“So… What did you find?” I asked, ignoring Lisa who was practically swooning over me on my lap while peppering my face with kisses.
Emilia sighed, “It’s as we guessed… It seems like that assassin needed to be able to see or hear the target to be able to control them. When I brought the Privacy Screen to the brig, Mikhail quickly came back to his senses…”
“Does he remember anything?”
She shook her head, “Nothing useful… He basically just lost control over his body though he was conscious of it the entire time. So at least he was aware of what was going on but he was helpless to stop himself. He consented to being kept there until we catch the culprit for now.”
“So at least now we know how to break the victims out of it… But I guess we still need to find them?”
“Well… That’s still easier said than done… They could be anyone on the ship…”
“Are we really sure that they’re on the ship? What if they are in the city or at the port and controlling people from there?”
Emilia shook her head, “There were cases like this already happening on board the ship while we were sailing here. So unless they have been swimming alongside our ship the entire journey, I’m quite certain they are still on board.”
“Great… So how many people are we looking at for possible suspects?”
She hesitated then shrugged, “I’d say… Maybe about thirty to forty thousand people? Give or take a few thousand…”
…
Yeah, I don’t even know where to start… This place was a literal floating city by itself… Where do we even start our search?
The only thing we know right now is that we can prevent them from controlling others if they are protected from being heard or seen.
“Do you think… That since they need to be able to hear or see their targets… It means that they might be nearby where they are at least within ear shot?” I asked.
Emilia shook her head, “This room of mine has layered walls so unless they have their ears against the door, no one would be able to hear us even without the Privacy Screen… Which is why I believe they have a method of scrying their targets from a distance.”
“Do you have any idea that we can use to narrow down our search? Maybe like a list of passengers and we can work out who is the most suspicious?”
“Hmm… I do have a log of the passengers but… I don’t think that would help unless we know what we can use to narrow the search.”
That’s true…
“Mmmm~ Aster~ How about we stop worrying and just go another round~” Lisa moaned, snuggling against my neck.
I turned to her, “Aren’t you concerned that there’s someone trying to kill Emilia here?”
“Hmm? If that’s really that big of a deal, just add her to your harem and bring her home with you~ Then she wouldn’t need to worry about this anymore right?”
Emilia immediately stood up, “Don’t talk nonsense! Like hell I’ll just leave this ship! Do you know how much money I’ll be leaving behind?!”
Lisa smirked at her, “Oh? But you would be part of the Nilm family, which means you would have access to their wealth too, right?”
The change was immediate as Emilia came sliding towards my feet on her knees, “Lady Asteeeeer~ I’ll be a good mistress to you! Let me manage your finances!”
“Ahem… I’m sorry to say this but I don’t really intend to take over my Family… I want to explore the World on my own…”
She recovered just as quickly and went back to her seat like nothing happened, “In that case, I still have to stick by my decision to stay on this ship, Lisa. But this problem is my own so if the two of you wish to leave, I won’t stop you.”
I grimaced, “Come on Emilia… You’re our friend so we won’t abandon you… At least I won’t. Plus they tried to control Lisa and I’m not letting them get away until I at least smack them with my own hands first.”
Emilia grinned, “I’ll take note of that when I get them.”
Lisa gave me another peck on the cheek before looking at Emilia, “You know… All this talk about them needing to be able to hear us kind of reminds me of Delmare’s singing…”
I let out a gasp, “Wait, could that be it? We’re dealing with a Siren? Maybe they’re using some kind of Aeromancy magic that allows them to carry their voice to specific targets?”
Emilia frowned, “That… Could be a possibility… If they were quite proficient with their singing magic, they could even influence their targets to do something specific… Fuck! If this is true, they really have been swimming alongside my ship this entire time and played us like idiots!!”
“Hold on, we don’t know if that really is the case yet, it’s just a guess for now. Maybe we could just start searching from there?”
“Nnghh… I suppose that is better than nothing… Are we going to dive into the water just like that?”
“Actually… I was thinking if I should call Delmare here to help us out?”
Emilia raised an eyebrow at me, “Does Lady Aster have a way of getting her here without arousing that assassin’s suspicions?”
I thought about it for a moment, “If I were to fly back home right now… Would they think that I was running away? Lisa did get affected by the mind controlling thing again after all so they might think I wanted to escape from here?”
“Or they might also be thinking you’re going to get reinforcements… And we don’t even have confirmation that the assassin is really a Siren yet so when you return, they would already know you’re also hunting for them…”
“Hmm… In that case, I guess I should go and check under the water first? I think sending just me alone is enough since I’m the only one here that can prevent them from controlling me without the use of that Privacy Screen and I can breathe underwater.”
Lisa made a groaning sound, “Awww~ Do you have to do it now? How about another quickie before you go?”
“Lisa… We literally spent an hour doing it just before this…”
“Ehehe~ I don’t mind going another hour again~”
“Maybe later, ok?”
“Mmm… But do you have to go right now? It’s in the middle of the night, the sea is going to be dark and you’ll be unable to see anything.”𝐎𝑽𝓵xt.𝑐𝗈𝓶
“I practise Umbramancy, remember? I can see in the dark, Lisa.”
She giggled before getting off my lap and blowing me a kiss, “Then come back soon, honey~”
I couldn’t help but laugh at how cute she was acting now before stepping out of the room and making my way up on the deck.
It was night so the area was completely dark aside from the light coming from the torches dotted around the ship. There were still several guards around but none near me at the moment so I was not bothered by any of them.
I peeked over the railing of the ship into the watery depths below.
Despite straining my ears, I don’t hear any singing like I would have expected, making me suspect that I might have been mistaken about the assassin being a Siren.
Deciding that there’s nothing to lose just to check, I used [Air Pocket] on myself before diving into the water below.
I even made sure to flare up my wings to slow my descent before slowly submerging myself to not make a sound.
Hmm… Even with the night vision from Umbramancy, it’s still really dark that I could only see a few metres ahead of me…
I thought about using [Spotlight] to illuminate the area around me but decided against it since that would make it easier for the assassin to spot me, assuming that they are even down here of course.
Assuming that they were indeed using their singing somehow to manipulate their targets, I swam along the ship’s bottom to look for anyone hiding down here.
I was only swimming through the water for a minute when I came across what looked like a mermaid floating near the keel of the ship.
Except… I realised it wasn’t a mermaid but a merman when I got closer.
He noticed me and lifted his hand that he had placed against the ship’s keel to turn to me, “Well, well, well~ What do we have here? Did it hurt when you fell from the heavens? Because you certainly do look like an angel~”
…
Did he really just…
Forget it, let’s just check his status first…
[Name: Horose
Title: Singer of Depths, Dept Killer, Pretty Boy
Race: Merman
Gender: Male
Current Mood: Intrigue, Wary
Stats:
60 Strength
220 Dexterity
65 Endurance
520 Magic
Skills:
Ship building, (Tier 1), Carpentry (Tier 2), Noble Etiquette (Tier 1), Sailing (Tier 1), Navigation (Tier 2), Singing (Tier 3), Martial Skill-(Dagger Proficiency (Tier 2), Polearm Proficiency (Tier 2), Unarmed Proficiency (Tier 1))
Magic Skills:
Hydromancy (Tier 1), Aeromancy (Tier 2), Siren Voice (Tier 2), Kalomancy (Tier 2), Mana Management (Tier 1)]
Oh… He’s not a Siren but he does have the magic? Does that mean he’s our guy?