" Ahhhhhhh monster!!" another woman who had passed through the alleyway , shrieked loudly and ran to the opposite way.
Some of the curious souls decided to lingered around to observe the living mannequin who had her left shoulder busted just now!
"Look! The mannequin is alive and moving!"
" A woman was engulfed in flame and turned into dust! Is that a vampire ?"
"Mother!! I'm scared!"
Roux and Charlotte froze on the ground. They did not know how to control the situation. A lot of scared witness had already gone from the alleyway while the remaining curious onlookers began to flocked around them.
The situation had spiraled out of control!
"Miss mannequin! What should we do?" Charlotte went panic.
"I..I don't know" the equally panicked Mannequin stuttered.
Suddenly, all the onlookers that was circling them ceased talking altogether. They went eerily quite and had blank expression on their faces.
Without being told to, they slowly dispersed and resumed to walk away as if nothing interesting happened on the alleyway just now.
"Roux! Charlotte!"
"Mademoiselle!" both of them were relief to see the mademoiselle scurried hurriedly toward both of them. She had 'worry' etched on every inch of her face.
"What happen just now?!" she demanded an explanation while helping both Charlotte and Roux to get up from the ground.
"We were attacked by a vampire just now" Roux tried to explain.
"What?! A vampire? How did a vampire managed to enter the shop?! I just went to fetch the Sage and this happen!!" the mademoiselle was hysterical at this point.
"Mademoiselle, I think it's better for all of us to get into the shop first before my spell wore off in a few minutes"
Charlotte and Roux both lifted their head and looked at a man who was standing not far from the mademoiselle.
The man appeared to be in her early forties with shoulder-length , silver hair on his head. He had a prominent dark circle under his eyes as if he had went on and not getting sleep for three days straight.
The man was donning all black, priest-like uniform complete with a stole that hung on his neck. He was also holding a walking stick like an upper class gentleman. He had a weird comforting smile plastered on his face.
" You were right. Let's go inside the shop" she ushered all of them inside.
Once the mademoiselle stepped into the shop, she let out a chilling shriek. Both Roux and Charlotte flinched when they heard the shop's owner screamed her lungs off seeing the mess that was caused by their fight just now.
"My antiques!!!!" the mademoiselle had her face squished between both of her palm. If she thoughts her heart going to explode seeing Roux and Charlotte surrounded by the public, now she wanted to drag both of them to the guillotine.
She slowly turned her face to both of them. "Somebody care to explain how the hell did THIS happen?"
She seemed so livid that even the usually carefree Roux was at wits end on how to evade from being blame on.
"Don't be angry mademoiselle. Let me help you" the man began to muttered something under his breath . In the blank of an eye, everything was back at their normal state. The butchered statue appeared as if it had never been slayed and the shelf was back on the wall with all the antiques rearranged nicely back to its original position.
Even Roux's shoulder was mended thanks to the man's powerful spell. Charlotte's forehead wound disappear too.
"Thank you Sir" the mademoiselle sounded genuinely relief seeing the damaged goods in her shop had been restored.
"What should I do with this man?" he pointed at Mr.Jones - who was still laying on the ground - with his walking stick.
"Cleared up his memories and made him walk out of this shop as we are going to have an urgent meeting in my office after this" she instructed.
The man then chanted another spell. Mr.Jones suddenly woke up with the same blank expression on his face and promptly exited the shop. He even flipped the open sign to close so that no one would bother them.
"Wow…what an incredible ability!" the mesmerized Charlotte could not help but cried out loud her amazement seeing the silver-haired man smoothly taking control of the situation with only using several chants!
All of the people in the shop immediately turned their head toward Charlotte's direction. They had conveniently forgotten that Charlotte was still an outsider at this point.
"What should we do with her mademoiselle?" the man began to inquire on how to handle the young girl.
The mademoiselle began to scratch her chin while in deep thought on how to answer the particular questions.
"Ouhhh….please Sir , mademoiselle, do not erased my memories. I swear I would not tell any soul about what happen in this shop" the poor maid begged to spared.
"Mademoiselle, did you just put her on probation just now? Why don't you just hire this little girl here. She's good" Roux offered a solution.
"Good? How?"
"Well for starter, she managed to see through the vampire's disguise in the very first place! Even I did not notice it at that time. Without this girl interference, Mr.Jones would be dead already"
"You see through the vampire's disguise?" Hint of astonishment sparkled across her face.
"Yes. I did." she admitted
"How?" she sounded in disbelief.
