Chapter 865: The Comical Battle in the Babtali Valley (Part 9)

"Iron Fist" was in much better condition now; after taking a dose of pain-relieving potion, his mind began to function again.

The old Dwarf lay half-reclined at the mine's ground entrance, softly asking his injured companions who had returned about their previous experiences. He whispered his thanks to every Miner who had been wounded while seeking revenge for him, then silently lay back against the base of the wall.

Although the young Dwarf Xiaoxuezi on the dirt mound outside the mine was jumpy, he still reported the situation of the battle outside the mine.

"Is it 'Shishou'? His personality, hmm, no problem. Sigh, this strength is still indispensable, and in fact, it's not even enough..."

He muttered to himself, and because his voice was low, even the injured Dwarf companions lying on the ground nearby didn't hear what he said, assuming only that "Iron Fist" was groaning in a low voice due to his injuries like everyone else at the scene.

"A bridge, yes, yes, I know, sigh, what is truly lacking is a bridge, of friendship, no, it can't be called friendship, at least a bridge of equality." He pondered something while talking to himself.

"Or a trade? Is this person suitable? Fighting so fiercely. Sigh, it's a headache. How did the situation turn into what it is now? But honestly, this is the best opportunity in the last few decades. Or rather, the best chance since being forgotten here?"

A look of sorrow appeared on "Iron Fist's" old face; like other companions who mentally longed to return to Dwarf society, he himself also had a deep desire to go back. After all, unlike other Dwarf Miners, he had carefully spoken with every batch of Humans who had wandered into the Zhenbao Mine, regardless of their age.

He knew and understood that as time passed, the migrants who had moved from the Human Empire had already established a Human nation called the Saint Hors Kingdom on the vast land outside the mine.

He even knew that near the Grass Sea in the west, the Dwarf Kingdom often launched wars to retake lost land.

But knowing is one thing, walking there is another; he wasn't even very familiar with how to go once he left the Huitou Forest. The migrants generally didn't have a high level of education, and their maps were diverse; the same place name could even appear in several different directions, north or south.

He still had to find a way to establish a connection with the Humans in the outside world.

But opening his eyes and seeing the injured Dwarf companions lying or leaning around him, "Iron Fist's" head began to ache again.

"This is tricky..."

He sighed, while his heart was still struggling and making various judgments.

"Ahhhhh! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! What the hell is this! Why is your body glowing? Did you rub glowing powder on yourself?"

Jier yelled strangely, riding on the back of his galloping warhorse, rushing forward, but the direction was toward the only Cunzi in the Valley.

He couldn't care about circling around the Valley at this moment, because the glowing Dwarf behind him was chasing very closely.

Even though he was hopping on the ground with two legs, he was actually as fast as his warhorse running on four legs!

How is that possible!

"Shishou," chasing behind, was breathing heavily, sucking air into his body to supply the necessary air for his surging, operating physique, just like the clean air necessary for forging and burning. To be honest, in the eyes of Dwarves who were skilled at forging, the operation of life was like a forge; eating and drinking was adding fuel to the forge, and breathing was blowing air into the forge, so that the forge could burn red and produce enough high temperature to melt materials.

"Keep your mouth clean! You wretched Human brat! Just get off your horse and let me chop you to death with one sword; that would be good for everyone."

While "Shishou" was leaping forward at high speed, he actually still had the energy and leisure to speak.

"Impossible! Do you think I'm stupid? You solid, short iron egg, you broke my Long Spear, this account must be settled properly! How about using the greatsword in your hand to compensate?"

Jier twisted his neck back, looking greedily at the metal two-handed greatsword the Dwarf was carrying on his shoulder; this thing was almost as tall as the Dwarf, the hilt was very long, suitable for a Warrior with Gauntlets to hold with both hands, and at the same time, the blade was thick and wide, and it looked extremely heavy at a glance.

He didn't know what material this thing was made of, but it couldn't be ordinary steel, because after the collision of their weapons earlier, this weapon hadn't been damaged in the slightest.

