Chapter 171: Dying of Laughter
Hearing movement in the corridor, Quirrell's eyes inside the compartment instantly turned cold.
He instinctively reached into his sleeve, preparing to draw his wand and rush out to end those three reckless fools with the Killing Curse.
"Stay inside, Quirrell."
Tamara did not even look back. She simply raised one finger slightly behind her, stopping Quirrell's movement.
Not only did she show no panic at being robbed, but a cruel, excited smile appeared on her pale, exquisite face.
After playing the good girl at Hogwarts for an entire year, surrounded every day by suffocating warmth and false smiles, the tyranny and desire for slaughter buried in her bones had already become almost impossible to suppress.
Now, a few brainless punching bags had conveniently delivered themselves to her door, just in time for her to stretch her muscles.
She slowly reached into her robe pocket and gripped that eleven inch holly wand.
Underage wizards using wands outside school would indeed trigger the Ministry of Magic's Trace.
But that was only a rough judgement based on magical activity around the underage wizard.
This was no longer Britain, but the border of eastern Europe, where judicial authority was chaotic.
Moreover, they were on a high speed transnational train.
Even if the British Ministry of Magic received an alarm, by the time those stupid Aurors finished the international extradition process and arrived, they would not even be able to smell the train's exhaust.
Since there were no restrictions, she would naturally use her wand.
After all, only magical output channelled through a wand could bring the ultimate sense of destruction.
Seeing that the twelve year old girl was not only unafraid, but even dared to pull out her wand, Scarface burst into harsh laughter.
"Hahahaha! Is this little brat crazy? What do you want to..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Tamara's wrist gave an elegant flick.
She skipped the long incantation syllables entirely.
Magic instantly surged from the tip of the holly wand.
The system had just rewarded her with a mysterious little spell said to make people happy.
The Cheering Charm.
This was originally a piece of White magic used to treat low spirits and make people feel joyful.
But when cast by a tyrannical Dark Lord with terrifying magical intensity, the nature of the spell completely changed.
"Pfft..."
Scarface suddenly laughed without warning.
Immediately after, his expression twisted terribly, and the corners of his mouth stretched involuntarily into a horrifying arc beyond normal human limits.
"Haha... hahahaha!"
It was not only him.
The other two Dark Wizards also suddenly dropped their wands, clutched their stomachs, knelt in the narrow corridor, and began rolling as they laughed maniacally.
"Stop... haha... help... ahahaha! Avada... hahahaha..."
The Dark Lord's overloaded Cheering Charm instantly destroyed their nervous systems.
Their lungs convulsed violently from the wild laughter, making it impossible for them to draw in enough air.
Tears and snot covered their faces. Their hands clawed tightly at their own throats, even scratching bloody marks into their necks as they tried to stop the eerie laughter surging from their windpipes.
In less than half a minute, the three Dark Wizards who had been fierce and malicious were bleeding from their faces, eyes rolling back, already on the verge of suffocating.
Looking at these Dark Wizards twisting and twitching on the ground like maggots, about to literally die of laughter, Tamara looked down at them and felt a long lost, pleasant thrill that required no consideration of emotions or bonds.
[Ding! Host detected performing a brave deed, successfully subduing three heinous Dark Wizard bandits!]
In her mind, the system's cheerful electronic voice sounded right on time.
[Punishing evil is the duty of a good person! You have used happiness to resolve violence, completing a great feat!]
[Congratulations to the host for obtaining a reward: Courage +2! Current Courage: 51!]
[Ding! Courage value has broken the 50 mark, successfully unlocking the spell: Oppugno!]
[System Note: This is a fun little prank spell! When encountering bad people, you can summon nearby small objects to fly over and peck them like angry birds! Please use it for childlike self defence!]
Listening to the system's cheerful and somewhat stupid broadcast in her mind, Tamara almost wanted to laugh out loud.
This damned system actually gave her Courage points?
It actually thought that torturing people until they wished they were dead was punishing evil?
What an idiot with an excellent sense of humour.
Tamara mocked it inwardly, her mood becoming more joyful than ever.
At the same time, a brilliant idea gradually took shape in the Dark Lord's mind.
If the system unconditionally judged her violence as a brave deed as long as the opponent was a heinous villain, then could she not use the banner of punishing evil to freely satisfy the urge for slaughter and torture in her bones?
Not only would she not be punished, she could even farm endless attribute rewards and new spells from this stupid machine.
A cunning, cold light flashed through Tamara's deep, dark eyes.
Anyway, there were plenty of reckless scum and Dark Wizards in the magical world. They could serve as excellent material for her daily venting of tyranny and frenzied point farming.
She turned her head and looked at Quirrell, who was already dazed, then spoke in a relaxed tone.
