Chapter 212

The Dwarf Village!

This was exactly why I liked [Cyber-Module’s Necromancer].

Sure, the world was cyberpunk at its core, but the moment you stepped away from the city, all sorts of fantastical elements came into play.

In this world, there were Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Vampires, and even Dragons. Most of them were enemies of humankind, of course, but what mattered was that they existed.

Elves who looked down on humans, Orcs who couldn’t even communicate properly, Vampires who saw humans as blood bags, and Dragons that were best avoided at all costs.

Compared to all of them, Dwarves were surprisingly human-friendly.

Sure, there had been some small wars in the past—but that wasn’t any of my concern.

Anyway, we finally arrived at the Dwarf Village.

As befitted a blacksmith race, I could smell the strong scent of burnt metal even before we entered the village.

The air was thick with the smell of heated steel and smoke that covered the sky. From somewhere, I could hear the rhythmic clang! clang! of hammer striking metal.

“Wow… there’s really a village in a place like this…!”

Iri looked up at the village with wonder.

It was built halfway up a rocky mountain, and the structures that jutted out here and there were all crafted by the Dwarves.

They must have dug tunnels inside the mountain to create passageways, and on the outside, they had installed stairs or lifts to allow entry.

For Iri—who had lived her whole life in New Valhalla City—this must have been an especially fascinating sight.

“…It’s pretty desolate.”

By contrast, Miyu, who was also from New Valhalla City, gave a curt impression. But she wasn’t wrong—there wasn’t a single blade of grass growing around the Dwarf Village.

There were no forests or trees at the base of the mountain, and even if there had been, they had long been blackened and killed by soot and smoke. The scene was rather bleak.

“Come on, this way, this way!”

Morus started walking ahead toward what looked like the entrance to a mine, and we followed him.

Miyu and Hans dragged their feet reluctantly, but eventually followed behind us with obvious hesitation.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The deeper we went into the tunnel, the louder the hammering became. It was loud enough to make my ears ring, and because of that, the Dwarves had to raise their voices even more.

“First, we must meet the village chief! Even with Lady Evangeline’s guarantee, it’s still troublesome to let humans in so easily!”

After a short walk, a gate blocking the path to the village interior came into view. Guards clad in metal armor and armed with axes stood watch there, and when they saw us, they immediately growled.

“Stop! How did humans get here?!”

They looked ready to charge at any moment, so Morus quickly stepped forward and raised his hands to calm them down.

“Whoa, whoa, easy, my friends. It’s me, it’s me.”

“Morus? Prielder? What’s going on here? Don’t tell me you brought humans? You said you were going to fetch Hanies…!”

“Yeah, well, things turned out that way. But at least I did succeed in bringing Hanies back. He’s right there, behind me.”

“Oh! It’s true! Hanies, do you know how much we missed you when you disappeared!?

Since your forge shut down, our village’s iron-ingot production dropped by twenty percent—we were in quite a bind!”

“……”

It was a small village, so it seemed everyone knew each other. But Hans—no, Hanies—kept his mouth shut, his face stiff with complicated emotion.

The guards, who had been smiling broadly, gave awkward chuckles at his cold reaction.

“H-haha… seems he’s still sulking. The guy’s narrow-minded. Even back when he stormed out of the village—”

“Alright, let’s stop that story right there. The point is, he’s back.”

Morus tried to quiet the guard, but it was already too late. Hanies exploded, as though someone had stepped on his reverse scale.

“What did you just say!? You think I wanted to come back here?! Those ignorant fools dragged this genius back here by force! And you dare talk about narrow-mindedness when you still don’t even realize what you did wrong—!”

“P-please calm down, Hanies!”

“Forget it! I’m leaving right now! How dare the ones who mocked me so shamelessly show their faces—!”

The other Dwarves desperately tried to calm the furious Hanies down. Thanks to that, the rest of us could only watch awkwardly from the side.

Since it wasn’t our business, we couldn’t exactly butt in. Iri muttered in a slightly deflated voice.

“D-did we come at the wrong time, maybe? It feels like there’s some kind of story here.”

“Could be.”

“Hmm…”

At that moment, Evangeline, who was perched on my shoulder, narrowed her eyes and turned her head side to side, as though searching for something.

“Evangeline?”

“Something is strange.”

“Strange? How?”

“The flow of the ‘River’ has weakened too much. It wasn’t like this before…”

“I’ve been wondering since earlier—what exactly is this ‘River’ you keep mentioning?”

“It is the source of all things. A place where all Mystics and truths flow—not with self or will, but merely as power.”

“You mean like heaven or hell?”

“No. Heaven and hell are merely one of the forms in which the ‘River’s’ flow manifests. The ‘River’ flows everywhere and becomes the origin of everything. You could say it’s the stream where mana—or rather, primordial energy—flows.”

Evangeline’s tone turned grave.

The childlike expression she usually wore was gone, replaced by the bearing of a true witch.

“Then… it’s different from mana?”

“Primordial energy precedes mana. You could say that mana is just a refined form of primordial energy. They’re not entirely different, yet not exactly the same either.”

“So, when you say the ‘River’s’ flow has weakened… what exactly do you mean?”

“The Dwarves are skilled at refining that power to craft their creations. They draw water from the ‘River’ and imbue it into their works. Conversely, the less of the River’s power that dwells within, the more shoddy and unstable the result becomes.”

