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Published at 8th of July 2016 07:21:28 PM


Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: Dwarves’ Hideout

That dwarf… even though she’s super tiny, her cuteness was irresistible. Unlike other dwarves who looked rough and were uncouth, she had a feminine air surrounding her. Her cheeks were as rosy as apples, and she had a gentle yet righteous smile on her adorable face.

Smiling sheepishly, I reached my hands out and accepted the bowl from her. A sweet smell wafted from the bowl into my nostrils. Mmmmmm… smells good! Is this what I ate while semi-conscious awhile back?!

I sipped gingerly from the bowl. Yup, that’s it! Slightly sweet, aromatic and smooth. It entered my stomach without any need for chewing.

After wolfing down the contents of the bowl, I decided to try walking. I put my feet on the ground. One tiny step for me… one gigantic step for mankind! Oops, that’s the wrong reference… heh… A couple of steps later, I did a twirl and decided that my body had pretty much recovered.

A month passed in the blink of an eye. Gradually, I settled down amidst the dwarves, and my body was back at 100 percent. Moreover, I managed to grasp the language of the dwarves with my level of intellect. Even though I didn’t become a master at the language, day to day communication was as simple as counting to three.

I found out that the young lady who fed me porridge was called Nisha. She was 18 years old this year. Initially, I had assumed that there wasn’t much of an age gap between us. Who would have known that she would be almost double my age!

Thanks to her, I learnt a lot about this world the past month. It came as no surprise that this world was no longer the one Earth was situated in. However, there was no name for this world, just like how my previous world was unnamed. Worlds were unlike planets, which could be named.

I still couldn’t believe that I had left my birth world. Even until now, everything seemed like a dream. Therefore, I decided to call this world… Dream World. How original, eh?

In this gigantic world, there were seven large continents, accompanied by fourteen middle-sized continents and countless small islands. Nisha only knew that the continent we were situated on was called, “Dreaming Sky Continent”. Right next to our continent was another piece of land called, “Drifting Scents Continent”. As for the rest of the world, Nisha had never heard or read about them in her entire life.

The Continent of Drifting Sky was the territory of the Sunset Empire. Thousands of years and countless wars ago, the homeland of the dwarves was in the central region of the continent. They were living in harmony with humans and various beastfolk. However, after a thousand years of warring and slaughter, the remaining dwarves escaped and hid under the cover of this volcano. Once a glorious race, now less than ten thousand of them were left.

From the viewpoint of the rest of the continent, the dwarves had been exterminated. Dream Sky Continent solely belonged to the humans. Luckily, this was the case. If the humans caught wind of the news that there were dwarves who managed to survive, they would definitely spare no effort in trying to wipe them out.

The dwarves were a hardworking and honest race. Even though they were born to be warriors, they abhorred fighting and warring. They lived and died with their smithing hammer. Weapons, armors, none of their creations were made inferior. Their craftsmanship had no equal, and this was common knowledge. They had giving their entire lives up for the hammer. Therefore, the quality of their work was assured.

Even though they had tough lives, the dwarves had never stopped smithing. Even though they had no buyers for their equipment, they didn’t give up on their craft, silently doing what they do best. The dwarves were born with this ingrained into them. It wasn’t only their hobby, but their duty! The chieftain of the dwarves often mentioned: “As long as there is life left in us, the hammer shall strike the anvil!”

Roughly one thousand five hundred dwarves lived in this colony. Other than crafting weapons and various equipment, they would travel outside of their village in search of food. They even had a farm of papayas right outside the village gate. Needless to say, papayas were a part of their everyday life. Due to the fact that their village was situated right next to their volcano, they only had summer and not a cycle of the four seasons. As a result, papayas could be grown throughout the year, and they could have fresh papayas everyday. This couldn’t be considered bad at all!

Since I’ve fully recovered, there’s no way I could continue being a bum. Even though I’m only ten years old, dwarves even smaller in stature and younger than me had already started doing chores and helping their parents. What excuse could I ever give to continue lazing around?!

The dwarves had many different vocations. Some went into the mines daily, some transported ores to and fro, others were in charge of extracting the minerals from the ores… In total, there were over twenty different jobs to choose from!

However, due to my size and age, I couldn’t partake in most manual jobs, such as mining or the transportation of ores. Those jobs required one to be physically strong… I’m strong… mentally. Heh.

Due to the fact that we were situated close to the volcano, minerals were in abundance and littered throughout the plains outside my village. We had no need go climb up the volcano in order to retrieve them as we could just pick them off the ground. There were various types of minerals, and all we had to do was pick them up and bring them back to the village.

