Chapter 337

Whoooosh...

The wind rustled through the empty golden wheat.

One of the abandoned oxen let out a long, confused moo.

Rudra looked down at the straw hat resting against his boot. Bending down, he picked it up and dusted it off. The thing was massive—easily wide enough to shade a four-person dining table —and someone had stitched a little yellow flower onto the band with careful stitches.

"I'll go return it," Rudra said, turning the giant straw hat over in his hands. "It'll make a good first impression."

Iris looked out across the empty plain, where a hundred gardening tools lay abandoned in the dirt.

"You have already made a first impression," she said.

"Okay, a second impression, then. With less screaming."

They started walking toward the village on the hill. Iris walked in a straight line, cutting across the soft earth between the rows.

Rudra did not.

He walked in a strange, careful zigzag, stepping high over every seedling, placing each foot precisely in the empty gaps between plants, like a man crossing a minefield.

Iris stopped and watched him for a while.

"You look ridiculous," she said.

"That damn farmer finds out every time" Rudra said darkly, stepping over a cabbage. "Every single time, Iris."

. . .

The closer they got to the top of the hill, the slower Rudra walked.

And it had nothing to do with the vegetables. It was the village itself.

From a distance, it had looked like a pretty farming village. Up close, it was something else entirely.

Every single house was carved from solid black stone, polished until the walls gleamed like dark mirrors in the sun. The tiled roofs were trimmed in real gold, curving gently upward at the eaves. Underfoot, the streets were paved with fitted flagstones so tight you couldn't slide a knife blade between the seams.

Graceful stone bridges arched over the clear water canals. Every doorframe, window ledge, and streetlamp was chiseled with flowing reliefs of vines, leaves, and curling waves—carved in such ridiculous detail they looked ready to rustle in the breeze.

There was no part of it that hadn't been thought about. No part of it that wasn't beautiful.

Rudra had spent millions of gold rebuilding Stormbreak. Various Races and even legends were present during the rebuilding of the city and even worked with 1st Ranked Architect Mason on every district. Stormbreak was one of the best cities in the continent now.

This nameless village blew it right out of the water.

It wasn't bigger, and its walls were a far cry from Stormbreak's. Yet in pure visual beauty, it put Stormbreak to shame.

'Who the hell built this?'

He stopped in front of a towering obsidian archway at the entrance to the main street and craned his neck back. Every stone in it had been cut to fit the next so perfectly that he couldn't find a seam. The carvings flowed up one side, across the top, and down the other in one unbroken story.

For some reason, the very first person who popped into his head was Mason.

Genesis's 1st-ranked Architect. The lunatic who had once locked himself in an office for three straight days perfecting the spatial expansion blueprints, only to stumble out looking like a man returning from a tropical honeymoon.

If Mason ever laid eyes on this street...

Rudra could picture the disaster in vivid colour. Mason pressing his cheek flat against this black stone pillar. Caressing the mortarless joints with trembling fingers. Whispering sweet nothings to the retaining walls and demanding fifty million gold from Silas to rebuild Stormbreak out of this polished obsidian.

Rudra shuddered.

'Note to self. Take the coordinates of this village to the grave. Never let Mason know it exists.'

"Rudra," Iris said quietly.

He lowered his gaze from the archway and followed her eyes down the street.

The village wasn't abandoned after all.

In every doorway, behind every window, around every corner, there were faces. Enormous golden faces. Minotaurs, dozens of them, crammed into doorways far too small to hide them, peeking out at the two humans with wide, terrified eyes.

The moment Rudra made eye contact, every single golden faces vanished.

Three seconds passed. Slowly, one by one, the horns and noses poked back out again.

Rudra put on his friendliest, most harmless smile and gave a little wave.

Kwang!

Kwang!

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

Like falling dominoes, an entire row of window shutters slammed shut all the way down the main street.

Rudra lowered his hand.

"I think," he said after a beat, "they might be scared of me."

