Resurrection

"Don't look down on Professor Binns," Aya said after class, mimicking the players' conversations she used to hear. "He's held that iron rice bowl for hundreds of years. You don't even have a proper job right now."

"Today an underage ghost gets qualified to teach History of Magic, and tomorrow Dumbledore will have to step down." Hermione had her head down, studying the textbook for their next class. She had been answering questions like mad these past few days, trying to earn back the 150 points Harry and the others had lost.

Luckily, final exams were almost upon them, so they wouldn't have to suffer much longer.

Because Harry and Ron had lost points, they refused to appear in front of people-mostly because everyone looked at him strangely. It wasn't just some people in their own house, but people from the other houses too. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw had suffered under Slytherin for so long that they both wanted Gryffindor to take first place.

With Neville caught up in it too, three of the five wore long faces. Only Hermione's frantic answers and active participation in class had earned them enough points lately to make Gryffindor's score look a little better.

But losing points was only the most immediate punishment. Harry and the others also had detention before the end of term, and Filch was reportedly in charge of arranging it. Hermione was so worried that she wanted to go with them-Harry, Ron, Neville, and Draco. Harry said they weren't meeting until after eleven at night, by which time curfew would already be in effect, so he definitely wouldn't need the Invisibility Cloak. Aya promptly borrowed it, planning to strike at the heart of the enemy that night while Quirrell wasn't on patrol!

She failed.

When Aya reached Quirrell's office under the Invisibility Cloak, his door wasn't even closed.

She carefully pushed her way inside. The creak of the opening and closing door sounded piercingly loud in the quiet room. Her nose twitched—the smell of garlic in the office was getting stronger. The room was much messier than when she had last visited, and a thin layer of dust seemed to cover the floor, with only the frequently trodden areas relatively clean.

When she pushed open the door to the inner sitting room, Aya thought she smelled rot.

A scent both strange and familiar.

It was no exaggeration to say that Aya's former world had been a giant meat grinder. From the moment she became conscious, she had experienced her sect being mysteriously wiped out and herself drifting across the sea to a newbie village embroiled in conflict with pirates.

Although experiences like those wars had passed quickly because the players completed quests so fast, she still remembered a great deal—the smell of the rotting zombies in the Forest of the Dead, the horrific scene when the newbie village was massacred, the severed limbs scattered throughout a human experimentation dungeon, and those deformed, mutated humanoid bosses... Those memories were etched into her programming; there was no way she could forget them anytime soon. That was why she didn't find the school's ghosts scary at all.

With the smell of decay in her nose, Aya quietly took her staff out of her backpack and set Xiaohua on the floor. The two of them began searching the whole room.

Nothing, nothing, nothing!

There was nothing at all!

Aya was growing anxious. Being unable to find the source of the rotten smell made her skin crawl!

There isn't some vengeful ghost watching me from behind, is there?!

Just as she crawled under the bed to search, footsteps came from outside.

They were heavy and unsteady, accompanied by suppressed, pained gasps.

Aya scooped up Xiaohua and held her breath.

"No, no... I can't anymore... It's already too much..." Quirrell's voice was weak, his steps unsteady, as though it took all his strength just to open the sitting room door. "Master, I can't. My body is about to be destroyed..."

"You must do this..." said a high, sinister voice.

Quirrell gave a short sob. "I've... I've already run out of options. The curse has taken effect, Master... Master-"

But the other voice didn't speak again.

Aya thought for just one second. The boss looks really weak right now...

With his health this low, wouldn't it be a shame not to charge in?

But kill-stealing was an instinct etched into the body of every player-controlled character.

Aya charged.

"Ah!" Quirrell's scream mingled with the unknown voice from before as Xiaohua grew larger and slammed him to the floor. The turban that had covered the back of his head for almost a whole term fell away, revealing the terrifying human face hidden beneath it.

Its skin was as white as a corpse's, and its nose was so flat it was almost nonexistent, with two long, narrow, snake-like nostrils beneath it. Its slowly opening eyes, however, were bloodred, and they met Aya's gaze under the bed.

Aya: "..." In all her life, she had encountered character models ugly enough to hurt her eyes, but never one this ugly.

