Early the next morning, when Tsugikuni Yoriichi woke up, got dressed, and came up onto the deck, he heard Kyros report some news.
There had been no large caches of treasure or supplies aboard the pirate ship they had seized.
"Hm?"
"A pirate ship that big, and there was nothing in its hold?"
As he spoke, Yoriichi looked toward the enormous pirate ship still docked in the harbor and scratched his head in puzzlement.
"Yeah. We searched the entire ship, but there wasn't anything valuable."
"And early this morning, the people who suffered during the pirate attack heard that we had defeated a pirate ship."
"Quite a few of them are still gathered at the harbor, hoping that we Marines will return the recovered property to them."
"But we didn't recover any property at all!"
"Vice Admiral, what should we do?"
Kyros stood beside Yoriichi, answering with a bitter expression. He appeared not to have slept all night; deep dark circles remained beneath his eyes. It seemed this matter had truly been troubling him.
However, Yoriichi did not immediately understand what Kyros was so troubled about.
"Since we didn't seize any property from the pirate ship, just tell the people the truth."
"There's no property. It's not like I can conjure it out of thin air for them, right?"
Under Kyros's guidance, Tsugikuni Yoriichi walked to the rail and looked toward the docks. A large crowd had gathered there, densely packed together and constantly looking up toward the warship. The moment they saw Tsugikuni Yoriichi lean over to look down, they immediately began shouting at him.
"That one! That red-haired man is a vice admiral from Marine Headquarters!"
"Vice Admiral, please, have mercy! Give back what we lost!"
"That was an heirloom my father left me! I can't lose it!"