The Decision Was Him

He looked as though he were merely glancing around, absentmindedly chewing his food, his eyes as clean—so he believed—as snow in early winter.

At the same time, Snape's hand, which was raising a goblet at the professors' table, paused almost imperceptibly.

A sudden, bone-chilling malice seized him without warning!

The feeling was so familiar, and so detestable.

—Like the warning in the instant before the Crucio curse descended, like being targeted by a venomous snake lurking in the dark, even...

It carried a hint of the oppressive aura the Dark Lord had carelessly radiated at the height of his power!

But the sensation came quickly and vanished just as fast, almost like an illusion.

He abruptly raised his head. His hollow black eyes, like the sharpest probes, swept across the entire Great Hall in an instant.

Finally,

his sharp gaze settled on the newly arrived black-haired boy at the Slytherin table, the one the Sorting Hat had just called "Azkaban."

The boy had his head raised, chewing something, looking toward the professors' table with an innocent expression as if he were curious about everything.

Snape's brows drew tightly together, his lips pressed into a pale line.

Was it an illusion? Or...

He stared fixedly at Skofot Leoqi, trying to find even the slightest trace of the source of that icy killing intent beneath the calm, even somewhat frail-looking exterior.

Nothing. There was nothing.

When the boy met his scrutinizing gaze, he even showed a faintly restrained and puzzled expression, then quickly lowered his head and returned his attention to his steak, as though frightened by the professor's stern stare.

[Emotion Points +30] (from Snape's vigilance, suspicion, and intense scrutiny)

[Emotion Points: 440/100]

Snape slowly set down his goblet, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force of his grip.

The doubts in his heart churned thickly like a potion brewing in the dungeons.

This Leoqi... there was definitely something wrong with him. The Sorting Hat's anomaly, and that fleeting sensation just now... was it really an illusion?

No. He trusted his instincts.

It seemed he would need to pay this new Slytherin "special attention."

Fotkai lowered his head and cut the food on his plate. In a corner no one could see, the edge of his mouth curled up ever so slightly.

Good. The reaction was intense, yet restrained.

The fish had taken the bait.

Just as Fotkai privately savored the success of provoking Snape and considered how to sustainably "harvest" Emotion Points from this Potions Master,

the system panel at the corner of his vision suddenly flickered. A gray button that had never lit up before seemed to briefly become clickable, and a line of small text appeared beside it:

[500 Emotion Points unlocks the Shop.]

"The Shop?" Fotkai's heart stirred, but he immediately noticed that his Emotion Points balance was 440/100, still some way short of 500.

"I don't have five hundred yet," he said to the system in his mind.

The small text and the button's glow instantly went out. The panel returned to normal, as though nothing had happened.

Then, the system added emotionlessly:

[I misread it.]

Fotkai: "..."

He truly had no answer to that. This system did not seem particularly reliable either.

At that moment, the Slytherin Prefect stood up, his voice clearly cutting through the conversations at the long table.

"First-years! Follow me. I'll take you to the common room!"

The new students rose one after another, chairs scraping against the floor.

Fotkai stood with the crowd as well. He knew it was time to leave the Great Hall.

At the final moment before turning to follow the group out, he casually looked back again, his gaze landing precisely on Snape at the professors' table.

—The killing intent manipulation granted by the [Scavenger] card had a limitation: he had to look at the target to release it accurately.

Their gazes met in the air for an exceedingly brief instant.

Now!

Another wisp of killing intent, subtler than before but equally bone-chilling, shot toward Snape like an invisible venomous snake.

This time, he deliberately controlled its intensity and duration, making it more like a provocative "reminder."

Then he immediately withdrew his gaze, turned, and merged into the group of first-years, leaving Snape only the sight of a slender back clad in secondhand black robes.

At the professors' table, Snape's seated body tightened almost imperceptibly once again.

That familiar, spine-chilling malice struck him clearly once more!

And this time, he was one hundred percent certain that it had come from the first-year named Skofot Leoqi, who had just met his eyes!

It was not an illusion!

His hollow black eyes instantly became incomparably sharp. Like a bat locking onto prey, he stared fixedly at the figure about to vanish around the entrance hall's corner.

The boy's final glance had been calm and unruffled, without even a trace of excess emotion, but that icy killing intent was undeniably real!

That little monster... was provoking him?

Or was it some kind of... test?

Snape's face darkened enough to drip water, and the hand resting on his knee quietly clenched.

The oppressive aura radiating from him made even Professor Quirrell, seated beside him, instinctively shrink away to the other side.

Quirrell: Psycho.

[Emotion Points +40] (from Snape's rising fury after being openly provoked, his cold scrutiny, and intense desire to investigate)

[Emotion Points: 480/100]

Fotkai followed at the back of the group, clearly hearing the system notification and feeling the icy stare behind him that seemed ready to bore straight through him.

Good.

Hatred... or rather, the seed of attention had been planted.

And it was of very high quality.

He lowered his head and followed the group toward the Slytherin dungeons, his face completely expressionless.

Life at Hogwarts truly would not be boring. This [Scavenger] card's effect, however, seemed even more... conspicuous than he had expected.

He would have to use it carefully.

The Slytherin common room was hidden behind an empty, damp stone wall. Once the Prefect spoke the password, the stone door silently slid open.

Inside was a dim space glowing with ghostly green light, its luxurious silver-and-green decorations exuding a cold, ancient air.

The ceiling displayed magical projections of shifting light from the bottom of the Black Lake, bringing a stifling tranquility.

The Prefect began assigning dormitories.

Names were called one by one. The new students found their roommates and headed toward their assigned rooms in quiet conversation.

However, when "Skofot Leoqi" was called, the atmosphere visibly froze.

The remaining unassigned first-years lowered their heads in unspoken agreement. Some pretended to sort through their luggage, while others stared nervously at the floor. Not one of them spoke up.

Silent fear and rejection filled the air. The Sorting Hat's cry of "Azkaban," which had echoed throughout the Great Hall, along with the lingering sense that something about Fotkai was terribly wrong,

had convinced them that sharing a room with him might lead to their inexplicably losing their lives in the middle of the night.

[Emotion Points +15] (from the fear and rejection of the surrounding first-years)

[Emotion Points: 495/100]

Fotkai stood alone in a small open patch of space, his shabby suitcase at his feet.

He could clearly "see," through Killing Intent Visualization, the pale red ripples of fear radiating from the surrounding students toward him.

He had already tried hard to restrain the unnatural aura naturally emitted by the [Scavenger] card, but the results were clearly limited.

An inexplicable irritation rose in his heart.

He did not care whether he fit in, but this naked isolation born of fear still made him feel a little impatient.

He raised his head and looked directly at the Prefect, who was frowning at the list. His voice was calm, yet carried a cold hardness that did not match his age or appearance: