Chapter 3: Two paths
Translated by: Chua
Edited by: I, TN and Elkassar
This contestant sat down accordingly by the table, his hands obediently placed on his knees. Not even a second later, the soup ladle instantly bent! Snape was unconcerned, the soup ladle slightly swayed in his hand and returned to its upright state.
“Again.”
Snape declared indifferently.
This time, that contestant started to place more effort. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead before that soup ladle slowly bent. He panted as he wiped his sweat, once again looking at Snape expectantly.
“Again.” Snape continued to make him repeat his earlier actions.
Attempting the third time, that contestant required more effort. His entire body started vibrating slightly, as his eye socket looked like it was going to pop out. But after using full strength he was able to slightly bend the soup ladle. Snape persisted with his dead appearance, waving his hands as he pointed to that contestant saying.”
“Sit over there.”
That contestant had no clue on his performance result, as he helplessly went over to sit. At this moment, the beardy who was sitting beside Sheyan utilized his nightmare imprint to transit a message. This method no doubt would require utility points, but it prevented people from eavesdropping.
“That guy is called Jackson, he is a core member of the small party, the Banks syndicate. Rumour has it that his spirit has exceeded 25 points, and his known ability is called ‘fire tooth’. It is a flame type attacking skill, its might is relatively strong and can even cause burns.”
Presently, another contestant gathered up his courage and sat in front of Snape. Sheyan slightly nodded, sending another message over.
“Looks like Snape’s selection criteria is based on the contestant’s basic attribute: spirit and intelligence.”
Although Sheyan had pretty much figured out the intentions behind Snape and Hogwarts school, he still purposely asked Beardy.
“Heard Hogwarts only accepts those children with natural talent for magic? Then what is he accepting us for?”
A flash formed in Beardy’s eyes, his lips curling into a cold sneer.
“Magic is not limitless, it will also require the caster’s MP. After emptying out MP, if one wants to continue casting magic spells, then he would have to use his own life points as supplement. Hogwarts has a total of 4 schools. Even if students enlist when they are 10 – 12 years old, they would have to stay for at least 7 years. The entire Hogwarts school residence consists of at least 800 people, in total it will exceed over a thousand, yet the teaching and administrative staff only has 20 people!”
“Alright, even if there are countless magic and several house-elfs to support, the lifestyle of those little brats are definitely not an easy thing to support you know. A child under 14 years old would occasionally face certain difficulties in providing for themselves. Furthermore teenages would pose even more troubles, ‘Puppy love, sex, miscarriages, rebelling, jealous, drugs, fights, gangs’….. These are only the problematic issues faced by an ordinary school head. If these kids further possess destructive magic capabilities, then the problems it would bring would be twofold.”
“Therefore, they require several unskilled workers who grasp elementary magic. Their use would be the dirty and cumbersome jobs, while the venerable teachers would only require to move their mouths to teach them.” Sheyan was suddenly enlightened as he made a conclusion.
“Right, this world further possess magic which can completely erase people’s memories….this settles their ultimate worry. Once these temporary workers stayed for too long, they would then be awarded a considerable amount of remuneration and return to normal civilization after their memory wipe. Oh, wait, it is return to the Muggles society.”
While the two communicated, 7-8 others sat beside Jackson in succession. But after that, no one else went forward. Everyone understood their personal attributes and refrained from going up to lose face. Instead, those 3 managers stood at the side looking extremely nervous as they gritted their teeth. Probably the headcount that passed the audition would be related to their reward premium or even their year end bonus. Thus, they kept on displaying their flamboyant body language, trying their best to urge everyone try auditioning.
Under the awkward silence of the scenario, the 3 managers separated and started promoting. Unfortunately, Sheyan became their first target. Faced with this manager’s unceasing rambling of words, he wavered extremely quickly and shrugged his shoulders.
“Alright, I’ll try.”
Actually, Sheyan really hoped to interact directly with Snape. He wanted to find out how powerful, how patient he was and so on. His forbearance could be said to be the most valiant in the entire Harry Potter series, if Sheyan could gather a little information that would be not bad already.
