Chapter 300: The Dwarven Cave of Mantamia (2)

Once the stir finally quieted, Ketal followed Parco into a reception room. The High Elf knight sat opposite him, still looking as if someone had yanked the ground out from under his feet. Ketal eased into his chair and glanced at the doors, then back at Parco.

“That was a fair bit of commotion,” he said mildly. “What happened?”

Parco was about to talk and then shut again.

You happened

. Parco wanted to say that, but in the end, he did not. Fear turned words to ash on the back of his tongue.

Ketal read the silence easily enough. “It was me.”

Parco neither nodded nor denied it, but the lack of denial answered well enough. Ketal scratched his cheek, thoughtful. He had torn the sacred ground’s barrier with force.

Looking back, he had not needed to do that. He could have waited. He could have called Parco out to fetch him in. Instead, pleased that he could pinpoint the sacred ground with Myst-enhanced senses, he had simply pried the barrier open because he could.

It was a barbarian thing to do, something that belonged back in the White Snowfield, not in the world he’d sworn to enjoy without breaking.

Why did I do it?

Ketal wondered.

The answer came quickly, ugly in its simplicity: nothing could stop him. It wasn’t even the worst choice available. He could have gone further. He could have threatened, subjugated, or demanded obeisance, and nothing would have changed. The elves could not have resisted. Humans outside would have swallowed their pride and smiled at the conqueror for the sake of survival. No one could order him. No one could leash him.

He was a barbarian of the White Wastes. He was essentially their king. He could act as his whims commanded.

Ketal frowned. He knew he was more than just a barbarian. He still carried a modern mind; a human conscience from Earth. He had no desire to grind others down for the sake of his own amusement. If he had, the day he stepped out of the White Snowfield would have been the day the world ended in catastrophe.

Have I been drifting without noticing?

Ketal thought.

As what he had thought of as his ceiling rose day by day, something in him had begun to tilt. He pressed that tilt flat again and breathed out.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be more careful.”

“It’s all right...,” Parco managed.

Seeing Ketal settle, Parco forced himself to do the work his rank demanded. He was, at the moment, the highest authority in the sacred ground. He could not run away from his problems.

“What... exactly did you do?” he asked Ketal. The man before him had always been strong, but this felt different—different in kind, not just degree.

Ketal answered as if discussing the weather. “I learned to handle Myst. I braided it into my senses and cast them outward.”

The results had been satisfying; the moment he pushed, the sacred ground’s location had rung like a bell in his mind.

“It worked very well,” he added.

“I... see.” Parco gulped. A part of him wanted nothing more than to hand Ketal to someone else and flee the room. However, he could not do that either.

“Why are you the one meeting me?” Ketal asked him, head tipping. “Where are Karin and Arkemis?”

If he visited the sacred ground, those two should have sprinted to greet him. Arkemis certainly would have, only to lecture him. Yet neither of them had appeared, even when the barrier cracked.

“They are not in the sacred ground at the moment,” Parco said. “They left to blunt the enemy’s advance. Our defenses here are layered. If something critical happens, we can call them back at once.”

They would have already recalled Karin if Ketal’s pressure had not stunned their whole command track. As if sensing the unspoken apology, Parco added, carefully, “If you wish, I will summon them now.”

“No. Let them work,” Ketal said. “I’ll see them later.”

If they were absent, he would take what he needed from Parco. He turned his eyes on the elf. Parco’s shoulders hunched in spite of himself.

“I have questions,” Ketal said.

“Ask anything.”

“How’s the South dealing with the demon invasions?”

“It is... not good, but also not hopeless,” Parco said.

Fairies, elves, dragons, and dwarves, every nonhuman people who could still stand, had joined forces to hold the South.. The dragons, especially the adult dragons, were decisive. Each one at that level could reach for a Hero’s weight; each one could flip a battlefield alone.

