Chapter 5: Jobberknoll
Translated by: Chua
Edited by: TN and Elkassar
As Hagrid spoke, Sheyan discovered that the group of agility specialized contestants hadn’t appeared, Jack the Ripper was similarly off the grid. Naturally those contestants that were part of a party started to realize this, Venter raised his brows and asked Hagrid.
“Mister Hagrid, may I ask where are the people selected by Mr Filch?”
Hagrid played with his beard and replied.
“They were directly sent to Filch through the fireplace. If there are no more questions, please hurry a little.”
Following that, they set off to cross the lake. However, Sheyan and the group of contestants naturally weren’t the main leads. They could only gaze at Hogwarts school from afar, and sailed towards the west. On the way, they went past a Quidditch court, then a lawn with extremely tall grass, where flying lessons took place. Finally they arrived near the strange and deep forbidden forest. Four towering and wide wooden houses stood here, this should probably be the housing that Hogwarts had arranged for them.
“Lads.” Hagrid clasped his hands and said. “Congratulations on being a temporary worker for the magnificent Hogwarts school. This will definitely provide you an unprecedented thrilling experience, and of course adequate funding. For your own safety, please remember by advice by heart.”
“The castle grounds are forbidden, you are not permitted to enter.”
“The woods behind you contain many dangers, similarly, you cannot enter there. There is a powerful magic formation covering the boundaries of the forbidden forest, you don’t have to worry about your safety here.”
“I believe you guys have encountered too many bizarre cases today. However in the time to come, you will definitely interact with more crazy circumstances that are seemingly impossible to be explained with science or words. But do not panic, you can look for me once you meet any problem. I stay in a little cabin roughly 200 metres from here.”
“If anyone seeks a little enjoyment or relaxation apart from work, my suggestion is to go fishing by the beautiful black lake, or maybe watch a quidditch match or something. A small rest room at the train station sells alcohol, beverages and even tiny and mystical toys. We will start work tomorrow, goodnight my friends.”
Gazing upon Hagrid’s massive figure slowly fading into the sunset, the remaining 10 contestants immediately divided into three different factions. Surprisingly,the faction with the greatest mancount was 5 people, its head was a contestant named Qiao Gun. The second group naturally had the 28 points strength expert Venter as leader, it comprises of 3 people. And the third group was naturally lone wolfs like Sheyan. Apart from Sheyan, there was another called Diaz. This contestant was cold and detached, folding both hands into his chest he seemed like the sort who was confident in his strength. That was why he could adopt a position to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight (Chinese idiom – taking a back stance while watching others fight).
Although Venter’s group of 3 had the manpower disadvantage, they remained calm and fearless when faced with Qiao Gun. The two groups were in a staring deadlock, but Venter laughed out coldly.
“Qiao Gun, I should inform you, the ‘Banks Syndicate’ is determined to get what it wants this time!”
Qian Gun smirked and replied.
“Banks Syndicate so what? Our Symbiosis sect invested greatly to purchase an assembling rock, allowing our entire party to enter the Harry Potter world. Although your power is great, where are you going to find reinforcement over here? If your Banks Syndicate wants to spoil our plans, then prepare for a blood bath!”
“Bloodbath? Based on you, Qiao Gun? HA HA HA!”
After speaking, Venter took off with his group, and teasingly knocked against Qiao Gun’s shoulder on his way out. They occupied the biggest wooden house. A flicker of craft and maliciousness glowed in Qiao Gun’s eyes, after a brief pause he then led his group to the other house.
There were 4 wooden houses here, every house could contain 5-6 people. The house interior was extremely tidy. The Banks syndicate occupied one house and the Symbiosis sect occupied the other. Two houses remained coincidentally for Sheyan and Diaz respectively.
Sheyan was fully aware that a tall trees attracts the wind, he constantly kept a low profile. When he slept, he did so cautiously in mind of the 33% chance of loot when a contestant dies. This itself gave contestants adequate motive! Fortunately, there weren’t any intense conflict between the contestants and thus it was relatively peaceful. A quiet night.
Early next morning, Hagrid already arrived here. He was holding onto a bag that was filled with 10 badges. Ordering that they had to always carry it as proof of identity if not there will be consequences. After receiving Hogwart’s ‘identity badge’, Sheyan received a list of notification.
“Main mission: Certified complete.”