Jier couldn't tell if the radiance emanating from the Dwarf had incidentally protected and strengthened the greatsword itself, or if the material and forging of the greatsword were simply excellent.

Compared to the opponent's weapon, Jier's usual Metal Double-Edged Long Spear, apart from being comparable in weight, couldn't compete with the opponent in any other aspect.

This made Jier very irritable, and he also realized that as he traveled around, his old gear could no longer fully cope with the various new situations he encountered.

Just like the Full-body Metal Armor he was wearing at this moment.

It could protect him well when facing Human Bandits, and it was also very effective against wild beasts and Monsters. But this time, facing these Dwarves who had great strength and liked to use Heavy Weapons, it wasn't enough.

A proper Knight Armor would certainly have no problem dealing with these heavy weapons of the Dwarves, but Jier's was not that.

This was protective gear he had crafted together with a Craftsman friend; when it was made, Jier hadn't undergone Knight Training, and his physical functions were far less robust than they were now. The armor that felt heavy at the time no longer felt heavy to Jier now.

He usually even felt as relaxed and comfortable wearing the armor as a normal person wearing Linen Cloth clothes.

Perhaps, it was time to upgrade his armaments?

Hearing the Human Knight's insolent words, "Shishou" snorted coldly, steadied the greatsword on his shoulder with his right hand, and with his left hand barely free, he wiped and pulled at his waist, drawing out a small axe and holding it in his hand.

Using the momentum of his body's jumping and leaping, "Shishou" threw the small hand axe in his left hand forward violently.

His state at this moment was very different from usual; once the weapon left his hand, even he himself was startled, not expecting the momentum to be so astonishing.

This small Flying Axe whistled with a startling sound of breaking through the air, heading straight for Jier, who was riding on the horse's back, in a slight arc.

In fact, Jier had been turning his head to observe the Dwarf behind him, so as soon as he saw the Dwarf's movement, he became vigilant. When the spinning small Flying Axe flew toward him, the time was very short; Jier didn't have time to let the Tianxuecao actively dodge or anything, so he had to lift the Elven Metal Shield on his left hand, drumming his heart as he actively met the trajectory of the opponent's projectile with the shield.

"You must block it!"

Before Jier finished muttering, with a "Clang," there was no explosion of metal sparks, only a loud noise accompanied by a violent vibration in Jier's left hand; he himself had his buttocks lifted off the Muan for a moment due to this impact.

Jier looked down and saw that the small Flying Axe thrown by the opponent had already broken through most of the front of the Elven Metal Shield, embedding itself entirely into it; one end of the axe even pierced through the entire shield, stabbing through a corner on the back of the shield next to Jier, and happened to get stuck on Jier's left forearm.

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva; if he hadn't blocked it with the shield, Jier had no doubt that the opponent's Flying Axe could have pierced his armor directly, injuring or even killing him instantly.

"Damn it! I'm angry now! My precious shield! You stupid guy, this is a shield forged from some rare Elven Metal that I don't recognize! My shield! It has fought with me for a long time!"

Jier screamed.

"Shishou" felt a bit embarrassed upon hearing this; Elven metal! Dwarves rarely saw it, and if the other party wasn't bragging, this shield was indeed very rare and expensive.

But it turned out that a shield made of Elven metal material was just like this? It didn't look like it had much defensive power.

"Sorry, sorry, if you surrender now, I am willing to help you forge a shield privately, hmm, a work shield for us Dwarf Miners! Heh, it's definitely much better than that Elven Metal Shield."

Jier rolled his eyes, treating it as if the other party were farting.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came to his ears. Jier looked down and saw that the Tianxuecao had already rushed into the large fields of crops outside the Cunzi while moving toward the Cunzi. The rustling sound was made by the warhorse trampling through the large crops.

It was a pity for these well-grown crops; he hoped the God of Agriculture would not blame him, after all, he was generally working for the God of Agriculture now.

