bacchusnovels Chapter 239 Devonshire 3 years ago
Chapter 239 Devonshire 3 years ago
Chapter 239 Devonshire Three Years Ago
pain.
My head hurts like it's being pricked with needles.
Sean frowned, clutching his head tightly with both hands, trying to alleviate the unbearable pain.
But... this did not alleviate his condition in the slightest.
He dared to swear to Merlin that this was a hundred times more painful than being toyed with by a rich woman wielding a steel wool ball.
Before losing consciousness, Sean cautiously took out a disguise mask from his system backpack and put it on.
When he recovered from the excruciating pain and opened his eyes again, he found himself in a completely unfamiliar environment.
The walls of the Ministry of Magic's toilets were no longer pristine white; instead, there was... a slightly cozy-looking room.
In a corner of the room, a voluptuous and beautiful woman was engrossed in a book, her eyes focused.
She had silver eyes and fair, delicate skin with a faint blush, as if she had lightly applied a layer of fine rouge.
Looking at her attire, she wore a long silk dress, light and form-fitting, which perfectly outlined her full and graceful figure.
The more Sean looked at her, the more vaguely familiar the beautiful woman seemed.
However... he was certain that he had never seen this beautiful woman in his more than twenty years of life.
Perhaps it sensed Sean's gaze, or perhaps Sean's awakening was too loud.
In short, the beautiful woman raised her head.
She looked in Sean's direction, a hint of surprise flashing in her eyes, which then turned into a gentle smile.
"You're finally awake. How are you feeling?"
Sean shook his head, trying to look more energetic. "Thanks, I feel much better. Where am I? How did I get here?"
The beautiful woman stood up and slowly walked to Sean's side, handing him a glass of water she had prepared beforehand from the bedside table. "This is Devonshire. I found you unconscious in the bushes not far away. It looks like you've had an accident."
Or perhaps he was too exhausted and collapsed.
Sean took the water glass, nodded gratefully, and drank a few sips. The cool water relieved the dryness in his throat.
But... just as he was about to drink the rest of the water in one gulp.
He then realized what the beautiful woman had said.
Devonshire?
Shouldn't he be in London?
Where did that time converter take him?
Out of surprise, he shoved a mouthful of water into his mouth, and before he could swallow, he choked violently.
He quickly lowered his head, coughed a few times to try to flush the water down, and covered his mouth with his hand to avoid losing his composure.
It took him a while to catch his breath. With an embarrassed smile on his face, he touched his nose and looked at the beautiful woman.
"Excuse me, I didn't hear you clearly. Could you please say it again? Where is this place?"
"Devron, don't you know?"
Sean's embarrassment deepened, and he explained in a low voice, somewhat embarrassed, "It seems my Apparition had a... tiny... mistake..."
The beautiful woman looked at him with an expression that said, "I knew it."
"But you're also lucky. I've seen far too many wizards lose parts of themselves due to mistakes during Apparition." The beautiful woman let out a long sigh of relief. "Fortunately, you're just exhausted from overusing your magic and need rest; it's nothing serious. Otherwise, I would have had to send you to St. Mungo's Hospital. That would have been far too..."
The beautiful woman's last words were so soft that Sean didn't hear them clearly.
But that doesn't matter.
Sean still had one question in his mind at this moment.
That is.
"Could you tell me what time it is?" Sean asked somewhat indistinctly. "I want to know how many days I've been unconscious."
"It's August 7th, 1990," the beautiful woman answered without hesitation. Then, she looked at Sean with concern. "Should I contact your family to take you home? You look like you need their care."
August 1990, 8?
Sean was deeply disturbed by the beautiful woman's words.
He actually traveled back three years in time using a time converter?
It's no wonder his body reacted so strongly—even now, he still feels dizzy and his thinking seems to be a beat slower than usual.
Ordinary time-turners can only go back five hours, while more powerful time-turners have long been banned and destroyed by the Ministry of Magic.
One major factor is that time travel can cause irreversible damage to the human body and has predictable consequences.
All of this originated in the 19th century, when a woman named Mintembu traveled back nearly 600 years. When she returned to the present, her body suffered enormous damage, and she died a few days later at St. Mungo's Hospital.
Her experience of traveling back in time greatly disrupted the life trajectories of everyone she encountered, completely altering the present, to the point that at least 25 of their descendants disappeared in the present, never to be "born".
Furthermore, there are some alarming signs that time itself has been disrupted: Tuesday, after her reappearance, lasted two and a half days, while Thursday passed in just four hours.
This shows that time travel is a very serious and extremely dangerous matter.
Although Sean had some idea of what might happen next when he pressed the time converter, his only expectation was to go back half a month and find out the source of the series of events that had occurred in the past two weeks.
He never imagined that he would travel three years to Devon, a county hundreds of kilometers away from London.
All of this was truly... for him.
"Are you alright?" The beautiful woman looked at Sean, whose face was alternating between pale and flushed, with concern and asked gently, "Would you like me to get you another glass of water?"
"Okay, okay... I meant it's troublesome." Sean paused for a moment, then nodded.
While the American woman was in the kitchen pouring water.
Sean hurriedly searched his mind for things he needed to be careful about during time travel.
If he remembers correctly, the biggest taboo in time travel is not to meet your current self in the current timeline.
Each time travel is like walking through an intricate tapestry; a slight misstep could lead to unpredictable consequences.
After all, in his original memories, he had never seen the existence of another version of himself, so in order not to change his memories, he could not meet with himself in the future.
That sounds like a tongue twister, doesn't it?