"What's wrong, Quirrell? Can even a few pieces of trash laughing themselves unconscious scare you?"
Quirrell shuddered violently. Cold sweat rolled down his pale face like a waterfall.
As an outstanding graduate of Ravenclaw, he naturally knew that excessive use of the Cheering Charm would cause uncontrollable laughter.
But that usually required continuous casting, and at most, it would send someone into a few hours of hysteria.
To use a gentle, everyday White magic spell to instantly destroy the nervous systems of three adult wizards, leaving them bleeding and on the brink of death...
This required terrifying magical output and a perverse, meticulous control over the essence of magic.
Even more chilling were Tamara's methods.
Ordinary Dark Wizards mostly relied on the Cruciatus Curse to torture people, because that was a Dark Arts spell specifically designed to create pain.
But this master of his could casually use White magic meant for creating happiness to produce an effect no weaker than Crucio.
Quirrell clearly realized that the Dark Lord's understanding of magic had completely transcended the scope of ordinary humans.
"No... no, Master! Your great power... amazes your servant!"
Tamara was not pleased by Quirrell's flattery.
She looked at the wand in her hand, a sarcastic curve forming on her lips.
If she could, she would not bother spending so much energy controlling the magical output to force White magic into such a hellish overload.
How useful the Cruciatus Curse was.
That was the perfect creation truly born for torture.
Simple, pure, and striking directly at the soul.
One only needed to release the most primitive malice to easily tear apart an enemy's sanity and listen to the most wonderful screams.
Unlike now, where, to deal with the love and peace system in her head, she, the dignified Dark Lord, had to rack her brains like a beginner with bound hands and feet, searching for loopholes in the rules and using such roundabout methods to vent her murderous intent.
However, seeing Quirrell's look of absolute awe, Tamara naturally would not explain this frustration belonging to the Dark Lord.
"Quirrell, dispose of this trash."
Dispose of them.
Among Death Eaters, this was another way of saying kill them and dump the bodies.
"As you command, Master."
Quirrell immediately pulled out his wand, preparing to finish off the three unconscious men with an Unforgivable Curse.
[Warning! Warning!]
The electronic voice that had been throwing flowers in her mind instantly turned into a piercing red alarm.
[Host detected instructing a subordinate to commit deliberate murder! As a future good person full of love and peace, how can you cruelly kill criminals who have already lost their ability to resist?]
[Please stop your subordinate immediately! Bind them and hand them over to the local Ministry of Magic! Otherwise, the system will forcibly judge...]
"Stop your noise, you brainless idiot."
Tamara calmly interrupted the system in her mind.
After two years of getting used to it, she had long since figured out the virtue system's set of high sounding logic.
"You think handing them over to the Ministry of Magic is kindness?"
Tamara responded inwardly with a compassionate tone.
"This is the border of eastern Europe. These Dark Wizards have long since used money to clear paths within the local Ministry of Magic."
"If we hand them over, they will be acquitted tomorrow, then continue to rob and kill innocent civilian wizards and Muggles."
"Are we to watch more innocents bleed because of our mercy?"
[This...]
The system's alarm stuttered for a moment. Clearly, its core logic was frantically calculating this moral dilemma.
Tamara pressed her advantage, her tone becoming even heavier and firmer.
"True kindness is not hypocritical forgiveness, but having the courage to bear the sin of pulling evil out by the roots."
"To protect more innocent people, I am willing to carry the darkness of this slaughter."
"This is the resolve a good person should have."
[...]
The system went completely silent.
A few seconds later, a series of electronic sobs, as if it had been moved to tears, actually sounded in Tamara's mind.
[Host, you are so right! To implement true light and not hesitate to dirty your own hands... what a noble, what a great spirit of sacrifice! The system has learned! Please execute your justice!]
With the system's restrictions completely lifted, Tamara revealed a satisfied smile.
Before her, three streaks of eerie green light had already erupted from the tip of Quirrell's wand, precisely ending the lives of those three Dark Wizards.
Quirrell skillfully cast several Levitation Charms, coldly sending the three still warm corpses out through the open compartment door into the dark wilderness outside.
He even seized their belongings before throwing them away.
"Well done."
Tamara leaned back against the velvet sofa, picked up the cup of tea that had not even cooled yet, and took an elegant sip.
She listened to the rhythmic roar of the wheels, sensed the faint scent of blood still lingering in the air, and heard the stupid system in her mind still being moved by her great sacrifice.
Tamara's mood had never been so joyful.
This was the life she was meant to live.
Tamara looked out at the gradually deepening eastern European night beyond the window, her dark eyes seeming to flicker with black flames.
"How wonderful."