"So there was some sort of criminal mastermind hiding on this base?" My junior asked.
"That seemed to be the case." I said picking the roll of duct tape from my desk "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to tie Edinburgh back up before she escapes" Myoukou turned around in shock at the maid, who had managed to thin the tape that was binding her through her struggling, spitting the last of the tape covering her mouth that she had been chewing before she started screaming.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPP! HEEEEEL-" a few quick tugs of the roll of tape later and Edinburgh was nice and securely tied to the chair again "MMMMMPH! MMPH MMMPH MMPH MMPH MMMMPH!"
"Right, now where was I? Ah, right!"
I walked into the office, where I found Hornet holding a bunch of unwanted brown envelopes in her hand. "Any news from our mysterious Mr X?" I asked.
"No" Hornet shook her head "I haven't heard any word from The Royal Knights about any challenge, it looks like Edinburgh will end up being charged after all"
"Oh dear" I sighed sitting down at my desk "I guess that this will mean that we'll have to close this case then" Hornet gave a murmur of agreement before sitting back down in her chair and sorting through the letters that had been delivered that morning.
"Bill, bill, urgent bill, flyer for Shiranui's shop, bill…hello~" I picked my head up off the desk and walked over to the boss's desk, in her hand was a white envelope, addressed to ALIBI rather than to Hornet herself as the main resident of the establishment, Hornet slowly turned the envelope over and gestured for me to back away, before she ripped the envelope open and giving it a sniff. "No gas within the envelope…" she then placed her hand in the envelope before pulling it back up and licking her fingers "And no sleeping agent in the ink…" I moved back towards her desk, having been given the all-clear by my boss that there wasn't any sort of surprise sedative within the envelope. Hornet pulled out the letter that was hidden inside. Written on the piece of paper, in neat cursive handwriting, was the following:
I see I caused quite a commotion yesterday.
You might think yourself smart, but you still have a lot to learn.
So, let us play a game of wits, I have the gold that you are looking for, hidden somewhere on this base.
Solve my clues and follow this trail of gold, if you win my game by the end of the day, I will give you a reward.
X
"Bollocks!" The angry midget yelled "She evidently posted that before she was arrested" Hornet shook her head.
"Afraid not, we already checked, and that letter was sent this morning. Unless of course, she managed to slip past your guards in the middle of the night and post this letter?" The Queen looked absolutely livid.
"Then it is evidently an accomplice!"
"Oh get real your majesty, Edinburgh doesn't have many friends, who'd be her accomplice, Sheffield? Her sister Belfast? They're the least likely to participate in criminal activity" The queen gave a humph of dissatisfaction.
"So there really is a mysterious mastermind behind this theft then?" Warspite said.
"So it seems" I said
"And what's this about getting some sort of reward?" the queen asked, "What do you suppose it'll be?"
"It doesn't matter, we can leave that to one side for now as this doesn't help us solve the mystery of who this mysterious 'X' is or where the gold is" Hornet said
"Even so, I feel like I've seen this writing before somewhere…" The queen pondered. "Do…do you think it might be the sirens?" There was a long pause before Hornet replied
"It's…unlikely, sure sirens are known for their elaborate, almost sadistic games, but this is far too small a scale for it to be them, in my opinion at least" she quickly added.
"True, true" Warspite nodded
"So that narrows it down to someone on this base"
"But there's over 300 kansen on this base!" The queen yelled "And it doesn't help that we don't know where to start! We don't even know where this clue is! We'll have to search the entire base to look for it!"
"That won't be necessary" Hornet calmly replied, silencing Queen Elizabeth and drawing Warspite's attention "The clue is hidden withing the letter" she snatched the letter from Elizabeth's hand and turned it to face the Royal Navy battleships "You see this part here? About me 'having much to learn'? At first it looks like a taunt, but she, (And it's highly likely it's a she), has already taunted us in the first paragraph, here" she pointed to the section in question "There doesn't seem to be a point in taunting us twice, so the clue must be within that paragraph"
"Really?" the queen asked "So…what does it mean?"
"Well, it's saying that I have more to learn, well, the only place that you can do some learning here is…"
"The lecture hall" I finished.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" the queen demanded "Let's go!"
"Good job it's a Sunday otherwise we'd never get in" Hornet said. When we'd reached the lecture hall it was decided to split up into pairs to cover as much ground as possible while having another pair of eyes to check if one of us had missed anything. Of course me and Hornet went off in a pair, and so far we hadn't discovered anything. I opened the door of the classroom, the 6th that we had to check in this side of the building, rigging at the ready, before slamming it open.
It was one of the bigger classrooms, with around 40 desks lined up in neat rows, a large blackboard at the front of the room, with a separate, bigger desk for the teacher. Seeing that there were no hostiles hiding in the room, and that the classroom had no discernible traps hidden within, I moved towards the far side of the room.
"Alright, I'll search this side, if that's okay boss"
"Sure, go ahead" I started work on the first desk in the row, checking the inside of the desk, underneath the desk, and all over the chair that was positioned behind it, but to no avail. However, it was only when I was getting back to my feet to search the desk behind that I noticed that Hornet hadn't budged an inch, leaning casually against the wall, with her hands behind her head.
"What?" Hornet didn't move, instead moving her eyes to the front of the room, I followed suit, and let out a quite curse, having missed the rather large and quite obvious clue written on the blackboard.
"I'll fetch HM Queenie; you see if you can decipher the riddle up there" And with that Hornet Kicked herself away from the wall and left the room. I walked over towards the blackboard, to get a better view of the clue, it read the following:
Well done, top of the class!
Now, run a little errand for me, my little Miss,
Search the sea of green to earn yourself a silver star,
Or there will be no gold star for you~
As I finished reading it Hornet arrived with the queen and Warspite, the mini monarch not looking pleased, probably due to the fact that we were the ones to find the clue. "Any luck rookie?"
"Somewhat" I replied "This part here, about a sea of green evidently means a wood or a forest, but I don't know what the silver star refers to"
"Could it be referring to a medal? They're star shaped"
"They're gold your majesty, could it be a place where you can see the stars clearly?"
"That seems a bit random Warspite."
Hornet gave a sigh "Well… I've got nothing, I guess we'll have to ask someone"
"But who though?" the queen asked
"Let's try the commander" Hornet suggested "he knows more about this place than anyone else"
The four of us managed to find the commander at the pier, getting ready to send the fifth fleet out on commission, comprising of: Peter Strasser, Alabama, Kongou, Salt Lake City, Z19, Amazon, Albacore, U-110 and Cavalla. The commander eventually realised that we were approaching. "Oh… hello, what brings you here... your majesty?" he quickly added the last part, upon realising that he was in the presence of Queen Elizabeth.
"We demand your assistance, servant!" The commander just gave a shrug, considering that he had witnessed weirder things within this base he'd probably just gotten used to it by now.
"You need my help? What for? Can I just send the fifth fleet off before you ask me anything?"
"Ahhh…hold on a minute commander! They might be able to help us out here!" Hornet quickly blurted out.
"Okay then, fire away"
"Do you know where we can get some silver stars?"
"Or what it could allude to?" Warspite added. The commander had a weird look on his face before turning back towards the fifth fleet, but everyone looked stumped.
"You couldn't possibly give me a hint about what this is about?"
"Well you see… we were wondering what a silver star in the middle of the woods would mean" Hornet explained.
"What about that old, abandoned radar station?" Everyone stared at the voice, causing Amazon to look around in bewilderment "What?"
"Well, that doesn't have anything to do with stars!" Cavalla yelled
"Yes…and it's square" Kongou added.
"Well, only the top bit" Amazon explained "It was built on top of an old star fort that was built there in your little civil war" There was a deafening silence "Now What?"
"Amazon, you're a genius!" The queen yelled; Amazon looked blank for a couple of seconds before she gave a smug grin.
"Well, naturally!" she chuckled. Everyone apart from the Royal Navy girls either shook their heads or rolled their eyes, knowing full well that Amazon didn't have the faintest idea of why she was being praised.
"Well, I guess we'd better get to the woods then" Hornet said heading off towards the intended destination.
"Hopefully we won't have to wear a disguise… or find a big surprise" I mumbled following after her.
"HEY! Don't run ahead of us!" The Queen yelled as she and Warspite ran towards us to catch us up.