Naturally, the demons knew this. They had poured real strength into the South, sending demons with ranks and titles, opponents who would count as Heroes in any sane tally. Some fronts buckled, and others held or even pushed back. The line moved a little and then moved back. It was war at the knife’s edge.

“Understood.” Ketal nodded once. Having roughly grasped the situation in the South, Ketal brought up the main issue. “What of the Dwarven Cave of Mantamia?”

Parco blinked. “Mantamia? Why do you ask?”

“I have to have this forged.”

Ketal reached into his pouch and drew out the Dragon Bone. Power rolled off it in a clean, white wave.

“Dragon Bone!” Parco exclaimed, his breath caught.

“I was told only dwarves can work material on this rung,” Ketal said. “Can elves manage it?”

“No,” Parco said at once. “Only the dwarves.”

He understood Ketal’s destination immediately. That was why he chose his next words with care.

“You may not be able to, now.”

“I’m assuming there’s a problem,” Ketal guessed.

“Yes. Mantamia is under demon occupation.”

“Oh?” Ketal’s eyes brightened. “Did they seize it?”

“I don’t know the details, only that the dwarves were driven out. They’ve tried to retake it with outside help, but it’s... not going well.”

“Is that where Karin and Arkemis went?” Ketal asked him.

“No. They are elsewhere. Truthfully... dwarves and elves are not on good terms.”

As they shouldn’t be. Better that way for a proper fantasy

, Ketal thought, his grin turning boyish.

Parco’s brows knit, baffled and a little afraid.

Why does that make him happy?

“Thank you for the information,” Ketal said. “I’ll go help them now.”

“I can give you the—”

“No need. I know the way,” Ketal said, interrupting Parco.

He stood. Parco rose and trailed him to the door. A thought surfaced, and Ketal glanced back.

“You said the dwarves had outside help. Who?”

Parco hesitated and then answered, “The Elder Dragon, Ignisia.”

“Ah. That is good to know,” Ketal replied, his eyes widening. He now had one more reason to head for Mantamia. “Thank you. I’ll see you later.”

“Ha... ha.” Parco forced a dry laugh. He could not quite force the words let’s not to follow it. In the end, that was the most resistance he could muster.

Ketal took no offense. He stepped into the sunlight and was gone. Parco stood for a long time after that, then folded where he was and whispered a prayer with both hands clenched.

Please. Please let me never meet him again,

he prayed.

It was not a prayer the world meant to honor.

***

So I’m crossing the continent again,

Ketal thought as he hurled himself through the air.

He had started in the West, leapt to the North, swept across to the East, and now angled south. It would not be an exaggeration to say he had circled the entire Mortal Realm. If not for the demons, he might have wandered more slowly, taken time to savor the places between.

Well, it’s not as if the journey was all bad,

Ketal said, clicking his tongue. He pressed the thought aside and moved.

“We are here,” the Holy Sword said.

Ketal stopped on a shoulder of mountains and looked up at a spine of peaks marching to both horizons. Even at a glance, he could see an old path wound through the rock, a cunning cut, as subtle as seams in a jewel. No human hands had shaped that road. It spoke of smaller bodies, stronger arms, and a patience that measured in centuries.

He smiled and took the path. With the Holy Sword’s guidance, he reached his destination quickly.

“There.”

A cave mouth yawned in the mountainside, a black opening vast enough to swallow a fortress tower and still have room to spare. This was no mere mine, but an entrance—the entrance to the Dwarven Cave of Mantamia.

Rough huts had been thrown up outside the walls: about three dozen, clustered within a makeshift ring of stone and timber. Each hut was child-small, like toys set under a table, though nothing about the beings who used them was childish.

“So they were driven out and set their camp on the steps,” Ketal murmured.

“It looks that way,” the Holy Sword said. “You should not be able to see the entrance like this. There is usually a barrier, as with the elves.”

However, the said barrier was gone. The dwarves hadn’t even had time to hide the path.

“Let’s pay a visit,” Ketal said.

“Okay...”

