Chapter 39

As Albert was gazing in awe at the beautiful scenery, the lead unicorn suddenly whinnied as if it had discovered something.

At this sound, all the unicorns turned their heads toward Albert's hiding place.

Albert swallowed nervously, knowing that he couldn't kill this small group of five or six unicorns. Killing a unicorn would result in an eternal curse on the killer's body, causing them to suffer forever.

What made Voldemort, who was controlling Quirrell, kill the unicorn was his desire to obtain unicorn blood, which, if consumed, would restore a quarter of his original power. Although Voldemort was aware of the side effects of killing a unicorn, he wasn't afraid because the consequences would only affect Quirrell's body, not his own.

In this situation, escape was certainly not an option in the forest. If they were non-magical creatures, Albert would have felt less anxious and could have dispatched them quickly. Instead, he knew that humans could not escape such natural spirits, so Albert decided to confront the unicorns face to face without harming them.

After all, unicorns are gentle creatures and should not have a habit of randomly killing innocents.

Thinking this, Albert pushed aside the branches and walked into the open space where the unicorns were observing each other across the clearing.

The tension made Albert lose track of time; it could have been a long time or a short time. Finally, the lead unicorn looked away, and the rest of the unicorns relaxed, though they remained in the open space.

Albert sighed with relief and simply sat on the grass, watching the unicorns. After all, even for wizards, encountering a group of unicorns in the wild was a rare opportunity.

As the unicorns nuzzled each other, Albert noticed that the right leg of one of them seemed injured. There was a trace of black mist around the wound, and silver blood continued to flow.

Seeing this, Albert stood up and walked slowly towards the injured unicorn, trying to blend in with the herd. The unicorns caused a small commotion but regarded him with wary eyes.

Albert approached within four or five meters of the unicorn and said, "I saw one of you injured in its leg. It's likely that it was attacked by some form of dark magic, which is difficult to heal. I believe I have something that can help."

According to legend, unicorns are highly intelligent and pure magical creatures, so Albert tried to explain his purpose, hoping the unicorn would understand and respond.

After ten seconds, the lead unicorn made a friendly call to Albert, indicating acceptance of his kindness, but it refused to let Albert approach.

It was true that unicorns usually only accepted the approach of females. Albert wondered why there was a difference between men and women for unicorns, as they were clearly not the same as humans.

Unable to get closer, Albert took out a lantern plant he had happened upon in the forest and placed it on the ground. The plant's leaves were covered with dozens of Sunroot crystals.

Having previously learned healing magic from his uncle in his past life, Albert saw that the unicorn's wound emitted hot, black air, indicating it was caused by dark magic.

Albert used his healing magic with the lantern plant, which provided a bit of vitality and life energy to drive away the dark magic.

Albert took seven or eight steps back and spread his arms to show that he meant no harm.

It was evident that the unicorn, being a magical creature, could also sense the light and life energy within the plant. The lead unicorn picked up the lantern with its mouth and began to eat it.

The injured unicorn extended its tongue, licked all the sunlight from the plant, and swallowed it. Soon, the entire unicorn began to glow with a white-silver light, like moonlight.

As this light was produced, some black mist emerged from the wound on the unicorn's back leg.

It appeared as though the mist was trying to return to the wound consciously, but it was quickly drawn to the lantern plant and transformed into light within it.

As mentioned in the introduction about lantern plants, other plants absorb light and release oxygen, while lantern plants absorb darkness and emit light. Though this is neither scientific nor magical.

The reason the unicorn's wound had not healed was due to the interference of dark magic. Once the remnants of dark magic resembling larvae were removed, a soft silver light shone through, and the wound on its leg healed completely.

Seeing this, the lead unicorn let out a cry of gratitude to Albert, then led the small group of unicorns into the forest and slowly disappeared.

As Albert watched, the silver light on the unicorns' bodies gradually faded when they left the clearing. When they reached the trees where moonlight could not reach, the silver light on their bodies also vanished.

It turned out that the unicorns had used moonlight to stimulate the magical power within their bodies to drive out the dark magic associated with the wound.

After this revelation, Albert quickly realized the whole incident. Today, the Voldemort-Quirrell alliance was supposed to rely on unicorn blood for survival. However, Voldemort and Quirrell might not have reached the worst state yet, so they did not kill and drain unicorn blood to avoid attracting Dumbledore's attention, even though the blood would greatly aid Voldemort.

On the other hand, it was also possible that Voldemort and Quirrell had attracted a group of unicorns after injuring another unicorn, and they saw that they might not be able to handle it all in a short time, so they chose to leave. The unicorns opted to go to a safe place to heal their companions.

After ensuring the unicorn group had left, Albert found seven or eight unicorn tail hairs where the group had just stood. These were worth ten galleons each, so they should not go to waste.

(Although Albert had considerable wealth, he did not like to see valuable items go to waste.)

After placing the silver tail hairs in his robe pocket, Albert felt that the day's harvest had been quite unexpected and decided it was best to return quickly to the dormitory.

However, just as Albert turned around, he heard a large animal approaching from the side. Before he could hide, a white shadow flashed through the forest in front of him.

Could it be that the unicorn group had not left yet, or were there other animals? After all, the Forbidden Forest is vast, and even Hagrid cannot know the number of magical creatures in it.

Since there was no way to judge whether the approaching creature had malicious intentions or not, Albert decided to lean against a rock, draw his wand, and look around.

Just as he was staring into the dark forest, a muffled laugh came from within.

Surprised, Albert nearly cast a spell similar to the one he used to cut the giant beast's body in the girls' bathroom to attack the source of the sound, but he restrained himself in the end. It was unwise to attack recklessly without knowing if the entity was a friend or foe.

Moreover, firing at the source of the sound might not hit the target but would reveal his presence, putting him at a disadvantage when the real battle began.

The atmosphere was becoming increasingly tense, and Albert was about to leave when, finally, the voice spoke again in English, "Hello there, little man. Don't get too excited. I won't hurt you."