They immediately started packing Dorita’s stuffs. While Dorita was putting vial of potions into a suitcase, Theo and Gyllena were approachig the shelves that were positioned on the back corner of the room. There were various type of books and glass containers being displayed.

Theo took one of the books carefully, as if he was dealing with a treasure worth his life, his eyes were sparkling. "To think that I will have a chance to hold The Umbrella Witch’s research record... I don’t have any regrets left!" He muttered while scanning the content of the book with intense focus.

Meanwhile, Gyllena still hadn’t fully recovered from the news of her parents’ deaths. Her face remained sullen when she was piling the books and the glass containers onto the floor in order to make it easier for them to pack them later.

However, seeing how focused Theo in reading the book made Gyllena irritated, her veins were visibly bulged on her forehead. "Hey, stop reading. We have to transport everything to my mansion before the midnight!" She reprimanded him.

Theo chuckled in response, he raised his chin to look down on her.

"Tsk, tsk, Gyllena, oh Gyllena," he shook his head, his eyes looking at the Noble lady as if looking at a stupid, clueless lamb. "You don’t know how great this book is. This is the record of everything the world need to destroy the Abyssal New Gate, if only they are willing to receive the fact that Lady Dorita is better than most of them!"

Gyllena frowned, her lips twitched. "I don’t care about such thing! We have to—"

Theo placed his finger on her lips, interrupting her. "But you will, because the truth is inevitable!"

In the end, Gyllena couldn’t hold herself anymore. She slapped he on the face, which made Theo lost his balance and fell to the floor. However, even after that, Theo was still smiling, the book was held tight. "Dying for the truth... Not bad at all."

"I said, I don’t care!" Gyllena yelled.

Didn’t want for them to excalate the fight, Dorita pulled Gyllena away from Theo when she wanted to throw a book at him. The witch’s cheeks looked a bit red because of Theo’s shameless words.

"Alright, alright. Don’t fight, you two..." She said with a resigned tone.

Still laying on the floor, Theo showed a touched face. "Thank you for saving me, Lady Dorita."

Which made Gyllena irritated even more. "You little...!"

It was the first time her secret room became this noisy. Dorita was wondering whether it would become her daily life from now on after she decided to follow them. Part of her that had grown accustomed with lonely life rejected the idea, but the other part of her, who longed for connection, thought that it wouldn’t be that bad to be noisy.

"Ahh, what a wonderful occasion. For me to be able to interact with the Umbrella Witch’s collections."

"... If you are not going to stop talking, then let me close your mouth for you, Theo Roost!"

Dorita’s mind drifted back to the time when she was still just a little girl. She recalled about her life with her siblings. It was just as noisy as this. No, it was not noise. It was life. The spore of something she wanted to protect all this time.

They returned to work after Dorita let Gyllena go and let the Noble Lady kicked Theo several times.

"What a day I was experiencing..." Gyllena muttered while contnued to setting the books and the glass containers to the floor with the other things. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

It was then, that her eyes saw something shimmered at the shelf of which she had just emptied. She found a folded paper. When her fingers touched the paper, she could feel its smooth texture. It was unmistakenly a high-quality paper. Not something a normal person could afford to buy. She hesitated when she wanted to unfold it, her mind had guessed the origin of the paper. She took a deep breath, steeling herself, before she opened the paper. As expected, it was a letter. And not from some random people, but her parents. To be more precise, it was her mother’s writing.

____

To my lovely daughter,

Gyllena.

How are your days? I hope that you don’t feel lonely without mother and father.

Your father and your uncle had successfully secured the artifact. It was an artifact from an ancient civilization of Gavethe. A cooper cup used to perform sacred ritual when they were sacrificing old people to their gods... At least that was what your uncle said.

We should’ve be back at the spring, so be a good girl and wait mother and father patiently, okay?

With love,

Mother.

_____

Gyllena breath hitched. The tightness she felt before returned to her chest. She disliked this feeling. But she couldn’t resist it. Because it was from the immature self of her. The lonely girl she had tried to forget all this time.

She wanted to ask the gods. Why should they take her mother and father? Or ask those cultist. Why would they even took their lives? They were innocent people!

This time, Gyllena suppressed the cry with her trained persona of the head of the Layver Family. But the emotion was too pure to be completely concealed. That made her expression looked colder, and isolated. A lonely girl who chose the stillness to run away from sorrow.

Right then, Theo tapped her shoulder. "Hey, what are you doing, standing still like a statue? We had the work to do, remember?"

The approach felt natural, but he did it because he sensed the change of her mood. A distraction from the heavy feeling she felt at the moment.

Gyllena was just about to yell at him again, but Dorita also approached her then. The witch didn’t say anything. She just offered a smile, took the letter from her hands, folding it, before she then placed it back on her palms.

Bringing the letter close to her chest, Gyllena smiled. A relieved smile. She might have lost her parents, but in their places, now she had Tizmilly, her childhood friend, Dorita, the mysterious, gentle witch... And the strange man named Theo.

She was not alone anymore.

...

They continued to work afterward. They tied the books and the glass containers with the rope made of mushroom ribers. Theo then cast Levitation onto them, leaving them free from the influence of gravity, which made everything easier to carry.

When they was just about to carry everything out of the secret room, Gyllena halted her steps when she found a poiton vial filled with green, shimmering liquid on the mushroom table.

She walked toward it, reaching to grab it. "Lady Dorita, you forgot that one—"

But Theo stopped her. His hand held her wrist just before her fingers could touch the vial. "Don’t touch it," he said solemnly. "It is an explosive."

Color drained from her face. Gyllena recoiled from the vial, retracting her hand. "Wh-what, explosive? Why?" She asked, confused.

Dorita was the one who answered her. "To trap the ’rats’ that come to this room later."

Gyllena understood the implication in those words. She gulped. Inwardly, she thought: ’They are kind people, but they are terrifying!’

Dorita, who placed an explosive like it was nothing but a daily activities. And Theo, who didn’t even blink or say anything to warn her about it before she reached toward it even if he knew that the vial was an explosive. Being the only normal person made her realized how dangerous the two actually was. Theo had even turned her back garden upside-down.

’How am I even ended up with these people in the first place?’ she thought with a resigned sigh when she pushed the floating tied books out of the secret room with Theo and Dorita.

Gyllena had endure the painful smell of the drainage again before they exited the dirty place. Because they were with Dorita now, a fugitive, they had to move more stealthily. They couldn’t use the roads anymore and was forced to traverse through narrow and dark alleys. Their only light sources were the lamp Theo was holding and Dorita’s staff—the Home of Fungi. The moonlight couldn’t reach the alleys, after all.

After tens of minutes of walk, they finally reached the mansion of the Layver Family. They climbed the wall with the aid of Levitation.

Once she stepped on the wall, Dorita widened her eyes a little. Her gaze was warm when she looked around the whole mansion. "So this is the place they were bragging about. Indeed, this is a good place," she muttered softly, her lips formed a gentle smile.

Gyllena could hear her murmur clearly, however. She turned at her curiously. "What they said back then?" She asked the witch.

Dorita didn’t immediately answer. She let the cold, fresh wind that she hadn’t felt for a long time to touch her skin, chase the smell from the drainage away, before she looked at Gyllena’s eyes.

"They said that the mansion is a wonderful house, where their cute, lovely daughter live."