“Tell me about the land,” Vur said and pointed at the northern end of the continent on the map. “This white part, who owns it?”

“That’s owned by the holy dragons,” E said after sending one of his armor sets to find a carrot. “Nothing can grow there; it’s a giant frozen chunk of ice. There’s rumors about strange birds that act like humans and are taller than dwarves. They trek across the ice for miles and hunt fish from the ocean.”

“Will they interfere in the war?” Vur asked.

Lulu’s voice called from outside the palace. “There’s no way Mom’s going to interfere in the war unless she can find a person to give a quest to. Oh, there was one person…, but he’s kind of lazy. And those birds you’re talking about are called penguins. They don’t fight things; they kind of huddle up in one place and try their best to not freeze to death.”

“Mm.” Vur nodded and pointed at a red region beside the snowy one. “What about here?”

“That’s Mt. Inesia,” E said. “We were just there. We have a few small towns bordering it, but there’s no threats to our safety. We own the eastern region of the continent while the humans own this portion of the west. Some of it is shared by fairies, namely that part.” He pointed at a section on the map covered with green and purple splotches. “The south is the territory of the elves and phoenixes; it’s possible the elves may join the war as the humans’ allies mainly because, well, we enslaved some of them before.”

“So no threats from the north,” Vur said. “What about east of us? Fishmen live on the coasts, right?”

“Yeah, but fishmen are fishmen. They’re unimportant,” E said. “If they spend too long out of water, their skin starts cracking and they bleed to death within a few days. There’s no way for them to own any reasonable portion of land.”

“That sounds like a life worse than the penguins,” Lulu said from outside.

“Then it’s just the west and the south we have to worry about?” Vur asked. “What are the elves like? How many people would you need to take out one of their villages?”

“Villages?” a dwarf with a red beard asked and raised an eyebrow. “Elves don’t have villages. They live in small colonies of ten elves at most. They’d be easy to plunder, but they get along really well with the phoenix matriarch. She’s about the only reason why we haven’t taken over the south.”

Vur rubbed his chin. “How closely do these elven colonies live to each other?”

“Pretty far apart,” the red-bearded dwarf said. “You’d expect them to work together seeing as they’re the same race, but they’re actually antagonistic to each other. Neighboring colonies will compete for resources and the weaker one is forced to move further away. Sometimes, the weakest colonies are completely forced out of the forest; that’s the best time to capture them.”

“Wait,” Vur said. “Then would they actually be a threat to us if we attack the humans since they don’t work together?”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Yes, they will,” E said. “They might not get along with each other, but they hate us more. They’ll definitely band together if they find out any of our cities are vulnerable. Not only that, but they have a spiritual leader of sorts. There’s a tribe of elves who take care of the phoenix matriarchs offspring and eggs. Apparently their hair is even red due to the proximity to the eggs. If any of them declared war against us, all the elves will attack.” He coughed and scratched his head. “We, uh, stole a few phoenix eggs from them before a long time ago, so they’d definitely take the chance to strike at us.”

Vur stared at E. “Why do you think the humans declared war on you?”

“Probably because we enslave them and exploit them of their resources,” E said and shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Don’t you have any allies?” Vur asked and tilted his head.

“Well,” E said and cleared his throat. “Who needs allies when we have each other?” He looked around the room. “Isn’t that right, men?” The other dwarves nodded and grunted. E smiled at Vur. “Besides, we have you! Since you’re on our side, the earth and fire elementals definitely won’t interfere, and the earth elementals are even helping us. And since they’re staying out of it, the water and wind elementals will most likely stay neutral.”

“So everyone on the continent, except the elementals, hate you,” Vur said, his expression darkening.

“Don’t forget your promise to me!” E said. “You said you’d take care of my people if I handed you my throne. You can’t back out now. As leaders, our words hold more weight than gold.”

“That’s right,” Vur said with a nod. “Dragons never lie. If I said I’d do it, then I will.” He smiled to himself and laughed. “My scales and wings grew out!” Then his face fell as he lowered his head and sighed. “But I’m still too young. It’s only temporary.”

Stella appeared on his shoulder and patted his head. “Don’t worry! I was right when I said an elementalist dragon grew faster, right? You just have to make more contracts!” She nudged his cheek with her elbow. “The next one should be a water elemental. And you can feed Sheryl and Diamant to make them stronger. That way, they’ll provide more mana for you.”

“You’re right,” Vur said and raised his head. He made eye contact with all the dwarves before pointing at the map. “For now, since I don’t know our enemies capabilities, I’ll play a bit defensively.”

The dwarf with the eyepatch scowled. “Play? This isn’t a game,” he said. “This is a war.”

Vur held out his hand, and a set of armor handed him a carrot. He threw it at the dwarf’s face, knocking the short fellow over. Vur dusted off his hands before pointing at the map again. “The most important thing to do now is reinforce these spots.” He drew circles around strategic points in the dwarven areas closest to the human empire. “Set up as many traps as you can: pitfalls, bear traps, delicious cookies, whatever works as long as there’s men waiting to ambush the people who fall for them.” He pointed at the northeastern most section of the dwarves’ territory. “Start transferring all the soldiers from here to the south and west. And here”—he pointed at the southernmost part of the dwarves’ territory—“invade the elves like this.” He drew a curved arrow that swept from the east to the west.

“We’re invading the elves?” Plumby asked. “Why? They haven’t joined the war yet.”

“That’s why we have to strike them when they’re not ready,” Vur said with a nod. “Preemptively punish them for their future offenses. But don’t kill any of them. Kidnap their families, transport them to our lands, and force the capable to join our war efforts using their family as hostages.”

“Your morals are worse than ours!” one of the dwarves said. He chuckled. “I like it.”

“But what are we going to do about the phoenix matriarch?” E asked and furrowed his brow. “We’ll need a lot of people to take her down, people we can’t afford to have leave their posts.”

“Don’t worry about the phoenix,” Vur said with a slight grin on his face. “They’re just wannabe dragons. I’ll take care of her.”

“That’s exactly how my future mate should be!” Lulu said to herself, eyes gleaming.