Chapter 164: Chapter 164: Would you like some rabbit, please? (Edited).
Naturally, Tom had to take Harry and Ron with him. Because it was big boss Dumbledore who asked Tom to train them, so he could call it training by taking them around London and putting them up in a luxury hotel for a night?
That's no way to fool a fool!
At this last moment, Tom couldn't send them back, he had to take them with him. But at the same time, he also had to come up with his own answer.
The most common rule in Japanese business management is the so-called Spinach Rule, which means "inform," "contact," and "discuss," and since these three words are pronounced like spinach in Japanese, they are also called Spinach Rule.
Although this rule has been used by the Japanese as a means of shirking responsibility and has led to a very inefficient company, it has some positive aspects. All Tom had to do was "report back," and Dumbledore needed to know how they were doing. But as for Dumbledore's instructions, Tom decided to take them for reference only.
Since Dumbledore was far away in the Scottish Highlands, commanding a thousand miles away, he always remembered one of the founding fathers of military logistics.
Tom first took Harry and Ron to the Leaky Cauldron, sent Dumbledore all the information they had found out and their next steps via owl, and then drove straight to Bristol.
Why not the train? Because trains were less frequent at night, and Bristol was only 190 miles from London, a three-hour journey.
The word "midnight" means late at night, but it actually means from 11 p.m. that day until 1 a.m. the next day, and "midnight" means the same as "night." If you think about it, midnight is not a late night for modern people, is it? For modern people, the real night is "cockcrow," which occurs between 1 and 3 am.
Tom and the others set off in the dead of night and arrived in Bristol at cockcrow.
But it wasn't until dawn when the three, who were unfamiliar with the area, found Burnham Hall at 514 St. Michael's Road.
"By Merlin's beard!" Ron looked at the well-designed mansion, the exquisite wrought iron gates and fences, and his heart fell: My Weasley family is also a pureblood family that has been passed down for hundreds of years, why is it so poor?!
No more than three generations of poverty, because after three generations of poverty, there will be no successors because they cannot marry a wife. Because the Weasley family is a magical family, they broke this curse: three generations of poverty can still find a wife, and still be poor~!
There are fountains in the gardens of Burnham Manor!
But now that the sun had risen, the manor was silent, which was unusual.
Ron stopped the car, got out of it with Harry and Professor Lockhart, and looked inside the manor through the wrought iron gate.
"It feels strange," Ron leaned against the wrought iron gate and poked his head out, "Harry, what do Muggles do with criminal's houses?"
Harry froze, he knew what the discrepancy was: wasn't the house of the criminal who was involved in terrorist activities sealed? Wouldn't there at least be a seal on the door?
Even little novice wizards like them know that there might be clues in this mansion, how could MI6 agents not think about it? The detectives had written about it in their reports!
Harry was a little worried that the agents would get there first and take all the key evidence.
The mansion looked completely normal, which was the biggest anomaly of all.
Tom pushed on the iron door, which opened very smoothly.
Tom: "..."
"Look out, come in!" He stepped in front of Harry and Ron and took the lead into the mansion.
Outside the mansion was a large garden, over fifty yards wide and as long as you could see. In the center of the garden was a three-story cottage, behind which was a hill less than a hundred meters high, covered with fruit trees.
"Why would someone living in such a luxurious house choose to travel by train?". Harry was a little confused by Burnham's mentality.
"There could be many reasons, for example, his driver couldn't make it, or his car was faulty, and of course the most likely reason: three hours straight in a car is too much, unless you have one of those extended luxury Lincolns, but those are also prone to motion sickness" Tom rubbed his sore bottom and gave himself a quick healing spell to relieve tiredness, "And believe me, the most comfortable way to travel this distance is by train."
Mr. Burnham was the man who died on the train, cursed by the gold coin. He was obviously very wealthy. So his train ride may have started a little differently than others. A normal person would have jumped on a crowded bus to get to the station, or a slightly more generous person would have taken a cab or asked a relative for a ride, then waited half an hour in a bustling waiting room to get on the train. The next thing you have to do is pray that you don't get a crying child, a rude seatmate, or a fool with a certain voice or touchy-feely touchy-feely.
For the rich it's a different story. The driver will take you to the station, you can wait in the VIP lounge, there is no noise in the first class compartment, and another driver will pick you up when the train arrives....
It's much more comfortable than being in a car. Of course, if it's too far, it's better to fly. Of course, there's no need to fly when it's a hundred and eighty kilometers.
