The Admiral of Hogwarts

"Big Head Weirdo, what are you dawdling about for? Don't tell me you're planning to hog all the good stuff again—" Just as Hugo and his group were quietly approaching the cave entrance, the grating voice of an old woman echoed from within.

Before she could finish her sentence, a beam of light struck the ground at her feet, followed by a massive stone hand rising from the earth, seizing her tightly in its grasp.

Simultaneously, as this attack succeeded, a cat covered in what appeared to be sores was attempting to slip away, only to be struck by a magical blast that glued it to the wall, where it was then completely enveloped by the animated stone.

"They're holding a gathering today, and even the Mother of Hags will be present." Veneto nodded slightly, watching the cat on the wall repeatedly attempt to revert to human form, only to be forced back by the magic.

"So, the cave entrance that usually has three guards now only has two, and most of the perimeter warning devices have been deactivated to avoid accidental triggers."

"Looks like our luck isn't bad." Hugo sheathed the short sword in his hand, which was covered in runes. It was thanks to this that they were able to launch this surprise attack before the hags could react.

After confirming the sentries were eliminated, Wisconsin and Missouri pulled out two tri-bladed spikes crafted by Unyielding and inserted them into the temples of the two hags, then began extracting information from their minds.

These tri-bladed spikes were among the latest black magic items created by Unyielding, featuring runes derived from the Imperius and Legilimens spells, with the hollow core filled with Veritaserum.

As a new form of interrogation tool, these tri-bladed spikes possessed unprecedented reliability, capable of extracting information from most intelligent beings, with very few exceptions.

The cost, however, was that the interrogated subject almost certainly wouldn't survive, and only ship girls could wield this tool and extract the desired information from the flood of memories.

After all, the principle behind this device was to extract and rapidly copy all the memories of the interrogated subject, and the human brain simply couldn't withstand the influx of a lifetime's worth of memories in such a short time.

"Successful elimination. We haven't been detected by those inside yet. However, the magical defense system here conducts a full sweep of the castle every hour, and there are 38 minutes until the next sweep."

Missouri, accessing the results of the interrogation through the Admiral Network, quickly relayed the information she had obtained, "There are currently 35 hags inside, plus the Mother of Hags, making a total of 36."

"The most troublesome issue now is that these hags are located in a magically fortified cave over a thousand meters underground, and that cave only has one large main entrance for us to enter and exit. The rest are just fist-sized holes."

"How cunning—" Hugo muttered softly after hearing Missouri's report. He realized the advantages of setting up a base like this:

For the hags, such a sturdy base with only one large entrance was very advantageous for defense, while the surrounding interconnected small tunnels also allowed them to quickly escape when facing enemies they couldn't defeat.

You see, one of the bloodline magics possessed by hags is a spell that allows them to transform into animals, which almost everyone knows, and they can completely turn into small animals like rats or raccoon dogs and escape through the small holes.

According to the information collected by the ship girls from those pure-blood families, human wizards' Animagus transformation was likely created with reference to these hags' magic.

Therefore, Animagus transformation differs from most magic, such as not requiring a wand when used, and needing to use potions to assist when learning the spell.

However, this also gives the current group of hags a base that is both offensively and defensively advantageous. It's difficult for outsiders to wipe them out in one fell swoop.

"It's not like there's no solution now; in fact, you could say that the fact that they built the cave so solidly actually makes our actions easier." At this point, Iowa turned to look at Hugo. "However, I need the key."

"Okay, but only one." After being reminded by Iowa, Hugo immediately knew what she was talking about, but for safety reasons, he only authorized the use of one MK23 shell.

After all, the explosive yield of this shell is between 15,000 tons of TNT and 20,000 tons of TNT. If too many were used at once, Hugo was worried that it might cause some geological disasters.

After determining the specific situation, Hugo and the others immediately began assigning tasks. Hugo and Veneto would stay at the base's only large entrance, while the four Iowa sisters would go deep underground to place the MK23.

In order to achieve the goal of blasting the group of creatures underground, they had to go deep underground to reach the base's central hub and maximize the defensive magic, so as to concentrate the explosive power and reduce external impact.

Hugo naturally knew that forcing himself to go down would only add to everyone's troubles and would not have any positive effect, so he and Veneto took on the task of defense.

This didn't mean they could just stand at the entrance and do nothing. While Missouri and the others took out brooms from their ship equipment space and flew down the tunnel, Hugo also took out a pile of rune stones from his body and began setting them up.

These rune stones were magical tools that Hugo had prepared in advance, capable of forming a defensive line with considerable lethality. If anything really ran out, they could at least block it, even if they couldn't win.

Although, theoretically speaking, even a normal wizard would probably not be able to withstand a nuclear bomb with a yield of more than 10,000 tons of TNT head-on. But considering that the magical world has too many strange things, there's nothing wrong with being prepared.

While Hugo was setting up various defensive lines at the entrance, Missouri and the others went down the tunnel. On the way, they encountered many vampire bats, which were obviously domesticated.

You see, the magic mastered by creatures like hags is significantly inferior to that of wizards in terms of both breadth and depth, but compared to other non-human magical creatures, their mastery of magical knowledge can be said to be the most advanced.

For example, Missouri and the others encountered a large group of vampire bats trained by the hags that were very sensitive. If they weren't mistaken, these vampire bats would not only attack anyone who passed by, but also provide warnings to the hags hiding in the base.

But ship girls are the natural nemesis of these things, because these vampire bats rely on smell and temperature to determine the presence of nearby creatures, and ship girls can completely make themselves as lifeless as inanimate objects.

Therefore, when these ship girls quickly flew through the bat swarm, it was no different from a gust of wind passing by for the bats, so they didn't react at all.

In addition to vampire bats, everyone also saw many dangerous creatures along the way, such as poisonous insects and rats the size of lambs.

"Accelerate forward, ignore these things." After taking out an alchemical tool made by Unyielding from her pocket, Iowa, who was leading the way, quickly notified her three younger sisters through the Admiral Network.

"These things don't pose much of a threat to us, so just rush straight down and don't get entangled with them."