Chapter 215 - Crumble

"Lei! What happened?!" Fily asked worriedly while getting help from Petunia to climb up to the roof with Petunia's Gummy dress.

"I don't know, she was just going to put the rest of the Foeruses inside her Solitude but she hasn't come back since. I'm worried that something must have happened in there that prevented her from coming back immediately," Lei said while walking around uncomfortably.

"This must be the limitation of Solitude," Fily said and paused as she searched for more information in her head.

"Solitude also has limitations?" Lei asked.

"Everything has, we're just not so sure about Gem's powers yet…" Petunia said.

"Here! I knew something was off when I first read this!" Fily said and sent them all a copy of the document that she unlocked from the Salamandite's guidebook a month ago.

"What does it say?" Petunia immediately said after seeing the script and not recognizing any word from it since it was written in another language.

"Oh!" Fily said and then immediately went back to her mind palace to translate the foreign words into a more familiar language for the rest of them.

"Once is bliss but four may crumble," Lei read the words directly translated from the original sentence word by word.

"I don't get it," Petunia said, judging the choice of words that the author made just to force a rhyme without even minding the sentence structure.

"I'm so stupid for missing this… how did I miss this? I knew there was something wrong with the number four in this book but why haven't I thought of this earlier?" Fily muttered frustratedly to herself.

"What does it mean?" Lei said with confusion etched on his face since the message of the sentence was not very clear without any context.

"This is a phrase under the 'otherworldly connotations' chapter, I thought it was just something else entirely, like a different dimension than where we are right now, but the way Gem described Solitude and its connection to the real world, I thought she was just creating her own empty place with her necklace that mirrors the real world instead of a completely different dimension."

"Wait, you haven't been to Solitude yet?" Petunia asked.

"No?" Fily instinctively answered which sounded like she was not sure about it either.

"I definitely heard from Gem that you were the first- err second person that she brought into Solitude, aside from Venedette when she first saved her."

"Right but Solitude is an anti-super place, remember? Fily wouldn't remember it even if she did really went inside with Gem at that time," Lei said.

"Oh… I forgot about that," Petunia said without further questions or argument to Lei's claim, which he found weird and unnatural.

"So, where were we?" Petunia said, shifting her head from looking to the ground and focusing it now on the nervous Fily.

"Maybe the 'otherworldly stuff' that the book was talking about was the other dimension that Gem calls Solitude, how did I not catch this before?!"

"Don't worry Fily, it was just probably because of the Anti-super rule with Solitude," Lei said while looking calm on the outside even though he could not even calm himself down on the inside.

"What's going to happen to Gem now?!" Petunia asked frantically which made both Fily and Lei even more nervous than they already were.

"Once is bliss but four may crumble… If we're looking at the words literally, we get the words once, bliss, four, and crumble. The sentence was not made just to force a rhyme, but rather it was a warning! Going inside Solitude four times in a row must have caused the system to crumble down-"

"Or what if the other dimension was the one that crumbled?" Petunia said, cutting Fily's words with that negative thought of hers that gave them all a vivid picture of how the other dimension which neither of them has seen before might crumble down with Gem in it.

"No! That's impossible! The necklace would never let Gem die so let's hold on to that thought first," Fily said, immediately blocking off the dark image that Petunia put in their imaginations to calm their nervous hearts down.

"Right, the necklace wouldn't let Gem die… But if she's still alive… then why isn't she coming back?" Lei asked carefully after some consideration about what Fily and Petunia might feel with the words he was going to say.

"Maybe something happened with the system-"

"Or the Dimension as a whole-"

"Stop it Petunia! Please! Just… focus on positive thoughts. Gem wouldn't die just like that, we have a bright future ahead of us," Fily said while shutting her eyes and ears tight in preparation for another one of Petunia's insensitive remarks that was incoming in 3...2...1...

"What's so bright about joining the tournament?" Petunia said, making Lei shake his head and Fily cover her eyes and ears more.

"She's not talking about the tournament, you know?" Lei said and walked away from them so he could just watch what was happening from a distance.

"Four may crumble… it said may, not might, not will. It's may, so there's still a chance that Gem's still alright...  Just a little malfunction on the system." Petunia heard Fily whispering to herself.

***

The sun was setting and both Venedette and Von had already come back from going to the other side of the island where they locked the mad scientist down in one of the dungeons over there.

"Do you think you can go to Solitude again and probably take Gem out of there?" Fily said insincerely to Venedette while they were all watching the sun go down from the rooftop where Gem had disappeared since she knew what the answer would be anyway.

"I don't know how I pulled it off the first time around. I just wish we can find an answer to activate this Salamandite soon so Gem would not have to endure discovering all these dangerous stuff on her own."

"I wish for that too," Fily said and turned quiet for another five minutes before asking Venedette a question again, "So what did you even see when you went inside Solitude by yourself? Aside from Gem being surrounded by the Energy slimes and the dead guy beside her."

"Hmm, it was just white, and chilly inside. But there's nothing really notable about it except for the color white," Venedette answered.

"That's it?" Fily said, a little bit surprised about the pitiful amount of information that Venedette gathered from being the first one who entered Solitude next to Gem.

"That's it…" Venedette said and sat down, prompting the rest of them to also sit down with her while they got showered by the orange light of the setting sun.

"How did you even get in and out of it? Was it like… the same method that Gem uses to go back and forth from Solitude, or it just really happened and you have no idea how it even happened in the first place?"

"We never know, Gem could have subconsciously asked her system to bring Venedette in as she was desperate for help at that time," Von added and shrugged before letting Venedette answer Petunia's question.

"I'm not sure about how I got in, but going out of there was a different story. I saw Gem's Salamandite float into the air and glow like crazy before clicking to the side which might have been the reason why the place crumbled down."

"Solitude has already crumbled down before?" Fily asked.

"Why? Isn't that the normal way of escaping Solitude?" asked Venedette, a little bit confused since she had been assuming all this time that the place just naturally crumbles down every time Gem would step out of Solitude.

"When Gem brought me to Solitude she just ordered her system to bring me in and bring me out of it without any crumbling happening," Von said.

"Really?! So why did it crumble the first time around? I could still clearly remember that cracking noise that I heard from all directions which told me the place was going down. And there was even a crack on the ceiling to which I flew into while carrying Gem inside a cocoon to escape that place of Solitary!" Venedette said enthusiastically with matching hand gestures.

"That must be what the saying meant… Even though I'm failing to connect the number four with your story, I think that's the same crumble that's happening right now."

"If the place is crumbling, then what about Gem? How could she get out of there without being able to fly?!" Petunia said frantically after hearing what Fily just said.

"That's why I'm being desperate about the Flight potion now, Petunia. See how this stuff could have been resolved easily if we could just fly?" Lei said and immediately shut his mouth and looked away when he saw Petunia's annoyed smile at him.

"Don't worry Lei, that potion is already on top of my priority list, okay?"

"I know… sorry," Lei said without making eye contact with Petunia for immediately feeling guilty about what he said.