[As stated on the Discord, we will be bootstrapping all the nonpopular series. Chapters will now be 5 points = 30 cents USD each.]
You can’t do it with a bare mouth (1)
We took a squad of Balahard Rangers with us and headed west.
After three days, we reached a wasteland with cracked, reddish soil.
After four days in the desert sun, a huge fortress appeared on the horizon, constructed from blocks of red stone.
“We have arrived on the windswept plains before Galbaram Fortress, the castle city!” Jorden, the ranger announced from the lead. At his words, I halted and took in the sight of the fortress. It had been donated by the dwarves to honor their friendship with the kingdom. Four hundred years later, it still guarded over these barren western lands.
The only difference between then and now was that the masterpieces the dwarven masons had worked hard to create had all been reformed into horrible parodies of their former grandeur under human hands.
Private domiciles and all manner of other buildings had been recklessly constructed around the fortress, their many disorderly terraced walls and precarious spires breaking the seamless dwarven symmetry and making the entire city appear almost ugly.
“It’s messy,” I said. I knew that if the dwarves saw the fortress which they had donated in its current state, they would jump out of their beards in fear.
It was all as I had expected.
***
“The dwarves are not here.”
The king had clearly stated that a dwarven diplomatic mission was residing in Galbaram Fortress.
However, the head of the citadel and commander of the Western Legion informed me that the dwarves had left.
When I asked the reason for their departure, I was told of quite the spectacle: The dwarven diplomats had left in a huff because it had become too painful for them to see the changed shape of Galbaram.
The commander looked embarrassed, but I just laughed. I was surprised that the dwarves had even entered the fortress in the first place. It seemed that even after four hundred years, the stubborn nature of craftsdwarves had not changed.
“If they have not gone back to their holds, then where are they now?”
The commander stared at me. I had asked this of him so casually that he found it very strange. I understood his concerns – anyone would be embarrassed for his sake if they heard that an official diplomatic delegation had left for such a petty reason.
Well, I understood, at least.
For me, it was the natural way for dwarves to behave. They were a stubborn people, not willing to betray the sanctity of their craftdwarfship, not even on the battlefield.
“If Your Highness heads two days west of Galbaram, there stands a small hill. Their delegation has been sleeping there since last month,” said the legion commander, then asked if there was anything else he could do to help me.
I asked him to prepare some supplies and furnish me with a guide who could lead us to the area of the wasteland where the dwarves were staying.
“I will prepare all by tomorrow,” he said, and yet his face remained gloomy.
He did not show much enthusiasm for my mission, even if the gains would be enormous if we managed to resume our long-severed friendship with the dwarves.
It was natural, yes, it was so natural.
I learned that no one had even had a proper conversation with these dwarven envoys, even while they had visited the capital on multiple occasions. If someone else had faced the same challenge I now faced on this mission, they probably wouldn’t have gotten motivated much.
In other words, I could say with certainty that I did not have any concrete expectations for success. The king believed I would fail, of course. Regardless, I didn’t care much what he thought.
I took a full day off, regaining my physical strength after the journey. I then gathered my party and posed a very important question to them:
“Who among you is the best drinker?”
They all looked at me with confused expressions upon hearing such an unexpected question.
Then a few of them rolled their eyes and looked at one another. A strange tension filled the air, a tension that did not fit the situation for such an absolutely innocent question.
It was a ranger rather than a knight who broke the silence and the tense stares.
“In Winter Castle, we say that the best drinker by the week is Jordan, and if Jordan drinks, he drinks all week,” he said, and Jordan nodded vehemently. A group of other rangers heard Jordan being praised, so they stepped up and shoved in before him to get my attention.
“I am least certain that I hold my drink better than Jordan!”
“Well, I must say, I’ve never really been drunk, so who knows how much I can drink?”
“Hah, well, I haven’t had to eat a bite of food my whole life, because no matter how much I drink, I don’t get a bit drunk. Been living off beer for all my years now.”
The rangers outdid themselves to be noticed, talking aloud about how well they had been drinking all their lives.
“We palace knights don’t drink with just anyone, but when we do drink…” Carls began, entering the contest.
I did not know what a qualification in the consumption of alcoholic beverages had to with being a palace knight, but Carls Ulrich pressed on nonetheless.
