Dwarves (1)
Dwarves.
Sugar cane charcoal.
Its power was beyond anything I could put into words—truly outstanding.
“The firepower is incredible!!”
“Agreed!!”
“Even the best-dried firewood had its limits as fuel, but with this sugar cane charcoal Young Master has given us, we can produce far superior heat!”
“We should be able to refine steel even stronger!”
In this world, the uses of fire were endless.
The Supply Battalion, of course, but also the Engineer Battalion and the blacksmiths—who still hadn’t settled on a unit name—were all overjoyed.
The charcoal’s power really is something else.
Thinking about it, there was something amusing here.
Charcoal—especially this sugar cane charcoal—had originally been developed in Africa. With no proper resources to speak of, they had to make do with whatever was on hand, and that was how sugar cane charcoal was born.
Back during my deployment days I’d overheard something about “appropriate technology,” but here it was being put to use in the North, the polar opposite of that medieval world.
It’s only possible because of the special environment of a dungeon… but I guess that’s why they say extremes meet.
And so a new invention was completed for the lasting development and peace of the North.
But not everyone was happy.
“This can’t be!! This can’t be!!! The iron mine that was supposed to equip and arm the soldiers of our North…!”
There was no such thing as a world where no one got hurt.
“Just give it up already, Sir Bearwolf. The industry conversion application has already been fully processed.”
“Hngh… sob!!”
Mining Village No. 1, which by rights should have become an iron ore village, had hastily changed industries after the discovery of the dungeon and the appearance of sugar cane. Putting the goblins to work harvesting sugar cane was fine, but processing it required manpower and technical skill.
If they poured every villager who had been forced to mine iron ore into that work instead, the mine—already short on hands—would have had to close within a week of opening.
The people of the mining village—no, Sugar Cane Village—were delighted that charcoal production was ramping up, but the iron-ore-obsessed knight Bearwolf could only cry his eyes out.
“Young Master…. I want to mine iron ore…”
I wanted to tell him firmly to give it up, but I couldn’t bring myself to ignore a middle-aged man’s tears. Only after promising that the next village, at least, would definitely remain an iron ore village was I able to send him away.
“Not easy, is it.”
“Haha. There’s nothing harder than governing people, is there?”
After finishing the work, I drank the herbal tea Old Max had brewed for me. During the last North White Chef contest, the supply troops had gone around gathering every herb they could find, and in the process they’d learned in greater detail which herbs had which effects. The one I was drinking now cleared the head.
Still nowhere near as good as coffee, though.
Of course, coffee didn’t exist here. Or rather, it might if you looked hard enough, but at least it didn’t exist in the North. Thinking about it, the main origins of coffee were southern places like Ethiopia, so it made sense.
Wait, that’s southern too?
Why on earth had I reincarnated in the North? If I’d been the son of the Southern Grand Duke, I wouldn’t have had to go through any of this hardship.
While I was buried in work with those idle thoughts floating around, some familiar faces came calling.
“We’re here, nyang.”
“Grrr.”
It was Yumi, First Claw of the Cat Tribe, and Arun, Third Claw, who was escorting her.
“Welcome.”
Instead of the herbal tea Old Max had made, I served them tea steeped with catnip. With languid voices they sank into the sofa as if melting into it.
“Hyaaaah!”
“Grrrr…”
From the outside it looked like they were high on something, but this was a perfectly wholesome tea ceremony.
“So, what brings you here?”
Once the Cat Tribe’s Claws had recovered their wits, I brought up the matter at hand.
Arun answered.
“Grrr… We came both to express our gratitude for the charcoal our benefactor brought us, and to pay our respects.”
Ah, now that I think about it, they were the ones who first stressed how important timber was.
While the northerners, drunk on the warmth of ondol, had been ignoring the very real risk that the surrounding mountains might be stripped bare, these people—who were dead serious about their hearths—had looked a year ahead and fretted over the coming crisis for their fireplaces. Providing them with sugar cane charcoal and even warmer hearths had naturally doubled their gratitude.
And on top of that, a courtesy call.
“It seems the Cat Tribe’s village is finally complete.”
“That’s right, nyang!”
Even on their last visit it had been nearly finished, and every household had already received its own hearth. Now that the walls surrounding the village and the other amenities were complete as well, they had decided to fully relocate their living space there.
“That’s excellent news. Congratulations. I’ll put in a word with the merchant caravans coming up from the Empire, so you’ll be able to trade with merchants through a trading post in the Cat Tribe village as well. Since you’re still unfamiliar with outside economic activity, I’ll dispatch people to support you so you can make fair deals.”
“Grrr… We only ever seem to receive from our benefactor…”
“Not at all. We all help each other get by. Besides, it’s not as if I’m doing this for free.”
“You mean the Toll Road Guild. Yes… we’ve decided to dispatch members of the tribe for that as well.”
The reason I had accepted the Cat Tribe in the first place. The Toll Road Guild was also gradually preparing for full operations.
Some of the Cat Tribe members whose sight had been restored had already begun scouting the surrounding mountain regions, identifying routes for road construction and gathering every scrap of information on them. Just as they had built the bridge at the mining village last time, they were creating temporary roads with iron wire from Iron Spiders and then improving them through additional construction work. That was the process.
