“Toss ’em in, feel yer light.” A jovial tune sounded through the wooden house. “Drink some mead, feel yer cry.”

Within the wooden house, a single dwarf could be seen sitting atop a wooden stool. His arms lay perched on a wooden dining table good for a family to use.

“Feel yer skin, shining gold.” The dwarf takes a chug out of a tankard full of mead beneath the hanging light, before sighing out a content smile and continuing his merry song. “From dark cave pits, feeling slow.”

“Grurnuir…” A voice called out to him from the door. The drinking dwarf placed the tankard back on the table and let go, a smile gracing his bearded face.

“Ah, Hougrana.” Grurnuir stood up, his outfit dirty from working in the mines. “Thought ye be late comin’ home. Them jobs do ye good?”

Dwarves in this world have major traits, depending on the gender. For the males, they grow hairy, with beards as mighty as a tempered sword. For females, however, they grow up like humans, only they never get past the stage known as puberty.

To summarize, female dwarves look like human children at the age of 13, never growing up physically, though they do tend to gain wrinkles the moment they reach 400 years.

The other dwarf female, now known as Hougrana, sighed out while shaking her head.

“Ye be drinking after a fine day’s work, eh?” Hougrana chuckled as she approached an open stool and took a seat. “So, what did ye dig?”

“Eh, nothin’ much.” Grurnuir placed his hand back on the tankard and took another chug, gulping the mead down his throat until the tankard was left empty. “Just a wee bit of gold, and a huge stack of them adamantite.”

Grurnuir slammed the tankard on the table with a grin. Hougrana’s jaw dropped as she processed the information her brother gave him.

“Are ye serious?” Hougrana jaw slowly picked itself back up until she gave him a blinding smile. “Wonderful! Now ye won’t have to pay no more debt!”

“And still have some to spare.” Grurnuir laughed joyously as he left the tankard back at the table and gave his sister a crushing hug, which she reciprocated with joy. “We can finally build that house ye keep on dreaming about!”

Let it be known that dwarf females have strength on par with their male counterparts, even if they look like children.

The both of them hugged each other with smiles on their faces, and left to go sleep once their celebratory drink was finished.

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“Wha…?” Grurnuir dropped the provision he bought with his newly acquired cash, after paying off the debt his father passed on to him after his untimely death. “No… No! Hougrana! HOUGRANA!”

Grurnuir dashed as fast as he could with his stubby legs, his beard flaying in the wind. Before him stood the house he and his sister lived in.

Currently burning to the ground with his sister nowhere in sight. The surrounding dwarves were shouting and yelling, struggling to contain the fire.

Some were using water magic, others were using hoses connected to a fire hydrant, and more were hauling buckets full of water to douse the spreading fire. Grurnuir, however, cared naught for this, but instead, for the life of his dear sister.

“Outta mah way!” Grurnuir barreled past a group of magic users and jumped into the fire while using a skill that had saved his life numerous times in the mines.

[Fire Resistance]

Flames licked his skin, but did not burn. His beard caught on fire, but did not spread. Instead of feeling pain, he felt like he was in the warm embrace of a hot spring.

His skill did not last forever, though, so he had to act fast.

He scoured the second floor and knocked the door towards her room down with a mighty kick.

“Hougrana! Where are ye!?” His screams failed to garner a response. Glancing around the room, he did not see his sister anywhere, so he quickly fled to look for another room where she could be.

He looked all over the second floor and saw no sign of his sister, so he quickly made a beeline for the first floor, but when he saw the stairs full of fire, he made a hasty decision to jump all the way to the first floor.

He landed and broke the wooden floor. Sounds of breaking and splintering wood entered his ears. He was coughing up a storm since [Fire Resistance] did not negate smoke entering his lungs.

He quickly dashed to the kitchen, and finally saw his sister…

“No…” Grunuir dropped to the floor and refused to move, even with the flames constantly licking his body. I mean, how could he?

Not when his sister’s burning body was right in front of him.

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Grurnuir felt lost.

After having been brought outside by a few dwarves that were brave enough to enter the burning building, Grurnuir was now contemplating what to do.

All of his actions, everything he did, everything he suffered, everything was all for his sister’s well-being.

What was he supposed to do now? Now that his sole motivation was a burning corpse? He felt it was appropriate to die together, but he knew his sister would not want that.

So, he vowed to himself to continue living, for her sake.

There was one thing, however, that stuck in his mind about his sister.

“I really want to be a Hunter.”

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He gathered everything he owned. The sum of money he got from mining that adamantite stack of ore, all of it went to preparing for the journey ahead of him.

He got his armor, his weapon, his shield, and everything essential for surviving in the wilderness, and still had enough money to live in an inn for about two months.

“Hougrana, I will live… For you…” His silent vow was carried by the wind and into the heavens. In the afterlife, his sister smiled.

“Then live… I’ll be waiting for ye, Grurnuir.”