The Admiral of Hogwarts

As Bagman's voice faded, a sharp whistle echoed across the cold, misty lake. Immediately following, cheers and applause erupted from the stands.

From the stands, Hugo saw Harry stuff something into his mouth, chew, and swallow it. Then, he took off his shoes and socks and jumped into the water. Fleur cast a Bubble-Head Charm on herself, while Krum attempted a Transfiguration spell, but with a slight mishap—only his head turned into a shark's head…

While everyone else was taking action, Venetto stood out, because she wasn't wearing a swimsuit. She was simply walking in the water, rhythmically tapping her calf with her wand.

"Miss Venetto, the competition has already started," Bagman kindly reminded her, looking at the only one standing in the shallows. "Just like the previous events, the competition began with the whistle."

"Thank you, I was just preparing to cast a spell," Venetto said as she floated up from under the water. Below her knees, she was entirely encased in a pair of metal boots.

"Our youngest female competitor seems to have conjured some sort of Muggle item, but I must say, she's currently the fastest," Ludo Bagman announced, his voice drowned out by the cheers from the stands.

Everyone watched as Venetto stood on the water's surface, rapidly advancing towards the center of the Black Lake, leaving two white trails of water behind her due to her high speed.

Almost all the spectators were captivated by Venetto's graceful, figure-skating-like progress across the lake, and various exclamations of admiration arose.

"This is a very impressive Transfiguration, although I've never seen a Transfiguration turn into a Muggle machine. Of course, using the power of such a machine would require a great deal of skill—"

Ludo attempted to analyze Venetto's situation, but Hugo knew he was purely making things up, because Venetto had only activated a part of her ship equipment. Waving her wand earlier was just a disguise.

Moreover, compared to others who could only roughly locate their targets by listening to the merpeople's songs, Venetto could easily and quickly lock onto her destination using Hermione's position.

Soon, Venetto arrived above her destination and activated the sonar she had borrowed from a certain destroyer ship girl to start examining the situation beneath the surface.

The ship girl's sonar was obviously superior to real sonar. For example, Venetto could not only confirm the number of people underwater and their distribution, but she could even identify them.

Among them was a Durmstrang girl, likely Krum's date from before, a little girl she hadn't seen many times, probably Fleur's sister, and then there were Harry's precious Ginny and Venetto's target, Hermione.

At the same time, as Venetto activated her sonar, she brought most of the lakebed into her reconnaissance range, and she also figured out what the other competitors were doing.

Harry's overall condition was excellent. It seemed he had obtained accurate information from Moaning Myrtle and was swimming directly towards the merpeople village.

However, the competitors from the other two schools were somewhat lacking. Krum's head transformation made him seem top-heavy and also affected his brain. Therefore, his route was winding and crooked, as if he were drunk.

While Fleur seemed to be doing okay, she was swimming very close to the lakebed for some reason. Considering that a large group of Grindylows were hiding in the lakebed's weeds, getting too close to the bottom made her very vulnerable to surprise attacks.

"This is just a competition, there shouldn't be any real danger," Thinking this, Venetto shook her head and dove into the water.

If it were anyone else, they might have chosen a showy way to display themselves, but for ship girls, completing the mission with the least amount of energy expenditure was the most important thing. Any unnecessary actions were forbidden.

After simply adjusting her weight, Venetto plunged like an iron ingot from the surface directly into the center of the merpeople village, then looked around.

The plaza was surrounded by crude stone dwellings, speckled with algae. Curious faces peered out from the holes in the walls that served as windows.

Unlike the beautiful creatures in fairy tales, the merpeople's skin was iron-gray, and their long, seaweed-green hair was disheveled. Their eyes were yellow, and their incomplete teeth were also yellow, making them truly unsightly.

However, their ugly appearance did not affect their voices. In fact, their voices were the opposite of their appearance. The heavenly singing in the water was being sung by a group of these merpeople in the plaza.

Behind the merpeople choir stood a crude statue: a large merperson carved from a giant stone. Four people were tightly bound to the tail of the merperson statue.

Venetto passed the merpeople holding crude short spears and shouting noisily, arrived at the hostages, and directly snapped the tough seaweed rope that bound Hermione. Then, she carried Hermione up to the surface.

Throughout the entire process, the merpeople only sang and did not show any hostility. Therefore, Venetto naturally had no excuse to confirm the fighting power of these fish people through combat.

After surfacing, Hermione immediately opened her eyes and said through the admiral network, "It was so boring underwater, good thing you came quickly."

At this time, the other competitors were only a few hundred meters away from the shore of the Black Lake. Compared to ship girls, who were naturally suited for underwater activities, even wizards' underwater capabilities seemed pathetic.

"In five minutes, our first champion, Miss Venetto, completed the first task in just five minutes," Bagman shouted loudly, but Hugo could hear a hint of listlessness in his voice.

Based on past experience, this fellow probably made a fortune during the World Cup and, having tasted success, planned to repeat the trick by betting on an upset, but he didn't expect Venetto to be so strong.

However, almost no one in the stands was paying attention to this. The cheers in the stands rose wave upon wave, with the vast majority of the audience shouting Venetto's name.

"Well done," Hugo said as he squeezed through the crowd from the stands, then cast a few spells on his sister and Venetto, making them dry and clean.

"Of course, you should believe in us," Venetto slightly raised her face, revealing a slightly proud little expression. "There's no way I could lose in this kind of underwater event."

Just then, Madam Pomfrey hurried over and made Venetto and Hermione each drink a bottle of potion to ward off the cold, then indicated that they could go into the tent to warm up for a while.

However, this request was politely refused by the two ladies, who said that they were not cold at all, so they would rather sit outside and chat with friends and see the specific situation of the competition as soon as possible.