Chapter 89 It turns out there are more than just short people

Snowflakes drifted outside the train window, landing on the towering eaves of the buildings. Because the eaves of those buildings resembled a wolf's head with its mouth wide open, the dwarfs were accustomed to calling them wolf-shaped buildings.

The northern sky was snow-white, a beautiful sight, more so than any place I had visited on previous trips.

The sun was large and bright, but there was no warmth to be felt. To the side was a frozen stream, about three or four meters wide, winding through deciduous trees, with silvery-white ridges of ice lining both banks.

The houses here are all built on top of an icefall.

The waterfall is only five meters high, with icicles plunging vertically into the pool downstream. The ice in the pool seems to have remained frozen for a century, like a thin mirror reflecting a complete sky.

Besides wolf-shaped buildings, there are also bear-shaped buildings.

The most striking features of this building are its giant eaves and bear-shaped terraces, which defy the laws of gravity and are suspended above the icefall of the stream. The entire building is made of ice blocks and wooden planks.

Billis shivered for a moment, then took a deep breath; the air here was completely different from that in the central Hobrick region.

Elsa appeared behind him without him noticing.

"Beris! Beris! Beris! Is that the launch tower up ahead?"

The train is entering the largest city in the Molière region, a city whose name is 'The Great City'.

What Elsa had just seen was a giant tower rising among white peaks.

The big city has the only soil in the north that is not frozen by ice and snow, because it is situated on a natural hot spring.

The giant tower looked steaming hot, much like a rocket launch tower.

“The launch tower won’t be built in the city center,” Billis replied, turning to Lisa, “Honey, show me the map.”

Lisa had just handed the map to Billis when it was knocked away by a group of playful children.

Billy bent down to pick up the map, but another guy picked it up instead.

"I'm sorry, my child has caused you a lot of trouble."

This guy wasn't a dwarf; he was a head taller than the tallest human present, with skin as black as ebony, a thick, curly beard adorned with metal and bronze bells, and a falcon tattooed on his bare back.

He was neither a dwarf nor a human; his height was somewhere between that of a human and a giant.

Billy suddenly remembered Blood Raven, who belonged to the cursed bear spirits, while the one in front of him was an uncursed bear spirit.

"Are all these twenty-odd children yours?" Billis asked.

Xiong Ling nodded.

Upon hearing that she could have over twenty children, Lisa looked on with envy, as if to say, "Billis, look at her, and then look at yourself."

Billis took the map from the other person, but he had no interest in looking at it.

The train was about to pull into the station, and several more bear spirits stood up in the carriage. They were strong and robust, not wearing cotton clothes, but only wool and leather coats with fierce bears embroidered on them.

Aside from dwarves, the most numerous inhabitants of the Moli'ai region are these bear spirits.

At this moment, Biris noticed that one of the bear spirits looked very strange. He patted another equally strange bear spirit with his pale hand, and the two communicated in a very tacit indigenous language.

Then, the strange bear spirit took a suitcase and quickly left the carriage, its movements even more agile than expected.

"Follow him."

However, moving around in the crowded carriage was like an obstacle course, and by the time they squeezed out of the door, the two bear spirits had already disappeared.

“What did you see he was carrying?” Lisa asked.

"It's very likely a bomb, and they're in cahoots with the tree spirits who blew up the bridge."

Why are you so sure?

“I heard them communicating in the indigenous language. The Tom scholars taught me some methods for identifying languages, and I heard the words ‘destroy, connect, resurrect’.”

"Resurrection? Could this also be related to the remaining demonic pillars?"

"Of course I hope I misheard."

Since we've already lost track of them, we can only find a hotel to rest in and then discuss things further.

The Billies family checked into the best hotel in town, called the Big Bear Hotel.

The innkeeper is a man named Xiong Ling who loves to chat with his customers. He is especially hospitable to tourists who are visiting the North for the first time.

Through this mouth, the Billis family learned the origin of the bear spirit.

