Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 484 Professionalism and Greater Professionalism

Two miles below the ridgeline on the south slope, behind a gray-white limestone protrusion, Luc Charbonnier had been lying in a narrow crevice between the rock and the ground for almost four hours.

The sun is blocked by a protruding rock canopy overhead, low shrubs flank the sides, and a scree slope lies behind.

He took three precautions for himself: a Disguise Charm to hide his body's outline in the air, and an Odor Eliminator Charm to cover up the smell of sweat and the lingering smell of smoke on his robe.

The Confusion Charm is spread within a three-meter radius. When a living creature passes by, its mind will automatically avoid this area. Birds will mistake it for a stone, and foxes will also mistake it for a stone.

In mid-April, the sun begins to heat the ground in Provence after it rises over the eastern mountain ridge.

Luc's breathing was long and slow, his chest pressed against the ground, and he could feel the heat rising from the soil and the cool air seeping from under the stones fighting against each other.

He rested his left hand under his chin and held the magic lens in his right hand. The lens was long and had a matte silver-gray finish. It was inlaid with three layers of gold-plated circuitry: the outermost layer focused, the middle layer filtered, and the innermost layer developed.

This kind of thing is not uncommon in the French market, and its quality depends entirely on the circuit precision.

The one Luke has is a high-end product; its filtering layer can filter out 90% of environmental magical interference, and its focusing layer can zoom in to see the magical outline of a goblin from five miles away.

He was now looking at the density distribution of the protective spells on the manor two miles away. The thicker the protective spells, the brighter the reflection in the mirror; the thinner the spells, the darker the reflection.

The estate's protective perimeter extends from the Muggle road at the foot of the hillside all the way south of the ridgeline. Through the lens, most of the estate appears to be shrouded in varying shades of silvery-white.

The brightest area is a section in the north-central part of the manor, the heart of the estate, which shines dazzlingly in the mirror.

Luc's gaze slid over the bright area, tilted the lens slightly south, and scanned along the edge of the protective spell segment by segment.

The brightness begins to drop in the middle section of the south slope. At the junction of the south and west slopes, the silvery-white reflection in the mirror becomes noticeably darker, creating a difference in brightness with the sides.

Extending down from the ridgeline for about two hundred meters, it is wide enough for two people to pass side by side.

He put down the lens and took out a palm-sized gray stone slab from the inner pocket of his robe. The surface was polished smooth, and the edge was engraved with a circle of fine runes.

The wand was pressed against the center of the stone slab, and a phrase was whispered. The light from the tip of the wand seeped into the stone surface.

A luminous thin line appeared on the stone slab, its direction perfectly matching the curvature of the protective spell within the lens. The line's thickness corresponded to its density, and its brightness to its intensity.

A moment later, the lines connected to form a contour line, dissecting the entire manor's protective spell into a plan.

Consistent with the information relayed by the boss, the information provided by the British woman was accurate, at least regarding protective spells.

Luc marked a line of numbers on the edge of the slate, accurate to the scale.

After finishing, he put the wand into his sleeve, took out a small piece of charcoal from his pouch, and wrote a few key points on the stone floor. His handwriting was so messy that only he could understand it.

It records Felix Laval's route from the main house to the south slope and back, which took about an hour and forty minutes, the same as yesterday.

There was also the male employee working among the trellises, wearing a straw hat, who was around the pruning group's area around 10 a.m. and went to the irrigation canal around 11 a.m.

There was also a short witch squatting beside the vines with scissors, moving occasionally and then resting. Felix would say a few words to her every time he passed by.

His gaze finally settled on the south-facing window on the second floor of the main house.

The lens revealed the figure of a boy sitting at a table, head down, probably reading a book. The morning sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating half of his body.

Luc stared at the shadow for a long time.

The child has been sitting since morning, only standing up twice in between: once to get water and once to stand by the window before sitting back down. He hasn't even gone to the toilet.

Thirteen years old.

