Chapter 239 Volume IV - Chapter 84: North's Dark Side
Looking at the medium-sized room with two bunk beds in front of me, I slowly turned to the three dwarves standing next to me.
When they saw my expression, one of them smiled wryly.
"That's how it goes on the wars, lad. Ain't nothin' else to it but gettin' used to it."
Two of the dwarves I was going to share a room with hurried to choose a bunk for themselves, and as if they had done it many times before, they threw their things on the bed on the left without even a little discussion.
I realized I had been misunderstood.
"No, I'm not complaining. It's just..."
I looked around the room, took another quick glance at the state of things, and couldn't help wondering if I was seeing things wrong.
"I expected worse than this, I guess."
When I was told that I would be staying in a room for four people for the next week, and maybe more, I was definitely expecting something... worse, even terrible. Not a place that looked so clean, so freshly painted and that practically screamed at me, 'I'm a hotel room for rich people'...
North Holar really cares about its soldiers, it seems...
"Heh, well, ain't no problem then. You wanna sleep on top or bottom?"
"It makes no difference to me."
When the dwarf heard that, he quickly threw the bag he was holding at the bottom of the bunk bed on the right side of the room, and by the time he had done so, the other two dwarves had finished getting settled. They looked at us as silence fell over the room.
"Hey, we ain't just gonna sit around all day, are we?"
The dwarf who had chosen the top of the right bunk, Gurdas if I remember correctly, jumped down and stretched after saying those words. Then a big smile appeared on his face and he turned to me.
His shoulder-length hair was light brown, almost blond, and his eyes, in contrast to his hair, were a shade of brown that I would almost call black. His face was slightly wrinkled, showing that he was aging slowly. Still, he had a good build, thinner than the average dwarf, but well-built.
"Are ye up for wrestlin', lad?"
"Uh, no... no thanks."
I mean... even if I wrestled with him, it would be too hard for me to lose. After all, dwarves can't use mana, so they can't build up their bodies very much. And I'm a D- grade human...
Aside from any injuries, as I said, it's impossible for him to take me down on his own strength alone.
"Meh, ye be pretty dull."
He hesitated for a moment, and I thought he was going to ignore me and go back to the other dwarves, so I headed for my own bed, but then I realized he was still staring at me.
"Well, if ye ain't up fer wrestlin'... how 'bout we play a game betwixt us?"
My eyebrows went up and Gurdas smiled again as the other two dwarves in the room sighed slightly, as if they knew what was coming.
"Fer example, do ye know how t' play chess?"
Oh, chess?
"It's been years since I played, but I remember the rules."
Gurdas thus widened his smile, clicked on the bracelet on his right arm, and a holographic chessboard formed in front of him in an instant.
"Then let's play, I don't want t' just sit here an' do nothin'."
Chess... is not something I'm extremely skilled at. I learned it when I was a kid and played a little bit for a while, but I was not overly interested in it, so I never really went into it.
Still, I know the basics, so at least I'm sure I won't perform badly.
Besides... this could be actually good for relaxing.
I crouched down in front of Gurdas, looked at the chessboard, and then saw a dice icon on it.
Gurdas reached for the dice, clicked on it, and then the colors on the pieces on the chessboard suddenly started to change. Finally, when the pieces on my side were black and the pieces on Gurdas' side were white, it stopped.
Meanwhile, the other two dwarves in the room had turned to the board between us, wondering what was going to happen.
"Then let us begin!"
Gurdas made the first move quickly, positioning the pawn in front of his king in the center.
I moved the pawn in front of my bishop on the black square.
Then the knights were played, and Gurdas asked for an exchange with his pawn in front of his king. I agreed, wanting to respond to his aggressive play in the same way, but Gurdas preferred to stand there and play his other knight when we both lost our pawns.
For a while, neither he nor I attacked, taking care to play the position of our pieces as accurately as possible.
Eventually, there was friction again, stalemates were taken and we started trading.
It was fun, honestly. Especially when I thought about my move, it refreshed my mind. And Gurdas was an even better player than I had imagined.
My hand went to the bishop on the white square, I wanted to play it, but while I was looking at the board, I suddenly paused and my hand stayed in the air. I realized something I hadn't seen until that moment.
I stared blankly at the board, even though it was already my turn and my hand was right above the elephant.
"Ya're better than I thought, Aiden."
A smile appeared on my face, I moved my hand away from my bishop and finally moved my king, which I hadn't touched since the beginning of the game.
"You were already ahead of me, all you did was play games with me. All I can do now is avoid getting checkmated, let alone winning."
The game didn't make much sense. Gurdas had arranged his pieces in such a way that I could see that even if I avoided the king now, it would get stuck again later.
"You remind me of my son."
I had to sacrifice a queen, trying to see if I could at least draw the game, but... it was difficult.
"In what sense?"
"He never gave up while playing with me, even if he knew he was going to lose, he would try for a draw."
A smile appeared on his face, his eyes narrowed slightly, though he was still looking at the board.
"I'd actually want him to be someone like you when he grows up."
Like me? What...? Who wants their child to go to war?
"Like me in what way?"
I noticed his hand trembling slightly as he picked up one of my last remaining pieces with his bishop, I think he could guess what I was thinking even though I had asked a question.
"Heh, of course not the way you're thinkin'."
His face turned serious, and I realized that there was almost no move left for me to make on the board, so I finally turned fully to him.
"I'll do me best to make sure there be no link between him and the war."
He took a deep breath, smiled widely again, and simply pushed a pawn forward.
It was the last move on the board, the match was over.
"I lost, huh..."
One of the dwarves who had been watching the match so far, Rulhan, quickly interjected.
"Don't fret, ye did fine. I've scarcely seen anyone stand up to Gurdas like ye did."
