Chapter 45
Chapter 45
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 45
Chapter Title: Dwarven Warrior's Pride
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“Langrif, let's talk.”
“Yeah? Sure thing.”
Langrif, who had been watching the three prisoners with the eyes of a hawk, turned back.
Since he was short and conversing from horseback was awkward, Sion dismounted and walked alongside him as they spoke.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“You're young. When did you decide to become a warrior? Never considered mining or craftsmanship?”
“The moment I came of age, I chose to be a warrior. I hated the idea of going into the mines covered in iron dust, and I don't have much handiwork talent, so I'd just be stuck with menial labor anyway. That sounded boring. Heh heh.”
He had come running just moments ago, tears and snot streaming as he begged for his life, but now he was laughing as if it had never happened. He seemed like an incredibly optimistic fellow.
“Besides, I'm better at hunting than making things. I've been good at slinging stones since I was a kid. My old folks blew a gasket when I said I wanted to be a warrior, though.”
“Are warriors still unpopular among dwarves?”
“Ugh! At best, we just chase off monsters or wild beasts and clean up after drunks. Can't be helped. But I've got pride in it. Ah! Even with Sion around, we gotta protect ourselves with our own hands. A little ribbing is fine by me.”
His toothy grin made him look pure-hearted, but Langrif seemed to have both pride and a sense of responsibility.
“No occupation is beneath another. Besides, dwarves are always short on warriors who can actually fight properly, aren't they? I think you're impressive.”
“Thanks for that. But I'm worried 'cause I don't see many young ones wanting to be warriors. Tsk.”
As Langrif said, dwarves were short on warriors.
In most fantasy stories, dwarves were depicted as sturdy warriors, but this world was different.
For one, there weren't many dwarves who liked fighting to begin with. And truly strong fighters among them were even rarer.
Sion hadn't understood at first, but after living in this world for a long time and seeing and experiencing various things, he came to understand why.
In a world where battles were fought with cold weapons like spears and swords rather than gunpowder, nothing dominated like “size.”
But dwarves were small.
Not just small—adult male dwarves typically stood between 130 and 140 centimeters tall.
Their weight was the same story.
Their sturdy frames notwithstanding, and though nearly all dwarven men engaged in grueling labor and were muscled, few exceeded 60 kilograms.
So, aside from their bearded faces, adult male dwarves closely resembled overweight elementary school boys in third or fourth grade.
They simply couldn't match human adult males in terms of build.
Occasionally, mutant-like dwarves appeared over 150 centimeters tall and pushing 70 kilograms, the ones hailed as the strongest among dwarves, but even they were no match for a decently burly human mercenary or knight.
Their short arms also put them at a disadvantage in wielding weapons.
With a population already far smaller than humans, and such inferior physical conditions on top of that?
It was absurd to say dwarves fought better than humans.
That was why dwarves had long formed contracts with humans who held power and strength for survival, earning treatment as “valuable assets in need of protection” through their exceptional skills and characteristic diligence.
But the Demon Dragon War changed that, turning protection into oppression and exploitation. That was when Sion struck deals with some dwarves and brought them to his Dukedom.
Even under Sion's military protection, however, it was unacceptable for them to have no means of self-defense.
Thus, the Iron Mountain dwarves assembled a small force to run a security patrol and watchmen, and Langrif had become a patrolman—one of the least popular jobs for dwarves.
“But no matter what anyone says, I'm proud to be a patrolman. Who else is gonna protect the miners and craftsmen if not us?”
Langrif puffed out his chest proudly.
Sion, taken with Langrif, avoided mentioning the truth that would embarrass him if realized—that without Sion, he would have been taken by the mercenaries—and spoke indirectly instead.
“You're right. That mindset is the most important virtue for a warrior protecting his kin. Which is why I've been thinking.”
“Yeah?”
Sion's voice turned subtle.
“If we report exactly what happened today, won't that cause some trouble?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You said there aren't many young dwarves wanting to be warriors already. What if word gets out that you got thoroughly beaten by those guys?”
“Ah...”
Langrif's wide eyes darkened.
For several years now, more dwarves in the clan had been advocating “the uselessness of warriors.”
Labor was always in short supply, but the clan's population wasn't growing significantly.
So, even though they numbered fewer than fifty, why not reassign those self-proclaimed warriors—the freeloaders, as Langrif's father called them—to mining or at least menial labor?
Leave all the perimeter security around Iron Mountain to the Dukedom's troops.
And now, in the midst of that, self-proclaimed warriors get beaten to a pulp like dust in the rain by mysterious mercenaries?
Worse, they were saved by one of Sion's men?
