Chapter 76 - New Teammate

"Where's Gem?"

"She's inside the room with Halma and the nurses." 

"You let her stay with Halma alone?" Venedette exclaimed in disappointment, stopping halfway to the room where Fily was directing her to because of the sudden realization.

"Well, I thought Halma wouldn't do anything dangerous to her…" Fily said, sounding guilty for falling under Halma's charms once again.

"Oh no, no no no no…" Venedette said frantically before turning the doorknob open only to find Halma and the others actually taking care of Gem inside.

"Gem!" Venedette exclaimed and ran towards her immediately.

"What happened?" Fily whispered to Petunia who quietly went to her after informing Halma of Venedette's arrival just now.

"Halma's not letting them give Gem any type of medicine after Gem told her not to do anything." 

"What?!" Fily exclaimed, carrying Petunia outside with her so that they could have a proper conversation without disturbing any of them inside.

"Gem requested to not give her any medicine," Petunia said with more context this time which made Fily's brows curl.

"Why would she do that?" 

Suddenly, Fily once again fell deep into her mind's sanctuary, searching for answers about Gem's unusual condition and her much more unusual response to it.

"Right, why would she ask them to do nothing and just let her suffer like that?" said Petunia and swirled around Fily's lap out of habit, "You know what? I think you're right. Gem's stomach cramps didn't look normal to me too when I saw her earlier. I mean, the way she was holding her stomach and sweating a lot without even being able to sleep a wink last night says a lot, right? It's not normal. At least, based on my experience."

"Me too. Do you think it has something to do with the gemstone?" Fily said, taking a wild guess about the intriguing situation but as much as she wanted to discover the answer to their questions at once, she immediately covered her mouth right after remembering the fact that her mother was still spying on her and she needed to deal with it first. "Never mind about that, let's just make her a painkiller and a sleeping aid potion first."

"Just like that? But what if Gem doesn't want it?" Petunia said, pouting after Fily who suddenly just dropped her on the sofa carelessly.

"Then at least she'll know we care about her," Fily said and smiled weakly to Petunia before leaving to get Venedette's key to the basement where they'll get the ingredients that they need for the experiment.

***

"Are you sure that's just it?" Venedette inquired to the lead Doctor who was suddenly having a dilemma about his life due to Venedette's brooding expression to his brief summary report of all that happened with Gem while she was gone the whole night.

"Y-Yes," he answered nervously as if he was at the mercy of the most dangerous lioness in the pack.

"Don't bother." Halma cut him off, swiftly removing Venedette's hold on the doctor's collar and standing gracefully in between them. 

"It was Gem's request to not get treatment from any of us. Last night, she said she needed to deal with it all on her own, although we're still here on standby if she ever asks for help, so far all we did was wipe her sweat and improve the environment around her." Halma said calmly which calmed Venedette's raging concern down too.

"So you're not the one who did this?" Venedette said suspiciously at Halma which she only responded with a soft sigh.

"No," she added before getting out of the way which gave Venedette another good view of the young Doctor who was now coiling in fear and looking away from her as much as possible.

"W-Water, please." Venedette heard Gem whisper from behind which made her lose interest in the doctor who looked nothing like the type who would do anything as gutsy as harming Gem in front of her so she just decided to let him go off the hook.

"Here you go…" Venedette said, handing Gem a bottle of water carefully while trying her best to keep a smile.

"Venedette?" Fily whispered softly while peeking from the door.

"Yes?" she said and brushed Gem's hair out of the way first before going out to Fily. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. We just want to ask if you could lend us the key to the basement, please? Petunia and I had some unfinished business there and the door was locked so..." Fily said cutely with matching puppy eyes which gave Venedette no choice but to give her the keys immediately.

"Be careful with the ingredients, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, Venedette." Fily said and smiled brightly before closing the door between them, revealing Lei who had been unnoticeably eavesdropping on their conversation the whole time from behind the door.

"Whoa! I didn't notice your presence there." Fily said and shook her head abruptly to check if she's not just imagining things.

"What are you guys planning to do in the basement?" he said nonchalantly while sharpening his small dagger.

"Oh, nothing… Just… girl things." Fily said and laughed nervously. She tried to devise a different excuse but since the word already came out of her mouth, she just decided to stick with it no matter how weird it sounded like for Lei.

"Girl… things?" Lei said, unconvinced.

"Yeah, uhuh." Fily nodded multiple times which made Lei more sure about his guess.

"You're lying," he said with a smug smile before walking ahead of Fily to the basement where Petunia was already waiting for her with her gummy cloud.

Lei felt that there was something off with how both Petunia and Fily were acting ever since they came back to the castle, and now that he got wind of what happened to Gem, he could only guess what these two were planning behind the Queen's back in order to save the little girl from her supposedly wickedness just like what everyone else in the castle was assuming.

And since Lei had nothing to do anyway, after probably being demoted as Von's bodyguard and joining Leviathan as an assassin instead, he thought it would be a good idea to come with his new team members to waste time and apparently help them to make something that would help their other team member too, which was Gem.

"Wait, you're not planning to come with us, are you?" Fily said after a moment of realization and walked after him slowly since her metabolism wouldn't allow her to catch up to him immediately.