Chapter 301: Get the Intel for Free First
[Sothia?]
In the middle of the pasture, Evans frowned down at the pale blue sigil still blinking on his forearm.
A moment ago, the mark had flared and rearranged itself into a line of text that flickered briefly, then vanished. Since then there had been no further response.
The content of that brief message left him vaguely uneasy.
[Talk later – we need to run for our lives first? What did you run into?]
He glanced sideways at the Hufflepuff lady beside him, making sure she did not look impatient at being kept waiting, then returned his attention to his arm.
By rights, that Great Lake ought to conceal some kind of danger. The last time the Chimaera had gone there, it had been hit by a weakness curse strong enough to lay it low.
But from the way the creature had described things, there should not have been any solid, physical threat in the lake itself.
Thankfully, the mark lit up again before long, the glowing strokes drawing out a neat, flowing hand.
[All good! A whole swarm of giant mosquitoes suddenly came out of the lake, but I've already legged it with the Chimaera!]
Evans let out a quiet breath of relief and wrote back:
[What exactly happened?]
On the other end, the girl took a moment to compose her thoughts, gave a brief account of events, then added, in a script practically vibrating with confidence:
[Once I'm sure it's safe over here, I'll bring the big guy back. Those mosquitoes showed up way too fast – their nest has to be close by. All I need to do is return to the area and have a proper look around. I'm bound to find it!]
[Once I do, I'll just pump a wave of steam into the place. I guarantee however many there are, that's how many will die!]
Reading the sheer confidence in her words, Evans felt a sudden, ominous twinge.
A thought struck him, and he wrote back, a little tightly:
[You said the water didn't answer you just now, right? What about the plants? Can the plants around you respond to your call?]
[Nothing from them either. Why?]
[Then… can you still find your way back to where you were?]
From what he knew of Sothia, as a Spring Nymph she had been able, from birth, to instinctively receive guidance from streams and plants. Waterways and greenery would show her the way forward and keep her moving in the right direction.
Put simply, she had no sense of direction whatsoever. Without water and plants to help, she was hopelessly lost.
He had learned this the hard way the first time he took her to a Muggle street in Paris.
It was one street and a couple of alleys. She had still managed to walk in circles. Evans did not even want to imagine what would happen if you dropped her into a completely unfamiliar forest with neither running water nor responsive vegetation. She could wander into anything.
Still… perhaps it did not really matter.
Where she was now was not the same place they had been standing before. She had almost certainly been dragged into a space similar to the one he was currently in. If she blundered around for long enough, she might just stumble back out by accident.
And even if she did not, with her talent for running away, she ought to manage.
This was the same Sothia who had spent years playing cat‑and‑mouse in a single lake with a water monster the entire French Ministry had failed to get under control. When it came to fleeing for her life, no one could match her.
Shaking his head, Evans exchanged a few more quick lines with her to make sure she really was fine, then lifted his gaze back to the old woman in front of him.
When he had first asked if he could say a few words to his friends outside, the Hufflepuff lady had simply smiled and nodded, then turned to look out over the pasture as if admiring the view.
Partway through his conversation with Sothia, however, her expression had slowly gone blank.
It was like watching a machine drop into standby mode after losing its task. Her face had frozen. Even her eyes had gone dull.
She had warned him she was only a lingering echo from long ago. Even so, this state did not feel quite right.
Some kind of power‑saving mode? He had never heard of active magic having a "low‑energy" setting. That was not how any of this was supposed to work.
And the timing was strange. She seemed to have slipped into that vacant state right around when Sothia mentioned danger.
Frowning slightly, Evans waved a hand in front of her. When she showed no reaction, he tried calling out.
"Lady Hufflepuff?"
Several seconds passed before the old woman twitched, as though only just remembering where she was. The kindly smile returned to her stiff features.
"Your Spring Nymph friend is unharmed?" she asked gently.
"Yes. She should be fine. Can you… see what's happening outside?"
Evans was sure he had never specified that the friend he'd left outside was a Spring Nymph. He had only learned Sothia had run into trouble when she explained it herself. So why was this Hufflepuff lady asking that particular question?
"No, I cannot," the old woman said easily, shaking her head. "When I said I sensed four wizards, that did not mean we were unaware there was a Spring Nymph and a Chimaera beside you."
Her expression turned faintly wistful.
"A Spring Nymph… I searched for a long time in my day and never managed to find a single specimen."
Then her eyes brightened with interest.
"Would you tell me about their habits? I would very much like to know."
"I don't mind. But… how long can this place hold together if we stand around chatting?"
Evans could not help but ask.
If what he had seen earlier really had been some kind of magical standby mode, how long could this space sustain them while they idled?
"Ah. Yes. Quite right. We still have business to attend to. I must pass on what I know."
A flicker of understanding crossed her face at his reminder. She turned back around. The smile she wore was as gentle as ever, but Evans could not shake the feeling that there was something stiff about it now.
Her movements, too, seemed slower than before. Her speech faltered now and again, as though the words were catching on something.
Since when did magic stutter?
He had certainly never heard of it.
Apart from those glitches, however, what she described was more than enough to hold his attention.
"I imagine you have already heard a little about Morgana," she began. "You should at least know that it was by her hand that dark magic was turned into an art of curses and death."
"Merlin will have left plenty of tales about her to give his inheritors a basic understanding of what they may face."
"But there is knowledge that cannot be recorded in any other way. That era has been sealed away. Some things cannot even be spoken of in the real world. Only by creating an entirely separate space, as we have done here, can we preserve them at all."
"For example: how magic was reshaped into what it has become now."
Evans straightened slightly, folding his arms, ready to listen.
"Please," he said.
Whatever was going on with this remnant of Hufflepuff, the knowledge she carried was far too tempting to ignore.
Everything else could wait.
First, he was going to strip this place of every scrap of information it would give him.