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*****
After a series of awkward gestures and stumbling communication with Nikita, the misunderstanding between the two sides was finally cleared up.
"So, you really killed the Frost Tyrant?"
After temporarily confiscating Harry's wand, the captain, Nikita, and the bearded man stayed behind to question him and take notes, while the reinforcements that had arrived took over their task of securing the scene.
"Yes, I did. I was participating in a hunting competition, but out of nowhere, this guy started targeting me."
Harry explained everything honestly. Resistance wasn't an option—there was no way he could take on three adult wizards, especially elite Aurors.
"Explain it in detail. I find it hard to believe a twelve-year-old could kill the Frost Tyrant, even if it was injured and not fully grown."
"A strength-enhancing potion, combined with a slow-release formula and a drop of ultimate life potion."
A collective hiss sounded from the three men as they inhaled sharply. Their expressions varied, but the twinge of envy and regret on their faces was unmistakable.
"Your family must be wealthy. Do you know a potion master?"
"Uh, yes, he's my godfather. He provided the potions."
Harry nodded, admitting it but refraining from mentioning Snape by name.
"Ten thousand Galleons! And you used that to take down this thing? Even a fully-grown Frost Tyrant's hide and bones would only fetch around four or five thousand."
Nikita, with a pained expression, was at a loss for words. To someone willing to spend that much, killing a Frost Tyrant wasn't an impossibility.
"What good is money if you're dead?" Harry shrugged innocently. "It was my first time encountering the creature, and I didn't keep enough distance. My Nimbus 2000 was shattered by its ice roar, otherwise, I'd have flown away and wouldn't have needed to fight."
Harry pointed at his faithful broom not far away, now completely wrecked, only fit to be kept as a memento at home.
"Fair point. What's the use of money if you're dead?"
"Were you gnawing on its heart earlier?"
"Yeah, I had to quickly replenish energy. My brain was a bit foggy at the time, and I forgot I had high-energy nutrition potions. Chewing that bear heart felt like gnawing on rubber—it was awful."
"A true comrade!" After hearing Nikita's translation, the captain—standing two meters tall and weighing over 200 pounds—clapped Harry on the shoulder. He felt a sense of kinship with someone who had wrestled with a Frost Tyrant and gnawed on its heart.
"Alright, now that the situation's clear, here's your wand back."
He handed the ebony and ivory wand to Harry and, standing up, pulled Harry off the ground with one hand.
"Better leave quickly. In about ten minutes, this place will become a battlefield."
"Is something happening up ahead?"
Harry, while holstering his twin pistols, curiously asked.
"A Frost Tyrant reaches full maturity between 150 and 200 years of age, and they're fully grown by 500. Their prime doesn't last long, usually about 100 to 150 years, which means most Frost Tyrants live between 600 and 650 years."
"But some exceptionally strong individuals can break this limit, like one of the greatest rulers of the Eternal Glacier—the Frost Tyrant of Tyrants."
A trace of seriousness appeared on Nikita's face.
"We call it the Raging Frost Tyrant, a 15-meter-tall, 840-year-old monster!"
"If not for the presence of the Ice Dragon King Skasa and the immortal Snow Fairies, that beast would have completely ruled the Eternal Glacier by now."
"This morning, the Raging Frost Tyrant went berserk, along with over 400 Frost Tyrants. You were lucky to encounter just a stray juvenile. Had it been a fully-grown Frost Tyrant, even with your strength-enhancing potion, you might not have killed it."
"Do you know? We recently conducted a small test."
Gazing into the distance, Nikita seemed to take a liking to Harry, this strong, healthy young lad. With some time left, he didn't mind chatting with him.
"A test?"
"Yes, in the Eternal Glacier and the Abyssal Sea, we've been breeding and hunting powerful magical creatures like Ice Dragons, Frost Tyrants, and Leviathans."
"But as you know, the wizard population is extremely small. With an occurrence rate of less than one in ten thousand, it's incredibly rare. To avoid unnecessary casualties, we've sought other forms of assistance."
"You mean Muggle weapons?" A sudden thought struck Harry's mind—a terrifying realization.
"Mm-hmm, exactly."
Nikita said cheerfully, "Not every country has a bad relationship between wizards and Muggles. United under Mother Soviet, we are comrades, whether wizard or Muggle, fighting side by side toward a great common goal."
"World wars are a thing of the past, but the equipment produced for those wars—there's still far too much of it. Rather than let it rust away in storage, why not give it a try?"
"Earlier this morning, we dispatched a full-strength armored division to assist wizards in suppressing and driving off the Raging Frost Tyrant and the other Frost Tyrants. Electromagnetic cannons that can blast through a mountain in one shot! Plasma cannons that can melt rock into lava in an instant!"
As Nikita spoke of these powerful technological creations, a hint of admiration mixed with longing appeared on his face.
"If you travel a hundred kilometers ahead, you'll witness a battlefield concealed by magic—a place where you can see Muggle war machines in full operation. I believe it's an even more awe-inspiring sight than magic."
