Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 562 That Dark Lord can only be considered an Android.

After calming Sissoko down, Cohen took out the door from his backpack outside a small room in the castle.

It really is a door—

A black wooden door, carved with forest patterns, even with a threshold.

Cohen leaned the door against the wall, making it look like the Anywhere Door from Doraemon.

It was covered in a dense mass of magic, and some of the spells looked very familiar to Cohen, like many door keys compressed together and then wrapped with a bunch of seamless stretching spells.

But what Cohen actually saw most of these were magical fluctuations he had never seen before.

Clearly, the person who could create this door was at least an alchemist on par with Nicolas Flamel.

Cohen pushed the door open, and where there should have been a wall, a bright, round house made of vines had been replaced.

A small bed covered with colorful blankets was placed in the corner, opposite which was a wooden table piled with various small gear instruments, and above it was a skylight surrounded by the branches and leaves of trees that let in light.

In the middle of the room was a fireplace, and a loud, golden-skinned elf was arguing with an elderly man with a long beard, wearing a robe embroidered with stars and moons.

The old man's figure was like a ghost, and you could see the vine-covered wall behind him through him, but he was different from a ghost in some ways—for example, he stood on the ground instead of floating in the air.

“He can’t come so soon, Bernie,” the old man said. “We’re not done yet—this place should be a bit more modern.”

"But Helbo has already sent the signal!" the little elf shrieked. "Bernie almost messed it up—Bernie couldn't contact him for days, and just now, who knows what he did? Maybe he defeated Helbo, or maybe Helbo has already... Oh my god... Bernie doesn't want to think about it—"

The little elf scratched his face, as if he was about to cry.

"Ahem." Cohen felt it would be impolite to just walk in, so he coughed a few times outside the door.

"Helpo!" The little elf's eyes widened immediately when it noticed Cohen at the door, and it cried out in a sharp voice. Then, it lay down straight on its back.

The illusory old man wasn't afraid at all, and looked Cohen up and down.

“The fragment of Helpo has been captured. I am not Helpo,” Cohen said, then pointed to the unconscious sprite lying on the ground. “Was it scared to death?”

“Of course not, Bernie isn’t that fragile.” The old man raised an eyebrow. “Ah, it seems there’s no point in changing the room’s style now. I’ve been trying to persuade Bernie to change it to a style you might prefer… Come in, Cohen. It seems things are going much faster than I expected. Helpo shouldn’t wake up until next year.”

“You are… Merlin?” Cohen remembered the old man’s face; his name was on the Chocolate Frog card.

“Yes, child,” Merlin nodded, “but I am an illusion, just an illusion. You shouldn’t have had to worry about any of this. I’m truly sorry, Herpo shouldn’t be the responsibility of your generation…”

"What do you mean?"

Cohen went into the room and looked around.

Some bookshelves were nailed to the walls, and Cohen recognized a few books—"The Complete Book of Positive Magic," "Ancient Magic," and "Postpartum Care of Fantastic Beasts" (the titles were too off-putting, so Cohen only glanced at them in the Goodwill Shop before skipping them)...

So the author attribution for "Ancient Magic" is actually correct, because it really was written by Merlin.

The cabinet near the wooden door was filled with various props. Cohen saw several unfinished "Frostmourne" and a pile of all kinds of helmets, gloves, breastplates, capes, as well as colorful bottles and jars. There were also many parchment papers with various blueprints drawn on them.

Atop the pile of items was also a copy of "Dungeons & Dragons 5E Rulebook (Merlin Special Edition)".

This is clearly the system's headquarters—the little sprite and Merlin's phantom must be the guys who give Cohen the quests and rewards.

“I can explain everything to you—”

“Pervert,” Cohen said, frowning.

"?" Merlin paused for a moment.

"You and this little sprite see me every day, don't you?" Cohen asked. "And then you send me reward messages based on my behavior, and every now and then you add a comment?"

"I did most of the evaluation," Merlin said with a hint of pride. "I learned a lot of new things in another world—" "Now I think peeping at me while I shower isn't the worst thing. You even wanted to download Genshin Impact into my head. That's even more evil."

“Bernie and I are very considerate of your privacy, and we’re two people who can never leave this room… Also, those comments are meant to give you a sense of familiarity, like coming home—I see many young people like that.” Merlin said, puzzled, “At least that’s how it is in the world I’m in now, and that world happens to be where you were born…”

"I'll let you off the hook because you're an old man..." Cohen said helplessly.

