Voyage Of The Villainess

The chill of the night sliced like a knife into one's skin. Furthermore, if you were swimming in the chilly seawater. You're either dumb or looking for some wonderful problems for yourself.

"Brrr..." Iris kept swimming despite the chill of the water.

"Can you remind me who was the idiot that told us to swim?"

"You're the idi...I mean you're the one who told us to swim here." Elred said as he swam behind Iris.

"Yeah yeah. It's okay. I won't be upset easily by that, because I really wanted to be reminded that I'm such an idiot for suggesting this plan." Iris shivered even more until she reached the ship's stern.

---⚓⚓⚓---

Half an hour earlier...

"The ship!" Dorris exclaimed in worry and fright. " For sure, there must be something that happened to the ship."

Everyone's faces showed fear and worry as well with what Dorris exclaimed.

"Wait!" Everyone turned to Iris.

"Let's not come to that conclusion yet. We need to see things from a much bigger perspective. What if Maru got drunk and ran away from the ship.``

"Ran away?" Dorris asked.

"Drunk? As far as I remember,  we don't have any wine or liquor in the ship."

"I have... Oh yeah, right, we don't have any wine on the ship hehe," Iris almost spilled out, that she brought her own stack of wine onboard covertly. And hid beneath her bed in her cabin.

Rein and Dorris eyed her with suspicion. 

'She definitely brought some wine.' Rein and Iris thought as they continued to stare at Iris.

Iris gazed at them innocently, as if she didn't understand why they were staring at her. "What?" she asked, coughing. "Well, anyway, you saw how Maru lost his mind back there; what if he really simply ran away?" Iris remarked calmly, attempting to change the subject.

"Well, you have the point, but I think that was not the case. If Maru ran away, then his clothes would be wet. The ramp for the ship was not lowered and with Rhyme, on guard, he would not be able to lower the ramp as he pleased." Rein exclaimed just simply letting the topic of the wine subsided for now.

"I see," Iris answered. "Then we really have no choice but to check back on the ship."

"Then I have to teleport us there right away. There might be something that happened with Rhyme as well." Dorris exclaimed. A magical circle started to form beneath their group.

"Wait!"

'Again?' Everyone thought as Iris stopped them again.

"Barging the ship like that will be dangerous, what if someone hijacked the ship?"

"Then I'll just smash their heads with my scythe," Dorris exclaimed.

"Yes, beating them up would not be a problem to me. Besides, it might be a good exercise for us to have." Rein said.

Iris smacked her head. "Everyone, violence is not the answer to every problem." She raised her index finger.

"I have a plan. How about this, I and Sir Elred will scout the ship first..."

Elred pointed to himself. "Me?"

"Yes, you." Iris nodded her head. "Then afterward, when we know if there are some people who really infiltrated Bituins and we also know their exact number, then that's where we will move to our next plan."

"What will be our next plan?" Dorris inquired.

"Beat them up." 

Everyone could feel their jaws drop with Iris' words. 'If we are going to beat them up, why do we still need to scout.' Most of them thought similarly like this.

"Well, understanding the enemy beforehand will be much better than attacking head-on blindly," Iris replied, caressing her chin as if she had an imaginary beard. 'I sounded like an old man in one of those martial arts movies, hahaha.'

Since it seemed to them that Iris was taking no for an answer. Everybody simply agreed to affirm that they all consented to her plan. 

---⚓⚓⚓---

And that led to the current predicament of Iris. 'I should have asked Dorris to teleport us to some hidden place on the ship. But yeah, she could not leave both Rein and Maru in the mist. Since if something happened, her teleportation would be more useful to them.'

"We're here," Iris said and Elred followed behind. They slowly climbed up behind the ship. 'From what Rein had told us there should be a window here that would lead us to the lower third deck of the ship.'

