A Dark Fantasy Spy

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I returned to the embassy building and sent an urgent intelligence report to headquarters.

The content of the encrypted message indicated, “We have received information that the Magic Tower will soon experience significant political turmoil.”

Additionally, I forwarded all gathered and analyzed materials, including the intelligence from Saint Veronica, to the Military Intelligence Agency.

And a response came.

[Message acknowledged.]

“……”

There were no words about acquiring additional intelligence, who I reported to, or that they would contact me again after the meeting.

Just an acknowledgment. That was all.

“…Huh.”

I didn’t understand what they had confirmed. I didn’t expect an immediate reply since I sent the message past midnight, but this seemed a bit off.

Was it due to complacency, or did they deem my report unworthy of a reply? Or maybe there was some other ulterior motive at play? I sat on the chair in the communication room, lost in thought.

“……”

I didn’t know. Simply put,

Something felt off.

-♪

Breaking the awkward silence, the phone rang.

I glanced at the gleaming small screen, exhaled sharply, and pressed the call button. I was too exhausted to even sigh at this point.

“…Why did you call?”

– ‘You didn’t say “darling” today?’

“When have I ever said ‘darling’?”

It was Veronica.

– ‘Do you have time now?’

“No.”

– ‘Then come to the villa where we met last time.’

Episode 6 – The Traitor of the Revolution

It was dawn.

The sky, created through magic, flowed with a galaxy. Each star was distinctly visible in the sky, shining clearly between them. The shimmering stardust appeared as if the heavens were a vast ocean, effortlessly drawing in anyone who gazed upon it.

The flowing galaxy looked down on the world.

I expelled the humid air saturating my lungs. Everything felt dreamlike, but the moonlight reflected on the sea and pebbles brightly illuminated the world.

Underneath this fantastical landscape, a woman was sitting.

“You’re here?”

It was Veronica. She was seated on a small folding chair beside a petite camping table.

Several wine bottles lay scattered across the table. It seemed she had already started drinking before I arrived. Truly, she had an alcohol problem.

“Are you drinking again?”

“I was hoping to find a nice bar, but alas, I had to sneak in.”

There were two chairs.

I walked past the smiling Veronica and sat in the chair set aside for me. Turning my head, I surveyed the surroundings.

Before my eyes lay an endless sea, and looking up revealed a shower of stars seeming ready to rain down. It was a serene sight, yet it didn’t elevate my mood.

“Why did you call me?”

Upon my prompt to get straight to the point, Veronica’s lips formed a smooth curve. What followed was a playful complaint. She spoke in a gentle tone.

“More work talk? Are you always going to jump into work as soon as we meet? You seem so lacking in warmth.”

“You’re the one calling someone to drink at midnight, aren’t you? Especially someone like me.”

“…Hmm, aside from the strong smell of a suit on a person in uniform, you’re not bad.”

Veronica, with her peculiar words, muttered while glancing at her mobile phone.

“…It’s still early evening.”

I turned on my prepaid phone and checked the time. It read exactly 1 AM.

“It’s 1 AM.”

“Come on, to a government worker, this is still evening, right?”

“Uh, no, it’s not.”

“Anyway, we have plenty of time…”

Veronica tapped on her mobile a few times, then smiled softly and put down the wine bottle. The half-drunk wine inside the bottle swayed slightly.

“Colonel.”

“Yes, Saint.”

“Shall we have a little chat?”

*

Veronica. The 58th Saint of the Cult.

Originally a noble lady from the Kien Empire, Veronica lost her family in an unexpected accident. She was only five at the time. It was a car accident.

Veronica entered an orphanage that was usually supported by the baron’s family and was later absorbed into the Imperial Guard HQ, becoming a saint.

The first time I met her was under the 25th bridge of the Cult.

“I think it was pouring rain back then?”

“Thanks to that, the surveillance was nullified. It was easy to escape.”

“We held each other’s hands tightly, running through the rain. That was already two months ago.”

“Is it really that long ago?”

Veronica grinned as she sipped the remaining wine.

“So, how’s it been living with Lucia, the Hero?”

“How’s that supposed to matter? I’m busier than ever.”

“Hey! Don’t dodge the question, just tell me.”

Dodge? What are you even talking about?

I was too exhausted to do anything but share what little I had.

“Nothing’s happening. I don’t have time to rest, let alone talk.”

“I saw you having fun last time, riding the monsters.”

“That’s work. It’s not fun.”

The barren land operation was admittedly a military mission. Thus, I wasn’t going out to have fun with Camila; I was there to work. The Military Intelligence Agency belonged to the Ministry of Defense, and at heart, information agents were just soldiers in disguise. Framing it as leisure was the odd thing about Veronica.

She leaned over to poke my side, acting annoyingly playful, and began to chatter.

“Still, it must be nice with so many women around you? Make sure to treat all three of them well.”

“Saint, are you teasing me right now?”

“Oh? You found me out?”

Her boldness made me want to give her a jolt. However, there was no way I’d lay a hand on Veronica. Even if there wasn’t anyone around, it would be a death wish if found out.

Did she know that? She doubled over in laughter, holding her stomach. It was mocking.

“Why do you act like that?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“You’re insane.”

Veronica laughed until tears glistened in her eyes. After a while, she finally calmed down and used her fingers to wipe her eyes.

