Chapter 99

99 Into the Wolgala (Part 2)

“Werewolf?! No! You’re joking, right?” Anne looks around at the three of them. Vale looked away, while Henry and Justice just grinned from ear to ear at Anne. “Oh, come on, I was being serious!”

“Look, how about if we enter the carriage for now, and we will tell you about the folklore in our journey?” Justice open the carriage door and convinced Anne to go for their journey right away.

“Alright, we go now, but as soon as we are out.” Anne’s eyes locked onto Justice.

Nodding his head, Justice offers her his hand to help Anne enter the carriage. She grumbled but take the hand and enter the carriage. The rest of them followed her, and the journey begin to the Wolgala.

From the middle floor of the Alchemia tower, two people looking at the carriage went away. The mother and son duo stared at the four of them from the moment they were packing their bags and having a conversation outside the carriage.

“She will be back. Her destiny brings her to this world, even though we don’t know what exactly her journey is.” Said chief Amaris.

Brom leans into the window frame with his eyes looking into the distance, “That’s the problem, mother, we don’t know who she is, or was.” He left his place and sat at the chair, “All we know about her is that she wasn’t from this world and I felt her presence all of a sudden.”

“Son, maybe you begin to have feelings for her.” Chief Amaris teased Brom while a test glass pipe was in her hand. She was still in the middle of brewing the cure for the bewitched spell.

Brom shook his head, “No not that, I have this talk with Anne, and she told me that my attraction to her was purely out of curiosity,” Brom lean on the wall, remembering the conversation that he had with Anne, “She wasn’t wrong, I knew it now.”

.....

“Then, whoever she is, we hope she wasn’t something that we were afraid of.” Muttered Amaris to Brom.

“Yeah, let us hope so.” Said, Brom.

Meanwhile, the carriage goes further and further away from the Alchemia tower. Inside the carriage, there’s a grumbling purple hair color girl. Justice, Henry, and Vale looked at her with slight giggles and chuckles at their end.

“Hey, I thought you were going to tell me about the werewolf story. Now the three of you just teasing me.” Anne gruntled while she was glaring at all of them, “Where’s my story?”

Vale had never seen this cute side of her, he give up and begin to tell the story, “I don’t know why you have never heard of this, just a common story about a direwolf that falls in love with a beautiful woman, and together they have children together.” His voice then changed, with a huge grin on his face, “then comes the time for the children to become something else, not a people, not a wolf, but both... A werewolf.”

“Awoooo!!!” Henry begin to howl, making Anne scream and jumped from his seat.

The three gentlemen laughed while Chikara hissed at them. Sometimes he gave them a glare. Anne’s familiar never liked them out of jealousy. Sometimes there’s a species of animal or monster that is clingy to its master.

Anne, of course, was intrigued by the story. The story was like her old-world lore of the werewolf. Although some elements of the story were not the same, the main object of the story was the same. Werewolf is a hybrid of wolf and human, or the word in this new world, people. The people in the new world never identify themselves as human.

Anne always tried to figure it out. She asked her parents about it, and the only thing that they said was that they had never heard the word human. She continued on to ask Justice about the mysterious item, wolfsbane.

“So, what is the wolfsbane?” Asked Anne.

Henry took the small trunk under his seat, and open the trunk to reveal a small silver knife, “Wolfbane, one of the most expensive and rare knives in the kingdom, only a hundred being made because the metal is so rare.”

“Silver?” Anne muttered when her hand held the knife.

“You know the name of the metal?” Justice asked her as he, puzzled by Anne’s answer, “You do know that commoners are never aware of this metal because it went extinct for such a long time.”

Anne knew right away that she was in trouble, looking at the face of the three of them.

“Oh, so I wasn’t supposed to know the name of the metal? Really?” Asked Anne, very carefully to Justice.

“Well, even just a handful of nobles knew the name of these metals, Why do you know about this?” Justice won’t give up. He was so curious about her answer.

“I knew it from my best friend, she... I mean, her father told me the name of the metal a long time ago.” She knows that it was a weak answer, but that was the only excuse she could conjure for now.

“Oh, your friend, the one from the palace ball, right?” Said Vale to her. “Look, the two of you should remember. I also knew about silver. I knew it from my grandfather’s friend, so of course, there are commoners that knew about the rare metal.”

Hering Vale trying to defend her, making Anne almost jump from her seat and hug him. The only thing that makes her stay seated was Justice staring at her, studying her, until Henry softly punched his arm.

“Hey, why are you looking creepily at her? You don’t need blood anymore, right?”

Justice flustered, shook his head and answered, “No, of course not. I was just curious, that’s all.”

Looking at the situation, there’s only one way Anne could avoid the suspicion.

“Curious about what, Justice?” Anne asked him directly, instead of cowering in her seat.

It was working. They feel guilty, especially Justice. She looks at them without a hinge, making sure that she doesn’t nervous at all. She looks like the innocent party that is hurt by any suspicion that comes from them. If she is nervous or withdrawn to her seat, it will raise their suspicion more.

Thinking out of the box, that’s what Anne needs to do, she felt that there was a target on her back now. Not just from Justice, Vale, Henry, and Xavier, but also from Brom and his mother. She maybe looks like a fragile young girl, but her mind was wiser than her teenage body. The carriage was away and getting closer.

On the other way, inside the capital, Heirim and some of her friends were having a conversation, and one of them just have the juiciest gossip about the nobles around the capital.

“You know my uncle is the chief of the kitchen staff in the palace, right?” Said Bechone, a girl with a pudgy nose and a wide eyes, “He just told me some amazing news!”

Heirim’s eyes go to Bechone. Most of the time she ignored her because her ranking as the noble is the lowest of all of them, but she was intrigued when Bechone mentioned about the palace.

“Tell us, what happened inside the palace?” Asked Heirim to Bechone, although she masked her curiosity by sipping her caftea and fanning her face.

Bechone face was lit, she adored Heirim so much, she nodded her head and begin to tell the story, “last night my uncle came to visit and he told me that two days ago, prince Javier brought his girl friend, the merchant’s daughter Amelia to dinner with his true father and the empress, and out of nowhere that playboy prince do the unthinkable.”

Whispering came from all over the table. Heirim knew where this story will go, but she asked the girl to continue the story anyway, “What Javier has done this time?” Heirim always loves to put her superiority by calling the prince just by his name.

“Alright, so prince Javier... proposed to that merchant’s daughter, in front of King Edward and the empress Liberty!” Said Bechone with a dramatic intonation.

Everyone screaming and some even laughed. Heirim, on the other hand, kept her calm expression and just gave them a smile. “Oh, he finally did it. I never knew he had it on him.”

“I know, right? And know this, not everyone happy about it, only king Edward looks ecstatic, prince Jason just storm out, and empress Liberty?” Bechone put a paused for a dramatic storytelling, “Oh wow, she was livid! I heard from my uncle she was yelling at prince Javier, king Edward even need to calm her down.”

Alastor, one of Heirim’s best friend, gave her a snicker, “That was because you never getting closer enough to empress Liberty, she was a very brazen empress.”

“True, my aunt told me. She was more into sword fights than having tea with the socialites.” Said another noble.

“Well, if it’s involved your mother, I would prefer to go into sword fight either.” Muttered Alastor.

Most of them snorted on their caftea, while the bickered begin on the table, Heirim was lost in her own thoughts, she remembered about Amelia on one of the party not long ago, Heirim was thinking to throw a party after the exam announcement, and she will make sure Amelia the merchant’s daughter will be on the list of the VIP. Heirim begin to hatching a new plan while she was smiling behind her caftea cup.