"Grilled fish?" Ham repeated instinctively, only then recalling that he had specifically ordered the famous honey grilled fish from nearby to treat himself.
Though the food of the Holm Kingdom was monotonous and bland enough to drive any gourmand to despair, that only applied to long-term consumption. For a short stay, fish prepared in different styles was still quite an enjoyable treat — the honey grilled fish on Landauer Street, for instance, was famous far and wide, and every traveler who came to Lontard would make a point of trying it. Ham was no exception, but bound by his mission, he couldn't venture out and could only order by telephone from the inn.
After confirming the identity of the person knocking outside, Ham relaxed considerably. He gave the area a brief sweep with his Divine Arts and saw only a young waiter beyond the door, so he walked over and prepared to open it.
"Sir, please open the door — your honey grilled fish has arrived." Bang, bang, bang. The waiter outside seemed to feel his earlier form of address had been insufficiently polite, so he knocked again and called out.
"What's the rush..." This was a characteristic quirk of the Holm Kingdom — Ham had never encountered anything like it in the Dumt Kingdom, and he shook his head with a brief, amused smile. Telephone ordering was currently only available in Lontard, where promotional efforts were the strongest.
He pulled open the door, and a wave of honey grilled fish aroma wafted into Ham's nostrils. Just as his mouth was watering profusely, two faint dark shadows suddenly darted out from the corners. One seemed to command the shadows themselves, coiling around Ham's legs, while the other enveloped his upper body in a shroud of darkness, blinding him to the surroundings and muffling even the faintest sounds.
"Enemy attack!" Ham was both shocked and furious — here he was simply opening the door to collect his honey grilled fish, and he'd been ambushed!
His muscles began to bulge, his eyes took on a faint tinge of berserk red, and his exposed skin flashed with an iron-black sheen. With a violent burst of strength, he broke free of the shadows' binding.
The bloodline of the dwarven race was suited for crafting machinery and granted correspondingly greater strength, but beyond that held no special properties. That was why the dwarves on the Dark Night Plateau —
After awakening the bloodline, a dwarf's strength and defensive capabilities would rival those of a barbarian of the same rank, granting the same berserk ability, and even allowing the casting of several spell-like abilities in the school of illusion. Ham was a Holy Knight who had both awakened his bloodline power and received Divine Arts enhancements biased toward close combat.
Power erupted, shadows crumbled, and Ham was about to leap aside to evade the follow-up attack and use his Divine Arts to dispel the darkness shrouding him.
But at that very moment, the young waiter standing across from him lifted the tray of grilled fish and brought it smashing down, striking Ham on the head with a resonant clang. The speed was such that he had absolutely no chance to dodge!
The tray was made of some unknown material, and that single blow left Ham dizzy and disoriented — countless golden stars flashing before his eyes, his head buzzing. The aroma of the grilled fish, along with soft flakes of fish flesh, streamed down from the crown of his head, past his eyes and nose, and into his mouth.
In this manner, Ham finally got to taste the honey grilled fish he had been eagerly anticipating.
The flavor was indeed excellent!
Even as his sluggish brain struggled to process, the shadows swept in once more, and the second attacker unleashed further powerful magic, quickly dismantling Ham's remaining defenses.
At the turn of the staircase, Lontard Police Department Senior Detective Buck watched the fierce yet contained battle unfolding nearby, observed the three Kingdom intelligence operatives pin Ham to the ground and fit him with wristbands and a collar designed to suppress both bloodline power and Divine Arts, and remarked with amusement to himself: "Daring to target dwarves — don't they know they're one of the Kingdom's closely watched subjects? You'd only just made contact with Harold, and intelligence agents already had you in their sights. Tsk — and still craving honey grilled fish."
He had been ordered to cooperate with the intelligence operatives to prevent harm to nearby civilians.
As for who the Steam God truly was, while others might not know, the upper echelons of the Parliament and the Kingdom's great nobles had a fairly clear idea. Apart from Lucian Evans, there could be no other possibility.
For the Parliament, the dwarves Lucian had openly presented were not involved in matters of divine nature and Divine Arts — it was simply a beautiful misunderstanding on the dwarves' part and did not constitute proselytization. As for the Kingdom, Natasha, who had confirmed the matter firsthand from Lucian, instructed intelligence personnel to maintain close surveillance.
Ham was taken away by the intelligence operatives, and Buck quietly withdrew as well. The operation concluded swiftly without causing any major disturbance. The ordinary travelers in the adjacent rooms hadn't even noticed that a secret arrest had taken place next door, still murmuring to themselves: "Honey grilled fish... smells wonderful. Maybe I should order one by phone too..."
Holm Kingdom. Secret Intelligence Department.
In the underground chamber, Natasha, having received the report, decided to conduct the interrogation herself. She suspected this matter was connected to Vicente's covert efforts to spread the mysteries of a quasi-divine being.
Dressed in simple beige hunting attire with arms crossed, she stood before Ham and repeated the intelligence she had just received: "The God of Cr— took advantage of the annual summer festival to defeat the God of Valor, Oken. Afterward, Oken acknowledged that Haight was the incarnation of the Steam God and pledged to serve him as lord of the dwarven divine pantheon. Haight also seized the opportunity to announce his 'identity,' dispatching envoys across the continent to contact the other scattered dwarven tribes."