Your Village Is Done For! - 2
The floor I had taken for ordinary dirt turned out to be a hatch forged of mithril.
A secret passage leading straight into the underground.
I was certain that if I climbed down the ladder, the dwarf village would be waiting below.
“I'll go fetch Lady Rene. Why don't you and Rewen head into the village first, Master?”
“No. I'll wait right here. Take your time.”
“Understood.”
From everything I had learned in the Jealousy Dungeon, splitting up was rarely a good idea. If Lin and Rene had been with me when Yukiko was chasing me, or when I fought Leviathan, things would have gone far more smoothly. I had regretted those moments—dozens of times—both then and now. I couldn't swear the same thing wouldn't happen again, so I chose to wait calmly.
It's not urgent. No need to make things harder on myself.
[This body is in a hurry! I must have Father repair the magic sword as soon as possible…!]
I let Frach's endless whining slide in one ear and out the other. There was no chance a human like me would be granted an audience with the dwarf king on the spot. Even carrying a magic sword, I would only be met with thorough suspicion.
“Hwaaam!”
“If you're yawning like that when you never do, you must be pretty worn out.”
“One exhausting thing after another since yesterday. Sleep debt's catching up.”
“With stamina like that, how are you supposed to get Big Sis Rene and my sister pregnant?”
“Please turn on your damn turn signal before you say stuff like that……”
“I still don't know what turn signal you're talking about, hyung.”
Boy on the outside, ancient regressor on the inside. With Lin and Rene gone for the moment, and knowing Rewen's secret already, I could talk with him freely.
“So, what do you know about dwarves?”
“Plenty. I never even knew snow women existed, but dwarves? I've run into them often enough. Even had a full-on drinking contest with them once.”
“So the rumors about them being alcoholics are true.”
“They can't live without booze. You start to wonder if they run on liquor instead of blood.”
I was glad I had packed a few bottles of hard liquor from home. Whether it would suit dwarf tastes was anyone's guess, but free drinks ought to win me a few friends at least. The thought brought back the blacksmiths I had met in Lookbrantern—rough around the edges, but generous. I wondered how the dwarves would compare.
“Tell me everything you know about them.”
“Preferences, traditional festivals, the works?”
“Skip the fluff. Just the important stuff.”
“Important stuff…… Ah! One thing jumps right out.”
“What?”
“The disappearance of the dwarf king!”
At Rewen's words the scabbard rattled violently. I already knew exactly what Frach wanted to scream. The dwarf king who was supposed to repair her magic sword had vanished? Talk about a bolt from the blue. She was probably seething right now.
“Details, please.”
“I don't know the full story—only what I heard from dwarves themselves. From what I vaguely remember, the king went down into the underground mines to oversee the mining work and simply vanished. Along with several hundred miners.”
“Not just him, but the miners too? That's extremely suspicious.”
“Yeah. The dwarves decided someone had deliberately kidnapped their king and investigated every lead they could, but……”
“They never found him, so it stayed a disappearance.”
Rewen only smiled, holding his tongue. Silence was as good as confirmation.
“You don't know when it happened either?”
“Unfortunately not. Judging from the stories, though, it was before I was fully cured.”
“Before you were cured……”
That meant the dwarf king would vanish within a year of the original story's beginning.
“Anyway, once the king was gone the dwarves lost their center and scattered. That's why you can run into them all over the world now.”
“If there's no king, why not just elect a new one?”
“I heard the throne was a seat no one else could fill. Better to split apart than try to replace him.”
[This body's father was the founding king, master of metallurgy no one else could ever match. They elevated him as if the god of blacksmiths himself had descended. Anyone who took the throne after him would be crushed under constant comparison, so they decided it was better to leave the seat empty—or simply scatter.]
Hearing both Rewen and Frach, it made perfect sense. If the king had held the throne from before Frach was even forged until now, his achievements were truly monumental. Inheriting the will of a king like that would be an unbearable burden. If someone tried to drop a crown on my head, I would have flung it off and run for the hills on the spot.
