Rebirth in the Magic Continent

12. Clues

The Elibra Forest is completely under the control of the dwarves.

A sturdy earthen wall, handed down and maintained by the dwarves over the generations, surrounds the forest.

The straight earthen wall, which reaches to the sky, encloses the entire Elibra Forest. No outsider can find the entrance to Elibra Forest without the guidance of a dwarf.

Two years have passed since Inari was led into Elibra Forest. During these two years, it has been as if Inari has entered a completely new world.

-

Inari was registered as a resident of the dwarven village of Mora. In addition to a companion stone the size of a fingernail, Inari was given special medicinal pills by the dwarf Mora.

According to Mora, these pills were specially ordered from the herb elves, who are good at making medicine, and have the function of strengthening the body and prolonging life.

Of course, Inari has reservations about Mora's claim that the pills can prolong life. Mora really wants to emphasise the function of 'strengthening the body'.

According to Mora's detailed analysis, the main effect of these special pills is to delay Inari's vertical growth and promote her horizontal development.

The pill can stabilise Inari's height at its current level, while strengthening her weak body, and then achieve the goal of Inari having a standard dwarf body type.

Mora explained the need for the pill: after accepting the trust of his old friend Fuchsia, he would take responsibility for raising Inari until she was sixteen.

The reasonable way for Mora to take responsibility was to adopt Inari as his ward, an orphaned minor dwarf.

...

After hearing Mora's explanation, Inari understood the look of disgust Mora had given her when he first saw her in the attic, looking her up and down.

She thought she looked too weak and didn't fit into the dwarf aesthetic at all, but... she didn't really appreciate the dwarf aesthetic either.

But since she was going to stay in the dwarf tribe after all, Inari didn't want to stand out and decided to give up her human aesthetic and obediently take the pill to adjust her body.

Before she got the pill and took it,

Inari carefully followed the monk's method, which she had inherited from the memories of her past life. Using her spiritual awareness, she controlled the faint aura that had been transformed from a transparent magical stone the size of a fingernail, and conducted a thorough inspection of the pill.

Mora's pill was indeed pure, natural and harmless. At least according to the aura inspection, there was no danpo [poison in the pill] in the pill, which was similar to the kind of poison in the pill in her past life.

--

Two years passed, and Inali obediently took the pills that Mora had made especially for her.

While she diligently fulfilled the daily blacksmithing requirements that Mora had arranged, she also silently practised the body hardening exercises that she remembered were for ordinary people.

Inali devoted all her previous sleeping time to meditation and cultivation. Holding the fingernail-sized Accompanying Stone, she tried hard to transform the aura wisps.

Although two years have passed, Inali has not been able to understand the magical operating system of this magical world, but relying on the Companion Stone, which has the same effect as the Magical Bond Stone, Inali has successfully felt the five basic magical elements of the magical world and become familiar with their unique existence.

The withered spirit root seed in her mind has turned green and plump after two years of hard work.

The only thing she cannot force is the false dwarf* Inali does not have the innate talent for creation that dwarves have, nor does she have control over the magic of metal and earth.

Although Mora has taught Inali his proud ironsmithing technique without reservation, Inali cannot easily shape iron sheets into the desired form like Mora.

Inali had argued with Mora about this, insisting that she did not have the talent to cast iron, but Mora stubbornly refused to admit it, blaming Inali for not trying hard enough.

For two years, Inali was forced by Mora to pound the scrap iron that Mora left behind in the stone workshop every day after work.

Mora had a good reason for this arrangement. He said that by concentrating on polishing and hammering iron since his youth, he had found his own unique way of doing things, and that he had managed to stand out among the dwarves, a group of master builders and blacksmiths, and become the most famous ironsmith of his time.

Despite Inari's repeated refusals and pleas, Mora relented only slightly, verbally assuring Inari that hammering iron would train her sense of percussion and cultivate her affinity for iron. With long practice she would get the hang of it.

...

However, it was as if Inari's life had been too miserable for the past two years. Not only had Inali's ability to cast iron not improved, but she had not developed as Mora had hoped.

Even with the pills suppressing her growth, Inali had still grown two centimetres. She had no bulging muscles, just all the soft flesh from before pressed tightly together, making her look much taller.

Although her skin had darkened a little from the wind and sun and the heat of the stove, Inari still looked completely out of place among the Mora family.

----

Under Mora's supervision, Inari took Mora's newly improved pills for a week.

Yesterday, however, a physical examination conducted by Kaya in Mora's presence revealed that Inari had still lost half of her waist measurement.

After venting her anger and frustration, Mora decided to temporarily leave Elberia Forest and personally seek out the pixie who sold her the pills to protect her rights.

Inali was locked in the stone dome workshop, facing a nearly half-metre thick iron plate and a hot stove, and ordered to thin the iron plate by hand before Mora returned.

It was Kaya's arrival that saved Inari, who was about to lose her dream.

Although Kaya insisted that Inari could not give up on inheriting Mora's iron-casting process, she picked up the hammer that Inari had dropped on the floor and casually struck the iron plate on the table a few times.

Inari saw the faint golden light that the hammer naturally emitted when Kaya swung it, and the iron sheet immediately stretched and thinned. She couldn't help but make a sound of envy.

-

Dwarves are born with magical abilities. That is why Inari cannot even get a proper magical initiation from her dwarf friends, because their magic does not require spells and is integrated into their every move.

Inari asked Kaya how she felt when she used magic, but Kaya was embarrassed. She thought for a long time and could not come up with a concrete description. She just said that it was something that dwarves were born with, like breathing, and that there was no description or explanation.

Seeing Inari's suddenly disappointed expression, Kaya suddenly remembered something.

My runaway brother, Kasi, was originally a top student at our dwarven academy. He took part in an elite programme and went to the academy of the Ester Empire to exchange magic and alchemy techniques... During the exchange, he became fascinated by human spells and fell in love with a human girl... After returning from the exchange to Elberia Forest, he had a big fight with his father, betrayed his father's expectations that he would succeed as a master blacksmith, ran away from home and disguised himself as a human to study human earth and metal magic at the Imperial Academy in the Astral Empire...'.

After this long introduction, Kaya took a breath and finished for Inali,

We dwarves were originally limited to the two natural magic systems of earth and metal, but my brother proved that dwarves can also learn human magic, so human magic and our dwarves' natural magic should be different.

...

From this conversation, Inari not only learned more about the common knowledge of dwarven magic, but also gathered information that dwarves can transform their bodies to disguise themselves as humans.

After accumulating a large amount of magic in their bodies, dwarves can change their body shape to that of a normal human.

The dwarves, with their own stable aesthetic culture, rarely do this within the clan, but Kaja's brother Kasi is an exception, who is eager to change to human form.

----

Kaja quickly finished the task of thinning the iron plate. In high spirits, she dragged Inali out of Mora's smithy.

Taking advantage of Mora's absence, Kaja decided to take Inali to the dwarves' annual underground fair.

On the way, Kaja excitedly told Inari that she had heard that very few students from the Human Empire visited the underground market that was open today, and that she would definitely want to see it.