EXTRA CHAPTER 11: THE DWARVES' SUSPICION

***The land of the dwarves, Equality, a few weeks after Christmas…***

Although not obvious back then, the incident at the tavern in the small elvish city of Harundin made waves across the realms of humans, beastfolk, demons and elves. The ‘Larunda Tavern’ was actually owned by the famous Lady Missy, the proprietor of Cherwind’s ‘Royal Inn’, and the gathering of almost all the royals and other leaders from the four races just to surprise the Duke of Maverny was something that hasn’t happened before…not even in Chersea and the Other Realms’ past. What’s even more shocking was the event that happened there…

“The Duke of Maverny proposes marriage to his lovers at the Larunda Tavern…”

“Wait…you mean, his lover?”

“No, it’s written here: ‘lovers’.”

The dwarf who smoked a pipe while watching over the thousands of miners under his command snatched the newspaper from his assistant, and read it himself. “Lovers…” he flipped the pages for the continuation of the article. Much to his disbelief, however, “Damn…the queens of Amaranth in Chersea, Cherwind, and even the saints, are his lovers. This Duke of Maverny is one formidable man to make those people fall for him…”

“Hey, isn’t His Highness the Prince Giuseppe Uhrian our customer?”

“What about him?”

“It says he’s present in that ‘Christmas party’ in Cherwoods. Don’t you think that those rings he’s requesting from us are…”

Then, it dawned on the dwarf overseer. “Damn it!” he blurted out. “If we become this ‘Duke of Maverny’s’ supplier, then we can become famous and rich!”

“Indeed, sir!” the assistant’s eyes glowed with enthusiasm, but it was quickly dampened when he remembered something else. “However, don’t you think we’ll go against the decrees of the Great Goldhammer? He did rule that our guild was to give him 95% of our mined crystals.”

“Pah! Fuck that reincarnator; I won’t be made subordinate to someone who’s not even born in this world!” the overseer declared. “Besides, if what you said is true, then this Duke of Maverny can help us! There are many rumors about him being a reincarnator himself!”

“How’d you know that?”

“Read that!” the overseer threw the broadsheet back to his assistant. “The journalists wrote a glowing list of his achievements. I don’t know if that ‘Duke’ is even human. Says he’s the Eternal King of Cherwind, the Great Scholar of the Demons, the Commoner-General of the Human Saint, and the Shaper of the Waters of Cherwoods. Not only that, there’s a lot of inventions attributed to him, including that new ‘locomotive’.”

“Wow…” the assistant quipped. “These achievements are just like…”

“Yes,” the overseer dwarf confirmed. “It’s greatly similar to those inventions the Great Goldhammer gave to the dwarves. And we all know how closely guarded our new technologies are. So, it’s my suspicion that this ‘Duke of Maverny’ is a reincarnator himself, like the Lady Cassandra David of the old days.”