Chapter 59: 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.

A lot of people are trying to fix this but it’s slow to fix the damage.

I cast another heal on this particular gnome that’s in bad shape. He’s torn up and poisoned both!

It’s been my third batch on him so far for today alone. So in other words there’s been like almost ten or eleven really small heals on him to build up from just today alone. It’s been like this for a long time it feels like but this guy is just so stubborn. The spider poison has remained in his system longer than I thought; because the spider is so big it adds to the potency. It’s like when you try to walk up a steep hill and then you slide down on the gravel. Every day I go to treat him, he’s also retrogressed some. So it’s a battle of three steps forward and two steps back.

He probably would have died if we hadn’t had my healing skill here. Or rather, I’m sure of it. But there is huge pressure, because he’s one of the two that got wounded critically at the same time a human attacked. So if he doesn’t survive I’m worried about the payback from the gnomes.

Also the other gnomes are pleading for healing. I have to reject them when I run out of mana and it’s very painful to see the let down on their faces even more than seeing some of their wounds. I feel like afraid to go out of the tent sometimes because it’s so much stress having to turn away tons of people. After a battle things aren’t as peaceful as they seem because there’s so many people in need. The battle to save people after the battle in many ways is tougher than the actual battle.

It’s not good because I can’t keep up with the others either in terms of stamina because heal energy costs so much. I then have do naps to cope with all the awful drain on my system.

When possible I’ve tried to keep up practice with not just the exercises but the light spell. I haven’t learned yet how to target the light spell on areas besides holding it in my hand. Is there such a way? I would think since magic is customize-able it’s possible to do. Of course I don’t have proof. I want to be able to cast it on equipment or make it float beside me instead of being in my hand, since that is quite a disadvantage.

If I have to carry the light in my hand it obstructs being able to do other things to a certain degree. There’s a lot to work on still. How I use equipment with magic doesn’t come automatically. I have to feel out how they will interact with each other and get used to it.

Meeting with Steve and the other gnome elders I can see the stress on their faces too. They are worried about public outcry if this gnome dies too.

There are now other families that also have lost their breadwinner. There are orphans too, and there are also a bunch of widows who don’t know what to do. Steve’s job is to work out taking care of those gnomes but I can’t ignore how awful it is. They all have to figure out how to deal with that and try to comfort those people. This is the job of the gnome religious monks too. I can’t help but notice they give out bottles of gnome brandy to those that are suffering but I wonder if that is doing more harm. The effect of the alcohol will obviously wear off at some point, probably when they are more tired, and combine with the pain they already have.

I want to say something about it but Steve warns me to not interfere with their ways.

It’s at this time while healing the one gnome that I am worried about the most that I get another pain tremor shooting up my arm. It’s really bad. It’s like I hit my funny bone but it’s the entire length of my arm. It started right after I’d finished the heal work and continues without stopping.

Next to me Asakura can tell something is very wrong suddenly. She’s starting to panic and cry for help.

Pain! OUCH! My arm feels like it’s on fire suddenly.

Oh hell! I can’t stand it. Unlike before it doesn’t stop but intensifies.

At some point I pass out after falling on the ground.

When I wake up its night time, I think. For being underground it can be hard to tell except from what other people are doing and if they are asleep or not. I look around to check my surroundings. As usual I always make sure I have my stuff with me secure and that nothing is stolen.

I still don’t know what happened.

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Steve the gnome elder and a few other elders are with him. Asakura is there too holding my hand and staying by my bedside. She’s crying, but trying to hide it from me. Except I’m not in a bed; it’s a portable cot that is simple but comfortable.

My waking up makes her hold onto me tighter; she’s now hugging me but she can’t say anything. It’s too hard.

“Oh you are awake finally,” Steve says.

The other elder says something to him.

To sum up the conversation they tell me I’ve got a weird condition called manaburn. The look on their faces tell me it’s a bad condition. They describe it as condition caused by using magic excessively. It’s also something only mages or similar kind can get. He had treated some of the ‘earth children’ for it before so he knew what it was right away.

It’s my first time hearing about it. Wish they’d told me about this sooner.

