Chapter 85: Chapter 85: A Quick Slide Into ’Badness

In the future, students in history class might be puzzled about the "Battle of Hammer Village," an event mentioned in a small, non-examinable sidebar of their textbooks.

The book describes it as the crucial turning point that broke the ice between two long-feuding peoples: the "Sharp Ears" and the "Shorties."

With the help of the Zor Elves, the Dwarves of the Furnace Clan achieved a decisive victory against the Dwarves of the Iron Hammer Clan.

But this battle didn’t seem to take place during any famous war.

And the book offered no further details on the battle’s cause or course.

However, the date of the battle has become a special holiday for Dwarves and Elves, celebrated each year with a grand music festival.

Many years later, fans in the crowd, shoulders linked in a conga line as they follow the rhythm, might recall a distant afternoon sitting in a classroom, pondering their history textbook.

Just how grand was the "Battle of Hammer Village"?

Not grand at all.

The Red Dragon Zog, who personally witnessed the battle, could answer with full responsibility. He didn’t have many special talents, but he certainly had an especially long life.

Not only was it not grand, it was even a little bizarre.

It even made him suspect for a moment that he had encountered a Chosen of Slaanesh on the Feilin Continent.

Good thing there’s no Subspace here.

The battle, sparked by the petty rage of pulling a three-star, five-cost unit in auto chess only for the opponent to deny you the satisfaction of using it, took place in the "famous international metropolis" of the Dwarf settlement—Hammer Village.

On a muddy patch of land on the outskirts.

The choice of venue was quite reasonable. That kind of ground wouldn’t get anyone seriously hurt from a fall.

A useless piece of life advice: never use throws in a street fight on hard pavement. Otherwise, I can only wish you a good time in the prison workshop.

Hammer Village and Furnace Castle were always having small skirmishes every three days and big brawls every five, so at first, nobody took it seriously.

Then they saw Bane Furnace leading a few Zor who stood at the back of their group, holding strange contraptions.

The Hammer Village Dwarves habitually started spewing trash talk, mocking their opponents for consorting with the "Sharp Ears."

This was normal—using words to demoralize the enemy before a fight.

Then, the other side showed them what a whole new level of the game looked like.

The Zor started playing their instruments. Powerful music echoed across the muddy field. The double bass drumming, like the thundering hooves of a cavalry charge, made everyone’s blood pump and their hearts pound.

But what really intimidated the Hammer Village Dwarves was yet to come.

The eight-bar intro ended, and Xiaode, in his metallic-sounding voice and not-so-fluent Common Tongue, began to sing the trash talk!

A psychic attack!

It completely overwhelmed the dry, uninspired verbal taunts from their side.

The Furnace Castle Dwarves, as if they had all gone berserk, were filled with soaring morale from the musical buff. They crushed the Hammer Village Dwarves with overwhelming force.

But it wasn’t over. They continued to headbang wildly to the rhythm on the muddy ground, their precious beards flying up and down.

The fervent atmosphere even infected the defeated Hammer Village Dwarves lying on the ground.

They got back up, but not to fight this time.

The Dwarves split into two groups, one on each side. When the music hit the chorus, they charged at each other and crashed together.

Zog was very satisfied with the effect, though it would have been even better if the Dwarves hadn’t insisted on singing along.

Compared to high culture, pop culture’s advantage lies in its low barrier to entry.

It also gives people the illusion that ’I could do that too.’

And the Dwarves really did it.

Zog felt that calling their voices ’like a broken gong’ was an insult to broken gongs. The real problem was that his hearing was a little too good.

Tolkien lied to this Dragon! The Dwarves he wrote about had beautiful low-pitched harmonies.

Although the live performance was torture, the final outcome was perfect.

This Zor Band shot to fame among the Dwarves from then on, building up considerable confidence in the process.

Their stage presence grew more and more fluid in their later small gigs.

A market their Minstrel Elf brethren had failed to fully penetrate for over a thousand years was smashed wide open by these kids in the time it took to play one song.

