As I emerged from the dark cave, a basin surrounded by rocky mountains came into view before my eyes. I squinted at the strong sunlight beating down. Even with torches, the cave interior was quite dark.
Two dwarves at the cave exit approached me as my eyes adjusted to the light.
“It’s been a while since an adventurer broke through the cave. Hahaha! Looks like you really smashed things up in there!”
“I-I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about the golems inside! They’re meant to be broken if necessary. They’ll recover on their own.”
It’s an instance dungeon anyway. The golems will respawn upon re-entry. Since the dungeon also serves as a passageway, I can go back through the exit. Or I could use a return scroll to the imperial capital.
I finished recording the maze. Next time, we can quickly enter together through the recorded path. For consecutive hunting to level up, we can go back and forth through the exit on this side.
“Go greet the village chief. A dwarf at the entrance will guide you inside the village.”
The dwarves of this village that interact with humans weren’t very wary of adventurers either. Each of them is an excellent miner and strong warrior. They have confidence in their own strength.
[Berbeia Dwarf Village]
[Amity: 5]
A system message that popped up as I exited the cave.
It’s still a guess, but if I gain favor with the dwarves and increase amity, there will likely be perks like receiving good items or equipment enhancements.
The dwarf village, the first heterogeneous race village adventurers encounter.
This village, where dwarf life and culture are fully infused, has a huge rocky mountain as its backdrop. The rocky mountain soars as if piercing the sky, with mine entrances of various sizes visible from the foot to the summit. This is where dwarves live their lives as miners.
Clang, clang!
In what looks like dwarf workshops, dwarf blacksmiths are constantly hammering away. The sparks and smoke coming from the hot furnaces showed this was a lively place of labor.
I was guided by a dwarf at the village entrance and headed somewhere.
What I encountered after crossing the village was an enormous rocky mountain peak, and a giant stone building that looked as if it was carved out of it. Is this like the village hall?
This stone building, constructed with aesthetics in mind, seemed no less impressive than modern buildings. It must have been built considering durability to withstand long years.
And inside, I was able to meet an elderly-looking dwarf.
It’s hard to guess the age of dwarves with bushy beards at a glance. But from the visible wrinkles on his face and the color of his beard, I could tell how many years this dwarf had lived.
The old dwarf sitting on a stone chair looked at me as I was guided in.
For some reason, there seemed to be a strange light in his eyes.
“Welcome, little adventurer. I am Ironstone Droogel, the chief of this dwarf village. Feel free to call me Chief Droogel.”
“Hello, Chief Droogel.”
I bowed politely.
To receive good items made by dwarves, I needed to make a good impression on this dwarf chief who seemed to be the top dog of this village.
“It’s been 100 years already since our village started actively interacting with humans. Though this chief now resides here like an old man relegated to the back room, having lived over 200 years, there are truths one naturally comes to know even from the corner. Adventurer from the stars.”
His gaze looking at me became profound.
Users called ‘adventurers from the stars’ by the continent’s inhabitants. Even the chief of this village interacting with humans knew that beings from another world were active on the Astria continent.
“The reason our closed dwarf village started interacting with humans was because we sensed the stirring of ‘Ma’. If you’re an adventurer who’s reached here, you probably know that their presence has been seen all over the continent recently.”
“Yes, I know.”
“So the adventurers have noticed too. Though it’s lamentable that the current situation of the Astria continent needs to borrow the power of adventurers from the stars, it can’t be helped since this world has lost its god. Perhaps a god from another world took pity on this world that lost its connection.”
The fact I learned at the ruins of the main temple of the Divine Beast Religion I visited before.
The Astria continent that lost its god.
Chief Droogel also knew this world had lost its god. The oldest of the long-lived dwarf race, an old chief on the path of a sage. His knowledge was quite close to the truth of this world.
Why did this world that lost its god appear on Earth in the form of a game? That was still unknown. Chief Droogel, who is just an NPC, probably wouldn’t know that far either.
Outpost, Aspero’s Fortress.
Though it wasn’t yet an extreme situation where over half the continent was tainted by demonic energy like a thousand years ago, the fact that a threat was approaching this world was clear, given that their appearance had started to be seen again.
Undoubtedly, the users’ mission was to stop the ‘Ma’ that had started stirring on the continent. The Alpharion Empire and Betarion Empire, the largest countries in the current Astria continent. I’m not sure if the leaders of the two Empires who are busy using users for power struggles are interested in that.
