Chapter 2188: Dwarves from the East and West

A/N: Sorry it’s late! I entered the wrong time in the schedule xD. Sorrysorry I finished this chap very late last night, and I was half-asleep.

...

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After several hours of leisure, they were then taken to take a peek at the ongoing major project before they were deposited in their rooms to rest.

Guaranteed to make them so excited that they wouldn’t be able to sleep!

This was, of course, the ongoing amusement park.

It was the largest mechanical project ever. How could dwarves not love it?

What was most exciting for the new dwarves was that they got to ride their own hoverboards on the way there! It was lent to them for now and could be bought for contribution points!

Just seeing it alone pretty much guaranteed they would stay, and finding out they could own one ensured they would stay for a long, long time, if not forever.

When they first saw it, they were so fascinated that it felt like their beards shook. Now, they were heading to a place rather far away from their community, so their short legs were definitely unreliable.

At best, they thought they would just call the orcs and half-orcs to help them out, like before. Who’d have thought they would be given their own ’legs’?

They had long accepted the fact that they were slow and, after encountering other races, that they were burdens. No one ever told them this, but being carried around every time made it feel that way.

Now...that has changed.

They were now critters who could also travel a meter in a second!

...

The Alterrans let the newcomers get used to their hoverboards for a while. In reality, they were just allowing the new dwarves to play around.

The dwarves ’got used to’ driving their hoverboards for an hour. Time passed by without them knowing and the Alterrans, being empathic, didn’t rush them.

When the dwarves realized their blunder, their faces were so red that one would wonder if they were smoking.

Soon after that, the group headed to the last developing phase of the territory, where the ongoing Amusement Park was being built.

Interestingly, on the way there, they encountered another dwarf coming back from a break.

Hisi and the others, who were curious about where they would be taken, immediately stopped on their tracks. "Taiso?"

Taiso blinked, tilting his head and turned to see dwarves that he didn’t think he’d ever see again. "Y-You guys!!"

They rushed to each other, and their hoverboards bumped into each other like bumper cars, throwing the dwarves down.

Fortunately, they were sturdy enough, so this didn’t cause any injuries. They stood up a moment later, without even taking a breather from the fall.

They all went to greet each other the dwarven way, which was slightly different from Cotto’s group, with added movements on their elbows.

"Y-You! Have you been here this whole time!?"

Everyone looked curiously at Taiso. The Alterrans knew that he was from a tribe other than Cotto’s group. They knew there were at least two tribes, but they really didn’t put two and two together, just in case there were other tribes people didn’t know about.

Anyway, obviously, they were all from the same tribe, and they had not seen each other for a long time.

"I followed Elder Vooz back then."

"And?"

"Gone. Died in a human city called Hassen City."

There was silence in the group, mostly from the eastern orcs who were several decades old. Anyone below 30 years old didn’t know this Vooz, but they saw the older ones were sad, so they did not speak of it.

Old Vooz was one of the most adventurous dwarves in their tribe. He couldn’t stay still and was always one of the people who volunteered to take the monster carcass killed by their traps.

One day, he just left and left a letter saying he was going to explore the Western side of the mountain. The Eastern windward side of the mountain was definitely not an option; he’d die before he could get past a hundred meters.

At least when heading to the western side, to the side of humans, the monsters were much more manageable. Almost all human settlements were just villages, and the majority of monsters were at that level. With enough protective tools, it wasn’t impossible for a weak dwarf to travel, especially one with vast resources in his grasp.

Dwarves might only have a limited number of inheritances in terms of world knowledge, but they could get a lot of material inheritances from their predecessors.

For dwarves, some of these could be passed on to the younger generation with excellent potential and prospects. It so happened that Vooz had been one in his youth, allowing him to hold a number of tools others did not have.

It also brought about his arrogance, thinking nothing could stump him outside (except for his own legs).

For ease of movement, he had a tool similar to what beast tamers used to control beasts. The difference was that it was hit-or-miss because dwarves could not become tamers. Using this meant you could be carried who-knows-where.

Dwarves had a number of self-protection tools, and they were effective, but only up to a certain level. For monsters around level 20 and above, the tools were huge and could only be found around their home tunnel, defending it.

Using various life-saving tools and a lot of luck, the dwarf managed to head farther West, ending up near a territory where he was captured by fighters hunting mobs several months later.

Taiso was his nephew, and they had a tool similar to a tracker, but it could only work with blood relatives. After a few years of searching, he managed to find his uncle with all limbs intact (though barely, as Taiso had almost died 999 times during his travels).

"He was forced to work his whole life until he died."

Taiso gritted his teeth when he remembered his uncle’s poor, half-dead state when he found him. It goes to show why they were warned against humans before. Like most teenage dwarves, he didn’t understand the warnings before he saw it himself.

Old Vooz got ill in Hassen, but there were no dwarf doctors. The Lord didn’t push for a cure; instead, they made him work even more, promising to get a good doctor, but never really did.

Taiso destroyed a number of things in revenge, especially on the way to get his uncle’s ashes.

The Hassen City Lord wanted to kill him, but thought it was a waste and sold him to Bleulle instead.

A moment of silence passed in remembrance of a tragic genius.

Oslo, the Alterran accompanying them, paused. He had developed a soft side towards the ’less tall’ compatriots due to hanging out with goblins so much.

He kneeled down next to Taiso so they could see eye-to-eye. "Well, if Hassen makes trouble for us, we can make trouble for them, too." He was speaking on behalf of most Alterrans on this. He had stayed here long enough to be able to predict what the general consensus would be.

Many humans were actually following the movements here because they were so curious about the group of dwarves. Some were walking slowly in parallel, while some were switching benches while pretending to read newspapers or books.

When Oslo said this, they jumped up in support.

"Well said!"

"Darnit, I feel so sad for Vooz!"

"I swear, if a Hassen Cityfolk comes here and acts arrogantly, I will teach them a lesson!"

"I’ll level up faster so I can go to cities. Heh, I will cause so much trouble over there..."

"Agreed!"

"Call me when you do!"

The potential conflict with such a powerhouse territory was something far into the future, if at all, and everyone knew this.

However, the fact that he said this made the dwarves’ hearts beat fast and become warm at the same time.

This must be how support from home feels like.