Please Listen to My Request
“There are various reasons, but the biggest problem for the dwarves who left for the continent is that they consider the title of master smith to be nonexistent.”
After organizing Jed’s words, that was what it amounted to.
The dwarves’ most preferred marriage partner was someone who had achieved great accomplishments as a master smith.
Or, a dwarf family who had accomplished such feats in a close ancestor.
Those dwarves had set off for the continent with their own beliefs.
To the traditional dwarves, that was a deviation, so they saw them with contempt.
Jed said.
“Even if that’s all, I could at least speak to them properly, but there was another reason that wasn’t easy to think of.”
Rune opened his mouth.
“That’s not it?”
“Yes, yes. The dwarves from our side brought over traditional things and accidentally made a mistake.”
With a long, exaggerated sigh, Jed heaved a sigh.
“One of the traditional dwarves sent the item they were supposed to submit to the master craftsmen’s competition, and we ended up being accused of being thieves.”
Even to Rune, this was serious.
The master craftsmen’s competition was a clash of dwarven artisans’ pride.
The weapons they had to submit were secretly crafted until the day of the event.
That the item had been taken out was enough to enrage the dwarven artisans.
“That is truly a big problem. It’s a very good thing that misunderstandings are piling up.”
Rune looked at Jed and asked with disbelief.
“Did you recover the item?”
With a gloomy face, Jed let his shoulders droop.
“Long ago… it was sold off…”
“…”
If it was the item they had to submit to the master craftsmen’s competition, it must have taken at least ten years.
Or more, depending on the effort put in.
Whoever bought it, they would never return it.
“It’s not Jed’s fault directly, but this is too fatal.”
As Rune was thinking that and falling silent, a hot sigh came from beside him from Perdikion.
Indeed, he wanted to sigh as well.
“How would that sound to a fire dragon race brat like you.”
While talking and walking, the dark mana-veiled scarlet flame soon came into view ahead.
The flickering red light, like living patterns, burned intensely and fiercely.
Soon, as if recognizing its owner, it quietly reduced its heat.
Rune moved his lips.
“So what happened?”
Between the silent silence, the dwarf Jed, who had been observing Rune and Perdikion’s faces, scratched the back of his neck with an awkward expression.
“It ended up with mutual fault. Superficially.”
Rune summarized.
“Both sides didn’t properly understand each other, huh.”
“As expected of Rune-nim. If it’s you, it’s you!”
With his thumb raised, Jed smiled, but the mood didn’t improve at all.
Rune glanced at Jed once, then turned his gaze to the door.
“I’ll cross over.”
Confirming that Baekya and Heungmi, who had been following closely behind, Rune placed his palm against the door.
The heat that would even warm the inside of the body.
The hot power overflowed.
For Rune, it was just over a hundred years.
He wondered how the dwarf village had changed in that time.
Whirr!
As Rune’s hand touched it, the seemingly solid door turned into flames mixed with intangible darkness.
And the first ones to slip through the door were Rune and Perdikion.
After them, Jed, Heungmi, and Baekya followed.
Rune looked around and opened his mouth.
“It’s the same as before. There are some changes, but.”
Once the flames disappeared from their bodies, the place they arrived at was the dwarves’ square.
The sound of molten metal being poured from the glowing smelting furnace.
A village that always spewed intense heat.
Busy small dwarves handling tiny lava.
However, the changed appearance was clearly evident.
Rune pointed with his hand and opened his mouth.
“What’s that?”
The village was precisely split in half.
Like two halves of a cookie.
Between the roads and hills that had been meticulously maintained as if they had always been two separate villages, a low wall had been built.
“A border?”
The left side was the architectural style Rune had seen a hundred years ago, familiar to the eye.
The right side was a bit different.
It felt like new inventions that had added some changes.
At that moment, Heungmi, who had been hugging Baekya, looked back and forth between left and right, then looked at Rune with a strange expression.
“It’s amazing! It wasn’t like this when Heungmi was here.”
“What was it like then?”
Heungmi smiled brightly and said cheerfully.
“It was similar to when we all came together for the first time!”
“Piyii.”
Hearing those words, Rune thought.
“Heungmi’s arrival was about fifty years ago, right.”
At least until then, there had been no problems.
Rune turned to look at Perdikion.
“Did you know about this?”
“I heard after the recovery period. Something about dividing the region due to administrative issues.”
With arms crossed, the fire dragon race boy looked at both sides with a stern face.
“During the recovery period, it was decided between the elder dwarves that they should decide for themselves, so for now, I’ve left it alone.”
Now, a young dragon soon to become an adult. Perdikion.
There was no way a dragon who wanted to personally resolve every incident between dwarves would be idle.
“I helped with my affairs without any issue, so I thought it was fine.”
From Rune’s gaze, Perdikion sensed something and added, “In case you think I was ignoring my lair to help you, look.”
Perdikion’s gaze reached the refined, decorated, and stylish buildings.
“The right side is mostly the reformist dwarves’ territory. And the place built independently by young dwarves.”
His pupils only moved to the left.
Houses made of mud, wood, stone, and iron, built solidly and robustly, gathered there.
“The left side is where the traditional dwarves live. So, instead of fighting each other like catchers, they chose to become independent as a group.”
In the past, reformist dwarves were mostly young ones.
Most lacked money and couldn’t step up as the main force.
But with Jed’s contributions, money and strength appeared, and instead of forcing them to stay together, they chose independence, that was the explanation.
