Ding... Dong... Clang...
Frozen earth covered with thick snow; muffled, dull knocking sounds came from beneath a certain patch of snow layer. A patch of accumulated snow suddenly collapsed, revealing a pitch-black hole.
Immediately after, a Puchi pushed aside the crushed snow and drilled out, ice shards still sticking to its mushroom cap.
The Puchi shook its body, then extended mycelial tentacles and pulled the two dwarves below out.
"How long... did we crawl down there exactly?" Pollock wiped his face, looking somewhat dazedly at the snowy Northern Territory. "Two days? Or three days?"
Jadin raised the forging hammer whose edges were already slightly deformed and complained: "If I knew we'd have to chisel our way through, I would have brought a pickaxe even if it killed me!"
This underground passage crossing the Empire's border wasn't a recent creation. When Puchis excavated it initially, they did leave ample space.
But due to long-term disuse, rain and snow seeping in condensed into ice inside the passage, squeezing the passage space. Even Puchis passing through was quite strained, let alone two dwarves a full two sizes sturdier than Puchis.
They had to knock and chisel their way along, spending a long time before getting out.
Fortunately, the Puchi not only gave each of them a constant-temperature pendant but also stored quite a few juicy Delicious Mushrooms inside its body.
Although the two days of crawling underground were arduous, leaving their bodies bruised all over, when it came to food, that was truly a supreme taste they had never tasted in their lives.
Although the price of Delicious Mushrooms continued to drop on the human side, the mountains hadn't been covered by fungal mats yet.
Merchants transported Delicious Mushrooms into the mountains, and the price multiplied many times.
Although still infinitely lower than those delicious fruits of the past, it still wasn't something two craftsman apprentices could afford.
This did satisfy their fantasy of "paradise" to a certain extent.
After coming out, the two dwarves didn't forget their current situation. After catching their breath slightly, they looked around nervously, afraid they were still within the Empire's borders and would be done for if they bumped into a demon patrol squad.
The surroundings were a vast expanse of whiteness, seemingly nothing there, but the sharp-eyed Jadin still discovered an anomaly.
"Who's there?" He roared with full breath. "Person behind the tree, come out! I see you!"
The figure behind the withered tree hesitated for a moment, but finally moved out slowly.
It was a human male. No shackles on his body, but that patchy, poor-quality coat and the faintly visible branding scar on his neck all indicated the other party's identity was a slave.
"Who are you? How come you're here?" Jadin asked in a deep voice, gripping the hammer handle tightly.
The man shrank back, his voice timid: "I... I escaped from the Stone Valley Mine. Hungry... and beaten, I stole a heating stone, then, then ran north desperately."
He subconsciously touched his chest area, where the small heat source he mentioned was hidden.
His appearance was extremely wretched: lips frozen purple, cheeks sunken, barefoot wrapped in rags, standing in the snow trembling slightly.
In his eyes, besides fear, there was also the blankness after a desperate gamble.
Jadin and Pollock exchanged a look, a trace of sympathy rising in their eyes.
Dwarves captured by the Empire probably ended up like this human too.
"Just you alone? No weapons?" Pollock pressed.
The man shook his head hurriedly, even actively opening his tattered clothes to show: "No, nothing at all..."
Seeing he indeed posed no threat, the two dwarves truly relaxed and hung their hammers back on their backs.
They wanted to help, but they had also just arrived in this strange land, their future uncertain.
The two looked at the Puchi waiting quietly aside by coincidence.
This little guy was the guide.
The Puchi extended a tentacle into its body, pulling out several still plump and moist Delicious Mushrooms, and also coiled out another constant-temperature pendant.
A heating stone was a natural heat-storing stone; after storing full heat, it could maintain warmth for a long time. But compared to a magic item like the constant-temperature pendant, it was still far behind.
And given the current situation in the Northern Territory, an ordinary heating stone probably couldn't even survive a night.
The man reached out a trembling hand, receiving the mushrooms and pendant. A warm current immediately wrapped around his almost frozen stiff body.
He devoured the Delicious Mushrooms, hurriedly scraping up even the sweet juice overflowing from the corners of his mouth with his fingers, cherishingly sipping it back into his mouth—indeed the appearance of someone long tortured by hunger.
