Chapter 39: Every Adventure Story Should Have a Secret Basement

Cohen had a bad premonition—could the entire Borgin family have been wiped out?

The manor was gone, and the only person he had finally found with the surname Borgin was being kept here by the Ministry of Magic as a gatekeeper.

"Cheer up, at least you're still at large," the Earl said, seeing Cohen lost in thought, attempting to offer some comfort—even though it was never very good at comforting people.

"Damn it, I thought I could finish them off and inherit the family savings," Cohen complained irritably. "They definitely have no money now—those contraband creatures sell for a fortune. A Class B contraband item alone can fetch thousands of Galleons..."

"..."

The Earl was silent for a moment. "I knew nothing good would ever come out of your mouth."

To prevent his dear Uncle Herbert from waking up and interfering with his plans, Cohen cast a rope-conjuring spell on the chair, securely binding his criminal uncle to it.

"There!" Cohen clapped his hands after finishing, admiring his handiwork. Herbert was trussed up like a holiday dumpling, with only a small hole left for his nose to breathe.

That should keep him from causing trouble. Cohen intended to release him before he left; otherwise, if Herbert died, there would be no one to guard this dangerous area. The Ministry of Magic would surely notice, and an investigation might expose Cohen.

As Cohen prepared to head out, he noticed the Earl hadn't followed. He turned back and asked the bird, who was still perched in the distance: "Aren't you coming with me?"

"Not a chance. I haven't 'hit a home run' with Hedwig yet, so I'm not going to throw my life away," the Earl refused. "The ruins are crawling with residual Dark Magic."

"Fine, stay here and watch this guy—here's your wand." Cohen pulled the wand he had bought for the Earl out of his pocket.

He realized he needed to prepare something like a pocket dimension for the Earl; after all, an owl couldn't hide such a long wand on its person. Perhaps he could tie a small pouch with an Undetectable Extension Charm onto the Earl's left leg, so the owl could use its right claw to draw the wand from the left—if an owl's claws were capable of such a motion.

After tossing the wand to the Earl, Cohen plunged into the snow outside.

"Snowmelt and Ice-clearing."

Cohen waved his wand at the entrance of the manor ruins. The ice and snow around him began to dissipate, revealing the charred ruins and the ground beneath. Since the main house had collapsed, Cohen could only discern the structure of the rooms by the remaining foundations.

Dark curses drifted through the air; some Dark Magic is notoriously difficult to eradicate once cast. Yet, the residual spells, which should have been highly aggressive, showed no hostility toward Cohen at all, instead beginning to swirl happily around him.

"This is..."

Cohen frowned as he looked at the black mist特效 swirling around him, reminiscent of a final boss. These dark mists seemed strangely intimate, as if—

"Whoosh!"

Suddenly, a wisp of black mist shot straight into Cohen's body. Then another, and another. Those cursed mists, which had previously only been circling, began to nudge their way into him one by one.

[Soul Integrity: 22.1%]
[Soul Integrity: 22.2%]
[Soul Integrity: 22.3%]
...

Watching his soul integrity climb rapidly, Cohen lowered the wand he had been preparing to use to stop the mist. These souls were his own fragments!

Cohen felt a refreshing sensation, like waking up from a deep sleep—never before had his soul integrity risen so much in a single minute. Finally, as the last wisp of black mist drilled into him, his soul integrity settled at 27%.

"Such a huge cloud and it's only five percent?!" Cohen looked at the suddenly empty ruins in disappointment; all the black mist had returned to him. It meant that his own tiny soul fragments had been what rendered the entire manor uninhabitable. It seemed he was a walking, high-intensity source of Dark Magic pollution.

The other soul fragments must have scattered and fled; only a small portion had remained here. Still, even 5% was a pleasant surprise. After all, the spiders in the Forbidden Forest could no longer provide souls of much value. When Cohen was stuck at 20% soul integrity, those worth less than 10 points were completely useless to him. Even a mature Acromantula provided very little soul strength—and they took months to grow from juvenile to young adult, making their growth rate far too slow.

Cohen needed a higher-quality method of soul cultivation.

Having absorbed the mist, Cohen shifted his focus back to the ruins themselves. As everyone knows, when a protagonist explores ruins, they always find a basement full of secrets, and that basement hides all the truths of the ruins—secrets that previous inspectors surely missed, even if the entrance was easy to find.

Cohen found a pile of rubble with the most obvious traces of magical residue. After using "Scourgify" to clear away the debris and dirt, a cracked floorboard was revealed.

"Revelio!"

He cast the revealing charm on the floor. However, the expected hidden staircase did not appear. Instead, the cracks in the floor began to squirm as if alive, eventually forming several words:

*Show Your Mercy*

Show your mercy? Did Hogwarts teach any spell named "Mercy"? Seriously, was there such a thing as a "Mercy Charm" in *Harry Potter*?

"Avada Kedavra!"

A bolt of green light erupted from the tip of Cohen's wand, shattering the floorboard into pieces in the next second—the Killing Curse seemed to work quite well as an explosive spell.

Cohen was in no mood to play puzzle games with a slab of stone. Show mercy? Avada Kedavra was Cohen's version of mercy. It was fortunate the slab had no soul; otherwise, Cohen would have made it experience the Dementor’s Kiss, which was far more desperate than death.

Once the slab was shattered, the staircase leading to the dark basement appeared before him.

"Lumos."

Cohen lit his wand and headed down the stairs. Below was a dark corridor with several tightly shut doors lining the walls, each marked with fading, gold-leaf numbers. At the end of the corridor stood a set of double doors, larger and more intricately patterned than the others, likely leading to the most important place in the entire manor.

Cohen felt he hadn't been discovered here yet, because if Dumbledore and the others had come, this place wouldn't be...

[Soul Strength: 67 (Weakened)]

The system notification appeared for the room at the end. Behind that door, Cohen could not see what was inside. What kind of thing had lived here for ten years without dying?

A dark creature? A magical beast? A failed experiment?

Or... a person?