Chapter 143 - Coupon

"Gather up!" Fily called for everyone's attention while finishing up her notes on the digital table.

"Petunia! H-How's your day?" Lei said in surprise, coming down from the trapdoor to the roof after seeing Petunia in Gem's arms.

"Obviously, not fine." Petunia rolled her eyes.

"T-That's good… I mean that's great- errr sorry to hear about…" Lei said, having a hard time saying what he really meant because of the fear that he might say something stupid, which he still did and failed to prevent so.

"What's wrong with you," Petunia said and gave him a weird look while Gem only smiled at him and shrugged her shoulders before proceeding to the living room's digital table with Fily and Von already seated on the opposite side of each other.

"What are you doing here? I thought you're not coming?" Fily's eyebrows met each other after seeing Von seated lazily in front of her while she was still trying to keep her signature smile.

"Am I not allowed here?" Von scuffed at her.

"You're not joining so you don't need to hear this."

While Von and Fily were arguing about him not wanting to join yet still having an interest in the plan, Gem silently took Petunia and sat beside Fily while Lei sat beside Von on the other couch.

And upon hearing Von and Fily's argument, Gem couldn't help but be curious as well as to why Von was not joining all the fun.

"You're not coming again? Why?" Gem suddenly asked in between their argument which made both Fily and Von silent while smiling fakely at each other.

"I just can't with him anymore," Fily muttered to Gem while gritting her smiling teeth, which alarmed Gem a little bit.

"Don't mind him. I'm sure he's just messing around," Gem said, trying to calm the situation down by removing Fily's focus on Von and convincing Von to join them.

"What are those?" Gem pointed at the yellow flags on the map.

"Those are mech shops. They sell illegal machines," Fily said nonchalantly while giving her attention back to the plan and organization.

"I'm going to tell mom about your secret little treasure hunt and ask for her permission," Von thought and floated when Petunia suddenly jumped onto his chest.

"You're not going anywhere. I believe Fily already told you that Venedette allowed us to go on without her as long as we're together, right?" Petunia said while attempting to claw Von's face while sitting on his chest.

"O-Okay, but what about the meeting with the tribes from Edelweiss?" Von asked while pushing Petunia away from his face and aiming to drop her off to Gem by floating on top of her.

"We'll do it after the meeting," Fily said and sent them all a schedule which she just made to keep her teammates in check, also giving time to Von who finally managed to push Petunia to Gem's head.

"Ouch," Gem and Petunia both groaned after hitting each other, although the distance was not too high, Petunia still happened to weigh more than any usual cat because of her laziness and dependence on her Gummy cloud.

"We'll arrive in Edelweiss at 6 pm, then the meeting starts at 9, what kind of schedule is this? Isn't the meeting supposed to happen immediately?" Von complained once more after viewing the schedule just now.

"And aren't we supposed to be on our way back to Yvandir by midnight?" Lei said.

"Our schedule got held back by that emergency rescue of Monica and the others," Fily simply explained.

"We know. So does this mean we'll get to spend another day in this Yacht before going home?" Von said in a slightly enthusiastic tone.

"We're going to have to skip our classes again?" Gem asked with disappointment on the other hand.

"Why are you so willing to go to school? Aren't you tired of learning the same boring lesson each year?" Von asked and then went silent after looking at Gem and realizing something important, "Oh, sorry. I forgot it's your first time going to school."

"I went to school during my early days, but then I ran away because of the same old boring lesson that they teach every year, just like you said. I guess I just wanted to learn more things that my school wasn't teaching me," Gem muttered while caressing Petunia's back and looking down at her feet.

"I didn't know about that…'' Von said apologetically before they all started paying attention to Fily once again.

"So here's the deal, Venedette said we shouldn't split up but that would cost us so much time to find this secret store. Our only clue is the snow and the fact that it's a potion's shop so I suggest we all go around town in groups of two or three and ask if they're familiar with this coupon," Fily announced and raised her hand to show them a crumpled colorful coupon that Monica gave her earlier.

"How did Monica make Fily believe such an obvious lie?" Gem thought to herself and even looked at Petunia who was thinking the same thing after seeing the cheap-looking coupon between Fily's fingers..

"How are we going to show them that if we only have one copy?" Von asked as if looking for another fight with her again, but instead of answering his question, Fily only took a folder of printed papers from the digital table's mouth and slammed it on the table.

"Here you go," Fily said with a smile that was so sarcastic, even strangers who would see would immediately run away because of the sinister energy that she was giving with her smile.

Lei grabbed the brown folder from the table reluctantly and pulled out several copies of the coupon that looked a lot like the original except for the crumples and brighter colors on the new one.

"Are we good now?" Fily smiled at Von again who was now too scared to talk back to her because of that sinister smile that's making him nervous and uncomfortable.

"S-Sure,"

"Okay then, let us now go to the navigation room and watch the hail outside with Venedette." Fily clapped her hands and went outside of the room immediately after hearing the loud thuds of ice droplets clashing with their roof that was made of fresh dirt from what she's assuming was a hail storm outside, leaving the room dead silent and a little bit scared of her because of her reaction to Von.

"Did we do something wrong? What happened to her?" Lei asked while also preparing to leave.

"I don't know, maybe she really just had enough of Von's stupidity." Petunia shrugged.

"What?! Aren't you supposed to be glad that I'm joining your stupid little treasure hunt now?"

"It's not stupid, Von. We're doing this to save Petunia," Gem cut off Von's words calmly while standing up, preparing to leave the room with Petunia and go to the navigation front where Fily said they should go and watch the hail storm outside. 

"Let's go." Lei paused in between the open door while looking at Von who was seemingly angry and confused about something that's on his mind.

"Von?"

"Tch, I wish I should've just stayed home instead of dealing with those insensitive females," Von ranted while passing through the door that Lei purposely held open for him.

"What's wrong? I thought you're enjoying this ride?"

"I thought so too, but Gem wouldn't play with me anymore and those two keep getting on my nerves," Von answered Lei's question while stomping loudly on his way to the navigation room and sporting a very deep frown.

"Have you ever thought about fixing your temper first? You get too annoyed easily and those two probably didn't like that. You were even fighting with Gem just until recently. I'm sure you'll come around, but don't just wait for it to happen, do something to make it happen," Lei suddenly gave him a lecture about friendship even though he's the one who's supposedly the reserved and non-friendly type.

"What happened to you? When did you start talking so much?" Von stopped in front of the Navigation's door and faced Lei for an explanation.

"I'm just letting myself be free from all those restrictions that I put upon myself while serving as your bodyguard," Lei explained briefly, which Von thought was good and sad for him at the same time.

"Right, you have been demoted because of my greasy temper," Von muttered, falling in a deep realization about what's wrong with him and his attitude and why people dislike him.

"That doesn't matter, I'm still here to keep you safe and company. Although it's not my job to do so anymore, I don't mind being here just to save your ass every time. And besides, we're still friends, right?"

"Right… I'm still not used to your talkative side," Von said and narrowed his eyes before proceeding to the navigation room where he was met with a large exhibition of ice bullets falling from the sky.

"So this is what a hail storm looks like in real life," Von thought to himself while being mesmerized by the magnificent combination of ice and snow falling from the sky.