Chapter 157: The cowardly Dwarves

"Well this is interesting, a camouflage spell is it. Combined with the silence spell no less."

Tyler said chuckling as he watched the hazy and translucent figures of the five dwarves slowly try to crawl away from him in amusement, and of course, his interest in this bunch had shot up a notch.

He didn't have any skills that would allow him to see through invisibility but the dwarves had not used the |invisibility| spell and had only used a combination of camouflage, with the |silence| spell. Naturally, this spell would not be very effected against high level opponents especially if the person was originally staring at you.

That said, there was no way the dwarfs would fail to understand this. That simply meant their minds were also disoriented from the life threatening experience that had just gone through.

Taking a better look at the group, they didn't have much with them but one of them clung desperately to a fancy looking pickax which Tyler had originally thought was a magic item and now thought it was responsible for the camouflage spell.

Tyler didn't want to scare the poor creatures any longer so he returned his weapon back to his storage and although he had contemplated sending Nadine to talk to them so they would more easily lower their guard, he hurriedly changed his mind as he realized she may not have fully recovered yet.

He walked closer to the painfully slow retreating dwarves and called out to them.

"Hey, what you doin?"

Hiiieeee!!!!!"

The five dwarves dressed as minwrs wailed like they were about to die as they turned to face him like a bunch of scared kids.

However, their beards were long — there was no longer any doubts that tgey belonged to the infamous Dwarven race. 

"Wow wow calm down, I won't hurt you. The more you scream the more you hurt my fleeings, I'm quite the sensitive guy you know."

The moment Tyler said the word hurt, Madine had immediately glared at the five and shifted into a fighting Stance. However, Tyler didn't have the time to worry about that for now and just had to deal with the issue before him. However, when she had heard his complete sentence, she returned to normal and nodded her head with a smile as though she was agreeing with him.

The dwarves finally calmed down a bit and despite Nadine's rude actions, Tyler's calming tone must've had an effect on them as the bald one in the middle with the magic pockax hesitantly spoke for the group. It would seem like he was the leader of the group.

"Are, are you a Demon? What are you doing here?"

Tyler sighed inwardly in relief as he answered the dwarf's question. "Well, I guess. We were just monster hunting in this place when we accidentally discovered this mine and decided to explore it."

"Oh I see... That makes sense. We were told this place was unexplored so it's quite alarming to find so many people here in such a short amount of time. How, how many people did you bring?"

"Huh, oh it's just the two of us."

"WHAT! You came into an unexplored mine with just two people, are you out of your mind! You have no idea how dangerous this place is, you can lose your lives suddenly of you're not careful."

Tyler was speechless. What was this dwarf saying to his face. As he recalled, they were the ones that had fallen into an obvious monsters trap not him. However, he needed to ask them a few questions so he tried to be nice.

"Is that so."

"Yes indeed. You remember that scary spider monster you somehow killed earlier?"

"Yeah."

"Well this place is crawling with them and other even more terrifying monsters live here. It's best if you turn around and leave this moment, we were just about to do the same."

"I see..."

Although Tyler didn't feel flattered by the dwarfs words, he was still glad he had made some progress in communication with actual dwarfs. The dwarf then shifted his body wiggly and with the spell still active, their footsteps would not makeany sounds but Tyler still followed him with his eyes.

"Sure enough. It seems you really can see us, I don't know why we had thought that would work but I guess not."

Saying that, the dwarf then lowered his pickax and the former translucent dwarves became fully visible again.

"Let's start afresh, I am L-I I mean Ty, this here is Nadine. Don't mind her eyes she's just tense from being underground."

"Naturally we understand. It took us a while as well to get use to this place. But don't worry, you'll get used to it soon. Oh, pardon us, I am Ragdek Mighthold of the Dwarven Vineyard Kingdom. Pleased to meet you. These here are my workers and friends, Bernir Galnik, Darren Drollayam, Hulnyl Hardfall and Gerl Ralvol."

Ragdek introduced the other dwarves to Tyler while they all nodded at him with a bit of caution in their eyes.

Tyler extended a hand. Ragdek seemed to pick up on the meaning of the gesture and wiped off his own dirt-stained hand before shaking.

"So, where are you lots headed?"

"Back to the exit, as I said, this place is extremely dangerous and is best if you leave too."

"I see. You all seem like miners but why are dwarves mining an unexplored mine in the demon continent?"

"Huh, oh that... well, never mind that, we should leave before more of that monster comes."

Tyler stared at the dwarf who had avoided his question and eyed him. He was sweaty but that was obviously from the heat and the fact that they had come close to dying but there was something else about them that he found peculiar. They seemed to be easily frightened so why were they in such a dangerous place to begin with.

He could see the wet patches between their legs and a certain stench in the air he had chosen to ignore but there must've been something else that had motivated a bunch of cowards to take such a risk.

