Alex, after glancing once more, quickly dropped his careless attitude and seriously explained the plan to Shalltear.
As Fang laid out the details, Shalltear suddenly understood and grew a bit puzzled. "No wonder you all wore Silver Wand uniforms when you attacked. So, your idea was to frame them.
But doesn't that risk the Silver Wands realizing someone's impersonating them? Aren't you afraid of being found out?"
Fang immediately replied, "Found out? These places were their illegal hideouts to begin with.
How can they deny it? And don't forget, the Silver Wands aren't an official group in Germany, they're just smugglers.
Who's going to believe the excuses of a bunch of criminals?"
He continued, "That's why they stationed so many people in the places before, to use those wizards' legitimacy to scare outsiders. But we can turn that against them and make their club suffer. That's the idea here."
Shalltear wasn't slow to catch on. "I see now," she said.
Alex nodded in agreement, "Exactly. The Silver Wands' weakness is that they have to stay hidden in the shadows.
No matter how much they cover up, they can't hide from the official Ministry of Magic. The real problem is that the Ministry itself has been compromised from within by Snidget.
As long as Snidget holds power in the Ministry, our enemy isn't just the Silver Wands, it's the official forces of Germany too.
Trying to wipe out the Silver Wands without the Ministry's support is pointless because we can't claim legitimacy in our fight.
It's like the last operation. If we openly attack the places, their defenses will delay Eisenberg's intervention long enough for the three place leaders to deny any ties to the club. Then the whole operation falls apart.
So, quietly taking control of the three places is the first step, and it's the most crucial part of our plan. Originally, my plan was simply to use the Silver Wand, disguised as a gun, to stir up resistance among the common wizard members against the club.
At the same time, I wanted to indirectly strengthen Andre's faction within the Ministry of Magic, weakening Golden Snidget's influence and causing internal turmoil within the club. But the results of this trip far exceeded our expectations.
Not only did we achieve our initial goals, but we also managed to gather plenty of evidence from Claremont proving that the Silver Wand had infiltrated the Ministry itself. With this information, we might be able to expand our strategy in the next phase, ideally, to root out Golden Snidget's faction entirely from the German Ministry of Magic. That way, they'd be exposed as nothing more than criminals, and we could deal with them however we saw fit.
After hearing Alex's explanation, Shalltear frowned in confusion. "Is it really just about clearing them out? Why not take this chance to wipe out the club altogether?"
Alex shook his head seriously. "It's not that simple. You saw before how Golden Snidget can appear in multiple places at once, and we still don't understand how he does it.
Even if we confront him directly, there's no guarantee we'll be able to fully take him down. Besides, our ultimate target this time is actually the 'Horned Basilisk.' I want to use Golden Snidget to lead us to that guy."
Alex sneered slightly. "Of course, while we can't promise Golden Snidget will be killed, we can definitely use this opportunity to clip some of his wings."
"So what's the plan now? Should we keep watching those Silver Wand?" Fang asked.
Although he didn't mind the surveillance duty and even found some amusement in it, sitting around all day was starting to wear on his energy.
"For now, we have to keep everything as secret as possible. If we reveal our target too soon, we'll lose the advantage.
Luckily, besides this operation, the main player in the next phase is Andre. We don't need to be on the front lines. Remember, the deeper we hide until the right moment, the bigger the impact when we finally strike."
Alex's eyes grew colder as he spoke, "It's like a poisonous snake hiding in the dark, isn't it?"
Shalltear responded with a sly smile, "I like that. I just pounce on them and bite hard when they're defenseless."
Meanwhile, Fang watched both of them with a smirk, lifting his hind paws to scratch his head, clearly a bit bored. He didn't fully understand the tactics of these seasoned veterans, but he knew that with a cautious leader like Alex, nobody would be careless enough to get hurt.
Two days earlier, in the underground warehouse stronghold, while Alex and the others were busy transporting magical creatures, Moody and about a dozen Aurors, actually, the Silver Wands, weren't idle. They spent most of the day setting up necessary facilities inside the warehouse.
They built over fifty large, temporary compartments using magical construction, with materials salvaged from nearby places. Since these were meant to be temporary, their design was simple, reminiscent of old prison cells.
One side of each compartment was attached to a wall, while the other three sides were made of metal fences shaped using deformation magic. An iron door was placed haphazardly in the middle, so each compartment looked like a large iron cage.
Inside each compartment, Moody and his team placed a bunk bed meant for one person. At that moment, every bunk was occupied by captured wizards and Muggles.
There were also two large buckets for clean water, a long table with two benches, and a simple toilet. It wasn't much, a wooden box that served as a makeshift potty, but it was functional. The humble setup reflected Moody's cautious approach after taking on the role of Silver Wand.
Since Alex's only orders were to keep the captives alive, protect their identities, and not be too soft when handling them, Moody took the initiative to make sure those rules were followed strictly. After all, if you don't want to die, you can't afford to be too soft-hearted.
No matter how harsh the conditions were for these people, as long as they weren't killed or were saved just in time from death, that was all that mattered. Moody understood this perfectly, regardless of Alex's original intentions.
Under his supervision, the cells where the captives were held were prepared and secured as they are now. Of course, he still made sure to separate men and women humanely.
By the time Moody and the others finished setting up the cells and locking everyone inside, it was already noon. Around then, the effects of the hypnotic potion the captives had inhaled began to wear off, and they slowly started to wake up.
Many of them were still wrapped in pleasant dreams, thanks to the high quality of the potion brewed by Alex, which had no side effects like headaches or hangovers. As their minds cleared, confusion set in.
They looked around, dazed, wondering what was going on. 'Last night, we were asleep in our dorm beds, so why does this place look so strange?' they thought.
Before them was a rough iron fence, and beneath them lay a hard, splintered piece of wood instead of a bed. The air smelled stuffy and musty, like a closed, decaying room. And why were there other people lying close by?