Chapter 253: Should We Just Leave First?
"Before the attack, what were you doing?" Jafari pondered for a moment, then spoke with some confusion. "There should be nothing special. I was just normally staying vigilant about my surroundings."
Speaking, he seemed to suddenly think of something and glanced at Evans's palm.
There, brilliant starlight continued to shimmer. The giant claw appeared to be no particularly difficult opponent for this young man, so much so that he hadn't even dispelled the Lumos Charm on his other hand.
Looking at that gleaming light, he hesitated somewhat. "At that moment, I think I got a bit distracted."
"Distracted?" Evans's gaze sharpened as he looked toward Charlie, standing not far away.
He remembered that before entering the pyramid, Charlie had also mentioned getting distracted. Fortunately, Bill had reminded him, allowing him to react quickly and dodge the attack.
Perhaps this wasn't a mere coincidence.
Filing this away in his mind, Evans continued pressing. "Besides that? What exactly were you distracted thinking about?"
"That's a bit embarrassing to say." The bald man's darkened complexion seemed to redden slightly as he scratched his head sheepishly. "I was thinking about how, after just two years, your Lumos Charm could reach such intensity. It's rather outrageous."
"If you ask me, it is indeed quite outrageous," Charlie nodded seriously from the side. "But he already displayed so many outrageous things while still at school. I believe that no matter how many more outrageous things he displays, it's entirely reasonable and justified."
Speaking, Charlie began counting on his fingers. "For instance, inciting internal factional struggle within Slytherin, repeatedly battling Snape in the Forbidden Forest, frequently breaking into the library's restricted section without being caught, and most importantly, leading magical creatures in an attack on Hogwarts."
With each point Charlie made, fear grew more evident on the Aurors' faces. They stared at Evans with horror, and though Evans didn't know what they were thinking, it certainly wasn't anything good.
"You could shut up now," Evans said irritably, glancing at Charlie, who was naturally continuing to spread rumors. Shaking his head, he asked. "So what about you? What were you thinking about right before you were attacked last time?"
"Huh? Me?" Charlie was startled, pointing at himself as if he hadn't expected to be included in this.
Meanwhile, Bill, beside them, already understood Evans's meaning, his eyes flashing with realization.
He naturally remembered clearly—Charlie had personally mentioned that he'd been distracted once before being attacked.
"Evans, do you mean those creatures appear because of some specific thing?" he asked, glancing at the still somewhat confused Jafari. "Like distraction, for example?"
"No, I think it's more specific than that. Perhaps certain emotional fluctuations at that moment," Evans looked at Charlie, asking once more. "Think carefully and recall. What exactly were you thinking about at that time?"
"Um, let me think." Hearing the serious tone from both Bill and Evans, Charlie lowered his head and pondered for a long while before speaking uncertainly. "I remember it seemed to be thinking about that batch of mother dragons in the reserve."
"They'd just finished laying eggs, and I was somewhat worried whether those hatchlings would receive proper care."
Worry.
Turning over Charlie's response in his mind, Evans rubbed his chin.
Perhaps negative emotional fluctuations were the means by which these creatures manifested their appearance.
But they'd brought those Aurors along, and just looking at their eyes would show that fear had never left their faces throughout.
Why hadn't their presence attracted attacks from these creatures?
Did one's emotions have to change after entering this corridor, or was there another mechanism at work?
And how did it even distinguish people's thoughts? Through some form of Legilimency-like magic, or simply through intuition?
But just as Evans was about to devise a method to test his hypothesis, his gaze suddenly sharpened. Air currents surged behind him, a pair of semi-transparent, delicate wings flashing past.
Then his entire body transformed into a silver-white arc, vanishing instantly from where he stood.
Boom!
A massive creature had appeared at the position where Evans had been standing moments before. Its arrival was utterly silent, but the force of its attack was tremendously loud.
However, this time, Evans finally got a complete view of what this creature looked like.
It was a creature with two giant claws and an enormous skull composed of bone.
Its body was wrapped densely in tattered fabric that had begun to rot, though one could still tell it had been treated with preservation spells—many, many times.
Apparently not expecting its attack to miss, it was now having difficulty pulling its claws from the ground, slowly rising to its feet.
"This wrapping—it's wrapped with absolutely no skill whatsoever." Looking at the creature covered in tattered fabric, Bill slightly furrowed his brow.
As a seasoned Curse-Breaker, he'd seen thousands of mummies. It was easy to see that the fabric on this creature was wrapped haphazardly.
The cloth's pattern was extremely chaotic, lacking any aesthetic sensibility, and appearing quite bizarre.
But the creature they'd encountered last time hadn't wrapped itself in such messy cloth. Why did this one?
Was it cosplaying? Given the age of that fabric, it was at least thousands of years old. Were people around the Nile thousands of years ago cosplaying as mummies?
But mummification was only something the upper class of ancient Egypt could afford. Those people who'd written the parchment—they definitely shouldn't have been the upper class of that era.
Having the ruling class run off to be buried with others would surely plunge the nation into chaos.
"I don't think now is the time to contemplate whether the fabric wrapped around its body meets standards," Charlie's voice suddenly came from the side, and that voice sounded somewhat trembling.
Confused, Bill moved his gaze away from the slowly rising creature, following Charlie's line of sight.
Then he immediately drew a sharp breath.
Before them in the corridor, creatures had appeared one after another—some like the one they were currently dealing with, wrapped in countless bandages, while others resembled what they'd seen before: pitch-black bodies with exposed skeletal frameworks and desiccated, blackened flesh visible.
Those wrapped in bandages were similarly wrapped haphazardly to the one before them, the wrapping increasingly chaotic, making Bill, who'd seen many mummies, feel somewhat headachy.
But Charlie was absolutely right—this was definitely not the time to concern themselves with such matters.
Swallowing hard, Bill spoke tremulously.
"Shouldn't we just run away first?"