The White Anvil Tribe (2)
A dwarf's craftsmanship became money, became honor, became power.
Because of that, every faction had tried to monopolize that craftsmanship, but not a single one had ever succeeded.
'Well — if you tack on the condition of "temporarily," then exactly three factions managed to pull it off.'
The imperial family, the Heavenly Sword household of Yeon Country, and the White Tower.
They were the factions that had consistently maintained close relationships with the dwarves over the years.
'Especially our White Tower — we always had unusually frequent dealings with the White Anvil Tribe in the north.'
Thanks to that, they had earned the dwarves' trust and had even signed exclusive contracts with them several times.
To a dwarf, an exclusive contract was proof of infinite trust.
'After all, it meant that for the duration of the contract, they couldn't make anything for anyone but us.'
Of course, the White Tower's fifty-year exclusive contract hadn't meant that every dwarf worked for them. The Dwarf Kingdom was made up of five tribes, after all.
The White Anvil Tribe of the north. The Black Hammer Tribe of the east. The Blue Salt Tribe of the south. The Red Sand Tribe of the west. And last, the Golden Pillar Tribe at the center.
'Each tribe has its own architectural style, its own artistic sensibilities — little differences here and there.'
Blessed artisans whose craftsmanship was so extraordinary that no one tribe could be ranked above another, differences notwithstanding.
Of the five, the White Anvil Tribe's city happened to be fairly close to Shilin.
Close enough that one could reach it on foot in six hours, hauling a cart the whole way.
"Whew."
Drenched in sweat from the climb up the mountain, Oscar came to a stop before a massive stone gate.
It was nothing more than a gate made of stone, and yet the finish was flawless to the last detail.
"Ahem."
The moment Oscar cleared his throat and stepped toward the gate, he felt a killing intent.
At the same time, he sensed two figures approaching from behind.
'Dwarf warriors guarding the city's main gate.'
Those two were likely the finest warriors the White Anvil Tribe had to offer.
Raising both empty hands, Oscar turned slowly and spoke.
"I am not your enemy."
"Hmph. That's for us to decide."
"State your affiliation and rank, human."
Axes in hand, they wore the distinctive helmets of dwarf warriors.
'So many people dismissed dwarves as childlike at a glance that these helmets are deliberately designed to look all the more intimidating.'
The helmets covered their faces completely, with thickly braided beards and hair attached to them.
That helmet was precisely why the dwarven appearance known to the world through fairy tale books had become so distorted.
The gleaming glare peeking out between strands of hair would, without question, make anyone's knees buckle at first sight.
"I am Oscar Crucian, a mage of the White Tower."
"……The White Tower, you say?"
"Yes. I've come because I have urgent business to discuss with the chieftain of the White Anvil Tribe."
The two warriors eyed each other for a moment, then slowly lowered their axes.
"What's that cart behind you?"
"You're not hiding other humans in there, are you?"
"Feel free to look, if you wish."
At his easy response, they rummaged through the cart without letting their guard down. The warriors tapped the jars packed to the brim atop it, then carefully broke the seals.
"Sniff, sniff! Th-this smell —!"
"No. It can't be?"
"It's liquor I brought as a gift. I thought you all might be missing the taste of human spirits."
"Let him in! No — I'm going in with him!"
"You keep the entrance. I'll escort this human to the city, keeping an eye on him so he can't try anything funny."
"No! You stay and guard this place!"
A race that simply could not hold itself together when alcohol was involved.
Oscar set down one of the jars and said, "You two can have this when your shift ends. Don't touch it while you're on duty."
"Ahem, hm."
"Well, this is far too much……"
They hoisted the jars, larger than their own bodies, hid them carefully in the brush, and then opened the gate for him.
"Go on in. We'll send word ahead."
"Thank you."
With a deep, rumbling groan, the great stone gate swung open, revealing an old-fashioned mana elevator.
'It's still here. I remember it breaking down once and me fixing it for them.'
He wondered if it was still working without a hitch.
He loaded the cart onto the platform and pulled the lever, and the elevator began its slow descent. Before long, the underground city beneath the earth came into view — far more beautiful than even the black market Oscar had seen in Baran City.
'They've changed quite a lot of it here and there in the meantime.'