Luc muttered to himself, "The heir of a pureblood family has come all the way to France, only to sit in the manor all day long. Is that all the homework he has? Being a young master these days isn't easy."

He kept an eye on it for a while, making sure there were no extra people around the main house, no armed patrols, and no outsiders coming in or out.

This aligns with the usual practices of the estate that the owner has gradually come to understand over the past few years: Laval is in charge of security, DuPont is in charge of the estate, and a dozen or twenty employees work there.

The boss's fears were unfounded, as the other party was prepared.

The sun was beginning to set in the west, and Luc began to wrap up work.

He first put away the lens, wrapped the stone slab in soft leather, stuffed it into his waist pouch, and then fastened it. After that, he checked the place he had been from head to toe.

A patch of moss was crushed, the dust patterns on the rocks were skewed because of an elbow rubbing against them, a dent was formed where a knee had pressed down, and several drops of sweat dripped onto the soil.

He took out his wand and cast the Disappearing Spell.

The moss fibers stretched out again, returning to their fluffy state before being compressed; the dust patterns on the rock surface were magically guided back into place; the knee marks were filled in; and the sweat evaporated.

He did it methodically, one step at a time, and checked it again after he finished to make sure that every trace was completely removed. He then took one last look in the direction of the manor and put everything away.

I lay there without moving, and then, snap, the spot was empty.

The wind blew down from the mountain ridge, smoothing out the last bit of magic in the air.

After a period of silence, about fifteen minutes, about thirty meters away from the rock, a figure materialized out of thin air.

There was no sound, no feeling of air being squeezed out; it was as if nothing had appeared, and suddenly a person was standing there.

The woman, in her early thirties, wore a dark travel robe. The fabric was neither new nor old, and the color was neither too dark nor too light. She would have been easily overlooked in a crowd.

Her hair was tied tightly at the back of her head, with no stray hairs showing at her temples or brows.

Her face wasn't particularly attractive; her jawline was a bit wide, her nose wasn't high, and her eyebrows were very light. Her features, when put together, weren't very refined, and there wasn't much of a memorable quality about them.

It's just that the way people occupy space when they stand there is different from that of ordinary people.

His posture was relaxed, with his shoulders naturally drooping and his hands hanging down at the sides of his robe. But if you look closely, his center of gravity was very stable, with a straight line running from the top of his head to his tailbone to one heel.

His eyes weren't big, but he looked at things very directly, glancing at the ground, then looking away and then at something in the distance, without any hesitation.

She glanced at Cassis in the southeast, then vanished from where she was standing.

It was as quiet as when it appeared, not even a ripple was left in the air, the moss was still moss, and the sunlight was still sunlight.

On the eastern slope, an old olive tree grows about 600 meters from the protective boundary. Olive trees in Provence can live for hundreds of years, and this one is at least two hundred years old.

The trunk is so thick that it takes three people to encircle it. The canopy spreads out, blocking out the sunlight from half an acre of land. The branches are twisted and gnarled, and the undersides of the leaves are silvery-gray.

In the densest layer of the tree canopy, a smuggler's scout crouched among the branches, holding a retractable brass monocular telescope in his hand.

I bought it on the black market. The barrel has several rough markings, and the lens edges have a slight color difference.

He saw Laval's second round of activity in the evening, saw the employees walking from the south slope back to the main house after work, and saw a dark red thing darting back and forth among the trellises on the west slope.

He looked through the binoculars for a long time before recognizing it as a large spider.

He memorized the time interval between Laval's two walks and the route the employees took to finish work.

No one bypasses the Old Vine District, nor does anyone specifically avoid a certain direction. Either there are no traps, or the traps are outside their usual routes. In either case, there is plenty of room for choice in terms of entry routes.

As darkness fell, the lights in the main house came on. A figure in the second-floor window stood up, walked to the window, stood there for a while, and then sat back down.

He put away his tools and, like Luke, carefully cleaned the area he had been in, restoring the marks left by trampled branches, scratches on the bark, and the orientation of the surrounding leaves.

