The girls were all finished telling their stories.
Grete and Erna had recounted their time with Raftania the islander.
Thea and Sara had described how they infiltrated the naval base in their quest to uncover the mystery behind the string of murders.
And Lily, Sybilla, and Monika had explained how they found a pirate ship and spent all their time searching for some bullets.
The three groups had spent their vacations in drastically different ways.
After hearing Grete wrap up her tale about the islanders,
“Oh, wow. You, Raftania, and Teach got wrapped up in a love triangle?!”
Lily reacted with admiration.
After hearing Thea wrap up her tale about the navy,
“I—I had no idea that Raftania had that kind of side to her!”
Grete let out an astonished gasp.
After hearing Lily wrap up her tale about the pirates,
“What is wrong with you people?! I swear!”
Thea was outraged.
The moment they were done talking, Thea began chewing Lily, Sybilla, and Monika out. “I was so terrified out of my mind at that pirate curse, and that was all you three?! And then you went and sold off my clothes?! And that whole business with the pirate ship… You have to be joking!” she ranted as she clamped her hands down on Lily’s shoulders.
Klaus shared the sentiment, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m pretty shocked myself. To think that you all went through something so extraordinary.”
Despite his prodigious intuition, not even he could have foreseen them getting wrapped up in such a historic incident. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that they might actually find the pirate ship that easily.
In any case, though, all the information was out on the table.
Klaus took charge of the discussion and laid out their next step. “Now let’s go ahead and lay out everything we know about Annette’s whereabouts.”
Annette had vanished on the thirteenth day, and the whole reason they’d shared those stories was so they could find her.
Grete laid her notebook down on the table and showed everyone what she’d written.
Annette’s Activity Log
Day 1: Played on the beach
Day 2: Planned Raftania’s wedding?
Day 3: Planned Raftania’s wedding?
Day 4: Planned Raftania’s wedding?
Day 5: Planned Raftania’s wedding?
Day 6: Planned Raftania’s wedding?
Day 7: Planned Raftania’s wedding?
Day 8: Sneaked into the naval base w/ Thea and Sara
Day 9: Stalked Lily/Sybilla/Monika?
Day 10: Found pirate ship. Forced Lily/Sybilla/Monika to work for her. Went to a hot spring?
Day 11: Forced Lily/Sybilla/Monika to work for her. Investigated tidal currents?
Day 12: Put the pirate ship out to sea
Day 13: Went missing
“Dang, it’s kinda stark, seeing it all laid out like that.”
The first one to speak up was Lily.
“She really did get bored of planning that wedding, huh?”
The girls all nodded.
The fact that according to Grete, Annette had declared as much on the tenth day all but confirmed it. She’d been so enthusiastic about it at first, yet for the back half of her vacation, she’d completely lost interest.
“She was making the three of you gather up some sort of materials, right?” asked Sara.
“Yeah, I think she wanted to invent something. It was either something really big, or a lot of something,” Monika replied.
Something dawned on Grete after hearing that, and she cocked her head. “…Hmm. But where exactly on the island would she build it? I can’t imagine there would be any adequate facilities here.”
The other girls all let out little ahhs of agreement.
Unlike Heat Haze Palace, Annette didn’t have a personal area for tinkering here. The island’s main industries were tourism and fishing. The options for local workspaces were limited, at best.
No matter how many raw materials she gathered, she still needed somewhere to process them if she wanted to do any proper inventing.
Thea sucked in a gasp. “No, there is one place. Sara and I saw it for ourselves.”
Klaus nodded as well.
Annette had visited it on the eighth day.
“It would appear we have our answer.”
Having arrived at his answer, Klaus ordered the girls to move out.
“We’re heading to the naval base.”
On their way to the naval base, Monika remembered something.
“Hey, Grete,” she asked. “How are people taking the whole pirate ship situation?”
“The locals saw the entire thing play out, and it’s become the talk of the island. Word is already spreading about the legendary Great Pirate Sybillan…”
“Well, that’s a big goddamn problem!” Sybilla yelped.
“““There’s no need to shout, Sybillan.”””
“Don’t fuckin’ call me that!!”
After Sybilla finished yelling about her teammates’ teasing, Sara and Thea nodded.
“The navy was pretty shocked, too,” Sara said.
“And it’s hard to blame them, what with an unidentified pirate ship showing up out of nowhere,” Thea agreed. “In the end, though, they did end up taking it into custody and investigating it.”
As an aside, the two of them had been meeting with the vice-admiral in secret when the ship appeared, and they’d used the ensuing chaos to more or less flee the naval base. Thea had spent the whole night wailing “It’s Jackal’s cuuurse” and hadn’t been able to get to sleep until Sara patted her head and let Thea use her lap as a pillow.
At that point, Thea shot a look over at Lily, Monika, and Sybilla. None of them had told her a thing. “It begs the question, what exactly were you three doing up until this afternoon?”
“““Sleeping off our exhaustion.”””
“…Well, I suppose that does make sense.”
After escaping from the pirate ship, the three of them and Raftania had crashed hard.
Later, when Raftania woke up, she’d gone around to tell everyone that the wedding was off.
Getting into the naval base turned out to be a trivial affair.
Klaus had it set up so that as soon as he showed up at their reception desk, the staff immediately sent word to Grenier, no matter how late it was. Just as Thea had suspected, Klaus was a frequent visitor there.
When they were shown into the command room, they found Annette receiving a warm welcome.
“What are you doing here, Annette?” Klaus asked.
“Hmph. It’s you all.”
Annette was sitting on a large couch and helping herself to the huge plate of sweets she’d been provided.
Grenier was sitting across from her.
“I’m in the middle of negotiating right now, yo. Don’t come butting in!”
“That’s right,” Grenier said. “Your agent just marched right on in.”
Not only had Annette marched into the base without permission, she’d managed to secure a one-on-one meeting with the vice-admiral.
The rest of the team found that highly dubious, and Grenier explained.
“She said that in exchange for free access to my lab, she would tell me the pirate treasure’s whereabouts.”
Lily, Sybilla, and Monika all gasped in unison. “Ah…!”
The three of them had completely forgotten about it. Based on their story, the treasure had already been unloaded from the ship and was lying in the cave.
Klaus sat down beside Annette and fixed his gaze on Grenier. “…And how do you intend to reply?”
“Why, I plan on accepting her terms, of course,” Grenier said empathically. “After seeing the ship and the booty she brought, it was clear she was telling the truth. I need to retrieve that treasure before the islanders get their hands on it.”
Lying on the table was a ring adorned with a massive diamond. Annette must have polished it, as it shone with a brilliant gleam.
Grenier sounded downright enraptured. “Now my wish will come true. This coup d’état will turn the Lylat Kingdom’s power structures on their heads!”
“………”
Klaus was already aware of the man’s ambitions—he wanted to overthrow the Lylat government and the oppressive way it stratified their society.