Croaker froze mid-step.
He slowly raised his head, staring at the researcher with a look of pure disbelief gradually bleeding into his eyes.
"W-what did you just say?" he rasped, his voice trembling.
What had been invented? And by whom? In just a few days?
"The light source! The crucial issue of the light source has been solved by Sasha and that newcomer!"
"Run!" the researcher shouted, or rather, he simply grabbed the Director by the arm and began hauling him toward the exit.
"Everyone is at the gateway to the Veil right now!" he yelled excitedly. "Hurry, you have to see this!"
They sprinted through the corridors, arriving breathless before the hauntingly cold stone archway. A crowd of over a hundred people had already gathered there, packed shoulder to shoulder. Every eye was fixed on the gate; faces that had been tight with the strain of high-intensity labor were now twisted into an expression of manic, cult-like fervor.
As the Director approached, the crowd silently parted to create a path. Supported by the researcher, Croaker's legs felt like jelly as he stumbled toward the Veil.
There he saw the "unremarkable" newcomer, Ethan Vincent, standing next to a dazed-looking Sasha. It was immediately clear who was in charge.
In Ethan's hand was a wooden cage, shaped curiously like a miniature shrine. Inside the cage, a sphere of incandescent light blazed with a fierce intensity. It looked like a fire lit by pure faith; even from a distance, the heat radiating from it was palpable.
Ethan glanced at Director Croaker, then casually tossed a white rabbit into the air. With a flick of his hand, both the rabbit and the shrine floated toward the abyssal blackness of the Veil.
Whoosh—
The tattered black curtain billowed like a giant mouth, swallowing the light whole.
Thump-thump! Thump-thump!
Croaker could hear his own heart hammering against his ribs. Under the collective, burning gaze of the entire department, several seconds passed in agonizing silence. Then, Ethan pulled back on his magical tether, slowly reeling the shrine out of the darkness.
Everyone held their breath. Croaker's eyes were practically bulging out of his head as he stared at the rabbit emerging from the shadows.
"...Squeak, squeak."
Two soft sounds broke the silence. The white rabbit, still suspended in mid-air, was kicking its legs with vigorous energy.
It had come out of the Veil... and it was still alive!
[Name: Shrine of the Living]
[Effect: Generates a protective barrier centered on the shrine. Within a certain range, the user is immune to the erosion of any external curses.]
[Evaluation: To ignite a spark amidst the remains and forge life itself. ——— From a selfless contributor.]
Croaker was stunned. His gaze drifted from the rabbit to the shrine, and finally landed on the newcomer's "ordinary" face. He met a pair of calm, cobalt-blue eyes that seemed to have calculated every outcome long ago.
The next second—thud!
Director Croaker's knees gave out, and he collapsed into a kneeling position. He didn't care about his dignity; he scrambled forward on his knees and lunged at Ethan, grabbing the boy's legs as months of pent-up emotion exploded.
"It worked... it finally worked!!" he wailed.
"We finally found a light source that can enter the Veil!! You are my god—no, you are the god of the entire Department of Mysteries!!!"
His wails, heavy with the weight of years of failure, echoed through the hall. Not a single person laughed. Instead, many of the researchers were moved to tears, great droplets rolling down their cheeks.
"Dammit, we're finally free..." one researcher choked out, wiping his eyes. Looking at the young man standing before the stone gate, he felt as if Ethan were radiating a blinding, divine light.
On the other side of the room, Sasha stared at Ethan in a daze, a small glimmer of hope finally igniting in her eyes.
"Finally... I can finally see you again, brother...!"
She fumbled with the flute pendant around her neck. A faint, nearly imperceptible sound—less a melody and more a magical vibration—brushed against her fingertips. Everyone, including her own family, had told her that only the dead resided behind the Veil.
But she knew better. As long as the flute's song remained, his life had not faded.
"Wait for me, brother," Sasha whispered, her youthful face hardening with determination. "I'm coming to save you."
Standing in the center of the fading light, Ethan looked down at the Director clinging to his leg and curled his lips into a smirk.
"So, Director Croaker... do I have the 'qualifications' to be part of the team entering the Veil now?"
"Qualified! You're more than qualified!" the Director nodded frantically. "You can have my job if you want it!!"
Ethan let out a sharp laugh. "Haha, I think I preferred your arrogant, unyielding attitude from before."
Director Croaker: "... sob QAQ"
(His face turned a violent shade of red.)
"With this, we can finally investigate the Veil before that Ethan Vincent character invades the Ministry!" Croaker breathed a massive sigh of relief. Looking up at the newcomer's "stately" figure, he felt as if a celestial being had descended, exuding an aura of absolute dominance.