Apparition, snap, gone.

The old olive tree fell silent again, the night wind rustling softly through its branches and leaves.

About ten minutes later, a man's figure emerged from the shadows at the highest point of the tree canopy.

He was in his early forties, lean and wiry, squatting on the branches of two thick branches, one arm draped over his knee, the other hanging down, his wand tucked into his sleeve pocket.

Similar observation points were also observed at an abandoned stone sheep pen at the end of the driveway directly opposite the manor gate, and further on the west slope behind a patch of wild rosemary bushes.

One observes the southwest direction, and the other observes the north direction.

Felix knocked on the door of Regulus's living room on the evening of the third day.

Regulus was sitting at the table reading a book, a fifth-grade book called "Deep Magic Structure of Metals". He had turned to the chapter on the effect of lattice defects on the efficiency of magic conduction. To his left was a small alchemical tool that was half-finished.

Felix came to the table and reported directly: "One on the south ridgeline, one on the olive tree on the east side, one in the sheepfold by the gate driveway, and one in the bushes on the west slope. We observed from these four positions for three days, and we've removed them all today."

Regulus closed the book and looked up.

Felix continued, "The other side used a lens-type alchemical artifact, specifically designed to detect large-area protective magic. The section at the junction of the south and west slopes was under maintenance and downgraded, which is why they saw it."

Regulus hummed in agreement.

Felix pulled a folded piece of parchment from his inner pocket and handed it over: "It was requested by a retired Auror from Bordeaux. It took two days and a favor."

Regulus took it and unfolded it.

A color sketch of a man in his early fifties, with his hair combed back, two silver strands on his forehead, and a long face with distinct bone structure.

High cheekbones, clear features, a very straight nose, deep blue eyes, and an eagle-shaped brooch on the collar—the details are drawn very clearly.

Victor Delacroix.

Regulus returned the parchment, saying, "I understand, go on with your work."

Felix nodded and went out.

Regulus continued reading.

Claire Frey squatted on the bottom shelf of the storage room, carrying out a row of dusty crucibles and wiping them one by one with a rag.

No one assigned her this job; she was just bored. Even after the safety plan was activated, the perimeter work continued, but she had nothing to do.

After wandering around the main house for two days without finding anything to do, I simply went into the storage room.

As she turned the third crucible over to wipe the bottom, she suddenly felt a chill down her back and slowly turned her head.

Baruch was hanging upside down on the door frame, her two-meter-long body pressed against the angle between the wall and the ceiling, her eight legs gripping each other in a different direction, her spider head peeking out from above the door frame, her eight large amber eyes staring at her.

Claire was startled; the crucible slipped from her hand and crashed to the ground with a thud. She clutched her chest, her dark brown eyes wide with shock.

Baruch slid off the doorframe, landed on the ground, tilted his spider head, looked at Claire, then at the rolled-off cauldron, and then used one of his front legs to push it back to Claire's feet.

After finishing, the spider's head came closer again, and its chelicerae opened and closed gently twice, clicking and clicking.

Claire's heel slipped, and her back hit the shelf, causing the bottles and jars on it to sway.

She had seen this spider several times, knew it didn't bite, knew it belonged to the young master of the Black family, and knew it would run away and come back on its own.

But even though I knew it, when a huge thing that was over two meters long suddenly appeared behind me, my brain couldn't process it.

Baruch took another step forward, stretched out a front leg, and gently touched the top of her shoe with the tip of his claw. He touched it once, looked up at her, and touched it again.

Claire stared at the leg, which was longer than her own, and took a deep breath: "Go away, go away, go away!"

Baruch's chelicerae snapped shut, its spider head shrank back, then it turned and scrambled toward the storage room door with its eight long legs.

As Baruch passed by the door, he ran into Regulus, who was carrying a cup of coffee. Baruch's spider head rubbed against his leg before continuing to crawl down the corridor.

Regulus glanced at Claire, who was squatting on the floor in the storage room, took a sip of coffee, and left.

These two get along quite well.

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