Hogwarts: From Selling White Peppers to Becoming a God

Chapter 129 Muggle Security Corps

After the Watchers were deployed, the frequency of werewolf attacks immediately decreased significantly.

However, during one attack, after a werewolf wizard was knocked unconscious and even captured by the overwhelming number of Watchers, the Watchers' morale soared, their fear of werewolves vanished, and they became unstoppable, repeatedly repelling werewolf attacks with overwhelming combat power.

A week after the Watchers were deployed, the werewolf attacks surprisingly ceased.

Such outstanding combat capabilities naturally deserve great praise. Murphy asked Rita to write a follow-up report every day, on the one hand to publicize how brave and powerful the Watchers were, how they fought to the death with the werewolves, and how they ensured the safety of the wizards and civilians.

On the other hand, she ridiculed and mocked the Aurors, saying they were a bunch of cowards who trembled at the sight of werewolves, while Barty Crouch was given the title of "werewolfaphobia". Rita even went so far as to have a portrait of Barty Crouch being scared of werewolves drawn.

This unscrupulous reporter has always had a knack for insulting people.

As for the few werewolves who were unfortunately captured in the battle, since the Aurors didn't care, Murphy naturally accepted them and sent them directly to the shapeshifting research group, who were in dire need of such real werewolf samples.

The Watchers were in high spirits, and the security store was immersed in a victorious joy, but Murphy did not let his guard down.

He suspected that these werewolves wouldn't give up so easily, and that their backers might have further plans.

One day in June, Murphy came to Patrick's house.

"I'm going to assign you a few security guards." After having a free meal, Murphy teased Patrick's son, Ares Jr., for a while and then casually said this.

"Security guard?" Patrick chuckled. "Did you borrow money from loan sharks?"

"There are no loan sharks, but there are plenty of people who are envious of us," Murphy said. "I don't show my face much in public, so if someone wants to target Umbrella Corporation, you'll be their first target."

It took Patrick a while to realize that Murphy was serious.

"This is London," Patrick said, somewhat incredulously. "Who would hurt me? Has something happened?"

"I hope I'm just being overly pessimistic, but it's better to be safe than sorry, isn't it? You're a billionaire now, it wouldn't be right if you didn't have a few bodyguards around."

"...Okay." Patrick didn't refuse. It just meant a few more people in the house, which wasn't a big problem compared to the safety of his family.

"How's the development of the computer system going?" Murphy asked.

Since some aspects of chip development require the use of magic, most of the work is done in a magic research institute, while the computer system and overall design are handled by the Muggle Corporation.

The overall system design was outsourced to Sinclair Research, who were responsible for communicating with various manufacturers, including motherboard manufacturers, to help them design components that could bring out the performance of the new chips, based on the chip parameters provided by the chip research group.

For this reason, Murphy also invested in several manufacturers of motherboards, memory, hard drives, and other products.

As for the computer system, although a lot of research and upper-level architecture design were carried out in the early stage, and some functions of the system were written in high-level languages, the actual combination of them into a system only began after the instruction set research was completed and the compiler was designed.

"I spoke with Bob from the project team before. The system is currently less than 40% complete, and according to his estimate, it will take at least another year to finish development," Patrick said, noticing Murphy's darkening expression. "He suggested we could first launch some server devices using a DOS-like system..."

Since most servers are used in commercial applications and perform relatively simple tasks, customers have higher requirements for computing performance than ease of operation, so this suggestion is reasonable.

But this path is blocked.

Firstly, the server market is not as large as the personal computer market.

Secondly, in the server field, it is very difficult to establish technological barriers. Historically, even a powerful company like Intel with its x86 architecture took decades to dominate the market. Without establishing a monopoly advantage, it is impossible to generate high premiums. Without high premiums, considering Murphy's early R&D costs, selling more products would only result in losses.

"Keep hiring," Murphy said. "We can't wait any longer. Once the chip is successfully taped out, we must immediately start producing our own personal computer terminals. Our own desktop system must be online within six months at most."

"But..." Patrick looked at him worriedly, hesitating to speak.

Murphy understood what he meant; with such aggressive spending, their funds wouldn't last long.

"It's okay, our first movie will be released next month."

The Lion King has entered the promotion and distribution phase and will be released within a month at most.

Moreover, Pickett's next film, Aladdin, is already on its way.

There's no way around it; among 2D animated films, the highest-grossing ones are indeed all from Disney.

There are risks involved in doing this. The Lion King is relatively straightforward, but Aladdin is completely modeled after Disney animation, and they might already have a preliminary plan in mind.

Therefore, Murphy plans to copy Frozen at most, and then let Pickett go straight.

……

After leaving the Patrick's house, Murphy went to see Radwan Perry, the mansion's security chief.

He was a burly man with a red beard.

"Radwan, I need a fully armed team to protect some of our key personnel. Can you help me assemble such a team?"

"You can contact the company directly; they will definitely have a solution that suits you."

"No, you don't understand what I mean," Murphy said. "It's not about partnering with a security company; it's about building Umbrella Corporation's own security team."

"You want to poach me from the company?" Radwan asked, puzzled.

"Not just you, but your team, and your former comrades." Murphy looked at him. "I know you served in the British Army, and you and your friends served in the Falklands War as Royal Marines, right?"

Radwan looked at Murphy suspiciously. Logically speaking, the information on the Falklands War should not be made public now; it should be classified. It wasn't even written on his resume. How could Murphy know about it?

However, he still nodded slowly.

"Come to Umbrella Corporation. I'll pay off your breach of contract penalty," Murphy said.

Rare talents like Radwan are highly valued in security companies. The Cassiopeia Group signed a five-year contract with him. If Radwan wants to leave the Cassiopeia Group, he will have to pay a penalty of twice his annual salary, amounting to millions of pounds.

However, a mere million pounds is nothing to Murphy, who is already burning through money to the point of near-immortality; he wouldn't even bother haggling over it.

"Bring your friends along, and I'll give you double your original salary. During combat missions, your salary will double again."

"But I require you to assemble a team with sufficient combat capability within half a month. I mean a team composed of members of the same level as your former teammates."

Radwan nodded. "Besides the usual security duties, is there anything else I need to know?"

Murphy glanced at the burly man.

This guy is very perceptive.

However, this is precisely one of the reasons why Murphy values ​​him.

He thought for a moment, "Hopefully I'm just being overly pessimistic, but if the worst-case scenario does occur, you might face some unusual enemies..."

Murphy hesitated for a moment, but ultimately didn't tell the other party the truth. He simply said, "Anyway, get the equipment ready."

The firearms are just as lethal as the magic wands; even werewolves that can only transform during a full moon can't withstand many hits. A few dozen gunmen with professional military training should be enough to handle most situations.

Thank you so much, Elemental Summoner, for the 4,500 Qidian Coins! Thank you so much for your support!

(End of this chapter)