"So that's it!" Harry nodded, "But, what about the housekeeping staff? where did they go after Mr. Burnham's death?"
With a garden this size, plus the accompanying mansion and the back of the house, it would take a cook, a maid or valet, a gardener and a chauffeur. Four at the very least, and if Mr. Burnham's finances were in good shape, they could go to ten.
But the house was now clearly in a state of neglect.
"Look over there!" shouted Ron, pointing to a spot where he had just seen something white. The three approached and found a skull, half submerged in the grass, its dark eyes staring back at them, with traces of dark red blood still on them. Although the sun was already rising and shining, the three still felt their hair stand on end and their bones tingle.
An ominous atmosphere permeated this exquisite garden, and I don't know if it was a psychological effect, Tom always felt like something was staring at them.
The skull appeared to be canine, with a head as long as a thermos, and the dog itself appeared to be quite small. They found some more scattered bones nearby, probably from the hound.
"It looks like it was eaten by some kind of wild beast, and these aren't very big," Ron said as he looked closely at the remains, big beasts don't gnaw that clean, and he pointed out the teeth marks on one rib, "And the teeth aren't very big either, almost human sized."
"What kind of beast ate the family dog?" Harry was a bit puzzled, "Professor Lockhart, what do you think?"
"Let's go into the house first." Tom decided to enter the house, to find out what was going on, and to find out what had happened to the servants.
The door to the mansion was unlocked, and Harry's jaw dropped as soon as he opened the door: the hallway appeared to have been splattered with dark red paint. It was clear to him that this was not paint, but blood.
Tom pulled out his wand and entered the hall, followed by Harry and Ron, wands in hand.
The furnishings in the hall were also very tasteful: sturdy mahogany tables, chandeliers of thousands of crystal pieces, paintings by various famous artists, not abstract paintings unintelligible to the general public, but real landscapes and figures, and it was also clear that the hall had been furnished with some "antiques", which had now been torn down and mixed in with the table pieces and chandeliers.
Stepping onto the sticky floor, Tom looked around and saw a trail of bullet holes in the walls, suggesting that the place had seen some serious combat, as evidenced by the shell casings and bone fragments left on the carpet.
Tom pulled the palm-sized puppet [Sister] out of the pouch at his waist, placed it on the floor and she instantly returned to her normal size. This is a new function added by Dumbledore, which is more convenient for Tom to transport [Sister].
In this situation, Tom had to be alert.
Crack!
A door to the left of the room burst open and a skeleton in a tuxedo with black flames in his eyes emerged from the room, a Roman gold coin could be seen embedded in the bones of his hand. As he marched, bullets fell from the crevices of his body.
"Get back!" Tom motioned for Ron and Harry to get behind him, cast a Protego Charm and pulled the handle at the same time.
The skeleton sped up and came up behind him....
Whoosh!
There was a flash of silver light, and the skeleton split in two, the flame in its eyes wavered and went out like a candle in the night wind. The tip of the [Sister's] long sword was pointed at the ground, and bright red blood gushed from it, but it was liquid fire rather than blood.
A small glass bottle was thrown to the floor by [Sister]. The bottle contained the blood of Fawkes the Phoenix, and she did not know how Dumbledore got it.
[Destroy a cursed skeleton, reward: +100 magic stones.]
There was an unexpected bonus, Tom hadn't expected to get magic stones for destroying a skeleton like this, and the system was being generous this time.
"Tsk, I didn't expect [Sister]'s movements to become so fast after Dumbledore's upgrade" Tom was astonished. After Dumbledore enhanced her, [Sister]'s hand movements became faster and smarter. The very [Sister] Tom had made would not have been able to draw, enchant and kill in one go, it would have taken at least twice as long.
"The agents must have been here..." was all that came out of Harry's mouth.
Looking at the footprints at the scene, it should be the servants who were contaminated by the cursed gold coins, and then the agents who came to investigate clashed with the servants, and after a fight between the two sides, the agents were eliminated.
"Don't they have that sort of strange little box? why didn't they call for help?", Ron was a little curious. He remembered that it was very convenient for Muggles to contact the outside world.
Harry found a cell phone under the couch, which turned out to be broken.
"Muggle electronics don't work at Hogwarts, so it's probably the same here." explained Tom, picking up an empty submachine gun from the corner, "Looks like times haven't changed at all, at least these thermal weapons aren't very useful for skeletons... and they certainly aren't powerful enough."
