Compared to a title like "Ruler of the Muggles," Link thought wizards as a group were more like parasites, parasites clinging to Muggle society.
For a long time, their personalities had been eccentric and romantic, something directly related to the great power magic gave them.
But the main reason, he believed, was that they had always lacked a strong, commanding leader, someone capable of unifying everything under one rule.
Because of that, the loosely allied wizards never managed to build, as some fantasy stories in Link's previous life imagined, a prosperous civilization completely ruled by wizards.
Instead, they chose not to govern Muggles directly, but to intervene and influence them only within limits, and without ever revealing their own existence.
This method worked very well when Muggles were still in their primitive stage. Wizards successfully portrayed themselves as gods and simply harvested the fruits of Muggle progress. It was, in truth, an extreme form of laziness.
But once Muggles, or mortals, rather, gained control of the "nuclear" power, a true godlike force, their development spun completely out of control.
To this day, Muggles have achieved a strange balance of power with wizards, who were once high above them.
In other aspects, though, the Muggle world has far surpassed the wizarding world, especially in terms of production models.
Right now, Muggles have practically reached the pinnacle of large-scale customized manufacturing and are rapidly shifting toward multi-variety, small-batch flexible production.
By the time Link crossed into this world, Muggle society had already entered an era of lean production and just-in-time manufacturing.
Meanwhile, the production model most commonly used by wizards was still the most outdated, small, handcrafted workshops. They were inefficient and almost impossible to standardize.
In fact, this was no secret within the wizarding world.
Many Muggle-born wizards, once they realized this problem, thought they'd found a golden opportunity and started pushing for reform.
But they soon slammed headfirst into the first major obstacle to reform, the rigid class barriers erected by pure-blood wizard nobles.
These old aristocrats had monopolized nearly all magical and political resources for hundreds or even thousands of years.
So for Muggle-born wizards with no background to think they could seize those resources by reforming production? That was pure fantasy.
Of course, even if someone exceptionally talented managed, perhaps through becoming a spokesperson for a great family or by some other hidden means, to overcome that first obstacle, they would immediately find an enormous pile of new problems waiting for them, like a mountain range stretching endlessly ahead.
Resource shortages. Limited markets. The difficulty of standardizing potions and alchemical products on an assembly line. Extremely high labor costs. Arrogant wizards refusing to learn from Muggles…
With so many problems stacked together, reforming wizard society's production model had become almost impossible.
The Flamel family, however, was a special case. Because of their unique line of business, and because Mrs. Flamel, Link, and Krell were not pure-blood supremacists and even held a rather positive view of Muggles, they managed, after many years of effort, to make major changes in their production methods.
Now, aside from their monster-hunting division (whose profits were higher than robbery), the rest, such as breeding, slaughtering, storage, and processing, had all achieved early-stage large-scale, assembly-line production.
Link had once gone with Mrs. Flamel to inspect their factories.
He was astonished to find that once the countless mountains blocking production reform were overcome, wizarding productivity could rise exponentially with the help of magic.
At the very least, the sight of a single wizard simultaneously controlling five production lines was something the Muggle world still couldn't do.
The Beckman family's industrial chain, on the other hand, might look massive, but their methods were laughably outdated, no better than the slave owners more than a century ago.
Actually, they were worse.
When Link said the Beckman family's industry was "not bad," that was already him being extremely polite.
Of course, he didn't expect Beckman to understand that "politeness."
After living in this world for so many years, he'd already seen too many fools.
He was even prepared for Beckman to explode in anger after hearing his evaluation, after all, questions like that usually meant someone just wanted to hear flattering words.
But to his surprise, Beckman simply shook his head calmly and said, "No, the Beckman family is already rotten to the core."
"Uh… that's not quite true," Link replied awkwardly.
And he meant it. Compared to the Flamel family, Beckman's business was indeed backward, but compared to other families, they were practically innovators.
Beckman didn't respond.
The two of them walked on in silence, passing through a grand courtyard, down a dark corridor, and finally into a huge and very unusual room.
What made the room unusual was that it was utterly unlike the lavish spaces before, it was a ruin.
The floor was badly damaged; many of the stone slabs had crumbled into pieces, exposing the bare earth underneath, from which tufts of weeds and vines sprouted, crawling everywhere.
The walls had once been covered in intricate paintings and patterns, artworks in their own right, but now were full of cracks, as if they could collapse at any moment.
Even the ceiling had a gaping hole, through which bright moonlight poured in.
Link's eyes instinctively followed the beam of light, and then his pupils dilated sharply.
At the spot illuminated by moonlight stood a stone altar.
It was probably the only intact piece of furniture in the entire room.
And on that altar sat an iron emblem, an equilateral triangle enclosing a circle and a vertical line.
The Deathly Hallows symbol.
Or rather, the mark of Grindelwald.
As the symbol used by Gellert Grindelwald, the first Dark Lord, its significance in Europe was much like the Dark Mark in Britain.
The difference was that this emblem's impact on the rest of Europe had been far greater, and since Grindelwald's downfall, the fear and trauma it brought had transformed into pure hatred.