And any monsters that show up along the way will be handled by the Cat Tribe, who are excellent hunters.
In front of me they were nothing more than softies who went limp at the first whiff of catnip, but if you ran into them at night they were a nightmare of a race you couldn’t even meet eyes with. From what I’d heard, they were already rapidly taming the nearby mountains.
“Grrr… Thanks to you. Perhaps a Mountain Lord will be born among our tribe once more.”
“Mountain Lord? What’s that?”
“It’s like a legend of our tribe, nyang! A Cat Tribe member who reigns as king of the mountains, nyang!”
“Grrr… In human terms, it would be like a Grand Sword Master.”
A Grand Sword Master?
Now that I think about it, I heard there are human weapons like that.
They were said to be the next stage after a Sword Master, who was already called a lord of the blade. Even becoming a Sword Master made you a slaughtering machine, and at Grand Sword Master level you were said to wield the power of a one-man army.
They’re so rare I doubt I’ll ever meet one…
Even in this vast medieval world, there were said to be only three living Grand Sword Masters. Ordinary people never saw them and had no reason to. Being the second young master of the Northern Grand Duke’s house put me far from ordinary, but according to the information I had, even I would never have occasion to meet them.
“Wonderful. I’ll be rooting for a Mountain Lord to be born among the Cat Tribe.”
“Hehe! Just trust me, nyang! If I become the Mountain Lord, I’ll thrash anyone who bothers you, nyang!”
Yumi held up a soft paw pad and declared it with confidence.
“Yes, I believe in you, Miss Yumi.”
Though I’d rather she got the Toll Road Guild running properly first.
Ah, right.
Looking at them, I suddenly remembered something I had forgotten.
“By the way, before that, I’d like to offer my own thanks. Thanks to the Meow-Meow Punch… I mean, the Cat Power Gauntlet you gave me, I succeeded in subjugating the goblins.”
That was the Cat Power Gauntlet I had received as a gift from the Cat Tribe. It was hyper-technology that had allowed even this frail body of mine to crack the Goblin Lord’s skull.
This thing… really doesn’t make any sense.
I’d heard of powered suits—exoskeletal frames that could replace human muscle strength—but the idea that simply putting on a single gauntlet could grant massive physical power was completely new to me. I could lift heavy boulders with ease and smash the skulls of monsters far more powerful than myself in a single blow. But what was even more incredible was that despite such overwhelming power, there was no recoil.
Every force in the world has an equal and opposite reaction.
When handling firearms, recoil control was always the biggest headache. Even with a K-2 rifle, if you couldn’t control the recoil the muzzle would wander off somewhere. Yet the Cat Power Gauntlet had none of that. It meant that even while wielding that much power, my body suffered no strain whatsoever.
“Hehe, I’m glad it helped, nyang!”
Yumi looked thoroughly pleased at hearing it had been useful.
“So about that—would it be possible to make one more? I’ll provide all the necessary resources from the North.”
“Ah! That might be hard, nyang!”
When I asked if they could make another, Yumi immediately looked troubled.
“Why is that? If capital is the issue, the North will provide everything needed.”
I hadn’t expected this absurd product of hyper-technology to be mass-producible. But with the resources the North had diligently accumulated, I thought we could at least manage one more. Even these softies, who had been driven from their homes and waiting only to die, had managed to make one…
“Grrr. That’s not it, Benefactor.”
At that moment Arun cut in to correct me.
“It is true that we provided the main materials. But the foundational technology came from another tribe.”
“Huh? So the Cat Tribe didn’t make it? Then who—”
“Grrr. The short-statured folk. The dwarves.”
“Ah… dwarves. Of course… Wait—dwarves?!”
The ones I knew?!
“You startled me, nyang! Why are you shouting like that, nyang!”
“Ah. My apologies. But does the dwarf race truly exist?”
“Of course they do, nyang.”
Well, thinking about it, I’d previously heard that the Ogre Power Gauntlet could only be made by the legendary dwarf race. The Cat Power Gauntlet was in a similar vein, so of course only the dwarves would be able to make it.
Filled with anticipation, I asked,
“Then, are you on friendly terms with the dwarf race?!”
“Not really, nyang.”
“…What?”
Wait, then how does this work?
“Those guys don’t have any friends, nyang. Their temperaments are filthy, nyang.”
“Ah…”
So they weren’t particularly close. Then how—
“Grrr. The gauntlet we gave our benefactor was made as payment for a request we carried out for them back when our tribe had just settled in the heart of Jangbaek Mountain. We aren’t particularly close to the dwarf race, and their personalities aren’t the kindest, but at least they could be reasoned with better than other monsters.”
So that was how it—
Wait a second. That means the dwarf race is in the heart of Jangbaek Mountain.
My eyes lit up as I asked,
“Then you know where the dwarves are?”
“It was a long time ago so we don’t know the exact place, nyang. But we can find them, nyang! I still remember the scent, nyang!”
Yumi tapped her nose with confidence. Her tail thumped the floor hard, just as full of self-assurance.
Thump thump!
Honestly, what reliable softies.
I steeled my resolve to meet the dwarves under their guidance.
“Excellent. I’ll trust you completely!”
Time for recruit hunting… no, time to encourage enlistment.