"It was a power that I was born with. I could see a lot of supernatural things that cannot be seen by other people. Especially when the entities tried to camouflage their features from human's eyes"
"That is an incredible power. Are you part of the underworld associate?" the silver haired man seemed to be interested in knowing more about the young girl's ability.
"Underworld associate? What is that? This is my first time hearing about it"
"She's a human? This is even more baffling!" he exclaimed. "Having a supernatural ability is rare among ordinary human! Is this something you inherited from your parents?"
"No. My parents did not have this ability"
"Interesting!Mademoiselle, what do you think about her? Do you want to hire this young lady or not? If you have no interest in taking her in, I wou-"
"No. Nope, thank you Sir. But I think she would fare better in my shop than in your scary Sorcery School" the mademoiselle had already decided.
"Awhhh…don't be mean about my school. My students weren't that bad" The man looked quite offended by the mademoiselle earlier statement.
"Well, your powerful students scared me off. This young girl going to get bullied by them in the sorcery school"
"I can nurture her power…"
"No. I would not allow it. Not everyone is talented enough to be a sorcerer. She is going to waste her youth in that school…"
"Wait!" Charlotte cut the mademoiselle off. "Sorcery school? Sorcerer? Magic? They actually exist?!"
"Well, of course young lady. We, Sorcerer or wizard - what ever you like to call us - do exist. Didn't you see how I cast the forgetfulness spell on the people on the street so they would forget about the incident just now? We learned a lot of spells in my sorcery school"
"Your sorcery school?"
"Ouhh…I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Edward Kelly. I am the headmaster of the only sorcery institution left in this world, The Ambrose Academy" he held out his hand to her.
This is the first time someone wanted to shook her hand! Charlotte awkwardly reached for his hand mirroring his exact stand. Their hands intertwined in a vigorous handshake .
"Do you want to go to my school?" the relentless man bent down and put his face closed to her. Charlotte realized that his smile had never fade the entire time they were interacting as if it was his default facial expression.
Despite that, there was something quite chilling about the constant smile. Though it was nothing resembled sinister aura like the one projected by the vampire, but Charlotte could not help but to think the smile was fake and planted by him to make him appear more approachable.
Taken aback, Charlotte rejected the offer and thanked the man politely.
"Awhhh that's so bad then" finally, the man relented.
" Sir, have you forgotten about your real intention coming to my shop? Lets get into this room, it is much safer. Roux , you get inside too" she instructed the mannequin who was on her way back to her usual spot.
"Charlotte" she turned toward the young maid. "I guess, you are now officially affiliated with Underworld Associate. I would like to invite you to this meeting so you'd know what you were getting yourself into" she tilted her head toward the room.
Once Charlotte entered the room, her curiosity deflated. She thought she was going to see something incredible in the room. But, it is indeed a normal office room.
With a table clearly belonged to the owner at one end of the office, Charlotte found that the numbers of the guest chairs in the room was too much. There were five of them in total.
Charlotte also was surprised to see that the mademoiselle was an animal lover. She had a cockatoos sleeping in a bird cage that was hung close to the window. Surprisingly, the door of the cage was not closed.
That bird mus be a tame one!
Nonetheless, the most intriguing item in this room would be the huge painting that divided into five different frame that was put behind the office's chair.
While it was Charlotte first time seeing a painting with interesting written characters that she couldn't read on it, however, she was much more interested with what's behind that particular painting.
"So it seemed that you can see through the folding screen" The mademoiselle commented when she saw Charlotte's eyes was fixated at the direction.
"Folding screen? It's that the name of this painting?" Charlotte asked the mademoiselle.
"Yes. The frames aren't there without any purpose, it function as hinge to allow the painting to be folded"
"What's the 'thing' behind the folding screen?"
"That 'thing'?" The mademoiselle move around the table and stopped right beside the painting.
"Young lady, let me introduce you the folding screen first. This is my favourite antique originally hailed from China, a country located far from our place."
"Is this screen is something that you can found easily in the country"
"Yes. Any folding screen. But not THIS folding screen. This one is different. It has magical effect. This folding screen has the ability to shield whatever behind it, from the sight of someone who had ill intention toward them"
"This 'thing' that you are hiding is powerful. I can feel them…" Charlotte muttered quietly under her breath.
"Yes! In fact this is the reason why The Morpheus existed in the first place" the mademoiselle pushed one side of the folding screen and the painting moved neatly revealing the powerful 'thing' that was hidden behind it.