His black eyes were sharp. His hair was either shaved or bald, I wasn't sure which, but either way he looked like a tough guy with a slightly long beard.
"I was playing a match with a chess robot and didn't know it, it seems..."
Short but hearty laughter filled the room, and I slowly turned to Gurdas with a grin on my face.
When our eyes met, he realized there was something I wanted to say and listened to me.
"I believe you have the right not to join the army if you have a family, why are you here?"
It was a question I was really curious about.
Gurdas was a cheerful person, he even introduced himself as Gurdas the Glorious when we met for the first time a few days ago.
If he had a kid on top of that, why would he risk himself in this war?
"That matter... it be a bit tangled, ye see."
Gurdas narrowed his eyes and bowed his head slightly while maintaining his smile.
As he did so, the expression on the other two's faces contracted, and the cheerful atmosphere... suddenly disappeared.
"Let me share a secret with ye, lad."
Rulhan suddenly turned serious, frowned, and jumped to his feet in a booming voice that matched his stern appearance.
"Gurdas!"
"He's fightin' alongside us, Rulhan, spillin' blood for the North while he ain't even seen twenty winters."
Rulhan opened his mouth, wanted to say something, but then he couldn't think of anything to say. He gritted his teeth, kept his expression, and turned to me.
For the first time, he looked uneasily at me, who had been watching the two of them without realizing what was going on, and sat back down. He wasn't as angry as before, he just looked uncomfortable now.
"What've ye been thinkin' 'bout the North since ye came here, lad?"
I couldn't help swallowing at what had happened, at the sudden changes in the room.
What exactly is going on here...?
"I... frankly, I thought of it as a technological paradise, and the more I saw... the more I realized that, apart from the war of course, the North Holar was a good place to live. There was a lot of happiness and spaciousness."
Gurdas nodded at each of my words, and yet with each word he became more serious.
"This place, lad, it's just as ye've been thinkin'. Truly spacious and everyone's happy, of course... 'cept for a few matters."
Rulhan clicked his tongue at this point. Durvan, the other dwarf in the room, remained silent. However, Gurdas continued.
"Most o' the citizens in North Holar are, in a manner o' speakin', property o' the country. So if the government asks somethin' from ye, ye gotta do it. If it tells ye to be a soldier and fight at the very front... well, there ain't much choice but to fight."
What...?
Country's... property? Living, sentient, 'thinking' dwarves?
"Our history ain't as pure as ye might think, Aiden. Both in technology, in prosperity, and many more, we had to make great sacrifices to get where we are today."
He clenched his fist as if remembering the past, his voice cracked and his brow furrowed. Yet he recovered quickly, clearly uncomfortable, but continued.
"Most dwarves past a certain age... they've truly endured great pains. When I think about the things of the past... the situation we're in now, it's just a small price we've paid for prosperity and happiness."
The past...
What exactly happened in the Dwarves' past?
In the game, the North Holar is destroyed before the player even gets out of Cevilian, the South Holar wins the war and ruins all of Lunerra. They hide everything about themselves, they don't want anyone to know about them.
And of course, the North Holar, when it was still in existence, was at the very center of trade in Lunerra, so it didn't reveal things about the past.
So the biggest gap in the history books, ignoring the faes, has always been the dwarves themselves.
My mind was filled with jumbled thoughts, intrigued by the fact that here and now I was confronted with information I could not have had in the game even if I had wanted it.
A country whose people are literally its own property.
What could they have lived through in the past so that the people had not rebelled until now?
Well, the older generation may see it as a really small price to pay for whatever they went through, but what about the new generation? Is it really not that important for them either? If it was important, wouldn't I have seen it myself in the first place?
Or is this 'past' that Gurdas talks about not so distant?
"North Holar's a right fine country, Aiden. Dun't want ye to gettin' the wrong idea from what I've been sayin'. Besides, who or what in this world ain't got some blemish, huh? Jus' like everyone and everythin''s got a downside, the place we live's got its own, that's all."
I took a deep breath and let it out, I definitely wanted to explore this issue in the future when I was strong enough, but right now another question was on my mind.
How many people in the army are fighting against their will? Even if the number is high, how many people are actually acting out, being blatantly complacent?
I squinted my eyes and thought again about this place that until now had seemed like a paradise. Then Lunerra, the things I saw in the game.
Gurdas is right, there is nothing or no one in this world without a dark side.
"Anyway, as I said, keep it hush-hush, jes' hold it to yer own self."
Gurdas again put a big smile on his face, this time turning to Rulhan and Durvan who had been very quiet so far.
"Come on, we're headin' to battle soon as we wake up tomorrow. Let's get a bit of cheer goin'! Look here, I'll tell ya somethin'..."
Gurdas pressed the bracelet on his arm again, the chessboard disappeared, and this time a video appeared, sort of visualizing what was coming out of his mouth.
He was describing a funny incident from the past when he was still a university student. As his words were visualized on the holographic screen in the center of the room, we were watching how he was a womanizer who was always chasing girls, and how he even got in trouble for it.
It was fun, there were times when I really couldn't stop smiling.
And that was not the only thing.
After Gurdas, Rulhan and Darvun also started telling their memories.
The dark things were quickly pushed aside, even Rulhan returned to his normal self and immersed himself in the conversation.
We listened to what they had to say until midnight, digging into junk food, and laughing together. Until it finally stopped, until we inevitably went to our beds to sleep because it was time for war the next morning.
As I closed my eyes, the thought in my mind was simple.
For the first time... for the first time in my time here, I realized that I was not just fighting to better myself, but that I was actually fighting on behalf of people like me.
This reality, even though I had the skill named Absolute Mind, was slowly but surely beginning to settle in my mind in a way that would manifest itself over a long period of time.
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