“This is good!” exclaimed the Dwarven King.
His advisors immediately spoke up, alarmed at his statement. “Sir! This is ruining the local ale market in our kingdom. This is an illegal good!”
The Dwarven King, realizing his mistake, awkwardly coughed and tried to backtrack his words.
“Right, right…this is an illegal good, that was what I meant to say…”
He wasn’t supposed to like beer because he was the voice of the Dwarven people. He was supposed to support only the products made by his fellow Dwarves. That was how it has always been and always will be. He was supposed to have an intense hatred against the outside world and everything they produced.
However, he couldn’t help but look at the bottle in his hands with eyes of longing.
Even now, all he could think about was getting another sip of this beer!
“Are you sure this isn’t a product of dwarves?! …gulp… this is surely from the mind of a genius dwarf!” the King said, casually taking another sip from the bottle.
“By the way, is this all that you have confiscated? If you have more, give it here so that I can inspect it a couple more times—for scientific purposes, of course.”
His advisors looked at him with worry. It looked like their King himself was caught up in the beer fever spreading around their kingdom.
The King waved off their concern. “Besides that, how is the overpopulation within our Capitol? Are there still a lot of refugees looking for a new home?”
Ever since the landslide, all the dwarves affected by it flocked to the Capitol of their kingdom, turning it overpopulated overnight.
Knowing that there were lives at stake, the King ordered his people to solve this problem immediately, turning rarely used forges into temporary homes for those dwarves.
All this extra work became the reason why the work on walls was delayed for such a long time.
He thought it was going well, but when he looked at his advisors, he saw their unsure faces.
“Is it bad news or good news?” he asked them.
His advisors looked at each other, not knowing if what they had was good news or not. “Your Highness, from what we could see, there is no longer an overpopulation problem within our Capitol.”
“Is that not a good thing?” he asked, confused as to why they were not celebrating.
“But sir, this is not due to our efforts. From what we have heard, the dwarves are all moving outside our Kingdom,” his advisors explained.
“Have you found where they went?” The King asked and his advisors nodded.
“Yes, Sire. They seemed to have moved into a village in the Parched Lands.”
He sat back down on his throne and thought for a second.
“They moved there? Permanently? But what about their responsibility to the Kingdom, to their fellow dwarves? They cannot let their positions unguarded for long.”
The villages surrounding the Kingdom played an important role in their defense. Without them, it would be much easier for them to be sieged.
But before his advisors could answer, the double doors to the throne room suddenly burst wide open as another dwarf, wearing the same royal attire as the King’s advisors, hurried inside panting.
“Your Highness!…haa..haaa…I have come with news.”
The King welcomed the dwarf in, letting him sit among his advisors. “What has caused you to be in such distress? Tell me.”
The dwarf steadied his breath before finally speaking.
“I have come back after surveying the outskirts of our kingdom, as you commanded me, Your Highness. When I arrived there, I saw something impossible!”
The dwarf then took out a scroll from his pockets and presented it to his King.
“This is a wall…” the King muttered as he observed the sketch on the parchment paper. It showed an elaborate wall structure, ten meters tall and sturdy enough to repel a cavalry.
“That is right, Your Highness. When I traveled to the outskirts, I came across these thick and strong walls that had suddenly sprung up from where our villages were supposed to be!
And that is not even the most surprising part. From what I have gathered, this wall seemed to have been built within just a few days, two days at the most!”
His words sent gasps throughout the throne room. They could hardly believe that such an elaborate wall structure could be built within just a few days. As craftsmen themselves, they knew the difficulties it would take to rush such a job, and from their estimates, this wall could only be constructed within a month!
“Two days?! That cannot be!”
“Preposterous. There is no magical or physical way to create such an elaborate wall within just a few days!”
“How can you be sure that the walls were made within two days?” the King asked.
“Your Highness, that wall wasn’t there when I visited it two days ago. There are also a lot of dwarves who saw the construction themselves, swearing to their kidneys that the walls were indeed built within two nights using a strange new liquid material that hardened within a few hours!”
The King and his advisors were still skeptical about this story, but they knew that the dwarf was a man of his word. There wasn’t any motive for him to lie, especially to the King.
“Have you investigated who created these walls?” the advisors asked.
“Yes. I happened upon one dwarf who lived alone near the outskirts named Thrain. He said that the walls are constructed so that the dwarves can leave the kingdom without having to betray their oath to protect it.
Your Highness, it seems that the dwarves are permanently moving to a village in the Parched Lands, where food, water, housing, and beer are as free as the air we breathe today.”
Once he heard that, the Dwarven King stood up from his throne and stared at the dwarf with serious intensity.
“That village…it’s where beer was made?” the King asked.
The dwarf nodded meekly, thinking that he had done something wrong.
“HOW DARE THEY?!” the King’s voice thundered. “How dare they hog all the beer to themselves?! I want it too!”
“Huh? Your Highness, did you say something else?” his advisors asked.
The King ignored his advisors’ query.
“It is decided! I shall visit this village for myself and see what it has to offer that we cannot!” the King said with a smile on his face, leaving his advisors to shake their heads in disappointment.
Their King’s intent was as clear as day. He just wanted to drink beer!