After a few mushrooms went down, he finally caught his breath, thanking the Puchi and dwarves incessantly, his voice choking with emotion.
The Puchi just gently hooked its mycelial tentacle, pointing in a certain direction, indicating for them all to follow.
This walk lasted a full half month.
The mushrooms stored in the Puchi's body were finished quickly. Fortunately, on the third day after leaving the hole, they stepped onto the fungal mat.
Since then, the guiding Puchi could always accurately find fresh Delicious Mushroom clusters growing from the fungal mat amidst the pale accumulated snow.
And the initial worry about demon patrol squads also gradually dissipated as the journey deepened.
Such severe cold and desolation was almost a forbidden zone for life. Except for the few of them, who else would risk their lives appearing in this ice and snow?
However, the boundless cold and monotony, seeing almost no living creatures except for the fungal mat, also made the two dwarves harboring the dream of "Blacksmith's Paradise" feel uneasy again.
Hope was worn down by the day-after-day pallor, while doubts quietly bred.
The journey was long and dull. Fortunately, that human slave named Joel was a talkative person.
He was captured in a certain border conflict. While resting, he would often talk about various experiences of being a slave in the Empire—the depth of the mine tunnels, the whip shadows of overseers, the silent disappearances of companions.
In such sporadic chats and shared hardships, the group gradually formed a friendship.
On the seventeenth day, just when they thought they would face repetitive and arduous trekking again, footprints appeared in the snow ahead!
This discovery instantly ignited the group's almost numb nerves, meaning the destination might be close!
But amidst the excitement, carefully identifying those footprints raised doubts in their hearts.
Small and round, or simply dragging a ditch in the accumulated snow, should be Puchi footprints. They had seen such footprints for half a month and wouldn't mistake them.
But mixed among them were many larger footprints. Some looked like heavy boot prints deeply sunken into the snow, while others had distinct edges with clear claw marks, definitely not belonging to humans or dwarves.
This made the group, unsure of the situation, raise their vigilance.
They followed that string of mixed footprints, trekking for about another half hour in the increasingly fierce wind and snow.
Suddenly, the guiding Puchi stopped, its tentacle pointing in a direction. The three looked along it, and instantly, it seemed even the howling wind stopped.
Behind the churning snow curtain, on the horizon, without warning... a city rose.
It wasn't an illusion.
Towering city walls cut out a solid and strange silhouette in the sky full of plain white.
Above the city walls, several magic towers stood tall. The tops of the most conspicuous ones weren't ordinary spires but had large blocks of magic crystals suspended and slowly rotating, flashing with the brilliance of magic.
"There... actually really is a giant city built in such a place..." Jadin almost dared not believe his eyes.
Pollock was even moved to tears, murmuring "unlimited ores" in his mouth.
Joel also opened his mouth wide in shock, unable to close it for a long time. Just in terms of scale, the city before his eyes could rank among the top few even in the Empire, let alone looking at the brilliance on the city walls and magic towers; this was clearly not a city with only a superficial appearance.
In the distance, Starfire, who had been waiting for a long time, led his subordinates and Puchis to welcome them.
"Demon-born!" Seeing Starfire, Jadin's mood was like riding a roller coaster, falling into the valley bottom again.
"Don't be nervous, this is not the Empire, and I am not your enemy." Starfire spoke Common Human Language with a slight accent, smiling as he came before the three.
However, compared to Starfire's comfort, the appearance of his human subordinates was clearly more persuasive.
The humans in the team were dressed decently with natural expressions, obviously not slaves. Only then did the three relax slightly.
"Hard work all the way. Hot springs and a big meal have been arranged for you, but before that..." Starfire said, his narrowed eyes glancing at that last human.
"Careful!"
Jadin reacted the fastest, pouncing and pushing Joel beside him away.
Several thorny tentacles pierced the snow, grazing the edges of their bodies.
Crawling up from the snow pile, the three were already surrounded by Puchis.
"Jadin... Joel..." Pollock's voice carried a crying tone.
Jadin swung his hammer fiercely a few times: "Damn demons! Fight them! I won't be a slave even if I die!"
Subsequently, he leaped and smashed toward the Puchi group without turning back...
(End of Chapter)
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