He walked toward the barricade. As he approached, dwarven sentries caught sight of him. Their eyes went wide; one bolted inside. A heartbeat later, a bell clanged.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

The alarm drew a knot of stout shapes to the wall. Voices tangled.

“What is it?”

“Human! How did a human get here?”

“And it’s no ordinary human! It’s a barbarian!”

Real dwarves!

Ketal thought, leisurely watching the dwarves as they scrambled about in a frantic rush.

They were short as children, with beards like banners and forearms like hammers. They matched the old stories so perfectly that his chest tightened with pure, uncomplicated joy. He had wanted this for so long that it felt less like discovery and more like remembering.

The dwarves formed ranks with clean, practiced movement. Axes came up. Muskets rested on shoulders. One dwarf with a plaited beard stepped forward and bellowed, “Name yourself!”

In the dwarves’ eyes, there was a sharp, unyielding wariness. It was only natural. With their exceptional craftsmanship, dwarves were highly sought after by humans. Like the elves, many had been enslaved and forced to work as tools. Now, with evil invading the land, a barbarian had come to their sacred ground. There was no way they could do anything but treat him with suspicion.

“Wait!” someone snapped, sniffing the wind as if scent could carry allegiance. “That bastard reeks of Pointy Ears! And it’s strong, too!”

Ketal tilted his head, only understanding a beat later. Karin, the High Elf Queen, had claimed him as elf-friend, now and always, and apparently the dwarves could sense that mark. Their wariness turned to something grimmer. Then a second crack ran through the crowd.

“Hold,” another dwarf said, pointing, eyes blown wide. “Look at what he’s carrying! That’s the Holy Sword!”

“You’re quick,” Ketal said.

“They serve the one who made me,” the Holy Sword said. “They can recognize my presence.”

“But... the sword is broken!” another dwarf shouted.

The dwarves were struck with shock. The sacred tool bestowed upon the world by a great god had been broken. And that was not all.

“I can’t feel a single trace of energy from the Holy Sword! What’s going on!?”

“The Holy Sword is damaged! It can no longer fulfill its purpose! That damned barbarian stole it!”

“Well, they’re not wrong, but hearing them shout about it like this feels a little strange. I’m following you by my own will, you know,” the Holy Sword muttered sourly. Unfortunately, its words did not reach the dwarves.

“Enemy!”

“He’s an enemy!”

The dwarves’ wary gazes toward Ketal turned to open hostility, their hands tightening on their weapons.

“So, words won’t work here,” Ketal murmured, narrowing his eyes.

It seemed he would have to do as he had with the elves: display either strength or presence, whatever it took to make them submit. Ketal began to release his restrained power, then hesitated. He held back his emotions and suppressed his actions. Subduing the dwarves through force would be an incredibly violent method, one no modern person would easily choose.

Also, there was no need for it. Ketal had traveled the fantasy world far and wide. He had not rampaged through it or destroyed it at his whim. He had restrained himself, shown consideration to others, aided groups, and acted as a member of the world.

Anyone who heard this might scoff and call it nonsense, but at the very least, Ketal had done his utmost to hold himself back. And when one acted in such a way, the world often answered in kind.

Just then, a presence stirred above the dwarves’ heads. From the lofty heavens, something was looking down upon them. Within that gaze was a sacred, divine power.

“Wait a moment! I know this presence!” The Holy Sword panicked. This was not the kind of aura that a being of the Mortal Realm could possess. It belonged to a being of far higher stature, a celestial entity. It was the very being the dwarves worshiped, the God of the Forge.

They were looking down now, upon the Mortal Realm—and upon Ketal. Their gazes met. Countless emotions were held within the god’s eyes, but at the very least, there was no hostility.

“Enter.” The voice rang out, heard by everyone present.

“My god...?” A dwarven voice trembled in awe.

Bang!

The doors to the barrier, untouched by any hand, swung wide open, as if to welcome Ketal’s visit.

“Thank you for the welcome,” Ketal said. Amid the stunned silence, Ketal gave his reply to the god.