Chapter 96 Tale from Hell

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"This part is for mining gems. Many diamonds were mined here though good iron ores and silver are more common." Sig explained. The dark tunnel glowed like stars in the dark night. Brilliant gems were embedded on the side of the cave, ready to be picked. Lily gritted her teeth to control herself from stealing those gems in frustration, as just several of those gems could get her out of debt easily.

"King Sig, are you sure we should tell this to outsides?"

"I think it's fine. It's not like they can go here every day anyway." Niece said.

"That's true."

"I have been to an elven mining town in Lord Silvane's territory. But this is certainly much more." Alistar said.

"Guh, why do none of the dwarves trade more of these gems," Lhorne whined.

"We only trade what we needed. Do you know the story of the greedy treasure?"

"Oh, please." Jona sighed. she had already had enough of the dwarven fairytale.

"Oh, I knew about it." Alistar surprisingly knew.

"Oh! Color me surprised! You are not so clueless about us after all." King sig was amused

"Yes. The story was about dwarves that mined a mountain of diamonds. He mined and stored everything. He doesn't sleep and doesn't eat. And soon after, he died while guarding his hoard, and then his skeletons were tossed aside, and his hoard was taken by bandits." Alistar looked at the ceiling, trying to remember the exact story, but his story was too summarized.

"Aye. That's not wrong! But your storytelling sucks! You need to be more like Helmet here! Hahaha," King sig laughed as we continued on the tunnel. The tunnel was devoid of any monsters, and we could occasionally hear pickaxes clanging against the cave wall.

"A lot of people are mining here. I thought nobody was in the deep mountain." Edelweiss murmured.

"We are not in deep mountains yet, Lady Edelweiss." Niece answered her. "we will see the gate leading to it tomorrow."

"How do you guys tell time anyway? I didn't see any clock, and we could not see the sun." I asked Lily, which she parrotted to King Sig.

"Body Rhythm, perhaps? A lot of elves had that. Or they could simply buy one from elven territories," Alistar intercepted, but Sig added that they had a mechanical clock. The irony didn't escape me that the race that invented the clock valued time so cheaply.

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"Ahh! This one is made in the elven territory! But so old…." Alistar appraised the mechanical clock held by Sig's son, Helmet. "From the art engraved on the side. I think this one is from Hoeth?"

"Yes. This was the clock that was made over 100 years ago. It was presented By Garme as proof of our alliance." Sig replied.

"Really? I didn't read about that in history books." Lily asked Edelweiss, and Alistar was also confused.

"Clocks can be found in any store in Hoeth. Either our messenger just gave you one without much meaning or as a gift, or your messenger bought one because it is unique." Alistar said. "But it certainly wasn't that important."

"What!?" King Sig shouted. His pride fell down the cliff.

"I mean, bribing messengers was forbidden if done by the king himself. And instead of gifts like this, we like contracts more. That alliance contract is at the museum, encased in thin glass for everyone to see. And also guarded by two even warriors."

"Huh? I didn't know there was a contract." Jona asked now he was interested. "You guys keep mumbling about clocks all the time."

"Ahh. That piece of paper, huh? I think it was somewhere there in my office drawer."

"It is an important piece of paper! How come you guys didn't know of its value!" this time, it was Alistar's turn to get enraged. "It is the proof of our friendship! Are you guys making light of our alliance?"

"If a friendship can be maintained by a piece of paper, then your kin was fucked up." Sig sighed. "Oi, You ! the only human over there! Stop stealing our diamonds. Put them back on the floor."

"Mattheus…" Lily facepalmed.

"But there were DIAMONDS!!! It was as big as a fist lying around. It asked me to pick it up and sell it! Just look at this cave. It was a treasure!! how come you guys can walk in this tunnel while chitchatting about some random paper and mechanical thingies and ignore this pile of money!!" Mattheus screamed his heart out.

"Well, we did business with this race too, you know. They didn't value that kind of paper a single bit." Sig sighed while he asked Helmet to rip the bag full of diamonds out of Mattheus's hands and threw the content at the corner of the cave while clapping his hands to pray. Nora, Lhorne, and Alith had to physically drag him out to continue our progress.

"Well, his race didn't value that piece of paper a single bit. Why should we?" Sig smugly said.

"Are you seriously wanted to compare us to that race?"

"Sorry, that was a bad example. Humans are sometimes a thorn in our side too. They are like a worm on the green valley. A few trades with them are good, but too much, and they will destroy your field. Need to give them something before we can milk them." Sig apologized.

"Oh. You didn't view humans with full hostility? I see." Edelweiss was amused.

"Well, it might be heartless of me. But it is your war, right? Not ours."

"Not that. We view humans extremely as our enemies. But Lily here likes humans to the point of having one of them working in her city. I was wondering if our views were too extreme." Alistar said.

"Fighting and holding a grudge is fine! Hahaha, it is people like you elves that thought they never did anything wrong that we were wary of." Sig said while laughing. But the elves wore a conflicted expression when hearing such alien words.

"What blasphemy. Never broken a treaty is what makes you wary of us? Ridiculous." Rhander muttered as he was wheezing through the tunnel. He was silent on our way, but he forced himself to speak when hearing such absurd comments from the dwarves.

We had such a deep conversation on our route to the deep dungeon. And even after we reached the gate leading to the deep dungeon, there was not a single monster in sight. Lily was in despair as she had not killed even one monster. Would our journey to the center of the earth fill with nothing but dwarven and elven rambles?