Almost everyone in the group had come forward to press their claims -even a man who considered me his enemy, Gwain, was trying to convince me of his alcoholic prowess with some determination.
Yet, it wasn’t just men who had entered the contest.
‘Click, chuck,’ came the sound of sabatons striking the cobbles, and when I opened my eyes, a woman stood before me.
“Arwen?”
“I don’t enjoy it, but I know I can drink more than them.”
The men furrowed their brows as they heard her voice – a voice so confident amid the sudden tumult that my question had created. Arwen’s words seemed to have touched the men’s pride in the wrong place.
“Well, this is almost everyone. Adelia, would you like to join?” I asked.
Adelia shook her head, saying that she had never so much as taken a sip of alcohol.
“Then you don’t know your limit?”
Most of my party had already thrown their names into the hat, so I told Adelia to join those who considered themselves to be the superior boozers.
She did not refuse, clearly curious about this thing called alcohol that she had never tried.
‘Klaap!’ I clapped my hands together as I gathered everyone around me.
The soldiers of Galbaram Fortress trotted over, carrying a few kegs.
“Let’s see,” I said as I opened the head of the largest barrel that the soldiers had brought.
“Ah, it smells strong!”
The liquor scent filled the air, so potent that one could almost get drunk just by sniffing.
“Your Highness, what is the nature of this situation?” Carls asked as he stepped forward.
“I have to decide who is the greatest inebriate in our party,” I answered casually.
“Right now?” Carls asked as he reeled back, finding my statement to be absurd.
“Why? Aren’t you confident? If you lack confidence, you fail already.”
“I shall bet my honor as a palace knight that I’m confident!” Carls replied with a bright face.
“You’re not even a palace knight anymore,” I pointed out.
“Still, that is how confident I am.”
As I spoke with Carls, Jordan spoke up from behind him.
“Shall we just get started, then?”
Everyone had already filled their tankards, everyone but Carls.
“It has already started over there,” I pointed out as I motioned to a corner. The entire group turned their heads.
Gwain, ever gloomy, had become even more depressed after visiting the capital. He was already emptying his tankard with a face that looked like all the troubles of the world had been heaped upon it.
“I can’t lose,” he stated after he had emptied it.
“Your first cup must be emptied at once!” I declared. The men poured their drink down their throats at once.
Arwen grabbed her tankard with a refined motion, emptying it at once.
‘Glug glug glug.’
She then scooped another drink from a keg and poured it down her throat.
The men were motivated by her head-start and downed their next helping.
“You don’t have to drink fast, but you have to drink a lot,” I explained the rules. No one in that hall had heard my words. It was only Adelia who timidly sipped hers up, her eyes locked with mine.
“Take only one tankard at a time, and count how many you knock back.”
“Shall we write it down, Your Highness?”
“There is no need to do so. Just keep a rough guess in your head,” I said to those of my party who were not participating, and they started keeping count of how many tankards each participant downed.
“So strong! It feels so good!”
“Hey, who spilled my other cup? I kept it just here. Who spilled it?”
The participants started to go at it in earnest, some bumping their cups together in celebration before downing them.
The soldiers of the Western Legion bowed their heads in amazement when they saw me looking at them.
I order them to bring more kegs the moment it looked like we would be running out of booze.
* * *
The years hung heavily on the commander of the Western Legion. The dwarven nobles who were set to bring enormous wealth to the kingdom through the establishment of diplomatic channels had departed, giving absurd excuses.
The commander pondered whether he had been negligent in treating these envoys. He believed that the kingdom had now suffered a great loss due to his diplomatic ineptitude.
He had been wondering about how he could smooth things over with the dwarven delegation and reopen diplomatic channels when the kingdom sent their fourth envoy to Galbaram.
However, this time the envoy was the eldest son of the royal family, well known for being a troublemaker.
Still, the first prince’s notoriety was not the same as it had been before. The commander had ears of his own, and he had heard of the effective defense that the first prince had fielded in the north.
However, it might just have been rumors about the bravery of the first prince. The commander didn’t think that the young man could find the correct carrot-on-a-stick to convince the tricky dwarven envoys to come back.
“I want a guide and fifty kegs of your finest liquors.”
