“And I suppose your personalities grew drab to match your new environment?” Philia said. “I guess that’s a blessing. Quiet dwarves are much more tolerable than loud ones. I wouldn’t mind if all dwarves stayed in the caves forever.”
Well, Philia clearly isn’t a fan of dwarves...
It turned out the bad blood between elves and dwarves was no joke.
“Anyway, what brought you all the way out here to the middle of the frontier?” I asked.
“Well...”
Dran told me that something terrifying had appeared in their cave a few days ago. They kept the entrance sealed, and there’d been no sign of it being breached, yet somehow a monster appeared inside and went on a rampage.
“’Twas a great, hulkin’ beast that looked kinda like a snake, or maybe a giant caterpillar? We had no hope o’ bestin’ it, not a chance! So we turned heel an’ bolted, we did.”
They’d abandoned their home of many generations and escaped into the wilderness.
“Then we stumbled across this place. We’ve got nowhere else to lay our heads, nor a scrap o’ food to our names. We were hopin’, if it ain’t too much trouble, that maybe you’d spare us a bite to eat...” Dran, still pale and visibly shaken by their monster encounter, had genuine fear in his eyes.
“I see. Of course we can. We can offer you housing too, if you’d like,” I said.
“T-Truly? But we ain’t human. Would ye really be so kind to outsiders like us? Wait, don’t tell me yer plannin’ to work us to death in exchange?!”
Sheesh, talk about pessimism.
The rest of the dwarves started echoing the same worries.
“Did ya turn those elven ladies into sex slaves?”
“Does that mean we’re next?!”
“We’re too ugly for that. Nay, we’ll be worked to the bone till we crumble, all ’cuz we’re forged a bit hardier than most. By my beard, I can feel the pick an’ hammer weighin’ on me back already!”
“No one’s going to turn you into slaves. The elves live among us as equals—we don’t discriminate against anyone because of their race. Please don’t worry,” I said.
“Yeah! And who are you calling a sex slave? Elves are a proud people! No human could ever enslave us. We live here by choice,” Philia said, backing me up.
Hopefully, that assuaged the dwarves’ anxiety a little.
Once they entered the village, they’d realize there was nothing to fear.
“How about I show you around?” I suggested, leading them inside. With everyone in the village watching them, the dwarves were initially nervous and jumpy. Once I started explaining the various buildings, their anxiety gave way to astonishment.
“Wh-Whoa... This place be cleaner’n most...”
“Aye, doesn’t reek a bit. Not a scrap o’ trash to be found.”
“Hrm, odd lookin’ buildings, these. All seem freshly built, to boot!”
“Wait now, hot and cold water, free for the takin’? Do all humans live like this?”
Eyes big as saucers, they swung their heads around, gawking at the village.
“That building over there is the bathhouse,” I said.
“Bathhouse?”
“Yeah, it’s a public bathing area. Open to everyone.”
“Huh?!”
“Y-Ye mean...ye all go in there bare as stone, with the whole lot watchin’ ya?!”
“Bah! Not a chance! I’d never be doin’ somethin’ so shameful!”
That’s odd...
The elves had barely reacted when I explained it, but the dwarves wouldn’t even consider it. I thought they’d be even less shy about nudity than the elves, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
At any rate, I saved the apartment for last.
“This is where you all will be living from now on. Each family has their own unit. And each unit has its own bath and toilet.”
After I showed them the interior and explained how to use the facilities, Dran stepped forward.
“Er, Mr. Mayor?” he said, uneasy.
“What is it, Dran?”
“This place be fine an’ sturdy enough, but...”
“What’s wrong? If you want anything changed, just let me know.” I could adjust things with the Facility Customization skill, so accommodating requests wasn’t a problem.
“Well, uh— It’s the windows, ya see. They’re fair huge, lettin’ in a flood o’ light an’ all that.”
“The windows?” I asked.
He told me that after spending so many generations living in caves, the dwarves had grown sensitive to sunlight.
“We get a mite uneasy when the light’s too strong... Even makes our bellies turn, it does,” he explained.
“Oh, I see...” That sounded pretty inconvenient. It wouldn’t be a hard fix, though; I could shrink or remove the windows. I thought about it for a moment. “Actually, I think I have a better solution...”
When I was done, I turned to the dwarves. “What do you think?”
“B-By me beard! ’Tis near the spittin’ image o’ the caves we hailed from! A place like this... Aye, here we can find our rest!” Dran boomed, his joyful voice echoing through the tunnel.
