From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Amid whistles and cheers of "As expected," Nine Fingers, playing the role of the priest, responded with a beaming smile: "You will be forgiven. Is there anything else you want to say?"

The newcomer breathed a sigh of relief, then became nervous again, racking his brains to come up with the next line.

"Girls' dormitory? Boys aren't allowed in the girls' dormitory!"

Just when everyone was satisfied, a rebuttal suddenly emerged from the crowd.

Everyone turned to look. The person being stared at instinctively shrank back, then tilted his head back and argued defiantly, "What are you looking at? I've tried it."

This time he successfully escaped being beaten up.

The crowd of onlookers stared intently at the bewildered Mundun with gleaming eyes.

"Tsk, well, we're giving you a chance to repent and start anew, and you still dare to lie to us?"

Nine Fingers, who had been feigning righteousness, couldn't hold back any longer and started acting fierce, pointing at the big guy next to William and threatening him: "See that guy over there? He's been in there for two years, killed three prisoners, and those Dementors just chewed up his bones and buried them under that wall over there, and he didn't even get his sentence extended! This is Azkaban, it's normal for a couple of people to die here!"

These words are incredibly damaging to someone who has never been to prison; their hands trembled, and they simply buried their face in their hands and sat down.

"Big brothers, keep beating me! I've already confessed to everything, even skipping to change my underwear when I was a kid. I really have no more crimes to confess to!!!"

The shouts, tinged with sobs, amused the crowd that had been surrounding him. He was given a quick beating, a rag was thrown at him, and he was sent off to clean the toilet.

Monton had no desire to resist and diligently ran to the toilet, with Nine Fingers pointing happily as he moved his luggage out.

The group of prisoners, who had been grinning from ear to ear, lost their desire to continue training the newcomers. They gathered together and pulled out a set of wizard chess made of polished stone. The group set up their pieces on a drawn chessboard—the pieces had no magic on them, it was just for fun.

William didn't join them. He glanced at Monton struggling with the toilet by the wall and finally gave up on putting more pressure on him—a whole bunch of unlocked cards were right there, the only possible change was his emotions, and there were many emotions behind the awe above.

However, using a sheep's wool to cover someone's body is really going too far. The fact that the other party is not a good person is just a hint on the card. It can be taken as a reference, but it cannot be completely believed. If they are so obedient, it would be too much to go wrong with them.

Just as he turned his gaze away, the jailer stared at William and spoke.

"What, William, do you think it was a bit too harsh?"

Where did you get that idea from?

William instinctively wanted to roll his eyes, but ultimately held back—he thought that being too ruthless was a normal persona, and that saying he wanted to be even more ruthless would probably be a bedtime joke for everyone in the cell.

"Alright, look how frustrated you are—more than half the people in this prison are scum. That Monton has a history of petty theft, so it's only right that he gets a lesson in prison. You're lucky, kid. No one cares about the crimes you committed, and you're good-looking, so you haven't been wronged. If someone like him isn't taught a lesson, he'll be turning other people's beds upside down in a few days. Tch."

The jailer shook his head, ending his lecture with extreme disdain, and lay down on his pillow, closing his eyes—he had brought in a huge amount of goods from outside today and made many exchanges between the various cells, so he was already exhausted.

Seeing this, the others also lowered their voices to a minimum.

As time passed, the moonlight shifted away from the narrow window, plunging the entire cell into darkness.

Another night has come to an end in Azkaban.

Chapter Five: Mundon Couldn't Hold Back Anymore

The days in prison were both tedious and dull.

Life here would be as bland as water if it weren't for the Dementors' daily meals—but unfortunately, no prisoner welcomes the Dementors coming to have some excitement.

Even the smallest bit of new information is precious to the prisoners here. If a newspaper is handed in, the greedy prisoners won't even let go of the advertisements in the crevices, let alone any new things happening in their cells.

