Tower Apocalypse 4: A LitRPG Isekai Fantasy Adventure Series, page 5
Those herbs were important ingredients for the potion hub. While we could grow additional plants in the hub itself, the best potions also required natural ingredients. Nick’s split was reasonable, but based on Emma’s explanation, it was obvious what’d gone wrong.
I made an irritated face.
“Did you know that there weren’t any more underground herbs when you made that offer?”
“No,” Nick replied. “How could I? There was no reason for us to go into the dwergar’s underground tunnels, and we made that deal on the very first day of the merger. Later on, Healhand came back to me, complaining that his herbs had vanished, but a deal is a deal.”
Nick made a stubborn face.
“If it was our herbs that’d vanished, the dwergar wouldn’t have given them back. Besides, my methods are more efficient. Based on our conversation, the dwergar don’t have the best methods. They will only produce potions at half the rate at us.”
Thunderbeard made an angry noise and then spat on the ground. The muscular dwergar briefly got up from his seat, glowering at Nick, but I held my hand up, politely asking him to sit down again.
Sure, Nick wasn’t the most diplomatic guy, but I knew that he wouldn’t lie either.
“Nick,” I asked. “Would you be willing to share your potions with the dwergar?”
“Yes,” he replied. “But if you’d like, we can charge them a price too. We are living together, but we are still separate species competing. Who knows how long this alliance will last?”
“How long…you think that we’d go back on our word?!” Thunderbeard boomed. The dwarf leader looked so angry he was about to blow up on the spot, but I again raised my hands.
“Thunderbeard. You know me for a fair man. I’m just trying to figure out the whole situation, and then together we will meditate on this agreement.”
I emphasized the word “together” just so the dwergar would know that I wasn’t going to throw away our alliance for some potions.
The dwergar eyed me for a moment, and then he nodded.
“Yes, human Devin. I trust you.” He pointed out in the distance. “Your man irritates me. I will blow off some steam.”
He stomped off, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself. If only Verdunn saw Thunderbeard blowing off the meeting. Who knew what he’d say then?
“Get Healhand too,” I called. “I’ll be done with Nick soon, and we can hear his side of the story.”
Thunderbeard gruffly agreed, and then I turned back to Nick, smirking a little. “Come on, dude. You could stand to be a bit more diplomatic.”
“Yes, boss. I’m sorry about that,” Nick said, bowing his head. “But I’m irritated. The dwergar were waiting outside the hub, making a bunch of threats, and I didn’t understand why. In fact, I offered to redo our deal, but they shouted over me, calling me a thief, and saying I made their herbs disappear. I definitely didn’t do that, and I didn’t want to trust a species where every member was calling me a thief.”
I scowled.
Now that was weird.
From the little I knew of Healhand, he was much kinder than Thunderbeard. And while Nick’s deal had wound up greatly benefiting humanity, it was clear that he couldn’t have known what the System would do to the dwergar’s flora and fauna.
“Emma,” I called. She was sitting in the audience on the stone benches, chatting with Ben, waiting for me to finish. “Do you mind coming here for a moment?”
She nodded and then walked over. I explained the situation and asked for her opinion.
She thought for a moment and then shrugged. “I mean, I see why the dwergar are pissed. But I’m kind of with Nick here. A deal is a deal, even if it didn’t work out.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “The problem is, I don’t want the dwergar wondering why they chose to ally with us in the first place. If we suddenly take away all their high-tier potions, they will be pissed off. It could mean war.”
“Sorry I caused you this trouble,” Nick muttered.
I shook my head.
“No, I think you were just doing what you thought was best for humanity. I think it’s good you didn’t back down until talking to me. By the way, was what you said about Healhand true? That he’s not as productive as you?”
Nick nodded, pulling out a journal from his inventory. The journal had a handsome brown leather cover, and though he’d written it in a quill—there was no such thing as pens or pencils in the fantasy-like setting of Gaea—the writing was still very neat and fastidious.
“Here,” he said, handing it over.
I took a look at his notes, where he’d carefully documented Healhand’s methodology for organizing everyone into the resource hub. Nick was clearly right—while the dwergar had some semblance of lining up their civilians and using them to farm and brew potions, it was far less efficient.
“Alright,” I said. “We should try to keep as much of the potion-creation under our control as possible. I’ll probably have to give them some of the herbs, but maybe we can get Thunderbeard to give something to us in exchange. Make us weapons or something.”
“That’d be smart,” Emma whispered. “Dwarves are always said to be smiths, and the dwergar—both the small ones and the big ones—are no different.”
I nodded, figuring that maybe that could be a good way to bring our two species together.
“By the way,” Nick asked. “Is what the System said true? That us and the dwergar are the first species to combine?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I think so. I don’t think it lied about that.”
Thinking back to Parfanel’s memories and all the lives he’d lived, that’d never happened. The same went for all the other worlds—whether they were alternate timelines or past runs of the Great Game, I didn’t know yet—that I’d witnessed. That suggested that we were the first.
Nick’s usual irritated and pinched expression turned solemn.
