Chapter 106: Welcome to Dwarf Town (6)
Chapter 106: Welcome to Dwarf Town (6)
Fedora did not answer and slightly lowered her head.
But it was far too hard to endure the tteokbokki smell softly wafting up right beside her.
The moment she lifted her head a little, her eyes met Jinseo’s.
The two of them smiled awkwardly at the same time, and Fedora accepted the cup tteokbokki and began eating.
“Geshtain told me a little while ago. He said the headmaster urgently left for the Ashred Continent at dawn today. He doesn’t know the details, but he said it was to look for a clue related to his twin younger brother’s whereabouts.”
“Is… that so?”
“He asked me to make sure I tell you it’s not because meeting the Cardinal makes him uncomfortable. He originally planned to say it as soon as the completion ceremony ended, but Lady Charlotte suddenly showed up and everything became chaos……”
“I see. He still hasn’t given up.”
With a heavy expression, Fedora speared the fish cake at the very bottom of the cup with her toothpick and put it into her mouth.
As Jinseo watched Fedora quietly eating her tteokbokki, he turned his gaze to the children still inside the field.
The match had ended long ago, but the children, still brimming with energy, swarmed around a single ball in a pack.
Watching the children enjoy themselves without caring even as they became covered in dust, the adults sipped beer.
“By the way, Mr. Jinseo, do you play soccer?”
“Soccer? I’ve had my fill, so I’m done running around myself.”
“Is that so? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play soccer……”
“Back when I was in the military.”
Jinseo leaned forward and rubbed his right shin over his clothes.
It was the spot that used to ache from being kicked repeatedly in forced soccer matches in the army, even though it was completely fine now.
“So just watching is enough for me now. And personally, I like baseball more than soccer.”
“Baseball? Is that another sport?”
Instead of explaining in words, Jinseo took out his smartphone and played a baseball video.
Fedora brought her face close to the phone screen and focused on figuring out how the game worked.
“……So it starts with hitting the ball that’s thrown inside that rectangular field?”
“Yes, if you understand it like that, that’s basically it.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than soccer.”
Handing the smartphone back to Jinseo, Fedora pressed firmly between her eyebrows.
Unlike soccer, which even someone like her who knew nothing about sports could understand easily, baseball felt hard to grasp even when she listened to Jinseo’s explanation right beside her and tried to focus.
“So on the continent where I live, fewer people enjoy baseball compared to soccer. But in some countries, it’s even more popular than soccer, and Korea is one of them. Still, baseball will probably be popular in the Doren Kingdom’s capital. Mostly among high-ranking people.”
“Would they really like such a complicated sport?”
“His Highness Charles is very interested in baseball.”
“Ah, then that changes things.”
While staying at the royal palace, Jinseo often played baseball videos on a large TV.
Most people who watched still said soccer was more fun, but Prince Charles, in particular, found baseball more appealing.
It was because of the impact of catch with a ball, which had helped bring the awkward father and son even a little closer.
“And it seems he’ll be getting into baseball properly soon.”
Not long ago, Jinseo received Prince Charles’s request that catch with a ball was not enough.
So while having Owl deliver street food to the palace, he sent a box packed full of baseball equipment as well.
Since it was a pastime enjoyed by a country’s prince, it was obvious the nobles would take notice, and a situation might arise where they would need to learn it to interact with the royal family.
Like golf, the representative “entertainment sport.”
Or there was also the possibility the palace nobles might accept baseball in a different way.
Since soccer was wildly popular regardless of status, they might say they should enjoy something more unusual so their distinction stood out more.
“I see. No matter what sport people enjoy, thanks to Mr. Jinseo, everyone’s having fun.”
Fedora smiled faintly and drank her CoolXse.
“Wahahaha! Kids! Catch me if you can!”
Geshtain, having drunk a hearty amount of beer, suddenly charged onto the field, dribbled the ball by himself, and sprinted between the goalposts, and the children began chasing after him with delighted shrieks.
Then Craid, who had always only participated as the soccer referee, dribbled the ball and ran across the field.
With children hanging off his horizontally outstretched arms in bunches.
“But whether in the past or now, for me, street food is what I like best. If you hadn’t come, Mr. Jinseo, the joy in my life would’ve been cut in half. Now I can’t even imagine a life without street food.”
Fedora lifted half of a boiled egg thoroughly soaked in tteokbokki sauce with her toothpick.
“So you’ll always be here, right?”
“That……”
Jinseo put strength into the tips of the fingers he had interlaced on his lap and lifted his gaze to the sky.
“You’re not planning to leave this place, are you?”
“No. Unless something happens, I’ll keep doing business here.”
Lowering his head slightly, Jinseo unclasped his hands and gripped his knee.
“Mr. Jinseo, please look this way.”
“Huh?”
Something slipped into Jinseo’s mouth as he turned his head toward Fedora.
It was half of the egg Fedora had been holding on her toothpick, evenly coated in tteokbokki sauce.
“I saved it so I could eat it at the very end, the very last bite.”
“Haha, thank you.”
“So then… ah, no.”
Fedora trailed off, swallowing the words she was about to say, then lifted her head to look at the sky.
