[Paris]
A large flock of crows was walking across the ground.
They patiently searched for food, looking very content.
This had never been one of their feeding spots.
After all, Place de Furstenberg was just a small square in Paris's 6th arrondissement. It usually had a fair number of people, but not so many that people would buy bread just to feed crows.
If they fed birds, they fed pigeons.
But things were different now.
A few days ago, a huge battle here had caused massive human casualties.
Afterward, a large group of people wearing reflective vests sealed off the entire square with warning tape. The once lively square had become a place no one dared enter, and a paradise for crows.
Although those humans had already taken away all the bodies of their own kind, the crows did not mind.
As scavengers, they had long been used to living off the leftovers of other large meat-eating animals.
The humans had taken the biggest pieces away, but there were still plenty of bits of flesh left between the cracks in the stones of the square. That was more than enough for the crows.
"Go! Get out of here!", A shout suddenly rang out.
With a rush of wind, the startled crows all took flight and landed on the rooftops beside the square. They looked down helplessly at the man chasing them away.
This was already the third time today he had done this.
How pitiful.
That human probably couldn't compete with his own kind for food, so now he was trying to steal theirs.
The crows thought so and loudly mocked the useless human below.
What they didn't know was how complicated the man's feelings were.
He had once been an Auror of the French Ministry of Magic.
Now he had become a volunteer whose job was to keep order around Place de Furstenberg and stop anyone from getting close.
Yes, the kind who earned one hundred francs a day.
Of course, he hadn't taken this volunteer job for that tiny amount of Muggle money.
It was because he could no longer return to the French Ministry of Magic.
Ever since old Norton of Beauxbatons killed himself in the lobby of the French Ministry of Magic that day, the entire French magical world had fallen into chaos.
The angry public tried to storm the Ministry.
Cruel rioters hid among them.
In the end, a terrible tragedy broke out.
That night, blood flowed through Place de Furstenberg, and Lionheart Street was almost reduced to ruins.
Faced with such a hopeless disaster, even the kindest people showed their savage side.
It was necessary to survive.
As for those too soft-hearted to raise their wands, they had long since become corpses.
At the same time, the French Ministry of Magic completely sealed itself off.
Not only were the rioters and civilians unable to enter, but even Aurors like him, who had been carrying out missions outside, were also locked out.
With no other choice, the man became a volunteer and continued carrying out his duty...
Protecting the French Ministry of Magic!
"Haa..."
Thinking back to that night, the man's eyes burned with tears. He took several deep breaths before finally forcing them back.
When he opened his eyes again, a steaming paper cup of coffee had been held out in front of him.
"Have some coffee. It'll warm you up."
The blonde girl holding the coffee said.
Her voice was a little hoarse, and her eyes were red. She looked as though she had just been crying, yet now she was comforting someone else.
The man couldn't help smiling bitterly.
He took the coffee, raised the cup slightly as a toast to the girl, and then said nothing. The two simply stood there, holding their coffee and looking at the crows circling overhead and mocking them.
The girl was a real Muggle.
The kind whose family had never produced a wizard.
Under normal circumstances, if she dared get this close to him, he would immediately pull out his wand, cast an Obliviate on her, and drive her away.
He was a pure-blood wizard.
Although blood purity wasn't especially popular in France, pure-blood wizards still carried their own pride deep down.
But after that riot, he no longer cared about such things.
Because that night, the cruelty and ugliness shown by those so-called pure-blood wizards far surpassed that of other wizards or Muggles.
Besides, the girl was just as unfortunate as he was.
During the riots, which lasted nearly a full week, it wasn't only wizards who suffered.
The Muggles suffered even more.
They made up the overwhelming majority of the world's population, and without magic, they were simply too weak.
As a result, they became the best targets for the violent wizards to vent their anger on.
The man had only read the Muggle news reports about the riot yesterday.
They described it as a protest over rising baguette prices.
Marching in the streets over a few baguettes sounded ridiculous, but in France, it was completely normal.
What truly made it different from other protests was the enormous number of casualties.
According to the figures released by the media alone, over a thousand people had been killed or injured.
But as far as the man knew, the real number was dozens of times higher.
Those mad wizard rioters had completely ignored the Statute of Secrecy. They openly cast powerful spells at nearby Muggle buildings, including Fire-Making Spell, Blasting Curse, and even Fiendfyre.
The area around Place de Furstenberg had almost been completely destroyed. There was no way the casualties could have been low.
Of course,
the Muggle media explained it away as things like car bombs and gas explosions.
They were doing their best to uphold the Statute of Secrecy.
Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as effective as usual.
The French Ministry of Magic had sealed itself off. Without the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad and the Memory Modification Headquarters, there was no way to deal with so many witnesses.
The girl beside him was the best example.
The poor girl had lived near Place de Furstenberg.
Over the past few days, she had seen the rioters control Fiendfyre dozens of meters high as it swallowed skyscrapers. She had also watched them grin as they murdered her parents with the Killing Curse.
If the man hadn't arrived in time and saved her with magic, she would have become another broken body lying in Place de Furstenberg that night.
And there were countless witnesses like her all across Paris.
"Mr. Bogut... what do you think has happened to this world?"
The girl stared blankly at the sky as she spoke.
The man called Bogut felt a sharp pain in his heart, but forced a smile onto his face.
"It'll get better, little Irene. Everything will get better. I promise."
Bogut had complete confidence in that.
