“Who are you? Why did you attack our... that... survey...”
The grey-haired girl’s crisp voice echoed through the cavern, but she suddenly stalled halfway through her sentence. She hurriedly nudged her companion behind her with her elbow. “Hey, Stark! What was it called again?”
“Ahem, Maela! That’s the Bionic Six-Legged All-Terrain Adaptive Mineral Probe Type 7 Mark II!” The figure who had been hiding behind the girl finally poked his head out and corrected her softly.
The youth was a head shorter than Little Gold. He wore a pair of exaggerated goggles on his face and clutched a thick notebook tightly in his arms.
“How many times have I told you!” The girl named Maela stomped her foot in annoyance, her boots clinking against the crystalline floor. “Stop giving your inventions such tongue-twisting names! Who can even remember that!”
She turned back toward Starlight’s group, her amber eyes wide and glaring. “Now, explain yourselves. Why did you attack our survey machine?”
Po Kong looked at the bickering pair with a strange expression. “Where did you kids come from? Do you have any idea how dangerous this place is?”
“No... they aren’t human.” Xia Duo’s eyes suddenly widened. “Are you two dwarves?”
Starlight finally noticed that although the boy and girl had heights and appearances similar to human children, their palms were unusually thick and sturdy. It was a sharp contrast to their stature—a distinct trait of the dwarven race.
“That’s right!” Maela puffed out her chest proudly and introduced them loudly. “I am Maela Copperboot, and this bookworm behind me is Stark Iron-Heart.”
She then caught sight of the Moen sisters’ pointed ears, and her tense expression relaxed slightly. “And what about you? Why are elves hanging out with humans again?”
“We were commissioned to investigate an anomaly in this cave, and we happened to find your... Type 7 machine.” Seeing that the two didn’t seem malicious, Xia Duo put away her weapon and spoke to them. “Also, do you really not know where you are?”
Maela and Stark exchanged a look, then shook their heads blankly. They replied in unison, “No idea. We just followed Xiao Qi all the way here from underground.”
“Xiao Qi?” Po Kong raised an eyebrow at the immobilized six-legged machine. “Didn’t you just call it the Mark II something...”
“That’s not the point!” Starlight interrupted him, feeling stuck between laughter and tears, and pointed toward the ceiling.
“...I think it’s necessary to remind you that you’ve entered the territory of Dragon Valley. And quite unfortunately, you are currently directly beneath the residence of a Dragon King. The noise your survey machine made has made him very unhappy.”
“A-A Dragon King?!”
Stark immediately began to tremble. His goggles nearly slid off his face, and his notebook fell to the ground with a thud.
Even Maela’s face flashed with a trace of panic, but she quickly straightened her back and slapped Stark hard on the shoulder. “Get a grip, will you? So what if it’s a Dragon King? It’s not like he can just snatch us away from deep underground. At worst, we’ll just make a run for it...”
Before she could finish her sentence, the space beside them warped. Accompanied by the sharp sound of shattering crystal, Yserazor’s round body squeezed out of the void.
“Hmm? Who was it that just said this King couldn’t snatch you away?”
“...It was him!” Feeling the aura emanating from Yserazor, Maela’s breath hitched, and she immediately pointed at Stark beside her.
“???? Why is it me?!” Stark looked at his companion in terror.
“Alright, alright,” Starlight interrupted the farce, unable to hold back his amusement. “Yserazor, please stop scaring them.”
Then, looking at the Dragon King curiously, he asked, “But how did you find this place?”
“Hmph. They disturbed my sleep. Isn’t it only right to give them a little scare?” Yserazor snorted a puff of hot air and rolled his eyes. “I left a spatial mark on you. Once I sensed that the space here was large enough, I could come over whenever I wanted.”
“Oh... so you can do that too... I’ve learned something new!” Starlight nodded thoughtfully as the realization dawned on him.
Yserazor looked at Starlight’s reaction with satisfaction, then turned to the two shivering dwarves with a ‘kind’ smile. “Now, let’s talk about compensation for my lost sleep... This isn’t the place for a conversation. Everyone, come with me!”
Yserazor lazily snapped his fingers, and a tide of spatial power enveloped everyone.
When the group regained their senses, they were back in Yserazor’s cave.
...
After half an hour of detailed explanation, the truth of the matter finally came to light.
It all started with this seemingly timid young dwarf, Stark Iron-Heart.
As a member of the younger generation of the Iron-Heart family, he was about to face the most important coming-of-age ceremony for a dwarf at the turn of the New Year.
Unlike the customs of humans or elves, a dwarven coming-of-age ceremony wasn’t as simple as hosting a dinner. It required genuine participation in combat against external enemies.
Only after receiving a baptism of blood and fire could a dwarf’s identity be truly recognized. As one of the descendants of the Iron-Heart family, Stark took this even more seriously.
However, Stark had been less robust than his peers since childhood, and his magical talent was quite mediocre.
To pass the trial smoothly, he could only place his hopes on his equipment. Maela, his childhood friend, had stepped up to accompany him out of concern that he would run into trouble alone.
Since the minerals around the dwarven territories had been nearly exhausted after years of mining, the two had no choice but to leave Cinder City.
Led by Stark’s survey machine, they had wandered through underground tunnels for over ten days before arriving near Dragon Valley by chance.
“That’s why I said that piece of junk you invented is completely unreliable!” Maela said huffily, her hands on her hips. “We’ve followed it for so long, and we haven’t seen a single decent piece of ore!”
“That shouldn’t be. I just checked it; the survey machine’s scanning program definitely isn’t malfunctioning. There’s absolutely the ore we need nearby!” Stark countered, shaking his head while inspecting the machine.
“Stop arguing, you two. From what you’re saying, Stark made that strange machine?” Seeing that they were about to bicker again, Xia Duo quickly stepped in to stop them and tried to change the subject.
Sure enough, upon hearing Xia Duo’s question, Stark patted his chest proudly.
“Of course! I’ve used it to find several mineral veins before!”
Maela curled her lip. “And yet it failed this time. If you can’t find the right materials, I want to see what you’ll do two months from now!”
“Uh...”
Stark was momentarily speechless, deflating like a punctured balloon.
Moen circled the machine curiously. “A machine that can find mineral veins... Why have we never seen anything like this before? There’s no record of such a thing in books either.”
“Hmph. Of course it’s not in books. This bookworm tinkered with it himself. It’s probably just been luck that he found mineral veins those other times! If you ask me, a proper dwarf should use traditional prospecting picks and element-sensing stones!” Maela huffed and turned her head away, falling silent.
“His own invention? Now that is rare... but I recall the specialty of the Iron-Heart family is forging. Why would you make something like this?” Po Kong asked, stroking his chin as he looked at the strange, stationary machine.
“I... I’m not strong enough.” Stark admitted in a small voice, his fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of his training robes. “I can’t lift the family’s heirloom forging hammer...”
His voice grew lower and lower. “So I had to find another way...”
Po Kong suddenly burst into laughter and slapped Starlight hard on the back. “It seems I’ve been running into nothing but freaks lately! A mage who doesn’t act like a mage,”
He pointed at Starlight, then gestured toward the cave entrance. “And a ridiculously weak Dragon King heir, and now a dwarven craftsman who can’t lift a hammer!”
Rate on N.U.