Heterogeneous races can’t be free from the clutches of demon races either. The dwarves are also lending their strength in their own way.
Well, that’s roughly the setting.
It has little to do with me now.
As long as the game doesn’t shut down, this world won’t perish. It’s nonsensical to demand a great sense of mission from me who lost everything in this world’s past.
What I want to gain here is thrilling adventure that fills my heart, vivid sense of reality. And money that makes me happy and fattens up Lee Seulbi on Earth.
Anyway, as long as there are plenty of users to play the hero role, as long as it’s an online game that continues service without putting a bad ending at the end of the game, it should be fine even if I don’t actively step up to stop the world’s threat.
“Now other adventurers from different stars will arrive here one after another. Well, we can’t provide great items to just any riffraff, but it’s a different story if they earn our trust.”
It’s the so-called ‘amity work’. It means you have to go through this process to befriend heterogeneous races you’ll meet in the future and gain their power.
If you gain the trust of the dwarves in this village, you’ll be able to obtain items that help fight against demon races. There would be various ways to build amity. Receiving quests from them and clearing dungeons, or steadily doing mining labor.
I just looked at Chief Droogel, not having much to say in return.
The edges of his snow-white beard lifted slightly, as if the chief smiled.
And he said something unexpected to me.
“Isn’t that right? Swordswoman of silver and obsidian.”
“…!”
My eyes must have widened greatly.
Did the chief notice this agitation?
Swordswoman of silver and obsidian. I remember hearing it in the past.
A hair color not found on the Astria continent, my white hair with a silver tinge. There might be similar colored custom characters among users, but this silvery white feeling can’t be easily imitated. I personally like it too.
The white hair with a silver tinge is like silver, and the deep black eyes are like obsidian.
It’s words some dwarf who likes minerals said, comparing the minerals that came to mind when seeing me.
But the dwarf who said those words.
Would be from a thousand years ago in the current Astria continent?
Ding.
[Berbeia Dwarf Village]
[Amity: 100]
Thump thump.
Pitter-patter.
I followed the chief’s guidance, entering a cave dug into the middle of a huge rocky mountain.
It’s a hidden cave that can only be entered from inside the rocky mountain basin where the dwarf village is. In front of a cliff full of just rocks, the chief manipulated something, and soon the entrance to this cave opened its maw wide.
The walls on both sides of the cave are well polished. Smooth, and straight as if cut with a knife. Rather than a cave, it felt like a kind of temple in the form of a cave.
But I had no mind to appreciate the scenery of this cave. My head was full of questions.
How does Chief Droogel, living in the current era, know the alias of a hero from a thousand years ago?
“Even nature greatly changes over a distant span of time. Transmitted memories wear away, paper rots. And when the will of the world that creatures dare not know intervenes on top of that, even questioning lost transmissions is not allowed.”
Click, rumble.
At the end of that cave, when we reached a dead end, the wall opened once more by Chief Droogel’s hand movements.
“But there are things that don’t change even after a thousand years. And we dwarves can create things that don’t change for a thousand years.”
A huge cavern.
A giant rock carving made by carving the huge cave wall facing it.
There, the figure of a dwarf was carved.
“…”
A strong face full of will. A huge battle axe held in hand.
A long scar clearly visible on the left side of the face. A familiar scar to me.
To me standing blankly in front of it, the chief’s voice was heard.
“In the past, when the touch of ‘Ma’ covered this continent, there was a dwarf hero. It’s said that before departing for his final battle, he went around the continent gathering the surviving dwarves. It seems even his existence has been forgotten by other villages.”
The dwarf of the hero party left the party briefly before the battle with the Demon King. It was to pull together the surviving kin.
“To not forget that hero, our village’s ancestors carved his image on the wall here. For some reason, the hero’s name was lost. But the hero’s appearance left in form here, and the words he left to this village’s ancestors have been passed down from chief to chief.”
-If you meet the swordswoman of silver and obsidian, treat her as a friend of the dwarves.
“…Of course, that swordswoman is also a person from a thousand years ago, and you’re not her yourself, but it’s an honor to be able to keep the words our hero left across a thousand years.”
The always cheerful and beer-loving, reliable dwarf of the hero party.
I raised my hand and touched the wall where his figure was carved.
And I called his name.
“Uncle Ein.”