A magical journey that begins in Azkaban.

Chapter 507 You are good, I am not worthy

Rogge nodded in agreement. This kind of weapon that can continue to grow is a very buggy ability in any world.

Now, this sword has combined the basilisk's poison and the phoenix's flames. It is undoubtedly the most powerful treasure in the entire magical world.

The only drawback is that there is a lack of powerful enough magical creatures in this world to continue to drive the sword's devouring evolution, which makes its growth path seem to have come to an end.

Bellinrum rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. He asked softly, "Since this is your first time operating an airship, you must not be very skilled yet? How about..."

"Why not take you along?" Roger interrupted him with a smile, having already seen through his intentions. "Tell me, do you want to do smuggling business?"

"Hey, how can you say that?" The goblin immediately retorted, with a hint of dissatisfaction in his tone, "We paid for it, and we don't plan to sell it in the British wizarding world. Besides, the goblin runes on the airship were made for free."

"I have paid the shipping fee in advance, otherwise you have to return the rune money to me." Bellinrum thought he knew Rogge very well. He was like a goblin and would never pay an extra Knut.

Rogge pondered for a moment and finally agreed to its proposal. On the one hand, if there was any problem with the flight, the Goblin King could repair it immediately. On the other hand, he really needed to find a hidden place for the airship.

"Let's set sail!" Rogge stood in the cockpit at the head of the airship, constantly pushing and pulling the control stick to make it slowly rise.

Bellinrum stood on the top of the airship, whispering a spell to the forest above him. It was a very complex fairy language, with each syllable full of trills and glissandos, and some of the pronunciations were something Roger had never heard before.

As the airship slowly rose, the forest canopy automatically retreated to both sides like a rippling green ocean, gradually revealing the mysterious gelatinous stratum where the plants took root.

Soon, the top of the airship had come into contact with the ground. Bellingrum climbed up with a series of funny and deft movements, its fingers gently drawing several unique arcs.

Just like a magician unveiling a curtain, the translucent ground cracked open, revealing a perfect gap. Rogge, who was in the cab, saw this scene and opened his eyes wide in surprise.

He had never expected that there was a lake hidden above this layer of crust. He acted quickly and pulled another lever to close the upper convertible to prevent the lake water from seeping in.

Looking at Bellinrum who had returned, he asked curiously, "This is a crater, right?"

"I won't tell you." Bellinrum shook his head firmly, "No one can open it except the Goblin King."

Rogge stared at the clear and transparent lake water outside the cab window, and became more certain of his guess.

A crater is often a huge sunken pit. As time goes by, the magma cools and snow and rainwater accumulate, eventually forming a lake.

However, since it is far from rivers, there are usually no fish inhabiting it, unless a careless eagle accidentally drops a caught fish into it, or someone deliberately releases it.

The airship slowly emerged from the water and then rose steadily into the sky. Rogge looked at the typical crater shape below, turned to Bellinrum, and said confidently: "Look at the shape of the mountain below. Even if you don't say it, it has already told me."

"I just want to know, is this volcano dead or alive?"

Bellinrum scratched his hair and muttered to himself in confusion: "Can mountains speak? No, Rogge must be lying to me! Could it be that the lava lake made him suspicious?"

"It's alive." Under Roger's questioning, Bellinrum hesitated for a moment, and finally gave an answer, "The minerals near the volcano are more abundant, so we will dig some caves there. Under each volcano, there is a possibility that it will become the palace of our goblins."

"Uh..." Rogge was a little amused. The more you say so, the more it proves that there is the fairy palace under the volcano.

But he did not point it out. Instead, he continued to familiarize himself with the complicated operating levers on the control console and asked with concern: "If the volcano erupts, what will you fairies do? Wouldn't you have no place to escape?"

"Last I heard, Gringotts was almost destroyed by lava."

"Rumor! This is a complete rumor!" Bellingrum became emotional and retorted loudly, "This must have been spread by those guys in your Treasury Department. They always want to extend their dirty hands into Gringotts."

"We are a bank, a private bank. We will never accept the management of wizards!" Bellingrum emphasized.

"Besides, the lava eruption must have been caused by you wizards!" It said firmly, "We fairies have unique monitoring methods that can give us early warning before a volcano erupts."

"We can also relieve the pressure inside the volcano if necessary. As long as it keeps oozing magma out, it won't suddenly erupt."

Rogge quickly asked: "What if you want to make the volcano erupt early?"

"Eruption in advance!" Bellinrum couldn't help but shout, obviously shocked by the question, "Rogge, do you know how dangerous this is?"

"Oh, I was just saying that." Roger replied casually, while adjusting the direction of the airship and heading east. "You know, the volcanic ash produced by a volcanic eruption will seriously affect food production."

Bellinrum's eyes flickered, and he remained silent, not knowing what he was thinking. Perhaps Rogge's words had inspired him to consider how to use the food crisis to achieve a certain goal.

There is no essential difference between sailing in the sky and sailing on the sea, and both can rely on astronomy to determine the position and route.

