"Hags...
Weren't they supposed to be around the border between the third and fourth levels?
How could they have reached the swamp in less than a day?"
Hope couldn't help gritting her teeth. She glanced at Tang Qi and asked tentatively,
"Do you know any monster trivia that might help us deal with these tricky things?"
Tang Qi felt his teeth starting to chatter too. He thought about their weaknesses and whispered,
"Green Hags like using illusions, and every gathering probably has a [Hag's Eye].
It lets the hags observe the outside world through its vision. Breaking it might blind them for a while—though I'm sure they wear it somewhere on their person and usually use it as an ornament, I don't know exactly where they keep it."
"Can you handle them?"
"Hard to say."
Only Tang Qi understood the squad's true strength—
A bunch of hangers-on riding Dawn's coattails.
Kuru was a decent spellcaster, but he knew too few spells.
Tang Qi himself was somewhat stronger than an average adventurer, but he had very limited ways to deal with spellcasters.
If Dawn wasn't confident either, all they could do was hope these three hags had encountered the [Ebony Forest Squad] or even the [Silver Medal] and hadn't fully recovered from their injuries—or regained their Spell Slots.
But they couldn't see a single wound on the hags, so it was hard to tell...
As they considered what to do, the lead hag suddenly laughed.
"I'm curious. How did you see through our disguise?"
The old woman's eerie laughter seemed to be squeezed out of her throat. It sounded a little like Anbi clawing at an iron plate—enough to give them a headache and make them want to cover their ears.
"Heh heh. Didn't we do a convincing job?"
As she