Aya wasn't sure whether the other party had seen her, since she was wearing the Invisibility Cloak. Still, now that Xiaohua was out, who else could it be but her?

After waiting a while, Aya heard no system notification for completing the quest. She thought it over, then crawled confidently out from under the bed. "Ha! Quirrell, tell me the truth! What the hell is that thing on the back of your head?"

Quirrell was already pinned beneath Xiaohua and unable to get up. With his back to Aya, he couldn't see a thing, so he struggled anxiously and reached for his wand.

"Let me." The snake face on the back of his head spoke. Quirrell relaxed, and his hand quickly reached for his wand at a strange, eerie angle. Only his body was pinned down, after all. "Avada Kedavra!"

A beam of green light shot toward Aya, who was standing nearby. Aya quickly used pollen to protect herself, and the barrier blocked the light when it struck the pollen's outer edge. Then Aya quickly followed up with a few more cat punches on Quirrell. But perhaps because Quirrell had two brains, he himself fell unconscious while the face on the back of his head remained awake, chanting spells at Aya nonstop.

Aya had Xiaohua gag it, using something she found on the spot: the turban that had just fallen off Quirrell's head. Then she put Quirrell's wand away and decided to go find Dumbledore in the middle of the night.

Honestly, Dumbledore was never around when he was supposed to catch someone, but Aya kept running into him when he wasn't supposed to be catching anyone!

Xiaohua carried Quirrell by his waistband-both ends stank, and Aya wanted nothing to do with them-as they headed to the Headmaster's Office. She didn't know the password, but she could call out from outside!

So when Dumbledore opened the door, he saw an unconscious Quirrell bleeding from his head and feet, and beside him stood an expressionless Aya and her cat, sitting obediently.

"...May I ask, was this self-defense?" Dumbledore ushered them inside, feeling somewhat weary. With the turban stuffed over the back of Quirrell's head, he hadn't seen the face, and privately reflected that Quirrell had apparently worn a turban because he was bald.

"No, I attacked him first!" Aya said proudly.

"Then why did you attack a professor?" Dumbledore paused, choosing to guide his student along slowly.

"He's too ugly," Aya said.

"?" Dumbledore instinctively looked at Quirrell's bruised face and his still-bleeding nose and the corner of his mouth. Though rather colorful now, his original appearance had been nothing close to ugly.

"Oh, I forgot. Xiaohua!" Aya followed his gaze and realized the stinking turban was still wrapped around it. She wondered whether that ugly red-eyed thing had been knocked unconscious by the smell.

Wait, hasn't it been smelling that all along?

Could this be some secret technique that requires garlic?

Aya's thoughts had already wandered far afield, but Dumbledore suddenly stood up. He took a few steps over to Quirrell and crouched down, studying the twisted face closely.

"No way, Headmaster, you actually know him? Your circle of friends is that broad?" Aya's eyes widened, and she gave Dumbledore a suspicious glance.

"No, I just didn't expect him to exist in this form..." Dumbledore said quietly.

"What form?" Aya leaned closer. She had thought this was simply a case of an experimental subject getting loose.

"Parasitism." Dumbledore drew his wand and cast several spells on Quirrell, restraining him. "He is Voldemort. Someone who was once so infamous has ended up reduced to this."

Aya shrugged. "So what? Accidents can happen in an instant." She had seen plenty of fallen geniuses before and was used to such things.

"You're rather clear-sighted, aren't you?" Dumbledore glanced at her in surprise.

The system notification suddenly sounded, and Aya immediately stopped paying attention to the headmaster, who was still examining the ugly face. She quickly checked her quests.

[Find the person hidden in the shadows II: completed]

[Level increased to 20]

[Pass the final exams and successfully advance to second year]

Aya fell silent for a long time when she saw the new quest. Her grades...

No, I can do it!

"Well, it seems Quirrell won't be able to teach anymore," Dumbledore said, standing up. "I think that will be a small problem. Perhaps I should do something."

"Oh, right! Is Voldemort the one Harry defeated?" Aya suddenly realized. Only after Dumbledore nodded did she say, "But didn't he die? He's been dead for-uh, eleven years?" Who comes back to life after being dead that long?

"Clearly, he has already been making preparations for his resurrection." No emotion could be heard in Dumbledore's voice.

