Today was already the second day since the Storm Border had docked along the coast of Heracles Island.
After returning to the ship, Olga Marie came by as usual to pass along some relatively important information to Shiomi, who wasn't on the bridge at the time.
…Though it wasn't anything urgently critical. She was really using work as an excuse to come chat with Shiomi and kill some time.
She never expected that the moment she opened the door, she would walk straight into such a shocking scene.
Olga Marie's mind went completely blank. She shrank back against the wall outside the doorway, forcing herself to calm down and sort out her thoughts.
Morgan and Shiomi were husband and wife. Whatever they did in their own room was perfectly reasonable and perfectly legal.
Forgetting to lock the door might be a problem, but it wasn't actually wrong.
Once she had talked herself through it, Olga Marie stood up with a faint sense of disappointment, hugged her tablet to her chest, and prepared to head back to the bridge to settle her nerves.
Just then, the door opened again.
Morgan stepped out, grabbed Olga Marie by the wrist, and startled her all over again.
"I-I'm sorry… I didn't mean to intrude on your private life. The electronic lock said the door could be opened, so I…" Olga Marie lowered her head, flustered as she apologized.
"It's fine. Come in," Morgan said, stopping her.
"Huh?"
Still completely confused, Olga Marie was pulled into the room by Morgan.
Shiomi was still fully dressed, lying facedown on the bed with a helpless expression. He raised a hand to greet her.
"You're back, Marie…"
"Y-yes… yes!" Olga Marie nodded vigorously, doing her best not to mention what she had just seen.
Morgan sat back down on the bed. "Don't worry too much about earlier. I was just giving my husband a massage. He's been working hard lately, so I thought I'd do something to help him relax."
"I see…" Olga Marie answered, still half in doubt.
"Stop explaining. The more you explain, the worse it sounds," Shiomi said, having completely given up.
Morgan, who was genuinely unbothered, didn't think there was anything strange about it. "If Marie is interested, she could try it herself."
"What?" Shiomi froze.
"You mean… have someone give me a massage?" Olga Marie instinctively took it in the most harmless way. "Everyone is very busy, and Caren is better at treating injuries and illnesses—"
"No, she means you should give me the massage…" Shiomi said, rolling his eyes.
"M-me?" Olga Marie went completely stiff.
Only after saying it did Morgan realize how inappropriate it sounded. "Sorry, just take it as a joke."
"N-no, it's fine. I only went to collect information on the island today and came back early, that's all," Olga Marie hurried to defend herself. "If Ms. Morgan doesn't mind, I can try. I'll take it as a way to thank you for always taking care of me, Professor."
"…"
Shiomi wanted to say something like, shouldn't you at least ask my opinion, but saying it now would only make things awkward, so he let it go.
And so the situation in the room turned into this.
Olga Marie straddled Shiomi's back, pressing carefully on his shoulders and neck according to Morgan's instructions.
Morgan had suggested reinforcing her fingers with mana before pressing, but Olga Marie couldn't control the strength properly. She ended up pressing Shiomi to the brink of agony, and in the end gave up on that technique, switching back to a more basic, unenhanced approach instead.
"No need to force it. You're doing fine," Shiomi said.
Morgan shook her head slightly. She knew Shiomi was just being polite. Olga Marie's massage didn't have much strength. It wasn't uncomfortable, but there was no real sense of effectiveness either.
"By the way, have Sakura and Caren ever done something like this?" Olga Marie asked curiously.
"Not anymore," Shiomi replied. "But when they were little, they often teamed up to give me massages like this, mostly just to make me laugh."
"I see. That sounds really nice…" Olga Marie felt a twinge of envy.
After all, when she was a child, she might not even see Marisbury once a year, let alone have this kind of intimate interaction.
"I remember when they were six or seven. They'd stand on my back together and step on me. That massage was actually pretty good," Morgan recalled.
"Kids don't weigh much, so it was just right back then. Once they got a bit older, it stopped working. Felt like I was about to be crushed underfoot," Shiomi laughed.
"So you're saying they were heavy? That's a pretty harsh thing to say about girls," Morgan shook her head.
"I'm just stating the facts," Shiomi muttered.
Morgan took his relaxed arm, lifted it slightly, and rotated it three times clockwise, then three times counterclockwise.
Unlike active movement, being guided entirely by external force in a passive state made the body feel even more relaxed and comfortable.
"But Baobhan Sith never did anything like this, did she?" Morgan added.
"She's a princess, after all. I raised her according to royal standards," Shiomi said with a smile. "Originally, I hoped that when she returned to your side, she could help share your burdens. So she's not very good at these little acts of taking care of people."
"Wouldn't that make it seem like you're playing favorites?" Olga Marie asked, genuinely curious.
"How could that be favoritism?" Shiomi shook his head. "It's just making different choices under different circumstances. If Sakura and Caren had grown up in the same environment, they would've been raised as princesses too, not as ordinary people."
"But they're still Magi," Olga Marie said.
Hearing her instinctive response, Morgan couldn't help but laugh softly. "Modern Magi place far too much importance on lineage and status. In their pursuit of the Root, they're willing to treat not only their parents and spouses, but even themselves, as tools and sacrifices. But if they abandon their humanity, what is the Root even for?"
"Is… that how it is?" Olga Marie felt like she understood a little more.
Precisely because Sakura and Caren held views different from those of the Magecraft world, they were less like 'Magi' in the conventional sense, yet possessed a far healthier and more refined mindset than most Magi.
That wasn't a bad thing at all.
At the very least, they had lived genuinely happy lives, never twisted by the path of Magecraft to the point of losing even the most ordinary forms of happiness.
"So, Marie, what was it you came to talk about?" Shiomi wrapped up the slightly delicate topic and returned to business.
"Ah…"
Olga Marie snapped back to her senses. She had been so caught up in what was happening that she had nearly forgotten why she came in the first place, almost putting the cart before the horse.
No, perhaps it wasn't quite that.
It was simply that when the 'essence' was unattainable, one had no choice but to grasp at the 'ends.'
"You mentioned 'Proper Human History' earlier. What exactly does that refer to?" Morgan asked.
"Well, it's like this. Earlier, the reason Storm Border headed here was because Bartholomew said there was a Servant from Proper Human History on Heracles Island. We made contact yesterday and learned something important. Francis Drake, who assisted us during the Third Singularity, is also here, but she's been afflicted by the Sea God's curse."
"This Sea God… could it be—" Shiomi raised an eyebrow.
"Poseidon?"
Morgan narrowed her eyes slightly.