But this was the late twentieth century, and Rogge had no intention of abandoning modern navigation equipment in favor of studying ancient techniques such as sextant, compass and nautical charts.

It is true that the reliability of these traditional tools is unquestionable, but they require a wealth of knowledge to use. For example, the sextant is used to measure the altitude angle of celestial bodies to determine the latitude of the ship; the marine clock accurately records the time to calculate the precise position... In essence, these are computational problems consisting of countless trigonometric functions.

Rogge prefers to use them as spare tires, and is used to using satellite navigation to determine position, pitot tube to measure speed, and gyrocompass to provide heading. Laziness is also a ladder to progress.

He looked and found that the flight distance from their current location to the Far East was about 8000 kilometers, while the distance from the British wizarding world to the Far East was 10000 kilometers, which meant that the goblin palace was not located in the wizarding world.

However, Rogge didn't have time to think deeply about this problem now, because there were too many operating levers on the console and he could hardly move a step.

"Can't you simplify these joysticks?" Rogge complained helplessly.

“It’s not a requirement on the blueprint.”

"Then can't you get a cruise control?"

“It’s not a requirement on the blueprint.”

"What about the chair? It shouldn't be hard to add an extra chair, right?"

“This is not a requirement in the blueprint…”

No matter how many opinions Rogge raised, Bellingrum repeated the same answer, as if it would not make any changes outside the design blueprint.

The blueprints it received mainly focused on the structure of the airship. As for the control, it just fiddled with a few connecting rods to meet the basic functions.

"Even if it's just a rudder, it's ten thousand times better than this bunch of pull rods!" Rogge was almost driven crazy by the complicated and ineffective operating logic.

Who can tolerate having to stop before turning and lower before accelerating? In addition, it does not support simultaneous operation of multiple levers, and the previous lever must be completed before the next one can be executed.

"I swear to Merlin, I will rebuild the entire control system when I return. The one you made is nothing but shit!" Rogge was in a panic while controlling the airship and had to struggle to cope with the violent turbulence amidst the huge bumps.

He didn't believe a word of the goblin's product being of the highest quality. It was obvious that unless he made a clear request, Bellingrum would not take the initiative to make improvements even if he knew the problem, and he showed no initiative at all.

Fortunately, magical airships are superior to Muggle aircraft in other ways. Once they pass through the stratosphere and enter the mesosphere, the airship can reach a cruising speed of Mach 2, about 2400 kilometers per hour. This not only eliminates noise, but also allows for a wider field of view.

"Rogge~ can... can you lower the altitude a little... it's too cold." Bellinrum was shivering with cold, curled up into a ball, and kept blowing his nose.

"Blame...blame someone!" Rogge said with a cold face, "If we want to fly faster, we have to fly at this altitude."

They were not facing the small English Channel or the Atlantic Ocean, but the entire Eurasian continent. Without the help of the Floo Network or the Portkey, they had to rely on the magic airship to fly meter by meter. Moreover, Roger had to rush back to Hogwarts before the morning bell rang and appear in class on time. This round trip, a total of 16,000 kilometers, even if flying at twice the speed of sound, it would take a long time of seven hours.

Therefore, the airship had to maintain a relatively high altitude and travel through the mesosphere in the severe cold of minus fifty degrees Celsius.

"Use, use the magic wand..." Rogge's movements were like he was performing a mechanical dance. He laboriously took out the extra magic wand from the Traceless Expansion Pack, and then threw it stiffly to Bellinrum.

"It looks like Ron's." The low temperature made Roger's thinking slow. He gritted his teeth, cast a bubble head spell on himself and continued to control it.

The harsh environment at high altitudes is not only extremely cold, but also thin oxygen. More importantly, the miser Bellingrum did not even cast any additional protective spells on the airship. Now, the airship is like a leaky shuttle, shaking constantly during the high-speed flight in the middle layer.

"I need to invent a warming spell..." Roger was distracted without realizing it.

Bellingrum hesitated for a moment, but finally grabbed the wand. His hands tightly grasped the wand, and a warm flame soon emerged from the tip of the wand.

The small flame quickly dispelled the coldness of the body and melted the frost on the beard. It ran quickly to Roger and told itself not to cry.

It was like the little match girl selling matches... No, like the little match girl, staring at the magic wand itself, eyes full of desire. How many years... How many years has the Goblin King not used a magic wand.

"If the Ministry of Magic knew..." Bellingrum had just begun to speak when he was interrupted abruptly by Roger.

"Stay away from me, don't burn the joystick!" Roger's voice carried a hint of joking warning, "If we crash the plane - or the boat, I won't care about you."

He continued in a mocking tone, "Don't forget, we are in the sky now. The Ministry of Magic's rules don't apply here. Don't be so easily moved. This wand is not a gift to you. I just lend it to you temporarily."

"Remember, you have to pay the rental fee!"

Bellinrum was stunned for a moment. Although this was true, could you please speak more warmly? After all, it and Roger were friends who had shared hardships in heaven.

"Rent fee!" Suddenly, Bellinrum screamed, and a strong wind instantly filled his mouth and oral cavity.

