Hogwarts Raven's Claw

Chapter 448 King versus King

Two days later, Mike brought Franklin and Benjamin to a retro villa on the Thames River in London.

This is the meeting place agreed upon by Mike and the Muggle Prime Minister of Ying Country. The two will have their first contact here later.

In fact, the Muggle Prime Minister originally planned to have a video call with Mike. After all, in this way his own safety could be fully guaranteed.

But Mike rejected it mercilessly, saying that doing so was insincere and an insult to him.

After another round of discussion, the Muggle Prime Minister finally decided to meet in this retro villa.

There is no doubt that this is the territory of the Muggle Prime Minister, and through magical perception, Mike discovered the security personnel hiding around and inside the villa as soon as he arrived here.

These people were all armed to the teeth, and their number reached three digits.

Mike guessed that this was why the Muggle Prime Minister agreed to meet here. These security guards gave him a sense of security.

He probably thought that even a wizard could easily kill so many security personnel, but the fact was that these people could hardly withstand even a single confrontation with Mike.

In the eyes of Mike and Benjamin, the Muggle Prime Minister's sense of security is just self-consolation.

After understanding the general situation at the scene, Mike and the other two cast the Disillusionment Spell without hesitation and revealed their figures.

The security guard standing at the door was obviously frightened by the sudden appearance of three people, and he put his hands on his waist almost reflexively.

But in the next moment, he immediately reacted and realized that the three people who appeared in front of him were the Prime Minister's guests today.

Taking a deep breath, the burly security guard asked tentatively:

"Mr. Townley?"

"That's right." Mike nodded and said with a smile, "The two people behind me are my friends."

The security guard stared at Mike and the others for a while, then forced a smile that was uglier than crying, and welcomed Mike, Benjamin and the other two in.

This surprised Mike a little, because according to the original agreement, Mike was supposed to come alone.

Mike thought these people would try to stop him, but he didn't expect that the security personnel in front of him not only did not refuse his request to bring more people, but also did not even conduct a body search as is common in movies!
"Please go straight ahead. The Prime Minister is waiting for you in the reception room."

The burly security guard respectfully pointed Mike in the direction, and Mike looked at him for a while with a strange expression.

He had originally planned to find an excuse to teach the gatekeeper a lesson to intimidate the Muggle Prime Minister, but he didn't expect the security guard to be so polite.

"What a lucky guy."

Mike muttered as he entered the villa, while the security guard at the door looked confused.

The interior of this retro villa is very spacious. Mike, Benjamin and the other two walked for a long time but did not see the reception room that the security guard mentioned.

But Mike and others were not alone along the way, because there were many security personnel hiding beside the various decorations placed on both sides.

It has to be said that their hiding skills are very high. Even Mike can't tell the difference between them and the surrounding scenery with the naked eye.

But all this was too obvious to Mike and others.

Franklin even found pleasure in exposing the disguises of the security guards, making them terrified.

After a lot of chaos, Mike and others finally arrived at the reception room.

In this spacious and bright reception room, the tall and fat Muggle Prime Minister was standing alone in front of the window.

The sound of Mike's footsteps obviously startled him. He suddenly turned to face Mike. The muscles on his face quickly began to twist and deform, and he forced out a bright smile. He also opened his arms and walked towards Mike.

"Oh! Mr. Townley, I finally meet you!" The Muggle Prime Minister said as he walked away, "You are so young and promising!"

"It's an honor to meet you as well, Mr. Prime Minister."

Mike said with a smile, dodged the Muggle Prime Minister's hug and stretched out his right hand.

The Muggle Prime Minister, whose hug was avoided, had a look of embarrassment on his face, but he quickly readjusted his expression, held Mike's outstretched right hand with both hands and shook it up and down.

At the same time, he was constantly looking at the legends of Mike and others. When he saw that Mike and Benjamin were all wearing light black suits, a hint of surprise flashed in the eyes of the Muggle Prime Minister.