Tyler then scanned the surrounding and saw the scattered belongings of the dwarves all over the ground. There was a spatial storage box amongst their stuff and although Tyler couldn't see what was inside, he could guess. He then turned back to face Ragdek and spoke confidently.

"You don't have to worry about the monsters in here, we're both plenty strong you know."

The dwarves looked at Tyler strangely for a moment before shrugging, they might've seen him kill a Lesser Djieien with one swing but it didn't seem like they believed his words completely. Seeing as he couldn't convince them, Tyler then asked a question instead.

"So, do you know your way out of the tunnel?"

"Huh, yeah, we have a map. If y'all lost we would be more than happy to guide you."

While they didn't seem to have completely believed his words about being strong, they seem to still recognize the fact that they would be safer if escorted by the pair of demons that could boldly hunt in the Farbelt pass alone.

"There's no need for that, we can always just find our way back using magic so it's no problem."

"Magic eh... Well we can use some magic too but it's nothing good enough to help protect use. Frankly, we're pretty weak ourselves."

"Indeed, the only thing that had been saving our Ives since we got here, even before crossing the border was our ability to hide in plane sight."

The one who had suddenly spoke to him was Hulnyl, a chubby looking dwarf with short blonde hair and long yellow beards. He scraped his neared before bringing out a flask from his pouch and taking a swig from it before continuing.

"This place had been more dangerous than we thought so we are forced to leave before the monsters get us."

"Imdeed, the Giant Ants alone are no problem but those spiders are very creepy. They are even able to sneak up on us, we are quite lucky to be alive."

"Yeah... With so many scary monsters here, I'm not sure we would be able to find anything of use to us even if we stay.

"I see." Tyler nodded as the conversation went on, it would seem their nerves had slowly died down and the others now seemed engage in their conversation. While this was a good thing for Tyler, he still felt that the dwarves caution was not enough. They should have asked him more questions before telling him anything. These five in particular, looked like they would fall victim to scammers easily as they were too honest.

"Alright we need to return back to the Human continent now." Saying that, the other dwarves began to gather up their things alongside the spider webs which Tyler found out that it had been the reason why they had been caught earlier.

The webs could be used to nake very high quality material and thus would fetch a high price. 

"Say, do you mind if we hire you to protect us to the exit. If you're exploring mines, you should be something like adventurers right?"

"No not really. But before that, you mentioned going back to the human continent earlier. Did you come from there?"

"Oh um, yeah, I guess the relationship between the two continent over the years had been basically non existent so please don't mention this to anyone."

'You knew that and still casually mention it to me. What's wrong with this bunch.'

"No problem, I am quite interested in the continent myself so tell me more."

Tyler noticed Nadine stare at him when he said that and as though she had realized something, she nodded knowingly with a proud expression on her face. He could only pray to God that she had not thought of something red troublesome and came to yet another misunderstanding.

"Oh... well, I wouldn't know much about it, I only just arrived there recently myself in chase of my dreams. The hunan continent does have a better relationship with us though which made it hard to enter this continent."

Tyler wanted to ask how they had entered the continent and how to leave it but he immediately sensed a few monsters headed in this direction so he held himself back. This was not the place for such talks so he hoped he could keep these guys around a lot londer.

"I see. Unfortunately we have something to do here so we can't leave just yet. How bout it, why don't you stick with us until we're done and we'll lead you out."

The five dwarves were dumbstruck, they stared at Tyler with wide eyes as they looked at him as though he was crazy. Sure they hadn't yet told him about the terrifying flying creatures that instilled so much fear in them they had defecated themselves.

Not to mention the terrifying aura that had devoured those monsters and immediately knocked them out till only a few hours ago. If the camouflage spell hadn't been active and remained active all through out that time, they would surely be dead right now.

"Oi Oi Oi Oi Oi Oi!!! Did you not hear us. This place is very dangerous even for you. The spider monster you killed earlier isn't the only monster in this place, there are flying nightmarish creatures here and even a more terrifying presence. We have not been able to achieve our goal because of that so going further in is utter foolishness."

"—Foolishness?"

Tyler walked closer to Ragdek and crouched until his eye level was at the same level as him and stared silently into his eyes while he asked:

"Do you really think that i am foolish?"

His expression was the same and his eyes didn't change but Ragdek felt something from him right now. Perhaps it was because he was standing so close to him but he couldn't believe he had missed it before. There was a faint but familiar pressure oozing off of this demon that sent shivers down his spine.

This was not due to any sort of malice or killing intent, neither was the pressure something that was aimed at him. No, the pressure came from his presence alone and that was the same presence they had felt shortly before they lost consciousness. The same pressure that swallowed up hundreds of Night Terrors.

"Ah— No... Surely not."