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Chapter 140: Enter the Earth Fairies!
After we left Keyha, our next destination was a mountain. On the way, I gave Sword a sermon.
“You’re pretty flirty, aren’t you!? Be careful so that your Ryoku doesn’t get fed up with you, okay?”
“Eh!? …Wait a sec there! I ain’t unfaithful or ‘nythin’. Ryoku is Ryoku, and Bronko is Bronko.”
He started to make excuses, but just that alone was already proof of his guilty conscience.
“At the point of you not mentioning Char, which should be added in this line-up, it’s been pretty much set that you’re cheating, you know?”
“That’s right~!”
“As soon as a new child showed up, you only concerned yourself with them~!”
We swooped down on him. Sword quickly started to fidget, apparently aware of his own wrongdoings.
“…I’m tellin’ you your misunderstandin’. I make proper distinctions, ‘kay?”
All three of us scrutinized him with intense stares.
“Stop, don’t torture me! Seriously, Bronko is a vehicle! Char is a vehicle too! Or rather a lodge! And the Ryokus are party members! Partners!”
That seemed to cheer up the Ryokus.
“Yaaay!”
“Partner, partner～”
They were dancing around. How lovely!
“Oh noes, my nose is going to bleed.”
“………Indra, seriously…your a pervert, aren’t you?” Sword told me while rolling his eyes.
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Now then, I’ve heard our current destination is a mine town called Thobe. We were going there for recruitment as Sword seemed to think we should look for someone, who could build a distillation apparatus, and invite them to our mansion in Ys.
“Since they’re from a different race, I thought we might give it a try since we’ve got nothin’ to lose ‘nyway.”
Eh? Huh? Did he say race ? Does that possibly mean…
I immediately knew the answer when we reached the guard station at the gate.
“Ooohhh! A must-have for any fantasy world!”
It’s the appearance of earth fairies, or better known as dwarves!!!!
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Indeed! The one looking like a guy, who stood at the gate’s station, was still taller than me, but he was overall short and stout, had a dense beard, and a very rough face. That’s a dwarven official! Definitely!
As soon as the dwarven official saw me…no, that’s wrong…as soon as he saw Bronko, he froze. And then ran over.
“Holy shit!? This is…marvelous!!!”
He praised Bronko.
“Hmm, I see, you got good eyes!”
“No, wait a sec. How about letting us in?” Sword retorted just as the official started to get all excited.
“…Yes, Sir! Excuse us! Please, come this way.”
We held up our adventurer cards above a magic stone.
“…Adventurers? Not crafters?”
Mr. Official is puzzled…or rather, unhappy…no, something else? His face looks like the closest emotion might be disapproval.
“We build things, but we mainly focus on adventuring. We’re versatile, so we haven’t settled on a single way of life. We’re living freely in a way that can’t be summed up with some preset mold. In short, we’re what’s called adventurers.”
“…That’s…forgive me then. Please have a safe journey,” said the official and let us through.
Sword silently shrugged his shoulders, but I commented, “Of course the path we tread can be nothing other than a good journey. Farewell.”
I agreed calmly and stepped through the gate.
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“…Well, I guess he let us pass without makin’ too much of a fuss.”
“Huh?”
Sword started to explain, “It’s a town where blacksmiths gather. Humans live here as well, but dwarves are the majority. And almost all of ’em have somethin’ to do with smithin’. Ah, artisans n’ masons are ’round as well, though. That’s why your Bronko drew his attention, you see?”
Why only Bronko? I made the Ryokus as well. They’re slightly like bugs, though.
“Because of that, everything unrelated to smithing is bein’ looked down on. That official back then was part of a shift system at the gate. Otherwise, no one would do that job.”
Whoa, they sure are thorough in their fixation on smithing. It totally feels like this town is a gathering of stubborn folks.
“Me having deliberately shown them Bronko followed the intent to tout its awesomeness to those folks. Well, I expected that he might believe we bought it elsewhere ‘nyway, but your explanation was effective, I s’pose,” Sword said with a laugh. “Even in this city, you won’t easily find someone with skills as high as yours among its highly prideful residents. In the first place, I doubt they can come up with the idea to make somethin’ like this.”
Well…I’m ripping it off from my otherworld knowledge, however. But, all things considered, the people of this world are inflexible, aren’t they? It’s a world allowing you to do anything with magic, so they should build a lot more stuff of different sorts. The people of this world, who always use the same methods they thought up once, don’t even venture into new things despite the job of adventurer existing.
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“Hmm,” I folded my arms. “If it’s like this, it’ll be extremely difficult to find someone we could take back to our base. They might display their respect towards the things I built, but a flexible mind is necessary when it comes to us having them build what we want. If they got lots of pride, it’d result in us breaking it.”
If their pride is high, it’s fine for it to stay like this, I think. I’m not into expressly incurring the resentment of unrelated people…err, fairies.
“I ain’t gonna stop you if your gonna break their pride, you know?”
“It’s not necessary for us to expressly anger them. Even high pride is worthy of my respect if it represents zeal towards creating things.”
Sword looked like he hadn’t expected me to say this at all.
“I’m a craftswoman as well. That’s why I’m proud of the things I made myself!”
“Ah, that’s what you mean.” He apparently came to terms with it. “…In that case, it should be okay. But, this town is 『that kind』 of town, so you might dislike it, ‘kay?”
“I think that can’t be helped since I don’t feel like incurring their resentment. It’s an attitude I can understand. They must consider the things they made themselves as outstanding, and I can fully understand their wish for others to use those items with love and care.”
“……”
Sword caressed my head.
“Well, no helpin’ it then. Let’s go take a look from the start?”
“Yeah,” I agreed and started to walk.