumped back as if on command. A lull. No one moved. Alason turned around and looked into the pit and saw a man in an unnatural position and a broken neck. He was no longer moving and showed no signs of life.

"You see what happens when you don't do your job," he said to the private.

"My fault, sir! He stood on the edge of the road, it cracked, and he fell to his death."

"Where's Jacob?"

"He haven't shown up yet."

"Where are the priests?"

"Why do you need them?"

"To sing a service to the dead."

"I can call them."

"Yes. At least do something useful. Maybe you'll get a promotion."

"Yes, sir!"

Ten minutes later, the priest came, asked how much money he will earn on this and asked about the man who had fallen earlier, in order to make sure that it wasn’t a suicide. The priest was given several dozen gold coins, he waved his hands, sang something in a low voice and left.

Jacob came and brought about twenty gnomes with him.

"Sir," said the biggest gnome standing in front, dressed in working white clothes, good leather shoes, with a long gray beard and greedy eyes.

"We need to see what was under the rubble over there."

"Jacob promised to solve our problem in return. I wanted you to be aware of everything. Since you are the boss here."

Alason looked at Jacob. He nodded.

"OK. Thank you for telling me. What will you need?"

"We have everything with us," the gnome grinned, with his avaricious smile, as if he was ready to see not corpses, but mountains of diamonds under the rubble.

"Okay, then get started."

"Come on, guys! Let's do this."

Gnomes took out pickaxes, ladders, went down, put the man's corpse somewhere in a corner, so as not to interfere, and set to work. Alason looked to the other end of the street and managed to make out Egon, arguing with the guards at the entrance to the Forbidden City.

"That's the kid we saved last night."

"You have eagle eyes," Jacob replied.

"I'll go check what’s going on over there."

Alason approached the gates of the Forbidden City, the guards noticed him and saluted, Egon also turned in his direction.

"What do you want?" Egon asked.

"I'm digging a treasure nearby and I saw you standing here, so I decided to find out why your screams are heard all over the street."

"You'd listen from where you came from."

"I want to help. But to do this, I need to understand what's going on."

"I was illegally fired from my job, that's what's going on here. And these two fuckers can't even explain anything, because they didn't study at school."

Alason made a little laugh and said:

"They really didn't study."

"I neither know nor care about it."

"Gentlemen," Alason asked, "who forbade you to let this young man into his workplace and where are the documents to confirm your words?"

The guards looked at Alason, rubbed their foreheads, one of them sneezed, the other wished him good health, and Egon wished him to die soon.

"Thomas ordered it this morning."

"The Thomas I'm thinking of?"

"Yes, sir. He came up to us told us what to do and left and that's it."

"I fucked your Thomas, okay?" Egon shouted. "Let me go to my laboratory!"

"You have a good job, boy."

"Man, why are you bothering me? Go ahead and dig your treasure, okay? I can sort out my own problems."

"Thomas didn't explain the reason?" Alason asked.

"When did the inquisitors, especially of this position, explain something to someone, sir?"

"That's right."

"Fuck you all!" Egon shouted and left. "Tell Thomas to fuck himself, too."

"Wait, boy, let me help you!" Alason called out to him, but Egon didn't even slow down.

The guards looked at Alason and thanked him.

"I've never seen him so angry," one of them said. "I thought he would kill us on the spot."

Alason looked at Egon’s back and answered:

"Maybe he would have killed you. And maybe he will."

"You think he'll kill us?"

"What did you want? The boy was fired and wasn’t even told the reason. This is illegal. And the time is such that it is very difficult to find a new job."

"Do you think he's going to hunt us down?"

"Or he'll recruit some assassins."

"Damn me!"

"Look behind your shoulder, guys. Good luck to you!"

"Thank you, sir!"