Kidnapped to Another World

Chapter 58 & Update!

Chapter 58

Night of Day 12 since entering the gnome's warren

I supposed it's unlikely there are traps but I don't take the chance. Fox Girl is way too cunning to assume there aren't any. She would do something like that just to prove she's the most cunning too, not because she thought anyone would get in.

I take off my belt and swing it out on the panels in front of me checking for anything like a trap activated by weight or motion. It takes a lot of time. I also have to check each panel on the floor more than once because I'm paranoid and because I'm not sure if I've put enough weight into the belt hitting the panel to trigger anything that might have been there.

But I leap frog from tatami mats by using the belt swinging probe and then using my heavier fireman's axe as a secondary weightier probe on each mat. I have to get on my hands and knees on a tatami mat and then try to use my equipment to go to the next one ducking low and ready to roll away from both the probing mat and the one I'm on. It's hard on the knees to move like this and very slow to be thorough and careful.

In this way I cross slowly getting close to the bed. It feels like I will never get there and it's a big room too.

It turns out I was wrong there were no traps this far. But I'm still glad I was paranoid. If anything even by checking around I'm figuring out how Fox Girl thinks. She thought at this point she'd been safe because no one had ever been able to get this far.

Slowly I approach the bed.

Do I stop checking for traps?

I want to stop, but I can't risk it. Rina is counting on me and Asakura too. Also her memory trap didn't activate until the very end right? So it wouldn't be past her to have the trap near the end instead of the beginning.

But now that I think about it. It's possible I fell for the memory trap of finding the crystal before today. Its very nature would conceal the trap again right? So if that were to happen I would have had no memory of previously finding or seeing her crystal.

I refocus myself on my current task.

My heart beats faster.

The last mat before the bed is trapped though. As I probe it crossbow bolts shoot from some slits in the walls. I'm surprised but grateful I was careful. The positioning point of the bolt slits is so that it would have hit someone in the heart if they'd not been careful.

I tap the same mat a few times just to be sure, but it's not an infinite shooting trap. Carefully I also set off the mats in a line with it from wall to wall until everything is set off.

It turned out to be a lot of traps. Right at the end almost everything was trapped with the shooting arrows trap. I am starting to think maybe it's not worth it.

I sigh.

But I need her help.

I keep going a little longer. By this time I've sweat a lot because it's been very intense. She is a worthy opponent. I can't underestimate her or trigger any type of fight or flight response or it will get out of control quickly.

I kneel on my knees, hoping to suggest humility to hopefully make her anger dissipate quickly. She's a wild creature so I can't take any chances. I take a deep breath and take the last step forward.

Finally I'm at the bed.

I'm deeply afraid that if I wake her up she will also go ape shit on me and try to kill me. Our friendship has been tenuous and business like at best. I have no idea what her reaction will be for finding this place, but I'm sure it won't be a good one.