To sum it up, there’s nothing wrong with using magic excessively. But using it excessively, faster than you can gain it back is the problem and how this condition is caused. I’d been trying to save so many people for so long that my…Steve isn’t sure if he’s translating this part right because it doesn’t translate well from gnomish…my mana pores or mana ducts are inflamed and the mana core near my heart where mana is produced is weakened and sickly right now because of too much stress at once.

I didn’t know the center of holding and producing mana is near the heart. That’s very interesting. I wonder how anatomy of mana producing and non-producing humans compared with each other? Were there other differences too?

The gnome elder told me there was when I asked him, but he lacks education in biology and can’t explain the specifics, though the differences are minor.

Asakura is scared and clutching my arm so hard it hurts. She starts crying. She seems really worried for me. That’s good in a way but very bad for other reasons.

Steve bows deeply and is very apologetic. He assures me that this condition on a healer is proof that he believes I’ve done everything to help the gnomes and gone above my duties. He says he deeply respects me more than any other person living in the colony.

He’s teary eyed and his bow lasts a long time. Why is he looking like I’ve just died and he’s speaking at my funeral?

Is he telling me everything?

Oh wait, I’m just scared and paranoid I realize.

The other elder just told him to tell us this is a freaking way serious condition and I need to get better fast and stop using magic like it’s coffee to be dished out any time I like this or I could lose my magic permanently. The other elder is furious about this and they have Steve tell us the other gnome ‘earth children’ will be forced to come visit and mentor me tomorrow and from then on or they’ll be punished for neglecting the only ‘real’ benefactor helping the gnomes.

Steve also tells me that the gnomes mean well, but they were scared about having a human have power over them. Thus a human with more magic than they had had made them afraid to help me. He also reminded me that in the lore heal magic had such a high cost because it was easy to gain a victory and an absolute advantage with it, by employing such a light mage over an allied army over time. The slow progress of the heal work; he believed to have discouraged me from realizing this.

He also told me the reason his clan ended up in this area because two hundred and fifty years ago they were enslaved by humans.

Wow.

Yeah that might do it. That would make them very suspicious of us. And no wonder they almost killed us when Akimoto did what he did.

But gnomes can live between three hundred and four hundred years of age before dying easily…assuming war or accidents don’t get them. So it’s still very hard for them to forget all the trouble of humans. Of course I’m also told that very few of them actually live until their typical long lived dwarven cousins even though they carry the gene for it because sooner or later trouble and war usually take the middle aged.

Hearing it described that way feels sad. No wonder they were so afraid to help us.

At any rate, the gnome earth child elder tells me to not use magic for a few days to let my…not sure if it’s translated right…mana veins(?) heal up and dissipate the inflammation.

This is really terrible. There are so many wounded and sick gnomes and even a few wounded humans right now.

I’m a bit scared about the consequences of that. The gnome elders are going to post guards over me and keep me in a separate tent. They want me to heal people but not at the cost of losing the ability through misuse. But they are sure if anyone can just bust into my tent at any time that would happen.

Follow up by the gnome security chief also confirmed this to be the best thing possible. They tell me the assassin that visited wasn’t from the gnome colony. But that is more disturbing than if it had been. It means I’m in a lot of danger right now. If the assassin had been from the gnome colony then they would have been gnome sized and they weren’t. The assassin left footprints of leaving the colony through a recycling duct of some kind.

So he could have also have gotten in through the ‘garbage chute’ also.

They aren’t sure who it is or from what group. This place is supposed to be secret also, so the gnomes are very unhappy about this development.

I wonder if it’s perhaps an orc or a Kenji zombie assassin but neither of those scenarios fits well. If it were an orc assassin then it would have just opened the gates for other orc troops to attack and take the whole colony in force and especially the women too. With Kenji having an assassin retreat makes little sense either if he can replenish the troops any time he wants, and if the troops are undead they wouldn’t care about being caught. That assassin was clearly afraid of being caught.

So where had it come from?

The identity of the assassin doesn’t make any sense because outside of those two areas how could anyone else know about me?

Rina needs me for treatment too. More stress…

How was I supposed to defend myself if the assassin came back now? This was like feeling like I was naked. I feel hot and cold chills too but that’s my fear I think getting to me.

I need to rest. My mental state right now isn’t very good, because of this stress.

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