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Trolls did not originate on the island of Great Britain, but in a place called the Scandinavian Peninsula. There, they were also known by another name: man-eating trolls.
They had no fixed diet.
Any living creature could become food.
And that included human beings.
To ordinary people in the Middle Ages, they were extremely dangerous creatures.
Trolls possessed absurd strength and incredibly rough skin, which gave them tremendous physical durability. They were capable of tearing apart a small squad of light cavalry with ease.
Fortunately, their intelligence was ridiculously low. They had brute strength in abundance, but no idea how to use it properly.
Sometimes, even a simple Levitation Charm was enough to deal with a troll.
But that was not absolute.
If the Levitation Charm failed to bring the troll down, then the first thing to do was... run.
In close combat, there was only one possible outcome for a wizard facing a troll.
Death.
"It's over."
The prefect said, pinching his nose as he looked at the result of his own handiwork.
The troll was completely bound by vines conjured through Transfiguration, tied up from head to toe.
Unless one side completely overwhelmed the other in raw power, most battles between wizards were far more about skill than strength.
Just like this prefect.
Even though it was his first time facing a troll, and even without knowing its weak points, he had still managed to bind it with only a few spells.
"Go inform the professors. The troll has already been captured."
The prefect clapped his hands and immediately went back to ordering the younger students around.
At first glance, it seemed as though the crisis had passed.
But Dudley frowned slightly.
His sense of smell was extremely sharp.
The stench in the air had grown even stronger.
And the ground was still trembling...
The moment the prefect turned around, a head slowly began to emerge from the corner behind him.
Eyes the size of jack-o'-lanterns stared fixedly at his back.
'Another troll!'
And this one was even bigger than the first.
It almost brushed the ceiling of Hogwarts.
"What?"
Seeing the younger students pointing behind him in horror, the prefect turned around on instinct.
And then he saw it.
Less than five feet above his head was a gigantic skull and a pair of yellow eyes staring directly at him.
He only had time to throw up a defensive spell on himself before the troll's club sent him flying like a baseball.
This troll was clearly smarter than the last one.
At the very least, it knew who posed the greatest threat.
Not all trolls were stupid.
There were exceptions within the species.
They even had their own language, and some high-ranking Ministry official reportedly knew how to speak it. With a bit of training, those smarter trolls could even make decent guards.
The new troll let out a roar filled with vague meaning.
Thanks to his ability to understand the languages of magical creatures, Dudley managed to catch the rough sense of it.
'Hungry. Want to eat. What eat?'
Wasn't the answer already lying right at its feet?
The students had already been frightened again and again.
By this point, their legs had completely gone soft.
Never mind running. Even standing up was difficult.
The new troll opened its mouth, revealing a row of rotten yellow teeth, and began eyeing the younger students with greed.
Its eyes were full of hunger.
Dudley could clearly see that among the ones closest to the troll, Pansy's little face, framed by that ridiculous poodle-like hairstyle, was full of fear and despair.
"For the sake of my biscuits and black tea."
Dudley grabbed Malfoy, who was collapsed at his feet, and flung him backward into a safer spot.
Even after training with Dudley for a while, Malfoy was still, at the end of the day, just a boy with a slightly better physique.
Dudley walked over to the wall, curled his five fingers, and drove his hand into it with force.
A chunk of the castle wall, which had stood intact for a thousand years, was torn right out.
At that moment, everyone's attention was fixed on the troll.
No one noticed Dudley's little movement.
'Good.'
No one was going to make him pay for damaging a historical structure.
He clenched the stone tightly and hurled it straight at the troll's forehead.
"Bombarda... Maxima."
As long as the movement of his hand was fast enough, people would assume it was a spell.
That was originally a curse used by adult wizards in battle. It produced a powerful explosion and destroyed objects. It was even stronger than the Reducto the prefect had used earlier.
It was a high-level spell.
And the troll's head was its weak point.
It did not matter that the head was small, nor that its brain capacity was pathetic. It was still the creature's vital point.
If the prefect had cast Reducto directly at the first troll's head, there would have been no need for that whole complicated chain of attacks.
A single spell would have been enough to kill it.
Before becoming invincible, information was extremely important.
That was why being knowledgeable was an essential requirement for any wizard worth his salt.
The instant the stone struck the troll's head, it exploded into countless fragments.
Anyone could tell how much force Dudley had put behind that throw.
And the troll, as the target, did not come out of it well either.
Part of its skull caved in slightly, and blood burst out like a fountain.
But Dudley had not struck just anywhere.
He had hit the creature in the temple, the most fragile part of its head.
And it still was not over.
"BOOM!"
The troll's head suddenly exploded.
The reddish flash of the blast lit up the entire corridor.
It was an Exploding Potion. He had hidden the potion inside the stone.
It was an extremely unstable mixture that produced a violent explosion when subjected to enough impact.
One of the most dangerous brews Snape had ever taught Dudley.
In Muggle terms, its power could be compared to explosives.
But it was not only physical damage. It also carried a tremendous amount of magical force.
It was perfect for dealing with something as thick-skinned as a troll.
A perfect-grade potion blew away half the troll's head in a single instant. Its gigantic body crashed to the ground with a thunderous boom, without even managing to let out a cry.
The corridor fell silent.
Totally silent.
The young Slytherins remained sitting on the floor, frozen in place, staring at Dudley in shock.
The scene had been far too chaotic.
They had no idea what Dudley had actually done.
To their eyes, Dudley had used only one single spell to blow the troll's head apart.
'One spell... and he blew that monster's head off?!'
To deal with a troll far smaller than that one, the fifth-year prefect had needed to use almost everything he knew just to restrain it.
But Dudley...
He had killed it instantly.
And he had not even blinked.
He was clearly already used to this sort of thing.
'This guy... is cold-blooded.'
Without even realizing it, the students had already stamped that label onto him in their minds.
And then they connected it to the earlier rumor, that he had used a single spell to make Gryffindor tear itself apart.
That was far too terrifying.
Such powerful Dark Magic.
Such a terrifying curse.
'And you still want to say you're not a dark wizard?!'
In truth, the main reason was simply that Dudley had no desire whatsoever to fight a troll hand-to-hand.
In his opinion, the most terrifying thing about a troll was not even its size or strength.
It was the constant stench pouring off its entire body.
A bad smell was also a kind of attack.
No one wanted to fight a pile of filth.
Especially when Dudley's own fighting style was close-range.
That was why he had chosen to use that combined method of attack.
And judging by the result, it had worked pretty well.
Perhaps it could even be adapted for dealing with other wizards in the future.
Under everyone's stunned gaze, Dudley took out a vial and walked toward the troll.
Since it was dead anyway, he might as well collect some potion ingredients.
But to everyone else, that scene looked like something else entirely...
'This guy won't even leave the corpse alone!'
No.
More accurately, the great Mr. Dursley was testing a new form of Dark Magic!
And that was how the rumors began to spread.
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