The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 44: Breakthrough

After hearing what Harry said, the others also looked up at the birds on the roof. After careful observation, they found that the shiny things flying around were not birds at all, but some keys with wings.

Suddenly Harry cried out, "There it is! Look! A broomstick! We must go up and get the key to that door!"

Looking at the flying broom placed aside and the keyhole on the wooden door, they immediately knew the trick to passing this level.

While Harry was looking for his broom, Ryan handed a small bottle of acid secreted by tombstone moss to the stones beside the door frame, but the stones remained motionless.

Sure enough, this level is not that simple. To break through the magic on the door and wall requires strong magic power and rich knowledge. Otherwise, you can only chase those keys on a broom.

I think Voldemort would not ride the broomstick according to the idea of ​​the person who arranged this level. Because according to his suspicious psychology, he would never follow the method given by the enemy, and he would worry whether this was a trap set by the enemy.

According to Voldemort's history, he had the habit of controlling everything by himself, so he should use magic to catch the key. This also consumed Voldemort's limited magic power.

This is the same as the trap door at the entrance of the cave where Voldemort placed his Horcruxes, which required bloodletting. Both methods try to consume the enemy's strength before the enemy approaches the target. However, Dumbledore's method is more aboveboard than Voldemort's.

Harry and Ron had already boarded their broomsticks, but Ryan and Hermione, who were not good at flying, did not go up to cause trouble. They stood back to back in the middle of the hall, observing the keys they needed from the group of keys in the sky.

"Our target is a large antique key - probably silver and shaped like a door handle," Ron shouted before takeoff. "It should be close to the style and color of the door lock."

Ryan saw the two of them rush into the dense mass of keys. They desperately grabbed and fished, but the enchanted keys dodged too quickly to be caught.

Just as everyone was getting more and more anxious, Ryan felt that he had found his target. He shouted to Harry, "I found the key. It's in front of you to the upper right. The key is silver with sky-blue wings, and all the feathers are tilted to one side, as if someone had grabbed it before."

Ron obviously saw the key before Harry did, and he rushed over so quickly that the key flew out a sharp turn and he couldn't brake, almost hitting the ceiling directly.

"Let's rush the key downstairs. Ryan, you guys get ready." After Harry said that, he and Ron surrounded the key from both sides and rushed it downstairs.

Key flew down quickly in an attempt to evade their pursuit, but he did not realize that he had flown too low and had become separated from the main force.

Finally, the key was forced very close to the ground, and Ryan jumped up and grabbed the key. (Ryan: "Thanks to the mechanical and medical knowledge I learned recently, the stability and accuracy of my hand have been greatly improved. Otherwise, I would have been embarrassed today.")
Ryan held the key tightly, because the key was struggling like a living thing. After Harry and Ron landed, they came to the door together. Ryan inserted the key into the keyhole and turned it. The door opened with a click, which meant that they had chosen the right key.

After releasing the key and watching it fly away, Ryan turned the door handle. Four people filed in and entered the next level.

When they entered the room, it was pitch black. Ryan was worried that he might trip and fall. But the moment everyone stepped into the house, the whole house immediately became brightly lit. The door behind him also locked with a click. This reminded Ryan of the soap opera where the heroine had a birthday but the hero didn't care, and the heroine felt a little sad. Finally, the heroine came home tired after a day of work. As soon as she walked into the house and closed the door, the lights turned on. The hero and his friends prepared a complete birthday party for the heroine as a surprise.

Unfortunately, what greeted Ryan and his friends here was not a cake from a surprise party, but Professor McGonagall's giant chess board.

Ryan thought that if Professor McGonagall was replaced by a Chinese, she might be able to conjure up a giant mahjong or something. But to be honest, he felt that these levels were purely to mock Voldemort, mocking him for having fallen to the same level as first-year students.

After all, there are only a few forms of entertainment in the wizarding world. Wizard chess should be the most popular one besides Quidditch, and at least half of the people know how to play it. Professor McGonagall's style is probably very similar to Hermione's when she was young. So the level of wizard chess is probably just average. Even if the stone chess pieces are powerful, the level of the chess player is the biggest flaw in this level.

The chess pieces on the board are about the same size as real people, and are made of black and white stones. You don't need to try to know that this thing must have a high magic resistance, and it can't be dealt with by magic such as the Shattering Curse.

More importantly, these flags have no facial features, and combined with the brightly lit chessboard and the rest of the dark room, a strong horror movie feeling is ready to emerge.

Ryan couldn't help but think of the monsters without mouths or faces in the horror movies of his previous life, and felt a little cold. But when he turned around, he found that Harry and the others were shivering, and they were obviously more frightened.

The door on the other side of the chessboard means that you can only get through if you win the game. What's worse is that everyone has to play a chess piece, so the more people there are, the more disadvantages there are.

In the end, Ryan and Ron played the knight, Hermione played the queen, and Harry played the castle. Ron, who had the highest level of wizard chess, played this chess game.

After the game started, Ryan discovered that although these chess pieces looked ferocious when eating other chess pieces, they mainly tried to knock them out, and did not use the weapons in their hands to deliver fatal blows.

It seems that Professor McGonagall's purpose was just to delay time and avoid accidentally hurting Harry. If Voldemort had used magic to force his way through the levels, then the chess pieces would not be as peaceful as they are now. For Voldemort, who is now possessed by Quirrell, if he forced his way through these levels one by one, he would probably not have much magic power left.

Since there was no danger to his life, Ryan put his mind at ease and began to watch Ron's chess playing skills with leisure.

Ron's level seemed good, but because he had to take Ryan and the others into consideration, he couldn't do anything. Sometimes he had to pay a higher price.

Ryan saw this and shouted to Ron, "I have learned an armor spell, so it should be fine when it hits me, so you don't have to worry about me."

"Really?" Ron said. After getting Ryan's repeated confirmation, he said to Ryan: "You move diagonally to the right and capture their most threatening queen. Then you will be captured by the opponent's knight. This will make the next move easier."

It seems that the more people there are, the more restricted Ron's hands will be. Ryan thought that if he could make sacrifices, the situation would be much better.

(End of this chapter)