"Schneider?" Wolver found Schneider and frowned slightly when he saw the smile on his face.
These people had always looked down on werewolves. They had never shown them smiles like that before.
It made Wolver deeply uncomfortable, and for a moment he even wondered whether the man in front of him really was Schneider.
Schneider slowly lifted his head to look at Wolver, and almost at the same moment, all the wizards turned to look at him as well.
More than a dozen emotionless gazes, together with the smiles hanging on their faces, sent a chill through Wolver.
An eerie atmosphere spread through the surroundings.
"Long time no see," Schneider said slowly. "I brought the goods."
The instant Schneider spoke, that strange atmosphere vanished. The wizards carrying the trunks began sorting the goods inside, and nothing about them seemed out of the ordinary.
Wolver stood there blankly for a while before finally coming back to himself. He clenched his teeth and glared at Schneider, unwilling to show any weakness.
"So you brought it. Then bring it over, and stop staring at me with that disgusting look." Wolver eyed Schneider suspiciously. "Where's Osido? Wasn't he with you?"
Schneider paused, then said slowly, "He had something to do. I heard the head of the Ministry of Magic's Office of Misuse of Magic invited him to a banquet."
Osido attending banquets was nothing unusual. On the surface, there did not seem to be anything wrong with that.
Wolver relaxed and took the leather case from Schneider's hand. "Did you bring enough Wolfsbane Potion?"
"Of course." Schneider nodded. As he watched Wolver paw through the case like a dog, a trace of disdain flashed through his eyes.
"What about those British werewolves?" he asked.
"They're still down in the dungeon." Wolver pulled out a bottle of Wolfsbane Potion and looked at the liquid inside. He glanced at Schneider, hesitated for a moment, and did not drink it.
"Take me to see them," Schneider said.
"What do you want to do?" Wolver asked warily. "Interrogating them is my job."
"But your progress is too slow. How are we supposed to accomplish our cause like this?" Schneider shot back, then added, "You can watch."
"Hmph. Good." Wolver stood up and picked up the kerosene lamp. "Then let's go."
The two of them walked one after the other into the cold, damp dungeon. A faint stench of rot hung in the air. Even an ordinary person could smell it, let alone a werewolf with a much sharper sense of smell.
Wolver frowned slightly and walked ahead with the kerosene lamp. Then he suddenly heard Schneider's voice behind him.
"It's been this long, and you still haven't gotten anything out of them? Don't tell me you went easy on them because they're your own kind."
"Went easy on them?" Wolver let out a cold laugh. "I even used the Cruciatus Curse. Are you kidding me with that?"
"Then why haven't you gotten any results yet?" Schneider's tone did not change in the slightest.
"They don't know the Wolfsbane Potion formula at all." Wolver complained, "That bitch has a hard mouth, but her subordinates already spilled everything. They really have no idea how the Wolfsbane Potion is made. Midgard Greyback keeps that thing under iron control."
"So that's how it is," Schneider replied from behind him.
Wolver's body gave a sudden jolt. Schneider's voice had come from far too close just now, so close it felt as though he had spoken right beside his ear.
He turned around abruptly and raised the kerosene lamp behind him. The light flickered over the dim stairway.
The yellow light illuminated Schneider's face. He stood only half a meter away from Wolver and raised a hand to block the glare from his eyes. "What's wrong with you? Have you gone mad?"
Wolver froze for a second. "N... nothing."
Probably just his imagination. What was wrong with him today? Why did everything keep making his skin crawl?
Suddenly, his ears twitched and he lifted his head in confusion.
"Did you hear something?" Wolver asked.
"What sound?" Schneider tilted his head as if listening. "I didn't hear anything."
"I thought I heard a scream," Wolver said hesitantly.
The castle's soundproofing was too good. Even with his sharper senses, he was not entirely confident.
"What's wrong with you today? Why are you so jumpy?" Schneider said impatiently. "If you don't want to take me down there, then get lost and go back up yourself."
"I never said that."
Wolver shot back, then turned and continued down the stairs with the kerosene lamp in hand. The light stretched his shadow long across the wall behind him.
"Rustle, rustle..."
Along with the faint sound, countless tendrils appeared within the shadow on the wall. They writhed and clustered around the silhouette of a round shape split open down the middle.
Schneider, who had looked perfectly human just moments ago, now had a head split apart. What showed inside was not a normal brain structure, but a savage opening torn into four petals.
More horrifying still, that split-open face still retained Schneider's calm smile, making the whole ghastly sight even more unnatural.
Schneider's body itself still remained half a meter away from Wolver, but his neck had stretched out grotesquely. That split face, carrying its eerie smile, crept toward Wolver and slowly opened above his head as though it meant to swallow him whole.
Just as it was about to bite down, the staircase came to an end, and a metal cell door stood in front of them.
Through the bars, they could see the dungeon beyond, lit by oil lamps. A group of people came into view, covered in wounds and shackled to the walls.
Blood dripped steadily from their bodies and pooled across the floor like a stream. The thick stench of blood filled the cell.
Outside the castle, Leonard, who had been half-reclining amid a mass of vines, sat up. His eyes narrowed into a dangerous curve.
Leonard had just been enjoying a brand-new kind of "monster perspective" gameplay. Sometimes it was the Licker form, hunting werewolves through the castle on all fours. Sometimes it was the man-eating flower form with a split-open head.
Those unusual perspectives gave Leonard the feeling of playing a game. It was so entertaining that it even overrode the discomfort brought on by the killing.
Originally, he had intended to use that method to slaughter every werewolf in the castle, and then in the most brutal man-eating flower form, chew up and devour the werewolf named Wolver.
But after seeing the scene in the dungeon through Schneider's point of view, Leonard felt some regret.
Killing them so directly would be letting them off too easily. No matter what, those were Midgard's subordinates, and his own as well. To torture his own people like this...
Leonard could not swallow that anger.
So he decided to abandon the hunt and switch to a siege instead.
He would leave them alive for now, and let the wronged werewolves vent their anger first.