No matter how this ended, Langrif and the dwarf warriors would be forcibly reassigned to mining or odd jobs.
“W-what do we do? This is bad...”
Sion spoke softly to Langrif, who fidgeted like someone hit with sudden gut pain on a highway bus.
“That's why I've got a good idea for you.”
“A good idea? W-what is it?”
Langrif's eyes turned to the driver who spots a crisis in the rearview before the passenger can speak.
“This is something the other warriors need to hear too. Even the prisoners.”
“Huh?”
“Round everyone up first. If you do as I say, the Iron Mountain dwarf warriors could become heroes of Iron Mountain.”
“Ah...!”
For a moment, Langrif's eyes seemed to shine with a halo behind Sion.
The driver who pulls over on the shoulder—not even to the nearest rest stop, but immediately—for the passenger in life's greatest crisis was right here.
* * *
Iron Mountain, the dwarves' settlement in the Sion Dukedom, wasn't just a single mountain.
The mining district spanned dozens of kilometers in circumference, vast in scale, and as with most such areas, it yielded not just iron ore but gold, silver, copper, and various other minerals.
It was impossible for the few hundred dwarves to mine and process all that ore themselves. Human labor was needed too.
Thus, villages of Dukedom residents working as miners or craftsmen dotted the area around Iron Mountain. But by agreement between Sion—who worried about technology leaks—and the dwarves, human and dwarf living quarters were strictly separated.
And now, two dwarves raced madly toward the dwarves' stronghold, 'Golbachof Grad,' protected by eight-meter-high sturdy walls, their short legs pumping furiously.
“Comrades! Big trouble!”
“Raiders attacked!”
The dwarves atop the walls gawked at their blood-soaked, bellowing kin, but only briefly.
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!
The bell atop the walls rang out clamorously, and the small gate—scaled to dwarf height, contrasting the towering walls—swung open swiftly.
The two dwarves, supporting each other, stumbled inside and collapsed. Others rushed over in a swarm.
“What happened!?”
“Look at all that blood!”
“What's going on?”
As dwarves gathered in an instant to tend the two dwarf warriors, elderly figures pushed through.
Three dwarves in their fifties or older, clad in dingy work clothes with red armbands bearing shovel and hammer emblems, appeared. The clamor died as the crowd parted respectfully.
They were the leaders of the Iron Mountain dwarves, the councilors of the Labor Bureau.
“What's this? Monsters? Did some goblin bastard show up?”
“They might be worthless, but even they wouldn't lose to goblins. Ow, maybe a mountain lion came down?”
“Mountain lion? I'd eat it raw.”
“Quiet.”
At the word from the sole councilor whose armband bore a star—the red-bearded one—the other two smacked their lips and held their tongues.
“What happened? Intruders?”
Unlike the others' reactions, his calm demeanor made one of the blood-smeared dwarves—Langrif—glint with insight.
But it vanished too quickly for anyone to notice.
“Y-yeah. About twenty of 'em showed up and attacked. We fought hard, but they overwhelmed us... Thought we should report first and ran.”
“You useless freeloaders! You couldn't even fight properly and just fled? Tch!”
The red-bearded dwarf raised his voice, glancing around as if for all to hear.
Many—not all, but plenty—of the dwarves nodded.
They said nothing, but it was obvious. They were thinking of the uselessness of warriors.
“See? This is no time for that? My boy's getting beat, might get killed— we gotta run and help!”
A somewhat scrawny, wizened dwarf—not matching the typical burly build—stepped forward.
Many others nodded.
Warriors or no, kin might be dying—they needed to act.
“Fine. You there, hurry to Mansfield and relay the situation to Sir Longrif. And Langrif.”
“Y-yes.”
“Patch up that wound rough-like and gather the other freeloaders. Quick.”
“Yes, Councilor Stalrif.”
Langrif limped off in reply to the red-bearded Labor Councilor Stalrif.
But as he moved away from the gathered dwarves, his gait shifted bit by bit, fully normalizing the moment he was out of sight.
Seeing his armed warrior comrades rushing over from not far off, Langrif muttered.
“The one who shows up fastest, stays calmest, belittles the warriors most, and gives orders like he's been waiting for this... is the culprit?”
When he first heard Sion say it, Langrif hadn't grasped it. Honestly, he still didn't fully.
But one thing was certain.
Sion's knight, who saved him and his warrior comrades, had predicted this unfolding situation.
Which meant what came next would likely go exactly as he said.
“No. Likely? It feels like it'll definitely happen.”
Sweeping back his hair, smeared with the prisoners' blood to look like his own, Langrif grinned.
Soon, he and his comrades would become heroes.
(To be continued)