Tom couldn't believe it - he got a 280mm naval gun, but it couldn't kill these skeletons? Once the gun went down, the crater was several meters deep...
Could we try to catch one? Tom was suddenly tempted.
There was a sound of wind behind him.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Depulse!"
"Impedimenta!"
Harry and Ron reacted quickly, each using their own prepared spells. They both reacted so fast that it took less than half a second from the time the new skeleton appeared until they launched their counterattack, which meant they were good duelists.
However, it didn't matter that they didn't react, as Tom was able to cast a hindering spell just in time to buy them a second or two to react.
The two skeletons in maid costumes froze in place, and were decapitated by [Sister] in the next second, and the soul fire in their eyes was extinguished.
Tom is good at taking heads.
[Magic stones +80]
[Magic stones +50]
The reward is different...
A rustling noise was heard in the mansion.
Tom raised his wand, "You guys keep them under control, let me kill them, only [Sister] can effectively destroy these monsters."
Tom wasn't trying to keep the magic stones to himself, he was telling the truth: three people who hadn't even mastered the blast spell would be fools to do any damage to the skeletons, so it was better to play it safe, keep the skeletons under control and let [Sister] do the harvesting.
One by one, skeletons appeared in front of them, some dressed as cooks, some as gardeners, six in all.
"Look, Potter, all the servants are here."
The three formed a triangular formation.
One by one, the skeletons rushed at them, trying to tear Tom and the others apart like the previous agents, but Tom's spell always hit the skeletons with precision, holding them in place, followed by a flash of white light.
The skeletons were cut in two and turned into a pile of bones.
[Magic stones +90]
[Magic stones +40]
...
One after another, magic spells were quickly cast from the tips of the three staffs, and the slowest skeleton was fixed in place, but the one in front of Ron suddenly accelerated, escaped Ron's curse and ran in front of Ron.
At that very moment, a white light shone and the skeleton stopped in front of Ron. It was Tom who manipulated the [Sister] to apply an obstacle spell and saved Ron.
After killing the six skeletons, Harry and Ron relaxed, it seemed to them that it was all over. But Tom's face became even more serious: he saw that some of the skeletons did not have the cursed gold.
Worse, he heard more rustling outside.
A rabbit came in through the window, staring at the three of them.
Chapter 165: Chapter 165: Sea of Flames (Edited)
Although Tom and the others were on the first floor, it was rather strange to see a rabbit hopping out of the window. Instead of the usual rabbit, ears perked up and hopping about, he was a bit stiff and lazy, and his fur was covered with dirt. When it hopped up, it turned its head toward Tom and the others.
As he turned his head, Tom could clearly see the rabbit's face: instead of red eyes, they were a pair of cloudy eyes, even with yellow pus coming out of the corners.
"Hiss" Tom took a breath of cold air, knowing now what had gnawed the dog there.
"Diffindo!" The rabbit was split into several pieces at once by his spell, and unlike the skeleton's, this time it didn't return to its original form.
The system notification appeared just in time.
[Ride horses and kill demons (Prologue) - Final opening]
[Mission description: The infested animals of Burnham Manor have become a great danger to Bristow and must be eliminated, if anything is left behind, it will bring a great disaster to the world]
[Mission objective: Find the source of the disaster and rid the world of all demons].
[Reward: Anniversary Celebration (this weekend marks five years since the awakening of the system, and the system has prepared a big fifth anniversary celebration for you)]
[Penalty for failure: Anniversary cancellation, anniversary reward changes to 1600 magic stones]
Tom: "!!!!"
He counted the days, indeed he had the system for five years. He was interested in the description of the "big fifth anniversary celebration", because in his experience, any anniversary would have many rewards or events, especially one to be announced in advance, where there would be not only magic stones to get, but also limited items. But they are only available if you complete the quest yourself. If you fail the quest, your 5th anniversary celebration will be cancelled, this is too bad!
Even the anniversary of a paid game developer couldn't be that bad.
There is no way, there is no how? There can't be a system where the anniversary simply of game coins. If this system is paid, will there be a reset of the first charge?
The good thing is that it is up to Tom to decide whether it is a celebration or a reward.
The task wasn't too difficult, just clearing the area around the mansion of demons.
"Come on, let's do one more sweep of the area and then we can head back to Hogwarts to report to Dumbledore." Tom led Harry and Ron back to the living room, ready to go out the front door. Tom opened the door and was met with a white vision: the manor lawn was littered with identical rabbits.