Dwarves, with their impeccable aesthetic sense, periodically demolished their own city and rebuilt it from scratch.
When Oscar stepped off the mana elevator, a group of dwarves was already standing there waiting.
"Hm."
In the eyes of the dwarf leading them, that characteristic artisan's pride was plain to see. He wore the work clothes typical of their race, and his hair was a vivid shade of orange.
"Welcome, human. I am Hagore, chieftain of the White Anvil Tribe."
"My name is Oscar Crucian, a 3rd-level mage of the White Tower."
As Oscar answered politely, a flicker of gladness passed through his eyes.
Among all the dwarves of the White Anvil Tribe, this man possessed the most gifted hands — and in the old days, he had been quite a bit cuter.
'Hagore hasn't aged a day compared to twenty years ago.'
……No, wait. Was "hasn't grown" the right way to put it in this case?
As Oscar struggled to hide his pleasure, Hagore asked, "What business brings a human to our city?"
Faced with his sharp gaze, Oscar first crouched down where he stood. That was the only way their eyes came anywhere close to level.
"I am an envoy of the White Tower, and I have come to demand that the White Anvil Tribe faithfully honor the exclusive contract you signed with our tower thirty-two years ago."
"Hoo. I've told you people any number of times — that's impossible. We cannot defy His Majesty's command."
"In other words, am I to understand that the White Anvil Tribe wishes to honor the contract, but finds itself in an unfortunate position due to the Dwarf King's orders?"
"That's…… about the shape of it."
The moment he nodded with visible reluctance, Oscar pounced as if he had been waiting for exactly that.
"Excellent. Then I shall formally sue the Dwarf King."
"……Did you just say sue?"
"Yes. Please convene the Tunnel Court in accordance with proper procedure."
"Hoo."
Hagore, sensing he had been dragged into a headache of a situation, tried to soothe him.
"Look here, young mage. I understand how you feel, but suing His Majesty won't change anything."
"Because the one passing judgment would be the Dwarf King himself, I take it?"
"……Well, well. You know your stuff. The accused passes judgment on his own case. Do you seriously believe you have a chance of winning?"
It was an utterly reasonable, common-sense assumption.
But the world has a way of always harboring a "variable" that defies common sense.
"Leave that part to me. All I ask is that you convene the court. I will bear full responsibility for everything."
"Hmmm."
Hagore crossed his arms and pulled a dour face.
"Why should I go out of my way to help you, knowing it'll earn me His Majesty's displeasure?"
"You signed an exclusive contract with us, didn't you?"
"That contract has lost all force under His Majesty's current order."
"I'm hardly asking you to help me for nothing, of course."
"It's true our dealings have been cut off, but we keep our ears open all the same. I know the White Tower isn't what it used to be. What exactly could you possibly offer us?"
There. Oscar gestured at the cart piled high with liquor.
"I will provide you with alcohol."
"……Judging by the smell alone, these seem like fine bottles indeed."
Of course they were.
These were bottles worth tens of thousands of bells apiece.
"But I have no intention of incurring His Majesty's wrath over a paltry bribe."
"Ah — I should clarify so there's no misunderstanding. This is merely a courtesy gift, a greeting. The liquor I'm offering is far grander and far more valuable than this."
"No matter how rare or exquisite the bottle, I doubt it's worth more to me than staying in His Majesty's good graces."
At that firm refusal, delivered with a scoff, Oscar smiled pleasantly.
"And how would you feel about drinking the most refreshing beer in the world, up among the clouds?"
"……Is that some kind of figure of speech?"
"No. I mean it quite literally. You do know what an airship is, don't you?"
Hagore had taken part in the Sky Project alongside him.
In other words, there was no one alive who understood the concept of an airship better.
Sure enough, his eyes narrowed.
"I know it. Wasn't that the project that burned through money like a house on fire?"
"Correct. But this time will be different."
"This time……? Don't tell me you're actually attempting that thing again?"
"Yes. And we're already in the final stages of completion. The only thing we need now is the airship itself."
At that unexpected confession, Hagore's pupils wavered.
'An airship……'
It had once been the goal he yearned for above all else — a dream he'd had to abandon after tasting bitter failure.
And yet now, all he had to do was build the airship itself, and he could reach for that dream once more.
