Chapter 177 - Legend

"Is it done?" Gem asked Von for the nth time today while looking at the flower that was still glowing on and on.

"How am I supposed to know that?!" Von answered, annoyed at Gem's impatience.

"But I really want to go look for Petunia now," Gem said while pouting.

"Tell me about it," Von said and rolled his eyes at having the tour around Edelweiss interrupted by this flower charger thing.

"How about this, Gem? Do you think we can also put it there and finally activate it?" Venedette asked Gem hopefully, pertaining to her dead Salamandite gem necklace.

"I'm not sure about that," Gem said while trying to remember how her necklace activated, "I'm pretty sure the flower had nothing to do with the activation of my Salamandite. It just suddenly glowed like that when I was on the edge of death."

"I have been thinking about this for a while now, but do you think I also need to be on the edge of death to activate mine? That's the only other solution left that I can think about," Venedette said while thinking out loud.

"I don't think that's the answer, Ven. We'll just have to see after I unlock more chapters in the manual book," Fily said.

"How about the manual book? Do you think it also has something to do with this flower?" Gem asked and pouted again after seeing the flower charger still in the process of charging her necklace.

"This might take the whole day," Lei said in concern to Gem which she only replied with a nod.

"I don't think that's the case too, the book had zero mentions of a flower that could charge the Salamandites even if it was closely tied to the history of Salamanders."

"Why could that be?" Gem asked after Fily's quick analysis.

"We'll find out once we open the rest of the book, these people aren't much of a help to us other than showing us the empty river with drawings anyway," Fily said with a quick glance to the elders which made Von feel upset.

"That's so rude! It's not like they didn't want to help us, they just can't!" 

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Fily said and went closer to one of the elders beside her, "How long do you think this will take?" she asked regarding the charger flower.

"Until sunset?" the elder asked.

"I thought so too," Fily said with a nod and went back to Venedette, "I think we should just go back here later," she said which immediately made Venedette shake her head for a no.

"No, we're going to watch this finish its job. We don't want to be careless and lose this Salamandite to someone else, do we?" she went closer and whispered the last words to Fily which Fily didn't even think about before.

"Who would try and take this away from us?" Fily thought to herself while looking at Gem with remorse for thinking about leaving her Salamandite gems in no one's care.

"We just have to keep our guards up if we don't want to be sorry," Venedette said and few to the topside of the mountain where she could access the whole view of the village from up there.

"Wow, she didn't even take us with her, so what's our plan for later?" Fily suddenly said to Gem and the boys which surprised them. Since Fily had only been talking to Venedette or Gem since earlier and the two of them felt like Fily couldn't even see them anymore.

"We'll have to look around the checkpoint of course," Von said cluelessly.

"How about we start looking for the super-secret witch like in our original treasure hunt?" Gem suggested which made Fily feel somewhat proud of her for being thoughtful.

"Okay we'll start with that," Fily said and scooted closer to the elders who were sitting on the golf carts while watching the big edelweiss flower flash a light blue color in its clear ice body.

"So, have you heard of the very secretive witch that lives here and creates very important potions such as animal-related potions?" Fily asked and even smiled fakely to the elder who suddenly avoided her eyes the moment they heard the word 'witch' from her mouth.

"Why do I feel like you know what I'm talking about?" Fily said and noticed the other kids scooting closer to them, eventually putting Elder Song in a hotspot which Venedette didn't even care about even though she could clearly see them gathering around him.

"Do you know something about this witch, Elder Song?" It was Von's time to ask, and considering the moments that they have spent together telling each other's stories, Elder Song just couldn't ignore him about such an important topic.

His heart was soft for him and Von was well aware of it, making it his strategy as an advantage to get to him.

"W-What do you want from her?" he asked which made Fily and the others sigh in relief and move away from suffocating him a little bit.

"Everything all right here, Elder Song?" some of the Elders who saw Elder Song's uncomfortable expression upon being surrounded by the Leviathan said and even went closer to his golf cart.

"Yes, everything's fine. I was just surprised, that's all. You can leave us now," Elder Song said to his people which made Fily even more curious as to who this witch was and what her connection with Elder Song was.

As the other elders moved away from them reluctantly, Elder Song shut his eyes tightly and cursed very softly before looking at them again as if he was in conflict with himself about telling them the things that he knows about this witch.

"You don't need to tell us too much, just the location of her store will do," Fily said, getting ahead of Elder Song who looked like he was about to tell them another tale from the million storybooks in his mind.

"What? Why would you say that! Please continue Elder Song, if it's another story then I'm very willing to listen to you once again, unlike these impatient girls," Von said and even glazed meaningfully at Gem and Fily with a little hint of disgust.

"Tch, fine. Do whatever you want, just call me up if he's in the part of the location of this witch's store already," Fily said with displease to Von and went to sit on the other golf cart behind Elder Song's golf cart while the other three stayed for storytime with Elder Song on his cart.

After Fily left, Elder Song started preparing his voice for storytime. He even drank two bottles of water from the container that Venedette prepared for them but then just as he was about to start, he suddenly paused with an interruption.

"So what do I get in return after telling you this valuable information?" he asked which tilted off Von from his seat.

"How about we tell you my story once you're done?" Gem offered which seemed to satisfy Elder Song who was nodding while thinking about it.

"Okay, so once upon a time…" Elder Song started telling them the story of a lost girl in the woods that was raised by a family on the foot of the mountain, similar to the mountain where they were at right now, most precisely the other side of the mountain in front of them right now where the village was still small and sparsely populated.

A humble family of hunters took a girl named Heize in after finding her in the woods and learned about the horrible things that the wolves in the woods did to her which she barely escaped from.

They seek vengeance for this child, she looked like a child at that time. But when three of the five sons of that family died because of the same wolves, Heize went berserk and accidentally destroyed the whole village that took care of her, along with the wolves that threatened her life.

Her powers were very unstable, she came from Majesta, the same city that disappeared during the 4010 tournaments for refusing to be prizes for the tournament.

"That's the same city where Petunia came from," Gem said after hearing about the part of where Heize came from.

"Is she a kid like us?" Lei asked which also piqued the interest of both Gem and Von.

"No, but her form looked like one, although I'm not so sure how she looks now," Elder Song said.

"How did you know about her story though?" Gem asked.

"That's my job, little master, now are you going to tell me your story now?" Elder Song said with much anticipation which made Gem think.

"I shall tell you my story once I've done something worth being told," Gem said with a smile and kicked Von out of the golf cart to force him to bring her back to the flower charger.

"Tch, fine!" Von said and grabbed the back hem of Gem's shirt and flew her off to the flower with him.

"Shouldn't we tell Fily first about the stuff that Elder Song told us about that witch?" Von asked when they finally arrived on the disc floret of the gigantic flower.

"I already told her, we just need to grab this so we can finally go to the other side of this mountain and meet with Petunia once again. Where is her Stat-hut collar anyway? I haven't seen any of you carrying it when we got here," Gem said while fidgeting around the receptacle where she placed her Salamandite gem.

"Maybe it's in the yacht, or we should ask mom to make sure?" Von said which Gem agreed with.

"We're coming for you Petunia. Just wait a little bit," Gem said as she watched Von fly off the flower and into Venedette's location to ask the question himself.