It coughed, its eyes red and tears streaming, and said, "Impossible! Even if I freeze to death or jump off here, I will never pay."

After Rogge took back his wand as he wished, Bellinrum finally took out a purse tremblingly. He was sweating profusely, and the typhoid fever in his body was forced out.

It clutched the wand and muttered, "Mmm, it's really warm."

"Don't you care about this?" Bellingrum asked curiously and sincerely, shaking the wand in his hand.

"No, I care." Roger shook his head and continued to pour cold water on it. "You are a goblin and I am a wizard. You know you lose."

"The loser must abide by the responsibilities of defeat. This is a sign of respect and responsibility for oneself."

"If it wasn't so cold and I had to control the airship, I wouldn't have let you touch the wand at all." There was no warmth in Rogge's words, as if the cold air had frozen his heart.

Bellinrum's face turned a little gloomy, and the small flame at the tip of the wand in his hand also swayed with his emotions. The identity of the loser, no matter how much wealth they have, they can't get rid of this label.

Roger looked at Bellinrum's unhappy look and couldn't help laughing. Then he continued to rub salt into its wounds: "Bellinrum, maybe you should support the American goblins. They started to break the law a long time ago and secretly use magic wands in private."

There was a clear provocation in his words, as if he was testing Bellingrum's bottom line.

"If the Dark Lord wins, won't he be able to regain the right to use the wand he lost? Then, you, the Goblin King, will have to step down!"

"The Goblin King is the hardest working and most skilled goblin!" Bellinrum retorted immediately, although his tone gradually became lower.

It was not worried about its throne, but was afraid that if the goblins failed again, the wizards would take away more of it.

Once upon a time, the goblin civilization was more prosperous than that of wizards. Whether in wealth, magic, or forging skills, they were the most outstanding magical race in the world.

However, fairies are not good at fighting and like to rebel. They are the typical example of being both bad at fighting and having fun.

After failing in one war after another, they gradually lost the skills passed down by their ancestors and even the right to use magic wands.

Bellinrum couldn't imagine if, if they failed again, the goblins wouldn't lose their independence and become slaves to wizards like the house-elves.

All the wealth they manage will have to be contributed. Even the underground world will become the home of wizards.

"Rog, will the Dark Lord win?" it suddenly asked, its voice full of anxiety.

"Do you think we will lose?" Rogge looked back at it and continued to pull the joystick with absolutely top-notch damping.

He cursed in his heart: "What kind of magic airship is this? It's just an aerial gym."

Winning and losing, not being able to win and not being able to lose, these are four completely different concepts, which confused Bellinrum's mind all of a sudden. While thinking about the meaning behind these words, it was worried about the future of the goblin.

Voldemort's power is a fact recognized by the wizarding world, and his methods are cruel and tyrannical. But so far, he seems to have deliberately avoided a direct confrontation with Dumbledore, which makes Bellingrum curious. What is the Dark Lord avoiding?

Bellingrum quickly ruled out the option of "winning". Goblins could not join the Dark Lord and become Death Eaters. Such an option was too dangerous and too costly. They had lost too many goblins and could no longer afford the cost of defeat again.

"What if I lose?" It hesitated, which meant that this possibility was rapidly rising in its mind.

It looked up at Roger who was carefully driving the airship, and thought to itself: "The magic world will not lose, but it will take a hard fight to win; the Dark Lord will not win, and we must do our best to ensure that he will not lose."

Bellinrum has understood that the floor of the wizarding world is the ceiling of the Dark Lord. At this moment, it knows who it should be an ally of and who it should serve.

But then, it fell into deeper entanglement.

The power of the Dark Lord is simple and direct. If you join him, you can become a Death Eater. But the magic world is much more complicated, with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, Amelia and the Ministry of Magic, and the holy pure-blood families...

If you take the rest of the wizarding world into account, the situation becomes a hodgepodge, and it’s hard to tell which force will emerge victorious in the end.

Standing in line is an art, especially standing in the right line again after standing in the right line.

Bellinrum realized that the future of the elves depended on the choice it made now, and that this choice must be wise and cautious. It must find an ally who can protect the rights of the elves while avoiding putting the elves in greater danger.

The kind face of Dumbledore immediately emerged in Bellingrum's mind. As the greatest white wizard of this century, his kindness won the trust of all magical races.

The reputation and credibility that Dumbledore has built up over the past hundred years is unparalleled. He has never failed and has never harmed the interests of his allies.

To be honest, Bellingrum's trust in Dumbledore was unwavering. However, this alone was not enough for him to make up his mind.

Because Dumbledore pursues vague and abstract things like love and ideals, while goblins need more direct and tangible benefits.

If Roger knew what it was thinking, he would definitely say jokingly: "You are very good, but I am not worthy of you."

This is why the giant leader rejected Dumbledore and chose Voldemort. Dragon skin and lip service to respect cannot change the current situation of giants being on the verge of extinction.

But as long as they surrender to Voldemort, the flat and fertile land of America will become their paradise. Dumbledore may not have thought of or wanted to give the giants what they wanted, but Voldemort could.

(End of this chapter)