When Sheyan sat down, he was leaning back on his chair with his eyes closed. When he realized Sheyan’s presence, his eyes slightly squinted open, using a probing glare to swiftly sweep through Sheyan and then displayed an extremely understandable action of waving his hand. Sheyan helplessly shrugged his shoulders as he stood up to leave. He was not surprise at this ending at all. Up till now, his intelligence was 5 points and spirit 4 points. Besides, the cruel fact was that ordinary people’s spirit would have even reached 5 points.
Snape’s audition concluded after 10 minutes. Two fortunate people managed to enter the honorary namelist at the end although they only managed to sway the soup ladle slightly. The remaining few were completely disregarded as Snape casually waved his black cloak. The guests within this bar seemed to be used to his sight, they only carried on drinking and whispered amongst themselves, not looking over here a single time.
Currently, Sheyan naturally sat together with Beardy. He introduced himself to Beardy as ‘Seaman’. Beardy introduced himself as Jack, and offered a significant phrase, ‘Jack as in Jack the Ripper.’
Jack was a fairly common name in western countries, it was roughly the same as China’s Qiang Ge. Apart from Captain Jack Sparrow, the other famous one was Jack the Ripper. He dismembered at least five women, plucking out their innards and even wrote a letter to challenge the police. More importantly, he never got arrested, and his name had long ago disappeared into history. Beardy adopting this name, naturally it contained a certain significance of ruthlessness and ferocity.
After exchanging their names, they shook hands and laughed. They also introduced their basic capabilities.
“I’m Jack, I can engage in mid range battles, obviously competent in close combat. Weak point is….. Unable to endure a prolonged fight.”
“I’m Seaman, good at successive high-speed attacks. Because I have high defensive capabilities, therefore prolonged battles are advantageous to me.”
“I sincerely feel, meeting you is really good luck.”
“Same here.”
The atmosphere inside the bar sunk into silence after Snape left with the selected contestants. The remaining people started whispering into each other’s ears, especially those that were already from a party. Currently, there were 12 contestants left, obviously they all inclined to attacks using physical force. They were abandoned and thus was feeling slightly grievance.
Instead Sheyan sat on his chair and shut his eyes to meditate. He was determined that the nightmare realm would never set such a high threshold from them. One primary main mission forcibly dumping away two-thirds of the people that came. Obviously, one cannot exclude the possibility of killing off one of those selected guys to rob them off their trust object. But the drop rate when a contestant dies is only 33%, if the motive was really that then wouldn’t the difficulty of this world be excessively overboard.
Thus, Sheyan could basically infer that there was another path from this nightmare realm, it was specifically arranged for these innocently unselected contestants. Since Snape had already appeared in this recruitment scene, then those physical fighters were vividly portrayed out. Suddenly, a thunderous booming of a motor engine stopping transmitted from outside. The doors of the pub were pushed open, that 2.5 metres tall, 2 metres wide door was thoroughly congested by an immense shadow. Even if that was so, that shadow still had to lower his head before entering the area.
This was a huge guy with thick beard and hair, he completely exceeded the height of an average person with his tremendous physique. Yet, his eyes sparkled with a quick-witted intelligence. His lips and nose were rather plump, ingeniously concealing the oppressive force from his immense body. After resting his gigantic and heavy butt onto a stool in the bar, that beech stool gave off a cracking groan but finally managed to bear the weight.
“Rubeus Hagrid.” Sheyan swiftly reiterated that name in his heart. “Father’s a wizard, mother’s a giant. He possess a gift for magic, but proficient in animal caring and can roughly tame any dangerous creature. He should currently be the key administration staff of Hogwarts, guarding the hunting grounds and more importantly he has gained the trust of Dumbledore.”
“Eh, Nick? Get me a glass of whiskey, don’t add ice.” Hagrid gestured towards the owner of the bar, and blissfully sipped the whiskey when it arrived. He then directed a resonant tone towards the remaining contestants and signalled to them.
“Lads, looks like I’m responsible for the rest of your audition. Firstly, please sit around me.”