Regulus of Hogwarts: Lord of the Stars

Chapter 572 So this is a social gathering

Geralt stood there, empty-handed, for several seconds before his mind returned to normal, slowly resuming its idle state.

He blinked twice, refocusing his gaze.

Dumbledore, standing before him, was looking into his blue eyes behind his half-moon spectacles. The curve of his lips was subtle, a mixture of pride at having accomplished something brilliant and satisfaction at finally reaching this moment after so much preparation.

Geralt looked past the old man's shoulder and across at the other side.

Herogia's enormous figure stood beside Hilde, his hands lowered, his grey-green eyes drooping to the ground, not looking at anyone.

Hilde still held her battle axe in her hand, the blade hanging down to the ground, her helmet lying at her feet, her thick, dark bronze braid hanging down on either side of her shoulder armor, and her icy gray eyes looking in his direction, but the focus didn't seem to be entirely on him.

Her expression seemed a little off, her face blank as if she hadn't had time to react.

Geralt turned his gaze away from Hilde, glanced at Dumbledore's expression, and then thought about the timing of Herod and Dumbledore appearing from two directions at almost the same moment.

Oh, I understand now.

The old man is stirring things up; he's been stirring things up from the very beginning.

Neutral missions, maintaining the status quo, and the idea that gentle approaches won't work—it's all a smokescreen.

The old man brought him to the giants' camp, had him survey the terrain, make alchemy plates, and curse the Death Eaters, the Order of the Phoenix, and the entire wizarding community.

HT

The body, showcasing strategic anecdotes, had him fight Hilde four times, all arranged from the beginning.

Geralt smacked his lips.

A gust of wind swept through the valley floor, cutting through the air currents churned by the fighting above the training ground, carrying away the floating stone dust, dirt, and debris, and clearing the view from the hazy mist.

Hilde composed herself, silently held the battle axe upright with the blade facing down, and inserted it into the metal buckle on the back of her armor that was specifically designed to hold the axe handle in place.

He glanced down at the helmet at his feet, bent down to pick it up, turned it over to look at the inside, then turned it back to look at the outer shell, and then started to tidy himself up.

Her braids, now loose, draped messily over her armor. She freed one hand, scooped up the left braid from her shoulder armor, coiled it twice, and tucked it into the gap at the back of her neck.

After stuffing one in her mouth, she reached for another.

The two braids stretched from the shoulder armor down to below the waist armor. The previous braid wasn't tucked in neatly, leaving little space.

After finishing the second braid, I realized it didn't fit the space inside, so I disassembled it and started winding it again.

The room fell silent. Herod didn't move, Dumbledore didn't move, Geralt didn't move either; only she was there, intently fiddling with her hair.

Geralt watched from dozens of steps away, the golden light in his amber vertical pupils still shining brightly, his gaze intense in a physical sense.

He watched as Hilde coiled her braids, then fastened her helmet back on, pressing down on both sides of the helmet with her palms to adjust its position.

The movement didn't go smoothly; the metal clips' fixing structure was severed by the sharp edge, and the faceplate didn't close properly, with the corners sticking up a bit.

A few strands of dark bronze hair peeked out from the gaps in the helmet and shoulder armor, sticking to the outside of the armor.

Hilde looked down at the few strands of hair on her shoulder, about to continue tidying them, when she suddenly sensed a gaze. Her icy gray eyes lifted and looked in Geralt's direction.

She paused for a moment, then silently turned her feet, turned her body to the side, lowered her head slightly, and quickened her pace, fiddling with the back of her head for a short while.

Not long after, he turned back, moved his feet back to their original position, and faced the same angle as before, as if nothing had happened.

The pair of icy gray eyes behind the visor returned to their previous state, devoid of emotion, silently watching Geralt's direction, as if the absent-minded expression on his face had never existed. As soon as the helmet was fastened back, everything was taken back.

Geralt grinned at the person opposite him.

Sure enough, Hilde's gaze naturally shifted away from him.

Geralt didn't; he just stared.

I never imagined Hilde was a female giant. Thinking about it, I've been to the camp several times and seen dozens of giants, some in armor and some not, some walking, some working, some standing there in a daze—all of them were men.

He knew that there were female giants in this tribe, but he had never thought about it in that way.

Hilde slammed her helmet on, and the five-and-a-half-meter-tall fully armored giant showed no emotion in his eyes. He grabbed the axe and was ready to smash her to death. Who would care what the face under the helmet looked like?

