161 – To the Homeland of Fire – 4

“Should I sneak him out?”

In the ears of Gi-jun, who felt dazed as if he had been slapped on the cheek after seeing the excessively impactful welcoming ceremony, Eun-shin’s stealthy whispering voice was heard.

It was an incredibly bold statement to sneak out Glittertoss, who seemed about to be burned at the stake in front of the public at any moment, but if it was Eun-shin, he would surely be able to pull it off.

Because Gi-jun knew that, he immediately shook his head.

“No, I think it’s fine. Until Glittertoss himself asks to be saved, stand by for now.”

“Yes.”

Thinking about it calmly, this city was not independent from Gratia, and the dwarfs, who were merely residents after all, would have no right to carry out an execution by burning.

Looking at the situation, those who had hung Glittertoss were all dwarfs like him, and the other summoners filling the plaza were merely watching it from a bystander’s position, their expressions indicating they had nothing to do with it.

Of course, the dwarfs’ murderous intent toward Glittertoss was so fierce that it was impossible to think of it as fake, looking as if they would kill him at any moment, but…

“Everyone, calm down and look over there. Hasn’t the person I spoke of arrived! The hero who protected Gratia from the threat of the Kudlaks, the Divine Beast Hunter, Jun, has come!”

“So is that guy going to become a sacrifice in your stead?!”

“To calm the volcano, we have no choice but to offer you, the one who stole the sacrifice, as a living sacrifice!”

Okay, I roughly understood the situation.

Gi-jun took a strong step forward and activated the best skill to draw people’s attention.

It was none other than Luminescent Provocation.

“Agh!”

“My eyes!”

“What is that frantically flashing thing!”

“Unica, now it’s your turn.”

Having gathered their attention truly excellently, Gi-jun canceled the skill without hesitation and passed the baton to Unica.

“Ah, y-yes. Right!”

Unica, who had temporarily forgotten the fact that she had come to Uralta to take office as an administrator, nodded in a daze and stepped forward, revealing herself as a pure-blooded noble of Leta by shining the horn on her forehead.

“I am Unica of the Monoceros race, who has come to assume office as an administrator of Uralta. What on earth are you all doing here? Where are the other administrators?”

“Monoceros…”

“She’s pure-blooded.”

While a unicorn’s horn had all sorts of effects that were hard to describe in words, the most outstanding among them was clearing the mind and calming one’s feelings.

Confronted by her shining horn, the dwarfs also received its influence—allowing them to calm down from a state of being about to explode at any moment to a state close to five minutes before explosion.

In other words, it did not have much of an effect.

“Ah, a noble!”

“Did you say administrator? The other administrators have already packed their bags and left!”

“Desiring Uralta’s fame, they crawled in here, but they must not want to sink with Uralta. Hmph, what a bunch of cowards!”

“Just because you’re a noble doesn’t mean you can resolve the current situation. So back off! We will stabilize this place in our own way, the way we’ve protected Uralta ever since we were summoned to Leta!”

“……”

As Unica, lost for words, stepped back again and looked at Gi-jun with tearful eyes, he let out a deep sigh, stepped forward once more, and cast his skill.

Of course, it was Luminescent Provocation.

“Agh!”

“That damn…!”

“Kh.”

“Quiet.”

At the same time as casting the skill, Gi-jun was conscious of the Charm control he had learned from Biche—and in direct contrast to when he had struggled to hide it, he forcefully revealed his Charm.

Once everyone fell silent, overwhelmed by it, he finally spoke.

“Glittertoss, I have no intention of playing along with this farce forever! Either burn to death as you are, or explain the situation to us.”

“I’d like you to get me down first!”

Gi-jun nodded and immediately threw the King of the Well.

The shield flew through the air, cutting it sharply, and seemed to clean slice the wooden post to which Glittertoss was bound. Simultaneously, the sharp wind it whipped up shredded all the ropes binding Glittertoss’s limbs.

Retrieving the shield that had spun back through the air, Gi-jun glared at Glittertoss, who was rising with a sigh from atop the pile of firewood, and spoke.

“What in the world is all this? If by any chance you plotted this to match the timing of our entry into Uralta…”

“No, that’s not it. I thought you would come a bit sooner. No matter how much I like fire, being burned to death is out of the question.”

