The peddlers looked at each other just to make sure that they all heard the same thing.
They knew that the dwarves were going to deny them entry to their kingdom. They already expected it because in the thousands of years of history they had in this country, they had never let a human inside the walls of their kingdom.
However, they would have never expected the reason for their denial was because they didn’t bear the Reborn company’s symbol on their carriage.
“Reborn company? Good dwarf sir, did you say the Reborn company?” the peddler asked, scratching his ear just to make sure he was hearing it right.
The dwarf nodded his head confidently in return. “Yes. Unless you have the official emblem of the Reborn company, then you can’t enter this premises.”
Judging by their words, they made it seem like being affiliated with the Reborn company allowed them an exception to enter the Dwarven Kingdom. But that was impossible, right?
After all, the Reborn company was a human-owned business operated by humans. There was no way that the xenophobic dwarves would willingly let the humans spread their business into their kingdom.
Just then, one of the peddlers looked around the forestry and noticed that their walls were standing tall, with virtually no scratch on them.
“Wait a minute, how did your walls come out unscathed from the landslide?” he asked.
Seeing pristine walls surrounding the Dwarven Kingdom surprised the peddler who expected to see a half-built wall under construction.
After all, it had only been a few months. Even the mountain ranges between the Queens and Kings region were still under renovation because of the landslide, with plenty of roads still blocked by uprooted trees and boulders.
And from what they heard about, the Dwarven Kingdom was very much affected by this landslide, destroying their walls and their villages into mere rubble.
The peddler even saw the aftermath of the natural disaster himself when he tried to visit this place right after the landslide.
He saw nothing but destruction then. But now, the dwarves were somehow able to completely reconstruct their numerous layers of walls in just a few months.
They knew the dwarves were good at construction, but they didn’t think they were this good.
“We did not build those walls,” the dwarves confessed. “Those walls were constructed with the help of the Reborn company.”
Seeing the jaws of the humans slacked wide open, the dwarf laughed to himself.
“Hahaha, aren’t they amazing? Believe it or not, they rebuilt our walls in just a month and a half,” the dwarf bragged.
The peddlers were already amazed at the fact that the dwarves let a human do their construction for them, but even more so when they found out how fast they built the walls.
“Building these tall walls in just under two months?!”
“I’m sorry, but that simply isn’t possible!”
The dwarf didn’t argue with them any longer because even if he explained the truth to them, they would find it hard to believe no matter what.
“Do you see the road that you’re standing on right now?” the dwarf asked. “Reborn is responsible for creating this road connecting to the human territories.”
Finally, the peddlers had their answer as to who constructed this long-spanning flat road. They just couldn’t believe that it was the Reborn company who created it.
And just as they were trying to process this information, they suddenly heard a rumbling sound in front of them.
When they looked up, they saw strange rectangular and boxed-shaped carriages that exited the walls of the Dwarven Kingdom.
The first weird thing they noticed from this was that the carriages had no horses pulling them forward. Yet, the carriages still moved with speed and power as if they had four horses on the harness.
However, their surprise was quickly redirected when they noticed the emblem stamped in gold on the side of the vehicle.
There was an intricate and elaborate letter ‘R’ on the horseless carriage.
The peddlers immediately recognized this symbol. How could they not? The soaps, shampoos, and chessboards that they were all so familiar with had this bearing on its body as well.
This was a property of the Reborn company!
It seemed that the dwarves’ words were true. Only carriages with the Reborn company symbol could enter their territory.
But perhaps that wasn’t the most shocking thing that the peddlers saw.
Behind the horseless carriages was a big container being hauled, so filled with materials that it was almost overflowing at the top of the container. Because of this, the peddlers were able to sneak a peak into what the Reborn company was hauling out of the Dwarven Kingdom.
Most of what they could see was a combination of precious metals like aluminum, copper, and steel.
However, what most surprised them was the appearance of a black and grey material that they had seen only once in their life. But even then, they wouldn’t mistake it for anything else because of how precious and rare this material was.
Those were the Damascus Steel that the dwarves were so famous for!
As peddlers, they knew just how rare this material was. Because of the Dwarven Kingdom’s policy of rejecting business from outsiders, humans could only obtain very small pieces of Damascus Steel from the black market.
It was already a good haul if they could get a few kilograms of this stuff once every few years.
But from their estimation, the Damascus Steel in those carriages almost weighed a ton!
“Is that… is that what I think it is?”
“But I thought the Dwarven Kingdom prohibited the selling of Damascus Steel?”
The dwarf scoffed. “Yes, we still prohibit other humans from buying Damascus Steel. But the Reborn company is different. They are a friend and an ally to our kingdom. They can buy all the Damascus Steel from our mines and we will gladly sell it to them,” the dwarf explained.
The peddlers couldn’t help but stare at the ‘R’ symbol on those carriages.
They couldn’t believe that the Reborn company was able to do something that no human had ever done in forever.
They gained the favor of the dwarves!