'Even if what he says is true, though……'
Squeezing his eyes shut, Hagore shook his head.
"No. We cannot gamble on such slim odds, not at the risk of putting the whole tribe in danger."
He truly was every inch the chieftain.
To be able to renounce, without a trace of regret, the dream he had once clung to so desperately — all for the tribe's safety.
But the other dwarves standing there began, if anything, to look at him strangely.
"Chieftain, are you touched in the head? Why even hesitate? The human said he'd take all the responsibility himself."
"We do this, no questions asked. Beer drunk atop an airship — how could anyone resist?"
"No living creature has ever drunk booze in the sky before. Pull this off, and we would be the first."
No race in the world prized honor and pride more than the dwarves.
For them to throw away a chance to etch the first such achievement in history — an achievement, no less, tied to liquor they'd kill for — was simply inconceivable.
Thumped by their unexpected reaction, Hagore beat his chest in exasperation.
"Ha! You dunderheads…… Do you have any idea how hard it is to convene the Tunnel Court?"
"Ahem. The reward is sweet all the same, is it not?"
"I hear they've got this magic engineering or whatever it's called now — twenty years of new tricks. Fine chance to get out and see the world a bit."
The dwarves' hearts were already wandering through flower fields.
And there, Oscar delivered his finishing blow.
"Ladies and gentlemen — have you ever heard of Heaven's Stairway?"
"……Heaven's Stairway!"
"Have we heard of it! Isn't that the wine those Blue Salt louts from the south never stop bragging about every time the kingdom council convenes?"
Heaven's Stairway was an extraordinarily expensive wine produced only along the empire's southern coast.
By its contents alone it verged on an elixir — the only truly mundane thing about it was its alcohol.
"As you know, that wine evaporates if it isn't consumed within seventy-two hours of being made. Short of traveling to the southern coast yourself, drinking it at all is simply impossible."
With only three bottles produced per year, it was the pinnacle of fine spirits — so rare that even the dwarves of the southern provinces had never managed more than a few drops.
"Then I make you this promise: the moment the airship is complete, you will taste Heaven's ocean in the very sky above this place. No — why stop at Heaven's Stairway? What would you say to gathering every single famed wine on the continent, every last one, and drinking them all together in one place?"
"E-every famed wine on the continent……"
"Drunk above the clouds?"
"Then the Royal Smoker from the west, and the Celestial Jade Wine those Yeon nobles sip, and all the rest of them……?"
Wines celebrated as the finest in the world, yet doomed by their short shelf life to be savored only where they were made.
But if the airship was completed, they could all be brought back to Shilin and drunk at leisure.
"Of course it's possible. What conceivable reason would there be not to?"
At a promise sweeter than any candy, the dwarves' eyes went hazy, as if drunk on opium.
"W-we have to do this……"
"If you're going to bail, then bail alone, Chieftain."
"The airship…… we must build it. We absolutely must build it……"
"Those Blue Salt and Red Sand windbags, always strutting around bragging — if word got out that we drank our liquor above the clouds, they wouldn't manage so much as a peep out of sheer envy."
Before anyone had noticed, the weapons they'd been clutching had sagged helplessly to their sides.
Hagore looked at Oscar with an expression of utter resignation.
"I took you for nothing but a green young sprout, but you're a silver-tongued devil the likes of which I've rarely seen. How old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
Saying so, Oscar looked oddly delighted.
"Twenty-one, is it…… Unbelievable."
Scratching the back of his head, Hagore stared at the hand Oscar held out.
"Damn it all. I'd sworn never to so much as lay eyes on anyone named Oscar again."
"What's wrong with my name?"
"It's the same as that previous Tower Master of the White Tower, isn't it? That man worked us like dogs."
He gnashed his teeth at the memory.
"And yet the other tribes were jealous of us, of all things, for working alongside the great archmage. Without knowing a thing, mind you."
"So that happened, did it…… But don't worry. I merely share the name, nothing more."
"I suppose that must be it."
Hagore hesitated a moment longer, then at last clasped the offered hand.
"Right. It's only a name, after all. What fault could a green young whelp like you possibly carry?"
"None at all."
As they shook hands, a knowing smile crept across Oscar's lips.