Chapter 171 - Knowing Petunia

"The bees are always so kind, now onto my trip," Miss Nabi muttered to herself while waving back at the bees who helped her with the directions and getting rid of that hummingbird.

Good thing their intel was good and the Hummingbird was really scared of the bees that even the sight of them leaving the beehive made it run for its life immediately.

"But I'm still not sure when that Hummingbird will strike again so I better stay low. I haven't encountered any other hummingbird in this area though, that was a first. Wait, does that mean he's lost and is just in desperate need of food?" Miss Nabi continued muttering to herself while watching her surroundings warily.

After getting the instructions from the trusty bees, Miss Nabi was now headed towards the end of the winter forest, the same path that Petunia took the first time he came here, and with just a few flaps of her beautiful wings, Miss Nabi finally saw the end of the forest on top of the mountain and the hail storm that she hadn't seen in ages before since she first came here to the Alps.

"Wow, I can't believe I survived wandering around that forest on my own. I thought there would be more threats to my life in the outer circle of the forest, but since there's none, I should just be thankful and focus on my task instead." Miss Nabi flew in a higher altitude to take a look at the familiar building not far from her.

"How could I forget this place when it's literally the first thing that I saw here in the Alps? Ahh, Nabi, hold yourself together!" she complained to herself with a silly gesture of punching herself, but the higher she flew the closer she could hear the hitting of the ice bullets to the ground… or was it a hummingbird's flapping of wings?

"Ahhh! Help!!!" Miss Nabi shouted and swirled around while trying to avoid the hummingbird's fast break.

And because they were both small, it was easier for them to maneuver through the thick bushes of the trees on this high altitude on a mountain. 

"I need to think of something, fast!" Miss Nabi said while wishing for the hummingbird to at least understand her words, but unfortunately for her, the hummingbird was one of the few animals left in this forest that doesn't even know how to communicate with anybody.

They only move to eat or escape danger and that's it. And since the blue hummingbird was on its own in this forest, it's very unlikely that it will leave its food alone. Let alone try and communicate with it.

"Unless…" Miss Nabi whispered while searching for something on the trees.

"Wait a minute, fast guy! I'll let you eat something, just not me!" Miss Nabi shouted and dived on one of the tree branches where she saw a caterpillar gliding slowly towards a leaf.

"Hello, caterpillar!"

"Hello?" the caterpillar responded with a lost face as if he couldn't find where the voice came from.

And not even a second later, just when miss Nabi flew over his location, the bird stopped for a moment in the same branch as the caterpillar and stared at it, probably weighing which one would satisfy him the most.

The fat caterpillar or the pretty butterfly?

Of course, the answer was obvious, the bird chose to eat the caterpillar and Miss Nabi had to run off to somewhere very far away just before the hummingbird starts getting hungry again.

"Thank goodness the outer circle of this forest doesn't recognize me as a chief anymore," Miss Nabi said in relief and wiped the fake sweat in her forehead as if she was still a human.

"I feel bad for that caterpillar though, she could have been flying with me soon after her metamorphosis but I baited him to the bird… rest in peace, caterpillar-nim," Miss Nabi said and almost had a heart attack when a human suddenly bowed and said, "Rest in peace," after her.

'What? Did he just hear what I said? Without even knowing the context? Have I been gone for so long that I don't know how humans think anymore? I thought humans don't care about this stuff so much to even pay their respects like that?' Miss Nabi thought to herself while watching the other humans look weirdly at this man who just suddenly bowed in the middle of the line.

When the man noticed that he was the only one bowing, he quickly got up and fixed his posture while still looking for the person that he thought said the words that Miss Nabi said.

"Well, anyway. I think that's enough proof that my voice is still relevant in the human ears. Now for Petunia…" Miss Nabi muttered and flew around a different line of people to not confuse the poor man earlier anymore.

"Have you heard about a talking cat these past few days? I hear her name's Petunia and she's very rich!" Miss Nabi said to a female who was carrying three kids simultaneously with a basket in her arms.

"Huh? Who said that?" the woman said without answering her question which led her to move on to another line instead.

Miss Nabi tried asking the same question several times to different people, and if not asking around who asked the question, they either just ignored her or tried to shoo her away heartlessly.

"Wow, why do they shoo away such a beautiful butterfly like me?! Are their lives so sad and lonely to discredit me of my mental healing abilities through looking beautiful in front of them?!" Miss Nabi whined as her will to do this silly thing was coming to an end already.

Not long after flying aimlessly around the humans, Miss Nabi saw the first person that she came into contact with earlier.

With the hopes of him doing the same thing he did earlier, Miss Nabi dived down and landed on his hair so he wouldn't see or even notice her around him.

"Pst, I need to ask you something," Miss Nabi said and when he noticed the man trying to look around, she immediately followed with, "Don't look around or try to find me. Just answer my question if you don't want to be hurt."

"O-Okay, what is it?" the naive guy who looked like he was still in his late teens with a white robe and slightly more well-kept hair said tensely, probably actually believing that his life was in danger if he wouldn't answer the question properly.

"Have you heard of that talking cat around here somewhere?" Miss Nabi said, going straight to the point already.

"A talking cat? You mean that talking cat that's also a candidate in the upcoming Dekadalaw tournament?"

"She's a candidate for the tournament?" Miss Nabi said, accidentally using her surprised and less scary voice which urged the young man to look back again but Miss Nabi quickly prevented him from doing so.

"One more attempt and I will really harm you," she said and composed herself for another question.

"Which team is she on? And who are the members of her team?" 

The young man's eyebrows suddenly curled the moment this question came out from Miss Nabi's mouth, "You don't know about the Princess' team? Her team's literally the strongest team that the government has gathered for us ever since the first Dekadalaw tournament and not to mention the training time they got- wait why am I telling you this? Are you planning to hurt them too? Ah, I messed up, didn't I?" the young man said in panic and eventually squatted on the snow because of the embarrassment.

"Do you know where the princess is now?" Miss Nabi asked, but figured that the boy wouldn't tell her anything anymore due to his wrong impression on her so she quickly flew away from his head without even a notice, leaving him talking to himself which made the people around him look at him questionably once again.

This time, instead of asking more people about the information on Petunia, Miss Nabi decided on flying directly to the checkpoint's headquarters since it would make more sense for them to know about the Princess' current location if she were currently in the Alps with her whole team, considering that Petunia couldn't possibly just come here on her own just like that.

And the first thing that Miss Nabi did was go to the navigation team who monitors all the vehicles that come through the checkpoint.

Since the Princess was probably rich and there are only a few rich people that come to the Alps for business purposes only, it would minimize the scale of her search and eventually even find the current location of the Princess and her team and ask them for help about Petunia.

"Although I don't know if I could trust them… this is the only shot I've got to save her," Miss Nabi said and started another one of her voice phishing.