“What is this, a quest-guiding NPC?” Lu Ran asked curiously.
“Probably,” Liu Xinxin wasn’t sure either.
The dwarf girl in front of them.
Although she was carrying a large hammer, the hammer’s quality was clearly very poor, covered in rust.
Its size, however, was quite exaggerated, almost bigger than the dwarf girl herself.
The clothes she wore were coarse rags, lacking even basic armor.
Seeing the dwarf girl still waiting,
Lu Ran said, “We’re looking for the Dwarf King. Do you know where he is?”
“Of course. In the dwarf kingdom, how could any dwarf not know where the Dwarf King’s Boulder Fort is?” the dwarf girl muttered, looking at Lu Ran with a strange expression.
Ahem…
Lu Ran scratched his head awkwardly.
True enough.
It would be like a human not knowing which main city the capital was in.
“Then lead the way. We need to see the Dwarf King,” Lu Ran nodded.
“That’s possible, but… guiding you comes with a fee,” the dwarf girl said cautiously, watching Lu Ran as if afraid that discussing money might lose her this client.
After all,
The dwarves themselves didn’t need much help.
Few outsiders ever came to Blackrock City.
And humans were being seen for the first time.
“A fee is fine. How much?” Lu Ran asked casually.
He originally thought this seemingly poor dwarf girl’s fee would be quite expensive.
But he didn’t expect,
The dwarf girl just said timidly, “Would one hundred gold coins be okay? If… if that’s too expensive, it could be a little less…”
Towards the end, her voice trailed off even more.
Huh?
Lu Ran was a bit bewildered.
That was way too cheap!
Even a low-level professional can easily earn more than a hundred gold coins just by farming some low-level white equipment or getting drops from wild monsters.
“One hundred gold coins is fine. Lead the way.” Lu Ran directly took out a hundred gold coins and paid her upfront.
The girl was a bit surprised, but then happily put the money away.
She said, “Okay, my name is Annie. Let’s go to my place first.”
Well…
To be honest, Lu Ran didn’t want to waste time.
He wanted to go see the Dwarf King directly.
Annie seemed to read Lu Ran’s thoughts and explained, “The Dwarf King isn’t back yet. Based on his usual schedule, he should return around evening. I’ll take you to see him then. Don’t worry, I won’t charge extra.”
So that was it.
Turns out the Dwarf King wasn’t around right now.
Since that was the case, Lu Ran had no reason to refuse. He nodded and said, “Alright, let’s go to your place first.”
Annie’s home was in a remote corner, downstream of the inner river within the main city, a corner under a large bridge. It was dark and damp.
The space wasn’t big either.
It was even a bit cramped when Lu Ran and the others went inside.
The room’s furnishings were very simple too. Besides daily pots and pans, there was only a wooden bed, not even a stool to sit on.
“The… the house doesn’t have much furniture. Since I usually live alone, I don’t need it, so… I didn’t buy any,” Annie said apologetically.
Lu Ran and the others didn’t mind. They casually leaned against the wall and sat down to rest for a while.
With nothing else to do,
Lu Ran asked curiously, “You should be a dwarf warrior, right? Where’s your equipment?”
Annie shook her head and said, “Haven’t saved up enough money yet.”
Meaning she couldn’t afford it.
That was even stranger.
Lu Ran asked, puzzled, “Aren’t you dwarves skilled at crafting equipment? Can’t you craft it yourself?”
Annie immediately shook her head again.
She said, “The dwarves’ crafting skills need to rely on the Eternal Flame. We don’t have it right now.”
The Eternal Flame again. That was the thing mentioned in Lu Ran’s quest name!
It seemed,
The impact of the datafied world on the dwarves was immense.
Being Hill Dwarves, they were forced to leave the underground world.
They also lost the Eternal Flame, rendering the dwarves’ forging talent, which they relied on for survival, useless.
This not only restricted the dwarves’ own development but also suppressed the survival and growth rate of a large number of dwarves.
Soon, it was approaching evening.
“It’s about time. Shall we go out for a bit?” Lu Ran suggested.
The space here was damp, dark, and cramped. Although Lu Ran didn’t have claustrophobia, he still felt uncomfortable staying there.
And since it was his first time in the dwarf main city, just sitting around felt like a waste.
He might as well look around and broaden his horizons.
“That works.” Annie nodded, picked up her large hammer, and led the way out of the room.
Outside the door was the inner river, with the bridge overhead.
Annie took the lead without any particular destination in mind, just wandering around with Lu Ran and the others.
He would occasionally introduce the surrounding facilities and street names to Lu Ran and the others, but the names were so complicated and hard to remember that Lu Ran didn’t pay much attention to them.
When they passed by an equipment shop,
Annie’s eyes immediately lit up.
But she didn’t linger long and quickly moved to walk past it.
Lu Ran got curious again. “If the dwarves can’t forge, where do the equipment in these shops come from?”
“They’re left over from the old world. The prices are much higher than in the old world. If you want to buy any, you need to save up for a long time,” Annie explained.
That was understandable.
Now that the dwarves couldn’t forge equipment, the items left from the old world were a dwindling resource. Doubling or tripling the prices was the least of it!
Seeing how pitiful Annie seemed,
Liu Xinxin looked at the shop owner and pointed to a large hammer embedded with a fire crystal on the wall, asking, “How much is this one?”
The shop owner was a big-bearded dwarf, also short in stature, who was also curiously looking at Lu Ran and the others.
Hearing the question, he immediately replied, “One thousand three hundred gold coins.”
That was very cheap, only a little over a thousand gold coins.
But considering how overjoyed Annie was just to earn a hundred, the purchasing power of gold coins in the dwarf world was probably much higher than in the human world!
“Annie, do you like this one? I’ll pay for it and give it to you,” Lu Ran, also feeling interested, called out to Annie.
This amount of money was truly a drop in the bucket for Lu Ran.
But he had a pretty good impression of Annie, this little dwarf girl.
He didn’t expect,
Annie resolutely shook her head.
She said, “No.”
It didn’t seem like a false refusal; she genuinely didn’t want it.
Lu Ran was even more surprised. He had originally thought Annie would be overjoyed.
Annie seemed to sense Lu Ran’s confusion.
She said thoughtfully, “Among dwarves, I was born poor, destined to endure a lot of hardship. In my entire life, no one has ever been this kind to me, and no one has ever given me such great help. I am very grateful to you, but dwarves don’t accept favors from others for no reason. Thank you, but I will save up enough money to buy equipment.”
After saying this, she grinned at Lu Ran.
Lu Ran felt a stir in his heart.
He didn’t insist further.
Just then, suddenly, the main thoroughfare ahead became noisy.
Lu Ran and the others instinctively looked over but saw nothing.
However, Annie beside them exclaimed excitedly, “The Dwarf King is back!”
Oh?
Lu Ran’s eyes lit up. The quest was about to begin!
He quickly followed Annie to the main street. Although there were many people there, the advantage was that even from behind the crowd, Lu Ran still had a clear view.
He could see a group of dwarf warriors riding large-horned bighorn sheep slowly entering the city.
The leading dwarf was significantly taller, wielding a war hammer crackling with lightning arcs, and his mount was also much larger.
Annie introduced him, “The one in front is our dwarf king, Barun Boulder!”