However, if such an encounter were to occur due to momentary negligence, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The logic and sequence of time may be completely disrupted, leading to memory confusion and even triggering a series of inexplicable paradoxes.
However, this is not something that Sean needs to pay special attention to.
At this point, he should be in XZ looking for Snowman to do on-site research for his next novel.
As long as he doesn't act crazy and run off to XZ, the aforementioned consequences won't occur.
The second point about time travel is that you cannot change what has already happened.
And the meaning of this sentence...
As Sean was lost in his thoughts, a slender hand suddenly appeared in his line of sight.
When I looked up, I found that the beautiful woman had been standing next to me for a long time, holding a water glass.
He quickly gathered his thoughts, forced a smile, and said in a slightly apologetic voice, "I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting. I was just—a little distracted."
"It's alright," the beautiful woman replied with a smile, handing Sean the water glass she was holding. "Drink slowly, be careful it's hot."
"Thank you. May I ask your name?" Sean asked sincerely.
After drinking the hot water, Sean's condition improved significantly, and he returned to his usual gentle and refined self.
Just then, a clear sound of footsteps came from the doorway of the house, followed by the soft sound of the doorknob being turned gently.
"I'm back."
Standing at the door of the room were two people he knew very well.
The adult was a strange-looking wizard with shoulder-length hair that was as soft as cotton candy.
The little man looked exactly like the beautiful woman, with her waist-length messy blond hair and striking silver eyes.
He finally understood why the beautiful woman looked so familiar.
She must be...
The beautiful woman said, "My name is Pandora Lovegood..."
Everything seemed to make sense now.
"My name is Humphrey Hacke. Thank you for saving my life."
People who spend years navigating the world of martial arts or navigating the realm of romance should have a nickname. This is a routine operation that is as commonplace and should be taken for granted as everyone should know how to make explosives.
For example, Zhang Wei's nickname is Snake, and Lü Ziqiao's nickname is Lü Xiaobu.
Sean also has a nickname that belongs to him.
The birth of a perfect, memorable nickname is usually dramatic, or it may just happen in a flash of inspiration.
For example, when Ran asked Conan Edogawa his name, Conan had a flash of inspiration and combined "Edogawa Ranpo" with "Conan."
The name "Doyle" was combined.
Sean first used this nickname several years ago when he was in a Muggle orphanage.
At the time, he had no idea that this was a world full of magic, and he still harbored the dream of one day stepping into the British cabinet with his insight into the course of history.
Unfortunately, his dream vanished with the arrival of that Hogwarts acceptance letter.
From then on, he buried that nickname, along with his memories of the Muggle orphanage, deep in the recesses of his mind.
So when Sean said the name, he actually sighed with emotion.
He never expected that he would use the name again under such special circumstances.
"These are my husband and my daughter who just came in," Pandora introduced Sean one by one.
"Hello, I'm Xenophilius Lovegood." Xenophilius extended his hand warmly, and Sean smiled and shook it back. "Hello, I'm Humphrey Harker."
At this moment, Xenophilius gave Sean a completely different feeling than when they first met, as if he were a completely different person.
"I've read your 'The Quibbler'," Sean said before Xenophilius could speak. "The article about the Curved-Horned Snork is really good."
Compared to the awkward small talk that ensued last time when he accidentally saw someone taking a bath, he was clearly much more adept at handling things this time, having mastered Xenophilius's preferences.
It's like... finding a secret to quickly increasing a character's favorability in a game.
Sure enough, Xenophilius's eyes lit up immediately after Sean finished speaking.
"Oh, really? You read that article about the horned beast? What an honor! I've always felt that the stories of those magical creatures should be known by more people." Xenophilius's voice was full of surprise, as if he had met a rare kindred spirit. "You know, in order to write that report, I searched all over the world for information about horned beasts, and even went to the Forbidden Forest! Haha, but it was all worth it. My greatest wish is to enable people to have a deeper understanding of these amazing creatures."
Sean smiled and nodded, while Luna, who had been standing to the side waiting for the conversation to end, couldn't help but interject, "Hello, Uncle, I'm Luna."
Luna knew she had to speak up now, or her father could go on for three days and three nights telling the story of the Curved-Horned Snoring Beast without repeating himself.
For the sake of her dinner, she decided to change the subject.
"Uncle, why are you sleeping in the bushes? Is it because you don't have a home?"
"Mr. Lovegood, let's talk about your 'The Quibbler' instead."
Seeing Xenophilius's increasingly bright eyes, Sean realized that this might not be a good choice, so he quickly changed his mind.
"Perhaps... how about we have dinner first? It's getting late." As he spoke, Sean's stomach dutifully growled at that moment. "I'm a cook, so to thank you all, I'll take care of this meal."
"That's exactly what I meant!" Luna cheered.
While preparing ingredients in the kitchen, Sean felt a pang of sadness as he recalled Luna's earlier performance.
He had never seen Luna so lively before, whether it was the enthusiastic smile on her face or the excited gleam in her eyes.
This contrast gave rise to a strange sense of absurdity deep within him; for a moment, he even felt as if he had traveled to a parallel world.
Could it be... that this time the Time Converter really took him into that game?
After washing his face with the tap, Sean gave up on his wishful thinking.
He understood why Xenophilius and Luna had changed, so a nameless sadness lingered in his heart.
But thinking back to how Luna addressed him... Uncle,
Does he really look that old?
A ripple of emotion stirred within Sean. He instinctively picked up the kitchen knife lying to the side and examined his own face through the reflection in its blade. He saw...: