Ancient Wizards Return to Hogwarts...

Chapter 74 We personally ushered in Ragnarok.

"Indeed," Daphne wholeheartedly agreed with Rice.

"Such a huge snake," she rubbed her hands together, shaking off the horn powder, and began to imagine, "It must have a lot of flesh on it, right?"

"Huh?" Daphne's thoughts jumped around so much that Rice didn't even realize what she was saying.

"I mean, in my memory, its head alone was as big as a small island. If it were a snake like that, the meat after slaughter would probably be enough to feed the entire British wizarding community for a year."

Rice subconsciously did the math: if there were 10,000 wizards in the entire British wizarding world, and each of them ate a pound of snake meat every day, it would only amount to a little over 3 million pounds a year, which is just 3,600 tons.

Fun fact: a single blue whale can yield fifty tons of meat and twenty-five tons of oil, and it's just a small creature over thirty meters long, not even as big as Jormungandr's head. Daphne's estimate was conservative; if the meat from that snake were actually extracted, it would be enough to feed wizards all over the world for several years.

Rice: !

Wait, why am I actually taking this ridiculous stuff seriously? That stuff is definitely not something a human could eat!

"Let's forget about it. Its flesh must be very tough. Its skin is so tough that even a siege crossbow would have a hard time piercing it, and the flesh underneath is harder than stone."

"That's true, but it's definitely worth studying for potions, right? The various parts of that snake are definitely valuable for research—didn't Slytherin take something from it after the battle?"

"That's right." Rice looked at Daphne with an "I can teach her" gaze. After the battle, he did indeed take Jormungandr's brain nerve and used it as the core to make a wand with astonishing power. That wand inherited Jormungandr's magic as well as its brutality. Even the Slytherins back then were unwilling to keep it by their side, otherwise they would eventually be influenced and have their minds twisted by that wand.

The other old friends were in similar situations; they all gained some benefits from those false gods, using their bodies to create extremely powerful magical artifacts.

"Why did Slytherin fight that giant serpent?" Having resolved several of her questions, Daphne posed her final one. After asking, she smiled mischievously, "Is it recorded in any of the letters you collect?"

Rice blinked: It seemed that the old letter excuse was no longer enough to fool people. Should he look for a new reason?

However, despite thinking this in his heart, he still agreed with Daphne's statement: "Yes, a medieval letter does record the reason for their war, which was one of the most dangerous crises the magical world has ever faced."

While wizards themselves lack religious beliefs, they do have connections to other species and factions. There are churches on the eastern continent of Europe, and similar entities exist on the northern Scandinavian peninsula: the Norse gods. In the eyes of the wizards led by Gryffindor and Slytherin, the false Norse gods are far more detestable than the madmen in the churches.

The latter at least still belong to the category of "human," while the former no longer consider themselves human. They believe that their race is naturally superior, the shepherds of the mortal world, which is unacceptable to the wizards.

No wizard willingly transforms from human to sheep—the church occasionally talks about shepherding sheep on behalf of God, but that's just empty talk; fundamentally, it's still humans governing humans. The Norse gods, however, were serious about it; the two are fundamentally different.

Wizards don't consider ascending to a certain place to serve a certain group of people after death as their life's pursuit.

In an attempt to spread their faith, the false gods began to expand southward toward the island of Britain. If their scheme had succeeded, the British Isles would have been shrouded in the shadow of Asgard, and the status of wizards would perhaps have been only slightly higher than that of house-elves today.

The spark that ignited the great war was the arrival of Jormungandr, the world-devouring serpent. His antics in the North Sea were too much for the wizarding world to bear, so the four wizards—Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin—headed north.

They set sail from the North Sea, heading north, and together with powerful beings from other races, they conquered Asgard in one fell swoop, personally ushering in Ragnarok.

Jormungandr, who once roamed the North Sea, eventually became the wand core of Slytherin.

It is said that Thor, the gatekeeper of Asgard who wielded lightning, controlled storms, war, and agriculture, was cut to pieces by Ravenclaw's wind magic, proving that your claim to control a certain domain is ultimately just a claim.

Baldr, the god of light who was said to be the embodiment of light, died after being pierced through the chest by a spear made of mistletoe from Hufflepuff.

As for Odin, the king of the gods, he didn't fare well either: He was killed in Asgard, and his Valhalla was magically erased along with him. His body parts were made into various magical ornaments—since no one considered him "human," people felt no guilt using ornaments made from him. Medieval wizards' understanding of the world was somewhat disconnected from modern society.

The four used the blood and flesh of the false god to prove that the so-called god was nothing more than a more powerful species.

"Essentially, it's just a larger-scale duel." Rice told Daphne about some events that happened a thousand years ago, as if it were something trivial.

Daphne nodded blankly. Coming from a wizarding family, she didn't have much of a phobia about "gods," and she wasn't surprised by the feats of the four founders.

From her perspective, it felt like a wild boar from the neighboring village was trying to invade the cornfield of her village, only to be hunted down by the righteous village chief and his men.

"Where did the wand Slytherin made from Jormungandr's brain end up?" Daphne asked herself, not expecting an answer from Rice. Such a "divine artifact" was probably only known to Slytherin himself.

Rice smiled without saying a word.

When you're a little older, I'll take you to see it. This kind of thing isn't suitable for children to handle right now.

"Which do you think is more powerful, it or the Elder Wand?"

"What is the Elden Wand?" Rice was taken aback. It was the first time he had ever heard of the word "elder" being used before "wand".

Daphne was even more shocked than Leslie: You've never even heard of the Three Brothers legend? Are you sure you're a wizard? This is as absurd as a Muggle child never having heard of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.

"The stories written by Beethoven, the stories collected in The Tales of Beethoven!" Daphne couldn't help but wave her hand, completely unable to hide her inner shock.

The only response she received was Rice's deafening silence.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Update here, I'm going back to writing.

(End of this chapter)