Hogwarts: Lacus doesn't want to be a witch who destroys nations.

Lux wandered aimlessly through the village, without any destination, simply observing the village shrouded in ice, snow, and war.

This is not a war zone, nor even a military outpost, so I didn't see much weaponry.

Soviet soldiers, dressed in heavy military overcoats, patrolled in twos and threes, their boots making a dull creak on the snow. Their eyes were alert and weary, and occasionally, the muffled sound of artillery fire could be heard from the distant Finnish border.

Lux's wandering gaze eventually settled on an inconspicuous wooden hut.

A wisp of smoke rose from the chimney of the wooden house, and thick frost flowers formed on the windows, but a clean path had been swept out in front of the door, and an exquisite wooden carving hung above the doorway—a squirrel pecking at a pine cone.

Lux stopped in her tracks, drawn to the wooden carving, and curiously moved closer.

There are traces of magic on the wood carving.

Some kind of spell that combines cleansing and restoration may have been used by the carver to clean away wood shavings during the carving process.

Lux picked up the wood carving out of curiosity and examined it.

The door of the wooden house creaked open, and an old man with white hair and beard came out. He was wearing a thick fur coat and holding a carving knife and a piece of unshaped wood in his hand.

The old man was thin and slightly hunched, but he looked to be in good spirits.

"Little girl, are you lost?" The old man's voice was hoarse and had a heavy accent.

The earrings of the Weaver could only be translated, so Lux didn't answer. She just pointed to the wooden carving on the lintel, then to herself, with a mixture of curiosity and excitement on her face.

The old man looked in the direction she was pointing, a knowing glint in his cloudy eyes.

He didn't ask any further questions, but silently returned to the wooden stump by the door and sat down, continuing to carve the wooden block in his hand with his carving knife.

Lux didn't leave; she just squatted a short distance away, quietly watching him. Snowflakes fell silently, landing on her headscarf and on the old man's shoulders.

After a long while, the old man finally stopped what he was doing. He blew away the wood shavings and held a nascent wooden bird carving in his hand to examine it.

Without looking up, he asked, his voice seemingly coming from beneath the snow: "In this freezing winter, even the fire in the hearth is almost out, what are you still looking for outside?"

Lux looked up and met the old man's gaze. She didn't speak, but simply extended her red, frozen fingers and used a glowing gesture.

The old man's eyes lit up, and his fingers gripping the carving knife tightened unconsciously. He looked at the light at Lux's fingertips, then looked up at Lux again.

"Come in," the old man finally spoke. "The wind outside is too strong; it will blow out the last embers of the fire."

He stood up, pushed open the creaking wooden door, and Lux ​​stood up, brushed the snow off her clothes, and followed him inside. The cabin was warm, the fire in the fireplace was burning brightly, and the air was filled with the aroma of pine and hot tea.

The old man poured her a cup of hot water, and Lux ​​held the cup with both hands and drank a few sips.

"My name is Ivan," the old man said, sitting across the fireplace and picking up his carving knife again. "And you?"

Lux shook her head, pointed to her throat, and looked troubled.

"Can't speak?" Ivan nodded knowingly and didn't ask any further questions.

He carved in silence, sawdust falling softly, the flames crackling in the fireplace. After a long while, he spoke again, his voice low and somber: "There aren't many people like us left. The Tsar has fallen, the priests have been driven away, and now, even we old folks who still remember the glory of the past are about to be buried by the frozen ground."

A few shouts came from outside the door, probably indicating that fighting had broken out again. Ivan was silent for a moment before saying, "This isn't the place to talk about this. I'll take you somewhere else."

He put away his tools, gestured for Lux to follow, and led her through a maze of turns, avoiding the patrolling soldiers, until they arrived at a wooden hut on the edge of the village that looked like an abandoned tool shed. He looked around warily before pushing open the creaking wooden door.

The room was filled with all sorts of wood, scrap tools, and semi-finished furniture. The air was thick with the smell of pine and paint. Ivan closed the door and lit a dim oil lamp.

Then Ivan lifted a wooden floorboard, revealing a dark entrance.

Secret passage...

Lux felt something was off, but after carefully sensing Ivan's strength, she realized that his magic level wasn't very high, and he wasn't even a hero unit, so he posed no threat to her.

After considering for a few seconds, Lux followed him into the secret passage.

The secret passage was short, and Lux ​​was stunned by the scene before her.

At the end of the secret passage was a large room resembling an underground warehouse. The warehouse was not filled with anything and should have looked very empty, but at this moment it seemed unusually lively.

There were about twenty people, men and women, young and old, all dressed in simple worker's clothes or peasant women's coarse cloth skirts. They all stood in the warehouse. When they saw Ivan bring in a strange little girl, they stopped talking and looked at him with wary and curious eyes.

Lux curiously sensed it for a moment, then couldn't help but take a deep breath.

That's right, every one of the twenty-odd people here is a wizard.

This appears to be a gathering of wizards.

Ivan glanced at the group and said, "They're one of us. He's a little mute, so it's alright."

After hearing Ivan's words, they didn't ask any more questions and just chatted away, leaving Lux, who was standing to the side, completely bewildered.

Your wizard gathering sounds more like some kind of village intelligence organization.

One of the older women even shoved a steaming hot potato into Lux's hand, so hot that Lux's mouth twisted in pain.

The group's small talk lasted for about ten minutes, during which Lux neither understood the situation nor could she get a word in edgewise. So she could only eat her baked potato and stand silently to the side.

A man in greasy overalls was complaining with a worried look on his face: "The boiler in the barracks is broken again. The foreman said that if it can't be fixed soon, his rations will be cut. Damn it, I've been trying to fix it every morning."

A farmer's wife nearby whispered, "With this awful weather, how could the boiler not break down if it's running every day..."

There was also a man in a faded chef's uniform, carefully trying to light a damp piece of wood with the tip of his wand, muttering, "Burn it... hurry up and burn it, you succeeded yesterday!"

Lux was certain that the wand in the chef's hand was just a branch broken off a tree, and definitely did not belong to the category of wands.

Lux even saw a little boy with frostbite on his face trying to make a pebble float, his face turning red. The pebble bounced twice on the ground and then stopped moving, before hanging its head in frustration.

Finally, the older woman came over and gave Lux a roasted potato, and everyone's attention turned to Lux.

"Poor child..." The woman wiped her eyes. "In this world, they don't even spare children."

"Which village has been affected this time?" The cook stopped trying to light the fire and sighed.

"She can use magic too?" The little boy's eyes lit up for a moment, then dimmed again. "She's definitely better than me..."

Lux's lips twitched, but fearing her broken English would give her away, she could only manage an awkward smile.

After everyone seemed to have finished exchanging pleasantries, Ivan clapped his hands, then looked at Lux and casually asked, "By the way, you should know magic, right?"

"..."

Lux nodded silently.

Old Ivan, even with your thick eyebrows and big eyes, you're not that reliable!

Immediately, more than twenty people burst into enthusiastic applause, as if welcoming her arrival.

Lux suddenly had a sense of déjà vu, like a team-building event from a past life. Was she going to start playing some weird icebreaker games or a "don't laugh" challenge next?

Before the atmosphere could develop in an even stranger direction, a series of unhurried footsteps echoed from the secret passage.

A figure stepped out of the shadows.