"Arthur, since you can shuttle between worlds, can you bring me some plant seeds?"
Ranni's question interrupted Arthur's train of thought.
"Hm? What plant seeds?" Arthur actually already guessed what Ranni wanted — it was nothing more than the plants from Plants vs. Zombies that she'd been obsessed with recently. But that thing only materialized one seed per summoning, and Arthur wasn't keen on redeeming more.
"This." Ranni pulled out an iPad and pointed at the Plants vs. Zombies icon on it.
This time Arthur couldn't play dumb.
"Alright, which plant do you want? I can only pull out one seed right now."
"Just one? Looks like the limit on your world-hopping is bigger than I thought." Thinking about how much effort it must've taken Arthur to bring her from the Lands Between into this world, Ranni's eyes filled with gratitude. Arthur had no idea what imaginings Ranni was filling in, but as the saying goes — now was a time for a smile.
After a moment's thought, Ranni asked Arthur for the most basic Peashooter seed. Arthur manifested a Peashooter seed and handed it to her, then went back to pondering how to use the runes.
The usual wizarding wand definitely wouldn't do. Not because of anything mystical — those chopstick-thin wands were just too narrow; he wasn't skilled enough to engrave on such a curved, tiny surface yet.
In the end Arthur decided it was more fun to keep the skills true to their original flavor. So he chose to manifest the weapons from the game.
The game had eight weapons in total: a revolver, a shotgun, a crossbow, a cannon, dual pistols, and a bat-gun. The bat-gun didn't summon Batman, but it could summon a bat to chase enemies. Kinda underwhelming. But what if that bat could grow to human size? The rune compendium also had runes that increased magazine bullets, so counting the bat as a bullet was a bit ridiculous — and downright absurd were the last two weapons.
One was a grenade cannon — no need to explain, it was devastating, comfortably top in damage, even three times the second-ranked revolver. Don't ask why the revolver was one-third of the cannon — it's magic-side tech; the scientific community needs to mind its own business.
The other was a Magic Feather. The feather came with innate piercing damage and a return capability. In other words, before it exhausted itself it could pierce enemies endlessly; when depleted it could be recalled and pierced again.
After mulling it over, Arthur decided to manifest the shotgun. The reason was simple: the gun body had a large surface area, allowing more runes to be engraved. He trusted that items manifested by the system didn't need to worry about mass. So how many runes he could engrave depended on how much surface area the object had.
Why not manifest the grenade cannon? First, he was more used to the shotgun in the game and knew better how to match suitable runes. Second, he wanted to get some practice with the shotgun first — the grenade cannon could be manifested any time.
"System, manifest the shotgun from the game."
[Manifestation successful]
[Shotgun: A science-side weapon modified by magic. Magazine capacity 2. Pellets per shot: 4. Effective range: 60–100 meters. Automatically restores 1 round per minute. Short-range weapon with a wide damage area. (Note: can actively restore bullets using mana)]
With the shotgun in hand, Arthur began engraving runes. He flipped through the rune compendium.
[Power Shot: Bullet damage +35%, knockback +20%] — engrave.
[Large-Caliber Rounds: Bullet damage +45%, bullet size +40%, fire rate -16%] — engrave.
[Death Reap: Bullet damage +15%, can penetrate the first enemy] — engrave.
[Quick Reload: Reload speed +20%, fire rate +5%] — engrave.
[Ready to Fire: Reload speed +10%, magazine capacity +2] — +2 magazine capacity — obvious choice, engrave!
Arthur carved the next rune beside [Power Shot] and [Ready to Fire].
[Rapid Fire: Fire rate +25%]
The moment those three runes connected, a flash of light occurred. The three white runes gained a red border, and an additional combined rune effect appeared.
[Sharpshooter: Bullet damage +15%, fire rate +15%, reload speed +15%, magazine capacity +1, extra enemy penetration +1]
This was a multi-rune combination ability from the game. Arthur hadn't seen it in the compendium before; he assumed it didn't exist — turns out multiple runes needed to be combined to trigger it.
In the last empty slot Arthur engraved one more rune.
[Light Rounds: Fire rate +15%, magazine capacity +1, projectile speed +15%]
The shotgun had a whole new set of effects.
[Shotgun: A science-side weapon modified by magic. Magazine capacity 2. Pellets per shot: 4. Effective range: 60–100 meters. Automatically restores 1 round per minute. Short-range weapon with a wide damage area. (Note: can actively restore bullets using mana)
Rune effects:
Bullet damage +110%
Knockback +20%
Bullet size +40%
Fire rate +44%
Projectile speed +15%
Reload speed +45%
Magazine capacity +4
Can penetrate the first two enemies]
Arthur brought the shotgun to a stand of banana trees in the Zen Garden and tested it without activating any runes first. He fired once — four pellet rounds the size of an adult's fist shot out and almost shattered a banana tree with a thirty-centimeter trunk.
Arthur: ???
Magic-side stuff really didn't need to make sense. Who in the world had seen shotgun pellets the size of fists? And since this was a magically modified shotgun, couldn't they have removed the recoil? He hadn't thought about that and the muzzle rise nearly smashed the gun into his head.
