Gnome? Gnome!
Luckily, the knight didn’t have a chance to exercise his skills.
The dwarf rushed into the crowd with his shield raised, directly knocking down one of the farmers. Then someone finally reacted, when they attacked him with the hoe, the dwarf swung the elf’s dagger.
Even though he was simply swinging the dagger, but the glint of light attracted everyone’s attention. The farmers fearfully dodged to one side to escape the dagger, trying to find another opening to attack from. But attacking someone half your size, is not an easy task. As a result, the dwarf defeated them all without needing to draw any blood.
–Most of them were knocked down by the shield, some tripped on their own or their friend’s feet when they tried to swing the hoe down.
The farmers sat on the ground, none of them seemed to be heavily injured, and had enough energy to shout insults, saying how insulting it was for them to be the Gnome King’s subordinates as humans, of course a few people saw the elf’s pointy ears, and grouped him together with gnomes.
But when the elf hopped off the horse, glaring at them, everyone shut up.
“I am an inspector sent by the Queen. Who can tell me, what has happened here?”
The elf’s voice was not loud, but he could still be heard clearly, the tone was not angry or threatening, but carried an indescribable calmness(1). That coolness immediately calmed the farmers, a few of the more cowardly ones, even shuddered.
The farmers looked at each other for a while, finally one of the braver ones spoke.
“I think it best you go ask the village chief, sir.”
“Then please lead the way.”
The farmers stood up, eyeing the dwarf wearily.
“He is not a gnome, but a dwarf.” The elf said.
“If you want, you can step closer, my ears are not pointed.” Julian said shyly, “Thank you for your a.s.sistance.”
He shook his wallet, taking out a silver coin to give to the farmer.
“Yes, master dwarf!” The farmer accepted his explanation without suspicion(2), “It be an honor to lead you!”
“I can guide you there as well!”
“No let me!”
“I can do it!”
The people sitting on the ground started arguing. So Julian smiled, handing a coin to everyone.
“Don’t argue anymore. Thank you for your hard work, if you’re injured please use that as fees for the healer.”
The farmers left their hoe, getting up to receive the money, pushing each other to help the dwarf onto the horse, then moved forward.
Those with injured legs, limped to one side of the road, to wave at his departing back, completely forgetting the elf standing at one side.
“He completely took the spotlight, lord inspector.” The knight said grinning.
“What do you say at times like this…” the elf said helplessly.
“… ‘d.a.m.n rich people’?”
“Julian, is paying for lunch?” The siren thought for a moment, saying.
“Agreed.”
“Unanimous agreement.”
Under the protection of the farmers, they entered Gnome Village.
The street was wide, but there were not a lot of people, with more stone buildings than wooden ones, the shadow of the Legendary Era could be seen in their design. Occasionally a villager would pa.s.s by, looking at the travelers with curiosity or hatred, the farmers would then shout loudly.
“What are you looking at?! That’s a dwarf, not the Gnome King!”
“Dwarf, you understand, dwarf!”
The tallest building in the village was the two storey ‘Gnome Inn’, the owner of the inn was also the village chief. But unfortunately when the group arrived, the chief was out.
Due to the determined begging from the siren, lunch was the first topic on the schedule.
There was only one restaurant in Gnome village, their specialty was very simply, it was basically three ingredients mixed together: fresh potatoes, old potatoes, and potatoes that can’t be eaten since it had started to sprout. The condiments were salt and a cream of mushroom soup that had a strange colour, and tasted like mold and dirt.(3)
“No meat…” the siren looked like he was about to cry.
The elf patted his head comfortingly saying, “Hang on for a bit, the chief won’t be back until night time. Before that, we can go scout the area, and do a little hunting in the meantime.”
“Hunting, can we hunt fish?”
“Umm… that…”
“I can make fishing rods,” the dwarf interrupted, “as long as there’s appropriate materials.”
“That’s good then, for bait, digging up some earthworms would do.” The knight added.
“What are earthworms?” the youth asked.
“It’s a worm you can find in the ground, small and long, if you cut it in half it would become two worms.”
“We can fish with these worms? Take me too!”
“What, you’ve never fished before… as a marine creature and an apprentice sailor?”
“Sirens use their teeth to catch fish. Knock them out with our tail first, then just dive down to grab them. Then when we went out to sea, we obviously used the net.”
“But, there’s probably only clear water fish here,” the knight thought.
“It’ll taste good as long as it’s cooked,” the siren nodded, pointed to the potato salad, “at least better than this!”
“Makes sense,” the knight sighed, turning his head to shout, “Julian, the bill.”
“Yes, Mr.Frank!”
“Cain, it’s not good to take advantage of such an honest person.” The elf said quietly to the knight.
“You also voted agreement,” the knight’s had an expression of bitter hatred, “A silver coin, that’s two days meal allowance for a Paladin.”
“In that case…” the elf thought for a moment, taking out a silver coin and placing it in the knight’s hand.
“What is this?”
“Two cups of Dawn Manor Wine,” the elf smiled, replying, “I owed you last time.”
The knight turned the coin in his hands, the corner of his lips lifted, “not enough.”
“Oh?”
“It’s been five days, of course there’s still the interest.”(4)
“And so the lion opens its mouth(5)… how much?”
“Four hundred gold.”
They bought the necessary materials at a small store. They had planned to ask around for some information, but the moment they mention the word ‘gnome’, the villagers became like the farmers, only revealing angry expressions, and replying “those dishonorable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who waste food”.
The group started to follow the village’s river upstream. The riverbed on either side started to incline, the gra.s.s had already became long and dense.
“Here should be good,” the knight said, “Sh.e.l.ly, fight for the sake of food.”
The dwarf sighed in satisfaction, putting down a small stool, and started to concentrate on carving the bamboo carefully.
“Ellen? Where are you going?” The elf continued to follow the river upstream into the forest, hearing the knight’s call, he turned around smiling, “taking a walk.”
As a representative of the earth element, gnomes were creatures that loved nature. They almost never go near human settlements, but there were the occasional exceptions. The Gnome Village in the Legendary Era for example, the rich vegetation, mineral veins, attracted the gnome race to live nearby. These palm sized small beings would often go into the village, trading crafts and ores for human food, and the people of Gnome Village were very friendly with them.
But now, mentioning ‘gnomes’, would receive the villagers anger and hatred.
Could it be that these magical creatures that had disappeared for two hundred years, have appeared in this world again?
And, what had happened, to make the relationship between humans and gnomes become this hostile?
–If he wanted to know the answer, just listening to the human side of things is not enough.
What the elf is looking for, is the habitat of the gnomes.
As they fear light, gnomes are mostly active at night, they hide in hollows to sleep in the day. Gnome burrows are very well hidden, but as a race that’s also close to nature, as well as having excellent vision, the elf was fairly confident that he would be able to find it.
It took less time than he thought to find what he was looking for, the elf quickly noticed a few small clues. Sometimes it was on a bolder, very small muddy footprints, sometimes it would be tiny remains of minerals. Following these, he continued onwards, very quickly he noticed something strange between the gra.s.s.
It was a pointy red hat, one of the more common symbols of gnomes.
The elf moved forward, intending to pick up the hat, but when he came closer, he realized with a shock that the hat was not abandoned.
Beside the hat, was a small being, half a hand in height, wearing a green shirt.
It was lying face down in the dirt not moving, the small long ears were already red from the sun.
The elf carefully picked up the unconscious gnome, covering it with his cloak, then hurried back towards the direction he came from.