The commander had simply replied that he understood. The thought processes of the prince were quite obvious, for he had obviously also heard the rumors that the dwarves were notorious drinkers.
There was no great expectation in the mind of the commander that the prince could succeed. He himself had already obtained the finest alcohols from across the realm and gifted them to the dwarven diplomats several times. That alone had not aided the talks, so the first prince would probably also fail.
The prince had not asked for the finest silken rice wines – he had rather demanded the cheaper liquor that the soldiers drank.
Still, the commander had prepared all the kegs, as he had been asked to.
Great was his surprise when the first prince had instead used the liquor to host a drinking game for his own retinue, instead of offering the kegs to dwarven envoys!
It was absurd.
He had heard that the prince was no longer indolent and ignorant, but it seems that nothing had changed.
The commander could only cluck his tongue, for he did not understand why the king hadn’t sent him some competent envoys. Perhaps the kingdom had given up on re-establishing its former friendship with the dwarves?
The commander took a stroll as he considered this chaos, but then a knight ran up to him and gave a report.
“Commander Sir! You should come at once, if only for a while!”
When the commander asked the knight why he was so urgent and panicked, he was met with a dumb stare.
Still, the commander decided to hurry to the hall where the prince and his servants held their little party.
Royal blood was royal blood, after all.
‘Badang! Klank! Bang!’
The commander was startled by the big bang that he had heard and so hastily entered the hall.
“Noooo! What kind of guy are … is you? Huh!?”
“I fall alone here, ah, fell alone. Alone!”
A man with a ruddy face was lying on the floor, babbling nonsense.
The men standing around him were laughing and giggling.
“Whats are you talkin bout? Hah!? Therse are twenny nine glassesess riiight here!” came a drunkard’s drawl.
“Oh well, that’s what you say, but I counted them exactly. You had twenty-two tankards. The one you just drank had been your twenty-third,” came the calm appraisal of one of the referees.
“Huh? Hey! This guy here, he’s trying to trick us!”
The men raised their voices as their tongues wagged, a few of them matching the commander’s gaze.
“Huh! I missed you so, John. Why did you go first, John?! Hah?”
“Okay, okay, don’t panic now, my child. If you … if you do, I too must… Aaaahhh. Haah, why my child? Why?”
Some men were hugging each other and shedding tears.
And there, to one side of the chaos, was the first prince.
“That one and that one … eliminated. Don’t give them any more. Tcha,” the first prince instructed, and then clucked his tongue, acutely observing the drunken depravity of his men.
“First, a headcount. Jordan, Carls, Arwen, Gwain, and Adelia are still in it.”
“She’s just been holding her cup and… doing that, Your Highness.”
“Okay? Well, she’s still lively, at least.”
The commander now knew his ideas were as innovative as those of the first prince. He chuckled as he admired what Prince Adrian was doing and then gave a cough to get his notice.
“Your Highness, what are you doing?” he asked.
“It is exactly what it looks like,” came the prince’s response.
Even though the entire scene was shameful, and even while the commander felt ashamed, the first prince’s face was a study in shamelessness.
“Didn’t Your Highness say that you are leaving to meet the delegation the day after tomorrow?”
The commander wondered whether it was wise to get everyone so sopping drunk ahead of a critical mission. The first prince didn’t budge an inch – he was so casual.
“Yes, so? I am conducting an examination before we meet the dwarven delegation.”
“What exactly is-“
“If dwarves are drinking, then – and only then – can you change their minds.”
The commander sighed.
“The envoys from the capital have come here many times. I myself had offered the dwarves the silkiest of wines this past month, but their attitude had not changed in the slightest.”
The first prince clucked his tongue at the commander’s words.
“You have wasted a month’s supply of fine wine, then.”
The first prince looked at the commander as if the man had not a lick of common sense and then continued explaining.
“Dwarves prefer drunken friends, instead of gifts of drink.”
“What does Your Highness mean by that?”
“You can’t just give them the stuff. They want to drink with you,” the first prince said, then spoke to one of the referees. “Oh, eliminate Carls over there. His eyes have begun to roll in their sockets.”
The former palace knight was furious and started to scream that he was not drunk.
“You bumped a barrel, Carls. You’re out.”
“Your majesty, the dwarves haven’t even spoken whole sentences when they were here,” the commander continued.
