19 Chapter 19: Carl's foolishness

After about ten minutes or so, Carl finally came back to his senses after seeing that Rocco's eyes turned white, and there was no chance for him to hear any more screams from him. Since he could not enjoy his little time with this distant cousin, Carl decided to end everything and send Rocco to meet his father. Carl was sure that his father would do more to him than Carl did. "I will send you to meet your father. Goodbye. Avada Kedavra!!!"

A green light escaped from Carl's wand and went directly towards Rocco's body. At that exact moment, Max could swear that he saw Rocco's soul leave his body while screaming quite hard. It was as if hell was calling for the soul, and the soul had no way to resist. Any normal boy would freak out after seeing this scene, but Max was different from even the adults and the other adult wizard. Instead of crying or getting scared by what he saw, he smiled. And it was not an ordinary one at that; this smile was a one that came out from his heart. It was as if this scene was the most beautiful thing he ever saw or would see.

Anyway, after taking care of the shit hurting his eyes, Carl turned to look at his nephew with a smile. He was sure that Max would never remember what he did to the boy in the past because that happened when Max was only a week old, and there was no chance in hell that the boy would remember his face. Carl thought about the kind of story he would say to the boy on his way to the orphanage, and he decided to use the original story from back then.

"Do you know who I am?? Did you see my face before?" Carl asked this question as he looked at Max with amusement in his eyes. He was playing around to see if the boy still remembered him or not.

Max looked at him with confusion in his eyes. He did not know if Carl was testing him or trying to play with him at this point to see his reaction. But Max's acting got much better than the time when he was only a week old, and he was sure that he could fool that idiot without much hard work.

Max had lived with the gang for eight years, and most of them were much older and stronger than him, and he had to fake his expression the whole time, or else things would have become much more annoying; that it would have bothered him. He was a hunter, and a hunter was nothing without patience. So he went on with his plan to play with Carl and only shook his head to tell Carl that he did not know him.

"Then, do you know what I just used to kill that man? You did not see something like that before?" Carl continued to ask with a weird tone as he looked at Max's face to see if he was lying. Because he thought that Max would never remember what happened in the past, he did not use Veritaserum to make sure if Max told the truth or not.

Again, Max decided to go with the flow to see where Carl was going by asking those questions. He shook his head again to indicate that he did not know what Carl used earlier as well. All this time, Max did not say a word in front of Carl to make him sense that there was something wrong, which made Carl a little confused about the situation. That was why he decided to ask to see what was happening.

"Why aren't you saying a word?? Are you playing a game, or are you afraid??" Carl asked those questions as he looked at Max with malicious intent in his eyes. If Max dared to anger him at this point, he swore that he would raise the game's difficulty that the two were going to play.

Max hurriedly shook his head before turning left and right as if searching for something. And it seemed that he found what he was looking for because he did not wait for Carl's permission and jumped around. His sudden move made Carl make sure that his wand was ready for any situation. He even prepared to fire a curse at Max if he did anything. But in the end, Carl hid the wand again after seeing that Max held a notebook and a pen in his hand and started writing something. Before long, Max finished what he wanted to write and handed the paper to Carl to make him see for himself.

"What??? You are aphasic??" Carl asked in a weird tone as he looked at Max before turning to the piece of paper to make sure that he did not read wrong. He put his hands on his chin to think about something. 'Was I the reason behind it? Did my little game back then made him grow up like that?? Well, I have to admit that I could not control myself back then. But it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Doesn't that mean that this boy will never be able to use magic? No one can just grow up to use non-verbal magic when they did not train with incantations at first to get familiar with the magic flow.'

After thinking about this matter, Carl did not realize that his shoulders relaxed a little. He had put some of his guard down subconsciously. The idea itself would make any wizard stop paying attention to everything around them. And Carl, whose mind did not function well, would, of course, make this rooky mistake. Although Carl was a proficient wizard in this world, he let his emotions get the better of him sometimes. Although emotions could power up some spells, they confuse rational thinking.

