Chapter 73 - Silver

"I can't believe that traitor." Von thought to himself while looking at the sky directly above him.

"Von!!!" Lei shouted not far from him.

"Lei?" Von stopped himself from falling and looked in the direction of the voice, but instead of Lei, he saw several ropes being let down from the cliff where Lei was.

"What are those?" Von whispered to himself as the ropes got closer and closer to him, and when he finally had a clear image of what they were, he quickly let go of his flight so that he could fall again even before the ropes reached him, but they were quicker than he thought.

One by one, the ropes grabbed each of his limbs, starting from his legs, arms, and even until his neck, the ropes wrapped themselves around him and prevented him from falling even further.

"Damn you, Lei! Let go!!!" Von complained while struggling to get out of the ropes, but the more he struggled, the tighter he felt the rope's grip on him was becoming.

"I am not letting you get into more trouble, Von. You may think I don't care about you by doing this but just so you know, it's the complete opposite! I'm only doing this because I care about you!" Lei said, using more power to counter Von's attempt of flying away from his ropes..

"How is strangling me the same as caring about me!?" Von complained even more when the ropes on his neck started tightening too.

"Just come back here willingly so it'll stop strangling you!" Lei shouted at him, which Von followed reluctantly after, in fear of being strangled to death.

Von landed at the land full of sand beside Lei which made them both fall softly on the ground despite the impact.

"Ouch! What was that!?" Von said and frowned at Lei who was now busy tying his feet and hands with the same rope he used to strangle him earlier.

"Sticky rope. One of the most dangerous tools I have in this tool belt." Lei answered his query while still busy tying his hands and feet together.

"How am I going to walk?! Come on Lei!!" 

"I'm bringing you home." Lei simply said and carried him like a rice sack in his back.

"What?! No!!! Then why did you even escape with me last night?! Just so you can bring me back home right after?! Do you think they won't scold you too?! They will! And you better be prepared for it."

"I can handle it." Lei glared at him before going to the village where they decided to leave their Stat-huts earlier so they couldn't be tracked.

"You're a traitor. I thought you're on my side but turns out you're also one of them too. Traitor." Von sighed and rolled his eyes while shifting to a more comfortable position behind him.

"You'll be able to understand someday." Lei only said instead of getting into an argument with him as the more mature one.

***

"Not here."

"Not here either."

"The signal is not moving. Where could they be?" Venedette said impatiently to Sir Grand while tapping the tracking device violently so Sir Grand had to snatch it from her softly, in fears that she might destroy it soon enough.

"Calm down." Sir Grand said softly which gained him a sharp glare from Venedette once again.

"Sorry." Sir Grand instinctively said while looking away from her with guilt.

Consequently, Sir Grand spotted two familiar things lying at a shabby store's counter on display. 

"Isn't that…?" he said reluctantly and grabbed Venedette to come with him to the store.

"What is it?" Venedette said without looking at him. Her attention was fully focused on the tracking device that she grabbed from Sir Grand's hands on the way.

She noticed the signal strengthening the more they came closer to the store so ultimately, her focus shifted to the store where Sir Grand was taking her.

When they entered the store that seemed to be on the brink of destruction, Sir Grand immediately went to talk with the store cashier while Venedette went around looking for Von and Lei.

"Von? Lei? Are you guys here?" she whispered softly while checking every corner where Von or Lei could have been hiding in.

"Have you seen these boys, perhaps?" Sir Grand asked the lady clerk nicely while showing her a picture of the boys but she was too busy organizing stuff under the counter to notice him.

"Excuse me," he said, knocking on the fragile wooden counter where the lady's counter was.

Finally, the lady stood up, and as it turns out, she was an old granny all along! Hence the late reactions.

"Oh I'm sorry, but did you perhaps see these kids come here?" Sir Grandoise showed her the picture again.

The old granny took a closer look at the picture and smiled upon seeing them.

"Ah, these boys gave me silver." she said, slowly reaching over the display counter for the 'silver' that the boys gave her that morning.

"Would you like to buy them?" she said before placing Von and Lei's Stat-huts on the counter in front of Sir Grandoise.

"I knew it," he whispered to himself after seeing the boys' earrings that he recognized earlier.

"How much?" Sir Grand asked the wrinkled old lady with a big mole on her nose who was smiling creepily at him. 

"One million pog for each," she said.

And as much as Sir Grand would want to complain, he just shut his mouth and paid for the price that the old lady put on these accessories that were just given to her for free, to begin with.

When Sir Grand looked back to get his money, he noticed that Venedette was not behind him anymore. He also couldn't sense her using his super sense.

At first, he thought that it was because of the sense-defying steel on the walls of this place, but when he gave the payment to the old lady by cash, he noticed that this place was not made of sense-defying steel at all.

"Have you seen your Princess?" He asked the guards on patrol outside after retrieving Von and Lei's Stat-hut from that shabby store but none of them seemed to have seen the Princess yet which alarmed Sir Grand even more.

He thought of the store where he last saw Venedette and went back there, but the store was already empty and deserted when he came back.

"Oh no," he said, his heart beating faster now for not noticing something crucial about that old lady earlier.