Along the way, Hermione was astonished to find that the monsters in this maze were terrifyingly abundant.
So far, she had defeated two or three sets of walking armor, a group of manic goblins wielding clubs, a foul-smelling troll, and seven or eight walking man-eating plant monsters.
When she first entered the maze, Hermione had marveled at the lack of monsters.
Little did she know that as she delved deeper, the frequency of encounters would increase so dramatically.
Almost every two or three intersections brought forth a new batch of obstacles.
Even with her combat skills, she could barely keep up.
She could only imagine the difficulties her three opponents must be facing.
However, she hadn't come out empty-handed.
With each monster defeated, Hermione gained some spoils.
So far, she had acquired a "+1" badge, a few bottles of red and blue potions, a pair of wrist guards, and a pair of shoes.
Based on her experiments, the red potions could heal her wounds and increase her stamina, the blue potions could restore her magical power, the wrist guards maintained a weak Shield Charm to increase her defense, and the shoes made her run faster.
"I feel like I'm playing some bizarre video game. If it weren't for our wands, he'd probably have these monsters dropping swords," Hermione sighed, attributing Alaric's peculiar sense of humor.
She believed only Alaric could come up with something like this, drawing inspiration from Muggle tabletop and RPG video games—Hermione herself had played an RPG game called "Zelda" at Alaric's house.
However, most wizards had only a vague understanding of Muggles; some didn't even know how to use electrical appliances.
Suddenly, a scream shattered the silence around her.
"Fleur?" Hermione called out, recognizing it as Fleur's scream.
But there was silence all around her. Hermione looked around anxiously.
What had happened to Fleur?
Her scream had seemed to come from the left. Taking a deep breath, Hermione headed towards the left fork.
Despite their frequent quarrels, Hermione and Fleur had actually built some friendship.
Though rivals in the maze, Hermione didn't want anything bad to happen to Fleur.
Along the way, Hermione encountered another group of monsters blocking her path.
This time, they were small mushroom-like creatures with facial features, barely reaching Hermione's waist.
They kept charging towards her with their small legs, but Hermione stopped them with a Imperturbable Charm and then dispatched them with an Exploding Charm.
She had now realized that these mushroom creatures, along with the man-eating plants encountered earlier, were creations of Alaric's Transfiguration.
Apparently, he had found a way to temporarily animate his Transfigurations.
Therefore, Hermione showed no mercy in dealing with them.
Her loot this time was a bottle of purple potion, which Hermione reluctantly took.
"This is probably some cliché RPG item like an antidote," she muttered.
As she took a few steps forward, she saw a strange green mist floating ahead.
Hermione cautiously approached it and pointed her wand at it. It seemed magical.
She wasn't sure if she could blast it away.
"Reducto!" she exclaimed.
The spell pierced through the green mist without affecting it.
Hermione realized she should have thought of that earlier—Reducto was for solid barriers.
What would happen if she walked through the green mist? Should she take the risk or retreat?
Thinking of Fleur possibly in danger, Hermione immediately made up her mind.
She took a deep breath and charged into the magical mist.
Upon entering the mist, Hermione immediately noticed it was denser and covered a larger area than she had expected.
After a few breaths, she felt a slight dizziness.
Knowing her Dragon Factor gave her high resistance to various poisons, Hermione was surprised that this mist made her uncomfortable.
It seemed highly toxic, though it shouldn't be lethal since this was just the Triwizard Tournament.
Nevertheless, Hermione didn't want to collapse in the mist. Suddenly, she remembered the potion bottle she had just obtained.
"Is this some typical game trope? Having a crucial item near the level?"
She uncorked the bottle and cautiously drank some of the strangely purple liquid.
The potion took immediate effect, dispelling her dizziness.
Taking advantage of this, Hermione quickened her pace.
After about a minute in the mist, she finally emerged from the green fog.
For the next ten minutes, Hermione encountered nothing, often wandering into dead ends or mistakenly taking the same wrong path twice.
Finally finding a new path, she jogged along it.
The glow of her wand flickered, and her shadow morphed on the hedges.
She turned a corner, faced another fork, chose a direction, found a dead end, turned back, and faced another dead end.
She had to stop, her heart pounding.
Hermione cast a Four-Point Spell again, turned back, and chose a path heading northwest.
After walking for a few minutes on the new path, Hermione suddenly stopped. She heard voices coming from a side path.
"What are you going to do?"
It was Fleur's voice, sounding energetic as if she hadn't encountered any trouble at all.
As Hermione wondered, she heard Fleur's voice again, panic evident: "What are you trying to do?"
Then she heard Crum's voice.
"Crucio!"
Hermione saw Fleur leap forward in distress, stumbling towards her.
"Hermione! What are you doing here?" Fleur looked surprised to see her.
"I heard your scream just now and thought you might be in trouble, so I came to find you," Hermione explained as she helped Fleur up.
"Thank you," Fleur said gratefully.
After getting up, she immediately pulled Hermione and ran. Hermione stumbled along, following Fleur.
Just before that, she saw Crum's tall figure behind her, pointing a wand at them.
The two girls ran wildly, and Crum's curses missed as Hermione led them in zigzag.
Several large pits were opened up on the ground, blocking his way.
Taking this opportunity, the girls quickly increased their distance.
After running for a while, they finally stopped panting.
Hermione found a corner to hide from Crum's sight and sat down to rest.
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