Chapter 3124
"—Give me some unicorn tail hairs."
"There should be a bundle left behind the door. Go in and pick some yourself."
"Mm... and where is Aragog's old nest? Your Acromantula friend's place."
"What do you need it for, a mission?"
"Yes... don't worry, I only need a few of its descendants. I won't hurt Aragog. As I recall, it wasn't all that close to its children anyway, right?"
On the porch outside Hagrid's hut, the Half-Giant and the young wizard sat side by side, watching the messy pumpkin patch before them. Even without magic restraining it, the shrunken Qilin seemed too lazy to grow larger again. It eagerly used its small size to its advantage, dodging Fang's flying drool all over the place.
Hearing Zheng Qing's answer, "Hagrid" hesitated.
"...What, is there a problem?"
Zheng Qing immediately noticed the Half-Giant's hesitation.
Hagrid scratched at his tangled beard, sounding somewhat troubled. "There is... Originally, asking Aragog to give you a few Acromantula offspring wouldn't have been difficult. But now, there's been a small accident."
"What accident?"
"Aragog and its descendants have all disappeared..."
"The Basilisk?"
That was the first thought that surfaced in Zheng Qing's mind. Having read the Harry Potter "chronicles" closely, he easily recalled the Chamber of Secrets storyline, when the spiders spent the entire school year hiding everywhere in terrified unease because of the Basilisk.
The Half-Giant shook his head very slightly.
"Doesn't seem like it."
His voice also carried a trace of confusion. "If the Basilisk had appeared in their nest, it would have left some traces, more or less. But when I went there, I only found some severed Acromantula limbs... and a great many signs of fighting. Most importantly, all the big spiders were gone."
As he spoke, he picked up the umbrella