Chapter 362

Cain only grabs the essentials, reveling in the chance to resupply inside what is essentially a dungeon, since he doesn’t actually need much. A fresh pickaxe, travel food rations, a small cask of whiskey. 

As thanks for going all out during the examination and making him a master-crafted ax; Red puts him up for the night in his own home, a large stone building whose occupants make Cain’s Guild look calm and rational. The giant Dwarf has fifteen children of his own and lives on a family estate with his parents, six brothers, plus all their wives and children. 

Even the orphanage wasn’t this chaotic. Red’s family is far from wealthy, but they’re very lively. Cain is pretty sure he has answered enough questions from the adolescent dwarves to successfully solve the meaning of life by the time he sets off the following day. 

A trade caravan is headed for Hygar, and Cain can’t find a suitable reason not to travel with them, so he settles into the wagon for a long journey between cities. 

The roads are supposed to be pretty good in this region, so Cain isn’t too concerned about the trip itself, but if he could have gotten out of the city solo, he could have transformed and made it to his destination in a day. 

Blowing his cover at this point is just more trouble than it is worth. If he doesn’t find what he needs, he will most likely need to go back to the dwarves to get more information on the legend of the area. If they get paranoid and start checking people for disguises as the humans did during the Creation Festival contest, we would be left without leads. 

Technically the Progenitor King that rules over the Demons is a lead as well, but getting in to see him might be much more difficult than simply chasing rumors to Ancient Ruins until he comes across something that will satisfy the quest. 

This road is very strangely designed. It winds and wanders through the hills, but the entire distance is slightly uphill. It doesn’t make any sense to Cain until mid-afternoon when he starts seeing ore carts headed for the city. 

Each mine exit is slightly uphill from the last one, so they can roll their ore to the city quickly and return empty on the uphill route. The amount of planning that must have gone into this road is staggering. 

There is a large artificial plateau conveniently located at the point that they reach just before dusk. It has been carved from the mountainside and has several quality stone fire pits and a stock of wood at the ready. 

That explains why they were so insistent he accompanied them; the entire route has been designed for a specific traveling speed and anything else would leave you on a narrow path with a vertical cliff on one side when the sun suddenly went down behind a mountain. 

These merchants trade wools and leather from the Western regions for gems and exotic woods from the eastern ranges. Several very durable species of trees grow hidden in the mountains, and Dwarven weapons need very sturdy handles. 

With all the talk of blinding snowstorms that pop up in the mountains, Cain is sure that this life isn’t ever going to be the one for him. The dwarves have mistaken his aversion to snow as the ignorance of a Deep Dwarf who has spent his entire life far below ground, where the vagaries of seasons and weather are foreign concepts that they have never seen.

That’s a sentiment Cain can relate to. The regions he has lived in since arriving in this world have all been tropical, with mostly wet and dry to tell the seasons apart. Frigid and snowy winters weren’t a thing for him in his past life either, at just as fast as he can recall. 

The memories of that wasted life have been fading ever since he transformed into an Ancient. They have just been so far from relevant to his life that there was really no need to recall them at all. Perhaps if he had brought some useful skill with him, the memories of his previous life would have mattered at least a little bit. 

Cain tells the merchants a little bit about what he had seen since crossing the Iron Empire border, embellishing the details of things he saw from the air when he was traveling as a Proto Dragon. 

Since they always do the same route, those things are also new for them, and everyone gets to share a good laugh at Cain’s attempt to describe a farmer losing an argument with one of the overgrown mountain goats that the dwarves raise. The creatures are three times their height, and gave a thick wooly coat, to go with equally thick curved horns and an irritable nature. The dwarves say raising them is no easy task, but the beasts provide many essentials that Dwarven society relies upon.

Back in the Beginner’s Valley, the animals were smaller than the ones he saw here, and much more pleasant and docile. They could and did use them to pull carts and all sorts of other domesticated tasks that wouldn’t be possible with the aggressive version found in the Iron Empire. 

Cain is supposed to have the last watch before dawn, so he is startled when the guard comes to shake him awake just after midnight.

“Get up quickly. The Yeti are upset about something, and it looks like they are going to attack.” He whispers, bringing Cain to full attention. 

The journey was so quiet that he completely forgot that these mountains are filled with dangerous wildlife. It is only pure luck that they haven’t come across anything else that might eat them so far. 

But at his eyes adjust, Cain can see dozens of points of light spread through the darkness, eyes reflecting the firelight of their camp. Normally that is not a big deal, but these ones are four meters in the air, and there are sporadic growls rumbling from somewhere in the dark, on the uphill side of the plateau.