บท 19: Ecological Balance
"You are me, but not completely." Ymir said as he squatted beside the bathtub, gazing at the incomprehensible creature floating languidly in the lavender scented water. "You have my thoughts and memories, but not my personality."
Curiously, the creature submerged it's head underwater and blew bubbles, happily slapping at the water with it's tentacles.
"I have made sure that part of you remains a blank slate." Ymir continued, paying no mind to the creature's actions.
The creature grabbed the bottle of scented oil from the side of the tub and began pouring more into the water
"Your mission is only one." Ymir, with barely a twitch in his facial expression, regarded the creature seriously. "Keep watch over Gaia. Anything else is up to you to decide. As long as Gaia remains well and functioning."
In reply, the creature seemed to stare at him blankly for a moment before spitting out water at him.
"Da!" The creature said, and Ymir expressionlessly wiped the water from his face.
"You have agreed in Russian. Therefore, from now on, you will be in charge of guarding Gaia." Ymir stared at the creature coldly. "This is your mission, Cthulhu."
The creature called Cthulhu shuddered. Is it too late to explain that it was actually trying to call out 'Dad' instead?
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On Monday morning, during breakfast at the Great Hall, the News club once again were set to gather together in the Ravenclaw table, patiently awaiting for this week's newspaper issue to be delivered by the owls, as well as some other letters that will no doubt be sent to the Headmaster after they had decided to send the Newspaper issue to the parents one day in advance.
From the corner of his eye, Ymir noticed the headmaster trying to discretely lead the half-giant gamekeeper into the corridors, though that effort was for naught as there is only very little hiding that can be done with someone of such large stature.
He raised his brows. It seems that they're finally addressing the issue about the missing puppy. Well, he just hoped they managed to finish it just in time to catch up to the show the News club worked hard to prepare.
After all, it wasn't everyday that they'd get a chance to see the Headmaster getting told off by irate parents.
As of now, though, there's still a whole hour left for the owls to deliver their daily mail, since Ymir was always one of the earliest to arrive in the mornings, so he occupied his mind with other businesses for the mean time.
"Glas." He called, and with an immediate pop, the house elf appeared, bowing respectfully.
"Yes, young Lord?" The house elf asked as it straightened up.
"Two days ago, the plants that I asked you to transplant to the manor-" Ymir took out his journal and readied his quill. "-tell me about their conditions."
"Understood, sir." The house elf stated. "As of today, the Thorn Berries have successfully taken root in the gardens and seem to show no signs of deterioration, though some of their berries have fallen off, but the real cause of that seems to be more of them being overripe than anything else."
Ymir began scribbling on his journal, glancing at Glas and motioning for him to continue.
"As for the Dancing Fruit Grass, they took a little longer to acclimate to the soil, though, after adding hippogriff dung as fertilizer, they were in a much better condition and have been dancing quite actively." Ymir blinked, his mind being filled with the image of a frantically swaying plant.
"Since the garden already housed the Blinking Eyeball Beans before, I took care of the new variants of Eyeball Beans the same way as them, and so far, they seemed to be in good health, with the Rolling Eyeball Beans rolling their eyeballs and the Crying Eyeball Beans crying a lot." The house elf finished, and Ymir nodded, setting down his quill.
"Thank you, Glas." Ymir said and returned his journal to his bag. "Continue watching their conditions, and be sure to send samples of them to be studied in the same apothecary as last time. You may go."
"Yes, young Lord." Glas bowed once again and disappeared, just in time for the first few members of the News club to arrive at the Great Hall and sit next to him at the table.
"Ohayo." Ayato greeted him as a visibly more aware Anthony followed him alongside Padma with her nose stuck to an interesting looking book. "Early as always, Ymir?"
"Guten Morgen." Ymir gave him a nod back, sparing a glance towards Anthony who was staring straight at the ceiling in fascination, before turning his attention back to Ayato. "I find that more things can be done in a day if it is started early in the morning."
"An aspiring master of time management, are you?" Ayato joked humorously, unaware of just how correct he was with that question. "I'm more of a free spirit so I probably won't last a day doing your routine."
"Everyone is free to do with their lives as they please." Ymir smiled slightly. "Unless what they're doing is unnecessarily interfering with other people's lives, then, they should stop."
"You know, sometimes I end up thinking that you're a bit too smart for an 11 year old-" Ayato started, nodding towards the other News club members who finally arrived as well. "But, then, I remember that I'm only two years older than you, so I should shut up."