He activated all the runes and fired again. This time he could barely hold the shotgun. The recoil slammed him back several steps. The projectiles were now about the size of a human head. Arthur re-read the system description several times: bullet size only increased by 40%, right? So how were these rounds a bit larger than a human head?
He examined the banana trees carefully and figured it out. The shotgun fired energy bullets; increasing bullet damage also increased the projectile's physical size. Excited, Arthur fired several more times until he'd emptied the magazine.
The small patch of banana trees had been reduced to mush. There were furrows in the ground — a couple of pellets had struck the soil — and a few of the mango trees beyond had been affected as well.
Ranni, who'd come over after hearing the noise, had just watched Arthur fire off the rounds. Looking at the power of the shotgun, she felt lied to by history books. Was this the "shotgun that leaves countless little holes on a target" they'd written about? Judging from the marks on the ground, what kind of "little holes" could swallow an adult's head?
Wait — that weapon was something Arthur had taken out? Oh, never mind. Must be another otherworldly item. She went back to study her seed.
Arthur inspected the shotgun in his hands and felt like he could blow up an armored car with a single shot. For a moment he thought the age of magic was over — the age of the Rune Warrior had begun. He even wanted to storm in front of Voldemort and say, "Sir, times have changed!" and then blast his remaining soul to bits.
But then he remembered magic still had many conveniences, and he was in Hogwarts to study and cause some mischief — doing away with Voldemort now would not be to his advantage. He pushed the thought out of his head.
Still, possessing a powerful weapon stirred violent impulses. Arthur wanted to shoot something. But this was his Zen Garden — he wasn't the sort to wreck things just for fun. He'd heard werewolves lurked deep in the Forbidden Forest; he considered going for a little adventure. (Werewolf: Please don't come near me!)
Seeing daylight approaching, Arthur put away the shotgun and decided to delay that idea. He called Ranni and went to breakfast.
…
At the Gryffindor table Arthur — who'd worked through the night — was happily devouring his meal. When he saw Hermione sit next to him, he suddenly remembered Hermione's birthday and thought about what to give her. He could pick something from his inventory — a nice outfit or a set — engrave a matching set of skill runes, and give it to Hermione. He should also make a set for Ranni so she wouldn't secretly get jealous. He could even go to Madam Malkin's and have a few suits custom-made, engrave simple base runes on them, and present them as his latest alchemical creations — everyone already knew he was good with alchemy.
That settled the gift plan for Christmas. Arthur ate breakfast leisurely, but Harry and Ron were not so cheerful. Their punishments had been decided: one was to help answer Lockhart's fan mail, the other to polish hundreds of trophies in the trophy room. One was mental torture; the other, physical agony. The two slumped heads pushed their food around the plates and looked listless.
Arthur didn't bother to tell them to eat more or that a good meal would give them energy for their punishments later. Their tasks were in the afternoon — eating little now meant a larger lunch.
…
By nightfall Harry had already spent over four hours in Lockhart's office answering fan mail. The stack of replies was at least sixty centimeters tall. Then he heard a voice from somewhere.
"Come, come over here."
"What voice?" Harry asked, curious.
"What's the matter?" Lockhart, who heard Harry's question, was curious too.
"It sounds like someone's talking." Harry told Lockhart. Lockhart suggested it might be tiredness — he once mistook a branch for his old wand on the first day of classes, after all. Harry, knowing the truth, couldn't help laughing.
"What are you laughing at?"
"I remembered something funny." Harry tried to keep it in.
"What?"
"My wife… ahem, my work here is done for the day." Harry nearly got derailed by a running gag Arthur used.
"Alright, your work's done. Leave the rest to me and go eat." Lockhart nodded to Harry, signaling he could go.
In the corridor Harry heard that voice again.
"Blood, I smell blood! Let me tear you apart! Let me kill you! Kill, kill, kill!"
Harry pressed along the wall, following the voice. Around a corner he met Ron — just off work — and Arthur — who'd just eaten — and all three of them heard it.
"Hermione, what are you doing?" Hermione asked, a little annoyed. Harry was walking with his backside pitched and his ears against the wall. The little witch suspected he'd gone a bit weird from reading too much of Lockhart's fan mail.
"Didn't you hear that voice?" Harry told them what he'd just heard.
Arthur roughly remembered what had happened. It was probably Voldemort manipulating some young witch or wizard at Hogwarts to release the basilisk. No idea which unlucky student had been influenced. Could it be Ginny? Arthur hadn't seen any argument at Flourish and Blotts between Lucius and the Weasleys. Lucius didn't get to throw Voldemort's diary into Ginny's shopping basket. Maybe after Arthur left Lucius had found a new chance to stir trouble with the Weasleys?
And as for the basilisk — it had a bit of an overdramatic, talkative streak. It had been going on and on, assuming no one could understand it and chattering away. Now Harry had heard it. That's like going to a new job in a different city and insulting your coworkers in your hometown dialect because you think no one understands — only to have one person who does understand post your insults in the company chat. That's awkward.
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