Kidnapped to Another World

Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Day 12 since entering the gnome's warren.

Asakura has been a bit shy lately due to embarrassment from the rumors. She seems to be holding back but I often catch her watching me. Sometimes she gives me a secret smile. It means she's without realizing it pulling back a bit and reverting to being business like in her nature. I hope to train her out of this.

We hugged this morning once and I hugged Rina too. But not Yumi yet, of course she declined.

I still haven't decided what to do with Yumi yet. It's very clear she will never consider me part of her circle. There's such a wall there too. I wonder what made her that way. But I don't dwell on it too much since it's not my primary goal.

Besides me Asakura and I were examining the fated gnome in question. It seems his life or death would determine ours, or at least greatly affect it. By now the gnomes had gotten used to us a little more and were getting a bit friendlier compared to the damage done by some of the others. But everyone was still a bit stiff and tense. We weren't back up to the full gas tank of trust that we used to be at still.

We'd been working all morning to try to help them and other wounded gnomes. His friends are near us and they don't look as angry as some, but they seem very depressed. Some of them tried to say something to us earlier but we don't speak their language. It adds to our anguish.

Another point of anguish for me is that even if I had the means to start learning another language it probably would be Egyptian or something else instead of Gnomish. I didn't have the infinite resources and brain power to be able to learn everything naturally.

The field hospital tent staff gnomes have been trying to work with us clumsily with the language barrier. A lot of the time we get nowhere and just have to ignore them. This included free training on how to do first aid and bandage wrapping gnome style; the only catch is we don't get to ask questions unless there's someone around with the language enchant since we can't go on wild goose chases that lead nowhere. We still have gained something from it but just not as much as we'd like.

We'd also used any spare time to either rest up or help the gnomes sterilize things for use in the field hospital tent. Of course, it wasn't our idea to sterilize stuff. Despite it being a medieval style world they already had a lot of complex ideas from the dwarves.

We've been working non-stop trying to save the other gnome that hadn't died and a few others that were wounded in the spider battles. By now it seems that the other humans will live, though some have a lot of scars.

I've been getting headaches and feel like my joints ache, combined with sleeplessness and the buildup of fatigue from checking up on him so much in the spot of the tent where he's at. Of all the wounded survivors of course he's the one we look at first. Sometimes we hold our breath until we make sure he's still alive. My fingers shake looking at him sometimes from worry.

We continue working at this rate on the gnome. This was the one that was the first gnome to have gotten bitten deep in the chest by the spider, around the time that the murderer Akimoto speared a gnome. People are openly calling him 'Akimoto the Wicked Piercer' now. It's some kind of gnome pun; they also add a hip motion with it to mock him. The kids think it's funny, but the adults aren't smiling. The gnomes have been furious since the one he pierced died.

Gnomes also have a different sense of humor than humans. The level of hate suggests that Akimoto has a good chance of being executed with some kind of gnome tribunal.

When I chew on the inside of my cheek thinking about it, I feel anguish. We had been so close to keeping that one alive. If it weren't for our working here in the field hospital we probably would have experienced some kind of hate slurs and discrimination.