"Yeah, I've seen plenty of those things, yours isn't that big—"

"You did watch it after all!"

After going around in circles, Merlin finally got down to business and started discussing Herpo's situation with Cohen.

“Over a thousand years ago, I personally banished the despicable Helbo from this world because he couldn’t be killed—he created Horcruxes, you know what they are, don’t you?” Merlin said.

“I know,” Cohen said. “They also destroyed a bunch of Horcruxes belonging to another dark wizard, which wasn’t too difficult.”

"I can't really comment on that wizard Voldemort. He chose a path full of flaws." Merlin shook his head. "Hilbo isn't as arrogant as him. His Horcrux is probably just an ordinary object, maybe a stone or a grain of sand, buried in the ground or thrown into the sea. We have no way of knowing about it or destroying it."

"So it seems Voldemort is indeed just an Android-based Dark Lord, while Helbo is an Apple-based one," Cohen concluded.

"Ah, I remember that joke." Merlin's eyes lit up. "Using those two absurd terms to divide social classes is hilarious—"

“There’s no need to explain this joke anymore.” Cohen took a deep breath. “It won’t be funny if I explain it…”

“Alright, alright…where were we?” Merlin recalled. “Right, Helpo, whom I threw out of the world—I foresaw his return, so I prepared a backup plan to monitor and remind myself to throw him out again after he came back.”

"Then you can wait until he comes back before throwing him out."

“That’s the problem.” Merlin looked helpless. “I never imagined I would leave this world… Vivian—my wife, she led me through the barriers of this world, and we traveled to another world, quietly, happily, experiencing many things we had never experienced before…”

“Then you linger there,” Cohen said.

“I wanted to come back,” Merlin sighed, “but… well… for some personal reasons, you know, I can’t come back…”

“I understand. When you reach another level, you have to cut ties with the lower world.” Cohen nodded. “I understand, I understand. It’s definitely not that you’re too busy having fun to bother with the trivial matters of the lower world.”

“That makes me seem too selfish,” Merlin said reproachfully.

“How can you get into Slytherin if you're not selfish?” Cohen said.

“That was a study tour,” Merlin emphasized. “I only stayed at Hogwarts for a short time and happened to be enthusiastically pulled to their table by a few students—by the time I saw the house’s reputation gradually deteriorate, it was too late…”

“However, in any case, although I can’t come here to deal with Herpo, I left some things behind.” Merlin pointed with one finger. “For example, this safe room, Bernie, and this projection that can be used as a guide—I must emphasize that I am really talking to you remotely now, and it is definitely not some pre-arranged program.”

“Now I’m starting to doubt your level of concern for this world more,” Cohen said. “But… well, at least you’re still willing to put in some effort to take care of things, instead of just running away and abandoning us.”

“Of course not,” Merlin said. “I’ll have to come back eventually. Your original world—which is the world I’m exploring right now—is too… well, it’s fine to wander around, but staying here long-term is impossible. I don’t want to come back to find Helbo already in control of the world. This dark wizard is extraordinary. Cohen, you have to be on your guard and not be so lazy in order to defeat him.”

“You said his Horcruxes are impossible to find, and I can’t consume someone’s soul when they have Horcruxes, so there’s really nothing I can do about him,” Cohen said. “At best, it’s the same as what you did…”

“I only did it out of necessity,” Merlin said in a very serious tone. “But you, Cohen, are different. What I can’t do, you can probably do as well… Before you came along, my goal was simply to find a successor to do the same thing as me, to drive Halper out of this world again and again. But after you came along, everything changed.”

“Hmm?” Cohen said.

"You are the first person from the bottle to survive," Merlin said. "Everything is too coincidental. Your parents summoned Helbo's soul, triggering the detection magic I left in this world. My magic, Helbo's magic, the emotions your family poured into you, the original soul within you, and a dying wizard accidentally releasing a one-way summoning spell—yes, the spell that summoned your current soul… Too many accidents, too many coincidences, that allowed you to survive, to survive as an impossible creation. And this identity of yours means that you will not follow a mediocre path like me or anyone else. You are the hope to completely kill Helbo, and you are also the dawn brought by the will of the world."

"Well... since that's how it is..."

Cohen stroked his chin and said,
"Give me fifty percent of your soul strength?"

“This won’t do.” Merlin shook his head.

(End of this chapter)