“It's a real headache. If we tell the dwarves, they'll just ignore us. If we keep quiet, I can't stop wondering why their king disappeared in the first place.”
“Right? Regression isn't some perfect gift, you know. It only matters if people actually believe you and follow your lead. Unless I could solve everything alone……”
Rewen pulled his knees up and buried his face against them. Dozens of regressions, and he still could not stop his sister's death. Even with the power of regression, a congenital disease had been beyond him. He had told me he did not return with his previous life's strength—only the memories—and started over from scratch every time.
“Didn't mean to turn the mood so gloomy. Anyway, the dwarf king's disappearance is a fixed event. If you want to stop it, you should move now.”
“Yeah.”
I had planned to wait for Rene, but heading into the village first to size up the situation didn't sound bad either. The dwarf Lin had stepped on was probably conscious again by now. I should talk to him first.
Just as I made up my mind and started to rise—
“You damn bastards…!”
An enraged voice erupted from the hatch, and the same dwarf I had seen earlier burst out. This time he was not alone. A whole crowd of dwarves poured after him. Every last one of them was armed. True to their reputation as the race of smiths, the armor and weapons they wore gleamed with superb craftsmanship—the kind of quality that would fetch a fortune if you sold even a single piece.
“This is dwarf land and the territory of the Light Dragon! No place for you humans to set foot!”
“Sirs, please calm down first!”
“You think anyone could stay calm right now? You barged onto our land, caused a ruckus, and even injured one of our own! If you don't want to get hurt, get the hell out!”
“I'm sorry! I sincerely apologize for that. We had no idea you lived underground. And stepping on his head was a pure accident.”
Surprisingly, every word was true. If I had known they were down there, I never would have sparred with Lin, and no dwarf's head would have been stepped on. Everything had come from ignorance; I hoped they would cut us some slack. The dwarves only scowled harder.
“Apologies mean nothing!”
“No mercy—leave at once!”
“This is your final warning!”
“I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why you're this furious. Could you explain it to someone as clueless as me?”
Apologizing did nothing to cool their rage; if anything, they only grew angrier. Faced with their boiling fury, I scratched my cheek and broke out in a cold sweat. I had never heard that dwarves suffered from anger-management issues.
“The commotion you caused ruined the masterpiece I was just about to finish!”
“My mithril armor…!”
“I dropped the rare minerals I worked so hard to get straight into the furnace!”
Wails rose from every direction. Apparently the foot stomps Lin and I had made sent violent tremors through the entire underground village.
[Dwarves are madmen obsessed with drink and smithing. Interrupt their work and of course their rage shoots straight to the top of their heads.]
Even if I didn't know, it was still unforgivable……
[Exactly. So if you want out of this mess, play the trump card you brought.]
Time to open the liquor. I pulled a bottle of hard spirits from my dimensional storage. Clear liquid sloshed coolly inside the transparent glass. Tiny bubbles rose with every shake, and every dwarf eye locked onto it.
Works like a charm.
I would slowly soothe their anger with the booze. Once they cooled down I would apologize properly and become drinking buddies in the same breath. After that, if I could just secure an audience with the dwarf king……
“Bern-niiim!”
Rene's voice rang out from high in the distant sky. Her volume was climbing fast—not because she was shouting louder, but because the distance between us was closing at an exponential rate. And that meant……
“I heard you found the dwarf village, so I came back right away!”
Kwaang—!
Rene plummeted straight down from the lofty heavens and slammed into the ground. The impact shook the earth; cracks spider-webbed across the floor beneath our feet. Her brutal landing delivered a shock even mithril could not withstand.
“…Haha. Fuck.”
Just when I thought I might actually get on the dwarves' good side, every scrap of effort vanished in a single instant. The ground collapsed completely, and I plummeted straight into the dwarf village I had been searching for all this time.
Though I could no longer really call it a village.