That was a missed signal.
"Hoo—"
Almost simultaneously, Athena let out a long breath. In those brief yet seemingly endless seconds, her entire life flashed before her eyes. Finally, as Mundungus mumbled and put away the rune stone, her heart fell from her throat back to her chest.
Now, there's no time to relax.
The woman's pupils lit up again, and Mundungus's eyes flashed with a purple light. He spoke, "Alright, it seems the gentleman is a bit busy..."
"So..."
Charlie still held the old boot in his hand and instinctively asked.
"Here's what you'll do, you take them first, make sure this woman doesn't die, and then... I'll report back to the gentleman later."
After briefly rethinking, Mundungus nodded, no longer worrying, and instead signaled Charlie to leave directly. The latter also nodded, raising the boot before him, "Come on, everyone gather around, get ready to depart—this is a long journey, you'd better hold on tight."
He commanded in a loud voice, with an undeniable tone—months of high-ranking experience had lent Charlie, who was only a regular fire dragon keeper a few months ago, a hint of leadership quality—
And the ten black-robed wizards gathered like machines receiving precise orders, silently and swiftly, forming a tight encirclement around Charlie and Athena.
"...So, be careful, stay in touch, just contact me if anything happens."
Mundungus nodded, waved his hand, and made a final farewell.
"Buzz—"
A clear and powerful reverberation sounded, as if the boot, which had traversed the desert, suddenly burst into light. The intense spatial pull instantly grasped all those who had placed their hands on it.
Their figures began to twist, elongate, and fade in the light, like reflections stirred by an invisible giant hand, colors peeling away, contours blurring.
Mundungus stood in place, squinting, watching the rapidly unreal figures in the light. A few seconds later, the glaring light retreated like a tide, along with the spatial hum, disappearing into the air. The shop, now filled with dust for some reason, returned to deathly silence—
As if the previous tension and debate were a dream, leaving only Mundungus standing alone in the empty room.
A hint of doubt suddenly rose in the man's eyes.
That woman... just left like that?
Mundungus blinked, rubbing his eyes as if waking from a deep trance.
He glanced around the empty shop, the dusty stone walls, the shelves crammed with items... Everything that happened just moments ago replayed in his mind as if on fast-forward—Athena's incoherent recollections, Charlie's sudden anxiety, his own seemingly "decisive" decision... Wait! His decision?!
Damn, what decision did he make?!
A chilling sense of coldness, like a venomous snake that had been lurking, suddenly shot up from his coccyx, crawling up his spine and spreading across his entire body.
Mundungus started feeling numb on his scalp; all the hairs on his body stood on end.
"What... what the hell did I just do?!"
He instinctively cried out, his voice distorted and altered by sudden fear, sounding a bit shrill in the empty shop, "I just let that... that woman the boss personally instructed to watch carefully go just like that? And not just far—"
The belated panic engulfed him like a tidal wave.
Why did he previously feel everything was so "reasonable"?
Now that his rationality returned, recalling every word that woman said—it was all full of the aura of intricately woven lies. How could he have believed it so easily, as if under a charm? Even thinking it was the most correct and efficient choice at the time?
...If he said he was under the Imperio, would the boss forgive him?
"It's over, it's all over..."
Mundungus felt as if his bones were removed, his legs gave way, but soon, he snapped back, lunging like a drowning person for a lifeline, scrambling to his feet, his hands trembling, frantically searching for that crucial communication rune stone.
He had to contact the boss immediately—the person had just left, maybe there was still time to recover?
But just now, the boss didn't answer his call, and now—
However, just as his fingertips touched the cold jade surface, a calm voice suddenly echoed in the empty shop, so clear it seemed to whisper right by his ear, "Look back—"
This voice...
Mundungus was hit as if by an invisible Petrification Curse. He slowly turned his neck—it seemed he could hear the "creaking" of his own vertebrae—as he looked behind.
The source of the voice wasn't coming from the door, nor from the fireplace, but from a corner of the shop he seemed to have inexplicably overlooked.
There was a dusty, cobweb-covered black wooden cabinet that looked long abandoned—he remembered now, it was one of Old Bokin-Bok's pieces of junk, a broken Disappearing Cabinet he didn't bother to deal with when the shop was transferred, not knowing where it connected to on the other side.
He had always thought he had thrown it away.
And at this moment, the cabinet door, which should have been closed, was slightly ajar, with a faint glow seeping from it.
The voice earlier had likely floated out from that gap.
"What are you standing there for? I don't have time to help you with the door right now."
Another voice came, and only then did Mundungus realize he wasn't hallucinating. He hurried forward, pulling open the cabinet door, revealing an entirely unexpected scene—a pond instead of the darkness and narrowness he had anticipated—
Yes, the interior space of the cabinet seemed twisted, larger than expected, and at the center of that space, a figure holding a fishing rod captivated all of Mundungus's attention, clearly, that was William—
He wore a black trench coat, sitting on a small stool, intently focused on the water surface before him.
The only odd thing was, he wore a helmet.
"Si-Sir?"
Mundungus spoke hesitantly.
William turned his head, looking at the somewhat bewildered man, casually taking out a stool and placing it beside him, "Wanna cast a line?" he asked, pushing open the visor on the helmet.