Chapter One Hundred Two
Brunner and the miners likely still did not understand Anke’s explanation regarding the Ghost Fire.
However, they at least listened to one part — as long as they relocated the remains buried here, the Ghost Fire would no longer appear.
Brunner immediately organized the men and began to move the remains buried in this area.
Compared to the mysterious and eerie Ghost Fire, moving the remains of the deceased, which were nothing but bones, was not as terrifying.
Yet, as the miners cleared away the soil and stones covering the skeletons, the fully revealed remains caused them to shiver instinctively.
“These — these bones, they look like children’s bones!”
“Why is there an iron hammer pressed against the chest? What is this for?”
“Could it be some kind of cult sacrifice? Maybe we shouldn’t have uncovered them.”
The miners took a step back, whispering among themselves.
Some of the sharper ones immediately ran to tell Brunner about the strange situation after digging up the oddities.
Anke, who had originally been arranged by Brunner to rest in a guest room, rushed back immediately upon hearing about the suspected cult sacrifice.
“Only about 4 feet (about 1.2 meters) long… they certainly look like the bones of children.”
Anke crouched beside the remains revealed from the earth and stone.
The remains had completely skeletonized.
Aside from the iron hammer pressed against the chest, there were no other funerary objects to identify them.
He leaned down, using his hand to roughly measure the length of the skeleton.
“Is it just this one child’s remains, or all of them?”
Anke took a linen towel handed to him by Sandrag and asked after wiping his hands.
“Reporting to the Lord, it is all of them. And they all have a hammer pressed against their chests,” one miner said, raising his hand.
“All of them? Then it truly could be some kind of cult sacrifice.”
Anke looked toward Brunner and the others.
“Brunner, Sandrag, can you recognize the origin of these hammers pressed against their chests?”
“I can recognize them. This is a very basic Novice Smithing Hammer. It is the first piece every blacksmith apprentice crafts with their own hands before completing their apprenticeship,” Brunner said, looking at the crude and simple iron hammer.
“A Novice Smithing Hammer? What kind of cult would press these novice hammers against children’s chests to complete a sacrifice?”
Bodies like children’s, novice hammers pressed against their chests…
Vera felt the scene before her was somewhat familiar, but she could not quite remember what it was.
Suddenly, she noticed many fist-sized stones placed beneath and around the bodies.
An answer suddenly flashed in Vera’s mind.
“It is not a cult sacrifice,” Vera suddenly spoke.
“Not a cult sacrifice?”
“Vera, did you discover something?”
“I need to confirm more carefully.”
Vera took a torch from one of the miners and walked quickly toward the opposite stone wall.
She bent down, using the torch to illuminate the lower half of the wall, and began to move slowly along it.
Vera walked thirty steps and finally stopped.
Anke and the others followed curiously. They found that where Vera’s torch illuminated, about 3 feet above the ground, the wall was covered in dense writing.
Most of the characters were blurred and indistinct, with only a few words still accurately identifiable.
“What is written here?” Anke asked Vera.
“It says, ‘Dwarves were here.'”
Vera read out the well-preserved sentence on the stone wall.
Although she could only read one sentence, it was enough to tell future generations about the history and the residents who once lived here.
The massive cave here might not have been solely the result of nature’s power, but rather the hard work of the group of Dwarves who once lived here.
The small white bones with hammers pressed to their chests were not sacrifices to an evil god, but the way Dwarves said goodbye to this world.
“Dwarves were here… Vera, do you mean to say that Dwarves used to live here?”
Vera did not answer Anke; she only looked at the skeletal remains of the Dwarves.
‘If I cannot revive my race, then the Mimic Beasts might end up like these Dwarves, gasping their last breath in some corner of the world before disappearing entirely without anyone knowing.’
“Look at me, asking such a stupid question. The evidence is right in front of us,” Anke smiled, then announced loudly to the miners.
“Don’t be afraid, everyone! This isn’t a cult sacrifice. It’s just a Dwarven burial custom. It’s fine, keep digging!”
The miners did not move at first, but after Brunner repeated Anke’s words, they gradually lowered their guard and continued the work of relocating the bodies.
In that area, the miners dug up fifty-seven sets of Dwarven remains and fifty-seven Novice Smithing Hammers, transporting them to a flat area outside the cave.
Next, they dug a corresponding number of graves. After performing a ceremony to appease the spirits of the deceased, they could rebury the remains.
As the highest-ranking Lord, Anke served as the witness for the ceremony.
He sat upright the entire time, watching an old woman dressed like a shaman dance around a bonfire in a way he couldn’t quite understand.
After the ritual to appease the spirits, they could finally rebury the bodies.
“Vera, tell me, do Dwarves have any specific customs when burying their fallen companions?” Anke asked Vera again before the burial began.
“They do. They place the first forging hammer the person ever made into the hands of the deceased, then bury them with ore. It represents coming from the ore and returning to it.”
“Oh, I see.”
After hearing this, Anke nodded.
He asked Brunner to bring a large amount of coal ore and buried each set of Dwarven remains according to what Vera had described.
Knowing that this conformed to Dwarven customs, the others said no more.
After all, letting the dead rest in peace was a good thing. It was better than offending the deceased and having ghosts come knocking.
In any case, after doing this, the Ghost Fire never appeared in the mine again.
The miners did not understand Anke’s scientific explanation.
They were more inclined to believe that the Lord had appeased these forgotten spirits.
The spirits had found rest, so they no longer came out to scare people.
Regardless, returning to the present.
In the evening, according to the previous agreement, Brunner gathered everyone to begin voting on whether to join Anke’s command and become his subjects.
Because Sandrag and Brunner, the first and second-in-command, were the primary promoters, and most people had seen how Anke solved the Ghost Fire problem by appeasing the spirits — even though the results weren’t fully proven yet, they had seen Anke’s approachable and responsible side.
Unsurprisingly, the voting results showed that most people chose to trust Anke, willing to become Free Citizens under his rule.
Since it was late and easy to lose one’s way in the Grey Wolf Forest at night, Vera could only offer a silent moment of mourning for Mustafa, who would not get a good night’s sleep.
He would likely spend the entire night worrying about Anke, who had not returned.