Of course, this was easier said than done. Scattered throughout the plains were lots of monsters. From weak to strong, aquatic to airborne, as long as you could imagine it, there would be one roaming around. Thus, only a handful of courageous warriors dared to scavenge for ores in the plains. Most of the dwarves just picked picked them off the volcanic wall at the side of the village.

Generally, closer to the village, the quality of the minerals found would be lower. At a certain distance outside the village, one would be hard pressed to find an area not covered with valuable minerals since the volcano had never stopped its activity the past one hundred million years! However, treasures and dangers were two parts of an egg. The chief said that he had once ventured out with a party of battle-hardened dwarves. Unfortunately, they encountered a mature draconic lizard. Out of the sixty dwarves who left the village, he was the only one who lived to tell the tale.

Neither did the Draconic Lizard have a dragon’s bloodline, nor could it be classified as a dragon. However, its destructive power wasn’t something the dwarves, or even the humans could contend with!

The only reason they ventured so far out of their village to the crater that day was because of the sky-shaking explosion which had wiped out all of the monsters in its vicinity. Only then did the dwarves manage to gather up their courage and venture into the wilderness in search for minerals, and conveniently saved me.

This was the first time that the dwarves had ventured over two hundred kilometres away from their village in the past 50 years.

My current self was one of those banned from leaving the village. Once I left the safety of the village, my outcome would be no different from the rest of my dwarven friends; I would be torn into bits and pieces by the monsters as their food!

Another job that I was unable to do, was the menial task of smashing ores into smaller pieces. With my puny strength, I couldn’t even lift the hammer, much less using it to smash the ores.

The only thing I could do now was to gather the ore fragments that had been smashed with the help of the dwarves, and shovel it into the metal containers. Subsequently, I would transport it to the ore refinery, and the refined metal bars from the refinery to the workshop. Sigh… What a tiring job!

With the exercise that my body had been getting, I started getting more muscular over the next month. I finally understood why all of the dwarves were so stout. With the physical nature of their work, it would be impossible for one to stop putting on muscle!

I counted the days that had gone by since I woke up. Goodness me, time really flies! It had been nearly two months since my explosive arrival on this continent. The first month, I didn’t do much except focusing solely on recovering, and I spent the remaining month being a transporter!

On Earth, my only job was to study hard daily. Thus, studying diligently had become a habit of mine. Hence, I had spent my free time at the workshop picking up blacksmithing skills. Over the course of one month, relying on my prodigious brain, I managed to pick up all the basics of smithing. However, with my 1 inch bicep, there was no way I could put my knowledge into practice. Blacksmithing was unlike gardening, where only finesse was the sole requirement. Without both strength and finesse, there would be no point of even considering becoming a blacksmith.

Looking at the weapons shining coldly, a piece of armor that the smithing master had worked on tirelessly had finally been completed. I felt a hint of envy creeping up on me as I gazed at his collection of masterpieces and the piece of armor that was crafted recently. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how proud they must have felt with the completion of each piece of equipment.

My previous statement about dwarves being born warriors was a double entendre. Nobody would be born a genius in any field. Only hard work would bring about results.

However, according to my observations, dwarves were born to be warriors due to their genes and physical structure. Additionally, their field of work and living habits allowed them to train their physical strength regularly. Hence, being an outstanding warrior was something they could never escape from.

The hammer used to smash the ores weighed over forty kilograms, and the hammer used for blacksmithing weighed over twenty. The dwarves swung these hammers over ten thousand times daily. Furthermore, they had to transport ores all over the place. With such intense physical labour, they honed their strength every single day, resulting in mind-boggling arm strength. The dwarves loved to use axes as their primary weapon, as it was similar to the hammer, with its length and weight.

Even though there were times when he longed to return home, the young kid quickly discarded these thoughts once he started working as he was too busy to think of anything else. The dwarves were a species that would set aside everything once they started working, with the exception of meals. Otherwise, they would never divert their attention away from their work. This led to me thinking, “Hmmm… if I take a short break, would anybody notice? Then again, everyone around me is so hardworking… Forget it, let’s continue working!”

After a long and tiring day, I made my way back to my humble abode. With an aching body, I shook my arms, feeling the lactic acid accumulated in my muscles. Regardless, I could feel my arms getting bigger and my core muscles strengthening. I laughed excitedly with this knowledge and chanted, “Tomorrow, tomorrow!” If there were any outsiders looking at this scene, they would definitely think that I was crazy. However, I couldn’t give two hoots about how I appeared as the day that I had been looking forward to for so long was finally arriving! Tomorrow would be the day that the chieftain began teaching the youngsters the basics of combat and axe-wielding. The day that I would finally leave this village and go adventuring was finally in sight!

 





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