She seemed puzzled, and yet she wasn't any less puzzled than William.
"May I ask what's going on here? And who are you?" William wasn't acting impolite, but he hated to be in a situation that he didn't understand while everyone else seemed to know the ins and outs of it.
"We found him outside the capital," as if he wasn't here, or as if no one heard what he said, the old master who brought William here responded, "he just came out of the blue, without using any of our formal routes."
"Interesting," the ongoing discussion was something that told William that all the paths leading towards the capital were closely watched by this young lady's masters.
And that made him hurriedly change the topic, avoiding any unneeded curious questions and doubts, "can you tell me what's going on here?"
"We need your help,' Anjie placed aside the news the old master just shared with her for now. She didn't have time to investigate this, and planned to do this after resolving the current crisis, "your team also needs your help…"
"My team?!!!" William's face changed abruptly when she mentioned his team. He already had a bad feeling about them. And hearing what she said made this feeling grow to a higher scale of worry, "tell me everything."
She started telling him everything in great detail, didn't hide anything, not even the fact that she forced his team to come here like what happened to him.
She didn't like lies, as they always end up discovered in the end, causing more problems than solving any. The more she spoke, the more William got puzzled and enraged.
"So you're telling me that some sort of a drawing appears up there and that's why you drew my team into this mess? Without even knowing what they were going into?!" he was feeling very enraged at her, and that made her sigh before explaining the current situation of the king.
She didn't hide the king's identity this time. She didn't feel that much guilt about using William's team, but she needed the latter to get motivated to help, not get enraged and hold grudges towards her.
"Weird… And the king is the only one affected to such an extent?" William was puzzled by this. It was understandable if others suffered from such side effects of this wind, but only the king made it more like an assassination attempt or something, "can I see him?"
*Vroom!*
Just before she'd say anything, the wind blew and the scenes of that fog appearing at the ceiling with the drawing showed up again. He went into silence when he saw this drawing, feeling more shocked than anyone else at their first time seeing it.
He recognised this drawing right on the spot. It was indeed a nine tailed fox drawing, but not his. This was the drawing of his sworn enemy, the fox of the outer world.
The drawing was clear, and there was no room for error in identifying his nemesis. Yet he couldn't help but think about why his enemy appeared here, out of all places, trying to kill the king of an insignificant kingdom.
The Novistic kingdom might be strong, but it wasn't the strongest in this world. There were far stronger kingdoms in both continents, and that made him doubt this was in fact a move against him.
And when he gave this idea little thought, he realised it wasn't practical. He had no relation with the royal family in the kingdom and taking them down wouldn't greatly impact him.
"Something feels off here… I feel like I know the answer to this puzzle but can't get it… What am I missing exactly?" he thought to himself, while closely watching everything in this place.
He wanted to find any clue that might guide and help him in solving this mystery, but he couldn't. The wind didn't ring any bells in his mind, and he didn't smell any bad odour so far.
As for the fog, he couldn't tell anything remarkable about it from his spot. He knew he had to go and touch it, examine that weird fog and even go towards the world that laid behind it.
"You said there is a pocket world lying behind these walls," after the wind calmed down, William suddenly said, "and this wind comes from all the holes in the entire region, right?"
"What do you want to ask exactly?" Anjie was slightly relieved that William was open for cooperation and showed interest in dealing with this mess. She didn't know if he got anything from the nine tailed fox image that appeared on the ceiling, or perhaps seeing this drawing made him believe what she just said.
"I want to know if you can access this world from any hole, or it's just exclusive to here," William paused, and she simply responded and explained that they could get access to the same world from any hole.
"... But we can't determine if we appear at the same spot or not," she ended her answer with this. And he kept nodding in silence, didn't say anything even after the occurrence of two more rounds of winds.
"How to access that world then?" William had no other option but to go into that world and investigate things himself, "and don't get me wrong, I refuse to do things for free. Besides, you owe me big by sending my team without my presence like this."
"I didn't send them alone, my mentor went with them!" she blurted back, feeling more bitter than William about what happened.
"It doesn't justify what you did," William calmly said, "I want to know what I'll get from doing this."
"Saving your team isn't enough?!"
"If so then you'll be my enemy, not my friend," William said something that got an instant hostile reaction from everyone standing on Anjie's side. But she stopped all by simply raising her hand.
"I will grant you one thing that I can do," she paused, "if it's in my power, I'll do it."
