Dream Life Vol II Chapter 75: “Distilled Rhapsody (Scotch Capriccio): Part 1”

　From the information I had obtained from my informant, Sai Furman, I had confirmed the overexcited state of distilling technology in the village of Rathmore. And I was bitterly disappointed that the situation was not optimistic.

　After the announcement of the Guild of Blacksmiths’ statement, there was no more blatant headhunting of Scott, the chief of distiller. However, this had been replaced by a growing movement to incorporate the entire Lockhart family into their own country.

　The most troublesome of these countries was Holy Kingdom of Lux.

　That country paid no attention to the “real value” of spirits, and simply tried to use our scotch as a means of controlling the difficult dwarven blacksmiths.

　According to information I received from Sai, the secular bureaucrats in the Holy King’s Office, the administrative body of the Holy Kingdom of Lux, had been actively working with the Blacksmith Guild to improve their country’s technical capabilities. They wanted to bring in a number of excellent dwarven blacksmiths, but they lacked the power.

　On the contrary, in his country, the Light God Church, with its creed of human supremacy, was prevailing, and the demihuman dwarves felt uncomfortable in the Holy Kingdom, and more of them wanted to leave.

　In order to break out of this situation, he decided to acquire the technology to produce Scotch, a distilled spirit that the dwarves had expressed all their passion, or even their lives, for, and control them by means of alcohol.

　News from my father confirms this. The bishop himself, who was dispatched from the Caum headquarters of the Church of Light in Ars, the capital of the Kingdom of Caum, spoke of this matter with great pride.

　The bishop himself had “demanded” the right to manufacture and sell distillation technology to my father, who was the lord of the city.

　The conditions that were presented to our family at that time were as follows.

　The distillery would be moved from the village of Rathmore to Holy Kingdom of Lux. The Holy Kingdom “may” bear the cost of the relocation.

　As for the profit, 50% of the sales will go to the Lockhart family and the remaining 50% to the Holy Kingdom, but the Holy Kingdom will designate the place of sale.

　Thankfully, the Lockhart family, which is only a secular knight, will be promoted to a “prestigious” holy knight.

　The most important “benefit” was “an audience with the archbishop and the Holy King.

　Regarding the last condition of the audience, the bishop said, “You will be given the honor of seeing the archbishop’s face. Please accept it gratefully,” the bishop told my father in a pompous manner.

　My father said that he forgot how angry he was and was so stunned that he couldn’t speak. Father tried to send the bishop away, but he remained in the village for a month, and even showed up at the house every day without being summoned, much to Father’s and Nicholas’s annoyance.

　Not only that, but the priests and deacons who accompanied him began to preach on their own, even though they had not been given permission to do so. They even tried to build a Church of Light, or Temple as they called it.

　Although we are usually unaware of it, the village of Rathmore is part of the Caelum Empire, which is still at war with the Holy Kingdom of Lux. The bishop’s brazenness in preaching in such an enemy country infuriated even my father, and he drove the bishop’s party out of the village.

　It would have been better if the matter had been settled, but such common sense did not apply to the Light God Church, a group of fanatical zealots.

　The dispatched bishop was furious at the father’s behavior and gathered followers from neighboring towns and villages to block the only road to the village. He also spread false rumors about our family in the towns and villages along the Ars Road.

　When I heard this story, I was reminded of the land-grabbers in the economic bubble time. At least it was not the act of a clergyman.

　Physically removing believers is easy for the vigilantes of Rathmore village. But his father felt that they were reluctant to follow the bishop’s orders and hesitated to hurt them.

　My father tried to persuade the believers to return to the village, but they continued to block the roads as the fanatics told them to, despite the Lockhart family’s reluctance.

　It seems that my father hesitated several times whether to take hard measures. However, with the invasion of the demons nine years ago, the Light God Church was growing in power within the Kingdom of Caum and possessed a power to be reckoned with. Recalling that, he seems to have reconsidered that a large-scale battle might not break out with clumsy means.

　Struggling to deal with the situation, Father instructed Nicholas and Guy to appeal directly to the Light God Church’s Caum headquarters in Ars. The two did not take the road from the village, but instead rushed to Ars, passing through the forest and emerging onto the Ars Road. Upon arriving in Ars, Nicholas and the Guy requested a meeting with the archbishop in charge of the Light God Church within the Kingdom of Caum, but after waiting for more than ten days, they were only able to meet with a single priest.