The prisoners' own affairs are nothing more than the same old stories, endlessly repeating the same few patterns: theft, robbery, fraud, kidnapping, murder, arson. When you first arrive, hearing these things might seem surprising, but after two months, just look at the new inmates and you'll understand why they're in there; you won't even have the desire to ask anymore.

Occasionally, someone commits a strange crime, and the neighboring cells get excited like it's New Year's Day—for example, about two weeks ago, someone in the cell next to William's committed a violation of the Magical Creatures Protection Act.

Generally, those who violate this law either harm endangered species or secretly breed animals that are prohibited from being privately bred, but this person is different.

He got himself into Azkaban while doing research, and his sentence is incredibly long—if he hadn't been warned beforehand, he would be in the serious offender section right now.

According to his self-introduction, he has published thirteen papers on centaurs, including "A Study on Centaur Reproductive Behavior," "A Study on Centaur Feeding Behavior," and a series of books such as "A Study on Centaur Embryonic Development."

After these papers became famous, the enraged centaurs negotiated with the Ministry of Magic, and he was prosecuted and sent to Azkaban—it is said that it took the Ministry of Magic officials a long time to find the basis for the prosecution.

The fact that this story was the talk of the town in Azkaban for a whole week shows just how lacking in everyday entertainment there is.

Today, the prisoners in each cell have found a new form of entertainment—the methods William and his cell used to discipline new inmates last night have spread throughout the entire ward for minor offenders via neighboring cells.

This new tactic of having newcomers make confessions when they have nothing else to do has been adopted by almost all prisons.

Azkaban is a place where democracy is not practiced. With eight people in one cell, it's such a good deal to torment a newcomer and entertain seven old men, so no one would object. As for the newcomer, it's best if he's willing, but if he's not, the others will teach him to be willing.

So when William abandoned his research on the suddenly appearing system and switched to studying magic, he unexpectedly received a series of system messages.

A magical creature has taken a liking to you, and you have received a treasure chest.

……

Twenty-one similar messages were sent, and these twenty-one wooden crates were uniformly dilapidated and shabby, nailed together with a few pieces of nearly rotten wood, as if a gust of wind could break the outer wood.

These chests, even more meager than the treasure chests offered by Mondon, only yield two cards each, and the skills attached to them are utterly terrible.

Ignoring the different names and images above, nineteen out of the twenty-one cards are related to theft, with an unbelievable success rate—if William is not mistaken, then these boxes come from prisoners being subjected to various forms of torture in different cells.

Because the character descriptions that come with those cards all have suffixes like "(resentment)".

As for the remaining two cards, one is a card with a certain probability of successfully deceiving the player, and the other is the only card among all the items that is not a character image—the card is blue with a blue restaurant voucher drawn on it.

[Meal voucher; you can use it to offset the cost of using a card once]

This is probably the only thing of any value among these twenty boxes.

At the same time, William also roughly understood how to obtain more boxes and whether the boxes could only contain character cards.

Ran and egg.

Trapped in his cell and unable to escape, he lacked the ability to unlock more treasure chests, and the system wasn't of much help to him at the moment—unless he was willing to risk being wanted and hunted down to break out of prison, and even then, success wasn't guaranteed.

William put away the system and continued his research on magic.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

It's that time of the month again for a big blast.

William once again declined the big man's enthusiastic invitation and began to wander among the prisoners.

"Massage! Massage with a magic potion! Two chocolates per person, genuine and fair, no deception! Female prisoners get a limited-time half-price discount!"

"Garonne has been traded for cigarettes! One Gallon for a whole cigarette, and three Sickles for a cigarette butt!"

"Canned food is being traded for newspapers! Four sheets for a can, four sheets for a can! Cheaper, cheaper!"

The various shouts, delivered in hushed tones, were perfectly timed—just loud enough for the prisoners to hear but not enough to reach the ears of the overtime thugs. William, meanwhile, was experiencing the atmosphere of this market, which felt almost like a normal human marketplace.

Although some of these transactions would not be seen in the normal trading market, they are still considered special transactions in Azkaban.

