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Kings, Soldiers and Wizards [Complete]
E109-The function has already started!

E109-The function has already started!

The two children were guided by the director to a room where they changed their clothes to blend in as wizards. Fortunately, it seemed that the Ministry kept the clothes that had been lost by other wizards in one of the castle's rooms, and apparently, there was plenty of clothing, likely accumulating over the years since no one came to claim these garments, and the Ministry didn't seem willing to throw them away. The clothes in this place were very old, and some were so dusty that they couldn't be distinguished, but that didn't matter to the two children committed to uncovering the truth behind Helena's betrayal.

After changing, the two siblings walked towards the castle's exit, dressed in old black robes filled with holes that some insects had apparently found to be a delicacy. As an additional security measure, the children decided to conceal their faces with white veils that seemed to have been improvised from their robes, thus camouflaging most of their bodies, preventing Helena from recognizing them when they spied on her presentation before the council.

Upon leaving the castle, the children were accompanied by the Minister of Magic to the tall tower in the middle of the Ministry. At the tower's entrance stood four muscular and handsome guards, displaying their elegant and shiny silver armor as they guarded the tower's entrance with a look of pride. When the minister approached, the guards didn't ask any questions and let him in along with the two young wizards.

Upon entering the tower, Apolo was amazed to see that the tower's ground floor had no walls in the middle of the structure and appeared to be a gigantic warehouse filled with colorful, mysterious objects in boxes and jars. However, it seemed that this was not the room they were looking for. The minister approached one of the only two doors in the room, aside from the entrance. After opening it, he revealed a corridor with a large spiral staircase made of stone steps. The spiral staircase served to ascend to the upper floors, so Apolo assumed that the other door in the "warehouse" would lead to the continuation of the spiral staircase, allowing access to a lower floor not visible from the outside.

The minister and the two children climbed the stairs until they reached a door at the end of the ascent. Maintaining his cold silence, the minister opened the door, revealing a corridor with two more doors, in addition to the one that had just been opened. Ignoring the large door in the middle of the hallway that seemed to hide the room belonging to the second level of the tower, the minister walked through the hallway until he opened the last door, revealing the continuation of the spiral staircase. Apolo immediately understood that it seemed the tower had a rather simple but functional design: The tower was surrounded by a gigantic spiral staircase attached to the walls, with the main room of each level always in the middle. Thus, there were no complex intermediate corridors or hidden, unusable rooms as was often the case in the castles that surrounded the tower, where the staircases had been placed somewhat randomly. This showed that the castles had expanded haphazardly over time as the Ministry's needs changed, lacking the planning evident in this tower.

As he climbed the steps, Apolo watched as the Minister of Magic was greeted countless times by strangers as they crossed paths on the stairs. Despite this, the minister remained expressionless and ignored the greetings. However, the black cat on his shoulder waved its paw in response to each greeting, confirming to the wizard who had issued the greeting.

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Finally, the wizard stopped climbing higher floors and opened the middle door in the hallway. Based on the number of floors they had ascended, Apolo assumed they must be on one of the uppermost floors of the tower. At this moment, the children were at a considerable height. It was quite challenging to achieve such heights in the empire, and in fact, Apolo felt that this was the first time he had climbed such a tall building in his life. He gazed with great curiosity at how small the people walking in the Ministry appeared from the tower's windows.

With the door open, Apolo was unpleasantly surprised to find that there were still more corridors to explore. The most striking feature of this hallway was that everything inside it seemed extremely expensive, with particular attention to aesthetic detail. The hallway's walls were lined with an expensive-looking red carpet, and there were silver lamps on the ceiling that warmly illuminated the entire room. Additionally, every few steps, one could see furniture made of gold, intricate sculptures scattered throughout the hallways, and paintings that would captivate anyone's gaze. Certainly, the Ministry of Magic had ensured that this hallway would amaze any new visitor, even placing a luxurious blue carpet that extended from the beginning to the end.

Expressionless as always, the minister walked down the hall to one of the doors in the room, which, when opened, revealed a spiral staircase that startled the two children, who were already horrified at the thought of having to climb so many stairs. However, this time, it didn't take more than a minute for the already tired children to reach the end of the staircase, where they could see a rather striking door. The door was made of yellowish wood, and everything seemed normal until one noticed the giant eye closed in the middle of the door, which appeared quite real, enough to wonder if the eye could open its eyelids.

Without understanding why someone would place such a thing in the middle of the door, the two children followed the minister to the door.

*Tock, tock*...The minister raised his hand and knocked on the door as if expecting someone to answer from the other side. But instead of receiving a response, the eye's eyelids in the middle of the door suddenly opened, revealing a gigantic red eye that looked angrily at the minister and the two young wizards accompanying him.

After looking at the intruders, the eye split in half, revealing a long row of sharp teeth and a tongue that kept dripping saliva onto the floor while speaking with a voice composed of several voices that seemed to belong to different people:

—The trial has already begun, and eavesdroppers are not welcome!

—But I am the Minister of Magic, and these children want to see what's going on inside!—The cat on top of the minister responded angrily, showing its sharp claws.

—Who? Ah, yes, I remember now. Are you that ghost in charge of the paperwork?—The eye replied grudgingly, while spitting a bunch of saliva in the minister's face, causing half of the man's expressionless face to be soaked in the transparent, thick liquid—Come back when you're someone!

—But look how cute these little wizards are. How can you deny them a request?—The cat responded, while the minister wiped the saliva off his robe.

Homero, realizing that the situation was not going as planned, approached the door and took hold of it, removing the veil from his face and looking at the door with pleading, sad puppy eyes.

—Oh, but what innocent little creatures they are! Of course, they can come in to sneak a peek at these old, dying folks!—The eye said, looking at the two children with tenderness, then rejoined in the middle and closed its eyelids.

Without hesitation, Homero proceeded to open the door, revealing that on the other side was a very well-decorated room with a couple of armchairs and a table filled with drinks. Everything seemed to indicate that the room was, in fact, a box, as from the armchairs, one could see a woman and a girl standing on a stage in the distance.