“Hmm…”

Iri tilted her head, as if struggling to understand.

Miyu, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to be listening properly.

Concepts like primordial energy were the complete opposite of the scientific theories she believed in, after all.

But after hearing Evangeline’s explanation, something clicked in my mind.

Ah, so that’s why…!

I had thought the “setting” I knew was all there was to it. That Dwarves always produced junk—especially useless in areas where mana was scarce.

And of course, that was how it was in the original story.

Even in the episode where the protagonist’s group met the Dwarves and were invited to their village, the Dwarves were depicted as a race that crafted incredible yet horribly made items.

Only after hearing Evangeline’s words did I realize the reason behind that setting.

So this was the detail the original story never explained.

In the original, the Dwarves didn’t trust the protagonist. So they never confessed the true problem they were facing.

Still, since the protagonist was half a wizard, he had deduced his own theory from what he observed.

That Dwarven-made items break down quickly in places with low mana density… that was his hypothesis.

But if you dug deeper, there was a hidden layer beneath it all.

The Dwarves seemed like a clumsy race only because that was how they appeared through the protagonist’s eyes. As a wizard lacking in proper insight, the protagonist had simply misunderstood them.

That must have been what the Author truly wanted to convey. But pressed by the flow of the story, they left it vague and underexplained.

If that was the case… then perhaps my arrival in this world was also the Author’s design…

While I was lost in such thoughts, the Dwarves finally managed to calm Hanies down.

The gate guards seemed convinced as well, stepping aside to let us through.

“Alright, go on in.”

“You’re tall as a giant—mind your head on the way in.”

“Yeah, I’ll be careful.”

With the guards’ greetings behind us, we entered the Dwarf Village.

After walking through a long, tunnel-like passage, we arrived at a massive plaza that felt like an entirely new world—and at the same time—

“Kyaaaaaaaah!”

—for Miyu, it was a living nightmare.

For instance, one blacksmith was pouring beer over red-hot iron.

– Hahahaha! You’ve got to use beer! Makes the steel nice and tender!

– That’s right! Beer softens tempers, beer soothes crying babies—beer is divine! It’s the drink of the gods!

“No! Why on earth would you pour beer on that!?”

Or there were Dwarf brothers flying a feathered airship above the square.

– Brother! I’ve finally become the first Dwarf to conquer the skies!

– Hahaha! See? It flies better with hawk feathers instead of duck ones!

– And the engine runs smoother with beer in it!

– Let’s go, brother! To outer space!

“How is that even flying!? Structurally, that thing can’t fly! Changing the feathers wouldn’t make any difference! And why put beer in the engine!?”

Or an old Dwarf lady in her front yard watering flowers—with beer.

– Oh, how beautifully they’ve bloomed.

– They were wilting, but it seems homemade beer did the trick.

– I told you, your brewing skills are unmatched.

“Aaaargh! Why!? Why does this insane booze-loving race pour beer on everything?! Why!?”

“Calm down, Miyu.”

“But—but still…”

“If you try to argue with every single thing here, your lifespan’s going to shorten.”

“But that’s just impossible to ignore!”

She pointed ahead—and to my surprise, there was a crudely made car rolling down the road. A long pole was attached to its hood, and at the end of that pole—was a magnet.

Ah, I’d seen that online before.

That meme called ‘a picture that makes engineers angry.’

And the driver’s reaction was the cherry on top.

– Hahahaha! I’ve finally developed a car that runs without beer!

Miyu’s face went pale with rage.

“It’s physically impossible for that thing to move! How am I supposed to stay sane watching that!?”

“Still, calm down. Getting mad only hurts you.”

“Yeah, right. Just accept that this place exists and move on.”

“Uuugh…”

Eventually, Miyu seemed too tired to stay angry any longer.

With a sigh, she nodded.

“…Fine. I won’t get mad anymore. I’ll just think of it as some kind of illusion. That’s better for my mental health anyway.”

Still, she muttered quietly under her breath—

“I wish all those things would just break down.”

And at that exact moment—

KABOOOOOM! RUMBLE! BANG! BOOM!

The once-peaceful Dwarf Village began collapsing all around us. The anvils, the airship, the flowers, the magnet-car—all of it exploded simultaneously.

As if the entire place had been rigged with bombs, the ground shook violently under the force of the blasts.

“Hey! Watch out!”

Someone shouted, and in that instant, I saw a massive chunk of metal flying straight toward us. I instinctively shielded Evangeline and Miyu with my body, while Iri deployed her barrier.

“Module Online — [Thousand Pound Weight]!”

KWAANG!

Iri took the full brunt of the blow head-on. It must’ve weighed at least a hundred kilograms, yet she blocked it effortlessly.

“Phew…”

“E-everyone okay? Mr. Chairman?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I am unharmed as well!”

Evangeline answered cheerfully.

But Miyu’s face had turned completely pale.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean it to actually break… sniff…”

She even started tearing up. Apparently, she thought the explosion had been caused by her “curse.” Admittedly, the timing was too perfect—but it was clearly unnatural.

“No, it’s not your fault.”

“M-Mr. Aaron…”

“Dwarves. What’s going on here?”

I demanded from our guides, Morus and Prielder. From behind, Hans let out a quiet sigh and muttered,

“I knew this would happen.”

Everyone turned their gaze toward him.

It was clear—this was no ordinary incident.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep