Chapter 302: The Dwarven Cave of Mantamia (4)

Raphael was the Demon of Jewels. To him, jewels were proof of perfection and beauty. Because of that creed, he was obsessed with beauty. He wanted to be perfect, and he never doubted that he was more beautiful than anyone in the world.

However, that certainty wavered now. Before him stood a body with not a shred of excess, trained to flawless, efficient lines.

Perfect,

he thought.

And beautiful. Perhaps even more beautiful than me.

The thought slipped out before he realized it, and he snapped back to himself with a start.

“No. No...” Raphael shook his head in a panic. To admit that another’s beauty ranked above his own would break him. That could not be allowed. He had to be, beyond thought and question, the most beautiful.

“

Aaah

!” He clutched his head and writhed.

“What is wrong with him?” Ketal watched, faintly put off.

“I think he looked at your body,” Ignisia said.

“My body? Hm.”

“He is practically the embodiment of narcissism. He just decided your body might be more perfect than his, and this is the result.”

Even to Ignisia’s eye, Ketal’s physique was perfect, without a single flaw to catch on. The shock hammering Raphael had to be tremendous.

“What an unusual one,” Ketal murmured, his expression turning curious.

“An infuriating one. He would not stop talking to me. I was ready to burn my ears off,” Ignisia replied.

“You...” Raphael, who had been raging in a frenzy, suddenly went still. Quiet gathered in his gaze, and obsession sharpened within it.

“You are our enemy,” he said. “For reasons that are entirely personal, I will kill you.”

Stone shrieked. Ore veined in the walls tore free and shot forward like arrows, fast enough to outrun sound. Ketal hurled himself aside and slipped past by a hair. Raphael slashed a hand through the air. A slab of ore buried deep in the seam rumbled as it rose, then swung in a crushing arc toward Ketal. Ketal raised his axe. He met the oncoming mass with a swing that held nothing back. Axe and ore collided.

A peal like a titan’s bell rolled through the mine.

“Oh?” Ketal’s face changed.

Cracks spidered across the ore where the axe struck, yet it did not explode. It meant the material was tough enough to endure a blow he would not want to receive himself. It was heavy as well. Ketal’s feet scraped back across the stone. He bared his teeth and twisted the haft. The force shifted. The mass veered away and slammed into the ground behind him, carving a furrow.

His view cleared. What filled it was Raphael, streaking in with a jagged, knotted blade. Steel met steel and cast white sparks.

Ketal gave ground a single step. “Huh.”

Wonder showed in his eyes. He was strong. Strong enough that Ketal actually felt pressure. At this level, Raphael might even give the Ugly Rat a proper fight. Also, he was durable. That brutal, uneven blade had clashed with Ketal’s axe and not taken a nick.

So that is why Ignisia was pushed back,

Ketal thought.

Raphael’s raw power, joined to a domain that let him freely draw and shape ores that even Ketal found hard to break, made him a formidable foe. Raphael sensed the tilt of the battlefield, and his confidence surged.

“I know you defeated Floris,” he laughed. “But I am stronger than she is. Above all, here I hold absolute power.”

This was the greatest mine in the world. Mithril and its peers were so plentiful that they were almost underfoot.

He was the Demon of Jewels. His authority drew out the full strength of any jewel or ore without preparation. He could whip the deep, weighty mystery inside Mithril into a ready catalyst that swelled his force, and he could grind Adamantadium into a razor to wield as a blade. In Mantamia, he could exceed even his natural limits.

“You are beautiful enough!” Raphael said. “Not as beautiful as I am, but still far beyond the common herd. Be satisfied.”

“How kind of you,” Ketal said, smiling.

Raphael posed on confidence, but unease prickled under the polish. Ketal remained far too calm. Although Raphael had pressed him, there was no hint of danger in the barbarian’s face.

And what is that axe,

Raphael thought.

Raphael was wielding the rarest ores alive like toys, and his authority made his attacks almost impossible to block. That was why Ignisia had relied on offense over defense. Yet Ketal’s axe, after countless clashes with Raphael’s power, was perfectly intact. Not a single burr marred its edge.

It does not feel like an ore,

Raphael thought.

It is different. Something alien, even to me.

Ketal spoke without guile. “You are strong. Very much so.”

“Thank you. Are you conceding?”

“No. I am acknowledging you. Which means I can use my Myst.”

A clear, humming note rose. Myst stirred and wrapped Ketal.

“What?” Raphael exclaimed, his eyes widened.

Ketal stepped. The speed belonged to another rung of the ladder entirely. Raphael flung out a hand, and Mithril surged up in a silver storm. The Myst inside each shard thickened its weight and velocity, bending their paths into killing curves.

However, those powerful ores shattered. Ketal drove straight through, breaking, grinding, and cutting the charge apart. The finest and hardest materials in the world burst like spun sugar. Raphael stared, stricken at the gulf between this power and the strength from moments ago.

“You were hiding your true strength,” he spat.

Axe and jagged sword crashed together. Raphael’s stance buckled hard. If he had blinked at the wrong instant, his blade would have flown. He sprang back in a flurry, and Ketal followed without pause. Raphael was strong. Against the Ugly Rat outside its domain, the match might be even. However, Ketal had beaten the Ugly Rat not only outside its nest, but after it had spread its abyss. Raphael would not be the wall that stopped him now.

Driven back, Raphael slapped a palm to the wall. The seam roared, ore rose, honed itself into razors, then shot forward at murderous angles. They filled the air and poured at Ketal in a flood. Each shard was Adamantadium or Mithril. A full hit could punch through even the Myst guarding him.

However, that didn’t matter to Ketal. He just needed to not get hit by those. He watched the incoming lines. Myst did more than toughen flesh. It deepened vision and sharpened the nerves. He advanced forward. Metal screamed by. With the smallest shifts, he evaded and shed the killing lines while never once checking his stride. Ignisia’s breath caught.

It was like walking through a downpour and coming away dry.

“W-wait—” Raphael scrambled for a new approach, but every pattern broke apart just the same.

“Wow.”Ignisia let out a short, helpless laugh.

Ketal had already been terrifying. With Myst, he had stepped up a tier. She knew she could not stand as his equal here. The fight swung to one side. Raphael’s elegance began to fray. He tried to keep his poise, but his movements started to hitch. If it continued like this, Ketal would certainly win.

“Hm.” Ketal lowered his axe. The sudden lull made Ignisia blink.

“Hey. Why stop? Is something wrong?” she asked him.

“In a way,” Ketal said. “Is it okay for me to keep fighting him like this?. An opponent of this caliber is not something I can crush quickly without risk. The mine may be stripped bare.”

Raphael was burning his authority without restraint. The veins were thinning before their eyes. Already, a carpet of dimmed, lifeless ore littered the ground. The fastest path was to end it at once, but that would require power that might crack the mountain. They were still in the cavern. If Mantamia collapsed, victory would be worthless.

“Will it be acceptable if the mine is emptied?” Ketal asked Ignisia.

“That would be a problem.” She grimaced.

The Mantamia mines were grace set on the Mortal Realm by the dwarves’ god. Some of its ores came from nowhere else, and the world’s balance leaned upon them. Felling Raphael mattered, but so did keeping the mine.

“Do we have to finish him right away?” Ketal asked her. “If so, I will accept the risk.”

“No. It has already been in his hands for over a month. If we take a little longer from here, it will not ruin what is left to save.”

“Then that is convenient.” Ketal nodded. “Let us go back, make a proper plan, and return.”

“All right. Let us do that.”

“Raphael, we will be back,” Ketal called. “I hope you will wait.”

Raphael steadied his trembling legs and offered a thin, elegant smile. “Of course. I shall always be here.”

“See you, then.”

Ketal flashed a bright grin. Raphael held himself upright. Even unobserved, he kept his grace. The Demon of Jewels did not chip his own edge.

***

When Ketal and Ignisia returned, the Dwarf King, Grombir, looked startled.

“D-did you fail?” he asked them.

“No. We can win. There is a problem, though,” Ketal explained, and Grombir’s features sank.

