With most of the pirates having been defeated, although the remaining ones had annoying Gifts, I knew the girls could handle the situation while I searched for our missing captain.
The only presence she had in the battle were the ships she had summoned before Licia froze the waters. After that, we had no signs of her anywhere.
Thankfully, it wasn't so hard to determine where she went.
She wasn't on our ship. Bea, Ellie, or Isa would have noticed her there. I already knew the field Licia created was a no-go, and it wasn't the best time to go for a swim, so the enemy's ship was the only option left.
The deck was surprisingly devoid of opposition. There were only corpses lying around, making a trail for me to follow inside one of the ship's cabins, where I found Marin holding another woman by the neck.
She was incredibly angry and her carefree attitude was nowhere to be seen.
Again, it was a side of her I was not expecting to see, especially considering how much it contrasted with the softness she had shown before.
I could almost hear a few words, but once she noticed my presence she quickly stopped before finishing and handcuffed the defeated woman.
Miwen: "...She's the captain ?"
Marin: "It appears so."
Both Marin and the woman were badly injured. There were cuts all over their bodies, some bleeding heavily.
Thankfully, no limbs were cut, but there were also spots with deep burns on both of them.
One look at their status told me that this woman was close to Marin's level, which is pretty high for the standards of this world.
Judging by the injuries and the fact we never saw those flame spears again, it was fair to assume that this woman was the one responsible for the spell that impressed Bea and Claire.
This alone is enough for me to believe that this battle was tough enough for Marin to get injured like this, however...
There was something odd about the situation.
Marin is clearly experienced with fights and her own abilities. This woman, who was able to hold her ground against her, must also not fall far behind.
Yet... At least one of them led the other to this cabin.
A close space where neither Marin with her ghost fleet nor this woman with her fire spell could use their power to the fullest.
They would have performed much better on the deck...
The only reason for Marin to not bombard the woman from above would be the risk of her dying, but I also think Marin has enough control over her Gift to prevent that.
Not to mention the girl also seemed strong enough to survive at least a while against Marin at full power.
Miwen: "What about their crew?"
Marin: "Oh... Right. I'll deal with them."
Things were a little odd at that point, but after that answer, I got to see a little more through the veil as Marin asked the girls to fall back to our ship again before mercilessly decimating everyone on the ice field with her fleet.
The few enemies remaining were already injured or tired so their resistance was almost zero.
Even though they tried everything they could, not a single one of the ten ships she summoned was destroyed.
After Marin's final blow, we waited a little to see if some heads would pop out of the water, but that never happened.
I'm sure that we could make them surrender, but this worked just fine.
Especially since I was able to confirm that Marin did not care for them at all.
Her objective had always been their captain, a woman called Celly, who was now in our custody.
Thus, we perfectly finished Isabella's assignment with time to spare.
Cassandra: "And then you decided to sneak around. Are you thinking about playing with the captive? I guess spoils are-"
Miwen: "Not quite. Also, be a little quieter so I can listen."
While Cassandra had her delusions, my objective was much more honest.
All I wanted to do was have a nice and long talk with Celly about Marin and their circumstances since she was acting so strangely and it didn't seem like I'd be able to get any answers from the woman herself as she was clearly avoiding such topics.
Because I didn't want to draw Marin's attention I had to sneak out of my room, and for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to bring Cassandra since she's inconspicuous in her sword form and could watch my back so I don't get any surprises.
Of course, that backfired a lot.
In any case, I got as close as the door to the cabin Celly was locked up in.
But before entering, I heard two different voices, one of them belonged to the woman and the other to Marin.
Since I wouldn't be able to conduct my interrogation like this I decided to patiently wait for my turn.
Marin: "What are you doing? You shouldn't be here!"
Celly: "...They had a good offer, is all."
...Even though I had only just begun to listen, there was already relevant information.
"They"... Meant someone else was involved in this, which meant Isabella's task wasn't actually finished already.
