Ted asked, "Didn't the Ministry of Magic send more people?"
Ms. Shirley shook her head. "The Demi-Human Division is already severely short-staffed. I heard the Ministry has been tied up with other major matters lately, and the other departments can't spare any personnel either. So, they've simply left us to handle it ourselves for now..."
'Good grief,' Ted thought. 'So this is their brilliant policy of laissez-faire governance? They micromanage everything during peacetime, but the second an actual crisis hits, they're suddenly no longer in charge?'
Ted did not stay at the house to wait for Jerry as Ms. Shirley had suggested. Claiming he had never been to Deckard Mond before, he politely excused himself to wander around the village.
'Actually, it's just a bit awkward staying here alone when Jerry isn't even home,' he reasoned to himself. 'I might as well go for a stroll.'
He released Anzu, letting the great raven soar high into the air, allowing Ted to observe the village's layout through his familiar's eyes.
Like many rural settlements in Britain, the village was quite scattered. The houses were spaced generously apart, with thirty or forty metres of land between each dwelling. Situated in a mountain valley, the village was bordered by steep peaks on two sides and a gentle slope on a third. The uneven terrain meant the buildings were staggered organically across the landscape. Most of the homes appeared to have been built within the last decade, still looking relatively well-maintained.
It seemed all the able-bodied villagers were currently away on the search. Ted walked around for a while, only spotting residents who looked to be well past their fifties.
He encountered two elderly men from the Dog-Eared Tribe; they appeared quite wary, repeatedly questioning Ted about his background and business in the village. Fortunately, Ted was young, looked respectable, and spoke with an easy friendliness. With just a few well-chosen words, he managed to dispel the old men's suspicions.
An elderly cat-eared woman didn't ask any questions, but she kept a close, scrutinising stare fixed on him. She was accompanied by a little cat-eared girl, perhaps six or seven years old, who kept trying to curiously edge closer to the strange wizard, only to be repeatedly pulled back by her grandmother.
While Ted was still making polite conversation with the elderly residents, a series of frantic, urgent bell tolls suddenly shattered the quiet afternoon.
Ted looked up toward the highest building in the village. A large bronze bell, half a metre across, was swinging wildly, its loud clanging instantly plunging the settlement into a state of tense alarm. Several elderly demi-humans rushed out of their homes, brandishing whatever makeshift weapons they could find.
Just then, Anzu swooped down from the sky, landing heavily on Ted's shoulder. "Several wild beasts have rushed the village entrance!" the raven squawked urgently. "To the east! To the east!"
The two wary dog-eared men from earlier rushed past, now armed with a two-foot steel pitchfork and a long hunting spear. Roaring battle cries, they charged toward the eastern gates.
'Their beards are completely white, yet they're still throwing themselves into a fight?' Ted thought, genuinely impressed by their bravery.
Ted quickly followed, his wand already drawn. With all the able-bodied hunters of Deckard Mond currently scouring the mountains, it would be an absolute massacre if wild beasts breached the perimeter. Casting a quick spell to lighten his steps, Ted sprinted after them with incredible speed.
The two elderly dog-eared men were only halfway there when a blur rushed past them. A second later, they were left staring at Ted's retreating back as he vanished around the corner. The two men exchanged a bewildered glance, a silent, mutual realisation passing between them: 'Are we really getting that old?'
Before Ted even reached the village entrance, he had already assessed the invaders through Anzu's aerial perspective—five absolutely enormous wild boars.
These were no ordinary wild animals. They were covered in thick, bristly pink fur, with several horizontal, gill-like slits running down their backs. Scorching, heat-distorted air visibly vented from these slits. Each beast was roughly four metres long, nearly three metres tall at the shoulder, and likely weighed upwards of two tons.
Down at the eastern entrance, a desperate defence was already underway to stop the behemoths from breaching the village's log gate.
The entrance was situated in a narrow bottleneck of the mountain valley, spanning about fifty metres across. It was fortified by a three-metre-high barricade constructed entirely of sturdy logs, with a three-metre-wide gate set in the centre. However, if those massive boars managed to build up momentum and ram it, the wooden wall would be reduced to splinters.
Only two defenders stood between the beasts and the village. One was a towering warrior from the Bull-Horned Tribe, standing well over two metres tall. Wielding a massive wooden hammer, he was fighting bravely, managing to hold off two of the boars single-handedly.
The head of the hammer was twice the size of a human torso, carved with intricate patterns resembling ancient, demonic runes. It was clearly a powerful magical artifact. Every time he swung the weapon, smashing it into a boar's thick skull or flank, the sheer force sent visible shockwaves rippling through the air.
The other defender was a lithe cat-eared woman. Wielding a pair of gleaming twenty-centimetre daggers, she leaped nimbly between two other boars. However, her attacks lacked the stopping power to do anything more than distract them. Her daggers were simply too short to pierce their thick hides.
'It's like an agility-based rogue trying to burst down a heavily armoured tank,' Ted observed grimly. Fortunately, her high evasion allowed her to safely kite the beasts, keeping their aggro focused on her.
