The Admiral of Hogwarts

After saying goodbye to Enterprise, Hugo led the four destroyer ship girls of Taffy 3 into the woods near the beach. After all, the woods were obviously safer than the bare beach.

"We can just wait here," Johnston said, finding a small clearing in the woods. She pulled out a machete and cleared a small patch of trees, then beckoned Hugo to sit down.

"Aren't we going to see what those White Robe Society wizards are up to?" Hugo asked, puzzled, after sitting down on a canvas.

"Of course we should, but not now," Hoel said, gently shaking her head. "Judging by their methods, the White Robe Society wizards aren't planning to kill people, but to hold hostages and do something else."

"That's right, so in this situation, it's not as meaningful for us to attack proactively," Johnston said from the side.

"Rather than relying on just the five of us to gamble, it's better to wait for Enterprise and the others to take out the enemy's most powerful support and act with them."

"After all, even if we don't consider our own safety, the problem of having too few people makes it difficult for us to take care of all the hostages when we really need to solve the hostage problem."

"Okay, you're right," Hugo nodded, then took the spam sandwich from Johnston's hand. "I think it's better for us to stand by."

Just like Johnston said, although standing by in this situation seemed a bit cowardly, any rational person would realize that this was the most reasonable choice right now.

As for the situation on the sea, although the Daian Zhai ship seemed to be teetering on the verge of collapse when it was first bombarded, as the embodiment of the Japanese Ministry of Magic's millennium of accumulation, that huge Atakebune was not just a decoration.

At least according to Enterprise, who had already joined the fleet, although she seemed a little embarrassed when she was suddenly attacked by naval guns at the beginning, she gradually recovered later and fought back and forth with the White Robe Society fleet.

This also meant that Task Force 79, where Enterprise and the others were located, didn't need to rush into the battlefield, but could wait for Task Force 77, mainly composed of veterans from Pearl Harbor, to join them on seaplanes from their ship equipment.

After all, the Japanese Ministry of Magic's ship had already demonstrated a short-range flash and a short-distance flight, proving that this magical modification could be much more powerful than the original. In this case, the ship girls naturally had to concentrate their efforts to meet the challenge.

During this time, the White Robe Society, which occupied the island, was not idle either. They proved by their actions that they were completely qualified as villains.

For example, these White Robe Society wizards concentrated all their manpower and hostages in the original command post, and set up layers of defenses in an attempt to cope with all changes.

Then, they began to mobilize all their forces, including various magical creatures and alchemical puppets, in an attempt to capture or even kill the only few contestants on the island who were out of control.

This action naturally affected Hugo and the others. Just as they finished their late-night snack and were about to chat, several ship girls suddenly stood up and deployed their ship equipment to surround Hugo in the center.

"Are there enemies?" Hugo asked softly, while drawing his wand.

"There are enemies," Hoel said, vigilantly looking at the surrounding bushes. "Judging by the sound, it should be those damn Acromantulas."

"By the way, Commander, you'd better put away your wand if it's not necessary," Hoel reminded, glancing at Hugo.

"Salem told us just now that the other party is likely to be using trace threads to lock onto the contestants' positions."

"I see," Hugo immediately put away the wand in his hand after hearing what Hoel said. It seemed that the organizers should be using this method to detect whether everyone was using wands to cast spells.

After putting away his wand, Hugo took a Thompson submachine gun from Hillman's hand. As a ship equipment weapon, the lethality of this thing was not much worse than most offensive spells, but only ship girls and admirals could use it.

It had to be said that the ship girls' physical fitness was far superior to that of humans, so their detection range was also much stronger than that of humans, giving everyone plenty of time to prepare for battle.

Until everyone had completed their preparations, several sheep-sized black shadows rushed out of the surrounding dense vegetation and pounced straight at this small defensive circle that they thought they could easily tear apart.

"Bang bang bang—" However, when these guys just rushed through the defense line, Johnston was the first to pull the trigger on the 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun in her hand, and then this defensive circle immediately turned into a hedgehog spitting flames outwards.

The fire from the muzzle illuminated everyone's faces in the defensive circle, and at this moment, Hugo discovered that although these cannons looked taller and heavier than the ship girls, they could steadily hold these cannons and fire continuously.

The tracer bullets mixed with the cannon fire were like indestructible whips of flame, and under the control of these ship girls, they easily smashed all the enemies that rushed up into pieces.

Unlike wizards who mastered defensive magic, neither puppets nor Acromantulas had strong magical defenses, which made them unable to last even a second when facing 20mm machine guns.

"Cease fire—" After 30 seconds, Johnston gave the order to cease fire, and the surroundings suddenly became quiet. Only the crackling of the flames burning on the branches and the sporadic sound of branches breaking could be heard.

"Enemies eliminated," Johnston put away the machine gun in her hand, then turned to face Hugo and saluted.

"The surroundings are now confirmed to be safe, but in order to avoid further pursuit by the enemy, it is best for us to move our location now to reduce the possibility of the enemy attacking us."

"You're right, we should change places," Hugo nodded and said.

"Although I don't know how the other party locked onto my location, and I don't know if the other party can find me again, moving can indeed cause a little trouble for the attackers."

Just as Hugo decided to lead the four ship girls to conduct guerrilla warfare on the island and drag out time while waiting for changes, the stalemate on the sea battlefield was about to be broken.

Just as the distance between the two Japanese fleets narrowed to about three nautical miles, a radiance like the sun first lit up on the Japanese Ministry of Magic's ship.

Then, a golden light shot out from the top of the Daian Zhai ship belonging to the Japanese Ministry of Magic, directly slicing through the middle of the only light cruiser in the fleet from top to bottom.

After the golden light disappeared, a fiery red mark appeared in the center of the light cruiser, splitting the warship in half.

With a "boom" explosion, a cloud of fire and smoke enveloped the entire ship. Then the entire light cruiser broke into two pieces, and quickly sank to the bottom of the sea with huge wounds and flames.

"They actually brought out the Yata Mirror," The White Robe Society's president, who was originally kneeling on the Yamato's bridge throne, stood up directly, watching the only light cruiser in the fleet sink to the bottom of the sea in less than a minute.

"But that's fine too," Looking at the flames that were dissipating on the sea and the scattered White Robe Society members who were teleporting to the ship's deck, the president loudly issued an order. "The other party can only fire one shot in a short period of time, and it must draw out the magic power of the entire ship."

"So next, let's beat that broken ship into the seabed."