The Bigwigs of Every Walk of Life
Early in the morning, Harley woke up in a large bed at Nicolas's estate.
Once she was fully awake, she stared at the ceiling in silence for a long while.
For the rest of the previous day, aside from enjoying a delicious French lunch and a sumptuous Italian dinner, Nicolas had shown Harley his collection.
The old man seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for telling secret histories. He simply finished recounting the history of house-elves that he had begun the previous morning.
"The Gnomes kept a group of ugly creatures called Goblins.
"The Goblins were originally the lowest of servants, doing all kinds of dirty and exhausting work for the Gnomes.
"But in the end, they betrayed the Gnomes, sided with humans, and stabbed their former masters in the back.
"To reward them for choosing the winning side, the Warlocks of that era granted them some of the Gnomes' power.
"To hide their past, they changed their name to Goblins and became a race of artisans who served Warlocks.
"In fact, many Warlocks at the time were unwilling to accept those Goblins.
"If they could betray their old masters once, they could betray their new masters a second time.
"But most Warlocks back then were too confident. They thought, 'We Warlocks defeated even the Gnomes. What could the Gnomes' servants possibly do?'
"The human race was so powerful. A few Goblins couldn't cause any trouble.
"The irony was that, for many unknown reasons, a war broke out among the Warlocks, engulfing the whole world.
"Those powerful Warlocks revered as 'gods' either perished or fell into slumber one after another, never to appear again.
"As a result, while the Warlocks were weak, the Goblins started a war of their own, claiming they wanted