Into A New World -Genshin Impact

Chapter 8

The two stood silently in a room. It was a simple office. Four desks neatly placed in front of each other, with black office chairs behind them.

All four were equipped with their own set of screens, keyboards, and pen holders.

One side of the wall was adorned by windows facing the hall, the other held floor-to-ceiling cabinets. Everything was done in a dry white and gray tone.

Venti's intuition had led them to this room, but there was obviously nothing special in it.

Justin browsed through one of the folders he had taken out of one of the cabinets. Disinterested, he closed it and slid it back into the row of folders, which were carefully sorted by date and occasion.

He looked at Venti, who was staring critically at a blank wall.

"I don't know if we should take that much time" he said anxiously, but Venti waved off his worries.

"They won't show up here anytime soon" he replied. Justin was about to ask what he meant when he remembered the invisible wall that had stopped the bullets from hitting him. It was probably something like that.

"Then... do you have any idea of what we're going to do now?" he continued to ask. In his eyes, they had already come as far as anyone could come. The trail had led them to a simple room with nothing special about it. Maybe Venti had been mistaken.

Justin sighed inwardly. All this for nothing.

Venti turned to him, his arms folded, and he seemed lost in thought. Then he looked up.

"Do you remember how many men we took out?" he asked, and Justin nodded. "Eight," he said briefly, and Venti met his gaze with a expectant look in his face. "And how many did I say were in the building?"

Justin frowned "Eleven."

Venti nodded again and smiled "Well you see" he looked up innocently "I have no idea where the remaining three have gone"

Venti looked at Justin and waited for it to click in the boy's mind.

"They could have left the building though" he said hesitantly and Venti raised an eyebrow.

"Outside?" he asked almost disappointed by the question, "where the wind is freest?"

Justin blinked "Wait..." he shifted his weight to his other leg, "so you're telling me they're still here?"

The bard just smiled at him and pointed at the room around him.

"I don't know much about how things work around here, but I do know enough people who have a fondness for secret hiding places."

A light dawned upon Justin.

"And you can't just track them down?"

Venti shrugged "Under the ground the wind is rather restricted and so my senses are blocked." He turned back to the barren wall he had just been staring at all this time. "I can only say that in this room is very likely the entrance" he braced his hands on his hips. Justin just sighed.

His gaze fell to the window. The hall was still lit by the fire that was blazing outside. But the red light was mixed with a constant blue flashing. He had heard the sirens some time ago and had also told Venti that even if he could hold them all off for a while, they were still running out of time.

He turned to the wall as well. There had to be a mechanism somewhere. He had watched enough movies to know that it could be anything.

Carefully, he scanned the wall, knocking a few times in a couple of places. It only made a dull sound.