abcnovels
Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Looking at the RAWs again, I realized that Dracosaurus should actually be Dragosaurus, so I will be changing the term to that. Sure does make a lot more sense, since they were named after Dragons.teehee~
The dwarves always found the existence known as humans to be extremely interesting.
The dwarves were currently the oldest species amongst all living creatures. Their appearance had not changed for 4.6 billion years, and their head, Sahela, had continued to live throughout those 4.6 billion years.
However, lately the beings known as humans, which appeared in the stories that their Creator, Mt. Dragonends had told them about when speaking of his [Previous world] which was even older than dwarves themselves, had started to strut around the Earth. With the character found in the worlds oldest stories suddenly appearing as one of the newest living beings on Earth and walking around on it, theres no way it wouldnt attract their curiosity.
The dwarves loved high temperature environments and lived in stone towns created solely near volcanoes or underground collections of magma. They would, on rare occasions, make towns above ground. If they used the dragon crystals, then they had no trouble making stone buildings that were enveloped in scorching air that made it easier for them to live.
They would always, without fail, make such towns above ground near where the humans dwelled. As for why they went out of their way to produce artificial heat so that they could live above ground, it was of course so they could interact with humans.
The dwarves primarily made light of humans, and just found them to be interesting wild animals that resembled them.
It was only natural.
Humans had to breathe or they would die. They had to drink water or they would die, and if their body caught on fire, they would die for some reason. They would die for some hard to understand reason if they caught a cold, and if a lot of the red water that flowed within their bodies was spilled out, they would die. They were more clumsy, slower, and weaker than dwarves. If they managed to live for 50 years, theyd be considered seniors. It was a tenth of a dwarfs lifespan.
Asking them to communicate with humans as equals would be unreasonable like this.
Mt. Dragonends judged the dwarves who built and lived in towns near human dwellings to be like those who loved cats so much they went to live on the cat island.
While the dwarves were very interested in humans, it was extremely rare for them to build a deep relationship with them.
They didnt understand the same language (since their vocal cords were different, it was difficult to learn each others languages even if they tried), and for the most part, when they tried to help humans who were injured and were crying because they couldnt move, or when they picked up humans who had been thrown away, theyd make mistakes in doing so and accidentally kill them.
On the human side, they feared this race that was similar to themselves, yet was completely different. Just a single one of these dwarves that, at a glance, looked like old men who were as small as a human child, was capable of destroying their whole family. They were existences even more frightening than mammoths or sabre-toothed tigers.
They were also frightened of the Dragosauruses the dwarves rode. The well-disciplined Dragosaurus were sensitive and could detect the humans that creeped up on them. If the humans tried to touch them, theyd bite the humans with their sharp fangs.
The dwarves were kind to humans, but that kindness was littered with danger, like a large animal that would inadvertently trample small animals.
That is why contact between the two species was left at the level of [occasional teasing].
Like how youd feed a wild animal you happened to meet and pet it, the dwarves also teased the humans.
Through that teasing, the dwarves gave humans fire on a whim, taught them their crafts, and before long they had mastered that skill.
Fire gave humans light and warmth, and that led to the creation of civilization.
The greatest gain from fire was that it enabled them to increase their food sources. It could detoxify food with poison, denature the proteins of tough and hard-to-digest meats, converting them into soft barbequed meat. In order to cook better, they created tools for cooking, such as stone stoves and knives.
The tools, or their assets, in other words, increased.
Sharp knives and light, but durable, earthenware, as well as fine fur clothes held great value.
And then, as the humans started to make various tools by themselves, they realized the value of the high-grade treasures that the dwarves possessed, and started to eye them.
That was the beginning of the disputes.
To humans, infiltrating dwarven towns to steal treasure was the same as taking eggs from bird nests or taking bones from a mammoth graveyard.
The dwarven towns did not have food, but they had plenty of beautiful, sturdy, easy to use, and useful tools. The dazzling metals and jewels fascinated the humans. The dwarves were people of the mountain, and the treasure that they dug up, refined, and polished from underground was like a possession of the mountain.
The humans tried to steal that.
The dwarves were not completely defenseless, and even if they aimed to come when the dwarves were away, generally the treasure was protected by a dragonthe Dragosaurus. The humans tried to use stone spears and bows to defeat them, but it was usually impossible. They were no opponent to the Dragosaurus.
The Dragosauruses were one of the remaining dinosaurs surviving and they possessed a strong skeleton, scales, and muscles. As a result of being domesticated by dwarves for over a hundred million years, they had also become resistant to fire as well. All the weapons of primitive humans completely bounced off of them, and they would bite the thieves to death.
However, unexpectedly there were times when the thieves succeeded.
Like when the dwarves were out and the Dragosaurus was asleep. Or if the Dragosaurus was old and weak, or they accidentally managed to crush its eyes and took the opportunity while it was writhing in agony.
When they did that, the returns were enormous, and the human obtained an amazing fortune.
The dwarven treasure and dragon killing gave them a legendary level of honour.
It would become a tale amongst their tribe and be handed down through the generations, extolled for a long time through murals and momentos.
On the other hand, the dwarves held their heads at the [Human-chan] that obtained the habit of stealing.
No matter how much they drove them off, theyd come back again. If they went to take back that which had been stolen, then itd turn into a huge incident as though their tribe was going to be destroyed from the attack of a calamitous beast.
In addition, theyd arbitrarily settle down in vacant houses in the town, or snatch the feed meant for the Dragosauruses.
Eventually, the dwarves became fed up with trying to drive them off or recover the stolen items, and abandoned the towns above ground, returning to the underground. The same things happened all across the Earth, and with the arrival of the ice age as well, it was only a few tens of thousands of years before the dwarves completely disappeared off the surface of the Earth.
Only faint traces of the dwarves were left through murals and their treasure, as well as legends that continued to be passed down. A long time passed and they were completely forgotten until the time when humans developed to mine for ore and started to dig deep into the Earth.