“Oh, and you think that that’s their basic state?”
In the background, Carls was shouting that it was all so unfair as he shook his head this way and that way.
The first prince observed this, clucked his tongue, and turned back to the commander.
“Dwarves don’t speak long words unless they are among friends. And the fastest way to become friends with dwarves,” the first prince stretched out his hand to show off the drunken chaos around him, “is to pour, drink and die with them.”
The commander looked at the first prince with some embarrassment, and the prince then rose from his seat.
“Hey! Let him go!”
The call was urgent, and the commander turned his head. A woman was staring at a table with her head bowed.
“Oh shit!”
The commander watched as the prince ran toward the table, and then a creepy voice filled the hall.
“Why did you do that to me….”
The voice sounded like someone weeping.
“Adelia! No!”
At that moment, a red and yellow light shone from the woman’s eyes.
* * *
The drinking contest came to an abrupt halt due to the uproar Adelia had caused.
At least by that time, it had been roughly decided who had the right talents to meet with the dwarves,
Arwen, Jordan, and Gwain were the only ones who had survived the drinking with a semblance of honor.
And among the three of them, Arwen stood the most firm.
Even though she had drunk much, her face color had surprisingly remained unchanged. If it was not for the sharp tang of booze wafting from her, one could believe that she didn’t drink at all.
Jordan and Gwain had started to show some signs of intoxication, but they had held on to the end.
Carls was also fine but definitely excluded from the list. It was known that the dwarves hated those who used mana while drinking, and he had done so.
Adelia was also excluded. She had inherited many talents from her ancestors, but somehow couldn’t hold her booze!
She had gotten drunk after her first tankard and had suffered terrible effects.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen if she got drunk with those terrible traits of hers.
The price for my ignorant negligence had been terrible, for not even [Poetry of Submission] had worked to stop her drunken riot. And to face such a rampage from a Sword Master was a fierce event, one not easily halted.
Thanks to her rage, all the furniture in that opulent hall had been broken, and many bruises were left on the faces of knights who had tried to subdue her. I had to go to great lengths to finally calm the storm that was Adelia.
Bluntly: Everyone agreed that it was good fortune that no one had died.
It was absolutely something that none of us wanted to witness again.
“In all cases and at all times, don’t let even a drop of alcohol touch your tongue.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Adelia apologized with a bowed head.
I could not really blame her, as it had been my doing, but I stressed my point multiple times: “Adelia, never get drunk.”
When the contest was over, I told my party why I had hosted it. I told those of them who weren’t under the care of doctors, at least.
“Alcohol retention is an essential skill for when one deals with dwarves. That is why you have to drink the day or days before you visit them.”
Arwen and Jordan were naturally jolly about the mission. Gwain, though, he surprised me. A man like him, who sharpened his blade so that he could one day gain his revenge on me, had still volunteered to meet the dwarves.
When I asked him why he did, he did not answer. I took my three drinkers and an assorted group of others to help us. We left the fortress with three wagons that were stacked to their sides with kegs and barrels.
“There it is. The camp of the dwarven folk is just around that hill there,” a western soldier – who had been guiding us – said as he pointed out a hill in the distance.
“Good. Everyone, unpack here and set up camp.”
I left Carls and the others behind. I picked out only Arwen, Jordan, and Gwain, who had proven themselves, and ordered each of them to steer a wagon around the hill.
And there it was: A camp filled with dwarves. Their stocky figures surrounded a campfire. Even if they noticed our party’s arrival, they did not so much as turn their heads to look at us.
But my eyes could see the truth of the matter.
These stout liquor enthusiasts were keeping their ears pricked as they heard the sound of booze sloshing in barrels as the wagons trundled along.
“Halt here,” I ordered as the wagons rolled into the entrance of the camp.
I jumped from a wagon, carrying a keg on my shoulder. We went straight to the bonfire and plopped down among the seated dwarves.
The dwarves, who were smoking from their pipes, turned to me.
As I met their gazes, I uncorked the barrel. The tingling scent of its contents slammed into our noses as it spread itself through the dry air of that wasteland.
I laughed as I saw the dwarves unwittingly clearing their throats and moving their mouths in desire.
“Let’s empty one keg first!”
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