　Nicholas gave up on direct negotiations with the Church of God of Light, and after much agonizing, he approached the Blacksmith’s Guild. At that time, the only road to the village was blocked and the supply of scotch had been cut off for more than half a month, and Nicholas, who had come from the village of Rathmore, was surrounded by frustrated dwarves.

　As expected of a man with a long history of warfare, he was not intimidated by this and explained to the dwarves what had happened.

　When the dwarves heard about it from Nicholas, they were enraged at the actions of the Light God Church.

　It seems that the word rage was so anger that he felt it was unskillful, and Nicholas later told me that he felt that their murderous intent was in danger and instinctively drew his sword.

　The group of dwarves, who were on the verge of turning into a mob, went straight to the Caum Headquarters of the Light God Church. Guy, who accompanied him, testifies to this.

“When I was young before I served the former lord, I once encountered a group of large horned buffalo, the Great Horned Ox, who were running amok. However, I felt that the dwarves were more frightening this time than when I was confronted with more than a hundred angry monsters running amok. It was the first time since I had come to serve the former lord that I had felt such fear that my legs almost shook. It was a fear I had not felt during the deadly battle with the herd of orcs that attacked our village…” (Guy)

　A Great Horned Ox is a huge buffalo-like monster that is over four meters long and two meters high and has huge horns about two meters wide. The Great Horned Oxen are usually gentle monsters, but when they lose control of themselves in anger and run amok, even Earth Dragons, which are of the dragon race, are said to avoid their paths. Guy, who has fought in past battles, felt more fear than that monster.

　When the dwarves arrived at the Light God Church headquarters, they demanded a meeting with the archbishop from the young deacon at the reception desk. The deacon summoned up his courage and tried to tell them that he could not grant them a meeting without an appointment. But the young deacon’s eyes widened, and he stopped moving in the face of the dwarves, who were filled with a deadly fury that would have terrified Guy, a man who experienced many battles.

　The dwarves, paying no attention to the motionless deacon, rushed straight into the building. Guy confirmed that the deacon was so terrified that he had fainted while standing.

　The dwarves caught up with an unfortunate Light God Church official who happened to pass them in the hallway and asked him for the archbishop’s room. And when they arrived in front of the archbishop’s office, they tried to storm straight in.

　A person who seemed to be the archbishop’s secretary, gathered up his courage and stood in front of the dwarves, but was told in a deadly voice, “Do you want the whole door blown open?”

　When the door to the archbishop’s office was opened, the opulent room was immediately filled with dwarves. According to Nicholas’ testimony, there were at least a hundred dwarves in the room at that point.

　The archbishop was so surprised that he slipped off his chair, but he quickly came to his senses, as one would expect from a man at the center of power in a country. The archbishop protested in a strong tone against the outburst of the dwarves.

　From this point on, I will reproduce the conversation between the archbishop and the dwarves, based on the testimonies of Nicholas and Guy.

“How do you dare to attack this holy church, the house of God!” (Archbishop)

　The archbishop summoned up all his courage and berated the dwarves. Nicholas, for that one moment, looked at the archbishop in a new light.

　Ulrich Drexler, the head of the blacksmiths’ guild, who had been in the front row for some time, responded with a terrifying tone.

“We warned you that, ‘we would not compromise on liquor’. Do you know what your bishop is doing to Rathmore? Are you prepared to stand against us?” (Ulrich)

　The archbishop, who had shown the courage to denounce the injustice, paled in the face of Ulrich’s strength and the fact that he was being told for the first time. He could only shake his head broadly without uttering a word.

　He managed to regain his composure and again summoned up his courage to argue back.

“Hou, what are you talking about? We are God’s messengers, and we will only negotiate in good faith. Is this not a conspiracy by someone else?” (Archbishop)

　Ulrich then signaled to Nicholas. At this moment, Nicholas saw in Ulrich the image of my grandfather commanding on the battlefield. He felt such dignity. [T/N: Alcohol-driven dignity.]

　Nicholas complained to the archbishop about the current situation in the village of Rathmore. The archbishop finally grasped the situation and promised to immediately summon the bishop he had dispatched to the village of Rathmore.

　Ulrich said, “Let’s get this taken care of as soon as possible. You’ll have to pay for what you’ve done this time,” he said, and as he left, he added, “Not twice. Next time, I’ll have all the blacksmiths from the guilds in Luke’s pulled out. Do you understand?

　The archbishop could only nod in agreement. The dwarves then welcomed Nicholas and his men, and it appeared that a settlement had been reached.