Unimpeded, the fifth wild boar lowered its massive head and crashed squarely into the wooden barricade.
With a deafening, splintering crash, the log wall caved in, leaving a gaping hole in the defences. At least four or five thick support logs were completely shattered, and the entire structure groaned ominously. The boar itself was dazed by the tremendous impact, shaking its massive head as it stumbled backward to regain its balance.
With a sharp flick of his wand, Ted conjured a large, deep-purple sphere of gravitational energy, roughly the size of a human head. It didn't fly particularly fast, but it reached the dazed boar just before it could mount a second charge, coming to a halt directly above the beast's back.
As the boar backed up to gain momentum for another ram, it suddenly lost its footing. Its hooves scrambled uselessly against the dirt as its massive bulk began to float upwards. Ted's gravity spell had instantly inverted the localised gravitational pull, using the beast's own kinetic energy to violently launch it into the air.
The two-ton behemoth was thrown four or five metres into the sky before normal gravity violently reasserted itself. It slammed back into the compacted dirt with a thunderous thud, the sheer force of the impact startling the other four boars.
By the time the dust settled, Ted had already vaulted to the top of the remaining wooden barricade, securing a vantage point.
Wild boars were naturally thick-skinned and remarkably tough. Despite its sheer mass, the creature hadn't been seriously injured by the fall. With an angry snort, it scrambled back to its feet. Standing only ten metres away, Ted finally got a clear look at the monstrosity.
It truly was covered in pink bristles, though the colour was heavily muted by a thick crust of dried mud and grime. The horizontal slits running down its spine glowed a dark, molten red, resembling the heart of a forge furnace. The heat radiating from them was so intense it caused the air to shimmer and warp. Its hooves were terrifyingly large, easily dwarfing a human skull, and its eyes were framed by fiery, orange-red markings. Panting in a blind rage, the beast exhaled a thick cloud of scorching steam from its snout.
'An animal this flashy has to be an apex predator in its native habitat,' Ted reasoned. 'If a creature stood out this much without having the raw power to back it up, evolutionary selection would have wiped it out ages ago.'
Using his System's identification ability, Ted brought up its stats:
[Flame Mutation — Whole Roasted Pig]
Level: 3 Magical Beast / Level 2 Flame Mutant / Level 1 Gourmet Monster
Attributes: Strength 15, Constitution 18, Agility 6, Intelligence 3, Perception 4, Spirit 4, Charisma 5, Luck ?
Talents:
[Fantastic Beast (Green)] Magic Power +1 Level, Magic Resistance +1 Level.
[Flame Mutation (Green)] Enhanced by fusing with anomalous fire magic. Fire Resistance +3 Levels.
[Otherworldly Creature (Green)] An entity originating from another world. May exhibit unpredictable characteristics.
Skills:
Scorching Charge: Charges at high speed while wreathed in heat. Tremendous impact force, but suffers from poor turning mobility.
Extreme Body Temperature: Core temperature is abnormally high without harming the individual. Grants near-immunity to ordinary flames.
Raging Eruption: When pushed to extreme anger, the creature's body can briefly erupt into a massive fireball without self-immolation.
Magic Resistance (Level 1)
Evaluation: A mysterious creature from an unknown world, which has become abnormally violent for some unknown reason.
'So, it's a completely new magical beast from another world, and it's completely berserk,' Ted concluded. 'But seriously... "Whole Roasted Pig"? What kind of morbid culinary naming sense is that?'
Deciding to test the waters, Ted snapped his wand forward. "Frost Nova!" he shouted, channeling his Azerothian magic.
A dazzling azure sphere of frost shot outward, crashing against the dirt and violently erupting into a jagged ring of ice shards meant to root the beast in place. However, the freezing radius was noticeably stunted, covering barely two-thirds of its usual area.
The five Whole Roasted Pigs were essentially giant, mobile furnaces. The sheer ambient heat radiating from their burning bodies raised the surrounding temperature by over ten degrees.
The rapid flash-freeze managed to encase the lower half of the boar that had just regained its footing, but the thick ice was already beginning to hiss and melt against its burning skin. Fortunately, the beast clearly wasn't very resistant to extreme cold. The sudden thermal shock caused its internal temperature to plummet, and it noticeably staggered, the molten glow on its back dimming. It was no longer nearly as lively as before.
Ted sized up the creature grimly. Unless he resorted to a dark curse like Sectumsempra to strike its vitals, he knew his standard combat spells wouldn't be able to bring down a tank like this in just a few hits.
Deciding to leave the crippled boar for the moment, Ted pivoted to support the other two defenders. He raised his wand again, casting a powerful D&D transmutation spell. "Transmute Rock to Mud!"
The spell struck the ground, instantly transforming a large stretch of compacted dirt into a deep, churning swamp. One of the Whole Roasted Pigs chasing the cat-eared woman plunged straight into the mire, sinking up to its neck and nearly drowning in the thick mud.
However, the moment the beast was submerged, the mud pit began to violently hiss and steam. Given the creature's immense body heat, the transfigured swamp would likely be baked back into dry, cracked earth in a matter of minutes.