Bituins have a total of four decks. The first deck or the main deck was an open one on the ship's upper level. The second deck is a floor lower than the first and comprises all of the cabins. The third deck has all of the supplies as well as several more empty rooms. The huge engines of the Bituins were positioned on the fourth or the lowest deck.

'There!' Iris slowly opened the window as quietly as she could. Then she steadily climbed inside. Elred followed behind her as quietly as possible.

When they entered the room, Iris shivered when a cold wind from the outside blew all of the sudden. 

"Mi-mission e-entering the ship. Success." Iris said between her shivering mouth. "Let's go."

'Grr this wind truly pissing me off.' 

Iris and Elred stealthily trod the way checking every corner of the ship. But so far, there were no signs of people. They reached the second deck and it was empty as well. Then that's when they heard two people's laughter when they finally reached the first deck.

'So there are indeed people who infiltrated the ship.'

Both she and Elred exchanged glances. "Let's observe first," Iris whispered.

Both of them simply nodded at each other. They both glanced back at the two cloaked people.

"What do you think will happen to those guys?"

"The truth is I don't know." The other said. "Probably they will be sacrificed as well by our Lord."

"But that is my first time seeing Lord Oliver angered like that."

"That foolish bastard must have died by now by Lord Oliver's own hands." 

The two laughed more as if what they had said was funny. Iris narrowed her gaze towards the two.

'Don't tell me they've got Rhyme as well. This is surely troublesome.' But Iris' mind drifted to the two cloaked people talking. "Oliver... Is that one of Hyun Jae's male leads, why they are talking about him and calling him, there Lord?"

Elred also narrowed his gaze. 'Oliver?' Then the black knight of the emperor flashed through his mind. 'It must not be him. How will be...No, the Saintess is here as well? Then probably...'

"Hey, I checked some of the cabins earlier. This ship is quite loaded." The first cloaked guy exclaimed. "And look what I found."

Iris' eyes widened when she saw the bottle the cloaked people were holding.

"My liquor!" anger thrummed through her veins in just a second. 

Elred's thoughts were cut off as he looked at Iris amused. But his amusement turned to shock when Iris marched in front of the two guys.

'For what reason is this woman making a move without thinking now?' he just simply put his hand on his forehead. 

"You bastards! That's mine!" she was about to explode with rage

"You!?" the cloaked look shocked at her abruptly appearing.

The two weren't able to move when Iris struck the first cloaked guy with the back of her spear. Knocking him off completely.

The other cloaked guy wasn't able to move as well when Elred smacked him with the back of his sword.

"What's with just scouting? When you barge in just like this?" Elred reprimanded Iris.

"It seems there are only two of them," Iris said calmly as she picked her wine from the hand of the guy she struck. She paused when she saw a well-known symbol on the hand of the man. 'This...' 

"Lady Iris?" 

Iris, hearing Elred call her, woke up from her stupor. "Ah thank goodness my baby didn't break. I think I need to clean this before I drink." She said as she wiped the bottle of wine with the hem of her clothes.

Elred glanced around and indeed, he couldn't feel any presence of anyone in the ship anymore. He didn't know whether this was luck or not with Iris' sudden recklessness. 

He just shook his head when Iris happily checked the liquor bottle in her hand.

"As far as I can see the ship is clear now," Iris said with all smiles. "Let's tie these two first and give the signal for Rein and Dorris to return. Then we could do all the interrogation."

They tied the two unconscious cloaked people. And afterward, two white moths appeared from Iris' hands. Iris whispered something then it flew towards the island covered with mist.

"Now then while we wait..." 

*Swoosh!*

Iris glanced back towards Elred and pointed her spear towards him.

"There is one reason why I chose you to accompany me." Iris simply declared. "This will be my only chance to talk to you properly, White Knight of the Emperor."

Elred narrowed his gaze at Iris. 

"Well, I can sense Rein is already suspicious of you as well. But I know already.. So now I want you to be honest. What did the emperor tell you to do with us? Or more specifically what do you need with us?"

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