Chapter 49: Truly a Coincidence?

Since the recent Fear Demon incident, Hagrid’s research focus had undergone a slight shift.

Now, his magic animal breeding had become purely focused on miniaturization, no longer involving the mind.

At first, Hagrid had been somewhat troubled. After all, it had taken him a very long time to find small magical creatures previously, and he had ultimately only found the ‘Niffler’s relative’—the Fwooper—or rather, the ‘Bumblee’ through a newspaper bounty.

Therefore, after Roger banned him from researching the Bumblee, Hagrid’s breeding progress stagnated for a time until an acquaintance of his appeared.

The Head of Hufflepuff House, Hogwarts Herbology Professor, Madam Pomona Sprout.

The two of them were fairly familiar with each other; after all, not all the herbs Madam Pomona Sprout needed could grow in the school greenhouses.

There were also some special plants that required a different living environment.

As the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds of the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid was sometimes asked by her to help maintain certain medicinal plants within the forest. Having working interactions, their relationship was quite decent.

The moment he saw Pomona Sprout, Hagrid suddenly realized something.

Magical plants seemed to count as magical creatures too, didn't they?

After some discussion, although Pomona Sprout was not interested in Hagrid’s animal and plant crossbreeding experiments and even felt a slight aversion to them, Hagrid had helped her a great deal in the past, so she did not refuse his invitation to cooperate.

Hagrid had mentioned this matter to Roger in accordance with their pre-arranged weekly reporting agreement, but Roger assumed the outcome would likely be something close to a combination of a screaming Mandrake and a Bowtruckle, so he hadn't paid it much mind.

However, Hagrid, who always had bold ideas regarding magical creature breeding, had no interest in making such things.

As a master of magical creature biology in the making—someone who had raised dragons, a three-headed dog, a Manticore, and other extremely high-risk species for fun—Hagrid declared:

If you're going to play, play big!

Hagrid had set his sights on a very tiny magical plant.

Mushrooms.

Although mushrooms could grow very large—large enough to cover nearly ten square miles and weigh over sixty million pounds—

Their essence was nonetheless tiny fungi.

Reproducing via spores and mycelium, possessing extreme resilience, able to grow large or small... Hagrid wanted to give magical animals the advantages of fungal mushrooms as well.

Using his own methods and the biological modification technology shared by Roger, he began a new round of magical creature breeding.

The result of this breeding was precisely the green-skinned creature currently before Roger’s eyes.

To be honest, it looked quite a lot like the Warhammer 40K Orks in Roger’s memory, which was why he had been startled just a moment ago.

However, after testing, Roger determined that this thing had a massive gap compared to the 40K Orks.

First of all, it did not possess the creator-given technological plot armor; it couldn't just rely on 'thinking it works' to manually cobble together powerful war machines out of a few scraps of metal that would shout ‘Waaagh!’.

Its physique was also nowhere near as robust as an Ork's, being merely on par with an ordinary adult Muggle.

Although it had the characteristic of reproducing via spores, growing from a spore into a fully mature individual required a considerable amount of time and nutrients.

If judged by the Ministry of Magic’s danger classification, it should be a XXXX—one tier weaker than the 5X danger level of dragons and werewolves... and that XXXX rating was solely due to its hard-to-eradicate spore nature; otherwise, it would be even lower.

Of course, this new species still possessed potential.

For instance, suppose he wrote the secondary brain alchemy blueprint into their DNA, allowing them to automatically condense alchemical organs by consuming materials during growth, and then figured out how Muggles turned into wizards so that they could achieve mind-linked magic and utilize psychic Waaagh fields.

Finally, once his modification technology reached mastery, he could enhance their reproductive capacity... Huh?

Wait, why was he even considering this?

Having no desire to act as a Warhammer Old One and add a frustrating new DLC expansion pack to human civilization, Roger pressed down his active thoughts.

The vast majority of the human population had only managed to shake off the identities of serfs, untouchables, and tenant farmers for a few short decades, and everyone had only just started living a good day a few years ago. Roger had no interest in committing such an endlessly harmful, wicked deed just for the sake of a trivial shred of curiosity.

Roger was not a legendary Paradox Interactive player who executed people one by one, certain that at least some would slip through the cracks.

...However, the new species developed by Hagrid could not be said to be completely useless.

If one day humanity ventured into the sea of stars and discovered that 'there are enemies across the ocean,' perhaps it could come in handy.

Besides, humanity was a creature that found it difficult to unite without a common enemy; if the universe proved too empty and no other life forms were discovered for a long time, they could always undergo a round of enhancement and be deployed in limited quantities throughout the cosmos to prevent humans from becoming overly obsessed with killing one another.

"Hagrid, what name are you planning to give this species?" Roger, who was in the middle of writing his observation report, turned his head to look at the half-giant who was still teasing the green-skinned creature with his finger.

The Fear Demon incident previously had been of paramount importance, so Roger had kept everything simple, casually slapping the moniker 'Fear Demon' on it before beginning the administrative workflow after a thorough purge.

But this time was different.

"Me giving it a name..." Hagrid pondered for a moment.

A few seconds later, Hagrid patted his forehead: "Then let's call it the 'Green-Skinned Mushroom Beast'."

Hagrid was a half-giant who passionately adored magical creatures. To become an expert in magical creature biology, aside from extensive practice in the Forbidden Forest, he naturally absorbed knowledge from books.

However, reading was a somewhat painful endeavor for him; even with his love for magical creatures to sustain him, it could still give him a headache.

Especially when some magical creatures had names that were extremely tongue-twisting and difficult to associate with their actual appearances.

Therefore, Hagrid, who would not tear down someone else's umbrella just because he had walked in the rain, tended to keep the naming of magical creatures simple and clear.

Either named after their habits, like the Blast-Ended Skrewt.

Or named after their appearance and biological classification, like the Green-Skinned Mushroom Beast this time.

He wanted to make things a little easier for future generations studying magical creature biology.

Roger had no objections to the name Hagrid chose and casually jotted it down in the research report.

Names were just code names anyway; as long as it worked, it was fine.

As long as it wasn't like some flashing ninja with a name like 'Vortex Flash Super Whirlwind Roar Type Three', Roger could accept anything.

"By the way, Roger, what on earth was that Warhammer 40K you mentioned earlier?" After Roger confirmed that the Green-Skinned Mushroom Beast was not the kind of high-risk species that needed to be purged, a relieved Hagrid recalled Roger’s previous question.

"Warhammer..." Roger’s previous remark had merely been a casual sigh, and naturally, Hagrid had never played Warhammer 40K.

Now, facing Hagrid's curiosity, Roger stared at the half-giant standing well over three meters tall, pondering how to explain the lore of the Warhammer games in a way Hagrid could understand.

After all, Roger felt that Hagrid seemed somewhat destined for Warhammer, and letting him understand it in detail might actually be a good thing.

And right at the moment Roger was contemplating this, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck his mind.

...Destiny?

Could it really be a coincidence that both of Hagrid's magical creature breeding attempts had produced entities resembling Warhammer monster settings?

Roger suddenly thought of a certain possibility!