And the Dwarves, in turn, brought the Zor’s music into the taverns of Humans.

The Zor, Dwarves, Beastmen, Humans, and Dwarves of society’s underbelly all swayed to the same rhythm.

What more could be said?

Long live the great unity of the world’s peoples.

For now, however, rock and roll was still a niche genre, spreading only among the Dwarves and in certain neighborhoods.

The Zor’s live performances in various small bars were put on hold.

The point had been to let them accumulate live performance experience, not to make money. Once they had enough experience, the key was to produce an actual body of work.

An artist’s work is their true voice; it can’t all just be marketing, right?

And so, production began on the Feilin Continent’s first album.

The chosen medium was still the Magic Crystal Stone, sold in a box of twelve. Each stone had a capacity of three to seven minutes.

In addition to the music, there was also video—just a simple recording of their performance.

Of course, if you could afford it, you could also buy a single stone with a twelve-song capacity, though the price would be several times higher.

The content was no different. It was just more expensive.

Now that they were starting to release songs, the band naturally needed a name.

To his surprise, his suggestion of a name like "The Rolling Beetles" was shot down by everyone.

In the end, the name Xiaode came up with, "Underground Discard," won with an almost unanimous vote, a name that signified their Zor identity.

The only dissenting vote came from Zog.

To make it more accessible to a wider audience, the debut album was positioned as pop-punk.

Simple, easy to learn, and easy to spread.

It was a bit of a shame given their technical skill, but it was fine. There would be plenty of opportunities to show off in the future.

When explaining what punk style was, Zog carried on a fine tradition and shamelessly ripped off a ton of Earth’s culture.

Green Day, Sum 41, Simple Plan, and My Chemical Romance were all plagiarized.

Even though it was plagiarism, the process wasn’t smooth.

This was because the upper limit of Zog’s musical knowledge was a few elementary school music classes; he hadn’t seen a music teacher since middle school.

He also sang off-key and wouldn’t dare open his mouth at karaoke without the original artist’s track playing.

In the end, it was a cycle of Zog humming a tune, the Zor guessing and piecing it together, then singing it back for Zog to point out the differences, after which he would hum it again, and so on.

Fortunately, the members of Underground Discard had superb fundamentals and managed to replicate quite a few songs this way.

Including the most crucial piece right now: the theme song for *Firepower Young King*.

After the album was produced, Zog didn’t opt for a large-scale promotional campaign.

After all, something so unconventional would be met with opposition from the social mainstream.

So he chose to market it specifically to young people.

Capturing the youth market was equivalent to capturing the future mainstream market.

Young people are always more receptive to new things. As Douglas once said: "Any technology born between when I am 15 and 35 is world-changing."

And how do you get young people interested in something new quickly?

It’s simple: claim it’s forbidden.

What? This website may be risky?

Hmph! Website, you have successfully piqued my interest. Now I absolutely *have* to click on it.

And so, the album was branded as a "vulgar cultural product" boycotted by the Minstrel Guild and the Musical Theater Guild.

The retail method involved Beastmen in trench coats, the insides lined with Magic Crystal Stones, approaching people and asking, "Wanna buy some Magic Crystal Stones? The kind they don’t want you to see. The vulgar stuff."

The effect was spectacular. Within a month, it had been scalped and resold all the way to the Royal City.

It actually did get discovered by the Minstrel Guild and the Musical Theater Guild, who issued a joint boycott.

They even published a statement in the newspapers, condemning the vulgar culture for corrupting the youth.

And then it got even more popular.

It reached the point where mock-Zor makeup became a fashion trend. Many people painted their faces a bluish-purple, applied heavy eyeshadow, and wore black lipstick.

Luckily, the Zor didn’t go for flashy hairstyles. Otherwise, the Shamate trend would have definitely been made great again on the Feilin Continent.

However, Zog didn’t have time to worry about how far rock and roll had rolled for now. He had more important things to deal with.

The Magic Vision Device network in Twin Tower City was fully installed, and the first public test broadcast was imminent.