Chapter 6. The Eerie Pattern
An endless emerald grassland.
A clear breeze brushed over, sending out wave after wave like the sea.
Duncan stood in the open at the foot of a gentle slope, the opened brown case lying quietly at his side.
The two Erumpents had already come out of the case and were burying their heads, devouring the nutritious meal Newt had carefully prepared for them.
The iron chains coiled round their feet had been removed as well.
Thick bandages were wrapped round their ankles, giving off a strong herbal smell.
"Finally done."
Newt smiled and let out a breath, raising a hand to wipe the fine beads of sweat from his forehead.
He had just been running back and forth to help the Erumpents take off their chains, then to prepare food for them.
Today's exercise load was already maxed out.
Fortunately, Duncan had helped soothe the Erumpents' emotions, which saved him quite a bit of effort.
If this had been in the past, never mind preparing food—just getting these two enraged giants to calm down would have had him rolling on the ground for ages, utterly exhausted.
Newt's gaze shifted to his side and fell on Duncan, who was watching the Erumpents eat with focused attention.
His eyes gradually filled with a look of satisfaction.
"Come on, Duncan, let's go back and rest for a bit.
The two of them are fine now.
When they finish eating, we'll let them stay here and rest."
Newt called to Duncan, wanting him to leave together.
But Duncan didn't move.
He still stared intently at the Erumpents, brows slightly knit, as if pondering a difficult problem of life.
"What is it, is something wrong?"
Newt moved beside Duncan in confusion, his curious gaze following Duncan's line of sight.
However, all he saw were the gathered, canyon-like folds of skin at the Erumpents' necks, rising and falling.
He noticed nothing amiss.
If he had to pick something out… it would be that the Erumpents were too dirty, with large patches of grime piled up around their necks.
But they would have to wait until the wounds on the Erumpents' bodies healed before coming over to clean them.
"Please wait a moment."
Duncan came back from his thoughts.
Before Newt could ask again, he stepped closer to the feeding Erumpent.
Newt instinctively wanted to follow, but he had only taken two steps when the Erumpent suddenly raised its head with a whoosh, staring at Newt warily with bulging eyes.
Its wide nostrils snorted out heavy breaths as it adopted a threatening, battle-ready posture.
"What are you looking at?
Eat your food."
Duncan smacked the Erumpent without ceremony, telling it to lower its head at once.
The powerful presence the Erumpent had been building dissipated in an instant.
It shifted its eyes to glance at Duncan; the huge eyes showed a pitiful, aggrieved look, as if it had complaints—but when Duncan raised his eyebrows, it hurriedly buried its head and took its temper out on the food spread over the grass.
After the rescue earlier and the task of dressing their wounds just now, Duncan's friendship level with the two Erumpents had already passed sixty.
The two sides had become close friends, and Duncan had even named them Ari and Charlie.
Standing to the side, Newt watched Duncan interact intimately with the Erumpents and sighed silently in his heart.
All the various understandings he had acquired from living with magical creatures in the wild had been repeatedly broken ever since Duncan descended into his home.
At first he had been surprised; now he was almost numb with habit—only, he couldn't help but feel a touch of envy.
Because when he was small, he too had imagined having such an ability, and he had never expected it to be realised in his grandson.
"Granddad, come and have a look."
Duncan pointed to a slightly sunken small area beside the Erumpent's ear.
"What?"
Newt shook off the thoughts flitting through his mind and came to Duncan's side.
"What did you find?"
"Look here."
Duncan pointed at that somewhat blurred, dark pattern by the Erumpent's ear.
Taken as a whole, it looked like a person wearing a tortoiseshell carapace, bent over, with both hands crossed to grip a weapon—just like a piece in wizard chess—a pawn.
"I feel like I've seen a similar pattern somewhere, but I can't think of it for the moment…"
Duncan said, frowning.
"Oh?"
Newt had noticed the oddity as well and hurried forward to examine it.
Such a regular pattern would certainly not appear naturally on an Erumpent's body.
Ordinary poachers wouldn't go out of their way to smear such a mark on their quarry that could expose their identity.
Only certain animal-protection groups or organisations with specific research aims would do this sort of thing.
It was just that even after Newt rapidly combed through the memories in his mind, he still couldn't recall any organisation from the past that had used a similar emblem.
At that moment, Duncan's face suddenly brightened with delight.
He turned his head and spoke rapidly, "I remember where I saw it!
Do you remember?
The Nundu we rescued in East Africa the year before last had a similar pattern on it—only it wasn't a pawn, it was a bishop!"
"Oh, I remember now."
Newt came to a sudden realisation and nodded heavily.
"That was the first time you went out with me.
You almost got lost, and I worried for ages, afraid I wouldn't find you and not knowing how I'd explain it to Tina."
"Granddad, that's not the point, all right?"
Duncan said helplessly.
"What we should be focusing on now is those two patterns."
As his voice fell, lines of small black text appeared:
[By virtue of your powers of observation, you discovered an extremely important clue.
There seems to be some connection between the two similar patterns.]
[They may belong to a mysterious organisation hidden in the dark.
You cannot help but wonder whether there is a conspiracy behind this.]
[Optional Task: Seek more clues about the hidden organisation, capture its members, or destroy its strongholds.]
[Task Reward: virtual coins ×1000; random item ×1; Wondrous Transformation Technique (this task's reward can be claimed repeatedly).]
[Note: Wondrous Transformation Technique — You may choose one magical creature with whom your affection level has reached 100 to establish a magical link, transform into its form, and use its magical abilities, for half an hour.]
[Accept task? Yes/No]
Seeing the description of the Wondrous Transformation Technique, Duncan's eyes lit up at once.
Nimbly he selected "accept," and patted the thick neck of the Erumpent at his side.
"Ari, do you remember the appearance of the ones who captured you?"
At this, Ari the Erumpent raised its head, chewed and swallowed the food in its mouth, rolled its eyes in thought, and let out a dull roar.
"No impression.
They were wrapped up from head to toe, so you couldn't see what they looked like.
And we were knocked out the moment we ran into them.
When we woke up again, we were already locked in cages and being shipped to the place where you found us."
Duncan scrunched his brows.
He was a bit disappointed at failing to gather clues.
He had thought he might be able to freeload a bit of reward!
"Did it tell you any useful information?"
Newt, seeing Ari lower its head and resume eating, knew the two had finished talking and hurried to ask.
"No."
Duncan shook his head.
"But there's definitely a connection between the two.
Perhaps there's an organisation behind this that specialises in capturing magical creatures.
Granddad, we should drag them out.
We can't let them keep hurting those poor creatures!"
Newt nodded in agreement, thought for a moment, and said, "You make sense.
In a bit I'll write to my friends and inform them of this, so they can keep an eye out and see if they can discover any useful clues."
"Then when are we setting out?"
Duncan looked up at Newt's face and asked.
"Setting out?"
Newt blinked blankly.
"Where to?"
"To look for clues about that mysterious organisation!"
Duncan replied as a matter of course.
"Not now!"
Newt rejected Duncan's proposal almost without thinking.
He patted Duncan's shoulder and said in a low voice, "You're about to start school.
Stay at home and keep Tina company a bit more.
If I take you out, she'll probably give the two of us a taste of her methods from when she was an Auror!"
Duncan recalled briefly in his mind and shuddered at once.
"You're right…"
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