Evade The Hero and Flee!

Chapter 312

33. This too shall pass (5)

*3 Their Circumstances: The Circumstances of a Certain Dwarf

This place was hell. 

“Hurry up and move!”

“You haven’t filled your quota yet!”

“Slow down! There’s still a lot to do!”

Harsh voices were bursting out from here and there.

This alone was an ordinary day.  

It was a blacksmith’s job that you could lose your life with one mistake.

You had to be careful whenever you worked, and getting all kinds of verbal abuse for a single mistake was normal.  

But what we were doing now was not the work of a blacksmith.  

“Quickly move the bricks!”

It was the work of a laborer.

“Please, just a short break….”

“We’ve already been working for 5 hours, Captain.”  

“Bah! how can you say that in front of the dwarven lord?!”  

“Ack!”

“I’ll work! I’ll get back to work right now!”

The screams of dwarves carrying stones.  

It was an unfamiliar sight, but it wasn’t something that had never happened before.  

The dwarven race had outstanding talents not only for weapons but also for construction and so on.  

Very occasionally, we would get requests from the Empire and Kingdom we interacted with and make various facilities for them. So construction itself wasn’t an everyday thing but it wasn’t our first time experiencing it either.  

Even so, the reason we called this place hell was just one.  

“Break time! It’s time to eat!”

“Fi, finally….”

“You have to eat as slowly as possible.”  

“As slowly as possible, drag out the time as much as you can.”

At the words lunch break, some dwarves were shedding tears of joy.  

“I want a nice cold beer.”

“Me too….”  

“When will this work end?”

“I don’t know…. At this pace it doesn’t seem like it’ll take much longer but….”

“After the city walls are finished, we might get assigned  different work.”

“I heard the sound of hammers hasn’t stopped in the smithy.”  

“It’s the same for the city wall construction side. I heard they’re engraving magic on every single brick?”

“On every single one? Are they crazy?”

“Our opponent is Hectare. It’s totally plausible.”  

“Damn…!”

It was a crazy thing to say but if it was Hectare then it was completely possible.  

The reason we were doing this insane thing in the first place was because the elders had accepted Hectare’s request.  

Of course, we couldn’t blame the elders.  

It was us who had put the elders in a difficult position, which led to Hectare’s threats against them.  

When threatened with the dwarven elder as leverage, they wouldn’t have had a choice.  

So this whole mess was because of that evil-hand Hectare.  

If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have had to suffer like this!

“Is everyone working hard?”

“You’ve come, honorary elder!”

Hearing the voice from behind us, chills ran down our spines.  

We reflexively put down our food and stood up. Hectare looked at us with a very satisfied expression.  

“Eating after working hard tastes the best. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes!” 

“It’s the best!”

“I’ve never eaten food this delicious!”

Seeing us answer with bright smiles, Hectare nodded as if satisfied.  

“Good attitude. Keep that mindset and quickly finish the city walls. This is work for the sake of the world.”

“Understood!”

“Now, for the world!”

“F, for the world!”

“For the world!”

Hectare patted our backs two times and then moved on to the other dwarves.  

“Phew….”

“I thought I was gonna die….”

It still felt like goosebumps were running down my body.  

“Le, let’s eat.”  

“Yeah.”

Since Hectare was still nearby, we couldn’t complain about him.  

He was an honorary dwarven elder and the master of the metal blade.

There were no dwarves who could confront him with their status other than the elders, and there were no dwarves who could confront him with force at all.

He was not an existence that could be won with neither status nor force as an ordinary dwarf lacking both.  

“Still, once this fortress wall is complete… We will be able to be liberated, right?”

It had only been a week since the work started.

Although it was a very short time, the height of the fortress wall of a capital city of a small kingdom was already stacked up.  

But Hectare was not satisfied.

Bigger and thicker.  

Hectare was trying to build the greatest barrier in the world, not to mention a fortress wall, in the dwarf village which didn’t even build a fence.

“No matter how you say you want to fight the Demon King… Isn’t this too much…?”

The Demon King who tries to destroy the world according to the will of the evil god is only born in a human body.  

A certain dragon claimed that humans are the most evil creatures, so the Demon King will not appear if they become extinct, and tried to kill all humans. The Demon King and the evil god were the objects of fear for all beings living in this world.

The moment he becomes the Demon King, the power of the evil god comes to possess tremendous power beyond humans, and he also gains the authority to manipulate the evil god’s forces.  

Immeasurable strength.  

The Demon King was an existence with such strength.  

Therefore, it is certainly the right judgment to be careful, and be careful again.

However… It was clear that the body of the Demon King was a human body.

Is there any reason to build such a high fortress wall when he doesn’t have wings or is hundreds of meters tall?  

It would be natural to have such doubts.

“This is my guess…”

“What is it?”

Febrius, who spoke first, carefully looked around to see if Hectare was nearby, confirmed that his figure was not visible, and then said his opinion in a very small voice.  

“According to the information I know, I heard that Hectare was stabbed by the imperial princess.”

“The imperial princess?”

“Isn’t she in an intimate relationship with Hectare?”

“I don’t know. Hectare might have made a move on her.”

“Haha… I can’t believe Hectare made a move on her as  he had the metal bat. Even if they say they are close, the princess could try to kill Hectare.”  

“Hectare acted like Hectare.”  

It was the moment when I naturally nodded.  

Even if they are priests of the Goddess of Peace, they will lose their sanity the moment they get beaten by the metal bat.

