Chapter 151 - Friendly

"Of course I can! Do I look like a weak kitty cat to you?!" Petunia meowed aggressively which made Hodgewart doubt his own judgment a little bit.

"Well, if you're asking for my opinion, I think you're a very weak cat who will most likely die in this forest without my expertise so I hope you cooperate. And of course, I'm not only saying this because you're Heize's old student but it's because that's how I just basically feel," Hodgewart said without holding back, which impressed Petunia a little bit.

"How could he be so honest and sweet at the same time without sounding creepy?" Petunia thought to herself, not knowing the fact that she had been convinced by Hodgewart's flowery words seamlessly with that.

"I don't want to talk to other animals, I'm shy," Petunia said as an excuse to convince Hodgewart to not make her talk instead with the other animals while following him back down to where they came from earlier.

"What's there to be shy of? It's not like my friends will eat you, we built that community to help each other survive in this place and not the other way around," Hodgewart said with a bit of an explanation about his group carefully.

"Do they know about your connection with Heize?"

"They do, but we don't talk about it that much. Our leader said she will allow me to be a part of their community for as long as I make sure to keep them safe from Heize's wrath since I was the only one who knew her best in the community."

"That's actually very smart, what else?" Petunia asked, seemingly getting interested in Hodgewart's community because of the way he talked about them with much enthusiasm.

But deep inside, Petunia knew her priorities and was thinking of a way to trick Hodgewart into telling her where Heize actually lives.

She knew about her time limit and how Venedette and the others would probably be out there, looking for her already when she promised to do this trip together with them.

That promise was just a lie in the first place anyway, Petunia knew she'll have to be the only one to face Heize in the end in order for this to work. 

"We're getting close, just a few more steps and we're there, see the rainbows over there?" Hodgewart interrupted his own storytime by reminding Petunia that they're close to the community already.

"I wonder why he sounds like he's talking about a village when animals don't even need to build houses close to each other and live closely together like that?" Petunia asked herself while nodding to Hodgewart.

"Can you help me understand what they're saying? I might not understand them because of the weird potion that I drank last night," Petunia said yet another one of her excuses but with just a little bit of truth this time.

"That's weird, I also encountered a wolf here a long time ago who said the same thing to me while also looking for Heize. He had this card that came from Heize which convinced me to also bring him there in exchange for not harming me or any of my friends here."

"What happened to him?" Petunia asked to hide the fact that he knew about this wolf all along.

"I don't know, after talking to Heize he just suddenly disappeared and never came back here, I guess he really did follow the deal that we made." Hodgewart shrugged while walking steadily through the snow and Petunia followed in his footsteps.

"So, was he able to understand your friends or not?" Petunia asked a follow-up question.

"I didn't bring him to the community but some of my friends who were on scout duty with me that day weren't able to talk to him. I don't know how he did that but it was as if he could only hear them squeak and not actually speak, which is weird."

"Yeah, it is weird because I don't feel the same," Petunia murmured to herself while recalling that moment earlier when those baby slimes came jumping at her while calling her 'Mama'.

"Maybe I can understand real animals too? It's hard to tell because Hodgewart had been experimented on before by Heize which made him understand human language without being able to differentiate and I'm using the human language which he might have assumed as the animal language! I'm in trouble!" Petunia cried to herself while giving Hodgewart a fake smile for being sorry to him.

"And isn't he too friendly? Making friends with me is one thing, but with a wolf? A big freaking scary lost wolf? His confidence must have come from his spikes but how about his friends? Why is he so friendly?"

"We're here," Hodgewart said in a calm voice while lifting a rope that was buried in the snow.

"Uhm, what's that?" Petunia asked while staring at him holding the rope up.

"Quickly, go." Hodgewart motioned for her to proceed which she reluctantly did before Hodgewart followed after her through the white rope and buried it again in the snow.

"What was that for?" Petunia couldn't help but ask while looking at the now-fixed snow where the string came from.

"That was our first warning line. If my fellow animals don't pass through that line as I did, they're probably intruders which means that we should hide from them."

"Oh, cool," Petunia nodded in respect to their creativity.

"Wait! Stop right there," Hodgewart suddenly said with a higher tone which made Petunia's heart beat faster because of the panic.

"W-What? Why?" Petunia said while keeping her body frozen, afraid to do anything stupid that might activate the traps that Hodgewart kept talking about earlier.

"This is the minefield, let's make a detour." Hodgewart's voice came back to his normal tone which made Petunia panic less and carefully move away from where she was standing and following after Hodgewart.

"This is so complicated, it's like an invisible maze. Whose idea was this?" Petunia suddenly asked after two and three more turns.

"It was the leader's expertise to build traps and mazes like this." 

"And for what? Who is your leader anyway? I believe you haven't told me anything about her yet," Petunia said while thinking about something else on her mind.

"What is this? How am I going to escape this place later without anyone's help? Ahh, I shouldn't have let him take me here, I may be curious about their community but I don't have time for this!"

"Our leader used to be a human before joining Heize's experiments because of her interest in animals and their culture. She joined the experiment willingly with Heize's promise of turning them back to their original body someday but Heize seemed to lie about that part which made her stuck in her animal form forever," Hodgewart explained while calmly leading Petunia through the maze.

"Well, that explains a lot. What's her name?" Petunia asked again to Hodgewart whom she was thankful for being too patient and friendly with her.

"Nabi. Her name's Nabi." 

"Nabi? As in butterfly…? Oh! Now I get it! Is she a butterfly?!" Petunia asked enthusiastically which was then answered by Hodgewart's slight nod.

"I didn't know Heize could also shrink humans into bugs!" Petunia thought to herself while being excited about the fact that she could meet another human who had been turned into an animal by Heize! "Now I have two animals I can talk to!" she added to her thoughts before focusing on the path that Hodgewart created for her once again.

***

"Did something happen? Why are you guys looking at each other like that?" Von asked Fily and Lei who immediately stopped bickering with their eyes and sat properly while formulating an excuse for Von's question.

"Nothing much, we were just debating about where Petunia is," Fily quickly said after remembering the other minor topic that they were arguing about.

"Petunia? Didn't she get pulled in with Gem to Solitude?" Von asked with furrowed eyebrows which made Lei relieved that he actually believed Fily's lie.

"Actually, I was suggesting that Petunia went somewhere else before the bullets happened," Fily said, which also gave Von another reason to believe that it was really their topic of discussion.

"Where would Petunia go on her own without her gummy?" Von asked which made Fily roll her eyes.

"Remember the segway that  Petunia requested us to join earlier today?" 

"The treasure hunt?" Von asked while Venedette was busy dealing with the adults through her Stat-hut.

"Yes, what else could it be?"

"So, are you saying Petunia actually went to that treasure hunt on her own? That's impossible. I'm sure Gem and Petunia are taking longer in that Solitude than usual because it's Gem's first time bringing someone else to Solitude," Von explained after Fily's convincing remark.

"I was also thinking the same thing!" Lei said with a high-five to Von which Fily only shook her head on when she saw the two being friendly after remembering the moments they talked behind each other's back to her.

"If you don't believe me then that's fine, I'm just worried about Petunia who might have gone to that treasure hunt on her own without even our knowledge,"

"Hearing you say that makes me want to believe you, but the tracker says otherwise, look. She's still in that area where they both disappeared. The only weird thing is that Gem's signal is nowhere to be found," Lei said while looking at his tracker, which also added to the many things that were weighing Fily's mind about.