“It’s nothing.”
After the completion ceremony ended, Charlotte stayed in Dwarf Town for a week.
During the day, she played with the orphanage children, and in the evening, she fully enjoyed chimaek, then returned to Orte Harbor with the fishermen.
Leaving behind an order that could never be refused:
“Just set up the orphanage here and move all the kids to this side.”
The dwarves, who had been exhausted from having many things to worry about while Charlotte stayed in Dwarf Town, still felt regret once she left.
But if someone goes, someone else comes.
That same evening, the day they saw Charlotte off, the dwarves gathered in front of the embassy to welcome the forces pouring into Dwarf Town.
Along with Jinseo, the landowner.
“You’re here.”
“I never thought we’d meet again like this.”
Malcolm, the mercenary captain who led the Raven Mercenary Corps, shook Jinseo’s hand.
“Alright, follow me. I prepared a place for you to stay, so you can look forward to it!”
As Geshtain walked ahead with a big gesture, the members of the Raven Mercenary Corps followed behind him, looking around.
Distracted by sightseeing buildings that were clearly different from the existing style at a glance, the mercenaries passed between the wide soccer fields, went past the embassy, and continued heading south.
“Right here. This is where you’ll live from now on.”
When the buildings in the south of Dwarf Town, which had been completely hidden under black cloth, were revealed, silence fell for an instant.
Because mercenary corps were always drifting from place to place, they usually had to sleep rough in temporary barracks.
So it was only natural they couldn’t believe it when they were told they could live in new buildings built by dwarves, not some shabby storehouse or warehouse.
“Are we really allowed to stay here?”
Even when Malcolm accepted the dwarf guarding work delivered through Owl, he never expected treatment like this.
The contract period the dwarves offered the Raven Mercenary Corps was at least one year, but the contract did not say they would provide housing like this.
“Of course. You’re not staying here for just a month or two, so we can’t have you eating and sleeping in some roughly built barracks. But I’ll say this now—staying here is free.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“That doesn’t mean you should think you’ll live here truly for free. You should be prepared for us to make you do various odd jobs.”
“Of course!”
Malcolm stroked the smooth wall inlaid with marble with a blissful expression, and the mercenary members began excitedly going inside the wide-open door to look around the lodging they would live in.
“Anyway, it’s good you came. Above all, with you here, we can finally run the soccer league with six teams!”
“What?”
At the completely unexpected remark, Malcolm stared down at Geshtain in shock.
“Weren’t we hired as mercenaries?”
“Right, mercenaries. But I heard there’s also such a thing as sports mercenaries on Jinseo’s continent.”
Malcolm, without thinking, caught the soccer ball Geshtain flicked up with his right foot in both hands.
“It’s included in the various odd jobs I mentioned earlier. Going forward, please do well in the role of manager for Raven FC too. If that doesn’t work, a playing coach is fine as well.”
“……”
Cutting through fierce sandstorms and advancing endlessly, Painfolt stood in front of a hut.
On his second time setting foot on the Ashred Continent, Painfolt’s destination was not the territory ruled by Wigenburg, but ruins located far to the north.
Until a few years ago, many dwarves had lived there, but they all left because they couldn’t endure the sudden abnormal climate, and it became a land no one visited.
“Is this the place?”
“Yes. It’s amazing it’s still here in the sandstorms.”
At Painfolt’s question, Kelzman, Geshtain’s disciple, nodded and carefully opened the hut’s door.
Creeeeak.
At the harsh scraping sound, Painfolt frowned and stepped inside.
“You said my brother stayed here?”
“As I recall… he stayed about a month. At first he couldn’t speak our language at all, but by the time he left, he could speak it almost perfectly. That’s why it stayed with me so strongly.”
Listening to Kelzman’s explanation, Painfolt looked around the inside of the hut.
The bookshelves along the right and left walls were packed tight with all kinds of books, and on the table beside the bed, old scrolls were stacked high.
“Don’t tell me this is my brother……”
Seeing a sentence written not in dwarven, but in the Francia Continent’s language, Painfolt felt hope.
“Failed…… Other continent…… This time… mana……”
“Haah, damn……”
But Painfolt only read the scroll halfway before sighing.
With only the letters left on a scroll that could not withstand more than ten years, it was impossible to immediately grasp what it specifically meant.
Painfolt’s shoulders sagged in disappointment, and Kelzman could only stand there, not knowing what to do.
“No. Still, I came all the way here……”
Telling himself he couldn’t give up, Painfolt steadied his mind and began pulling books out from the shelves one by one, quickly skimming through them.
“Mr. Painfolt, rather than doing this here, shouldn’t we move all the books somewhere safe?”
Unable to watch any longer, Kelzman tried to persuade Painfolt, but it did not reach him at all—his ears were completely shut in his concentration.
In the end, giving up on persuading him, Kelzman joined him in searching, rummaging through the shelves together.
“This is… no way……”
After spending more than half a day seated at the desk skimming books, Painfolt’s eyes widened.
His hands trembled as he found teleportation coordinates leading to a completely new continent—neither the Francia Continent nor the Ashred Continent.