While we did complete it to a certain degree, knowing how things tend to go for her, if she came back to the academy claiming to have vanquished the pirates around this area only for them to return later, her reputation would certainly suffer a lot, even if she has concrete proof of defeating at least one of them.
Sadly, it's just how things usually go for her, and I've been trying my best to avoid such problems to allow such a thing now.
She's always the one inviting everyone, so it was a little out of the norm for me to initiate it, however, it wasn't such a strange thing to do since I often end up accepting her offers anyway as while we were hunting for the pirates there wasn't much else for me to do.
The game didn't really matter. It progressed smoothly until Marin noticed something...
Marin: "You... Did something... But how? I changed the bottles..."
Marin is both an accomplished and beautiful woman and I can see many men would resort to shady means to try and get her for themselves.
Because of this, she must've developed a keen instinct.
While I wasn't confident I could get over it, I knew I could just force my way through.
All I had to do was take the stupid but guaranteed route.
Miwen: "I spiked every bottle..."
And of course, I also drank like normal so I was out as soon as Marin.
Thankfully, I was using some concoctions Agatha and I were preparing for something else, so I already had an antidote ready, although it still took me about half an hour to wake up even though I also got Angelica and Raella to heal me.
Marin: "...What do you think you are doing?"
Celly: "..."
Both of them looked at me as if I was trash.
And well... Spiking a woman's drink to them handcuff and tying them up with ropes is definitely a trashy move without context.
However, I had a good reason.
Miwen: "Fighting you would be troublesome. I'd rather have you not resist."
Marin: "...What do you want?"
Miwen: "You. And her as well."
My words were definitely not helping my case, but while this situation might've led them to believe a bunch of different things, truthfully, I only meant good for them.
In Terith, the punishment for criminals is either slavery or hanging. There's rarely such a thing as normal jail time.
Even if Marin managed to bring Celly back to Terith, the only way for them to be together would be for the woman to be turned into a slave and Marin to buy her.
However, the likelihood of that happening was low considering the position she had.
Miwen: "I'd also do my best to prevent it. I'm sure I can outbid you any day."
Marin: "...Why?"
Miwen: "I just told you. Because I want you."
Marin: "If you wanted a piece so bad you could have just asked so."
She still had the wrong impression so I decided to speed things up a little.
Miwen: "Isa, what's the punishment for treason in Terith?"
Isabella: "Same as any other criminal. Although in her case, I'm pretty sure the royal family would have her as a slave."
Right.
Losing her power is too big of a blow to Terith.
Even if the North was not that important, they would still have to divert some forces from the South, or else they would risk making the population even more discontent were Hamperlon to continue privateering.
Miwen: "See, I can hide Celly for you inside my Gift. You can visit her anytime if you become my [Citizen] as well. All you have to do is pledge loyalty to me instead of Terith, and I'll guarantee your safety."
Isa: "..."
Marin: "...What does that mean? Aren't you a butler to-"
Miwen: "You'll see soon enough. But does it even matter? The Evretis' daughter is already witness to you protecting a criminal. There's no place for you in Terith anymore. Unless someone covers for you as well."
Isabella wasn't protesting, but I could tell she was suspicious of my actions as well.
However, I know that soon enough she'll understand.
As for Marin and Celly... They didn't have much of a choice.
It was very forceful of me, but I felt like it was worth it to go so far for Marin, even if it strained our relationship a little at the start, seeing as she values her friend more than anything else, this move only benefitted her.
Marin: "...We are not going back to Licerce, are we?"
Miwen: "Smart."
Since we were going to hide Celly there would be no proof of Isabella's accomplishments anymore.
Even if that were the case, since Celly was not the root of the issue, pursuing this route wasn't going to work in the long term for us as the pirate activity was bound to return.
Instead, I thought we could go for something a little more solid.
I would have liked to use any other method since this will weaken the Kingdom a lot, but... Plan C it was. Your adventure continues at mvl
Miwen: "Set the route to Cobierzh."