“Fine, explain everything anyway. …Though we’ll have to change locations first.”

Even if the dwarfs, overwhelmed by his Charm, were quiet for now, they would start bothering them again once they regained their senses.

“Yeah, we can’t keep talking in the plaza anyway—ah.”

However, Glittertoss, who was scratching his head in thought at his words, turned to look at the dwarfs and said,

“You guys come along too. You have the right to know exactly what it was that I did back then.”

* * *

The place they moved to was a large building located in the central district of Uralta, called the Dwarf Craftsman Hall.

As could be seen from its intuitive name, it was a gathering place for craftsmen of the dwarf race whose names were registered in Uralta. Upon entering, dozens of dwarfs had already gathered and were noisily chattering.

“Sacrifice or whatever, it’s already too late. It’s too late! The volcano shows no signs of calming down; the day of Uralta’s destruction has arrived!”

“Well, how about we think about it after offering that damn traitor first? We shouldn’t burn him at the stake; we should tie him up tight, throw him into the crater, and seek Ptah’s grace—Glittertoss!”

Apparently, the dwarfs gathered in the plaza were the execution committee for the burning, while the dwarfs gathered in the hall were the planning committee.

When Glittertoss, who should have been subdued and taken out, walked into the hall perfectly fine on his own feet, the dwarfs who had been noisily chattering until then all fell dumbfounded at once.

What was more, the dwarfs who had dragged him out were walking in quietly behind him.

The crowning touch was the members of the Lumen party, who were not even dwarfs, entering the hall.

“What is this…”

“What is it? Why are humans…”

“Glittertoss! Have you finally gone so far as to sell out your own kin to humans?!”

“Hmm, everyone is overly excited.”

Glittertoss turned to Gi-jun with an expectant expression.

Muttering that his skill shouldn’t look too cheap, Gi-jun activated it again.

Needless to say, it was Luminescent Provocation.

“I think I should get a pair of sunglasses.”

“I tell you, the fact that it doesn’t distinguish between friend and foe is the only drawback of that skill.”

“Perhaps because he grew from the battle in Valahia, the light seems to have become even brighter… How wonderful.”

“Nya, is the sun rising?”

While the party members, who had not suffered because they prepared in advance, calmly laid out their critiques, Gi-jun made an announcement to the quieted dwarfs.

“I have a contract with Glittertoss, so it would be troublesome if you killed him as you please. If there is a problem, tell me. I don’t know what it is, but I will resolve it.”

“This heat, this light… Could he be the incarnation of Ptah!”

“Don’t speak of such impious things so carelessly! But… it is indeed an incredible ability. Was that ridiculous excuse of having an exclusive contract with the hero of Gratia actually true?”

No matter how much he thought about it, he had no memory of signing an exclusive contract with Glittertoss, but for now, it seemed best to just nod and move on.

As Gi-jun kept his mouth shut in silence, his overflowing Charm convinced the crowd on its own this time as well.

While the dwarfs exchanged glances, one old dwarf with a splendidly grown beard, who was sitting in the highest seat, rose from his spot.

“Nice to meet you, Vampire Hunter… or Dragon Slayer. I am the dwarf elder of Uralta, Mudgreezer. Before we speak, originally only dwarfs are allowed to enter this hall… but since your great name has reached even Uralta, I will not bother to argue over that matter.”

“I appreciate that. So what is the problem? From what I hear, Uralta is on the brink of destruction—and it seems to be Glittertoss’s fault.”

Though, seeing as how they spoke of living sacrifices and Ptah’s wrath, no matter how he thought about it, it did not seem like the crisis Uralta faced was because of Glittertoss.

The dwarf elder, Mudgreezer, nodded with a gloomy expression and said,

“Mm, you must have seen the volcano’s eruption on your way to Uralta.”

“Of course. I thought it was an everyday occurrence in Uralta?”

“While it is true that the volcano is constantly active, would Uralta have survived until now if such large eruptions occurred every single day?”

Actually, seeing how the city was maintained despite the volcano erupting so fiercely, Gi-jun had thought that some countermeasure beyond his imagination was in place—but he had completely misjudged.

For such a problem to burst out right when the Lumen party arrived, was it bad luck—or was it simply fate?

