Dwarves.
A race that lived by mining stone and ore, and possessed exceptional handiwork in creating things—smithing, architecture, masonry, and the like.
They were also a race that believed in all manner of myths and legends as truth.
In particular, their animistic faith—the belief that spirits dwell not only in animals but in all things in nature—was strong, and they believed that all sorts of spirits truly existed.
They also had a myth that thousands of years ago, they had been oppressed by dragons until a dwarven prophet led their people in escape and settled on this continent.
To dwarves, who revered the things of nature, the magical power to command nature was a living myth, and dragons were beings of legend said to stand at the pinnacle of that magic.
To such dwarves, a mage was a mythical being who handled nature, one who possessed a sliver of the dragon.
Just as they believed the origin myth of their race to be true, they also believed the myth that magic was the power of dragons. That was how deeply they feared magic, and that fear led to fear of mages.
***
“No… First, please come inside.”
Dawi felt it would be impolite to leave them outside in the cold, so he invited the dwarves into his house for the time being.
The dwarves watched Dawi’s mood and carefully stepped inside.
On the rear wall of the living room was a fireplace, lighting the interior, and in the center stood the table and chairs Dawi had made himself.
He had made them in the hope that guests would come someday.
Of course, he had never expected dwarves to be among those guests.
“Mm. There aren’t enough chairs.”
“No, sir! We will stand like this!”
“Yes! We’re fine!”
The dwarves stood stiffly at attention, full of military discipline.
Dawi could see water dripping from their beards.
Their beards had frozen in the cold on the way here.
And it wasn’t only their beards—their whole appearance was a mess.
Their clothes were torn here and there, and they were so thin that they almost looked like goblins—a short monster often appearing in fantasy novels—rather than dwarves.
‘Ah, since this is another world, I wonder if things like goblins exist here too…?’
In any case, they looked extremely shabby.
“Then warm yourselves by the fireplace for now.”
After saying that, Dawi went to the stone icehouse and brought out some corn.
The dwarves, who had been crouching in front of the fireplace, sprang back to their feet when Dawi returned to the house.
“Just sit comfortably.”
Saying so, he scraped corn kernels into an iron pot.
“Could that be…”
“It looks like a crop called corn…”
The dwarves whispered among themselves as they watched, and Dawi heard every word.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
When Dawi crushed the corn kernels with the handle of his dagger, the dwarves flinched for no reason, frightened.
Dawi added peeled garlic to it, poured in water, and placed it inside the fireplace.
Bubble, bubble.
The nutty scent of corn and the sharp aroma of garlic spread.
The dwarves began swallowing their saliva without realizing it.
Using a wooden stick, Dawi hooked the pot handle and pulled it out, then sprinkled in a little salt.
“Utensils…”
Unfortunately, he was short on spoons and chopsticks. But he did have bowls he had roughly carved out of wood.
“There’s nothing suitable. It seems you’ll have to scoop it up with the bowls and eat it that way.”
“A-are you giving this to us?”
“May we really eat it? Such precious food, with garlic in it…”
“Yes. I made plenty to give to you in the first place. Scoop it up with the bowls and eat.”
“T-thank you..!”
“We’ll eat well!”
The dwarves hurriedly scooped up the corn soup and ate.
“Keuhah~!”
The dwarves let out exclamations as if they had just drunk a bowl of hearty soup with rice.
In an instant, they emptied the iron pot.
“So… why did you come all the way here?”
“T-that is, we came to confirm whether the rumors that there was a mage who commands thunder behind the mountain were true.”
Faced with their continued misunderstanding, Dawi gave up on explaining that he was not a mage. Instead,
“I see. But I don’t know any other magic. I can only use that magic that makes the sound of thunder. The name of the magic is ‘Shotgun.’”
He lied in a way they could understand.
“Ah..! I-I see…!”
The dwarves began whispering among themselves again.
“As expected, he really was a military mage.”
“So the rumor that he went mad from the aftereffects of war was true…”
“It seems he forgot everything except the magic engraved into his body from the aftereffects of war…”
“So, now that you’ve confirmed I exist, have you achieved your goal?”
“Ah, ah! That… Is it also true that you became a vassal of that baronial family?”
“A vassal…?”
“That… They said you offered tribute and received bestowed goods…”
“Ah, are you talking about the transaction I made with the baronial family?”
“So it really was only a transaction…!”
“I knew it! How could someone like you serve such a small domain, Mage, haha!”
“That baronial family cannot be trusted! Spreading false rumors that the Mage is their vassal!”
“Uh… It’s not something as grand as being a vassal. I’m just a resident of the domain. Apparently, the place where this ranch is located is officially part of the Snowhill Barony.”
“Th-that can’t be…!”
“Fortunately, they granted me tax exemption privileges…”
“T-tax exemption? The fact that you had to pay taxes in the first place means you’re under the baronial family…”
“Uh… Since this land belongs to the barony, I have to pay taxes, don’t I? But thankfully, they granted me tax exemption privileges on the condition of an exclusive trade agreement.”