It can be assured.

Even if the imperial princess, who is called the Iron-Blooded Monarch, is said to be as cold as a creature with iron blood.  

No, even if she has blood made of mithril, called the miracle metal!

The moment she gets hit, she will lose her reason and try to kill the guy who hit her.

“Could it be… He’s trying to block the imperial army here with the fortress wall!”

“That’s right. Hectare isn’t just thinking about the Demon King. He’s Hectare with the evil-hand. There’s no reason for such an evil existence to fight the Demon King.”  

“I guess…”

“Hectare is more like an apostle of the evil god than the Demon King…”

“There’s no reason for similar existences to fight each other.”

Everyone nodded at Febrius’s words. It was a very convincing thing to say.  

“Anyway, after the fight with the Demon King, Hectare may be thinking about it later.”  

Febrius’s words made us pause our meal and sink into thought for a moment.  

Certainly it was a very persuasive thing to say.

However,  

“What about food?”

“What about support?”

“We can’t make a living here unless we sell tools, right?”

The only reason we dwarves sell weapons and other magical tools to humans.  

It was for survival.

Most of this place was not suitable for farming, and although there were mountains, about half were rocky mountains, so there was a limit to being self-sufficient in the mountains.  

And the most important thing is that the dwarven race itself is not a race that enjoys farming or hunting.

Given time, they wanted to hammer more iron and hone their skills, rather than farm or hunt.

That’s why I had been periodically selling some of the things I made to humans I could trust, and in return, I was getting support with food and other living supplies.  

“Isn’t there a way to survive without human support?”

Febrius objected to my words.

“Sure there is. We can’t rely solely on humans after all.”

As Febrius said, we were already prepared to live without human support.

The moment we become perfectly dependent on humans, greedy humans will surely threaten us with food in order to force us to make even stronger weapons. That’s why.

“But we didn’t expect there to be a way to survive while trapped inside the walls under siege by the empire’s army.”

In the first place, if such a situation had occurred, all of the clan would have been prepared to fight to the death. 

There have been occasions in the past when greedy humans threatened us, but our ancestors protected our technology at the cost of their lives.

But this time it’s different. 

What the empire wants is the evil-handed Hectare.

We were only building walls forced by his wretched threats using the metal bat. 

“Uh… That’s…”

“When supplies run out while trapped inside walls, the method is to starve and die from dehydration. Humans are experts in that area more so than us.”

“Indeed.”

“Would Hectare really not know something so obvious? Our opponent is the evil-handed one.”

The symbol of evil. 

Perhaps even more evil than the devil himself, it seemed unlikely that Hectare would make such a mistake.

“On the contrary, he could be plotting something that aims for exactly that.”

If it’s the evil-handed Hectare, he may well be plotting something that aims for starvation.

“Or it could be completely unrelated to the empire.”

“Is that so…?”

Febrius nodded with a slightly sullen expression. His earnest opinion had been denied after all. 

“But it was a good point.” 

The more information we have on Hectare the better.

Because for us, the dwarf liberation league, even a little, even a tiny bit more information is precious.

“Meal time is now over!”

Soon after, the voice announcing the end of meal time could be heard.

“Meal time?”

“Was there such a thing?”

As we tilted our heads looking at our meals which were still more than half unfinished, the dwarves who had already submitted to the metal bat and become Hectare’s followers shouted in loud voices.

“Since progress on the work is slow, from now on meals must be finished within 20 minutes.”

“Th, that can’t be….”

The meal time which used to allow a minimum of 40 minutes to a maximum of 1 hour had ended. 

The time we could rest was reduced by half to a third.

“Th, this can’t be….”

“Those who fail to keep the meal time will have a personal meeting with the honorary elder Hectare and the metal bat!”

Hectare and the metal bat.

A meeting with that combination could not possibly go normally.

It would surely be an extremely horrible and painful meeting that would be engraved into our souls.

“Today, thanks to honorary elder Hectare’s mercy, you will have 1 minute to finish your meal!”

1 minute. Even though half of the meal still remained. 

But if we didn’t eat this, the hard labor would become even more difficult.

And so we hurriedly consumed the distributed bread and other foods, drinking water to end the meal. 

But that had been Hectare’s aim all along.

“Finishing half a meal within 1 minute.” 

“Honorary elder!”

His footsteps were ghostly.

Like an assassin, Hectare had silently approached right behind our backs. With a very satisfied look on his face, he nodded.

“It seems 20 minutes isn’t even needed for a meal.”

“Th, that’s…”

We could only look at Hectare with trembling eyes. Because a long, silver rod was held in his hand.

“Th, that’s… Uh… That’s….”

We were dripping cold sweat, staring intently only at the silver whip in Hectare’s hand.

If that thing moved…

“10 minutes for a meal. That should be fine, right?”

“Yes, yup…”

Fortunately, there was no movement from the metal bat in Hectare’s hand. 

But we had lost 10 precious minutes of rest time.

Yet we had no choice but to endure.

Endure and endure and endure.

We endured until the wall was complete, endured until all manner of weapons were plastered over it, endured even when told dragons could come and the fortress would be able to shoot them down. Still dissatisfied, Hectare kept making more demands that we met to the maximum.

And watching for that chance, we,

“We can endure Hectare’s tyranny no more!”

“Woohoo!”

“But we cannot yield to the metal bat!”

“Woohoo!”

“So… We flee!”

Abandoned our homeland and chose to escape.

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