　After this, however, the situation became even more serious.

　The following is my analysis based on information gathered by my informant Sai, so some of it may be inaccurate.

　The bishop, who was recalled by the archbishop, was born into a prestigious family and was related to the supremely powerful pope, so things got worse.

　The bishop was rebuked by the archbishop and his bloated pride was greatly injured. From the beginning of his assignment, he had looked down on the archbishop as a defeated loser in the power struggle, and he resented the bishop’s rebuke.

　He appealed to the main headquarters of the Holy City of Pax Lumen over the head of his superior, the archbishop, to justify his actions. He further proposed to take advantage of the dwarves’ attachment to liquor.

　The bishop’s idea was the same as that of the bureaucrats of the Holy Kingdom, to the extent that the dwarves were to be controlled through the use of alcohol. But the most important difference was that he believed that he could easily take away the distilling technology by threatening to use the power of the Church, against frontier knights like the Lockhart family. And to that end, he wanted them to give him full authority over the negotiations.

　The main headquarters of the Church in the Holy City had already received a statement similar to a threat from the Blacksmith’s Guild. Furthermore, they had received a screeching report from the Archbishop of Ars and were about to throw the bishop’s proposal to the trash. However, the bishop assumed on his own that there was no way the main headquarters would not accept his proposal, and without waiting for instructions from the main headquarters, he went on a rampage.

　Using the name of the Order without permission, he accused the Lockhart family of being followers of Noctis, the god of darkness, and of being in communication with the demon folks. As a basis for this accusation, he cited the fact that the remote village of Rathmore has no walls and no large army, yet it lives peacefully. The neighboring towns and villages reacted greatly to this accusation. It was the Lockhart family that was protecting their safety, and an anti-Light God Church movement was immediately launched against the Light God Church who had falsely accused them of this. Furthermore, those who had been believers also gave up on the Church one after another in response to the bishop’s accusations.

　It takes nearly a month to reach the holy city of Pax Lumen from the village of Rathmore, even if one uses a fast horse. When the main headquarter of the Church learned of the bishop’s rampage, they were astonished and exploded with anger against the self-righteous bishop. However, by that time, the situation had progressed so rapidly that it was no longer a matter of disposing of the bishop, apparently.

　Hearing of the accusations against the Lockhart family, the dwarves of Ars immediately held an emergency general assembly of the Blacksmith’s Guild. And they unanimously adopted a decision for all blacksmiths belonging to the Blacksmiths’ Guild to be pulled out of the Holy Kingdom of Lux and to cease all business with the Holy Kingdom.

　There were blacksmiths in the Holy Kingdom who belonged to the national workshop, and there were also patriotic blacksmiths. However, most of them are human blacksmiths, and the best dwarven blacksmiths are craftsmen who belong to the guild.

　These excellent blacksmiths began to leave the Holy King’s country en masse. In a panic, the Holy King’s Office and the main headquarter of the Church forbade the dwarves to move, but this provoked the dwarves’ anger. Some astute merchants helped the dwarves to leave the country in order to ingratiate themselves with the Blacksmith’s Guild. The escaped dwarves began to complain of the tyranny of the Holy Kingdom in the commercial city of Aurella.

　The Merchant Guild weighed the Holy Kingdom of Lux and the Blacksmith’s Guild in the balance and chose the Blacksmith’s Guild. They then issued a statement condemning the Holy Kingdom and the Light God Church for their actions. The federation of city-states centering on the city of Aurella agreed with them.

　In Ars, the capital of the Kingdom of Caum, further confusion ensued.

　The Light God Church, which was growing in power, clashed with forces emotionally close to the dwarves, resulting in numerous casualties.

　The government of the Kingdom of Caum, concerned about the situation, ordered the Caum headquarters of the Light God Church to present clear evidence in response to the accusations against the Lockhart family, the originators of the incident. The archbishop in charge of Kaum headquarters was convinced that the accusation itself was an outburst by the bishop, but the bishop confidently said that it was an order from the general headquarters of the Order and did not return to Ars. The archbishop was unable to stop his outburst.

　The Lockhart family, in the middle of the vortex, was also perplexed.

　Originally, they were fed up with the power struggles in the country and moved to the village of Rathmore to live peacefully in the frontier. Although my grandfather and father were both honest and respected nobles who put the people first, they lacked the ability to deal with the complexities of international politics.

　That’s where I got involved.