That’s right—I brought the dwarves to the new underground tunnel I’d recently built. I figured it would suit them better than asking them to adapt to the bright sun of life aboveground, so I built a new subterranean apartment complex attached to the underground tunnel. That way, windows wouldn’t be an issue.
“Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
We threw a welcome party for the dwarves that night. They didn’t mind being outside once the sun went down.
“Don’t be shy. Drink up!”
“Well, since yer twistin’ my arm... Ho ho! This be fine stuff! Tell me, what manner o’ brew be this?”
It was alcohol we’d made in our village’s own brewery.
Brewery
>>A facility that produces alcohol. Boosts production speed and quality. Warning: Always drink responsibly!
We used high-quality ingredients and fresh water, but something about the brewery itself seemed to boost the taste of it. Currently, we produced fruit wines, beers, and milk-based drinks.
I was too young to taste any of them yet, of course.
Still, dwarves were known for their love of alcohol, so I figured this would be a good way to break the ice. I turned out to be right, but I got more than I bargained for...
“Bwa ha ha! This be some damn fine drink!”
“Aye, but ye’ve gotta toss it back proper if ye mean to savor it! Ho there! Do a jig or somethin’, would ye?”
“Right, then! Fix yer eyes on me deadly belly dance!”
The dwarves had been shaking in their boots just hours earlier, but the moment alcohol entered the picture, they’d been completely transformed.
Raucous laughter boomed from every direction as they showed off their bizarre party tricks. Some had even started dancing half naked. Then the female dwarves joined in.
No, don’t just whip out your boobs like that! Time to go home, kids! Look away!
“Uh, what’s happening? How are their personalities this different after drinking?” I asked.
“Who knows? But these are the dwarves I remember,” Philia said with an exasperated sigh.
“Ooh! Ooh! Hah!”
“Aah! Aah! Ook!”
“Ook! Ook! Aah!”
The more they drank, the louder they got. Then one dwarf started grunting, and another joined in. Before I knew it, they were circling me, tankards of beer in hand, howling and grunting like a pack of gorillas.
“Ooh! Ooh! Aah!”
One of them pointed at me, shouting something in—um, gorilla? I had no idea what it meant, but the others seemed to understand just fine.
“Ooooook!”
They all rushed toward me in unison, still in ape mode.
“Wh-What’s going on?”
Before I knew it, they hoisted me high in the air.
“Ook aah eek!” (“Long live Mayor Luke!”)
Then they tossed me up.
“Waaaah!”
They caught me and tossed me again.
What the heck is going on?!
“Ook aah eek!” (“Long live Mayor Luke!”)
“What are you even saying?!”
“Ook aah eek!” (“Long live Mayor Luke!”)
“I can’t understand you!”
Eventually, I managed to escape that nightmare, but the dwarves’ party went late into the night. The village finally quieted down after every last one of them had drunk themselves into an unconscious stupor.
The next morning, their groaning, hungover bodies lay sprawled out across the plaza, squinting up at the sunrise as they slowly woke up.
“Huh? What happened?”
“Why in the nine hells do I be bare as a baby’s bottom?!”
The dwarves had apparently passed out in various states of undress. They quickly scrambled to their feet in a panic.
“I’m ashamed down to me bones!”
“Argh! Curse this blasted sun, burnin’ me eyes out!”
They quickly sobered up. Once they were aware of their situation, they frantically threw their clothes back on and scampered back underground like their lives depended on it.
“All right. From now on, the dwarves are only allowed to drink underground,” I told Dran later on.
“I-If ye say so, b-but I beg yer pardon, Mayor Luke. We didn’t do naught to offend, did we?” Dran asked tentatively. I’d had a slightly firmer conversation with him than usual.
“Don’t tell me you guys don’t remember anything about last night.”
“Aye, ’fraid not. We were, er, a touch overfond of the drink, ye see...”
Yeah, they’d blacked out.
“We were makin’ fools o’ ourselves, ye say? Bah, surely not! Ye must be mistaken, Mayor...”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Come to think of it, there’ve been other nights where we drank deep ’n’ woke up in the morn in some odd place...or worse yet, without a stitch o’ bloomin’ thread on us!”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
It was hard to believe that the red-faced dwarf cowering in front of me was the same one who’d spent the previous night proudly shirtless, dancing with a face drawn on his generous belly.
And here I’d thought belly dancing was only a thing in my previous world.
“Anyway, from now on, you’re only allowed to drink in the tunnels. Got it?”
Despite the commotion, the dwarves officially became residents of the village.
Dran and his group of 124 dwarves have become villagers.