He originally thought that Mike would come wearing the wizards' iconic strange costumes, just like the previous Minister of Magic named Scrimgeour. Although that guy was dressed quite formally, he was not a normal person. He actually went out to meet guests in a thick suit and woolen coat in the middle of summer. It was really crazy.

But this is also a good thing. After all, the more normal Mike and the others behave, the more it shows that their values ​​and common sense are consistent, and the conversation will be smoother later.

Thinking of this, the smile on the Muggle Prime Minister's face became even brighter. He gently held Mike's right hand, shook it twice, then let go and said softly:

"Come on, my friends, let's sit down and talk. I have specially asked someone to prepare the best black tea. You must try it."

Mike and the other two sat down without any hesitation, but none of them touched the steaming cup of so-called high-grade black tea on the table. Instead, the Muggle Prime Minister diligently prepared refreshments for the three of them and said some meaningless words, as if he wanted to chat with them until dark.

Mike shook his head impatiently. He was quite satisfied with Muggle's arrangement for today, and he could see that the other party was very sincere, so he didn't plan to argue with him any more and said directly:
"Mr. Prime Minister, let's stop chatting here. It's better for us to get straight to the point. What do you want to talk to us about?"

"Well, okay then." Hearing this, the Muggle Prime Minister was stunned for a moment, then he rubbed his hands and said nervously, "First of all, I want to thank you for helping our people before. Secondly, I want to maintain a good relationship with you. After all, it's rare to find wizards who are willing to help ordinary people like us and keep goodwill with us."

"Want to gain our friendship?" Mike said with a curled lip, "Then shouldn't you show some substantial sincerity?" "Substantial sincerity? Sorry, do you mean pounds? But from the information I've learned, it seems that wizards are not short of money."

"Don't play dumb, Prime Minister." Mike shook his head and said, "You know very well what we want. We want privileges, intelligence, supplies, and military assistance. As a gift between friends, we will give you some magic props, such as potions."

After these words were spoken, the Muggle Prime Minister and Benjamin were both shocked.

The former was shocked that Mike actually revealed all their originally set goals in one breath.

But Mike didn't think it was a big deal. After all, he had to tell the other party about his conditions eventually. It made no difference whether he said it earlier or later. At most, he would lose some insignificant benefits.

The latter was simply shocked by the favorable conditions offered by Mike!

You know, due to the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, there are very few magical items circulating on the market, and most of them have negative effects.

"This... this... Aren't you afraid of the Statute of Secrecy?" The Muggle Prime Minister wiped the sweat from his forehead and said so. But as soon as he said it, he realized that he was stupid. The other party was willing to sit down and negotiate with an ordinary person like him, so why would he care about the Statute of Secrecy? "I'm sorry, I was wrong. Can you tell me specifically what level of support you need and what level of magic items you can provide?"

"Okay, then I'll be frank. I think you all know that the wizarding world of Ying Country is currently in the midst of a civil strife. Another extremely powerful wizard has returned from the dead and is attempting to rule the wizarding world again and even eliminate all wizards of impure blood, including ordinary people like you who have no magical powers, so we rose up to resist.

There is no doubt that this will be a protracted and shocking war. I need to win over all the friends I can. I think that in this battle, you should give us unconditional support in any aspect, including military support.

And I will also give you appropriate help according to your needs. For example, I will give you some invisibility cloaks, or potions that can make people luckier and prolong their lifespan. "

With every word Mike spoke, the Muggle Prime Minister's breathing became more rapid.

The Muggle Prime Minister dared to swear that Mike was definitely not a leader who was good at negotiation, nor a qualified politician, but what the other party could offer was so good that he almost wanted to agree to it without hesitation. You know, that was the extraordinary power he had always dreamed of!

But in the end, the Muggle Prime Minister suppressed his desire. He knew very well that Mike was not here to do charity. While giving him such generous conditions, the other party would definitely ask for a lot of things, so he had to be cautious.

