Chapter 161 - Good News

"Wake up Von, Venedette's back and she's asking us for a brief meeting with her," Gem said while tapping Von's shoulder lightly but the boy wouldn't nudge.

"Hey, I know you're not yet asleep, come on." Gem tried to tap Von and even resorted to pushing him out of the sofa just so he would stop being so stubborn.

"What the- can't you see I'm trying to sleep here?" Von gnarled and stopped for a moment after opening his eyes and seeing Gem stood seriously in front of him.

"Aren't you going to join us?" Gem said seriously which made Von fold in shyness.

"I didn't say that," Von said and cleared his throat while fixing his posture from falling to the floor.

"Okay good," Gem said and left him alone in the living room with her arms still crossed and her eyebrows almost connecting to each other because of the stress of it all.

"Is he still sleeping?" Venedette asked Gem who just arrived at the kitchen while Lei was busy setting up the table for their dinner.

"Nope. I already told him to come," Gem said and sat down beside Fily, "Why aren't you sleeping?" she asked after seeing Fily getting ready for dinner.

"I still need to eat, you know?" Fily only said with a smile as if Gem just asked her some silly question.

"Oh," Gem gasped in realization just as Von entered the dining area with an unkempt hair and a lazy attitude.

"There you are, shall we proceed now?" Venedette asked while carefully putting the dish she prepared for them on the table where Lei had already finished setting up the utensils and other necessary stuff for their meeting.

Since the table was a digital table, Lei and Venedtte purposely left the middle part empty so they could still see what was going on while having their meal.

"First of all, there's really nothing much to talk about our meeting. But before we proceed with the food, I would just like to remind you of all of the duties that we still have to complete during our time here in Edelweiss."

Venedette took a good look at each one of them who were either sleepy or avoiding eye contact with her because of Petunia's disappearance.

"I have successfully convinced the officers here in Edelweiss to let us in on the search for Petunia," Venedette said, starting off with the good news before she proceeds with the more burdensome ones.

"Really?! They're now letting us help look for Petunia?!" Gem exclaimed in delight while Lei just looked down to hide his face of contentment about the news that was just brought to them just now.

"Yes, we are now allowed to look for Petunia for as long as we will report back to them about our findings and actions while staying here in Edelweiss. They don't want trouble and we don't want that either so let's just comply, okay?" Venedette said as a reminder which was met with a very good response from either Lei or Gem while the other two were just calm or too sleepy to even care.

"Okay, that's enough news for now. Let's not wait for the food to get any colder before we eat," Venedette said, diminishing the attention from the news that were still left for her to tell and to the appetizing food in front of them first.

"Looks delicious!" Gem said with her spirits getting very high because of the sudden good news and also because she was also hungry all this time and was just too shy to say anything while the rest of them just said, "Thanks for the food." calmly before digging in.

The air was quiet, too quiet in fact that Gem started to feel like there was something missing from them again, and she didn't even need to think just to know who it was.

Gem caught Lei glancing at her which made her wonder about what might be going on in his mind after finding out Petunia's gone. 

During their past days on this trip, Gem noticed a few changes in their relationships, particularly with Petunia's avoidance of her during the start of the trip and the sudden close bond that she formed with Lei, even leading to her not making time to Fily and Gem anymore.

And although this upset Gem a little bit, somehow, she also understood why Petunia chose to confine in Lei about her worries about some things in particular.

"Do I have something in my face?" Gem asked when she caught Lei stealing glances at her again.

"More like your nose is bleeding," Von said while hurrying over to the countertop for a tissue.

"What?" Gem asked while touching the part under her nose where she really did see blood sticking to her fingertips.

"Lay back," Fily said and guided her with her hands to stop the blood from coming out.

"Are you okay? I'll get some medicine for you real quick-" Venedette said and went out in a hurry before Gem could even get the chance to stop her and tell her that she's okay.

'I'm okay, this often happens to me when I stress too much… it's nothing to worry about," Gem said to lessen the worry that her teammates were feeling for her.

But instead of believing Gem, Fily thought of another reason why her nose suddenly bled like that, "Isn't this because of the bullets that you said shook your intestines?" she said in panic while trying to solve everything inside her mind palace.

"Uhh, no… I don't think so," Gem denied but Fily was still stubborn about her theory.

"You said you just slept inside Solitude because of the sleeping potion that you accidentally took instead of the pain-relief potion, right? What if something happened to you while you were sleeping there? Something like… perhaps there was someone else that helped you over there?"

"Mr. Gemini, maybe?" Gem said, getting convinced of Fily's argument which also made her more energetic than her usual sleeping mode.

"No, not him. Mr. Gemini doesn't have something that could cure you in there, right?"

"I guess so," Gem said while recalling all the abilities that she saw in Mr. Gemini's list of abilities, "But who else could be there?" Gem added while curling her eyebrows at Fily.

"No one? You really think there's no one else there?" Fily asked even more which made Gem even more weirded out by her.

"I already told you, there's no one there except for me. I have been entering Solitude since Monday and never had I encountered another species in there except for me and Mr. Gemini's technologies," Gem tried explaining again and eventually became curious of where Fily was coming from with her arguments.

"Why are you even asking those silly questions by the way?" Gem asked which made Fily smile giddily at her.

"I just opened a new chapter in the Salamandite's manual book and I read something that said, 'Everyone with the blood of Salamandites are free to enter the place Solitude' which means that Solitude isn't actually a place that you made with your imagination because it has been there all along and there were just very few numbers of people that could access it," Fily said excitedly while trying to finally open her eyes as if she was actually awake.

"S-So, does that mean I also have the blood of Salamandites because I can enter Solitude? But what about Venedette? She could also enter solitude that one time when I was about to die during our first meeting."

"That sounds dark," Von remarked before posing in a surrender pose as if telling Fily and Gem that he would stop talking nonsense already.

"The skill's description in my skill-set said that anyone with the Salamandite gems would be able to go to Solitude and even encouraged us to have duels in there, what do you think about that, Fily?" Gem pitched in another one of her thoughts which made Fily think even harder.

"Hmm, in that case, then maybe Salamandite holders and those with the blood of Salamanders could both go to Solitude in command then?"

"So does that mean I have Salamander's blood or I can just go inside Solitude because of my necklace?" Gem asked, hopeful for the former to be the answer even though she knew that would be close to impossible because as far as she knew, real Salamanders and the people around them were citizens of Edelweiss and not from the Western border which she came from.

"We're still not sure about that. If only I could get a reference of how Salamanders and their people's DNA looks and hopefully compare it to yours then our lives could be easier. But because Salamanders and all the names affiliated to it were probably extinct, we're probably going to have a hard time finding out about that," Fily said which left Gem and the others in a complete phase of silence to give respect for Fily's enthusiasm.