BXBX NOVEL Chapter 402 Dwarf Kingdom
However, the only ones wandering the streets without being dwarves were those wealthy, and there wasn’t any trace of those who were only strong.
That started to happen after the previous Dwarf King got killed by his eldest son, the first prince in order to steal the crown. The Dwarf King was a Law God, so it was hard that he would have died and passed the throne to his son, so no one doubted that the incident happened due to greed for power.
At the same time, the first prince was defeated by the second prince who was recognized as a hero and became the next king. However, the first prince wasn’t killed as was just sealed in a prison where he wouldn’t be able to exit despite being a Law God.
One of the main strengths of the Dwarf Kingdom was that initially, they had three Law Gods, but after the former king’s death, they were only two and even those supporting the second prince felt that killing the first prince was a bad idea because that would weaken the kingdom a lot.
Of course, they couldn’t count with the first prince as someone who would battle together with them against an enemy, but his presence was still a deterrence to outside forces.
The incidents among the princes and the king were a big secret in the kingdom, and all outsiders were forbidden to know it, so the immigration inspections went far stricter.
After all, those outside the kingdom only known that the king died, but they didn’t know about the battle among the princes.
Thus, a lot of strong people got caught by the royal guards under the suspicion of being spies who discovered classified information, and no one saw them again.
Those strong who knew about those disappearances avoided the capital, and only those wealthy enough dared to walk by the streets.
Since they were only interested in business and weren’t really affiliated to a country, it was difficult that they would be treated as spies. Even if it was like the merchants thought and kidnapping those strong for having discovered classified information were just excuses to get rid of strong people from other races, they didn’t fear to be a target at all.
After all, if merchants started to disappear, they would also stop going to the capital of the Dwarf Kingdom, but those merchants were very important for the country’s economy, so unless they had no other way, it was difficult that merchants got imprisoned.
Thus, it was well-known what happened when a young merchant was caught accused of being a spy. She was a human merchant who managed to make her name in the capital despite being a human.
She quickly made a huge network of contacts and became one of the wealthiest merchants of the capital. Of course, she also paid a lot of taxes due to being human, but she could afford it.
She was well known, and a merchant had never been falsely accused of being a spy, so there were quite a few problems when she was taken into prison, and then, no one heard again of her.
That merchant saw two prisoners being abused by the guards. Those prisoners called themselves Dragon Race and seemed to be a couple. Both were quite strong, but they were unable to resist the royal guard.
The merchant seemed to know them and tried to speak in their behalf, but the result was that she was impaled with a lance thrown by a royal guard and was taken as a prisoner without even the right to speak.
The complaints about that woman being caught were enough to make the king order to capture everyone who spoke on her behalf.
With those extreme measures, the complaints stopped, but so many people got caught, and no one heard about them again, so internally there was great displeasure with the king’s methods.
After all, that time a lot of dwarves were also caught due to them wanting to speak in that merchant’s behalf.
The dwarves never thought too much of the king’s methods as they were never affected, but they started to fear their king’s methods after that incident.
Thus, picking the remnants of the network created by that merchant and the name she used to englobe all the people working with her in business, they formed the Thousand Frost Wolves Resistance, an underworld society with the objective of killing the king and rescuing those who had been imprisoned.
Fortunately, the dwarves caught had left tokens linked to their lives with the people they trusted, so they believed that those caught were still alive. However, they hadn’t any confidence in that they wouldn’t be killed at any moment.
Thus, people from different species, who had people close to them kidnapped by the royal guards, grouped together and started scheming from the shadows.
They knew that there was no way that they could face the king directly given that he was a Law God, while the strongest member of their resistance was just a Law Master.
That Law Master was quite famous as a blacksmith and had mastered the Smith Law, so a lot of people joined the resistance when they heard that he was supporting it.
In fact, that Law Master was the same person who taught about blacksmithing to the two princes, so he was quite close to the royal family, but he stopped working with them after the king died.
Officially, he said that the fact one of his students killed his good friend was heartbreaking and wanted to retire, so no one opposed to his opinion, but the truth was different, and that was the reason for that Law Master helping the resistance.
Everyone reacted with shock when they heard the truth, but at the same time, they felt that everything was more logical in that way.
The first prince wasn’t the culprit of the death of the former king; the culprit was the second prince, or in other words, the new king. Framing the first prince had been part of the plan to ensure obtaining the throne, and an unconscious opponent couldn’t speak to defend from calumnies.
The first prince was the most beloved student of that Law Master because it was a case when the student surpassed the master. The first prince was a Law God in the Smith Law.
The king and the former king were Law Gods at the Fire and Earth Law respectively, so it was more believable that it was their king who killed the former king.
The first prince had always been a blacksmithing freak who only wielded weapons after making them, but no one could remember seeing him battling others for fun as his brother usually did.
The plan of the resistance consisted of first freeing the first prince, who all of them considered the legitimate king, and then they would revolt openly against the usurper king.
Although the battle prowess of the first prince was inferior to his brother’s, at least both were Law Gods, so it would be more secure than doing it on their own.
After all, there were also some Law Masters on the king’s side being part of the elite of the royal guard, and the only option to divide those forces was unveiling the truth about the death of the former king, which would provoke internal disturbances among the royal guards.
That was their original plan, but it went suddenly disrupted when two unknown people appeared in front of them.
The first words they heard from one of them made them feel like if their thoughts could be seen through.
"I see, so you formed this resistance after Julie got kidnapped after trying to help Shirk and Driwna."
No one knew about the identities of Shirk and Driwna, but they knew very well that Julie was the name of the kidnapped merchant, so they guessed that they were the couple that Julie tried to help.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Yale, and I am one of the founders of the Thousand Frost Wolves Company."
Everyone nodded after hearing that because it didn’t mind if they believed it or not, they didn’t have the guts to say something that opposed to Yale’s words.
They couldn’t sense Yale’s power at all, but their intuition yelled them that they mustn’t offend that person no matter what.
Everyone in the resistance was quite powerful in some way, and all of them had sharp intuitions.
Strong people had keen senses for danger developed after battling a lot of times.
Wealthy merchants had a keen eye for discerning the nature of people.
Experts in forging polished their senses to the limit to avoid making even the slightest mistake in the forging process.
Thus, all of them deduced that they must obey Yale if they wanted to remain alive.
Especially the Law Master felt that Yale was unfathomable but also noticed that the silent cold-faced woman beside Yale was equally unfathomable and shouldn’t be offended either.