Chapter 277: Dwarf Doxco

After finishing my somewhat regular contact with My World, I resumed my climb up the mountain to the Dwarf settlement.

I could see smoke coming from the Dwarf village from afar and I could see it from the sky using Hawk-Eye so I could easily determine my direction.

Initially, I felt that I didn’t have much use for Hawk-Eye but I found it extremely useful as a traveler. It functioned like the peripheral map of an RPG.

Looking at the mountain trail, the path took quite a large detour but the distance in a straight line didn’t seem that far.

Since I could perform three-dimensional movements with my Jump Correction, I ran up the mountain in a straight line instead of hiking up the trail. That said, it was more of a trot than a run.

I was told that I would reach the Dwarf settlement in two hours from the guard station but in actual fact, it took shorter than 15 minutes.

It wasn’t a town so there was no need to pay an entry tax.

The arch-shaped entrance to the village was as expected of a Dwarf village. I could not tell when I saw it from above but the patterns were intricate and beautiful.

If this was in modern-day Japan, this door alone would become a good photo spot.

Or rather, I should just take a photo.

I took my smartphone out from my item box and took a picture. I switched to selfie mode and took another picture with my face in it.

Thanks to the charger and engine for power generation that Miri brought, I didn’t have to worry about recharging the phone so I could take as many shots as I wanted. Of course, I couldn’t upload it to SNS so it was purely photos taken for the memories.

“Oo, that’s a good shot.”

“That’s right. Well, it would probably be better if there were girls in the photo.”

I felt regretful that Haru, Carol, and Malina weren’t there.

It would be bad if the Dark-Elves were seen outside, Pionia was a hikikomori, so by process of elimination, there was only Neete left?

Saying that she was the only one left by the process of elimination was a little rude but Neete could be considered an extremely beautiful lady. Although her personality was a little difficult.

“Umu, females huh? Then, should I call the girls from the village over?”

“No, there’s no need … eh!?”

Without knowing, there was an unfamiliar man looking into my smartphone.

He was a man of short stature, bearded face and he was wearing a helmet with what seemed like cow horns.

Right, he was a dwarf.

“Sorry, em … are you from this village? Ah, I am a  traveler called Ichinojo.”

“Umu, I am called Doxco. I work as a blacksmith in this village.”

He introduced himself in a classic manner.

If this was Japan, that was where we would exchange name cards but naturally, as a non-regular employee working for family diners, I didn’t have a name card. Whereas Miri would occasionally exchange opinions with professors and researchers from famous universities or be invited to the houses of big company executives and bureaucrats to teach something I couldn’t understand so she had a name card.

This is something unrelated but when I faced my 30th consecutive failed interview, I talked with Miri about using her connections to get a job but Miri refused with a smile.

『Using my connections, I believe Onii will get an offer in under a minute for a famous company and be treated as an executive but I feel that if Onii did so, Onii will never forgive yourself.』

She told me.

At that time I was grasping at straws so I felt despair when she refused. However, after receiving my cheat abilities through the Growth Cheat, I often find myself immersed in self-hate whenever I see how Haru and Carol respected me. It might be a cheat but I have accepted it as a power I possess. If I actually used Miri’s connections to be hired as a staff, I would have probably hated myself even more.

Now I could understand Miri’s tenderness and strictness and mourn my own foolishness.

Well then, I’ll take another look at Doxco.

He said he was a blacksmith.

【Job: Dwarf Blacksmith Lv43】

It appeared.

It was probably the same as the Elf Archer, a race-specific job.

His level was high as well.

“Could I take a look at that? Perhaps that is what they refer to as a gadget?”

” … Yeah, well … you can tell?”

“Because I don’t feel any magic flow at all.”

I showed Doxco the smartphone.

He asked if he could touch it and I wanted to refuse but in the end, I passed it to him after cautioning him to not break it as it was delicate.

Doxco seemed to be a mass of curiosity as he examined the smartphone and asked me all kinds of questions. Of course, I didn’t know the specific composition of a smartphone so I couldn’t explain it to him well.

However, after somewhat describing it to him,

“I see … the shape is different but this is a communication device. I guess it is the gadget called ‘cell phone’.”

… !? Doxco didn’t say anything wrong. But I understood.

Doxco said the word ‘cell phone’ in Japanese. It was not translated.

I was sure that the tool called a cell phone was not present in this world. It does not exist so it won’t be translated. Since it will not be translated, somebody must have told him in Japanese and it remained that way.

“Who did you hear that from?”

“The inventor called Daijiro.”

“You know Daijiro-san!?”

A sudden development. A timely development.

Even though I have not entered the village, I found clues to Daijiro-san … maybe.