As Abel continued to chat with Rawl, he realized how scarce shops around here were. It was really bizarre to see. If all these different races were living together, how did the local inhabitants get their daily necessities?
“Why are there so few shops around, Rawl?” Abel turned his head around and asked.
Rawl replied, “You hadn’t been to a lot of dwarven cities, have you, Master Abel? You see, the city that you see is just its surface. The real wealth and beauty are located at the belly of the mountain. What you see here is just for humans and elves. Only a handful of dwarves live on the surface, while most of them, according to their traditional customs, make their livelihood underneath.”
After Rawl gave his explanation, he did an exaggerated pose as he pointed towards the road ahead. He was saying that the underground was big– like, massive.
When they continued a bit more, Rawl started pointing towards the tip of the mountain.
“That, right there, is the headquarter of the Blacksmith Union. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Rawl said to Abel.
On top of the mountain was a large, black castle, one which had a statue that was built on the very top. While Abel had never been to the place before, he knew who the statue was depicting. It was Greygenni, the dwarven god of mining and forging. According to the myths, the Greygenni was the first creature ever to mine minerals and turned them into usable tools. It was responsible for teaching those techniques to the dwarves, which helped them survive and fend against their enemies.
“Wait,” Abel said shocked as he came closer to the giant building, “Is this all made of black hematite?”
Rawl replied with a satisfied smile on his face, “That’s the same expression countless have had when visiting this place, Master Abel. Yes, those are all made of the most finely selected black hematite minerals. The entire building is built of the same material.”
Rawl continued with his explanation, “That’s not how it was originally built, though. The whole building began with just the statue on the top. You see, the dwarves have a very special traditional practice: when they dig up the finest black hematite piece, they will make it an offering to the great Greygenni. Eventually, when the black hematite pieces started to pile, it became so abundant that they could build an entire castle out of it.”
“Oh, no!” Abel called out, “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier? I didn’t bring any black hematite pieces with me!”
Rawl said as he handed a pure black ore to Abel, “Apologies, Master Abel, but the practice of making offerings is only ceremonial. The dwarves don’t force it upon races other than their own. If you still wish to do so, you can take this instead. Master Thorin has prepared for you. He knows how respectful you are to different cultures, so he told me to hand this to you in case you want to make a tribute.”
“That’s, uh, well, thank you very much, “Abel promptly took the ore piece. It was handed over by Master Thorin, but he still said thanks to Rawl since he was the one to give it to him.
At the same time, he felt a hateful glare came from inside the front entrance of the Blacksmith Union headquarter. It wasn’t just Abel that felt it. Bartoli also sensed its presence, and that made her grab tighter onto her magic staff. To calm her down, Abel waved his hand at her.
The owner was a human wizard. As for a reason for this display of disdain, Abel knew by looking at the red robe that he was wearing. There were two badges on that robe. One was the wizard badge, which indicated that the owner was a novice wizard. The other one was something that Abel was very familiar with. It was the identity badge of the Wizard Intelligence Agency of the St. Ellis Kingdom, an organization that was pretty much run by Wizard Cliff himself.
“You shouldn’t show up in public, Abel!” the red-cloaked wizard said with a cold smile.
“Watch your mouth when you talk to my master, you fiend!” Bartoli couldn’t help but call out loudly.
The red-cloaked wizard was caught off-guard by Bartoli’s outburst. He wasn’t often scolded due to his status. His robe was made of the blood of countless nobles, knights, and wizards, and it was not going to tolerate this kind of insolence.
Despite Cina City being a “pacifist city,” it still allowed the wizards to fight each other with their impose pressure. Those attacks were very hard to detect, after all. If the difference between skill levels were not a lot, barely any serious harm could be done.
This gave the red-cloaked wizard enough of a reason to unleash his at Abel and Bartoli. Even if Rawl had nothing to do with it, he was also influenced by this sudden attack.
Since Rawl was not a wizard, Abel had to be fast enough to block in front of him. If he wasn’t, the poor man would probably take a month to wake up from his coma.
On the other hand, a dark-golden light in Bartoli’s eyes started flashing. A unique impose pressure started coming out of her. Unlike the impose pressure of a wizard, it was filled with murderous intent and other frightening things. She attained it through years of bloodshed. It was granted to her by the darkness of the underworld.
When the two different forces collided against each other, the red-cloaked wizard jumped backward out of instinctual fear. He wasn’t sure why, but it’s like what he was looking at was something that was particularly frightening. The next thing he knew, his eyes were wide open, and his butt was on the floor.
A white light started to cover the red-cloaked wizard. When he finally recovered from the shock, he threw a hateful look back at Abel. He wasn’t sure what happened to him, but Abel just made him waste a passive magic defensive item. The fight hadn’t even begun, and he was already activating a once-in-a-lifetime item.
The red-cloaked wizard then started cursing at Abel, “You’ll regret that, Abel! Just you wait! The intelligence force will have their revenge!
I…”
As scared he was of Bartoli, when he concentrated all his hatred back at Abel, those sharp eyes kept on staring and staring at him.
“Oh, oh! Where am I?” Rawl got up as he woke up, “Thank you, Master Abel, for whatever you’ve done to protect me.”
Abel smiled at Rawl, “No need to say thanks, Rawl. Actually, I need to say sorry to you. I might have just dragged you into this.”Abel turned back to the red-cloaked wizard. To be honest, he would’ve killed this guy already if this wasn’t a pacifist city. A novice wizard was nothing to him at his current level. He didn’t even need his summoned creatures to take on him. Damn. If only there were no restraints, I could wipe out this absolute menace to society.
Abel turned to ask Rawl, “Can we banish him for what he just did?”
“That’s not for me to say, sir, but I can report it to the senior staff!” Rawl replied. He was also angry being attacked like this. He didn’t hesitate to take out his identity card to make a call.
When Rawl finished his call, a white light flashed next to Rawl. A black-cloaked wizard appeared. After bowing to Abel, he turned to Rawl and had him explain everything that just happened.
The black-cloaked wizard then said to the red-cloaked wizard, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave Cina City forever, sir. Please, don’t come back here again. You’re not welcomed here.”
That upset the red-cloaked wizard. He didn’t come to Cina City to play around. He came here to have a blacksmith make a magic staff for him. It wasn’t like the master blacksmiths would be around all the time, so he looked forward to the upcoming gathering event.
The red-cloaked wizard screamed as all his schedulings had been for naught, “No! Ah! AGHHGH! I’m the representative of Master Cliff! No one can banish me! NEVEr!”
The black-cloaked wizard replied with a sneer, “Oh? So you are saying we should put Wizard Cliff on our blacklist as well?”