The dwarves’ expressions stiffened completely.
He said he wasn’t a vassal, but Dawi had effectively admitted that he was under the baron.
Dawi himself, from the beginning, considered himself a domain resident with tax exemption privileges.
But in reality, tax exemption privileges were something a noble granted only to his knights or vassals.
Though he was not called a vassal in name, in the eyes of the dwarves, Dawi was indeed a vassal.
“Th-then… why do you belong to the barony… when you have more than enough power to be independent…”
“Haha, no. I found that with just Shotgun, I absolutely couldn’t live alone.”
The “independence” the dwarves spoke of meant not being under the baronial family, but what Dawi understood was literally whether one could live an independent life on one’s own.
“The garlic and salt that went into today’s soup were also things I could obtain because the barony existed. From what I experienced… living alone is truly difficult. No matter how leisurely and pastoral a life one enjoys, some degree of exchange is essential. In the end, to ‘survive,’ one must ‘coexist.’”
At Dawi’s words, the dwarves’ eyes trembled. One dwarf even shuddered slightly, as if feeling a thrill.
Military mages were people who had received noble titles back when the Empire was still intact. Though their titles were nonhereditary, they were people who became nobles through ability alone.
There was no need for him to be under a baron, much less as a mere resident of the domain.
But Dawi said one had to “coexist” in order to live.
Indeed, after the zombie outbreak, had the world not become truly difficult to live in?
Dawi held the conviction that in such an era, for him to live, others also had to live. That was why he had willingly lowered himself for the sake of “coexistence” and placed himself under the baronial family.
…That was how the dwarves understood it.
Of course, Dawi had no such grand conviction.
He was simply saying that, after suffering terribly while trying to build a ranch alone, people really did need to live within civilization.
“As expected…! They say mages are wise, and…”
“Coexistence…”
While the other dwarves were admiring him, the young dwarf who had led them here swallowed and asked Dawi,
“Th-then, if the barony were to be attacked from outside…”
“Of course I would help. I already have, in fact.”
“How can that be…!”
‘Then the moment we attack the barony, this mage will attack us!’
At that moment, the young dwarf resolved to abandon the anti-Snowhill line.
But he could not simply leave his tribe to starve to death.
He decided to stake the tribe’s future on this mage who spoke of coexistence.
“T-to tell the truth, we have recently been suffering from a food shortage.”
“Ah, I see…”
Dawi had already guessed as much to some extent from the dwarves’ appearance.
“Originally, we gave iron ore to the Snowhill domain and received food in return, but they have been gradually reducing the volume of that trade. We also tried to raise the exchange rate for our iron ore, but that didn’t go well either. Could you perhaps speak well of our circumstances to Snowhill?”
“Hmm…”
‘So that’s what they came to ask. They think I’m a mage and that I can exert influence over Snowhill…’
While making a small misunderstanding of his own, Dawi fell into thought for a moment.
‘But Snowhill’s food situation is tight too. Even if they want to trade more with the dwarves, they’re in no position to do so…’
“First of all… the reason Snowhill reduced trade is because Snowhill is also short on food. In truth, Snowhill was in a position where it bought food from merchant ships coming through the North Sea. But I heard that no merchant ships came this year. Perhaps… unless they truly need iron, they probably won’t trade. More accurately, they can’t. They don’t have food either.”
“Th-that can’t be…”
Were humans not a race that coveted bread even while eating potatoes every day?
They had never imagined that humans might also be short on food.
Meanwhile, Dawi was thinking something else.
‘There’s still a lot of corn piled up in the stone icehouse, though…’
Corn was harvested at a rate of twenty ears every day. In a month, that was six hundred. No matter how much Dawi and Malmali consumed, more than four hundred ears piled up each month.
Over the winter, the ears had grown smaller, but corn was harvested every day, and Dawi gave up counting the moment the corn piled in the stone icehouse exceeded a thousand ears.
Why hadn’t he sold it all to the Snowhill domain?
First of all, the road to the Snowhill domain was too rough. He couldn’t take a cart, so even if he loaded as much as possible onto Malmali and carried as much luggage as he could himself, he couldn’t transport all the corn.
If he stuffed in as much corn as possible, about fifty ears fit into one leather sack.
If he hung one on each side of Malmali’s saddle, that was about a hundred. If Dawi carried one on his back, that made one hundred fifty.
He felt sorry to Malmali, but if he placed one more on top of the saddle, that made two hundred.
If he crossed the mountain range like that, it would be absolutely impossible to reach the Snowhill domain within a single day.
He would have to set aside several days.
On top of that, Dawi was still in the middle of building his ranch. Now that he had the basic form with a stable and a house, he still had to put up the ranch fence, and once spring came, he had to build more structures so he could bring in other animals.
He couldn’t spend all his time transporting corn.
Nor was it possible to have the domain residents transport it. During the journey back and forth across the mountain range, the damage they would suffer from wild animals would be tremendous.