Cold sweat instantly drenched Matthew's back.
Damn it.
He had forgotten he'd been hit with a Memory Charm.
Thanks to the immunity effect of his Odin's Lock specialty, the Memory Charm Lyon cast on him had been completely ineffective.
But the confusion he felt upon waking had made him unintentionally reveal that fatal flaw.
Even so, Lyon made no further move.
He simply watched him with an unreadable smile, full of interest.
"Your hand…" Matthew, heart pounding with fear, forced himself to change the subject.
He distinctly remembered that when Lyon had used a drying spell on him earlier, his left hand had appeared completely normal.
But now, that hand glowed with a faint scarlet light, marked by a seal eerily similar to the one from the Evil God ritual array.
"Heh, your distraction technique is still rather clumsy, little one." Lyon stroked his altered palm, eyes thoughtful. "But thanks to this hand, I was able to become your guardian without issue."
"Of course, given your connection to the incident, the explanation I gave to my superiors was something like 'covert surveillance, monitoring for potential links'…"
Matthew's face turned pale at the words, and a chill ran down his spine as sweat trickled down.
"Don't make that face… I—cough—we have already confirmed that you're a victim. Otherwise, you'd be in an interrogation room at the Department of Mysteries by now."
Lyon offered what sounded like a reassurance, then suddenly shifted his tone.
"However, considering your apparent resistance to magic, I went ahead and cast a Memory Charm on you again while you were asleep…"
"So, my dear victim, please answer me this…" His gaze deepened sharply. "Why are you immune to a second Memory Charm?"
Matthew's heart seemed to skip a beat.
"Is it the power of that… entity?" After a long pause, Lyon asked in a low voice.
He stared intently at the boy in front of him, his left hand subtly raised, leaning slightly forward, giving the impression he'd strike the moment things didn't go his way.
"I—I don't know, sir," Matthew stammered.
When the other man mentioned "that entity," Matthew felt as if an invisible hand had clamped around his heart.
He forced a nervous, stuttering reply, while his mind worked furiously, analyzing his current options:
Right now, he had three specialties and two statuses.
Both statuses were negative and only made things worse.
Among the three specialties, Odin's Lock was passive, Otherworld Projection was useless in the current situation, and only Local Space Lock could be actively triggered.
[Local Space Lock:
Grants partial spatial-locking ability, preventing Apparition and other forms of spatial teleportation within a designated area.
Current range: dynamic 5-meter radius centered on the user.]
Matthew reread the description several times. This specialty could only block spatial movement—it couldn't restrain people or block spells. In short, it was just as useless right now.
In the end, he could only despair at the conclusion: he had no way of dealing with this adult wizard, who was clearly proficient in a variety of spells.
Was he really supposed to tell an Auror—someone whose job was to hunt down heretics—that he himself was a transmigrator, and had just offered another his adoptive father to an evil god so it could descend into this world?
There was no way to explain it. He couldn't—nor did he dare.
Cold sweat formed on his forehead.
"Never mind, I suppose you really don't know anything." Lyon suddenly chuckled, lowering his left hand and relaxing his combat-ready stance.
The oppressive atmosphere surrounding Matthew faded like a receding tide.
"In the future, if you do have any other unusual abilities, try not to reveal them in front of others…"
"Otherwise, it's inevitable that someone will associate you with this incident—and use it against you."
"Remember, if anything strange happens again, you must tell me immediately."
"Do you understand?" By the end, Lyon's tone had grown stern and commanding.
Matthew nodded over and over, obediently.
"Go to Hogwarts first. Only by gaining enough knowledge can you begin to understand the cause of your abnormalities." Lyon resumed his earlier air of elegance, tinged with a hint of laziness.
"When you return from your studies, I may just need you to heal this hand…" he added, glancing down at his left hand.
After a moment, he reached two fingers into a small pouch and pulled out an oversized, worn glove that clearly couldn't have fit inside it.
There was no doubt—the pouch had been enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
The glove was a single piece, its surface heavily worn and exuding an unmistakably ancient aura.
If one looked closely, a faint, mysterious mark could be seen engraved on the back of the hand.
The mark flickered in and out of sight, and Lyon quickly covered it with his palm.
After taking out the glove, he paused in thought for a while, then took a deep breath, as if making a firm decision, and slowly pulled it onto his left hand.
As the glove fit snugly, the leather surface suddenly twisted into living veins that burrowed into his skin.
The grotesque transformation startled Lyon. He instinctively turned, intending to keep Matthew from witnessing something that could scar a child for life—only to realize he couldn't move.
His body had been immobilized.
Matthew stared in horror as Lyon's left hand, previously skeletal, began to swell and regenerate—flesh knitting itself back together until it looked completely normal again.
Only then did Lyon regain control of his body.
He gasped for breath, large beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.
Matthew's expression was equally grim.
This was nothing like the Harry Potter world he remembered. Too many unknown variables had emerged—phenomena he couldn't understand. He was even starting to doubt whether Harry Potter existed in this world at all.
Seeing Matthew's pale face, Lyon assumed he had been frightened by the writhing flesh and offered a somewhat apologetic reassurance:
"Sorry if I scared you. I didn't expect the Scarlet Seal to look that horrifying when activated."
"This is the latest development from the Department of Mysteries. It's used to suppress the aftermath of disaster events."
"It's said the power source also originates from a special disaster. Though it does provide a sealing effect, it seems to retain a trace of an unknown curse—even the Department of Mysteries hasn't been able to remove it..."
Although Lyon's left hand had returned to its normal shape, the skin remained scarlet from within, and a strange, unfamiliar mark glowed faintly on the back of his hand.
He curled his fingers loosely into a fist, then tucked the hand away into the folds of his robe.
"All right. Let's talk about you now. Do you know about Hogwarts?"
He used to—but now, he wasn't so sure.
"No. Is it a school of some kind?" Matthew asked, playing dumb.
Lyon proceeded to give him a basic overview of the wizarding world.
Most of what he said matched what Matthew already knew.
The only difference was that, a few months ago, several cult organizations had suddenly appeared in the Muggle world.
These cults had triggered a series of dark and disastrous incidents across various regions.
The level of magical power involved sometimes exceeded even the Ministry of Magic's expectations.
In response, the Ministry, in coordination with the Auror Office and the Department of Mysteries, established a new division—the Special Disaster Incident Management Department—dedicated solely to handling such cases.
Unfortunately, the department's efforts had yielded little success, and its members had suffered heavy casualties, forcing the Ministry to continuously reassign personnel from other departments.
Lyon had encountered Matthew while en route to assume his new post at the Special Disaster Incident Management Department.
After rushing to the scene, he had narrowly avoided the same fate as several other department members, who had died on the spot.
Even so, Lyon—who had arrived just a little too late and was positioned on the outer perimeter—had been affected, resulting in the grotesque condition of his left hand.
"I'll be working with the Special Disaster Incident Management Department from now on," he said. "That means I might be away from home for long periods. If you run into any problems at Hogwarts, just send a letter to the Ministry directly."
"Based on your age and the timing, a letter from Hogwarts should be arriving soon..."