Chapter 102 - Traps (Step Two)

"Are we there yet?" Von asked anxiously while waiting for Lei to finish his turn digging.

They might have been digging for more than fifteen minutes now which meant that the peeps outside had already seen them missing and would most probably be looking for them right now.

"Almost…" Lei said while struggling to get the work done even if he himself was also unsure of where they were headed to or where they're currently at thanks to the interception of the communication center that Fily requested to get her brother's influence away.

And since they were currently two feet underground the underground tunnel with no signs of where they're currently at except for the fact that Lei only followed the direction which he thought was going to lead them back to the castle, Lei couldn't really tell Von any confirmation about anything at all until the communications turn online again.

"Can we check if we're almost there?" Von said while walking behind Lei and poking the dirt ceiling continuously as if telling Lei to dig upwards so they could see the surface of the tunnel.

"Do you want to get caught?" Lei said while looking back dryly at Von.

"No…" Von said and looked down as if being scolded. "I just feel suffocated, that's all. I wish Petunia, Fily, or even Gem were with us right now, I think they would have an infinite supply of air and water which would really be helpful." 

"Have you forgotten what Petunia did to us? She freaking made you drink a sleeping potion and even helped the Crones escape from Halma's senses!" Lei said with an obvious amount of grudge against the cat.

"Maybe there's a reason why she did that…" Von said, still trying to defend the same person/cat that he would most likely bicker with if given a chance.

"There's always a reason why people do things, Von, but those reasons aren't always the best one. People only do what's best for themselves most of the time so don't get your hopes up. I don't want you to get hurt." Lei said trying to sound as calm as possible even though he was the most affected by Petunia's betrayal.

[Fily: Here's the map.] Fily's message to Leviathan's group chat suddenly appeared in front of them, giving them the most important piece of information that they currently need in their situation.

"Nice Fily!" Von cheered upon receiving the same message from her.

"Communication's back online and I think I can see Fily and Petunia not far from us," Lei said while looking at the red and purple dots on his team's tracker screen.

"Let's just go there then!" Von said enthusiastically while Lei was thinking deeply of 'what exactly are they doing in this tunnel?'

"Should we really trust them?" Lei said and turned off his tracking option manually.

"They're here to save us, right?" Von said wishfully.

"I don't think so."

"You're just being bitter," Von said which got Lei even more confused about his own thoughts on the whole thing.

"First of all, you should turn off your tracking option manually too. Who knows if they're on our side and who's not. Second of all, I'll be the one to show myself to Fily and Petunia first. If they said they're here to help us, I'll give you a sign to get out of our own little hiding pit and reveal yourself to them. But if I'm right and they're not on our side, I'll give you a different sign to continue hiding on your own while I distract them, okay? Is that a deal?" Lei said while keeping his cool and negative impression of the girls off of the bay.

"Okay." Von said confidently and even offered to shake Lei's hands to make a proper deal, "Just don't tell them anything I've said to you about them to this point, it's a little embarrassing." Von added and waited for Lei to nod first before letting go of their handshake.

***

"Is it just me or did you also saw Von and Lei walking freely across the tunnels?" Fily asked softly to Petunia while hiding inside the space that Petunia created for her to hide in when someone peeks inside the tunnel-entry-1 where they were at right now.

She even blinked several times just to check if what she was seeing was correct but then the dots suddenly disappeared from her tracking system which made her even more suspicious and anxious about what was happening inside that wooden door.

Not only were the people who were supposed to catch them per her brother's request suddenly started running off in a different direction but there were also a lot of people running back and forth across the door as if they were in a really big mess. But thankfully, none of them seemed to have any interest in checking out what's happening in their exit route aside from peeking for a few seconds and going back to run around inside their tunnel-system-base.

And being the anxious genius that Fily is, she really couldn't help but think that the most possible scenario that could be the reason why they're running around right now was the possibility of Von and Lei being able to get away from these filthy Crones and traitor's holding cells.

"I don't know. Shh, two people are coming and think they'll peek again." Petunia said while looking around as if thinking of another way to help Fily keep working on her job without having to be distracted every second from the mess on the other side.

"Can't we just lock this door?" Petunia finally asked after a moment of brainstorming. "-Or dry test my traps? I really don't think we could finish anything at this rate without being seen by those filthy Crones." Petunia said while looking so desperate beside Fily.

"Please?"

"Okay. I only need to complete 30% of the job anyway so we can run away back to the castle immediately after that." Fily said.

"Okay yes! Let's go." Petunia said with a smile before gliding out of the dark space between the big debris of the fallen building that she created as a hiding place for Fily and back to the tunnel's main way so that she could complete the set of traps she laid in the ground, same as she did earlier, with the ice floor, recycled sticky gummies and an automatic supply of her dreamy bomb. (Edible ice orbs with orange sedative potions inside for instant knock-out.)