The next day, Kyle woke up from his sleep very early.
Ever since becoming a "ninja," he had maintained the habit of morning workouts.
After all, to become a ninja, it wasn't enough to just have powerful ninjutsu—taijutsu was an essential part of training too.
Now, even after switching careers to wizard, Kyle had no intention of giving up exercise.
Just imagine: when everyone thinks you're a long-range artillery mage, you suddenly pull out a massive greatsword and charge in with a "There's a homo unzipping my pants!" Who could predict that kind of sudden shift in fighting style?
Arriving in the Gryffindor common room, Kyle found that, at this hour, not a single Gryffindor had gotten up yet.
He glanced at the sky outside the window—oh, the sun hadn't even risen.
After leaving the tower where the Gryffindor common room was located, Kyle encountered an unprecedented major problem.
How was he supposed to get downstairs?
Yesterday, when he returned from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor common room, he had followed the other Gryffindor students.
But now, going down alone...
Kyle's gaze drifted to the window nearby. It seemed he'd have to use the same method he'd employed yesterday to get to the Charms classroom.
Meanwhile, on the second floor of the castle, in Professor McGonagall's office.
As a diligent educator, Professor McGonagall had always made a habit of rising early.
That morning, she got out of bed before dawn, as usual.
When she approached her office window, intending to open it and breathe in the first fresh air of the morning, a dark shadow suddenly plummeted past her office window.
Did a giant black rat just fly by?
Professor McGonagall froze for two seconds before reacting.
"Merlin's beard! A student's fallen from the building!"
Professor McGonagall drew her wand, and a burst of silver light shot from the tip, coalescing into the shape of a cat.
The cat-shaped Patronus sped through the castle, heading toward the Headmaster's office on the eighth floor.
Professor McGonagall, her face etched with worry, rushed out of her office and sprinted toward the lawn outside the castle.
As the person at the center of the Hogwarts falling incident, Kyle had no idea what the first witness, Professor McGonagall, had done.
After sliding down the ancient castle walls to the ground floor, he ran straight toward the distant Forbidden Forest.
Reaching the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Kyle began his morning routine—100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and finally a 10-kilometer run around Hogwarts Castle.
"Ninety-six..."
"Ninety-seven..."
"Ninety-eight..."
As Kyle sweated profusely, crimson dawn light soaked the eastern sky, and the vast earth, once shrouded in night, unknowingly shed its black veil.
"Ninety-nine..."
"One hundred..."
Having finished his hundred sit-ups, Kyle sat up straight. Just as he was about to start the third exercise, the sound of footsteps crunching through fallen leaves reached his ears, piquing his curiosity.
With a few leaps, Kyle climbed into a nearby tree and peered toward the source of the footsteps.
In the distance, a massive black figure was sneaking this way.
Using the leaves to conceal himself, Kyle waited until the figure drew closer before finally getting a clear look at their face.
It was a giant, easily over three meters tall, wearing an enormous moleskin overcoat. His long black hair and beard were tangled in a wild mess, nearly covering his entire face, making him look rather frightening.
Kyle remembered seeing this person yesterday while eating in the Great Hall.
The giant was carrying a large sack stained with suspicious bloodstains. He passed under the tree where Kyle was perched, heading deeper into the Forbidden Forest, completely unaware that someone was hiding in the tree he'd just walked past.
Curious about what he was up to, Kyle followed.
Leaping from branch to branch behind the giant, Kyle tried to avoid making too much noise as he trailed him to a certain spot deep in the Forbidden Forest.
The giant seemed to sense something and stopped in his tracks.
Suddenly, six points of light glowed in the dim forest.
No, those weren't ordinary lights—they were six gleaming eyes.
Kyle stared at the shadows not far away, locking eyes with a monstrously huge dog.
This dog was absurdly large; the three-meter-tall giant was nothing in front of it.
It had three heads, three pairs of fiercely spinning vicious eyes, and three drooling mouths. Saliva dripped like sticky ropes from its yellowed fangs.
Holy crap, this dog is ugly as hell. That was Kyle's inner thought.
The three-headed dog let out a deafening roar and lunged at the giant.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
A wall of earth rose in front of the giant, blocking the three-headed dog's pounce.
"What are you standing there for? Run!" Perched in the tree, Kyle shouted angrily at the stunned giant below.
"No! Please don't hurt Fluffy!" The giant's voice sounded desperately anxious.
Kyle: Huh?
Hearing the giant's words, Kyle was baffled. The hand seals he'd already formed, ready to unleash an Earth Spear, came to a halt.
A massive paw suddenly tore through the tree Kyle was standing on. With lightning-fast reflexes, Kyle leaped to another tree before it collapsed.
"Fluffy! Stop!" The giant stepped in front of the three-headed dog, which still wanted to continue its attack.
"So, this three-headed dog is your pet?" Two minutes later, Kyle squatted by a freshly lit campfire, asking the giant beside him.
"Yeah, isn't he cute?"
Hearing the giant's words, Kyle glanced at the three-headed dog nearby, which was ferociously tearing into a huge sack of meaty bones. He couldn't see how it had anything to do with the word "cute."
"Are you a Hogwarts professor?"
"No, no, no, I'm not a professor. I'm the gamekeeper at Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest patrolman. My name's Rubeus Hagrid. You're that little boy Professor Dumbledore brought back yesterday, right?"
"Yeah, I'm Kyle Grindelwald."
Upon hearing Kyle's surname, Hagrid suddenly went stiff all over.
"Um... could you not tell Professor Dumbledore about me keeping a three-headed dog?" Hagrid asked cautiously.
Kyle vaguely guessed a few reasons why he'd make such a request.
So he didn't agree right away. Instead, he countered, "Is keeping a three-headed dog not allowed?"
Hearing Kyle's question, Rubeus Hagrid fidgeted uneasily, twisting his beard as he said, "Well... it's, uh..."
Got it—Hagrid's reaction spoke volumes.
Kyle patted the giant's knee. "If keeping a three-headed dog isn't allowed, I think it'd be better if you reported it to Professor Dumbledore. I'm sure he'd let you keep raising it."
Seeing Hagrid waver, Kyle pressed on, "Plus, with Dumbledore handling it for you, it'll save a lot of potential trouble. You don't want it hurting any students in the castle, do you?"
Hagrid nodded, then scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh, Kyle, could I trouble you to report this to Dumbledore for me?"
He didn't dare tell Dumbledore himself.
"Of course, no problem," Kyle said readily, staring at the three-headed dog nearby.
He'd thought the three-headed dog was a bit ugly at first, but now, the more he looked, the cooler it seemed. If he could train it into a ninja hound like Akamaru...
Kyle imagined himself and Fluffy performing Inuzuka-Style: Fang Over Fang together...
Never mind, never mind. This three-headed dog was better left for Hagrid to play with.
Ugly rejection. Total disdain.
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