Aya shook her head. "Resurrection is pretty complicated around here, if it takes so long to prepare."

"?"

Dumbledore almost wondered if he was so old that his hearing had gone wrong. He turned to look at Aya. The young witch stood beside him with her hands behind her back, relaxed as if she were out for a stroll, studying Quirrell on the floor. She had tissues stuffed up her nose, and with one foot supporting her weight, she was even tapping the other against the floor at ease. "Excuse me, miss, what did you just say?"

"Resurrection?" Aya gave him a puzzled look.

"Resurrection is impossible. Even if it were possible, the price would be tremendous." Dumbledore emphasized his words.

"Oh, no wonder life is so peaceful here." Aya finally understood why this world was so peaceful. Even among the NPCs in her world, quite a few had created zombies in pursuit of resurrection. For people like Aya, who had players, resurrection happened in an instant.

"...Life is peaceful?" Dumbledore repeated. "Why do you say that?"

"Because people aren't dying nonstop every day," Aya said matter-of-factly. "This is the best place I've ever seen! It's missing a lot of fun, but I'm happy every day!"

The question buried in Dumbledore's heart surfaced again. Where exactly had Aya come from?

Previously, he had deduced that Aya was a war orphan who had been sent away from the battlefield. After reaching Britain, she had somehow become a young witch within the country's borders recognized by the Book of Admittance, and thus received a Hogwarts acceptance letter.

Since she had only reached Britain after being sent away, the battlefield must have been outside the area Hogwarts recognized. Aya was also so young that he didn't want to be harsh on a child who had just escaped hell, so he had set the question aside for the time being. Most importantly, the international Ministry of Magic had never recorded any ongoing war.

But judging from today... why did it seem those wars hadn't left Aya with any psychological scars?

No, rather, did Aya seem to think that kind of life was normal?

That possibility was even more serious than the previous one...

For the first time, Dumbledore considered asking a Muggle psychologist to help him assess Aya's mental state.

But...

"How do you usually come back to life?" Dumbledore asked, pretending to be casual.

Aya answered just as casually. "Lots of ways. Most of the time, you can resurrect at a specific public location. Sometimes you have to rely on yourself, but during a fight you have to rely on your teammates and yourself." Aya remembered that this world had no teleport points, so resurrection at teleport points didn't exist here, and she glossed over it.

"How do you usually come back to life?" Dumbledore asked softly.

"I use Xiaohua." Aya swished her tail. "Honestly, if he wants to come back to life, why would he do this? Sticking himself together with someone else-oh, wait, I forgot. We might be different."

Only then did Aya realize that people here were more like NPCs. After living in this world for a month, she had discovered that everyone here was as lively as she was, nothing like the stiff NPCs, so she had long forgotten about that. The NPCs in her own world had also resorted to plenty of strange schemes to come back to life.

Dumbledore looked at the tabby cat half-reclining beside him, then turned his gaze back to Voldemort's face. "How remarkable. You're truly impressive."

"Of course~" Aya's tail rose. "Today I used pollen to block all of this, this Voldemort's attacks. Your power system isn't very good; you need to practice close combat more." Even pure mage classes like the qigong class had a few close-range explosive skills. Otherwise, if they ran into a class like Aya's that was immune to ranged attacks, they wouldn't stand a chance.

"Oh?" Dumbledore decided he needed to brainstorm about this "poor war orphan's" background. "But it's very late now. You should go back to bed, child. Staying up too late will stunt your growth."

"What?!" Aya was shocked. Then what did it mean that she wandered around the castle after curfew four nights a week?

"Really?" she asked cautiously. She had always envied the other three races for their tall heights and long legs. After coming here, she had even been happy at the possibility that she might grow taller.

"Of course." Dumbledore smiled. "I hear the Muggles have scientific evidence for it. So, it's time to go back to bed. And I hope you'll keep tonight's events secret for now."

Aya glanced at Quirrell on the floor, thinking that she had completed her quest anyway. "All right, I will. Good night, Headmaster Dumbledore."

"Good night."

Aya swished her tail as she left the Headmaster's Office, only then remembering that this seemed to be the third time Dumbledore had caught her out at night without deducting points-though this time she had come to him herself.

She had to go back and show off!