Even though decades had passed since Grindelwald's reign, owning or making this symbol was still illegal.
Of course, those caught with it usually didn't live long enough to face trial by the Ministry, because angry ordinary wizards would tear them apart before the Aurors could arrive.
Honestly, Link wasn't surprised to see this thing in the home of an "Old Saint" like Beckman.
But showing it to him now, there had to be some deeper meaning.
"Huh…"
Taking a deep breath, Link turned to Beckman, waiting for his explanation.
"You know what this is?" Beckman asked softly as he approached the altar, gently brushing away imaginary dust from it and the emblem. His tone was hazy, his expression devout.
Before Link could answer, Beckman continued, "This is my faith."
"Mr. Grindelwald, my master, he was a truly great man!"
"His voice, his ideals, they all fascinated me."
"I once swore to follow him forever, to love him, to complete the missions he gave me, and to die without hesitation!"
"Because I believed, only he could make this world better. Only he could make wizards the true rulers of it!"
"Oh, my lord!"
"May your body stay forever strong!"
"May your power be eternal!"
"May you…"
As Beckman's intoxicated prayer echoed, Link involuntarily took two steps back, his eyes turning cold.
Beckman's loyalty to Grindelwald was far deeper than Link had expected.
In a way, Beckman was the same kind of person as young Barty.
And that was not good news for Link.
Because Grindelwald wasn't dead yet.
In his heart, Link had already made up his mind, if Beckman so much as suggested helping Grindelwald rise again, he would immediately turn around and head back to Britain.
After all, inheriting the business of a Grindelwald "Saint" like Beckman might be tolerated by the International Confederation of Wizards, but if he inherited the man's faith and fanaticism too, they'd hunt him down at any cost.
If he ever did take on that "Saint" identity, it would have to wait, until Voldemort's rise, when his power reached its peak.
After a long while, Beckman finally finished his lengthy prayer.
He looked sorrowful, eyes red, and said hoarsely to Link, "Link, do you know how glorious we once were? Countless of our brothers and sisters stood beside Lord Grindelwald. We swept across Europe, and wherever we went, our enemies trembled in fear! We..."
"Enough!"
Link cut him off. "Don't waste my time with this nonsense. I'm only interested in the Beckman family's business. Tell me, what exactly do you want me to do?"
His voice was cold, his expression emotionless, only the faint trace of impatience in his eyes reminded one that he was still human.
Beckman's sentimental look quickly faded.
He met Link's gaze for a long time, then said firmly, "I want revenge."
Link's heart skipped a beat. He frowned and asked, "You don't mean attacking the International Confederation of Wizards or the German Ministry of Magic, do you? Oh, wait, the one who defeated Grindelwald was Dumbledore. Don't tell me you want me to assassinate him?"
"You wouldn't do those things," Beckman said calmly, "even if I offered you the entire Beckman family in exchange. So the revenge I speak of is aimed at my former brothers and sisters."
"The Saints?"
"Yes. They were, but not anymore."
"Can I ask why?"
Beckman fell silent again, this time for much longer than before.
"The new ideal has yet to appear," he said finally, his voice filled with grief. "And the old one has been cast aside. How pitiful people can be."
As he spoke, he brushed his hand over the Grindelwald emblem. A circular portal opened up before him.
"It's about time. Link, are you interested in attending a little banquet with me?" Beckman invited. "I'll explain the rest in detail on the way."
Link frowned deeply. Beckman's mysterious act annoyed him.
But after feeling the scroll hidden in his sleeve, the one containing a spell strike at full Dumbledore-level power, he nodded and said, "Fine. Lead the way."
At that, a faint smile appeared on Beckman's face. Without another word, he stepped into the portal.
———
"Earlier, you said it was Dumbledore who defeated Lord Grindelwald. Hmph, on that point, I disagree. The truth is, Lord Grindelwald was defeated by sentiment."
"He and Dumbledore were once close friends. Grindelwald never set foot in Britain precisely because of that friendship."
"And what was the result? Dumbledore, that treacherous, despicable man, joined forces with the International Confederation of Wizards, exploiting Lord Grindelwald's trust in him, and finally forced him into self-imprisonment in Nurmengard Prison in Austria."
"Oh, my poor Lord Grindelwald!"
"He was always so kind! Do you know? He never killed a single Muggle, not once! Even when we had to eliminate Muggles, he couldn't bear to watch. Afterwards, he'd grieve in silence…"
On a dim forest path, Beckman went on and on, talking to Link about his so-called "revenge", which, unsurprisingly, kept turning into stories about Grindelwald.
Perhaps he was too devout, or perhaps his brain had long been washed clean by Grindelwald's rhetoric, but he kept drifting off-topic again and again.
When he once more started rambling about the past, Link coughed pointedly, pulling the old man back to reality.
"Oh! My apologies. Where was I? Ah, Nurmengard, right?" Beckman gave Link an apologetic smile.
"You see, Nurmengard is truly tragic. That prison was originally built by us, to hold our enemies. Who would have thought it would become Lord Grindelwald's own cage?"
"After he was imprisoned there, we Saints were soon purged by the International Confederation of Wizards…"
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