402 Dwarf Kingdom (1/2)
The Dwarf Kingdom was one of the biggest powers in the western continent, and as such, the capital of the Dwarf Kingdom was a place where a lot of people wished to live.
The dwarves had the fame of being experts at blacksmithing, so it wasn't weird seeing different species wandering the streets, but all of them were wealthy people. After all, the dwarves only stopped racial discrimination when the other party had enough power and that included the power of wealth.
However, the only ones wandering the streets without being dwarves were those wealthy, and there wasn't any trace of those who were only strong.
That started to happen after the previous Dwarf King got killed by his eldest son, the first prince in order to steal the crown. The Dwarf King was a Law God, so it was hard that he would have died and passed the throne to his son, so no one doubted that the incident happened due to greed for power.
At the same time, the first prince was defeated by the second prince who was recognized as a hero and became the next king. However, the first prince wasn't killed as was just sealed in a prison where he wouldn't be able to exit despite being a Law God.
One of the main strengths of the Dwarf Kingdom was that initially, they had three Law Gods, but after the former king's death, they were only two and even those supporting the second prince felt that killing the first prince was a bad idea because that would weaken the kingdom a lot.
Of course, they couldn't count with the first prince as someone who would battle together with them against an enemy, but his presence was still a deterrence to outside forces.
The incidents among the princes and the king were a big secret in the kingdom, and all outsiders were forbidden to know it, so the immigration inspections went far stricter.
After all, those outside the kingdom only known that the king died, but they didn't know about the battle among the princes.
Thus, a lot of strong people got caught by the royal guards under the suspicion of being spies who discovered classified information, and no one saw them again.
Those strong who knew about those disappearances avoided the capital, and only those wealthy enough dared to walk by the streets.
Since they were only interested in business and weren't really affiliated to a country, it was difficult that they would be treated as spies. Even if it was like the merchants thought and kidnapping those strong for having discovered classified information were just excuses to get rid of strong people from other races, they didn't fear to be a target at all.
After all, if merchants started to disappear, they would also stop going to the capital of the Dwarf Kingdom, but those merchants were very important for the country's economy, so unless they had no other way, it was difficult that merchants got imprisoned.
Thus, it was well-known what happened when a young merchant was caught accused of being a spy. She was a human merchant who managed to make her name in the capital despite being a human.
She quickly made a huge network of contacts and became one of the wealthiest merchants of the capital. Of course, she also paid a lot of taxes due to being human, but she could afford it.
She was well known, and a merchant had never been falsely accused of being a spy, so there were quite a few problems when she was taken into prison, and then, no one heard again of her.
That merchant saw two prisoners being abused by the guards. Those prisoners called themselves Dragon Race and seemed to be a couple. Both were quite strong, but they were unable to resist the royal guard.
The merchant seemed to know them and tried to speak in their behalf, but the result was that she was impaled with a lance thrown by a royal guard and was taken as a prisoner without even the right to speak.
The complaints about that woman being caught were enough to make the king order to capture everyone who spoke on her behalf.
With those extreme measures, the complaints stopped, but so many people got caught, and no one heard about them again, so internally there was great displeasure with the king's methods.
After all, that time a lot of dwarves were also caught due to them wanting to speak in that merchant's behalf.
The dwarves never thought too much of the king's methods as they were never affected, but they started to fear their king's methods after that incident.
Thus, picking the remnants of the network created by that merchant and the name she used to englobe all the people working with her in business, they formed the Thousand Frost Wolves Resistance, an underworld society with the objective of killing the king and rescuing those who had been imprisoned.
Fortunately, the dwarves caught had left tokens linked to their lives with the people they trusted, so they believed that those caught were still alive. However, they hadn't any confidence in that they wouldn't be killed at any moment.
Thus, people from different species, who had people close to them kidnapped by the royal guards, grouped together and started scheming from the shadows.