Jier's warhorse rushed into the fields without slowing down; even because the surface of the fields had been cultivated and the topsoil was softer, the speed of the Tianxuecao's gallop became even faster. In contrast, the Dwarf "Shishou" had a brief pause when following into the fields.

But soon, the Dwarf made up his mind and accelerated to catch up. However, after stopping and then chasing again, the distance between the two widened.

Jier waved his hand behind him triumphantly and shouted loudly: "I don't believe your strength has no time limit, ha, who doesn't have something similar." Then came Jier's muttering; compared to the opponent's bronze-colored faint light all over his body, which increased strength and speed in all aspects, and possibly amplified and protected his weapon, the ability bestowed upon him by the God of Agriculture only allowed him to have infinite energy for a short time.

It couldn't be said that it didn't increase his combat ability, but in actual use, the boost to combat ability was relatively limited.

Because real combat was not a competitive match; it often ended in a very short time.

Real combat had no weight classes, no rules against the big bullying the small; in fact, Warriors strove to bully the small with the big, or bully the few with the many in battle. Combat was not a place to talk about fairness.

Just as Jier could fully utilize the mobility advantage of his warhorse in battle, the Dwarf chasing him at this moment also had the combat strength to suppress Jier in a head-on fight.

On the grass in the distant Valley, the panting Dwarves watched as the two, one person and one horse, chased and fled toward the Human Cunzi, looking at each other in silence.

"Are we still following?"

A Dwarf who was so tired he had even taken off his Helmet asked those around him; this Dwarf was holding a Heavy Throwing Spear and was one of the very Dwarves who had previously ambushed Jier in the Huitou Forest.

The nearby Dwarves looked at one another; instinctively, no one wanted to continue the pursuit. After all, for one, their stamina was nearly exhausted, and the breakfast they had eaten before starting work that morning had long since been burned off by the exercise; for another, could they not be clear about their own level of ability? Having the formidable "Shishou" was enough, right?

But it was hard to voice this, as everyone had mobilized in such force not just to defeat the outsider who had blundered into the Huitou Forest, but more so to seek revenge for the Mine manager, "Iron Fist."

The roar of vengeance still rang in their ears, and at a time like this, no one was willing to be the one to suggest that everyone take a break.

Although speaking up now would certainly help everyone and align with their wishes, it would sound truly terrible if it got out. Everyone had worked together in the same Mine for at least one or two hundred years, or at the very least about a hundred years; they saw each other every day, and a good reputation was truly too important.

After all, "Iron Fist" was not dead, and if he were to hear later who had suggested taking a break while supposedly seeking revenge for him, it would not look good.

They might even be treated differently!

For example, in the Mine work, while others mined, you would be cleaning the Mine Toilets, or while others guarded precious minerals, you would be guarding the transport of feces to the surface. Usually, these jobs were rotated, but if you said one too many words now, this job might just become yours for good!

With this concern, the exhausted Dwarves did not have a single person speak up again.

No one spoke up to suggest a rest, so what could they do? Heh, keep walking; wherever the enemy was, they had to follow.

"Damn it, how could an outsider ride a horse in here? It's really cheating!" a Dwarf complained. The others nodded silently upon hearing this; was that not the truth? In the past, no outsider who entered the Huitou Forest had ever ridden a horse in!

"Oh no! Everyone! Look! The outsider Knight and the Dwarf who suddenly became powerful have both entered the Cunzi." A sharp-eyed archer suddenly shouted out among the Cunzi youths.

His shout caused the crowd to stir.

Another archer carrying a Large Bow also shouted, "Let's hurry back! Those two are so powerful; fighting in the Cunzi will surely cause massive destruction!"

The crowd let out uneasy cries of alarm. Only then did the young people remember that there were more people in the Cunzi, especially the elderly, the weak, the women, and the children who could not walk well and were more easily injured. They were all their own kin, and naturally, they could not bear to see their own people suffer senseless harm, even if it were accidental injury from the fighting.

"Let's hurry back! Let's go back and have our families take refuge in a safer place!" Finally, the older archer "gave" this suggestion.

