Chapter 39 - Sweet

"No. Why would I give you this? It's mine." I moved back from her.

Her question was weird.

'Could I have some?'

Some of what?

I only have one gemstone.

There's no way I would give this to her.

"Give." I was taken aback when she suddenly went closer to me..

I tried pushing her Gummy back but my hands sank inside it instead.

The outside of the cloud was shiny as a balloon but the inside was sticky as gum.

"Y-your cloud!" I exclaimed when I noticed the small cracks from the bubble where the force of my hands made.

Petunia glanced at it but she did not care much.

"Do not change the topic. I can smell it coming from here." She tried to claw my necklace which made me pull my hands quickly from her sticky cloud and held the gemstone in a defensive stance while stepping back from her.

"What do you think you're doing?" I scowled at her while shaking off the gum that got stuck in my hands.

It won't come off, damn it!

"Just doing what I have to do and taking what I was promised to have." She sat properly in her cloud and swayed her right paw to the left after tilting her head sideways like an innocent cat.

At the same time, I felt the gum in my hands move to the side where she pointed at, bringing me along with it to the column that was holding the roof of this open space in the highest tower of the castle.

"What the-" My hands were completely glued to the column behind me, exposing my necklace to her!

Petunia slowly approached me still on her purple gum cloud.

I need to act quickly! I can't let her take this!

Somewhere along my train of thoughts, the stat-hut's screen appeared in front of me.

Maybe I could ask Fily and Venedette for help!

[Gem: Help! Petunia is trying to take my necklace!]

I felt relieved after sending the message but was caught off-guarded when Petunia was the first to reply.

[Petunia: I am not.]

What!?

How did she-

Right... I sent the message in our Guild's chat room which she was a member of!

Damn it!

[Gem: Liar. Help! We're at the highest tower of the castle!]

[Petunia: I'm not even there.]

No one else replied.

Petunia smirked at me before continuing her approach.

"It's so fragrant. Ah, I love it!" She said hysterically while smelling the gemstone.

What's so fragrant about a stone and its metal necklace?

"Go away! Venedette told me to protect this no matter what!"

"Oh really? Can you do that while being held by my gum gum?"

I was silenced by what she said.

She's right, my hands were stuck in her gum and if I moved my feet I might fall off this tower!

"What do you want from my necklace? It's just a stone given to me by my parents, what could you possibly get from this!?" I lied.

There's no way she knows about the Salamandite right? She's just saying these things because of the sweet scent that she was smelling.

"There's cookies behind me. Maybe that's where the sweet smell that you are talking about was coming from?" I tried to reason with her but she just looked at me with disbelief.

"There's something sweet in there. You don't know what's inside your necklace?" She went closer to my face and stared at my eyes.

"N-no." I looked away from her.

Just how did she know all of these?

She may be just tricking me… I won't tell her anything!

"Liar." She concluded which made my heart beat even faster.

Let's say she knew about the Salamandites... But how did she know about it?

"H-how did you know?" I weighed her reaction but she ignored me.

"It's so sweet! I'm betting there's a lot in here." She exclaimed in joy and jumped around her cloud before going back to stare at my necklace once more.

"What do you know about this?" I rephrased my words, trying to distract her as I devise a plan to get out of her hold.

If she won't talk to me properly, I will escape her hold and expose her to everybody!

"That's not important." She dismissed my question while observing the gemstone even more.

I need to get away from her. One way or another, I won't let her take what's mine!

Just how did we get into this kind of situation?

Venedette was so happy to recruit her. I opted to respect and trust her because of that.

And then what? All of a sudden she came here saying she smelled something sweet coming from my necklace? Ruining the day that was supposed to be fun with her dark schemes!

[Venedette: What's the matter, girls?] My heart broke after seeing Venedette's message.

Lei was right, trust is something that we shouldn't give to anyone too easily, especially to outsiders.

"Venedette trusted you," my voice cracked upon saying these words.

"I know. And she promised to give me this in exchange for joining her guild." She pointed at my gemstone which made my eyes widen in disbelief.

"Venedette did?"

"Yes."

I don't understand. Why would Venedette promise to give Petunia something that she had asked me to protect with my life?

This doesn't make any sense!

"Ahh, it's so sweet! With this, I could complete a lot of potions that needed this ingredient very much! Including Gummy." She ran around in joy while I was still there, glaring at her.

"But I don't know how to use this. Do you know how to use this?" She said while trying to remove it from my necklace using her paws.

Thankfully the necklace that Venedette gifted me had a perfect grasp on the gemstone, making it harder for her to dismantle.

"Do you know how to use this?" Petunia repeated each word with emphasis.

Sure enough, she was intimidating. But it's not part of my plan to surrender this easily to her.

"What? You want it but you don't know how to use it?" I mustered up all my courage to talk back at her but she responded with a nod which I totally did not expect.

"I don't understand," I complained, "why do you want to have this if you don't even know how to use it?"

"I… Venedette promised to give me the ingredients inside." She said innocently which confused me even more.

Ingredients? Was she talking about the contents of the gemstone and not the gemstone itself?

"I need it. Give me. Ingredients." She said in between her yawns.

Suddenly, the cloud that was carrying her started going down slowly, losing its flight as Petunia began falling asleep.

"What's happening?" I whispered and realized that the sticky substance that was preventing my hands from moving was slowly melting, releasing me from its hold.

I looked back at Petunia after removing the melted gum from my hands and went closer to her only to realize that she was now asleep on top of her purple cloud.

What happened to her? Why did she suddenly fall asleep?

Is this some kind of joke?

But I'm sure she did not come here just to fall asleep after threatening me…

I looked around, trying to see if there were any other people here except for the both of us.

But there was none.

I'm so confused. How could she fall asleep in such a situation?

[Fily: I'm almost there.]

I felt relieved after reading Fily's private message to me.

At least I could ask for Fily's help in determining what just happened here.

But for the meantime, I picked up the necklace to my nose and sniffed it just like what Petunia did to see if there's really a sweet smell there or if she's just lying but I did not smell anything from it, let alone the sweet smell that she was just talking about earlier.

It was just the smell of metal and cold air.

How could she smell the stuff inside the gemstone?

Even I, the owner of the gemstone, did not know the smell of the things inside of it.

'Mr. Gemini, could you tell me the smell of Energy slimes?'

[They say Energy slimes smell like nectar, master.]

'So it's sweet?'

[Pardon me master but I have no sense of taste.]

'Oh, okay.'

I wonder how she was able to smell it?

To satisfy my curiosity, I went to the Leviathan squad's members page in my stat-hut to check her ability levels.

[Name: Petunia Scholivia [Title: Merlin of the forest

[Race: Superhuman [Blood: Ordinaire

[Class: Student [Rank: None

[Party: Leviathan

[Role: Alchemist

[Level:17

[Super's Attributes:]

[Sense: 27/30 [Hearing: 9 [Vision: 8 [Smell:10

[Agility: 23/30 [Strength: 4 [Speed: 9 [Resistance: 10

Sense 27/30

Smell level 10

T-that's amazing.

I swallowed my saliva upon realizing her talents.

She's really on another level than us.