Kidnapped to Another World

Chapter 65

Chapter 65

Morning of Day 13 since entering the gnome's warren;

I awoke with a start. This weird feeling of bouncing between the dream state and reality was seriously messing with my head. I shake my head a few times to get the sleepy feeling out of me.

"Whew."

Somehow I was in the tent again at the gnome village warren.

In other words, I'd gotten back to the gnome's warren when I'd woken up. Bizarrely enough I did feel like I hadn't slept well but it worked out somehow.

I got up the others. As yet, I still hadn't tested out the pheromone power yet. But doing it in the middle of a refugee camp would be a disaster waiting to happen. I'm worried about figuring out how it works in a controlled environment first. What if I got it started with Asakura and Rina and then couldn't get it shut off?

Having tents for walls wasn't helpful for keeping it a secret either.

I also had to deal with the fact that if it were on around them, I didn't own or control the environment around the gnome's warrens. I was living under someone else's authority here and that wouldn't be safe to use for getting it figured out.

So it was a given that it could raise the alarm or make the others suspicious easily.

I better wait, I thought uneasily.

Near me, Asakura was sleeping. I was in the field hospital tent still. The fact that she was here instead of with the other girls was really positive. She's still sleeping pretty close to me.

"Hey, let's get up now," I gently touch her arm and shake her gently. She's on a cot next to mine.

"Mom is that you?" Asakura mumbles.

"Nope it's not your mom," I said. "Sorry."

Strange.

So did the pheromones act by displacing relationship markers of those they were closest to in their brain? If she'd been closest to her mom...I better not touch anyone I realized. I pull my hand back. And there's no other explanation for her mixing me up with her mom. Her mom is someone she wants to be around also.

Or maybe it was just my imagination. Yeah that's probably it. It couldn't work that fast...

Asakura wasn't going anywhere so I won't lose anything by waiting. I needed to go for stability, and not reckless risk that could be undone by bad choices.

But then her hand grabbed hold of my arm before she opened her eyes. After a bit she gets up. She smiles at me.

"Oh, hey Shun!...sorry I mixed you up," she says. "I wonder why I thought you were my mom? Strange..." she shakes her head.

We agree to hurry and get dressed. We need to coordinate with the others for further defense and cleanup of the gnomes' warren.

Steve the gnome fills us in later on the details.

"So we think the spiders have decimated the numbers of their den. But it will be a few days before we can get a runner to the nearest dwarven settlement," he explains worriedly while biting his nails.

The other gnomes are nervous too.

"So what exactly is the purpose of getting a runner to the dwarves again?" Saiya asks.