Thus, a very tangled negotiation began.

At this time, the Muggle Prime Minister, who was blinded by interests, had completely forgotten the identities of Mike and the other two wizards, and began to argue for his own interests.

Unfortunately, Mike had no intention of bargaining with him. Having made his demands, he refused to give in even if he died.

Finally, after two hours of negotiations, the Muggle Prime Minister and Mike finally held hands again.

The agreement between the two did not change much, but there were great restrictions on the details.

For example, when it comes to the condition of providing military assistance, the other party clearly stated that they would not use weapons of mass destruction for Mike. At most, they would dispatch a special forces force of no more than 50 people with a small number of helicopters and rocket launchers to provide assistance. In addition, Mike must bear all the costs of each assistance, and he can use magic props to offset the cost.

In this regard, the Muggles first appeared to be extremely stingy, but in terms of providing intelligence and privileges to the Freemasons, the other party gave great support.

All Freemasons will be incorporated into a special department called the "Homeland Security Bureau" and can mobilize local forces.

This means that every Freemason has become a privileged class in this society, and the highest level at that.

As long as they don't do anything too excessive, Yingguo will come forward to clean up their mess.

In addition, the national information database is also open to the Freemasons. As long as Mike wants, he can investigate any information of any citizen, including real-time monitoring and mobile phone positioning.

But in exchange, Mike must hand over no less than 3000 gold galleons of magic items to Ying Country every month, and the categories are limited to potions and magic items with special strategic effects.

This condition is already quite generous. It is basically equivalent to Mike paying for a super membership in the Muggle world of Yingguo, and the membership fee is extremely low.

Mike guessed that the reason why the Muggle Prime Minister offered such generous conditions was that he wanted to use the potions and magic props Mike gave him to deduce the production methods of these things, and thus analyze the mysteries of magic.

But Mike is not optimistic about this.

The wizarding world and the Muggle world are so different that it is simply a fantasy to simply use existing products for reverse deduction. Just like Benjamin, the potion master, has no way to replicate Gleevec for the treatment of leukemia. It is estimated that Muggle chemistry experts can only scratch the surface when faced with those potions.

Finally, Mike and the Muggle Prime Minister signed a magical contract and a paper contract common in the Muggle world.

The term of both contracts is one year. Mike originally wanted to sign a ten-year contract. After all, neither the magic contract nor the ordinary contract has any binding force on him. The magic contract can even be said to be a unilateral robber's contract. After all, there is no way to deal with the backlash of the Muggle Prime Minister's magic contract, but Mike can perfectly avoid the damage of this thing.

But the Muggle Prime Minister was not a fool. He knew that his term was about to expire and the new Prime Minister might not agree to the contract, so he had no choice but to reject Mike's request to sign a long-term contract.

Mike had nothing to say about this. After all, the other party's reasons were too sufficient.

"Then I wish us a pleasant cooperation, Mr. Prime Minister."

"It's a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Tang Li. Thank you again for your outstanding contribution to the Chinese people."

After doing all this, Mike and the Muggle Prime Minister stood up and shook hands again.

Mike originally planned to leave immediately, but he suddenly stopped after hearing the other party's words.

"By the way, Mr. Prime Minister, there is another question that has been bothering me." Mike asked, "What we did in the country of Ying before set off a huge public opinion storm, so big that the Ministry of Magic couldn't solve it at all, so they had to ask you for help. But you calmed it down easily. How did you do it?"

The Muggle Prime Minister was stunned at first, but then he laughed and said:
"Oh! my friend! it was so easy. I did nothing at all."

"Did nothing?"

"Yes! No one knows these people better than me. Their enthusiasm for things is always short-lived. As long as you ignore them, their attention will be drawn to other things, such as gossip about singers, etc." The Muggle Prime Minister said proudly, "So, to deal with these selfish fools, you just need to fool them casually."

(End of this chapter)