Without anyone needing to give an order, the Human youths, who had better stamina and had not actually expended much energy, passed the exhausted group of Dwarves one after another, heading straight for their Cunzi with uneasy hearts.

The three archers looked at each other and also mingled into the crowd to hurry over.

The Dwarves, moving slowly, had no objections to being overtaken by the Human youths, but one Dwarf mocked, "'Iron Fist' should look at that—see who it was that exhausted their stamina to avenge him, while certain others only bothered to start running when their own homes were in danger."

"Humans have long legs, hmph, one of their steps is worth two of ours. Maybe their stamina lasts longer, too," a Dwarf mocked in this way.

"Say less. At least they almost caught that Human Knight's horse just now. What a pity; if not for the help of the horse, and with everyone's stamina full, that Human Knight would be no match for us at all!"

A Dwarf spoke a fair word.

"That's not certain. Who knows if it was truly a failure to control the warhorse, or if it was done on purpose. After all, the Human Knight didn't go for the kill, just punched the man off the horse's back and that was it." But immediately, another Dwarf retorted, taking the opportunity to put forward his own suspicious theory.

Once the conversation reached this point, other Dwarves added, "Everyone needs to observe carefully. Only the youths among the Humans in the Cunzi came out to fight with us; not a single one of those middle-aged Humans came. They could clearly fight if they picked up weapons, yet none of them came. What is their stance?"

"Hmph, 'Iron Fist' is just too good to them, indulging them in everything. Everyone understands, right? How strong the Humans' reproductive ability is! How many people entered the Mine in total at the beginning? How many are there now? And us? How many new Dwarf babies have been born in the Mine all these years?" A Dwarf shouted, frustrated by their lack of progress.

In the past, no one dared to say such things for fear of upsetting "Iron Fist," but perhaps, as their fellow Miner "Shishou" had become powerful, authority had become somewhat blurred.

Things they dared not say, they now dared to voice as complaints when the atmosphere was right.

Especially since "Iron Fist" himself was not present; although there were his die-hard Miner subordinates around, these people also listened in silence. Perhaps as long as the arrow of conflict did not point at the Mine manager himself, whom they trusted and revered, these words were fine.

"It's still that we have too few female workers in the Mine to mend clothes and cook. I knew back then that the Zhenbao Mine would be full of men, but to earn money, I had no choice but to come here and be a Miner." A Dwarf complained, dredging up old grievances from over a hundred years ago.

"If they had hired a few more sturdy female workers back then, we wouldn't be thinking about going home like this now. We could have just started families here, had seven or eight kids, and used the minerals we mined ourselves—how wonderful that would be. I go mining, my wife sews me a few sets of comfortable clothes from the blind mole skins I beat out of the Mine, and then she boils a big pot of hot stew—that would be a real life!"

The Dwarf imagined this as he spoke; clearly, he had been longing for these things for a long time.

"And the result? Ever since we were left here and missed the Great Evacuation, it's been over ninety years, nearly a hundred. Mining every day, and they don't even pay us money, just using the precious minerals we dig up as wages."

As the Dwarf said this, a close supporter of "Iron Fist" nearby, gripping his Heavy Throwing Spear, said with dissatisfaction, "What, are you dissatisfied with being paid in precious minerals? Are they worthless? Or do those things have no value?"

"They're valuable! They're valuable! I didn't say they weren't valuable, but no matter what, they're just minerals. They can't be traded for food or drink, fun things or clothes at the Kingdom's grand market, nor can they let me marry a sturdy Dwarf girl with a big braid. Dwarf gods above, I'm two hundred years old; when will I start a family?"

This question stumped everyone. The vast majority of the Dwarves present were bachelors, and a major reason they wanted to leave and return home was exactly this.

With the conversation at this point, no one had any desire to complain anymore. Everyone looked at the surrounding high mountains and the Huitou Forest behind them; they even felt at times that these things did not just restrict the Humans' freedom of movement, but had locked them in here themselves.

A narrow, cramped, dead-end Zhenbao Mine.