Mercenary Wars

Chapter 131 Reception
Brown's words surprised Gaucano, but upon reflection, he found them to be perfectly reasonable.

After all, that's just how he is.

Especially in the first ten years or so, even though he was a fake believer, he would pretend to be devout from time to time in order to get a job and study at the church, reciting scriptures or making a triangle or something.

Fortunately, his holy name was easier to conceal than his beard, otherwise his situation would probably have been worse than those red-bearded men.

Gaucano pondered for a moment: "Using mind detection on Whitebeard would probably be a bit inconvenient. You know, the south of Dibusara is much more lively than the north."

“That’s easy,” Brown said. “There’s a big party in town right now. You can dress up as slaves and servants and just sneak in… You can imagine how many drunk dwarves will be there.”

“Of course, I can’t take you in, because everyone knows I don’t keep slaves, but I’ll help you find a reliable guide.” Brown changed the subject, “Do you have any alcohol?”

"Is the ticket to the cocktail party alcohol?"

“Pretty much,” Brown said. “If you had some wines that aren’t commonly found here, things would be much easier.”

Gaucano: "We should be able to gather some people, about a dozen of us."

“That’s good.” Brown nodded, then changed the subject, “Come to my place, I have a lot of aged Flame Liquor—the kind made with Flame Mushrooms!”

In the following days.

Through Brown's introduction, the mercenaries came into contact with many radical red-bearded gray dwarves.

These red-bearded gray dwarves formed a semi-secret organization called the "Brotherhood of Prometheus".

The Brotherhood of Prometheus has about two hundred members, including several dozen full members. These full members all have fiery red beards, are all named after Prometheus, believe in fire and freedom, and despise the "dark and filthy god of slavery, Durrag."

They have unwavering faith, and their favorite saying is "to liberate others and free oneself," a teaching said to have been given to them by the fire-breathing titan Prometheus.

Moreover, it turns out that the white-bearded gray dwarves' criticism of them was not without merit; they did indeed agree with resolving conflicts between the red and white people through violence, and this agreement grew stronger.

In addition to these core official members, the Brotherhood of Prometheus also has more than one hundred informal members.

The attitude of these more than one hundred informal members was relatively less radical, and some even kept slaves.

Of course, Redbeard's slavery differed greatly from Whitebeard's; it was more a matter of having no other choice. After all, in the town of Dibusala, intelligent beings only had two identities—grey dwarves or slaves. If someone was neither a grey dwarf nor a slave, they could only be considered a beast.

The man who led the mercenaries into the party was a red-bearded, gray dwarf who owned slaves.

Only four people entered the party: Gaucano, Hilgon, Nikon, and Daniel. They disguised themselves as servants and followed behind the guide, swaggering into the party.

The guide then led them to a room, where Brown entered a few minutes later.

The room was quite spacious, with a fireplace and a variety of wine glasses, seemingly a VIP treatment paid for with fine wine.

"I'm going out now, you can wait here," the guide said.

“Every time you bring in a few more white-bearded guys, just say there’s an endless supply of good wine!” Brown said.

"Don't worry!" the guide said, pushing open the door to leave. As the door opened and closed a crack, the noisy sounds and the rich aroma of alcohol flashed by.

Brown twitched his beard, then took out a bottle of wine, poured himself a drink, and chatted with Gaucano and the others.

“…Ever since that behemoth blocked the northern passage, we’ve lost contact with the grey dwarves of the other Underdarks,” he said. “I wonder how they are doing now.”

Gaucano: "Can all the other Underdark regions be reached from the northern passage?"

Brown: "Theoretically, that's about right. It's like you can reach any island in the ocean, but in reality, there are many obstacles, and sometimes even neighboring dark regions are not easy to reach."

As he spoke, he downed a glass of Cape-style liquor.

A few drops of wine spilled on his fiery red beard, but he didn't care and continued drinking.

It wasn't until after a few drinks, when Brown's beard was noticeably wet, that he leisurely walked to the fireplace and brought his beard close to the flames.

The flames immediately reached his beard, but he remained unperturbed, letting the flames burn out on their own. As the flames died down, the wine stains on his beard also disappeared.

He looked at the mercenaries' surprised expressions and said, "Haha, our Redbeard is fireproof! Didn't expect that, did you!"

Just then, accompanied by the sound of a door being pushed open, several white-bearded gray dwarves followed the guide into the room.

"Burp, I smell the pure Cape liquor!" These white-bearded men were clearly drunk, their speech slurred, and they would burp every now and then.

"What's Brown doing here? Has this guy finally realized he's a shameful heretic...?"

"By Durag, these slaves are really good-looking, hiccup, how much did you pay for them..."

"Brothers, let's keep drinking!" The guide closed the door and then started drinking with several white-bearded men in the room.

He clearly had an ability related to drinking, and it seemed he hadn't been secretly drinking less, yet he was much more sober than the other white-bearded gray dwarves.

Before long, the white-bearded gray dwarves became increasingly drunk and eventually fell into a deep sleep with Nikon's sleep spell. They lay sprawled on the ground, snoring loudly, followed by thought detection and memory fading.

After reading the memories, Nikon pointed to a white-bearded gray dwarf who was sleeping: "This is a fake white-bearded man."

“I’ve suspected him for a long time,” Brown snorted. “If I’m not mistaken, his purpose in disguising himself as Whitebeard is to continue using those fire elemental furnaces?”

“That’s right, that’s his goal.” Nikon nodded. “He wanted to become an outstanding blacksmith, but Redbeard was restricted from using the furnace. In order to continue to improve his skills, he chose to disguise himself as Whitebeard and always used exaggerated language to express his loyalty to Matolius.”

“Sadly, his forging skills were never outstanding,” Brown said. “Even by the standards of other races, his forging skills would not be considered outstanding; he would probably be about the same as the most ordinary blacksmith among humans.”

Nikon: "However, he is a level four warrior and a decent person overall. Perhaps we should try to win his support."

Brown nodded: "Of course, that's the most important thing. Wake him up and let me talk to him for a bit."

(End of this chapter)