The Shopkeeper of All Worlds in the British Wizarding World

Chapter 691 Encounter (Please subscribe, please collect, please vote)
"Please introduce yourselves and why you are here." After a quick breakfast, Ryan began to question the two captured goblins. "If I remember correctly, you usually either count gold in Gringotts or collect various ores in your underground mines to make magic props. So I am very curious why I met you here today."

"My name is Gornuk, and the one next to me is Griphook. To be honest, we don't want to do this. For us, listening to the rolling and colliding sound of gold coins in the vault or standing by the blazing fire is better than wandering in the wild like this." The elf with a higher voice said, "But now, our lives are in danger, so we have to wander around like this."

"Life is in danger, are you kidding me?" said a guerrilla who was listening nearby. "If I remember correctly, the goblins generally support You-Know-Who. Just like now, your Gringotts has basically stopped serving us. In fact, Gringotts has now become a financial institution that belongs exclusively to You-Know-Who."

"Your impression is wrong," said the goblin with the deeper voice. "We don't take sides. This is a wizard's war."

"But why did you actually stand on the side of You-Know-Who?" Dirk asked. "According to my previous experience, you were indeed not biased towards anyone in the past, as you just said. But now from the perspective of facts, you, Gringotts, have indeed become an accomplice of You-Know-Who and the Ministry of Magic in London."

"It's just some goblins." The goblin named Gornuk said, he also looked angry. "I rejected a request that I thought was rude, and naturally my personal safety was in danger. But even so, I will stick to my point of view."

"Unreasonable request." Ryan asked curiously. "What kind of request would make you refuse so firmly?"

"That is unworthy of my race," the goblin replied, his voice becoming even rougher and less human. "I am not a house-elf. I will not bow down to a wizard and do his bidding."

"So Griphook, what about you?" After hearing what Gornuk said, Ryan turned to look at another goblin, Griphook. Although he had never seen this goblin, he knew that this goblin should be the one who took Harry to get the Philosopher's Stone. Since he was able to go down to the vault with the highest level of confidentiality at that time, he should be a senior staff member of Gringotts, and possibly even a core member of Gringotts.

"For similar reasons," Griphook said, "Gringotts is no longer controlled solely by my race. I do not recognize wizards as my masters. As a result, I will naturally be hunted down. In addition to the Death Eaters, the hunters include some members of my race."

"Yes, if it weren't for those guys who disagreed with us, we could even live in the goblin crypts in peace, instead of wandering around like this." Gonuk was furious. "You know, even when the goblins were at their worst, no one could break into the goblin crypts."

"That means the Ministry of Magic in London, the Death Eaters or the You-Know-Who have now taken control of Gringotts in the UK." Hermione quickly sorted out an important piece of information from the two goblins' words. "And the vast majority of goblins have chosen to cooperate. Those like you who are unwilling to cooperate can only go into exile."

"Hermione is right, although you may not want to hear others say that." Seeing that the goblin wanted to say something, Ryan stretched out his hand to interrupt. "If the goblins who advocated cooperating with the Death Eaters had not prevailed, you would not have to be exiled now."

"People with wands, there are some things you don't understand." Griphook said angrily, "For us, maintaining independence and freedom is the most important thing, and someone will always have to sacrifice in the process. Although I hate the goblins who drove us out, I also know why they did it."

Ryan immediately understood what the British goblins were thinking. Gringotts did not want to suffer heavy losses by confronting Voldemort head-on, but they also did not want to give the outside world the impression that goblins were weak and could be bullied.

In this case, they had no choice but to maintain control of Gringotts at the expense of some goblins. Of course, the goblins dared to do this because they firmly believed that the Death Eaters did not have enough power and knowledge to take over the complex business of Gringotts in a short period of time. For the goblins, no matter who came to power, the goblins were indispensable to run Gringotts.

The goblins used the extremes in Gringotts as scapegoats. Their previous attitude of disdain for wizards put them on the elimination list of Voldemort and the Death Eaters. After all, according to the Death Eaters' usual habits, these non-human intelligent creatures were at the bottom of their contempt chain. And these goblins who refused to kneel down and lick their toes were definitely the first to be eliminated.

Gringotts would not let everyone fall into trouble because of a few people, so they kicked this group of extremists out. They even sent some goblins to hunt them down in order to show that they had nothing to do with them.

"The man with the wand, what does this mean?" A guerrilla asked while Ryan was thinking. At the same time, the guerrillas around him all showed a listening expression. After all, most of the wizards here were Muggles or half-bloods who grew up in the Muggle world and really didn't understand some common sense of the wizarding world. Not to mention that most people who grew up in the wizarding world don't know this knowledge point.

"The right to carry a wand," the goblin didn't seem to be shy about sharing the meaning of this word with others. Griphook said softly, "It is something that wizards and goblins have been fighting for for a long time."

"To be precise, it is something that has been fought over for a long time by wizards and goblins in the European cultural circle." Hermione added, "As far as I know, African wizards do not use magic wands, while the intelligent creatures in China often have their own spellcasting tools."

"Besides that, goblins can cast spells without wands." Someone nearby said, "Not having a wand won't hinder your life in this regard."

"Don't mention it." Griphook looked a little angry. "Only wizards in Europe and America would refuse to share the secrets of wand knowledge with other magical creatures and prevent us from expanding our influence!"

"Speaking of secrets, isn't the blockade of knowledge mutual?" Ryan asked, "Those intelligent creatures in the Celestial Empire obtained the knowledge of human spellcasting and the secrets of how to make spellcasting props through knowledge exchange with human wizards, but you fairies are unwilling to pay anything and just want to get it for free."

"Yes, the goblins are unwilling to reveal their magic." Dirk Cresswell, the former director of the Goblin Liaison Office, said. "They also never told us how to make swords and armor. The goblins' special method of forging metals, and even the method of casting Galleons. You know, the pandas in the Celestial Empire generously shared with us the method of making new Galleons as soon as they established the bank."

"Shut up," Griphook said, his eyes now blazing with anger that looked like it could burn down the entire tent. "What's the difference between you and the Dark Lord? You're all trying to gain more power over us and take what's ours."

"Haha, your stuff—" Dirk seemed to be provoked. "The legitimate owner of any item is its maker, not the buyer. Anything made by goblins, in the eyes of goblins, should belong to them. Even if the wizard has paid for it, goblins will think that it is rented by the payer. They believe that after the original buyer dies, the item should be returned to the goblins. And passing it from wizard to wizard without paying is no better than stealing."

The sound of whispering immediately rang out in the tent. Although most of the wizards here did not have fairy products that were considered luxury goods in the wizarding world, they generally felt that the fairy's definition of their own things was unacceptable to them.

Just when the two fairies were about to explode, Rose Crystal flew in from outside, holding a few newspapers in her hands. She quickly bypassed the others and whispered a few words in Ryan's ear.

Ryan's eyes widened instantly, and then he took the newspaper and read it carefully. After reading the newspaper, he looked up at the two fairies in front of him who were so angry that their faces turned red and said, "Just now you were still talking about the independence and freedom of reading fairies, but now it seems that this is not the case."

(End of this chapter)