This route, which was usually teeming with travelers, was now exceptionally sparse. This was due to the great war that had just erupted, when the ancient kingdom of Dvergar's Holdfast launched a simultaneous offensive against both the Drekabani and Sterkburin kingdoms.
Amidst this danger-fraught atmosphere, however, was a group of travelers consisting of a dwarven warrior and two elven slave girls, heading toward the village of Litrfagrbyr, a border territory adjacent to the Sterkburin kingdom.
A dwarven peddler's wagon happened to pass by in the opposite direction. Upon seeing the trio, the peddler immediately called out a warning.
"Hey, young lad! Why are you heading west? Don't you know a great war has broken out there?"
"I am well aware of the war," the dwarven warrior replied with a confident demeanor.
"Then what are you heading to the battlefield for?" The peddler asked. Though he saw the other was a warrior, bringing two elven slave girls onto a battlefield seemed incredibly foolish and ignorant of the situation.
"I have many comrades at Litrfagrbyr village," the dwarven warrior replied with a smile.
"Those comrades might be fleeing toward this capital by now," the peddler tried to persuade him.
"No. My comrade is the village chief. He wouldn't abandon his village to flee," Mikilllfr replied with determination in his eyes.
"You intend to sell these two slave girls to your comrade, then?"
"......" The dwarven warrior dared not answer, merely shaking his head and glancing awkwardly at the expressions of the two elven slaves.
The peddler, seeing the awkwardness, believed he had guessed correctly and felt a sudden kinship with the warrior. He asked further, "Young lad, what is your name?"
"I am Mikilllfr."
"You look like a strong warrior. I will remember that name. Good luck. Once you sell the slaves, leave the border quickly."
With that, they parted ways. Mikilllfr continued walking forward, followed closely by the two elven slaves. The black-haired elf carried the luggage on her back, while the brown-haired elf carried a massive axe, which appeared to be the signature weapon of her dwarven master.
The three walked slowly. They carried very little luggage and did not look like a long-distance traveling party at all. Once they reached a stretch of the road devoid of other people, the luggage and the weapon were returned to Mikilllfr to carry alone.
"Nessy, no one is left on this road now. Please call Vaness out so we can all ride. We'd reach Litrfagrbyr much faster," Mikilllfr pleaded.
"You stupid dwarf. If Lord Enya hadn't insisted on bringing you, Cynthia and I would have reached the border and started assassinating the generals of the Afbarahants clan by now," the brown-haired elf named Vanessa scolded him immediately.
"What? We've only been in Svartalfheim for two days. You two could walk to the border already?" Mikilllfr said, gripping the large axe tight, refusing to believe he was the cause of the delay.
"Two days is plenty if we both rode Vaness," Vanessa retorted with a touch of anger. Vaness was the name of the giant wolf, her personal mount.
"Well then! Call Vaness now, and all three of us can reach the destination faster!" Mikilllfr argued.
Vanessa extended her right hand toward Mikilllfr, palm out in refusal, and said, "I told you, Vaness is my important companion. How can I let a filthy dwarf like you ride him often?"
"I can't ride, but why do you let Cynthia ride? You said she's both your enemy and your key rival, didn't you?" Mikilllfr said, taking one hand off the axe handle to massage his temple.
"Because Cynthia is a key rival, she is worthy of riding Vaness," Vanessa argued back with her peculiar logic.
Hearing herself mentioned, Cynthia spoke up. "If you two are going to talk, don't drag me into it. I am only accompanying you on this trip because of the Queen's mission orders to supervise you. Do not ruin the plan."
"Don't speak as if you received orders to be my leader. The Queen sent you to work with me. In this job, I am the leader, not you, Cynthia," Vanessa turned to argue with the black-haired elf.
"You don't have to call me leader, just listen to my orders, that is enough," Cynthia replied with a stoic face.
"You..." Vanessa was momentarily at a loss for words.
"Nessy, call Vaness out, pleeease," Mikilllfr wheedled.
"Crazy dwarf, shut your mouth and walk! In broad daylight like this, if anyone saw us riding a giant wolf, it would cause a panic," Cynthia scolded the dwarven warrior with a serious tone.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"What is wrong with you two? One calls me 'stupid dwarf,' the other calls me 'crazy dwarf.' Don't forget that your Queen's plan rests on me becoming a hero at the border, so I can eventually rule this Dvalinn's Keep kingdom," Mikilllfr complained, reaffirming his importance to the plan.
"Hmph! You can be whatever King you want, but in front of me, you are just a stupid dwarf," Vanessa said, finding it incredibly easy to verbally abuse Mikilllfr.
"But for me, there isn't just one idiot here," Cynthia remarked airily, though the meaning was clearly directed at Vanessa.
"You..." Vanessa could only shout at Cynthia's back as she walked ahead.
Suddenly, the sound of many rushing footsteps approached from the front. Vanessa quickly moved to snatch the luggage from Mikilllfr's back to carry it herself. Then, she grabbed the axe from the dwarven warrior's hand and tossed it to Cynthia to hold. The two elven girls then retreated to stand behind him with a demure demeanor.
Mikilllfr, not yet realizing the change in the situation, could only look shocked.
A moment later, a drove of Drakes ridden by a group of dwarves ran past them from the direction they were heading. A large gust of wind whipped past the three travelers rapidly. One of the dwarves on a drake locked eyes with Vanessa for a brief moment before leading the entire procession out of sight.