"You are a very frightening man," Iris said, her face completely blank.

Rudra stared at her. She stared right back.

Still, not everyone on the street was hiding behind locked doors.

Further up the road, the workshop doors stood wide open, and the crisp ring of iron hammers echoed out into the warm air.

Tang! Tang! Tang!

Standing at the anvils, carpenter benches, and stone-cutting tables was an entirely different race.

They were short —most of them barely reached Rudra's chest. But every one of them was built like a barrel of iron, with arms as thick as Rudra's thighs and shoulders as broad as a doorframe. Their hair and beards were jet black, braided into elaborate, intricate patterns and fastened with little bands of gold. Their clothes were neat and well cut, their leather aprons spotless despite the forge smoke.

The Obsidian Dwarves.

They glanced up at Rudra and Iris as the duo passed their smithies.

Then they looked right back down at their work.

That was it. A single glance. A side-eye at most. Not a flicker of fear. Not a flicker of interest. One dwarf, carving a flower into a stone lintel with a tiny chisel, didn't even pause.

Rudra eyed them carefully as he walked. Weathered, craggy faces. Bushy eyebrows. More than a few crooked, broken noses. They were handsome in a rugged, grumpy-uncle sort of way.

Most importantly, they were normal.

No shampoo-commercial manes. No oiled-up eight-packs flexing in the hot springs. Not a single dwarf on this street looked like he spent four hours a day posing in front of a waterfall.

For the first time in several months, a wave of pure, genuine relief washed over Rudra's soul.

'Finally. A normal-looking tribe. Thank you, Goddess.'

He had lost count of how many times in the past few days he'd been the least attractive living thing in a valley. It was nice, for once, to just be a guy walking down a street.

Then, one of the dwarves set his hammer down on the anvil.

Clank.

He was older than the others, his thick black beard streaked with silver and braided into a pattern so complex it looked like a map.

Wiping his hands on his apron, the old dwarf marched straight out of his smithy, planted his boots in front of Rudra, and stopped dead.

His sharp dark eyes were locked onto the black staff strapped across Rudra's back.

He didn't bother looking at Rudra's face once.

Without asking permission, the old dwarf fished a brass jeweller's loupe out of his apron pocket, screwed it into his right eye socket, and leaned within three inches of Extortion.

"Uh," Rudra said, taking half a step back. "Can I help you?"

The dwarf ignored him completely.

For a solid minute, the old craftsman inspected every inch of the weapon. He eyed the glow of the ultimate enhancement on the weapon. He watched the faint arcs of blue lightning pop along the shaft. He traced his thumb just above the joins where the materials met.

Slowly, the old dwarf's thick shoulders began to tremble.

"Legendary..." the dwarf whispered. "This is a masterpiece of a Legendary blacksmith. Look at that metal density. The weight distribution. The raw destructive power folded into it..." He let out a shaky breath. "This could stand beside the finest weapons my ancestors have ever made."

Rudra puffed his chest out slightly, a smug grin tugging at his lips. 'Damn straight it can. That's my baby right there. Grid even used his creation skill for it, and it cost me multiple pieces of Pavranium.'

The old dwarf pulled the loupe away from his eye.

Tsk.

He clicked his tongue loudly, his face twisting as if he had just bitten into a rotten lemon.

"Tragic," the dwarf spat. "Utterly, unforgivably tragic!"

Rudra's smile froze. "...Sorry?"

"Such great craftsmanship and materials!" The dwarf threw both hands up in the air in disgust. "And it was made for a gangster! Look at it! It is just a black metal pipe! Where is the filigree?! Where is the engraving?! Where is the soul?!"

Shaking his braided head in deep mourning—like a man who had just watched someone use a priceless painting as a tablecloth—the dwarf spun on his heel, marched back into his shop, and snatched his hammer back up.

Tang! Tang! Tang!

Rudra stood frozen in the middle of the street.

He loved Extortion. He had fought great demons and monsters with this staff. He had bled all over this staff. He practically treated the weapon like his own firstborn child.