"Morning! What's the topic for today?" Blaise said cheerfully, dragging the two sleepy Pansy and Draco with him by their shoulders, steering them carefully so they don't bump into anything, while Daphne and Theodore trailed behind. "Sorry for the delay! As you can see, I kind of have my hands full."
"It's fine. Parvati and the Hufflepuffs aren't here yet anyways." Ymir said, nodding in greeting to them.
"Anthony isn't quite mentally here either." Ayato added helpfully.
Bang!
And, as if to prove his point, Anthony chose that moment to slam his head on the table.
"..." The members at the table looked at their fallen comrade with incomprehensible expressions.
"Anyways, what do you think we should write for next week's Headlines?" Daphne suddenly asked, taking the attention away from whatever was going on with Anthony.
"The run-down state of the Hogwarts classrooms and appliances?" Padma suggested.
"No, too early." Ayato shook his head. "We still haven't gotten a copy of the Hogwarts ledger. Once we're sure that something fishy is going on with the school funds, then we'll do those two reports at once."
"That'll leave the Headmaster no time to hide anything." Blaise grinned deviously. "I like it!"
Not long after they've confirmed that topic, Padma's sister and the two Hufflepuffs arrived together, making the News club complete. And soon, the rest of the school too, had trickled in.
At some point, while they were talking amongst themselves, the headmaster and the other professors had also filled up the professor's table.
After checking the time on his pocket watch, Ymir determined that there was still more than half an hour left until the mail was to be delivered, just in time for them to eat breakfast at a comfortable pace.
So, with a tap on the table, Ymir summoned his breakfast, and soon, the others followed him as well.
"By the way, Fred and George seem to be interested in joining the News club." Ayato took a bite of his Tamagoyaki and spoke. "Though they want to be anonymous informants instead of regular reporters. Griffindor apparently has many secrets that might cause a ruckus once spread."
Draco, now awake with food in his system, raised an eyebrow. "The Weasley twins?"
"Yeah." Ayato nodded. "They're some of the more neutral Weasleys when it comes to the whole Griffindor versus Slytherin thing. To them, everyone gets pranked equally no matter the house."
Theodore huffed in amusement to that. "I can confirm. I witnessed them throwing a Stinking potion in the Potions corridor when both Fourth year Griffindors and Slytherins were having their class."
"As long as they're not biased towards their house, they're welcomed." Pansy said as she sliced he croissant. "We'll be doing a lot of Dumbledore exposition news here, so they better be prepared to have their house dragged in."
Ymir took a sip of his cream and eyeball soup, listening idly as the club members conversed amongst themselves.
"It should be fine with them as long as the other houses don't escape from the fire." Ayato smiled meaningfully. "A little bit of equality shouldn't hurt, right?"
"That's fine, I guess." Blaise shrugged. "Slytherin already has a bad reputation anyways."
Hannah Abbott snickered. "If it's exposing house secrets, you might find it surprising, but Hufflepuff holds many secrets."
"Oh? Like what?" Daphne narrowed her eyes, looking towards the Hufflepuff girl in intrigue.
"Like how we have a comprehensive list of the best places in Hogwarts to go snogging in secret." Susan Bones giggled to herself.
Ymir's hand holding his spoon paused in the air. What is snogging?
On the other hand, the rest of the club either choked or blushed.
"P-pardon?" Pansy stuttered, eyes wide in shock.
Seeing the incomprehension of the club members, Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones cackled in amusement.
By the end of the breakfast, they were still reeling in shock from having learned something about the house of badgers that didn't conform to their impression of them.
The only thing that managed to snap them out of their stupor was the sound of flapping wings and mail being delivered to each student.
And, after hearing the sound of gasps and flipping pages, they knew that the newspaper was finally here.
Immediately, they all turned to look towards the professor's table in surprising synchronicity.
Right in time to see many red envelopes drop in a single pile in front of the confused headmaster.
And, when one of the red letters burst open, they could see clearly how the expression on the Headmaster's face gradually morphed from confusion to something akin to fear.
"ALBUS WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE!!!" The letter, now classified as a Howler, loudly shouted, attracting the attention of the school's entire populace. "HOW DARE YOU PUT MY GRANDSON IN DANGER?! I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE SENT HIM SOMEWHERE ELSE IF THIS IS JUST THE WAY YOU'RE GOING TO-"
Unfortunately, they couldn't hear the rest of it as the Headmaster quickly reacted and placed a silencing spell on the Howler, and, with an apprehensive look directed to the rest of the letter pile, he pointed his wand at them and muttered an incineration spell, turning them to ash.
