Looking up at the swirling black clouds overhead, then at the grim-faced black-robed guards and the strange, flying creatures circling the skies, Orsaga tilted his head slightly.
He actually liked the atmosphere here.
It felt oddly familiar—comforting, even.
Especially the ghostly, undead-looking creatures shrieking in the air. Their screams made him feel right at home.
'This place looks promising,' he thought.
Standing beside him, Dumbledore noticed Orsaga's head tilt and assumed he was scared. He immediately offered some words of comfort.
"Mr. Orsaga, don't be afraid. Once everything is sorted out, you'll be released. For now, due to certain… complex circumstances, I must trouble you to stay here for a while."
Orsaga replied calmly, "If room and board are included, I think I can manage."
He didn't show even the slightest sign of worry.
Dumbledore, misreading his calm as an act of bravery, turned to the Azkaban staff and said solemnly, "Mr. Orsaga is not a criminal. He's only here due to circumstances beyond his control. I hope you'll take proper care of him."
The warden, faced with a personal request from the most powerful wizard of their time, nodded seriously.
He wasn't stupid enough to ignore a favor from someone like Dumbledore.
---
Ten minutes later, an Azkaban guard pointed toward a clean, well-maintained single cell—one that even had a bath installed.
"This will be your room. Meals will be delivered daily. As for the Dementors, we'll try to keep them away. If one does try to attack you, there's a magical defense device in the room. Use it, and the Dementor will be expelled immediately."
Seeing that Orsaga had no questions, the guard turned and left, closing the door behind him.
Orsaga kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the bed, completely unconcerned.
There wasn't even a hint of restraint in his posture. He looked more like someone on vacation than a prisoner.
Since he wasn't actually arrested for a crime, the Aurors had removed his cuffs upon arrival and even returned his wand.
In their eyes, a first-year student inside Azkaban—with or without a wand—was harmless. After all, under the prison's magic suppression field, even adult wizards could barely cast spells.
Strictly speaking, Orsaga was only "incarcerated" in the sense that he couldn't leave. Beyond that, his freedom was basically intact.
Then again, the so-called "can't leave" part really depended on whether he wanted to.
Even at his current power level, he could walk out of Azkaban and rampage from London to Washington with nothing but his bare hands if he felt like it.
As he lay there thinking about what he might do in this world, a dried-up, rotting head suddenly peeked in through the window.
It stared directly at him, like a starving ghost looking at its next meal.
Orsaga didn't react much. Still lying on his side, he calmly met its gaze.
Then, the creature—its mouth full of jagged, crumbling teeth—let out a screech and tried to intimidate him with clawed gestures and sudden jerks.
"…?"
Orsaga, who had spent a lifetime stirring up trouble, was honestly at a loss.
'What's this idiot's deal?'
He had heard from the guards that these creatures were called Dementors, but he hadn't been told exactly what they did.
So he had no idea what the fool clinging to his window was trying to accomplish.
Perhaps sensing Orsaga's disdain, the Dementor became visibly irritated.
It abandoned its plan to just scare him and slipped through the window entirely, revealing its full corpse-like body, floating in the cold air.
As it entered, the room's atmosphere changed. The air grew deathly still, and a bone-chilling cold settled in.
It hovered toward Orsaga slowly, trying to apply psychological pressure—to invoke fear and feed on it.
But Orsaga stayed exactly where he was, expressionless, still lying on his side as if nothing were happening.
To the Dementor, which had a human-level intelligence, this was a major insult.
No human had ever dared to ignore it.
Even the most violent criminals shrieked like children when they saw one of its kind.
But this boy treated it like it didn't even exist.
Eventually, the Dementor decided to get serious.
Its mouth, hidden beneath its tattered hood, slowly opened wide.
It activated its innate ability—the infamous power that allowed it to siphon away happiness and positive emotions, while also forcing its target to relive their most painful memories.
It was one of the main reasons Dementors were regarded as nightmares.
The other reason? They could literally consume souls.
No matter who you were, you had painful memories buried in your heart.
Dementors dragged their victims into those memories, over and over, torturing them mentally until they were so broken that the creature could devour their soul.
Of course, this Dementor wouldn't dare consume Orsaga's soul—he was under protection as a "special case."
But that didn't stop it from wanting to watch him suffer. Breaking people down was its favorite pastime.
As Orsaga felt the effects of the spell begin to take hold, he instinctively prepared a counterspell.
But then he paused.
He realized what this ability actually did.
Emotion absorption?
He knew this business well.
A moment later, the Dementor trying to absorb Orsaga's emotional energy suddenly sensed something was wrong.
It tried to pull back—frantically attempting to shut down the connection.
But it was too late.
The moment its power created a link between them, control shifted.
Even though Orsaga was a human who technically couldn't drain emotions, he hijacked the connection the Dementor had formed and began to siphon energy in the opposite direction.
Joy, sorrow, hatred, fear—it didn't matter. Orsaga took everything the Dementor had.
A few minutes later, he let out a quiet burp and nodded in satisfaction.
"That was a decent meal."
With that surge of emotional energy, the soul of his avatar—which had been a bit underpowered—began to grow rapidly.
As for the Dementor?
Now stripped of all emotion—both joy and pain—it stood frozen, vacant-eyed and motionless.
It wasn't quite a vegetable, but it was close.
Orsaga considered for a moment, then altered the creature's will, turning it into his second minion in this world.
He had to admit—
The thing had come to his window with no delivery route, yet still managed to "deliver" itself.
That kind of initiative… was touching.
Even more so when he thought about the hundreds of other Dementors still floating outside Azkaban.
Originally, he had just come here to enjoy the novelty of being in prison.
But now, he was being treated to an emotional buffet—and even gaining a few loyal hounds in the process.
It was hard not to be moved.
Honestly, if he didn't tell people what was happening, who would ever believe it?
He hadn't even tried, and the benefits just fell into his lap.
Refusing them would've been a crime in itself.