"Ah! That was close, that was close," Mikilllfr sighed, rubbing his chest.
"Those didn't look like warriors from Dvalinn's Keep," Cynthia assessed the event that had just occurred.
"You are wrong, Cynthia... There were twenty-six of them, but only twenty-five drakes. Most of them carried weapons bearing the symbol of the Afbarahants clan, but there were two people riding on a single drake. Those two wore the uniforms of Dvalinn's Keep soldiers."
Vanessa described what she had observed in minute detail. This perhaps marked the dividing line in ability between herself and her key rival; for in reality, Cynthia was a genius mage turned assassin, while Vanessa had been trained as an assassin who could fight physically as well as use magic.
"Weapons of the Afbarahants clan... those are soldiers of the Sterkburin kingdom then," Cynthia processed the information from Vanessa and summarized.
"Those guys are no ordinary troops. Their drake riding is second only to mine," Mikilllfr said, turning the conversation to praise himself. However, he could make such a claim because he was a descendant of the Drakavaldr clan, the first dwarven clan capable of breeding and training dragon eggs.
"I fear that the Sterkburin kingdom is sending men to request aid from here," Cynthia analyzed the situation logically.
"Alright, give the luggage back. They are all gone now," Mikilllfr reached out both hands toward Vanessa to take all the burden back.
"Wait! It looks like they are coming back," Vanessa, whose senses were sharper than anyone else present, warned.
"Huh? Why?" Mikilllfr asked in panic.
"I don't know, but it seems the drake carrying two people isn't coming back with them," Vanessa distinguished these subtle details incredibly.
"They are almost here. We must pretend to continue our journey," Cynthia quickly told her companions to resume their roles.
In the blink of an eye, the procession of dwarven warriors on drakes circled back to them. However, this time they did not pass by like a storm as before. Upon nearing Vanessa's party, they slowed their drakes down, creeping closer until they formed a circle surrounding the three travelers.
One of the dwarven warriors sitting on the lead drake leaned forward, squinting at the group of travelers before chuckling.
"True enough, hunchback. This brown-haired slave girl is truly beautiful."
"Heh heh, Boss, look at that black-haired slave too. She's no less beautiful," another dwarven soldier, whose back was curved into a hunch, maneuvered his drake to speak with the first warrior, who appeared to be the leader.
Vanessa recognized the eyes of this hunchbacked soldier immediately. It was the same one who had locked eyes with her when the group first galloped past.
Mikilllfr, the only male, stepped forward slightly, blocking the two beautiful elves, and said, "You surround us like this... what is the meaning of this?"
"Your two slaves are beautiful and lovely. If you were to sell them to me, what price would you ask?" the leader of the dwarven warriors moved his drake forward to answer.
The hunchbacked soldier moved his drake closer in a threatening manner toward Mikilllfr before adding, "Our squad leader is a warrior from the Afbarahants clan. Selling the slaves to him would be considered your good fortune."
"I am not selling! Clear the way for me immediately!" Mikilllfr shouted without fear.
"You... I speak nicely and you don't understand? Do you want to die?" The hunchbacked soldier finished his sentence and threw two gold coins at Mikilllfr, then shouted, "Pick up the coins and get the hell out of my sight!"
Mikilllfr trembled with rage. He spoke up, "Nessy... you said those two soldiers from Dvalinn's Keep aren't with them anymore, right?"
The hunchbacked soldier was puzzled by this sentence, unable to guess the context. His group was numerous and mounted on battle-ready Drakes. If this dwarf in front of him thought to fight, he was foolish indeed to die for two elven slaves.
"Yes... they are all soldiers of the Sterkburin kingdom now," Vanessa replied in a clear, bright voice.
"If they are Sterkburin soldiers, that means they are enemies, right?" Mikilllfr asked again.
"You fool! Die!" The hunchbacked soldier yanked the reins, forcing his drake to lunge forward, aiming to snap its jaws at the dwarf.
But the situation flipped instantly. Mikilllfr threw a right hook precisely into the head of the lunging drake. The force of the punch knocked the drake unconscious immediately. The hunchback lost his balance and fell, only to be crushed under the massive body of his own mount.
Vanessa chuckled in her throat before continuing, "Yes, Mikilllfr... they are all our enemies."
As she finished speaking, Vanessa's body moved with lightning speed. The axe in Cynthia's hand was snatched away and passed to Mikilllfr in an instant. Suddenly, a strange fragrance filled the area. Any elf would know immediately that this was the scent of the Elafindi flower, a famous wildflower of Alfheim, and also the alias of a renowned assassin.
When the axe returned to Mikilllfr's hand, the first corpse sacrificed to its edge was that hunchbacked soldier. Then, a chaotic melee ensued.
"Sigh..." Cynthia let out a bored sigh. She cast a single spell, and a flurry of black feathers shot toward the dwarven warriors on the drakes, eliciting screams of pain.
How could the leader of the warriors have guessed that he and his men were facing two of the four elite elven assassins? And not only that, the dwarf holding the war-axe before him was the 32nd Prince of the Drakavaldr clan from the fallen kingdom of Osigrheim... the kingdom of Emperor Solmarr, the King who first invented the breeding and training of drakes in the land of Svartalfheim.
Later, on the path heading west, three Drakes were seen galloping forward. One was ridden by a dwarf, and the other two were controlled by beautiful elven maidens.