“When we first sought this Uralta, it was a place where terrible volcanic activity continued just like now. It was extremely dangerous, even overflowing with monsters living in the lava.”

Tracing back the origins of the dwarfs living in Uralta, they were all summoners.

Although their civilizations were divided into several groups, those who chose the path of the artisan often gave up on the civilization war early on and settled down in Leta, which was why Glittertoss had said they were half-NPCs.

“A weak human could never have dreamed of living in a place like this. But conversely, that is why there was plenty of land for us to take, even though it was the land of Leta’s natives…”

“It was because the nearby ore veins were incredibly rich, and Uralta’s unique volcanic rock was perfect for raising flames, making it the best place for an artisan to live.”

Glittertoss added.

Mudgreezer glared at him fiercely for a moment, then snorted and continued speaking.

“Having chosen this place as our home, we held a ritual. A ritual to offer sacrifices to the volcano, calling down the god of artisans whom we dwarfs worship, so that he would grant us his grace to settle down and live here.”

“Is that Ptah?”

“Yes. Of course, many among the dwarfs worshipped gods with different names, but in truth, their divinity only differed slightly and their essence was the same, so it was not a problem. Ptah, Hephaestus, Vulcan…”

As far as Gi-jun knew, Earth’s mythologies influenced each other so much that many divine entities were identified as the same.

Even Ishtar, whom Lora worshipped, was equated with other goddesses of beauty like Venus, Aphrodite, Freya, and furthermore Isis, and could even be interpreted as Astaroth, one of Solomon’s 72 demons.

While nodding at the elder’s explanation, Gi-jun suddenly realized something was bothering him.

As he wondered what it could be, the elder’s voice continued to ring in his ears.

“As we held the ritual periodically, the volcanic eruptions became relatively tame, and we managed to build a decent town here despite suffering from the threat of monsters. More and more dwarfs gathered, crafting fine equipment… and as many people found out about it and came, the Leta natives, who claimed to be the owners of this land, began to collect taxes.”

Unica nodded with an infinitely confident expression.

Her reaction was that since they knew there was money there, it was only natural for the landowner to collect it.

“But then a problem arose. During the most recent ritual, Glittertoss stole the most important sacrifice!”

“So that must be why the problem occurred! There is no room for doubt!”

“Unprincipled bastard! We shouldn’t have let him off by just expelling him from Uralta back then; we should have thrown him into the crater right away!”

The dwarfs raised their voices once again.

Gi-jun stamped his foot to force them to calm down, and then asked,

“What did Glittertoss steal? What was the sacrifice in the first place, was it really a living sacrifice?”

“It was a sword! The ritual failed because we didn’t have it! Fifty years ago!”

Well, he figured as much.

No, actually, while he had anticipated that the sacrifice would be a piece of equipment, he had not expected that the most recently held ritual would have been held fifty years ago.

“If it was fifty years ago, no matter how you think about it, it’s strange. Has nothing else strange happened more recently than that?”

“There is nothing else! Without any warning, the volcano began to run wildly out of control a few months ago!”

Hold on.

“A few months ago?”

“That is correct!”

“Exactly how many months has it been?”

“It hasn’t even been two months!”

Gi-jun shut his mouth.

Words like Divine Beast, Skoll and Hati, and two months flashed like lightning in his mind, naturally drawing a single conclusion.

“Hmm—it is a truly incomprehensible matter.”

He let out a low groan with a face similar to the dwarf elder’s and nodded.

While the party members, who had noticed something, stared intently at him, Gi-jun spoke shamelessly, trusting the durability of the mask he wore.

“Though I have no idea why the volcano is running wild, I can at least declare for certain that this incident is not due to the sacrifice Glittertoss stole fifty years ago. I will take on this matter. I will climb the volcano myself to check the problem and resolve it.”

The ‘Divine Beast Hunter’ Gi-jun declared in a dignified voice.

Fortunately, he was able to pass the crisis without being caught by everyone.

* * *

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Ah, after being in Leta, being cooped up in here is really stifling.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): But ta-da! If I have the dishes Jjun packed for me, even this desolate space becomes bright…]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Hm? You’re asking if there are cases where gods directly descend to Leta?]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): Right, I also thought there was no way it could happen.]

[Biche♥ (Dimensional Waiting Room): It was certainly supposed to be like that, though.]