With everyone giving him curious looks, the Headmaster cleared his throat and whispered something to Professor McGonagall, acting as though nothing happened.
"Boo. How boring." Pansy pouted, dismayed that the show was cut short. "Did anyone get a picture of that?"
"I did." Theodore said as he shook his camera, the rest of the club quickly giving him sneaky grins.
"Send us a copy, yeah? My mother would be thrilled to see it." Blaise nudged Theodore's shoulder.
"My father would be pleased to see it as well." Draco added, a mischievous smirk on his face.
"How about I just send everyone a copy?" Theodore suggested and everyone nodded in agreement.
"Huh? Wha- happen'd?" Anthony asked sluggishly, looking around him as though he couldn't comprehend where he was.
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Agitated growls, and nervous pawing on the ground. Its three heads regarded the tiny intruder with caution, ears alert and pointed towards the small Elvish being which made it feel threatened despite their disparity in size.
On this day, instead of going through the portal to enter the strange space as usual, he decided to use the Astral Dice instead to check if it functioned smoothly.
After all, once he'd achieved an ecological balance and ensured that originally created creatures will not mutate, it wouldn't be long until he'd be scattering them around to pull others to help him with Gaia's development. Anonymously, of course.
"I will not hurt you." Ymir spoke in a soothing tone, body low to the ground so the beast wouldn't perceive him as a threat, long pointed ears twitching when the growls grew louder. "If you just let me touch you, you can have delicious horned rabbits."
Shaking the three, fat and juicy rabbits in his hands, he tried to tempt the growling Cerberus to come to him.
And, come to him it did, very aggressively.
With a loud gutteral bark, the beast opened it's maws wide in an attempt to cleanly tear him in half.
Seeing the danger approaching him, Ymir just sighed and leaped towards the sky, floating just out of reach from the creature.
Today, once again, marks another failure to pet the puppy.
Ymir shook his head regretfully and decided to lift his mood by visiting the other side of the ravine and checking on how the experimental predators and plants were doing.
Nearly a week has passed in the mysterious space since their creation, and so far, there have been no anomalies.
The predators were quickly adapting to their bodies and hunting more effectively, and some even started showing unique behaviours. Like, the two tailed foxes have just discovered that crouching low and using their two tails to mimic rabbit ears would lower the guard of their prey, making it easier for them to hunt the rabbits.
On the other hand, as the three eyed falcons were smaller in size than the other two birds of prey, they were actually also being hunted by the other two birds, so they have started forming groups for protection, adapting mobbing tactics similar to crows when encountering the larger birds.
Meanwhile, with the four-winged hawks, they've mostly hunted on their own, though sometimes, Ymir would see a pair hunting together or a group of three, and since they had an extra pair of wings, they ended up being the fastest amongst the three bird species once they got used to their appendages, traveling an average of 460 km/h.
In comparison, the fastest flying bird on Earth is the Peregrine falcon, which could reach speeds of 390 km/h.
Lastly, came the largest of the birds, the long-tailed eagles. Unlike their beautiful appearance, amongst all the predators, they were the most aggressive of them all. Even when they weren't hunting for prey, they actively sought out other creatures to battle. Though, strangely enough, if they weren't hungry, they usually left their defeated opponents alive, but whether they manage to survive their injuries, is up to fate.
They always flew alone and rarely interacted with others of the same species, and when they did, it was usually in a conquest for territory. In this species, the females were considerably larger than males, but the tail of the males was more ostentatious than the females'.
With the predators accounted for, Ymir shifted his attention to the plants.
In order to supplement the diet of the herbivores in Gaia, Ymir focused on creating fruit bearing plants, root crops, nuts, and leafy vegetables... and a bunch of flowers.
The flowers were mostly for decorative purposes since he was getting tired of seeing Gaia so dull and uninteresting.
But, after observing the plants today, he realized that he forgot something important when he noticed that the fruit bearing plants weren't bearing much fruits.
There was no bees or butterflies to help them pollinate.
Ymir sighed to himself, unable to believe that he had actually forgotten such an important thing.
So, once again, he went back to molding animals with his white clay, making cute little honeybees and butterflies.
It was a strange experience, shoving a soul orb into a body much smaller than it, but he somehow managed it. Soul orbs actually had a texture akin to cotton.
Speaking of cotton, he might have to create a similar plant since he was planning on having actual humanoid beings living in Gaia in the future.
