Deep in the Forbidden Forest, inside the botanical garden, Leonard came there after a long absence to tend the long-neglected plants after receiving Midgard's letter.
He could not help it. Because of the attention from that Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in Hogwarts Castle, Leonard did not want to keep running into the Forbidden Forest too often and risk exposing a problem.
Today, he had specifically found a chance to lure the crow watching him to the edge of the Black Lake and hand it over to the giant squid before sneaking out.
After a burst of noisy spatial distortion, Midgard arrived instantly at the botanical garden in the Forbidden Forest with Claudia.
When Leonard saw Midgard and Claudia arrive, a smile appeared on his face.
That smile instantly improved Midgard's mood by quite a bit, even more effectively than Claudia's smile.
"Long time no see."
Before Leonard could speak, Midgard pulled him straight into her arms and hugged him tightly, even squeezing the innocent Claudia off to the side.
Claudia: ('`)
Feeling the suffocating evil in front of him, Leonard immediately knew Midgard must have been wronged somehow, but he could not ask outright. If he opened his mouth at a moment like this, it would look a little too much like he was taking advantage.
Fortunately, after a while, once Midgard had vented enough of her emotions, she finally came back to herself. A faint embarrassed flush on her face, she let go of Leonard.
"So what happened?" Freed at last, Leonard calmly rubbed his face, then pinched Claudia's puffed-up little cheeks.
"It wasn't anything major. I just dealt with an idiot who didn't know his place," Midgard said casually.
"If it were really that simple, you wouldn't be making that face. What, did it get to you?" Leonard asked.
"A little." Midgard nodded honestly. "Things used to be peaceful, but now that everyone's living better, they start doing things like this..."
She briefly described what had happened, leaving out a few key details, such as the idiot's name and identity.
"Things were peaceful before because they were too hungry to have the strength for infighting. That doesn't mean there were never any signs. Also... I'm guessing the idiot you're talking about is Wilder, the one in charge of commerce, right?" After listening carefully to Midgard, Leonard immediately picked out the key point.
"How did you know?" Midgard asked in surprise.
To prevent any trouble from Wilder's followers, no werewolf wizard had disclosed anything about him.
"I told you, I guessed," Leonard said with a wave of his hand.
"How can a guess be that accurate?" Midgard pressed on stubbornly like a schoolchild.
"Don't ask. Let's just say that once greedy merchants have their material needs met, they start actively seeking higher status." Leonard shrugged casually. "It's all written in books."
"What kind of book is that amazing?" Midgard immediately became interested. "Is it a book about prophecy?"
Prophecy? That thing was far greater than prophecy.
Leonard shook his head. "No. They're Muggle books, the kind that explain objective laws of development. Those are far more useful than prophecy."
"Oh, then forget it." The moment she heard they were Muggle books, Midgard instantly lost interest.
"By the sound of it, you're planning to send people to Germany to deal with those werewolves?" Leonard asked.
"Mm. No matter how rebellious Wilder was, opening up the trade route is something that has to be done." Midgard nodded.
"But since Wilder clearly had bad intentions, the situation with those German werewolves might not be exactly as he described. Send someone clever over there, and unless it's absolutely necessary, avoid conflict," Leonard suggested.
"And what if there is conflict? As long as it's not the night of the full moon, those werewolves can't stir up much trouble," Midgard said.
Ordinary werewolves transformed on the night of the full moon. That actually made things even more troublesome, because one wrong move could attract the Ministry of Magic's Aurors.
"Think of it as setting an example. You need to show the bearing of a leader. After all, these are only Europe's werewolves. The werewolves on the other continents are still waiting for you to save them," Leonard said.
"That does sound nice. Werewolves all over the world?" Midgard smiled, but then she thought of her own wolf cubs and frowned. "But... what if those German werewolves harm the cubs we send? We'd be in a very passive position."
The magic in this world was extremely powerful. At the lower end, there were curses that could transfigure people and rob them of their ability to fight. At the higher end, there were killing curses with instant-death effects, and spells that could control other people.
Because of the special nature of this magic, the side that ambushed or struck first held a massive advantage. It was entirely possible for them to wipe out the other side in one go while they were caught off guard.
So Midgard's concern was not unreasonable, and Leonard understood it.
"That's... true. That really is a problem." Leonard rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. "How about this. I'll give you something for the people you send out to carry. At a critical moment, it can turn defeat into victory."
"Something? What kind of thing?" Midgard's interest was immediately piqued.
Nothing Leonard brought out was ever simple.
Whether it was the self-detonating Bitterthorn from before, or the later parasitic pods that did not explode but were astonishingly powerful, almost comparable to magic itself, every one of them was something strong enough to alter the balance of power between wizards.
So what kind of miraculous tool was Leonard going to bring out this time?
"Something a little dangerous. Plug your ears before using it." As he spoke, Leonard walked to a corner of the botanical garden and dug up a humanoid plant from the soil.
It was a strange gray-white plant with a rough human shape. Its eyes and mouth were nothing but hollow openings, and the blackness inside them, like a bottomless abyss, made even Midgard shiver. Claudia, standing nearby, was so frightened that she hid behind Midgard.
"This is... a Mandrake root?" Midgard looked at the plant in Leonard's hands and asked uncertainly.
"Uh... more or less." Leonard had not expected the Mandrake to turn into this after being enhanced, but it really was a Mandrake, one he had personally enhanced.
After more than a year, this batch of Mandrakes had finally matured. Leonard had already chopped several Mandrake roots into pieces to use as spare seeds and planted a new batch. This Mandrake was one of the few mature enhanced specimens left in the ground.
Its enhancement direction was to produce an extremely large-range shriek that caused dizziness. After losing its original lethality, the range of this Mandrake's voice had expanded by more than ten times.
And it made no distinction between the center of the area and the edges. It was like a one-use stunning spell. As long as a living creature within the area could hear the sound, it would collapse unconscious without exception.
It could be said that with proper preparation, this was a terrifying trump card capable of deciding the outcome of a battle.