As soon as the French Ministry of Magic reopened, once his fellow Aurors and Hit Wizards came out, all this chaos would end.
The light of order would once again cover all of France.
And when that time came, he would find a good future for little Irene.
With magic, it shouldn't be difficult.
For example, he could Confund the manager of a bank and have Irene hired.
Or maybe...
He could simply confess to her and let her stay in the magical world?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Bogut felt his face grow warm. He quickly rubbed it with his hand, or it would soon turn red.
He didn't know why he had such thoughts or reactions.
He only knew that he liked being with Irene.
Maybe this was what his mother had always called love.
Bogut took a sip of his coffee.
It had already gone a little cold, but his heart felt warm.
At that moment, however, Irene suddenly screamed.
Her eyes were full of fear as she threw herself against Bogut. The impact sent the coffee flying from his hand.
Bogut looked up at what had frightened her.
High above them, directly over Place de Furstenberg, a huge and complicated magic array was slowly spreading across the sky.
'Has the French Ministry of Magic finally reopened?'
That was Bogut's first thought.
But he rejected it the very next moment.
The brightest emblem at the center of the array did belong to a Ministry of Magic.
But it was very different from the French Ministry's emblem.
Instead...
It looked much more like the emblem of the British Ministry of Magic.
Wait.
The British Ministry of Magic?
It felt as though something exploded inside Bogut's head.
The shock blasted every thought from his mind.
He had seen reports in the French Wizarding Post saying Hogwarts had been attacked and that the British Ministry of Magic had declared war on the French magical world.
But he had never taken them seriously.
After all, with the French magical world in its current state of chaos, there was no way it could have attacked Britain's magical world, much less caused heavy losses at Hogwarts, which was protected by a legendary wizard as powerful as Dumbledore.
So he had assumed it was just a rumor.
As for the declaration of war...
He figured the British Ministry had simply made it up to distract people from its own internal problems.
The British were absolutely capable of doing something like that.
Those pirates had always been lying barbarians.
But now, the giant array carrying the British Ministry of Magic's emblem had appeared above his head.
"Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!..."
As the light of the array grew brighter, deafening chants echoed from within.
The voices finally snapped Bogut out of his daze.
"Irene! Run!"
Bogut shouted as he stuffed a small mug-shaped Portkey into Irene's arms.
Space twisted into a vortex and quickly swallowed her.
Caught in the vortex, Irene seemed to realize what he intended. She reached out to grab him, but Bogut stepped aside.
He smiled and quietly said goodbye to her.
Then he raised his wand toward the enormous array that covered the sky.
At the very center of the array, a figure had already appeared.
"Come on then, you damned Brits! I'm not afraid of you! I'm an Auror of France!"
Bogut roared as he fired a brilliant beam of light.
This Blasting Curse was the attack spell he was best at. Driven by anger, it carried nearly half of all his magic power.
Like a shooting star flying upward, it shot straight into the sky.
But just as it reached the array, the figure at its center casually waved a hand and scattered it.
Then the figure looked down.
The young face made Bogut's pupils shrink.
He recognized him.
Link Flamel!
The terrorist said to have attacked Beauxbatons together with Dumbledore.
And one of the three commissioners of the British Ministry of Magic!
Fear and anger filled Bogut's mind.
Roaring, he raised his wand again.
But Link moved faster.
BOOM!
A massive Vanishing Spell pillar crashed down.
There was no terrifying explosion.
No earth-shaking sound.
Covered by the pillar of light, Place de Furstenberg, along with Bogut, vanished in an instant, as though someone had scooped out a spoonful of an ice cream cake.
When the light faded,
where Place de Furstenberg had once stood,
a huge cylindrical pit appeared before everyone's eyes.
Looking through the pit, which stretched hundreds of meters deep, people could clearly see the pale silver magical barrier, along with the French Ministry of Magic itself.
"Now, follow me."
Link spoke without expression.
Strengthened by magic, he plunged downward at incredible speed toward the French Ministry of Magic below.
In an instant, the powerful magical barrier surrounding the Ministry shattered under the erosion of Link's overwhelming cursed magic.
Behind him, more than a thousand battle wizards wearing the emblem of the British Ministry of Magic on their chests continued pouring out of the teleportation array.
They were so excited
that many veteran hunters from the Flamel family's Hunter Corps burst into laughter as they fired one magical mark after another into the sky.
The spells streaked upward before exploding into the British Ministry of Magic's M-shaped emblem and the Flamel family's Kraken crest.
The countless colorful marks almost covered the entire sky.
Everyone in Paris witnessed their arrival.
Link had no intention of stopping them, even though what the hunters were doing now was enough to send every member of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes into a rage.
Because this was exactly the effect he wanted.
If revenge had to be hidden, then what was the point of revenge?
With a cold smile, Link entered the French Ministry of Magic alone as the vanguard.
Before he even landed, a suit of mist armor had already formed around him. At the same time, his powerful cursed magic spread ahead into the area below, sweeping back and forth several times at incredible speed.
This was a necessary step to disrupt the formation of the French wizards below.
Otherwise, even someone like Link, who had reached the middle stage of the Legendary rank, would run into serious trouble if hundreds of French wizards focused their attacks on him in such a confined space.
But when Link finally landed, he discovered that all those preparations had been unnecessary.
Because inside the huge lobby of the French Ministry of Magic, there wasn't a single person.
The entire hall was covered with dried bloodstains and broken stones and bricks, looking exactly like the ruins left behind after a great battle.
Link frowned deeply.