Tom backed away slowly and then closed the door as fast as he could.
Something had gone wrong in the way he had opened the door. But Tom didn't have the courage to open the door again to check. Now two of his questions were answered: how had the rabbit killed a hound in return, and what was that rustling noise outside.
He also understood that all gifts of fate came at a price.
After five years, he still hadn't seen through the system! He was tempted to take the junk bounty and forget about it: he could lead Harry and the others out of here anyway with [Sister] at his disposal.
Outside, the rabbits were already attacking, and Tom could hear the sound of raindrops on the walls and doors, as well as the sound of glass breaking. The situation had become so urgent that Tom looked at Harry and Ron, and the difficulty was now beyond judgment.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Tom cast a levitation spell on a tapestry, "Get up there!" he pulled Harry and Ron up, "Go get Professor Dumbledore, I'll take care of this side for now."
"Professor Lockhart..."
"Go!" With a wave of Tom's wand, Tapestry led the two up to the third floor and then out a window. The third floor was almost ten meters off the ground, so even a mutated rabbit couldn't jump that high, it was safe.
Ron and Harry could only watch as Professor Lockhart sent them out of the mansion, and he stayed behind, at which point, Lockhart began to please them.
Flying in the air, a little further off the ground, they could see more clearly what was going on outside: the mansion grounds had turned white, and there was a steady white stream coming out of the back of the hill.
"Merlin up there, what's with all the rabbits!" exclaimed Ron, "What do they eat? I'm afraid there are tens of thousands of them."
"Look for Professor Dumbledore!" That was Harry's thought.
The tapestry carried them to the car outside the mansion, then fell to the ground with a thud, becoming an ordinary tapestry again.
Most of the rabbits were attracted to Tom, but a small number, less than a hundred, ran toward Harry and the others.
"Harry, get in!" Ron opened the driver's door and climbed in. But Harry didn't get in, he thought about it and pulled out his wand.
"Ron, have you ever wondered what would happen if these rabbits got out of the manor?" asked Harry, and without waiting for Ron to answer, he said to himself, "The crazy rabbits would get into the other residents' houses and make the city a living hell."
Harry had realized that these rabbits were obviously not a wave of mutations: there weren't that many rabbits in all of Bristol put together. It was obvious, then, that one rabbit had been cursed, thereby infecting all the rabbits in his colony. Of course, it could have been infected by the source of the curse.
Then, the infected rabbits multiplied like crazy and reached the numbers they have now.
And that's what's scary: they multiplied so fast!
How long had it been since the train bombing happened and Tom and the others got here? Tens of thousands of rabbits had appeared, and if they were allowed to multiply unchecked, Harry couldn't imagine what would happen.
It wouldn't be possible to eliminate them all, but Harry could get rid of the ones that had escaped.
"Ron, it's time to work on the sectioning charm: Difffindo!" Harry smashed one of the rabbits in front of him to pieces.
Relying on this Renault car, the two began a contest with the menacing rabbits. As a cover, the Renault car also served its original function: a weapon of war.
The oldest automobile companies in Western Europe have one thing in common: they all started out as arms dealers. The company produced guns, ammunition, aircraft and light tanks in World War I, resumed its traditional production activities after the war, and returned to business during World War II, producing arms and ammunition for the Germans, leading Renault to be one of the most exported cars to Germany even after the war.
BMW and Mercedes Benz, and Mitsubishi, on the other side of the continent, were such companies. They sold cars in peace and tanks in wartime.
But there are limits to a magician's power.
Harry and Ron's Difffindo Charm was clearly not keeping up with the rabbits, and the tide was coming in. Harry turned his attention to the Renault that was being used as a bunker...
"Auto mode, engage." Tom turned on the [Sister]'s automatic combat mode with a loud bang. This was a new ability that Dumbledore had added, which allowed [Sister] to fight automatically, just like in the stone dungeons of Hogwarts. Also, by setting it up beforehand, it would allow [Sister] to cast spells in a set order.
"The Explosive Charm... doesn't seem to need any other spells either." Looking at the incoming rabbits, Tom decided that the most effective spell so far was Explosion.
"Bombarda!" Covered by [Sister], Tom struggled and retreated, and slowly made his way up the stairs. Attracted by the sound of the explosion, rabbits also entered the house from all directions.