He looked away from Hilde and glanced around.

The ground of the training ground sank three or four meters, and the deepest part in the central area is a meteorite crater.

Large areas of the cliff face have collapsed, turning what was once a relatively intact rock surface into a dilapidated wall riddled with pits and cracks, with depressions and fissures of varying depths intertwined.

Hilde was indeed formidable. In that final move, if Heroga hadn't intervened, he wouldn't know what the outcome would have been. He was caught up in the heat of the moment and didn't think about anything else.

Geralt glanced at Herroga again.

Herogia remained silent, his gray-green eyes lowered, his gaze fixed on the end of the crack in the ground.

Geralt glanced again in the direction of the crack.

A clean, straight line; all the impact was directed in that direction and then absorbed.

Looking back from the end of the crack, it's impossible to tell that the power was received from a giant; it looks more like a fissure that grew out of the earth.

They played too aggressively; it was all Hilde's doing.

Geralt's lips twitched slightly.

Is this the power of women?

In Herogar's stone house, Dumbledore casually waved his hand as he entered, and a magnificent purple velvet chair appeared out of thin air and landed steadily on the ground.

He sat down, lifted the hem of his robe, and sat down as relaxed as if he were at home.

Geralt followed him in, glanced at the peacefully sitting old man, and had only one thought in his mind.

If he had known the old man was so familiar with Herogia, he would have made himself a chair to sit on the first time.

He stood in front of Herogia for most of the day, with nowhere to sit the entire time.

Dumbledore looked at him with a smile, his blue eyes full of laughter, crossed one leg, and said nothing.

Geralt shrugged.

He glanced down at the rammed earth beneath his feet, then casually flicked his right hand downwards, unleashing a burst of magic—a transformation spell.

The moment the magic touched the rammed earth, he sensed something was wrong.

That little bit of magic was enough for him to turn into a bed outside, but here it dissipated as soon as it touched the ground, like it was absorbed by a sponge, and couldn't be gathered up at all.

The concentration of magic in this land was much higher than he had expected, and his magic was diluted by the magic of the giants in the surrounding environment.

Geralt's expression remained unchanged as he subtly increased his magical output.

The rammed earth on the ground began to slowly rise, and the texture of the soil changed from dense to hard under the action of deformation, the color changed from grayish-brown to light, and textures began to appear.

The outline of the chair gradually emerged from the ground: chair legs, chair back, chair seat, armrests.

Finally, regarding the surface texture, he chose a style exactly like Dumbledore's purple velvet chair, but changed the color to dark green.

He sat down, leaned back, and stretched his legs out naturally.

The room was quiet. Heroga had returned to his large stone chair, his grey-green eyes staring in a certain direction.

Hilde stood in the shadows inside the doorway, in the exact same spot as before.

Geralt glanced sideways at Dumbledore.

Judging from the old man's expression just now, he suspected that the old man was waiting to see him make a fool of himself.

Dumbledore was still all smiles.

Geralt stopped looking at him.

So the old man and Herogia had known each other for a long time.

That makes sense, Dumbledore's life couldn't have large blank spaces. He lived for over a hundred years and experienced enough things to fill ten people's lifetimes.

His life couldn't have consisted only of the two stories of being the headmaster of Hogwarts and fighting Grindelwald. In the decades in between, he must have done a lot of things that he never told anyone.

One of these experiences was going to the deep mountains of Norway and meeting a giant chieftain, a man over a hundred years old, whose life story was known only to others.

He then thought of this so-called neutral mission.

Looking back now, Heroga probably knew all along that neutrality was the best option; he was just listening to a young, silver-haired wizard standing in the stone house trying to persuade him to do what he had always intended to do, with absolutely correct reasoning.

Even if old Avery were to lose his mind, he couldn't accomplish it. Voldemort couldn't send anyone to finish it either; this path was blocked by Dumbledore from the very beginning.

He spent half a day walking through the canyon, observing the giants' sustainable food management, and enjoying the scenery by the glacial lake, thinking he was carrying out some kind of high-level preliminary reconnaissance mission. But it turned out that it was all arranged by the old man.

But I don't feel like I lost out.

This trip to Norway was worthwhile; the glaciers and canyons of the Jotunheim Mountains, the world the wizards in the giant camp couldn't see, the fights with Hilde, and the winds blowing along the fjords.

