Once the screen was neatly folded to the other side of the room, Charlotte saw a gate-like portal on what supposed to be a white wall. It was pitch black, with swirling white circle in the middle, indicating that there was some kind of pulling force generating from the portal.
The mademoiselle stepped closer to the portal and stretched out her right hand to touch it. Instead of hitting the supposed wall, the hand disappeared behind the portal.
"Wow…." Charlotte's jaw dropped. This was the most incredible thing she had ever witness.
"This, is one of the remaining few portals that connect us to the underworld that still exist in the human world." the mademoiselle began to explained.
"Underworld?"
The mademoiselle stepped aside and began to pulled the folded screen back to its initial position.
"Sit down Charlotte. It's going to be a long meeting for all of us"
Once all of them seated comfortably on the chairs, the mademoiselle began to explained about the underworld.
" Many centuries ago, our universe were divided into three different world. The heavenly world, the human world and the underworld. As you already know, the human resided at the human world while the God and Goddesses live in the heavenly world and they are still living in their respective world up until now. But it is different for creatures in the underworld"
"Different? How?"
"Well, to start off, those who lived in the underworld were creatures who could not fit in with the ordinary humans. They are mostly made up of either human who have supernatural ability or different variety of creatures ranging from mystical beast to harmless small creatures like…. gnome for example"
"Gnome exist?!"
"Yes! In fact underworld have all kinds of fairies calling the place as their home. But sadly, all good things came to an end. Unlike the human and heavenly world, the underworld was always in chaos and very volatile due to altercations between different creatures living in the world. The last straw occurred almost a thousand years ago when political fractions from the biggest clans which dominated the underworld began to fight against one another" The mademoiselle stopped for a while to take a breathe.
"I think the next part of this story should be told by the only sage left from the underworld" she passed the virtual baton to Mr.Kelly who had been quite ever since.
All heads in the room turned toward the silver haired man.
"The underworld was a vast place." Mr.Kelly broke his silent.
"There were too many clans and fraction formed within every inch of the land. However, they were few prominent clans that had the grand dreams of conquering the whole underworld to be under their rule. They began to initiate fights upon fights against each other to gained the label of the strongest clan in the underworld. This had lead to what was known as the Last Great War between these clans that eventually destroyed the entire of the underworld."
He let out a heavy sigh.
" War was nothing but medium created by the elites to gained power against other people. War begets nothing but pain and suffering for next generations. War destroyed everything that they laid their eyes on. People in war launched indiscriminate attacks even toward the innocence ones. At the end of the day, none of the clans managed to gain their footing to conquer the underworld. What happened next, only brought a long and painful fate to all of us."
The man took his time to reminisce back on the story told by generation to a generation laced with pain and regret.
"Underworld was not as simple as the human world. Just like it's inhabitants, the world itself possessed a unique power that was unfathomable to us.I guess the mother nature decided that she had enough with us greedy folks. At the end of the Last Great War, the world changed drastically. Drought came by and it never rain for a long time. The river and lake were shrinking and our green landscape slowly disappear. Our land turned barren to the point that we can no longer live there."
Charlotte could feel his voice shaking while he was telling her the story. She began to feel bad for the man.
".… because of that, the creatures in the underworld gradually moved to human world seeking for a better place to live. However, there's a price for that. Living with humans means that some of us had to hid ourselves so that we can blending in better with them. It was difficult in the beginning, but we managed to overcame it after a while"
" How did you guys manage to fare?"
Mr. Kelly flashed a weak smile at the curios Charlotte. "just like we used to fight in the underworld, we did not immediately bonded together when we leave the underworld. But eventually, we realized that life would be much easier if we stick together in a large systematic group. Hence, we put aside our differences and decided to rename ourselves as the Underworld Associate to remind the younger generations about the place where we came from"
There was a brief silence filling the room before the Sage continued with his story.
" Putting aside our differences, all these big clans cooperate with each other to make Underworld Associate's members lead a better life in the human world."
