At the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Outside the gamekeeper's hut.
Chachai sat cross-legged in the clearing, looking toward Hogwarts Castle with a hesitant expression.
The Southeast Continent Team's Main Quest was to obtain an ounce of unicorn blood. There was a unicorn recuperating in the wooden hut behind them, and it did not mind trying the ancient bloodletting treatment, so they had completed their Main Quest long ago.
In theory, they could leave this world at any time now.
Yet everyone, Chachai included, seemed to have forgotten that option and was wholeheartedly wasting time in the hut. Of the four remaining members, Ananda was playing wizard chess with Tsukishima Rin, Lin Yuqing was stuffing gummy candies into Fang's mouth to stop him from constantly licking her, while Chachai, the Southeast Continent Team's former captain, meditated silently in the yard.
He had thought that with his self-control, he could remain motionless until the owner of the hut, that crude Half-Giant, returned.
But less than an hour later, he could not help opening his eyes and looking toward the castle.
It was daytime.
Yet thick black clouds shrouded the skies above Hogwarts. There was no thunder or lightning within them, only an ever-accumulating gloom. The entire castle seemed to have sunk into the depths of Night Veil.
Even the dullest wizard could sense an extremely unsettling aura in that dense blackness, much less Reincarnators like the Southeast Continent Team, who struggled on the brink of life and death every day.
"Should we leave now?"
At some point, Tsukishima Rin had kicked over the chessboard before her. Squatting beside Chachai, she looked anxiously toward the castle. "I feel like those black clouds are dangerous... If we get dragged in, we'll definitely die without even a burial place."
The Ninja girl's instincts had