The Martial Unity

“So the humans have already allied with the elves, hm?”

A deep, masculine voice echoed across a hall.

His tone was rough.

The dwarf stroked his long beard as he studied the report placed in front of him.

“…Now we’ll bleed if we mount another attack on the humans.”

His tone was one of displeasure.

“That’s right, Your Majesty.” One dwarf across the long table nodded with a serious expression. “We can’t afford to have our relationship with the dark elves compromised. We rely on them for much of our domestic consumption. We would suffer dire foot shortages if they placed an embargo on the export of cheap food to our great Bournvyrne Empire.”

Many dwarves seated across the long table nodded in agreement as shadows danced across the room with the flickering flames that served as the only source of light within the otherwise dark hall.

Each of them donned extravagant clothes woven by dwarven hands, making for some of the finest pieces of clothing and cloth that existed anywhere in the entirety of the true world.

“We would also lose much of the services that they provide to us,” another dwarf across the table remarked with a knowing tone. “They possess great ability to heal and rejuvenate by virtue of their nature manipulation. Many of the raw ingredients that we use for our crafts and even our artifacts can only be found on the Genora Continent. We would lose access to the fabrics that we borrow from them if we were to face an embargo on trade from them, Your Majesty. We cannot afford a falling out with the dwarves.”

Not all dwarves, however, were satisfied by yielding to such pressure.

“Screw those tree-hugging pacifists!” one dwarf growled. “The treasures of the Lost Continent are worth far more than anything else available in the Genora Continent!”

“Hear, hear!”

“Verily, that is indeed true, Marnwell!”

Several dwarves also found themselves agreeing with this sentiment.

And to an extent, it couldn’t be denied. The exotic matter that was sprawled across the entire continent in great abundance was capable of much more than anything the dark elves could provide them with.

It was the whole reason that geopolitical tensions on Gaia had grown ever since the return of the Lost Continent.

There were those who greeded for the exotic treasures.

There were those who feared what would happen if those who greeded for the exotic treasure got their hands on it.

And there were those who did both.

The dwarves of the Bournevyrne Empire were one such group of people.

“Look!” Marnwell stood up from his little chair as he pulled out a special, transparent container that isolated a flowing gray fluid at its very center. “We managed to get our hands on a whole milligram of Hephaestus’ Blood! While our hadron collider production machine struggles to produce even a nanogram of this substance despite all the energy we pour into it, the humans have large lakes and perhaps even seas worth of this precious pluripotent exotic matter!”

The dwarves shook where they sat, as many widened their eyes with shock.

Their eyes grew filled with greed as they beheld the drop of pluripotent exotic matter.

“Hephaestus’ Blood are the key to elevating our craftsmanship to a higher Realm of power! We dwarves may finally reach a new level and produce a Supreme Artifact! One worthy of being wielded by a God!”

The air boiled with anticipation.

The atmosphere tingled with the weight of their passion.

“Calm down.”

The powerful voice of the Emperor quelled the heating atmosphere.

The dwarves directed their attention to him, seated at the very head of the table.

His hair and beard were white and long.

His attire was comprised of invintium strings no longer than atomic in length. At such an incredibly small thickness, even invintium was as pliable as cotton. Of course, creating such thin invintium strings on an industrial scale was an impossible feat that only the dwarves had mastered with their ingenuity.

The old Emperor’s crown was of gold and silver, with a black gemstone placed at the very center, adding an air of power in the aged wisdom that lingered in his eyes.

“You are thinking like craftsmen.”

His elderly voice gently cajoled them.

“And while I’m aware that we have many great craftsmen in this Royal Meeting, I would implore you to remember that at this moment, you are not serving the Bournvyrne Empire as craftsmen,” the elderly king remarked with a firm tone. “You are serving as leaders and as advisors to me. You are serving our people. That must be the absolute priority when you make your decisions. What may appeal to all of you as craftsmen may be the wrong choice for you to make as leaders of our dwarven people.”

His words had merit, but they alone were not enough to convince many of the dwarves otherwise.

“Your Majesty…” one dwarf began with a constrained tone. “I understand that our people are the highest priority. That is why I insist that we wage a war of conquest against the humans of the Panama Continent and plunder their exotic treasures!”

“They are unworthy of such exotic miracles that they are blessed with in abundance!” another dwarf urged the Emperor. “This will give our people even greater materials to work with, which is in their greatest interests!”

Not all dwarves, however, were eager to attack.

“Fools!” one female dwarf at the table snarled. “Waging war with the Panama Continent will cause untold suffering amongst our people. We cannot simply wage war to get our hands on better materials! Yes, raw ingredients matter a lot, but the lives and well-being of our people matter even more!”

She wasn’t the only one who had compunctions with waging a great war between continents and between civilizations.

“We have already considered war and have even attempted it,” a younger, calmer dwarf pointed out. “We started out with an invasion. How well did that turn out? Human civilization, and their so-called ’Martial Artists,’ proved to be extremely formidable. On top of that, they somehow magically leveraged Authority of Alpha, something that only the Dragon Emperor was supposed to be able to do, and used their fauna to crush our base and have even captured many dwarves as prisoners.”