"Unfortunately, the gap between the magical world and the real world is vast. Not even a barrage of electromagnetic cannons could break through a single piece of armor on the Frost Tyrant, and the plasma cannons, despite their extreme heat, barely scorched its snow-white fur. It's truly a fearsome beast."
"I can almost imagine the scene," Harry remarked, clicking his tongue, though his mind was already wandering far from the conversation.
"You've seen Muggle war machines before?" Nikita asked, curiosity creeping into his voice. He had always assumed Harry was born and raised in the magical world. After all, with a Potions Master for a godfather, Harry's background was likely notable—perhaps even pure-blooded.
"Yeah, due to some circumstances, I grew up living with my aunt and uncle. They're Muggles."
"Well, that's an odd situation," Nikita said with a sidelong glance, clearly surprised.
"Did you forget? I came here to participate in the winter hunting competition. I was hunting bears."
"Ah! How did I miss that?" Nikita replied with a wave of his hand, clearly annoyed at himself for overlooking that detail.
Nikita's enthusiasm seemed to wane as he made his way over to the captain, leaving Harry to pack his belongings while he pondered Nikita's earlier words. It wasn't the mention of Muggle weapons that caught Harry's attention. No, he was thinking about the so-called "version bonus" and what that really meant.
Something about the rapid development of the Russians was off. Sure, their harsh environment may have hardened their bodies, but that didn't explain why seven or eight out of every ten men were towering giants over two meters tall. There was something fishy going on, and Nikita's earlier comment had hinted at the answer.
They were breeding powerful magical creatures on a large scale and hunting them. And to increase hunting efficiency, they had begun using Muggle technology. This was a clear sign that the number of magical creatures they were breeding had become overwhelming, forcing them to speed up the harvest.
But why? Was it really just for profit or to collect materials?
No, no, no. For an entire country to come together and undertake such a massive effort, there had to be deeper motives.
The large amounts of prey they were harvesting were likely ending up on people's dinner tables.
Harry had just eaten the heart of a Frost Tyrant. Though the wild magic within it wasn't easy to digest, he could clearly feel that once he fully absorbed it, his magic power would increase beyond what it had been before.
While most wizards never ran out of magic, even when casting spells in rapid succession, Harry knew that wizards didn't need large reserves of magic for combat. Spellcasting wasn't about unleashing a flurry of incantations all at once. Instead, they would prepare spell sequences in advance, infuse them with magic, and then release them when needed. The wizard's role was to control the spells and guide them with precision, ensuring they hit their target. The faster and longer the barrage, the greater the magic's amplitude—akin to the recoil of a gun.
There were even specialized tools available to assist wizards in reloading their spell sequences mid-battle. These devices helped maintain focus and ensured precise magic infusion, as different spells required varying amounts of magic. Sometimes, less magic was better than more, and each wizard had their own rhythm. The reloading tool simply remembered these habits and made reloading quicker and easier.
But if wizards had little need for magical creatures' blood or flesh, who did? The answer could only be Muggles.
The Soviet Union was playing a grand game—a game that could make them even stronger.
The likelihood of a wizard being born among Muggles was less than one in ten thousand, or even lower. But by feeding Muggles the meat of magical creatures, infused with traces of magic, who knew what effect it might have over generations? Perhaps today's Muggles wouldn't become wizards, but their descendants... maybe they would.
Those unusually strong children? Their physical transformation might be proof that this insane experiment was actually working!
Physical strength didn't mean everything, but starting a step ahead was never a bad thing. No one would invest in a losing venture, and clearly, the Soviet Union had been at this for a long time—likely decades at least.
Given time, even the smallest snowball could trigger an avalanche.
With a population of 280 million, even if the Soviet Union managed to raise the probability of producing wizards by just one in ten thousand, the numbers would still be staggering.
In a few decades, the Soviet Union might boast a wizard population of a million, allowing them to take a huge step toward the grand, utopian ideal they sought—a world of magical communism.
Magic wasn't omnipotent, but it certainly was a force that could create miracles!
Harry slung his black dragon-hide backpack over his shoulder, shaking his head to clear away these thoughts. Matters of national strength were far beyond him. If he could think of this, then surely other countries were aware as well.
None of them seemed in a rush to act, so why should a first-year Hogwarts student worry?
However, today's events had revealed a piece of good news. While integrating magic into one's body could reduce magical capacity, it also meant that the path to becoming an Astartes wouldn't appeal to most wizards. After all, no matter how strong brute strength could make you, it paled in comparison to the allure of pure magical power.
Since most wizards wouldn't choose this difficult path, there had to be a reason it wasn't widely accepted.
As Harry finished packing, a distant rumble echoed through the air, growing closer. Dots, first white and then black, filled the sky as hundreds of wizards flew into view.
And there, at last, was the monstrous Frost Tyrant that Nikita had mentioned.
(End of Chapter)