Now, with the pollinators fluttering about the flowers, Ymir looked around and reconciled himself with the fact that the date when the plants and animals would be sent to Gaia will be delayed due to his mistake.
In exchange, during the days where he had nothing else to do aside from observe them, he decided to experiment on the ability to change land formations that the Astral Dice brought him, through channeling the energy stored in the Star Heart Crystal fragments buried in Gaia. But that was for later.
Right now, he had something else to do in Terra.
Barren, dry, inhospitable, and filled with strange creatures and frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
This was Terra, the future land of the banished, and first moon of Gaia. But, despite being the land of the banished, it wasn't actually terrible enough for what he had in mind.
In his plans, Terra would have the same reputation as the Hell depicted in muggle religions. A terrifying place where the most unforgivable of sinners are thrown into to be punished.
Though, right now, while Terra was surely inhospitable, it wasn't really that terrible or dangerous. It still needed something more... sinister.
To truly make one feel fear.
And then he remembered the pieces of Cthulhu's eggshell which he kept in a box under his bed for research.
If paper managed to mutate into Yggdrasil trees, he wondered what would the eggshells of Cthulhu create.
❄️❄️❄️
"Unlike the downplayed history that the ministry would like you to believe, it is in fact, true that the Dark Lord Grindelwald nearly took over the entire world at one point except for Britain which he did not touch for unknown reasons." Professor Bagshot calmly told them the truth of the magic world's history, a faint nostalgia in her eyes which no one noticed as she mentioned the name of the first Dark Lord .
Ymir, along with most of the class, scribbled wildly on his notes.
"To be honest, no one really knows why he lost in the end. All that was said, was that he had made an unknown deal with the ICW and a certain wizard who was once his close friend when he was younger." The professor tapped her wand on her podium. "Can anyone tell me the name of that wizard?"
Several students raised their hands.
"Yes, Mr. Schreiber?" Contrary to expectations, Professor Bagshot chose the one who wasn't raising his hand.
Ymir blinked, caught off guard but answered anyways. "Albus Dumbledore."
"Correct! It was Albus Wulfric Brian Dumbledore." The professor nodded in approval. "Ten points to Ravenclaw."
"After a public battle, which Grindelwald lost against Dumbledore, Grindelwald agreed to imprison himself in Nurmengard, a prison which he created himself for, again, unknown purposes." The professor sighed and shook her head, as though she couldn't comprehend the Dark Lord's choices at all. "It is still unknown if he lost purposely during that battle as many witnesses stated that they'd seen the Dark Lord, very obviously, not fighting seriously, as though he already knew that he would lose."
Suddenly, the owl clock on the professor's desk hooted, making the professor pause her lecture. "And, it seems that the lesson ends here."
Ymir looked up from his notes, discontented that the time had passed so quickly, and sent a glare towards the owl clock.
"And, before you go, I would like to inform you all that my time in teaching you is coming to an end." Professor Bagshot addressed the class right before they were dismissed. "I have found a worthy professor to replace me in teaching you the intensive History of our Wizarding World."
This prompted several students to cry out in disbelief and unwillingness before the Professor raised her wand and asked them to quiet down. Ymir nearly broke his quill with just how hard he was clenching his fist.
"I just want to say, although our time together has been very short, I have truly enjoyed imparting my knowledge to you all." The elderly professor smiled genially towards the students. "And, I hope, that even though I will no longer be here in the future, you will all still continue to work hard in uncovering the truth of the past."
As the students left the classroom, each dragging their feet sadly, Ymir secretly vowed to himself that if the replacement professor was incapable of teaching the class atleast half as well as Professor Bagshot, he'd make them disappear mysteriously just to force the Headmaster to call back the elderly Professor.
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Tick.
The pages of the journal fluttered idly as the cool breeze entered the room through the open window.
Tock.
The seconds passed by slowly on the little silver pocket watch, fingers grazing distractedly on the carved Snow Leopard on the cover, the Schreiber family sigil.
Tick.
The quill rolled over, blown by the breeze.
Tock.
Orange leaves rustled outside the window, the dry tree branches colliding against each other to form a relaxing rhythm.
Tick.
...
Right before the quill was pushed to the edge of the table, the world fell into silence as the hands of the watch stilled.
He tapped his finger on the table, watching curiously at the leaf that floated motionlessly outside the window.
The wind was stagnant, and all life unmoving.
Right now, the world was paused.
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LordOfRot
LordOfRot Sorry for not updating yesterday. I was feeling unwell so I decided to rest for the day. In order to compensate, I made this chapter longer than usual.
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