"...Gangster?" he repeated quietly.

As Iris passed his left side, she reached out and patted his shoulder twice in silent condolence.

. . .

They didn't get much further before a sharp, high-pitched voice cut across the street.

"Hey! You!"

Rudra looked ahead. Nobody was there. He looked down.

A dwarf girl stood in the middle of the street with her hands on her hips. She couldn't have been more than a child, barely taller than Rudra's knee, with two thick black braids sticking out from either side of her head and a stern expression on her round face.

And hiding behind her tiny back was a Minotaur.

Judging by the soft, fluffy golden fur and the stubby little horns that had barely started to curve, she was a kid too. The problem was, even a Minotaur child was already well over two meters tall.

She was hunkered down as low as her knees would bend, desperately trying to hide her massive frame behind a dwarf who was less than a metre tall, her giant furry hands clutching the back of the little girl's apron for dear life.

It was not working even a little bit.

"Are you the mean human," the dwarf girl demanded, jabbing a stubby finger up at Rudra's nose, "who scared Uncle Tomo right out of his favourite hat?!"

Behind her, the giant Minotaur girl peeked one huge golden eye around the dwarf's shoulder, accidentally met Rudra's gaze, let out a tiny "Eep!", and ducked right back behind the pigtails.

Rudra looked down at the oversized straw hat in his hands, with its clumsy little yellow flower. Then he looked back at the pint-sized interrogator.

"Yeah," Rudra admitted sheepishly. "I think that was me."

"Hand it over!" the dwarf girl ordered, holding out her arms. "Uncle Tomo loves that hat. Auntie stitched the flower on it herself!"

Rudra crouched down to her level and held out the hat with both hands, very politely.

"Please tell Uncle Tomo I'm really sorry," Rudra said gently. "We didn't mean to startle him."

The dwarf girl snatched the hat, flipped it over to check the brim for dirt or tears, and gave a single, sharp nod of approval. When she looked back up at Rudra, her scowl had softened by about ten percent.

"You're here to see the Chieftains, aren't you?" she asked.

"We are."

"Hmph. Follow me, then. And don't make any loud noises!"

Clutching the giant straw hat to her chest like a shield, she spun around and marched briskly. Behind her, the two-metre-plus Minotaur girl scrambled to keep up, staying hunched over in a half-crawl and shooting terrified glances back at Rudra every three steps.

Rudra stood up and followed alongside Iris, careful to keep a polite three-step buffer behind the skittish giant kid the entire way.

. . .

The Chieftains' Hall stood at the very top of the hill, overlooking the terraced fields and the village below.

It was easily the grandest building in the valley—a sprawling manor of mirror-polished obsidian and gleaming gold trim, fronted by a pair of heavy double doors nearly four metres high.

The little dwarf girl marched right up the front steps and hammered her tiny fist against the black wood.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Having delivered her message, she grabbed the giant Minotaur girl by the wrist and bolted around the side of the building at top speed.

Rudra watched the two of them vanish, his eye twitching. "...are we really that scary, Iris?"

Creeeeak...

The four-metre double doors began to swing inward.

Slowly. Heavily.

A shadow fell across them both.

Rudra looked up. Then up some more.

Standing in the doorway, bent over so her horns wouldn't scrape the frame, was the biggest Minotaur he had ever seen. She was well over three and half meters tall, with thick golden fur and enormous curved horns that gleamed like polished brass. Her shoulders blocked the entire doorway. Her arms were thicker than Rudra's whole body.

And from where Rudra was standing, at this angle, in the shadow of the doorway, her face looked exactly like the final boss of a horror game.

Rudra's hand drifted toward Extortion on its own.

The gigantic Minotaur looked down at him.

Slowly, her enormous golden eyes brimmed with water.

Her heavy lower lip began to wobble.

And then, letting out a high, whistling wail like a steam kettle boiling over on a stove, the giant Chieftess burst into tears.