mynovelweb Chapter 571 - 561: Ashforge City
Chapter 571 - 561: Ashforge City
No. 4 was very conflicted.
Pink Puki hadn’t hugged it for three days.
And all because of that cherished trophy of its—one severed head from a Cultist.
The group of Cultists they ran into right after leaving the Scarecrow Abyss hadn’t been a coincidence.
The Continent was in turmoil; the Hand of Death was taking advantage of the chaos to cause trouble everywhere, and the buffer zones between national borders were precisely where they were most active.
Along the way, they repeatedly picked up traces of the Hand of Death. Some were just vague rumors, others were very real tragedies.
Refugees vanished for no reason; the corpses of Adventurers were found in remote caves, already gnawed beyond recognition by Demons, with traces of sacrificial rituals left beside them...
Whenever he got a whiff of a lead, Fourteen would insist on going to investigate.
Because of this, their schedule had already been delayed quite a bit.
If No. 10 Puki were still here, he would probably have started arguing with Fourteen by now.
But the ones present now were No. 4, who didn’t really care, and Inanna, who was almost infinitely indulgent toward the Pukis.
Ronan, the steward of the delegation, had plenty of complaints about this, but it was obvious he had no authority over Fourteen.
No. 4 went along every time; that head was something it had personally chopped off, and it treated it as proof of its glory.
Unfortunately, Pink Puki didn’t seem to appreciate that glory.
On one side was the trophy it planned to bring back to show off to the other Mushroom Race, on the other side was Pink Puki’s warm, soft, full-body kneading service.
It agonized over the choice for a long, long time...
"No... Little Four, even if you stuff that head into your belly, I still won’t hug you..."
"Also, that head’s already starting to stink. You need a bath."
No. 4, belly bulging, drooped its mushroom cap, utterly dejected.
It shuffled slowly to the roadside, reluctantly took out that now shriveled and darkened head, and solemnly placed it on the branch of a short tree, holding a final farewell.
Then Inanna personally cast Magic and carefully rinsed it down from head to toe.
As the delegation entered the Mountains, the traces of Cultists finally disappeared.
The road began to change; no longer a dirt track through forest and field, it had been carved along the ridgeline into neat stone paths.
The roadway was narrow, at times clinging to sheer cliffs, with only a fog-filled chasm on the outer side.
The Mountains stretched on in chains, their bare rock faces iron gray or dark red, with trees whose leaves were like blades and thickets of brambles stubbornly growing between them.
The more distant, higher peaks were capped with snow that never melted, glinting with a cold silver sheen under the thin sunlight.
To let carriages travel such roads, the delegation had been forced, before entering the mountains, to swap the fine steeds brought from the Kingdom for high-horned goats adapted to running back and forth along mountain paths.
High-horned goats were good at climbing and had great endurance, but in appearance they were a far cry from fine horses.
A day later, a city appeared at the edge of their sight.
It was built neither at the foot nor atop the mountain, but was a medium-sized fortress embedded halfway up the slope—Ash City.
From afar, the city looked like it had grown out from inside the mountain itself. Massive blocks of heavy bronze-colored stone formed its foundations and outer walls, with towering ramparts rising and falling along the contours of the mountain.
Several square towers jutted up behind the walls, their tops not pointed spires but flat watch platforms, where the faint figures of Dwarf Warriors in heavy armor could be seen.
Even more eye-catching was the middle section of the city, where several broad open-air platforms had been hewn out. On the largest of them, a dark red glow of fire flickered faintly, clearly visible even in daylight—that was the Dwarves’ ever-burning public forge.
Several thick columns of smoke slowly rose from vents at different points on the mountainside, shooting straight up into the clouds.
The last stretch leading to the city gate was a steep zigzagging ramp. On the rock walls to either side, giant reliefs with rough-hewn lines had been carved, depicting Warriors with hammers fighting side-by-side with their best companions, griffins.
Unfortunately, with the griffins now so few in number, only the royal family could still field a griffin Knight Order.
A border city like Ash City—one that even faced an ally—could only put up sculptures like this as a symbolic gesture.
The delegation finally arrived at the base of the city.
The heavy black-iron gates were tightly shut, their surfaces studded with rivets and bearing the dull sheen of years of smoke and rain. At the checkpoint before the gate, a squad of Dwarf Warriors in chainmail and carrying battle-axes stared coldly at the delegation’s arrival.
A Dwarf whose beard was braided into thick plaits and who wore a captain’s insignia on his Shoulder Armor stepped forward a few paces, his voice deep: "Who are you? What business do you have here?"
Ronan’s brows furrowed at once. As an experienced delegation manager, he had sent a swift courier ahead several days ago to deliver notice.
By rights, even if there was no grand welcoming procession, the gates should at least be open by now, with a ceremonial officer waiting to receive them.
No reception, and instead the gates shut tight and a strict interrogation—had the courier met with misfortune on the way?
Suppressing his doubts, he stepped forward and offered a proper salute. "We represent the United Kingdom, here to negotiate a new alliance with our Dwarf allies! Lady Inanna, daughter of Duke Alama and hero of the Battle of Dragon Roar Valley, is also among our delegation."
He expected the other side’s attitude to change at the mention of Inanna’s name.
However, the Dwarf captain merely listened impassively and answered in a short line: "Got it. I’ll go report."
Then he turned around and left, actually leaving the entire delegation standing outside the closed gates, on the windswept mountain road.
This went far beyond mere negligence or ignorance.
Ronan’s face darkened; clearly, the problem wasn’t with the courier. The Dwarves here were deliberately neglecting them, even openly making things difficult.
Time crawled by in silence, mountain winds sweeping along the cliffs and carrying the distant rumble of forges.
Only after a long while did the two massive black-iron gates groan with a harsh scrape and slowly open a gap just wide enough for carriage and livestock to pass.
Their line finally entered, and the world beyond the gate was filled with a thicker smell of smoke and fire, and a constant metallic echo. The streets were narrow and steep, with warm yellow light shining out from the window openings of stone houses on either side.
Just then, No. 4, who had been resting peacefully in Inanna’s arms, enjoying the long-missed kneading service, suddenly tattled to her via the Fungal Network:
"Just now that... shorter one, the one only a bit taller than me, he was secretly calling them ’oath-breaking scum’ behind their backs."
The "them" No. 4 referred to were the humans in the delegation. After all, it and Pink Puki were both Pukis; they definitely couldn’t be lumped in with the ones being insulted.
Inanna glanced back and happened to meet the Dwarf captain’s look of disgust head-on.
This left Inanna somewhat puzzled. Had they done something to make the Dwarves hate them?
...
At the very top of the fortress, inside a tower of great stone and bronze, the Dwarf Lord Badri Deep Furnace was leaning on his rune-engraved battle-axe, looking down at the delegation slowly entering the city below.
The mountain wind outside the tower whipped at his thick iron-gray beard; the metal rings at the ends of his braids clinked softly against each other.
"Allies? A new alliance?" Badri snorted in disdain. "A bunch of crafty humans—what new trick are they trying to pull to drag others into their mess this time?"