As early as the time of the ancient Podrote Empire, one of the most glorious periods in human history, a great migration occurred.

A group of humans established habitable towns in the Moliai lowlands.

Those towns were the earliest northern colonies. The ancient Podrolites were brave and warlike. The imperial general of the colony led 30,000 warriors to sweep across the Moli'ai Highlands and establish the first and only colony city on the Moli'ai Icefield, which is the great city we see today.

The ancient Podrolite Empire recognized Clotilde as its northern lord.

Clotilde attempted to establish a second kingdom on the ice plains, but encountered an opponent in the ensuing battle and died at the Rock of Suffering. His body was transported to the Eternal Frozen Sea.

Clotilde II, the most outstanding human warrior in the North, takes over his father's last wish.

At the young age of twenty-five, he participated in the conflict among the dwarven tribes, successfully defeated the Ice Serpent leader, and attempted to expand the colony to the central part of the Ice Plains.

However, he discovers at Suffering Rock that the enemies who killed his father are talking bears, but without flesh and blood and life.

These bear ghosts, like cursed undead, all come from the northernmost part of the world—Hyperion.

Soon after, Clotilde II ended his colonial career and became a kind old man who had completely lost his fighting spirit, and soon renamed the colony Great City.

Moreover, when he reappeared in the big city, people said he was possessed by a ghost and had become a talking bear.

The era of early humans colonizing the Moli'ai ice plains came to an end, and at the same time, news of the Empire's defeat in its colonial wars also arrived from the Leviathan coast.

The ancient Podrolite Empire was quickly disintegrated by various forces, and Clotilde II proclaimed himself King of the North in a major city.

Although he lost his enjoyment of battle in his later years, he never forgot to protect human territory and tried to win over a dwarf tribe that had once been his enemy.

By merging with the bodies of dwarves, Clotilde II's descendants were freed from the curse, inheriting both the dwarven appearance and the bear's physique—that is, the uncursed bear spirits.

The owner of the Great Bear Inn took a deep breath and continued, "King Clotilde II was very fertile, and we are actually descendants of the King of the North."

Upon hearing that she had strong fertility, Lisa's eyes lit up again.

Using the excuse of needing to drink with his boss, Billy quickly told Aisha to take his wife out.

Then, he gazed at the long sky outside the window, as if he hadn't looked at such a beautiful sky in a long time.

"When you say descendants, do you also include those who haven't had the curse lifted?"

"If one's bloodline is close to that of a dwarf, the curse will be lifted; if one's bloodline is close to that of a human, the curse will continue. The cursed bear spirits have the appearance of bears, possess extremely high magical power, and can only live in Hyperion."

"Logically speaking, reincarnated people shouldn't know these things."

The innkeeper handed Billis a cigar and said with a smile, "The bloodline of the Bear Spirits is too complicated. You just asked about reincarnated Bear Spirits, but I can tell you definitively that half of the Bear Spirits living in big cities are not reincarnated."

Billy was startled and forgot to light his cigarette.

"You mean, the bear spirits I saw outside might all be non-reincarnated beings?"

"Is the quantity large?"

"Won't they get along badly with reincarnated people?"

"Don't we get along very well?"

"Do you also work in various industries?"

"Whatever you reincarnated beings do, we will do too."

Billis thought of the two bear spirits on the train, unsure how to ask them.

If the innkeeper is telling the truth, then there must be many non-reincarnated individuals mixed in with the satellite launch tower.

Moreover, it seemed the innkeeper was hiding a lot from him.

In short, identifying the obstructors seems to be more difficult than imagined.

Billies drank a glass of wine and returned the unlit cigar to the owner.

Leaving the hotel, you can see the colorful totems built on the buildings.

There are three types of totems: the bear totem, the wolf totem, and the eagle totem.

Billy suddenly had a flash of inspiration and understood.

These houses adorned with totems must be the dwellings of those who are not reincarnated.

In other words, those who worship totem culture are not reincarnated, while those who worship technological civilization are reincarnated.