However, there is no other ancient human transaction here besides that of assassins—it did happen before, but the excessive joy in the air attracted the attention of the Dementors, and when those guys couldn't control themselves, no one could stop them.

It is said that after being released from prison, the man is still anxiously searching for advertisements in various magical newspapers and magazines.

While William was wandering around, Mundon, who had spent a whole month cleaning toilets and keeping watch for Dementors, sneaked into a corner of the prison.

The guards were excitedly discussing how much gold they could exchange for the worthless items during their shift when they saw the prisoner approaching. Their expressions changed drastically – they weren't worried about anyone reporting them for cheating, but rather that this new prisoner had challenged their authority.

Mondon was almost instantly controlled by magic.

As he shouted, "I want to see Mad-Eye Moody," the batter came flying at him.

"You dare call Lord Moody by his name?"

The tall, thin batter looked disdainful—Mad-Eye Moody was an Auror, the ace of the Ministry of Magic, strong and with an outstanding record, a figure that was unattainable for batters. Although he had retired, he was still occasionally invited to give lessons to the batters, and his reputation was very high.

Despite the fact that the hitters are making money, it doesn't affect their worship of Mad-Eye Han at all.

"I've agreed to be an informant. Please inform Mad-Eye."

The two batters at the front exchanged a glance and nodded.

A guy can't get anything done without a few informants—it's common to get more information by leniently handling a few people with minor crimes.

“I am Mundungus Fletcher, Mad-Eye knows me.”

Monton let out a sigh of relief and quickly spoke to the batter.

He had known Mad-Eye for a long time and had helped Dumbledore through him—but the work was too dangerous. This time, his sentence was short, and he had no desire to contact Mad-Eye. This short sentence was far less dangerous than those other jobs.

Unfortunately, after a month in Azkaban, he suddenly realized that working for Mad-Eye and his gang was actually quite good.

Chapter Six: Monton is about to be released from prison.

Bang!

Monton slammed his hand on the iron table, his face full of anger.

What kind of life did he have this past month?

Living in fear and trepidation—I'm woken up by the sound of the toilet being used just as dawn breaks every day, and if someone gets up at night, my sleep is completely interrupted.

However, he not only couldn't lose his temper, but after everyone had used the toilet in the morning, he had to obediently take a rag and wipe the toilet clean, then wash his hands, help the jailer fold his luggage, and roll his share of cigarettes while the jailer and his men were eating.

After everyone else had eaten breakfast, the half-cold, oil-free, and salt-free leftovers were his.

The other prisoners could at least share some canned food, but by the time it got to his can, it had been rinsed with soup and there wasn't a trace of meat in it.

That's not all. Before going to bed at night, I also gave the jailer some medicine to loosen up his muscles. Only after working up a sweat could I finally lie down and sleep on my dark and damp bed.

Even the lowest-ranking guy in the prison dared to make a few sarcastic remarks when he was sweeping the floor—and all of this stemmed from the special treatment he received when he entered prison.

The cells, which were originally divided into three levels, quickly became four levels after he arrived, and Monton single-handedly promoted all of them by one level.

So, after so many days of special treatment, Monton felt it was perfectly normal for him to take all the savings of a cell full of bastards before he left—but in terms of his labor, their hoard was definitely not worth his salary.

However, to Monton's surprise, after searching every nook and cranny of the cell using his years of thieving experience, all he earned was a mere nine sikes and fifteen nut!

Not even a single Galleon!

This insignificant number infuriated Monton.

These poor bastards eat and drink all day long, and they never stop having chocolate and cigarettes, yet they only have this little bit of money?

'No, I can't just leave like this! I'm going to eat all their chocolate, throw all their tobacco down the toilet, and scribble all over those scraps of paper! I'm going to use everyone's blankets as toilets!!!'

Countless thoughts of revenge flashed through Monton's mind, especially towards that seemingly handsome but actually wicked guy named William—that guy was nothing like a human being except for his appearance!

Just do it!

Enraged, Monton rushed to William's bedside and loosened his belt.

Then the cell door was pushed open.