House-elves

Early that morning, Eli disappeared from Hogwarts.

Dumbledore covered for him, saying that he had taken leave to return home, so naturally, no one suspected anything.

By then, Eli had already arrived at the factory. The House-elves were all there, but not a single one was idle. They were either cleaning or maintaining the machines.

Klein came before Eli and performed an extremely proper ceremonial bow.

He had been born into Nicolas Flamel's household and received instruction from his elders since childhood, so he was very familiar with such etiquette.

"Let's go. If there's nothing else, we can set off."

Eli called out to Klein.

Klein came over and took Eli's hand. A series of sharp cracks rang through the air, and Eli and Klein vanished from the factory.

The House-elves' spatial travel was very similar to human wizards' Apparition, and both came with a powerful sense of distortion.

Eli's Phoenix body's flame traversal, however, was like a blade slicing through space. It was relatively safer, and there was no need to worry about Splinching.

The two appeared in a forest. There seemed to be no trace of human activity here, though faint sounds from human machinery could still be heard in the distance.

"Why do your people live so close to humans?"

Normally, magical races kept their distance from ordinary humans to avoid unnecessary conflict.

House-elves in particular, being a domesticated race, were especially afraid of humans. Those who had never entered wizarding households would not dare go too near humans.

Klein explained the matter to Eli. It turned out that in recent years, humans had begun commercially developing Donochi Forest, forcing the House-elves to migrate constantly.

Because there were so many of them, and because the range of human activity had expanded so greatly, they feared being discovered