"Impedimenta! Bombard!" Tom used the Obstructing Charm and [Sister] used the explosion spell, which was very effective, blowing up a large group of rabbits and clearing several square meters of space, so that the next moment it would be filled by the other rabbits. As for the Obstructing Charm, Tom found it completely ineffective: it did not stem the tide of rabbits.
Tom backed up a bit, from the hall to the stairs on the first floor, and then to the stairs to the third floor balcony. He didn't know how many rabbits he had destroyed along the way, but the limbs they left behind were devoured by their companions the next moment.
Retreating to the balcony, Tom had no choice but to look at the rising tide of rabbits, and he took a deep breath: he now had two choices, and he would use the first.
Tom said a prayer to Merlin, hoping the rabbits' eyes could still see.
"Hiss!" A huge green snake appeared in the room, its massive body crushing several rabbits at once, but many more took the opportunity to jump on Tom, who was staring at them, but to no avail.
"Of course they did! They're blind!" Tom felt his head spinning, the basilisk snake's murderous gaze very powerful, but it was actually quite limited, as long as you didn't use your eyes, it couldn't kill you by eye contact.
This operation put Tom directly at a disadvantage. More and more rabbits were hopping towards Tom. Although their tiny teeth couldn't get through the basilisk's scales for a while, it was only a matter of time before they did. Once the scales were gnawed through, it was only a matter of time before Tom was bitten to death, something akin to death by torture.
It is always best to prepare a way out of a situation beforehand.
Tom's plan one failed, but he had a backup plan and, in fact, he had a backup plan to the backup plan.
He threw down the rabbits with all his might and transformed into a phoenix. He flapped his wings and flew out of the mansion while grabbing [Sister]. Tom flew to the top of the building and returned to his human form.
He spun the three spinning wheels to seventh gear, and in this special position, a corresponding spell was inscribed.
When the command was given, the spell began to work, and the core of the [Sister] began to ignite with maximum efficiency, with Tom placing his hand on it as a backup.
A tongue of flame erupted from the tip of the [Sister]'s wand, rose in the wind and devoured the [Sister]'s wand and arm, a crackling sound emanated from her body, as her body began to crack, and white smoke began to emanate from the core, draining the energy stored within, and then began to draw magic from Tom's body.
Tom paled quickly, as if he had lost too much blood.
[Sister] raised her arm, her wand was condescending, her raised arm trembled greatly, and the tongue of flame spread rapidly, turning into an extremely bright ring of fire, and the white clouds in the sky also began to slowly rotate, forming a funnel-shaped vortex, and with [Sister]'s movements, the vortex formed by the clouds also slowly rotated, and the ring of fire was like a huge whip, sweeping towards the rabbits below, wherever it went, everything quickly burned and a sea of flames formed, engulfing all of Burnham Manor.
Outside the estate, Ron stopped the car, both of them breathing heavily. It was as if they had run a marathon, although they had only driven the car to crush the rabbits.
The Renault looked like something out of a zombie game, the bodywork covered in blood and dents from the impact, with the flesh and blood of the rabbits in the cracks of the tires. The street they were on also looked like the scene of a traffic accident.
Harry flicked his wand towards the dashboard and it clattered against the dashboard, sending up a trail of sparks.
"Click!" He dropped a pistol from his pocket, one they had found earlier at the mansion that Tom had passed on to him. The situation had been so tense that Harry had forgotten about it. Only after the battle did it fall out.
"What's this?" asked Ron curiously.
Harry tucked the pistol into a small drawer, "It's much better than a wand if you have unlimited ammunition." Harry commented to Ron about the pistol: it can fire seven times, the pistol was fast, after seven shots, the wand was fast.
Harry banged his head violently, they were just obsessed with fighting monsters.
"Go, go-" stalled Harry: he didn't know how to get to Dumbledore in this situation.
"We can take our wands and do magic! That way the Ministry will send an owl to deliver the message, and with an owl we can contact Dumbledore!" Ron had a flash of insight and came up with a solution.
Harry looked at the wand in front of him, always sensing something was wrong.
Harry: "..."
"Wait, we've been doing magic! According to you, the Ministry would know about it by now, wouldn't they?" Harry finally realized. He and Ron hadn't stopped casting spells, and if the Ministry got a notification when a spell was cast, they probably would have flooded the office with them by now...
At that moment, far away from London, a tall, dark-skinned wizard entered an office and tossed the pile of reports that had accumulated into the fireplace.
"Professor Dumbledore, why did you give that order?" He was a little confused.
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