“You receive 1 achievement point.”
“Continual main mission: Activate acknowledgement.”
“Mission summary: After welcoming the new students, gain the qualifications of remaining at Hogwarts school.”
“Mission description: You are currently on probation, once you commit any mistake you will get fired. You must receive Hagrid’s acknowledgement within the remaining 5 days, and earn a neutral impression with him.”
“Mission pointer: At present, Hagrid’s impression is cold (10/1000), you can raise your impression level by completing Hagrid’s tasks for you. There are also other methods of raising his impression.”
“Mission pointer: If you are unable to complete the series of main mission, then you will be penalized 5000 utility points, but your period of stay in this world will be extended by a week. If within that you are unable to pay up your penalized 5000 utility points, then you will be eliminated.”
Note: contestant’s relationship (impression) with storyline characters are separated into: Hostile, Cold, Neutral, Amicable, Respected, Revered and Worshiped.
There is nothing much to be said about hostile.
Cold: Storyline character will not be considerate towards you, and will not interact with you of their own accord.
Neutral: Storyline characters have some impression of you. If the storyline character offers a special product, one can pay twofold the price to first upgrade their relationship to an amicable one before being able to purchase the special reputable product.
Amicable: The storyline character treats you like a friend, you can purchase any special items from him. Unable to view special reputable products that requires ‘respected’ or higher reputation/ impression.
The rest are reasoned by analogy.
After everyone wore their badges did Hagrid start to allocate their respective jobs. Sheyan was pleasantly surprised as he was allocated as a maintenance crew for boats travelling on the black lake. The mission was: Because the following period will be the peak period of boats, therefore the state of wooden boats used to ferry students must be thoroughly maintained.
This job was undoubtedly bad news to the rest of them, but to Sheyan who even knew magnificent ships inside out, these little wooden boats were like a piece of cake. Hagrid gave time a timeframe of 2 days, but Sheyan completed it within an entire afternoon, he even accomplished it without a single blemish. After completing this mission, Hagrid’s impression towards him had risen by an entire 266 points! If not for Sheyan’s measly charm dragging him down, this job may have even propelled him to a third of his target!
Sheyan wasn’t the only lucky individual. Diaz received a pruning lawn job, he labored from morning till dusk and finally tidied up the flying lessons field completely! One must understand, lawn pruning is a physically intensive job, it also requires enough technique. Firstly, one must determine the temperature and humidity of the soil to determine the pruning strength, next one must understand the nature of the grass cultivating on the lawn. Additionally, after applying the fertilizer, if the requirements were stricter then one would have to further eradicate the weeds.
When a veteran gardener manages a lawn, no matter how vast it is there will not be any visible weeds that will grow out within 3 months. If a newcomer does the work, then batches of grass may even wither within a week. It will look like a person who had a bad haircut, extremely ugly. Furthermore, within a month weeds would start to spring up again. Diaz’s job scope was not in the least inferior to Sheyan’s one.
The other contestants had no clue that Sheyan and Diaz had certain advantages in accomplishing their mission. Yet when they submitted their job report, the wide smile on Hagrid’s face was definitely not bogus. Thus the way they looked upon Sheyan and Diaz was pretty cold. If the Banks Syndicate and the Symbiosis sect did not have any disputes, then they would long have noticed Sheyan and have their guards up against him. In the end, Diaz still appeared extremely unconcerned.
Early the next morning, Hagrid once again allocated different jobs. Sheyan had finally ran out of luck as he was tasked to capture a Jobberknoll at the edge of the forbidden forest. What was worse is that Sheyan had to capture it alive.
At least Hagrid provided Sheyan with some information. From it he could concur that the Jobberknoll had blue spots and eats tiny insects. It would not make a single sound its entire life until the moment where it’s life is threatened, only then will it give out a long cry. It’s cry would be the various sound that it heard of before, beginning with the nicest sound. Its feather can be used for truth serum and memory serum. Except the heart of the forbidden forest, it resides everywhere else.
Talking about catching birds, Sheyan was completely useless. Obviously, this set of missions is a way that the realm tests the cooperation of parties. If Sheyan had joined a party, then naturally a person with the relevant experience would assist him in catching birds, and Sheyan can relieve him of his other duty. Regrettably, under the strict hostility between the two parties, it was hard for Sheyan to feign complying and ask any party for help.