“Well, I’ll be damned then,” he said. “If we really are the very first two species to be grouped together, then we better work our asses off to prove that it works. It’s my personal pride on the line here too.”
“Wow,” Emma laughed, grinning. “Someone is taking this seriously.”
“That’s just my nature,” Nick explained. “I’ve always been a contrarian going against the grain. Unafraid to do things my own way, you know?”
Based on how he’d revamped our town structure, I thought that was true, but I couldn’t resist a jab.
“Go against the grain?” I asked. “Didn’t you work for the government?”
Emma giggled, but Nick just looked irritated.
“You know, local government is different,” he said. “Actually, in the United States, where I’m from…”
I cut him off.
“I’m from the States too.”
“Oh, well then you should know that local politics is quite independent. It’s very different from the state or federal—”
I just waved my hand, cutting him off.
“Dude. I don’t need a civics lesson! Now go watch from the bench for a while as I bring in Healhand.”
Nick groused for a moment longer about how nobody appreciated local politics, some random stuff about fixing potholes, but he eventually walked off to the bench.
It took another moment of waiting—just with me and Emma, but eventually, Healhand came in along with Thunderbeard, whose cheeks were still flushed. Considering how Nick had basically insulted the dwergar to his face last time around, I didn’t want him nearby.
To my surprise, Healhand looked quite worried. His face was pale, and there was a sheen of sweat on his brow, which made me feel suspicious. Had he lied to Thunderbeard somehow? Said that Nick stole items when he really had just blundered the deal by agreeing without checking?
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” Healhand replied, though he still looked nervous.
“You don’t look it,” I noted.
He gulped, then looked at Thunderbeard, who waved his hand dismissively.
“Come on. Devin’s fine,” he grumbled. “He even has a summon that’s an honorary dwergar. He will not treat you unfairly.”
Ah.
So that was it.
Healhand thought I’d naturally be biased towards my own species, which, to be fair, I was. Since I was much stronger than him, he was worried about angering me.
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “Just tell me your side of the story. Why did you accuse my man of theft?”
To my surprise, Healhand told the exact same story as Nick, with one change. In Healhand’s telling, the dwergar’s herbs were all still underground…
Until an earthquake a day after the agreement shifted the land, pushing all of the dwergar’s underground gardens above the surface.
Emma and I locked eyes, thinking of our conversation earlier.
So that was why there’d been an earthquake. It was the System fucking with us, trying to get us to fight each other.
“Can any other dwergar confirm the shifting herbs?” I asked.
“Yes. I can,” Thunderbeard rumbled. “The other dwergar saw it too. Since it happened right after the deal, it seemed like a coincidence. Almost like your man made an agreement with the System. We’d even noticed humans giving up levels.”
“They gave up those levels to try and find out why there was an earthquake!” Emma exclaimed, cutting in before I could reply.
Thunderbeard’s expression shifted, rapidly darkening. He cursed under his breath, and I only caught a few words, but it was clear that he knew the System was to blame, too.
“We can redistribute the herbs,” I said.
Even though the System had rigged the situation, it wasn’t like we could just walk away. The dwergar needed their herbs, and we needed the dwergar.
“Thank you, Devin,” Thunderbeard replied. His and Healhand’s faces brightened. “We will offer the same good faith if the System ever plays with your resources. But I must ask—is there anything else you want? Your man made the contract in good faith, and the dwergar word is the law. We must honor him somehow.”
I thought back to Nick’s conversation, then turned to Healhand.
“My man says that he thinks his management skills are better than yours. Do you disagree?”
Healhand looked at me, a serious expression on his face.
“No, not at all Devin. In fact, I agree. He mentioned his techniques, and I’d wanted to learn from him until all this happened.”
I mulled over Healhand’s words for a moment, then turned to both him and Thunderbeard.
“What do you think of working under him to learn more? If Thunderbeard allows it, that is.”
“Work under him?” Healhand asked. “What do you mean?’
“I mean exactly that. I know a human can’t enter your hub, but he will arrange the timing for the dwergar civilians to plant and brew. He will give you direct instructions on what to do, and then you will follow his procedures inside and report to him.”
I could see caution entering Healhand’s eyes so I noted Nick’s promise.
“He claims he is twice as productive as you are.”
That changed everything, which actually caused me to respect Healhand even more. He didn’t want to give up his position as a boss, but he cared about his people more than his pride.
“Very well, then. I will work under the human. You can let him know.”
I nodded, pointing at Nick in the stands.
“You can go speak to him now. Let him know what I said.”
“Very well then,” Healhand said, nodding and walking off.
That left just Emma, Thunderbeard, and me.
“I would have probably made him work with you if he hadn’t agreed to himself,” Thunderbeard said. “This is no time for pride. We need to learn from each other.”
I nodded.
“Agreed. In other areas, like building, smithing, and hand-to-hand fighting, your people are superior. Since I freely shared our secrets, I ask you to do so as well.”
Thunderbeard nodded.
“Yes. I think we must. This is life or death after all. If the System wishes to treat us as one, then we must act as one if we want to survive.”