Rune opened his mouth.
“If I try to force them to merge, it would only deepen the problem.”
“That’s right. Of course, I did try a recommendation.”
p>As he answered, Perdikion showed a subtle smile.
His younger brother Rune had been able to grasp the core well even at a young age.
“This is a side effect from their thoughts not mixing as they age. I thought it would be better to let them do it once themselves.”
Rune nodded his head.
“That might be right.”
Thinking about it, Rune and the dwarves surprisingly got along well.
“Brother. It suits you well.”
“What do you mean?”
“The owner of this lair. Cool.”
“Wha…”
Startled, Perdikion froze for a moment, then coughed.
Then, he wrapped his arm around Rune’s neck and pulled him in.
“You brat. You’re saying obvious things.”
“Ah. Brother. Neck, neck.”
It didn’t hurt, but it squeezed subtly.
Instead of Rune who couldn’t look up at Perdikion, Heungmi said with a giggle.
“Perdikion-nim’s ears are turning red, you know.”
“Ere? Really. Are you that shy?”
Hearing those words, Perdikion exploded in anger.
“No! My lair is originally a hot region, so that’s why.”
Rune, hearing that, chuckled inwardly.
“I wish you believed that fire dragons are burned in fire.”
Looking at Perdikion being teased by Heungmi and Jed, Rune added a line.
“Brother, dragons get in big trouble if they lie.”
“Shut up!”
“Waaah!”
As Rune cleared his throat, a few seconds later, Perdikion released his arm.
Rune fidgeting with his neck, there was a slight prick, so Perdikion said something else.
“It’s already too late now. We should sleep first and come out tomorrow.”
“That makes sense.”
Rune answered while looking at the sky.
The night sky was scattered with stars.
That was because he had chosen a late time so that the power of the Night Fairy, Grace, could be fully utilized.
“It would be good to know the exact circumstances, but at this hour, it would be too much.”
A time for preparation, excluding dwarves working at night.
Promising to come out tomorrow, the group returned to Perdikion’s lair and rested.
And the next day.
“Please listen to my request, Rune-nim!”
After finishing dinner, Rune came out with Heungmi and Baekya and met a dwarf lying prostrate outside the lair.
“Did rumors spread in the meantime?”
Rune’s gaze turned to Jed.
With his mouth shut tight and head shaking, Jed denied it.
“Jed didn’t let it slip.”
He hadn’t told them the fact that they had visited the lair, and even with an order of silence in the lair, he hadn’t.
Then, when did the rumors spread? By the time Rune left, about a dozen dwarves were already there, lying prostrate.
Rune asked the dwarves, “Look up. I have a question first.”
“Yes, please speak.”
Luckily, they seemed to answer well.
“From the morning, how did we know we could come out here?”
One dwarf secretly raised his head.
“It’s… because the Black Smelting Furnace spewed out tremendous power. It was similar to the phenomenon when Heungmi came….”
Heungmi and the Black Smelting Furnace?
Rune’s gaze naturally turned to Heungmi.
Then, Heungmi blinked, then opened her mouth with an oh-face.
“Ah! Right. When Heungmi comes, there’s something I was supposed to tell!”
When?
“Probably fifty years ago.”
Self-questioning and answering at the same time, Rune asked.
“So, what should I do for you?”
The mustache-wearing dwarf explained with an oh-face, sweating.
“H-hope you remember… the Dark Clan left their scales behind here, didn’t they.”
“Ah.”
A hundred years ago, the master craftsmen’s competition.
Rune had hung a small scale as the prize for winning.
At the time, since they ended up as joint winners, he hadn’t heard how the scale had exactly been handled.
“The Black Smelting Furnace is the smelting furnace made with my scale?”
“Yes! It’s an amazing, mysterious smelting furnace filled with dark mana!”
Only now did it make sense.
It was natural for it to react to the dark power.
After all, it was made from Rune’s scale.
Moreover, Heungmi was Rune’s personally revived vassal.
The Black Smelting Furnace, in any way, must have reacted when Heungmi came to the village.
Then, the dozen dwarves gathered here were most likely members of the blacksmiths who owned the Black Smelting Furnace.
Rune, who had his doubts cleared, raised the prostrate dwarves.
“First, stand up and speak.”
If they had run a long distance from dawn, they must have been desperate.
At Rune’s words, the dwarves who stood without wiping the dirt from their knees folded their hands as politely as possible and opened their mouths.
“A problem has arisen in the smelting furnace we’ve been using well, and the workshop is on the brink of collapse.”
Having gone through a lot of mental suffering, the representative dwarf’s eyes glistened with clear tears.
“The dwarven artisans who used to use it well are spewing out an aura that’s too terrifying to handle.”
Dwarves, being ones who were like one body with the workshop’s production items.
Asking for help because something had gone wrong was a very peculiar request.
“They’re about to overheat and explode, so we can’t touch it for fear of mistakes.”
With a stubborn and sincere look, he said in a voice that was holding back frustration.
“If the workshop collapses, we dwarves who make dark-series weapons will all become unemployed. No matter how skilled we are…”
Behind them, the shoulders of the dwarves lined up in a row drooped together.
“If we enter another workshop, we’d have to start from collecting the lowest-grade materials. Please, please help us.”
After listening to the story from beginning to end, a good idea came to Rune’s mind.
“So, they’re the ones who handle a bit of darkness, huh.”
The gathered dwarves’ situation was pitiful.
But to Rune, they were the optimal talent sent down for him.