" Wow….this is so much for me to take …." Charlotte meekly admitted.
"It's ok, take your time. I know it can be quite overwhelming for you. Thank god you already have prior knowledge that we - people with supernatural ability- exist thanks to your incredible ability. It helps soften the blows"
"But still… I have a lot of questions to ask"
"Pray, tell me. Let me see if I could answer your questions"
"Hmmm…. what is the relationship between your story about the underworld with this shop?"
"Ouhh…that. Well, a long time ago, there where a lot of portals such as this one over here, connecting between these two worlds. However, as the time goes by, they began to disappear one after another. No one knows why. But, we did try to preserve the few of them that were still left"
He pointed his index finger at the folding screen.
"That portal, was on a the very few left in this. Hence, all of Underworld Associate decided to work together to build this place. It was because we could not let go of the only portals that connect us to our motherland. In fact, we were the pioneer that settled in this area. We built this building and assigned a clairvoyant to be the guardian to guide this place"
"You mean, people who lived in this alleyway were the Underworld associate?"
"Not anymore. When the humans began to flocking this area, most of us dispersed and decided to go our own way. Except for this particular shop, all of the resident in this area are humans."
"Hmmmm…can I ask one more question?"
"Yes you can"
" If the underworld is barren and no longer suitable to be inhabit, why do you insist to painstakingly preserve the portal?"
"Because some of us still paid our visit to the world which we used to call home along time ago. Not to mentioned, they were few of us who still living in the underworld. The Fairy Clan for example, still inhabit what's left of green forest in the underworld-"
"Fairies!! Fairies do actually exist!?" Charlotte was so excited she was practically yelling at Mr.Kelly.
"Ouh yes. We have different clans in the underworld. The fairies is one of the most prominent ones"
"How many clans do you guys have?"
"Lots of them. However most of the smaller clans went extinct when they migrated to human world. Some refused to be affiliated with Underworld Associate. For example, the vampire Clan - like the one you have met just now- refused to cooperate and becoming increasingly hostile. Hence, Only the biggest five currently left" He replied.
Charlotte felt like she had hundreds more questions to be hurled at the patient man. However, she was afraid that she would went nuts if she took all of them in one stride!
"Do you have any more question Charlotte?" the mademoiselle interjected. Charlotte smiled and shook her head.
'Liessss!!'
"No. I don't have any"
"Good. Now we need to get back to our initial objective why I invited you to my shop" she turned her attention to Mr.Kelly.
" Seeing the ruckus just now, I kinda have glimpse on what you are about to tell me" the man uttered the word casually.
"You are not a sage for nothing. Yes , I found several disturbing signs about 'them' lately. They sent thugs to create ruckus in my shops last week and today, they have shown us how bold they can be by appearing on the daylight"
Charlotte did not really understand who is 'they' that both of them were referring to. However, deep down inside she knew that it had something to do with the vampire that both Roux and her defeated just now.
"I wonder how the vampire managed to get into this shop. Has my spell had lost its effectiveness?" the sage began to scratch his chin.
��� We need to alert other clan leaders. New meeting should be done regarding this!" the mademoiselle appeared to be determined regarding this 'meeting'.
Mr. Kelly however, shook his head slowly.
"You know how difficult it could be to gather all of them under the same roof. It's going to be a huge pandemonium"
The conversation went on for a while afterward. Charlotte lost interest in them afterward as she was still clueless about the names and things mentioned by these two extraordinary figure.
The only thing she was looking forward was the place to sleep for this night and her excitement to start working by tomorrow.
Mr.Kelly did not stay long. He left right after finished discussing with the mademoiselle.
Afterward, the mademoiselle proceed to arrange for her accommodation at Mr.Jones' tavern. The old man seemed still dazed and oblivious about the event that had occurred in the antique shop.
That night, Charlotte slept peacefully at the room beside the mademoiselle's. Charlotte really did looking forward for the new chapter in her life tomorrow.