The White Anvil Tribe (1)
The mood in Vince Territory had been far from cheerful since everyone woke from the dream.
Even though no one had been harmed, it was still the first direct act of terror by a high-ranking demon in twenty long years.
"Of course they're rattled. If it weren't for you, everyone would be dead."
Veronica, sprawled across the sofa in my room with both arms draped over the backrest, asked, "By the way, how did you know that place was a dream?"
"Hmm. Just a man's intuition, I suppose?"
"...Fine. Don't tell me then."
Clicking her tongue, she rose from her seat and muttered under her breath.
"...Thanks."
"What was that?"
"What, are your ears clogged? I said thanks!"
Clearly, saying it had embarrassed her terribly—her ears had turned red all the way to the tips.
"B-but don't get the wrong idea. I saved your life once, so we're even. No debts."
"Hmm. Somehow I feel like I came out behind on that deal..."
"...Then consider it a favor you owe me for later. When I need help someday, you step up. Deal?"
"Deal."
Oscar smiled.
After everything that had happened, he felt he'd grown a little closer to her as well.
She muttered with a self-deprecating look on her face. "And about the way you saw me back there... forget it. All of it. I'm so embarrassed I want to throw myself out the window right this second."
"Embarrassed? About what part, exactly?"
"About the fact that even at my age, I still wanted something like a family, obviously..."
"I don't think there's anything shameful about that at all."
Oscar shook his head firmly.
"It's exactly the kind of thing demons love to exploit—digging into what people want most."
"You say that like you know it from experience."
"Read a few books. Then you'll know too."
"...You're so annoying."
She shot back her answer brusquely, hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded. "Well, if that's how you see it, fine. I'm off."
Her voice was noticeably brighter—she was still clumsy at hiding her emotions.
Oscar chuckled to himself and made his way to the lord of Vince.
"Goodness, how is your health, my lord? You've truly done something remarkable for us this time."
"I was simply fortunate. How is the aftermath being handled?"
"Well, we've completed our report to the imperial court."
"What did they say?"
"They'll be sending investigators before long. Ah, they intend to pay you a visit as well, Lord Oscar."
Imperial investigators, then. He had expected as much.
It involved demons, after all—the palace could hardly afford not to react sensitively.
"Understood. I suppose I'll have to stay quietly at the White Tower for the time being."
"Yes. I'd love to tell you everything I know about this incident, but it's all classified..."
"I understand."
The imperial court would be controlling information about what happened in Vince with an iron grip.
It was possible the other territories wouldn't even realize a demon terror attack had occurred.
Though of course, no one could control every scrap of information that leaked out bit by bit.
"The debt we owe you, Lord Oscar, is one I will never forget for as long as I live."
"Calling it a debt seems a bit much..."
"No. First the Cadena Flu, and now this incident. I know better than anyone that if you hadn't helped us, this could never have ended with so little loss."
A genuinely reassuring smile spread across Pieta Vince's face.
"I swear it here and now: Vince Territory shall stand as the most steadfast ally of the White Tower and of you, Lord Oscar."
Back at the White Tower, Oscar heard that someone was looking for him and hurried straight there.
"Elder!"
Without even a moment to catch his breath, he arrived at none other than Elder Schwein's laboratory.
The moment the old man spotted Oscar, he threw his arms wide in welcome. "You've come! I've been waiting so long I nearly grew a second neck!"
"I apologize. I had some business to attend to in Vince Territory."
After their brief embrace, Schwein nodded. "I've heard the rumors floating about these past days. They're calling you a blade hidden in its sheath—wherever you go, the spotlight follows."
"I'd rather just sit quietly in a cozy little pouch, honestly. But if you've come out of your lab, that must mean..."
At his sparkling eyes, Schwein grinned and nodded. "The magic engineering battery is finally complete. It's still only a prototype, mind you, but it functions perfectly."
"Congratulations."
"What's this cold formality for? This isn't something for me alone to celebrate. It's our achievement."
He returned to his desk and handed over the research journals he'd compiled. "Give these a read. Who knows—going through them might spark another good idea for improvement."
"I'm hardly an expert on magic engineering... but I'll read them."
People who specialize in theoretical magic live for the day someone will read their papers and write them a five-thousand-word review.
Clutching the thick stack of documents, Oscar asked, "So all that's left now is to build the airship."
"I've been scouting a few shipyards while you were away, as it happens. Which one do you think looks best?"
Oscar skimmed the list Schwein held out—and his eyes went wide. "What is this?"
"Hm? The shipyards we'd commission for the airship build. I've gathered only the ones with solid reputations."
"That's not what I mean..."
Why on earth would we entrust the alpha and omega of this entire project—the airship—to humans?
Even without a mirror, he could feel his own expression turn sour.
"Personally, I think this part is better handled by dwarves. For any number of reasons."
"...Dwarves, you say?"
Schwein's startled look melted into a sudden, booming laugh. "Bwahaha! Right, of course. You look so healthy I keep forgetting you're an amnesia patient."
"Sorry?"
"To make a long story short—we currently have no way of contacting the dwarves."
"Why not? Didn't the White Tower sign an exclusive contract with the White Anvil Tribe?"
The contract's term had plenty of years left on it, at that.
After all, the very person who'd signed that fifty-year exclusive deal with them thirty-two years ago was him.