He's so young, yet he's achieved something this monumental, Croaker thought. In the future, he will surely be the backbone of the Ministry of Magic.
Once the critical light source issue was resolved, the Department of Mysteries moved with lightning speed. They prepared reinforced protective suits, various magical artifacts, supplies, and five different layers of emergency protocols.
Ethan watched it all, nodding in approval. He was quite satisfied with his decision to join the department; having a professional team for support was definitely better than working solo.
"We've learned from experience," an old, veteran researcher said, chatting away. "After the last disaster was so horrific, we at least know how dangerous it is in there—ah."
He stopped abruptly, realizing he had let something slip. He cast a nervous glance at Ethan.
"Keep talking," Ethan commanded.
"Uh—honestly, it's nothing much..."
"Legilimens."
"Wait, wait! I'll talk! Stop!" The researcher wiped sweat from his forehead, looking at the youth with exasperation.
This newcomer wasn't just talking—he actually used Forbidden Curses on people! Just the other day, Ethan had blurted out a "scandalous" secret about why a certain researcher's underwear had a "tail" attached to it, leading to that man's wife having a total meltdown on the spot because she had never seen those particular boxers before.
It was a tragedy that left all the men in the department silent and all the women in tears.
Though Ethan's style was... eccentric, this was the Department of Mysteries, the place where they studied "Love, Death, and Brains in Jars." In this building, being weird was the only way to be normal. Consequently, Ethan had blended in perfectly; no one suspected a thing.
"If you really want to know, just don't tell anyone I was the one who said it..." The old employee's eyes darted around. Thinking that this newcomer might be his boss one day, he decided to be blunt.
"You might not know this, but about thirteen years ago, the Department of Mysteries attempted to enter the Veil once..."
As Ethan listened to the veteran's tale, he realized the truth. This was the biggest "scandal" in the history of the Department of Mysteries. The reason the Veil had stood for so long without any progress was directly tied to this event.
Thirteen years ago, the department organized a team of twenty-three members to enter the Veil. All twenty-three were lost. When the magical tether snapped, none of them ever came back. No one knew what happened. Since then, they were officially listed as "missing."
"That girl Sasha, the one who's always acting a bit mad? Her brother was one of them," the veteran whispered. "If it wasn't for that connection, she never would have been allowed into the department."
Ethan understood now. She was a legacy hire, in a morbid sort of way.
"I think the girl is insane," the old man continued, shrugging. "Everyone knows that only the dead fall into the Veil. It's been so many years with no word. But she's obsessed with the idea that he's alive. Sigh."
"I see..." Ethan mused, his grin widening. "Only the dead enter the Veil? Starting today, that 'iron rule' no longer exists."
The veteran froze, then nodded slowly. "Yes... yes. I hope you lot will be the first ones to ever walk back out of that thing alive."
He looked into the newcomer's burning eyes and, for some reason, his mind drifted to the teenage boy currently turning the Wizarding World upside down. That kid's eyes look just like this—fearless, filled with an insatiable hunger for the unknown.
Suddenly, the veteran felt that "Ethan Vincent" might not be as evil as the Ministry claimed.
Everything was ready.
Ethan was clad in a magically reinforced protective suit that covered him from head to toe. Potions were strapped to his belt, and a supply pack was hooked to his back. Despite having been a "newbie" only a short while ago, he was now the heart of the team.
Standing in the center, he controlled the floating shrine, allowing its scorching light to envelop everyone. Sasha stood behind him, whispering to herself in a mix of nerves and excitement.
Director Croaker led the way, his pipe poking through a gap in his mask, puffing out smoke mixed with soothing herbs. He locked eyes with Ethan, took a deep breath, and shouted with resolve:
"August 23, 1996, 9:29 AM. The Department of Mysteries' second expedition into the Veil begins now!"
With those words, the team stepped forward in unison. Under the watchful, trembling eyes of the remaining staff, they vanished into the swaying black curtain.
Whoosh!
In an instant, the Veil billowed softly and swallowed them whole.
A heavy silence fell over the room. The researchers stared at the empty archway, whispering prayers.
"...Merlin, please let them return safely. May they be protected by the gods."
The faint light of their prayers seemed to drift into the Veil. Ethan, sensing something, glanced back over his shoulder as they crossed the threshold into the place where only death is supposed to pass.
He wanted to see exactly what kind of treasures were hidden on the other side.
"Death, I'm here to whip your corpse~" Ethan murmured, his lips curling into a jagged smile.
In the glow of the shrine, his expression was so unsettling that his teammates instinctively recoiled a few steps, wondering if a monster had already managed to sneak into their ranks.
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