I smiled, then reached out a hand. He shook it, having copied our human custom enough times by now that he knew it well. Thinking back to my secret plan to escape, I now had all the more reason to include the dwergar as well.
“I will say, though,” Thunderbeard added. “I’m surprised you didn’t push for more. You could, you know. Since you are stronger than me. It would even fit dwergar culture, where the stronger get more say.”
“Well, you are stronger than Ben and Ren, and from what they told me, you didn’t throw your weight around either.”
“Throw your weight around?” Thunderbeard asked quizzically.
“A saying we have,” I hastily added. I didn’t want him to think I was calling him fat or anything like that. “It means you didn’t bully them.”
“Yes, I suppose I didn’t,” Thunderbeard said, flushing a little.
I smirked. Despite his gruff nature, the dwergar was a total softie.
“By the way, I’m curious,” I asked. “How do the dwergar work? Why is it that there is a shorter species and a larger species?”
“Ah,” Thunderbeard said. “It is quite interesting, actually. I was shocked after coming here to find that other species like you humans or the darkling didn’t work this way. After a dwarf dwergar dies a natural death, he will be reborn for a second life as a giant dwergar, with the same memories of his old life. It is a second life, so to speak, though we do not get it if killed by battle or poisons or any other foul means.”
Now that was shocking.
Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t that, though I did find it amusing for him to refer to himself as a dwarf. While he had the larger head and stronger bone structure associated with dwarves in our folklore, he was just a little shorter than I was. Then again, compared to the giants like Ymir, they were dwarves, so I guess they couldn’t call themselves “mediums” or something weird like that.
“You didn’t expect that, did you?” Thunderbeard asked.
“No. And you’re serious, right? Not just joking with me?”
“Not at all,” Thunderbeard replied. “I’m surprised you people don’t have a second life of your own.”
I smirked.
“Maybe Rhino will. You know, as a rhino.”
He chuckled, and soon we were leaving the central stage, walking off into the woods laughing and joking with each other. Thunderbeard acted totally natural, promising to bring more beer for our next meeting, but I was still shocked by his revelation that the dwarven dwergar were reborn as giants.
Then again, I supposed to them, it was only natural.
As we continued working and living together, more of these strange mysteries would be answered, and we would grow to understand and live alongside each other better than before.
CHAPTER 5: THE BLESSING
“Ugh,” I groaned, stretching my limbs and shaking myself out of bed.
It’d been a few days since I’d awoken from my long dream of Parfanel’s life. I was glad to be back in reality, but my body sure wasn’t.
The burning in my chest from the Fragment—hot ever since my dream of Parfanel—was still going on, but like before, it wasn’t unpleasant. It filled me with energy, though I couldn’t help but wonder what it’d mean for the future.
But as for my immediate source of pain…
I was covered head to toe in bruises—nasty purple ones that you could only get after a group of brutal dwarves hit you at full strength.
“Fucking Thunderbeard…” I cursed.
“Hah. Rhino is almost as bad,” Emma added.
I nodded, half-laughing and half-cursing as I felt the worst wound of all—a huge bruise on the right side of my ribcage that’d spread across my whole body.
“It’s just fucking sparring. I know we’re supposed to train like it's real life, but he didn’t have to go that hard.”
“I’m just shocked it didn’t break your skin,” Emma said.
“Yeah, tell me about it…the wonders of force manipulation, I guess. I just need to make sure they don’t also injure us in some kind of drunken brawl.”
“That’s the craziest thing about the dwergar,” Emma agreed. “Ben was saying the same thing. They can just train all day, then get right to drinking and celebrating! And it’s not just Reiny who’s an ‘honorary dwergar,’ clearly, Rhino and Verdunn are too when it comes to slamming drinks.”
Now that our territories were combined, we and the dwergar had been training daily.
Sometimes, we went with the most obvious configuration, of having humans on one side and dwergar on the other, but usually, we tried to mix things up so that we would be ready to fight side-by-side at any time.
The competition was always pretty fierce, and while people generally understood that I was the strongest in the alliance, that just meant that nobody would cut me any slack. Rhino, Thunderbeard, Ymir, Verdunn, Schroder, the list went on. Every strong fighter I’d met since coming here wanted a piece of me, which meant that I was constantly fighting.
I learned a lot of great fighting techniques and strategies while battling alongside my friends and allies.
Ymir taught me how to explosively unleash my force all at once. Since our favorite skill was [FORCE WAVE] we got to spend a lot of time practicing together. He couldn’t triple his attack with [TRIFURCATE] but the sheer size of his sword meant his area-of-effect was comparable to mine.
Verdunn taught me some wrestling and grappling techniques to catch my opponents off-guard if we were ever in ultra-close range.
Thunderbeard went even further, training my summons, especially Reinhardt, on bludgeoning techniques.
“What do you have today?” I asked, turning to Emma.
“Group training. I’m leading a mixed mage party into the forest. It’s mostly beginners, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I’m still getting the hang of this leader stuff.”
