They reached the collapsed Torom mine in under ten minutes.
To avoid triggering a secondary cave-in, the Hurricane touched down a few hundred meters away from the site.
The moment the cabin door swung open, Ernst II, Magic Technology Minister Reglei, and the butler dashed out.
Jin, Elsa, Reiko, and the five Smith golems followed right on their heels.
"Ah, as I thought. The shafts here dig straight down into the earth."
Though referred to as a mine, it had not been bored into a mountainside; rather, it was excavated directly underground from the surface.
In modern Japan, the terms "mine" and "ore deposit" carry distinctly different meanings.
A mine refers to an operating facility that excavates, dresses, smelts, and supplies resources, whereas an ore deposit refers to a natural concentration of minerals substantial enough to make extraction commercially viable.
In essence, a mine is an organizational or geographical designation, while an ore deposit is a geological term.
Regardless, of the five shafts bored into this site, the two closest to the surface entrance had collapsed.
Workers were frantically clearing away rocks and dirt, but fresh rubble crumbled down as fast as they shoveled it aside, stalling any real progress.
"Your Majesty, let the Smiths take over. Please order the workers to clear the area."
"Understood....Hear me, everyone! I am your Emperor, Ernst II! We have come to aid the rescue! From this moment forth, the Magi Craft Meister shall excavate the site using his golems! All hands, evacuate immediately!"
"Y-Your Majesty...?!"
"The Magi Craft Meister...?"
Stunned by this sudden revelation, the workers hurried out of the shafts nonetheless.
Jin turned and issued orders to the Smiths who had accompanied him.
"Smiths 12 and 13, excavate the front shaft. 14 and 15, dig out the one beyond it. 11, provide support where needed."
Temporarily fusing the loose rubble with the magi-craft spell Bonding to prevent further cave-ins, the Smiths began clearing the shafts.
"Whoa!"
"Incredible! So this is the power of the Magi Craft Meister's golems!"
Smiths 12 and 13 first stabilized the surrounding rock with Bonding, after which 12 bored holes straight into the blockage. 13 carried the excavated rock and earth outside. They repeated this rhythm in seamless coordination.
They advanced at a speed of over five meters per minute. However, as they dug deeper, their pace was bound to drop once the carrying distance lengthened.
"All right, you bastards! We'll haul out the rubble!"
"Yeah!!"
Rallied by the shout of a man who appeared to be the site foreman, the local workers took charge of hauling away the excavated earth.
With that, their overall efficiency shot up once more.
After about fifteen minutes had passed:
"Casualty found!"
At Smith 13's call, the standby Smith 11 rushed in, carefully carrying the injured miner out to the safe zone.
A blanket had been laid out on the ground, and the local healer immediately began an examination.
"This is..."
Both of the victim's legs were broken, and blood was pouring from his head.
"W-What should I do...?"
The mine's dedicated healer was still a young woman. Utterly overwhelmed and paralyzed by her lack of experience, she simply stood frozen in place.
"...Step aside."
Elsa stepped in.
"Diagnose... No brain abnormalities. No intracranial bleeding. The blood from the head is just a surface laceration. What's truly dangerous are his chest fractures."
One of the lungs was on the verge of collapsing, and blood appeared to be pooling inside, Elsa explained.
"We are fortunate the broken ribs haven't pierced the heart. First, we must drain the blood from the thoracic cavity."
"..."
Even with Elsa giving clear instructions, the female healer could not bring herself to move.
"Pull yourself together."
Elsa lightly slapped the healer's cheek.
"Ah... ugh."
"You are a healer, are you not? Then do your duty."
"Y-Yes, ma'am."
"Good."
Once she confirmed that the female healer had regained her senses, Elsa turned back to the patient.
"Do you have a drain tube to draw out the blood from the chest cavity?"
"A d-drain, ma'am?"
"...You don't have one, I see."
Because the blood was still treated as part of the patient's living tissue, it could not be drawn out using the magi-craft spell Extraction.
Jin rushed over and handed Elsa a rubber tube with a bulbous expansion in the middle designed to function as a manual pump.
It differed considerably in design from what modern medicine called a drain tube.
Its function was much closer to that of an aspirator pump.
Since the reference materials left behind by the magus Shuuki Tsetse were outdated, the medical instruments described in them only reached the technological level of the 1960s.
Even so, this world had magic.
While magi-craft could not act directly upon living bodies, using such auxiliary tools allowed the blood to be drawn out.
Monitoring the patient's condition with Diagnose, Elsa carefully inserted the tip of the drainage device into the airway.
She then pumped out the blood accumulated in the lungs. All the while, a thought crossed her mind: If this were merely water, it would count as a foreign substance and could be removed directly with the magi-craft spell Extraction, but...
(I really must get to the bottom of why magi-craft cannot affect living tissue.)
Elsa made a mental note of the mystery once again.
Once the blood was drained from the lungs, the efficacy of healing magic would dramatically improve.
"Healing."
The fractured ribs mended, and the bleeding from the lungs ceased at the same time.
"He is out of danger."
Elsa let out a soft sigh of relief.
Just then, five more injured miners were brought over.
The Smiths had already excavated more than fifty meters underground, and there appeared to be even more victims trapped below.
"Perform triage."
"T-Triage, ma'am?!"
"...You aren't familiar with it?"
Triage was the process of prioritizing patient care based on the severity of their condition.
In disaster scenarios where the number of casualties vastly exceeded the available medical staff, it was indispensable.
Long ago—four hundred years ago, in fact—Elsa had advocated classifying patients into four distinct categories: expectant, immediate, delayed, and minor.
(...The practice wasn't passed down. How disappointing.)
Elsa felt a brief pang of regret, but now was hardly the time to dwell on it.
"...Ah, the Smiths have already sorted them to some extent."
Moreover, there were no minor injuries—patients with low urgency—among this group.
The vast majority were severe cases.
Elsa personally examined each one, administering Schmerzmittel to the serious cases and temporarily stabilizing the critical ones with Healing.
"This buys us a little time."
At the very least, there were no longer any patients on the brink of death.
"You, look after the serious cases."
"Ah, y-yes, ma'am!"
With Schmerzmittel dulling their pain, the patients were no longer in agonizing distress, meaning even an inexperienced healer like her could manage their treatment.
Still, more casualties continued to arrive in rapid succession.
"There are too many... At this rate, we won't keep up."
Just as Elsa voiced her concern:
"Don't worry, Elsa. Reinforcements are coming from Avalon."
Jin's voice rang out.
"Mm....But the patients cannot wait."
"I know. I'll have Hope help out here."
Hope was also capable of casting mid-level magi-craft and Healing.
"I'd like to have Reiko help too, but prioritizing the subterranean rescue has to come first. Sorry."
At that very moment, the miniature Reiko had dived ahead into the collapsed shafts to search for survivors.
"No, that is only right....Please rescue as many as you can."
And so, after more than an hour spent frantically diagnosing and treating the wounded:
Looking up, the massive hull of Deus Ex Machina's personal craft, the Aristotle, descended gracefully from the sky.
Because the Aristotle was faster than any other vessel Avalon possessed, Maquina had flown over in person, bringing medical personnel along.