“That is sound,” the king admitted. “If there is a way to save the mine, we should find it.”

The enemy was too powerful for the dwarves to buy that kind of time on their own. With Ketal here, other options existed.

“From the sound of it, I am exactly who you need,” Ketal said, smiling.

“Th-that is true.”

“I am willing to help you,” Ketal said, eyes shining. “But I do not plan to work for charity.”

He had not come to Mantamia simply to pay the dwarves a visit. He had clear aims. Grombir nodded at once.

“You need not worry about payment. If you help us, we will do everything in our power to reward you. However...”

He trailed off. Whether the dwarves could grant what Ketal wanted in their current state was uncertain. He could not say yes, and they could not repair the Holy Sword yet either.

At last, Grombir settled on a course. “Give me a day. I will speak with our god.”

“That suits me,” Ketal said with an easy smile.

The dwarves showed him to a room. He would have liked to talk with Ignisia, but she was healing the wounds she had taken in battle, so Ketal strolled through the camp and watched the dwarves’ daily work. They avoided his bright, sparkling gaze as best they could.

The next day, Grombir came to him.

“Our god wishes to meet you.”

“Then let us go at once.”

Ketal rose as if he had been waiting for those words.

***

Ketal followed Grombir to the shrine that the dwarves had raised for the time being. It was humble, yet every inch showed care. It was far finer than the huts the dwarves slept in. The building alone revealed their devotion.

Inside, Grombir took his place and spoke. “Last night I prayed and conversed with our god. They wish to speak with you directly.”

“Am I to go and see him in person?” Ketal asked him.

He had once seen a glimpse of Ferderica’s true self. With that experience, the question came naturally. Grombir stared as if he had heard nonsense.

“In person? You mean you would go to see a god’s true form? That does not happen. Not for me, and not even for the most renowned Saints and Saintesses,” he replied.

“Is that so?”

“At present, only the Sun God’s Saintess has seen a god’s true form.”

“Oh, she has?” Interest sparked in Ketal’s eyes.

“She was born under revelation, chosen from birth as the Sun God’s Saintess, and in the truest sense is the god’s deputy in this world,” Grombir replied, nodding.

Reverence softened Grombir’s gaze as he spoke. Even a dwarf who distrusted humankind could not help that feeling where the Sun God’s saintess was concerned. Ketal’s interest deepened.

She was as strong as she looked,

he thought. He had not known the story behind her. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not spoken with her more.

Grombir continued, “My god will borrow my body so that they can speak.”

“So, you will act as an avatar, then. I understand.”

Ketal waited with a bright, untroubled smile. Grombir found the look strange. Meeting a god was a burden for any mortal. Not even Heroes were exempt. Yet Ketal looked pleased. The dissonance made itself felt.

“Very well,” Grombir said, gathering himself. “Let us begin.”

He lifted his voice in prayer. “Come, O forger of all things. You who knead the earth into mountains and caress the sea into waterfalls.”

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The dwarves’ god was the God of the Forge. They did not merely hammer weapons and fashion armor. They were the one who worked the world.

“You who touch the concepts of the world and bring forth new ones, birthing all things harder, keener, and better.” Grombir finished his prayer.

The air shook as the world around them began to warp, and outside, the dwarves flinched before bowing low with the utmost respect. Through Grombir’s body, something larger pressed into the Mortal Realm.

Grombir cried out, voice deepened by another presence. “God of the Dwarves!! Lord whom we serve! Hephaite, come forth!”

The world boomed as something vast descended, and reality rippled like water. In the mine, Raphael, who had been pausing for tea, jolted so violently that he spilled his cup.

The Holy Sword let out a strangled sound as the shivering wind stilled, and Grombir opened his eyes. When he rose, it was no longer Grombir who stood there, but a far greater being.

“It is good to meet you, one who came from the Inside,” the God of the Forge said, through Grombir. A god revealed themselves upon the Mortal Realm. “I am Hephaite, God of the Forge. First, let me offer you my respect.”

Hephaite spoke with grave courtesy.