One more thing, Heroga must have told the old man everything he had sworn at the camp that day.

Tell them if you want; they weren't wrong to curse them, that's the right thing to do in that situation.

Even if it were in front of the old man, it wouldn't be that bad. He's so old, and he's been really good to him. It would be a bit much to scold him to his face.

probably.

Geralt's emotions were showing as he thought about these things; his lips would turn up in a smirk, then purse them, and his eyebrows were also moving, his amber pupils focusing on distant things one moment and then returning to their original position the next.

Dumbledore watched from the side, his blue eyes crinkling with even greater amusement.

The atmosphere in the camp was one of silence, and the stone house in Herogia was even more silent, but the silence did not last long.

Dumbledore put down the cup of tea that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and looked at Geralt with a relaxed anticipation in his blue eyes: "How are you feeling? Is there anything you want to ask?"

He was all smiles the whole time, as if he were the kindest old man in the world.

Geralt glanced at Dumbledore, then turned his head to look at Hilde in the corner of the doorway, and then turned his head back to look at Dumbledore.

"So," he paused for a moment, choosing a better word, "this is a social event?"

Dumbledore's beard twitched, he chuckled, his blue eyes brightened, and he said in an appreciative tone, "An interesting way of putting it."

"Heroga and I have known each other for a long time," he said casually, "for decades, back when we were both very young."

He glanced at Herroga, a hint of reminiscence flashing in his blue eyes: "We walked a path together, experienced some unforgettable things, very unforgettable."

Heroga sat on the stone chair, his grey-green eyes slowly turning to look at Dumbledore. A very slight movement appeared on the giant's face, bringing a touch of warmth to it.

Jerome nodded, guessing as much as he had guessed; there was nothing surprising about it. He glanced towards the doorway.

Dumbledore followed his gaze and turned to look at Hilde, switching languages ​​to Norwegian.

Geralt has almost mastered Norwegian in the last few days and can now handle daily conversations.

"She is Herogia's child and also my student. I started teaching her when she was very young. I taught her all the skills that giants could use."

Hilde's eyes behind her visor twitched. She glanced at Dumbledore first, then turned her gaze to Geralt.

Geralt smirked and looked away.

No wonder Hilde is so strong. In the wizarding world, if she could gain the advantage of terrain and cut off apparition and spatial magic or items, even twenty or thirty wizards of similar strength together wouldn't be enough to defeat her.

In his mind, it was abnormal for a giant to be this strong.

Even the strongest giants are limited to being strong, tough, and having high magic resistance, but Hilde is more than that.

Her magical abilities, the resonance between her armor and weapons, the earth's feedback, and the coordinated output of her entire body—all of these are beyond the scope of what the giant race's natural talents can explain.

However, with Dumbledore as a teacher, that makes sense.

Geralt glanced again at Herroga on the large chair.

He had previously guessed that Hilde and Herogia might be related, and now it seemed he was right.

The daughter is already this fierce, but the father seems even fiercer; this whole family are all giants.

Hilde was taught by Dumbledore, but what about Herod?

Hilde's final strike was a full-on display of power; her armor gleamed, her battle axe glowed white-hot, and all her strength, magic, heat, and kinetic energy were poured into that axe as it came crashing down. Herogia caught it with one hand.

Zone 1 still managed to collect the signal at the last moment. Strictly speaking, what Heroga did was not blocking.

All the power in Hilde's body was gathered together the moment it touched his palm, bundled up, traveled up his arm into his body, through his torso, and poured into the earth from the soles of his feet.

Geralt thought about the question for a moment and then stopped. The silent and unfathomable quality in Heroga might not have been taught.

He leaned back, feeling the magic power in his body steadily replenishing.

The Star Orbit Meditation was always on, running automatically, with the six stars steadily outputting energy in the mental space, gradually replenishing the consumed magic power.

All five districts were shut down, and all the collected data had been packaged, categorized, and stored in my mind, waiting to be retrieved later.

In the short period following the battle, magic, physical strength, and mental energy were rapidly recovering, and the body gradually returned to normal from a state of extreme excitement.

But the afterglow of that excitement hadn't completely faded yet, and he was in a rather extroverted state, his thoughts written all over his face. His facial expressions weren't completely out of control, but they were certainly much more varied than usual.

Now his gaze fell on Hilde, who was lurking in the shadows of the corner of the doorway.

The father and the daughter don't seem alike at all.