"Then, have a seat. We have a lot to discuss before playing some games with each other. If I ask you something, you can nod if the answer is yes and shake your head if the answer is no. Do you understand?" Carl said those words as he took Max to sit near the hall where everything changed in this house. Because this hall turned into a hunting ground, where the guys would discover a body or two every weak, the other members did not dare to come close to it, and they would avoid it whenever it was possible. They would not pass here unless it were a very needy matter. But that helped Max turn this place into a suitable trap for hunting little rabbits that claimed to be brave enough to enter. If you looked at the right place, you would find out how this hall was dangerous. And any wrong move could cause your death.

Max didn't answer Carl's question first because he did not know how Carl could be this unlucky. How could he take Max to the only room that raised the chances of him taking Carl down to fifty percent? But he only smiled in his mind without saying anything before turning to Carl and nodding his head, telling him that he understood what he said.

"Very good, then. Let's see!!! Where should I start?? Let's start from the very beginning...." Carl said those words as he went on with what he said to Max when he was only a week old. But he did not stop at that point but continued to add more and more to it. He had another eight years of agony after all, and he was not going to ignore them as well.

"So, you see, little Max. Can you tell me if I did anything wrong? I am that pitiful, right?" Carl asked as he looked at Max after half an hour of continuous ranting about his misery. Max even thought that it was better to kill that whining baby at that time and ruin the plan. That would be much better than someone as old as Carl coming to his eight-year-old nephew to tell him how the world had abandoned him. But in the end, Max resisted the urge to take out Carl's eyes for now. He only nodded his head to Carl without showing any other emotions on his face.

"Then, can you help me? I only want you to stay still for a second so that I could let my frustration out," Carl said those words as he took his wand out while looking at Max with a wicked smile on his face showing his intention.

Although Max knew what this man was thinking and understood his intention at this moment, he decided to play the fool to take him by surprise later. So Max took out his notebook and wrote something quickly before handing the paper to Carl.

And after seeing what Max wrote, Carl's wide and wicked smile spread all over his face. The game was about to enter its exciting phase, and he could not wait to use everything he prepared for all this time. "I am happy that you are not like your father. I like you more because you understand how I feel. I know that this might hurt a little, but you have to endure it until the end. You don't want to see your uncle get sad, right?"

Before Max could even nod his head to indicate that he understood what Carl said, Carl fired another Cruciatus Curse directly at him. But this time, Max had prepared himself for a situation like this, and he endured the pain that this curse caused him. And with the curse his mother placed on him, he benefited more than he lost, and Carl's negative emotions got eaten a little by little, turning into magic inside Max's body.

But since Max intended to become a good actor, he threw himself on the floor to show the insane Carl how this curse hurt him. But that was not all. The place where Max threw himself was a little special than the others. If anyone could look carefully and get closer, they would have the ability to see some very thin thread connecting to something on the wall.

But Carl was not in the right state of mind, and he did not realize anything about this. He only laughed and laughed in a weird tone as he looked at Max, who was trembling on the floor. "Yes, that is it. Don't stop, little Max. Show me more of that face. You have to remember that this is because of your father. He hurt me, and I have to take revenge for myself. And you are the only one that could help me with that."

At this moment, Before Carl could even finish his laugh and say anything more to Max, two arrows, coming from behind a painting on the wall, found their own ways to Carl's back, making him shout out loud with a strange voice. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Before Carl could even wake up from the first pain, another one came for him as fast as the lightning. Max took out a knife from a hidden place under the chairs, and he used it in the next second to cut Carl's hand, holding the wand rendering him useless. Max only listened to two pieces of news from Carl's speech a little earlier. The first was about the dark lord, and the second was about how difficult magic was without a wand. Carl said that only a few in this world could use wandless magic and that he always tried, but he always failed. That was the reason Max went for the hand holding the knife first to stop any hidden danger.

To make sure there would not be any more dangers, Max used the knife again to cut Carl's other hand, making sure that Carl would never hold a wand again. Any wizard could have avoided this situation if they were careful enough about their surrounding, but Carl was stupid enough to believe that he was safe in this place. "Now, let's start the new game."