#227 - Silver Spear

Anduin's actions were swift and efficient, his methods ruthless during the execution. In less than a minute, he had traversed the stone chambers, the four werewolves left behind never even realizing what was happening before they lost their lives. →ReadingМ

After dealing with the remaining werewolves, he began a thorough search of each stone chamber, figuring he should at least get some benefit from making the trip.

But Anduin quickly discovered that these native werewolves were a bunch of paupers, with nothing to their name except for some rotting meat torn from some unknown creature.

His only gains were in Fenrir's bedroom. Although Fenrir was a werewolf wizard, he didn't seem to have good hygiene habits. The whole room stank, piled high with stained clothes, and the floor was covered in bloodstains.

Enduring the unpleasantness, Anduin thoroughly searched the room, eventually finding a leather pouch and two parchments. The pouch contained valuables worth about two hundred Galleons, mostly in Sickles and Knuts. It seemed that even though Fenrir was the leader of the werewolves, his financial situation wasn't great.

Two parchments were casually laid out on the desk. One was a list of goods filled with words and numbers, detailing the prices of various magical creatures and intelligent races.

"A mature unicorn can be sold for 1000 Galleons, and a young unicorn is worth 1500 Galleons. A healthy-coated centaur goes for 600 Galleons. And that's just the smuggling price! No wonder these guys are so reckless, it's really lucrative." Anduin carefully browsed the contents of the parchment, the numbers on it were shocking.

Even Anduin hadn't imagined that the dark side of the wizarding world was filled with so much illegal trading of magical creatures. And the parchment listed not only creatures native to Britain, but also many foreign magical creatures. It included many intelligent creatures from abroad like Veela, Merpeople, and even werewolves themselves. This was clearly a supply list provided by a dedicated organization.

It looked like it was provided by an organization specializing in smuggling magical creatures, so Anduin began to check the parchment for any related records.

Finally, he found a small inscription in the corner of the list, depicting a coat of arms with an ancient spear, and the name was very simple, called 'Silver Spear'.

"Silver Spear?" Anduin was taken aback by the name, not because it was too simple or mysterious, but because he had seen information about this organization.

He had once seen a record of the 'Silver Spear' in a book documenting the history of dueling. It was a notorious secret dueling club that originated in the eighteenth century, and the condition for membership was that they only accepted holders of aspen wands.

They started as a small, self-contained circle, similar to an aspen wand appreciation society, because aspen wood has beautiful grain, a fashionable ivory-like appearance, and excellent power, hence the name Silver Spear.

But because most aspen wand holders were a group of wizards with strong wills and a competitive spirit, it simply evolved into a dueling club.

The wizards from this club were all known for being warlike, constantly challenging others to duels, but they didn't know how to hold back, often seriously injuring people, and even causing deaths. After defeating their opponents, they would always boastfully announce the name of the Silver Spear, so the Silver Spear was very unpopular in that era.

The records of what happened afterward weren't very detailed. It seemed that at some point in the past, some conflict broke out within the club, and many people died. Since then, the name Silver Spear disappeared from history and was rarely mentioned again.

"This club wasn't defunct? How did it suddenly reappear and get involved with a smuggling organization?" Anduin had no idea about this, then folded the parchment and put it away, picking up the other parchment.

The other parchment recorded many names, many of which were marked with red ink. Some were marked with red crosses, some with checkmarks, and some were blank.

"Could this be a list of those with lycanthropy? The crossed ones represent those who have been killed, the checked ones represent those who have chosen to submit, and the unmarked ones are those who haven't been dealt with yet, or haven't been found?" Anduin made a reasonable guess while looking at the list, and noticed a name that was unmarked and somewhat familiar.

Remus John Lupin? Isn't he James's good friend? He's a werewolf? But he's a graduate of Hogwarts, if he were a werewolf, he couldn't have gone unnoticed, could he? Was he infected after graduation?

Anduin was puzzled and uncertain as he looked at the name. Although it was possible that it was just a coincidence of names, the population of the wizarding world wasn't large, and the probability of the same name wasn't high. It seemed that this Lupin had many secrets.

But it was none of Anduin's business. Since this Mr. Lupin hadn't caused any trouble for so many years, he was naturally too lazy to care, but he also carefully put away the list, perhaps it would be useful in the future if he encountered werewolves elsewhere.

Just then, a rustling commotion came from outside the stone chamber. It seemed that the imprisoned magical creatures had smelled the fresh blood, or it was time to wake up, and they were all making grunting noises.

That's right, there's still a bunch of magical creatures.

Anduin slapped his forehead, his mind was full of those werewolves, and he had forgotten about this. He quickly walked out of the stone chamber, ready to see the condition of the magical creatures in the cave.

The cave was still pitch black, after all, there was no light inside, and the air was very stuffy. Only the tunnel could provide some ventilation. Fortunately, there were several oil lamps hanging on the surrounding rock walls. He quickly lit the oil lamps after coming out, and the dim light barely illuminated the interior.

Anduin held a copper oil lamp in his hand and carefully checked in front of each iron cage.

More than a dozen magical creatures had been imprisoned in this cave. First, two Mooncalves that looked like small alpacas were locked in a large iron cage, their eyes wide open, like two light bulb-sized crystal balls, but they didn't look good at the moment, looking listless and weak, and their bodies were thin, obviously not well taken care of.

Next to it, a young Thestral was locked in a large iron cage. It was already skin and bones, so its condition wasn't obvious.