"What can they do about it? The Dwarf King has ordered a total halt to all contact with humans."
"...Why would the Dwarf King do that?"
"Hmm."
Schwein turned to gaze out the window, as if confronting an embarrassing self-portrait, and began his story. "After the war with the demons ended, the empire needed countless architects to rebuild its ruined cities. And the most sought-after builders, by far, were the dwarves."
Naturally.
They could raise buildings safer, more elegant, and far sturdier than anything humans could manage—and build them faster, too.
"But as you know, they were a tiny minority. Contracts had to be signed in order—whoever held the most power or the deepest purses went first."
"Surely you don't mean...?"
A grim premonition flickered through Oscar's mind, and an expression of surely not crept across his face.
Schwein met his eyes and nodded gravely. "Several city lords, resentful that they'd been passed over, abducted dwarves and forced them into hard labor."
"Oh, good heavens."
Oscar covered his face with both hands without thinking.
Demihumans—intelligent beings beyond humanity—were few in number.
Perhaps because of that, they clung tightly to one another, their bonds of kinship running unusually deep.
To abduct beings like that and put them to forced labor...
It went without saying that the Dwarf King would have erupted in fury.
He could fully understand why they'd gone so far as to ban all contact with humans outright.
"So as of now, no human in the world can so much as speak to a dwarf."
"Precisely. The imperial court has been working hard to mend relations, but I hear it's an uphill battle."
That anger won't cool easily.
For beings who lived for hundreds of years, seventeen years was hardly a long time at all.
"Still, aren't we something of a special case? We already had an exclusive contract in place."
As far as he knew, the White Tower had been the only faction to hold one with the dwarves back then.
And with relations since deteriorating, the other factions would have found it all the more impossible to secure such contracts.
Schwein nodded along as if in agreement. "We thought the same. We opened discussions with the White Anvil Tribe several times, but... they said the King's decree is absolute. There was nothing they could do."
"Then we'll simply have to negotiate directly with the Dwarf King."
"He won't even grant you an audience, I'm afraid. From what I hear, he ignores contact from the imperial court itself."
"In that case, I have a very effective method."
Schwein perked up, interest plainly kindled. "Is that really so?"
"Yes. My take? People only refuse because the requests are too polite."
"...I say this purely as a precaution, but violence is off the table. Whatever you're imagining."
"Of course. In this day and age, trying to solve things with brute force is asking for trouble."
What a smart, sophisticated era we live in.
Oscar nodded confidently and declared, "I'm afraid we have no choice but to sue the Dwarf King for obstruction of business."
"...Oscar, my boy. Dwarves are not subject to human law."
"I'm aware. That's why I'll be demanding the convening of the Tunnel Court. Even the Dwarf King holds no veto over that."
The Tunnel Court.
It was the highest judicial body of the Dwarf Kingdom, attended only by the King and the chieftains of each tribe—a tribunal where wronged dwarves traditionally sought redress for their grievances.
At the mention of the plan, Schwein's eyes went round. "Can a human actually demand the convening of the Tunnel Court?"
"It's possible. As far as I know."
"Hmm. Even granting that it's possible... do you happen to know who presides over the Tunnel Court?"
"I do."
To say it once more: the Tunnel Court was a tribunal attended only by the chieftains of the Dwarf Kingdom's tribes and the presiding judge.
And the judge of that court sat, naturally, at the very summit of the Dwarf Kingdom.
The King himself.
The dwarves of fairy tales are easy to describe: short of stature, their long hair and beards braided to each their own taste, gifted craftsman with a drink problem.
Not a single word of it was wrong.
Except that...
"Man, I want a drink."
Gorn, a dwarf whose face had yet to see so much as a peach-fuzz whisker, complained out of nowhere.
Their legendary devotion to drink led most people to picture dwarves as bushy-bearded old men, but in appearance they were barely distinguishable from human children.
"Gorn, you had a drink this very morning."
"I want the stuff humans brew, not the swill we make."
"Well... it has been a long time, I'll give you that."
Seventeen years had passed since the dwarf abductions severed all ties with humankind.
The other dwarves who remembered human liquor smacked their lips in longing.
If there was one field where humans surpassed dwarves by a wide margin, it was their culture of drink.
There were only so many kinds of alcohol one could brew in dark, humid underground halls.
"Greedy, witless humans. This is what happens when they go around kidnapping people..."
"I heard the kids from the Red Hammer Tribe out west sneak up to the surface and buy booze. Why can't we?"
"Their territory's lawless, so they can get away with it. Shilin's patrols are too tight."
"To humans, we just look like little kids."
"Tch. There's got to be some shop that'll serve us without carding us..."
"And I'm sick to death of other tribes bragging about all the tasty liquor they drink."
Officially, all contact had been severed—but plenty of dwarves were secretly making trips to the surface.
The elders of each tribe turned a blind eye to that much deviation, knowing it was hardly worth making a fuss over.
"I wonder when they'll let us trade with humans again."
"We'll be lucky if His Majesty's wrath cools in under a hundred years."
"...So you're saying there's still eighty-three to go."
Today of all days, I want human liquor so badly I could scream.
Perhaps the fervent prayers of the White Anvil Tribe's dwarves had drifted up to the heavens after all.
"Whew... this thing weighs a ton."
Oscar arrived before their village, hauling an enormous cart piled high with every manner of alcohol.