“Ah, that’s funny… Can I offer some advice?”

“Please don’t.”

“Be careful with the Hero, at least. You may not mind Lucia, but be cautious with the Hero.”

“What should I be careful about? Fire safety?”

“No, I meant just treat her as a person—this is what I’m saying!”

That was a strange statement.

I pondered in my folding chair, tilting my head.

“Is there a reason?”

“Um. Just a feeling?”

“Is that the intuition of a saint? Or your own intuition as Veronica?”

“Does it matter? They’re both me anyway.”

“So, your reason is just a feeling? That’s your whole answer?”

“Yep.”

It was a question with no value in answering. I leaned back against my chair and got lost in thought.

The reasons for recruitment were probably money or human affection.

For the little girl who lost her family in an instant, both material wealth and human warmth were essential. After all, she was just a growing child. The Imperial Guard HQ probably seized on those aspects.

For a girl who had lost her family and siblings, it was a profoundly pitiful thing to do, but that’s just how intelligence agencies operated.

Thereupon, Veronica murmured with a wistful smile, reminiscing about the past. Her tone was quite calm.

“I watched Raul cozying up to the imperial aristocrats, thinking I’d be doomed to be some old relic, but somehow, I’m still alive and here.”

Veronica stated this so matter-of-factly. She seemed slightly composed about it too.

No, instead of being composed or stoic, ‘accustomed’ would be a more fitting word.

If she was a high-level intelligence agent under the control of the Imperial Guard HQ, she must have encountered life-threatening situations more than once.

“By the way, I once almost died while on a mission. Do you know about that?”

“Brunda?”

“Yeah, you know?”

Brunda is a country in northern Mauritania.

The ongoing civil war and the stronghold of indigenous religion and sorcery means even elemental wizards classified as ‘magicians’ would find their lives in danger there. Especially for a cleric from a different church, it’s needless to say how perilous it would be. Just going there for missionary work and returning alive would be a miracle itself.

Veronica continued with a faint smile. Perhaps due to the alcohol, her pronunciation was clear, but her voice trembled slightly.

“Honestly, it was more for an Imperial Guard HQ mission than for missionary work. A rift opened up in southern Brunda, but it was in a warlord’s territory, making access difficult.”

“Were the resources from the rift necessary?”

Still smiling, Veronica casually held the wine bottle against her chin.

“I wouldn’t know. They didn’t tell me.”

“An intelligence agent, huh?”

“An intelligence agent, indeed.”

As I accepted the wine she handed me, I nodded. There was little choice in the matter.

From the handler’s perspective, controlling intelligence agents from behind the scenes, it was vital that those agents didn’t know too much. Because they could be caught at any moment. If they were captured by enemy intelligence agencies, the information in the agents’ heads could turn deadly.

That’s why handlers often kept their agents in the dark about most things—objectives, directions, plans, and even names and affiliations.

This way, in the event an agent got caught, the handler could still escape alive.

Consequently, agents and operatives were merely consumables to be used whenever convenient, easily discarded if need be. People like us referred to such individuals as ‘assets.’

No matter how one wrapped it up in words, at the end of the day, they were still just disposable items.

Veronica wasn’t much different.

“Thinking back, I always ended up guessing because they never told me anything. I was told to find a way in, but they never explained where or why to enter, which nearly got me killed.”

“…How did that happen?”

It was a somewhat dumb question. I’ve seen countless people die while on missions for missionary work.

But Veronica calmly brought her hand to her neck and gave it a few soft taps.

“I nearly got my head chopped off! My hair had grown out quite a bit, and I almost got killed with a bob cut!”

“Ah, I see.”

She spoke with a bright tone, but the situation itself was far from cheerful.

It left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“…Ugh.”

With nothing else to say, I fumbled open the cork and searched for a cup. But as I looked around with bleary eyes, there were no cups resembling wine glasses on the table.

“Don’t have a cup?”

“Just drink it straight. Why do we have to draw the line over such things between us?”

As I watched Veronica gulp down the wine straight from the bottle while waving her hand, I couldn’t help but ask.

“…What even are we to each other?”

“Well…we’re in a situation where we can hold hands and gasp all night?”

“Shut up.”

It’s quite the talent to talk like that.

I held the open wine bottle and stared blankly at the sea. Veronica, sitting across from me, slapped the wine bottle down with a loud sound.

“Ugh— I’m getting drunk.”

“…Can we keep up appearances here?”

Veronica, who had downed the wine as if it were water, quickly became incoherent. It was quite a sight I couldn’t bear to look at, so I lightly scolded her. Veronica just wiped her mouth with her hand, mumbling about comparing the elders of our cult.

“Stop nagging. Should I come all the way here to get nagged at?”

“…….”

I didn’t have it in me to match the drunken person’s mood, so I gazed silently at the night sea. Veronica tossed an empty bottle carelessly on the white sand and stumbled to search for another bottle.

I couldn’t help but hand over my wine to the swaying figure of hers, who was bending over trying to find the bottle.

Taking the wine, Veronica took a swig, leaning back against her chair and began to mumble.

“Still… as time goes on, it seems manageable.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, just that, since it’s been over 20 years…everyone mentions different things.”

“The people from the Imperial Guard HQ?”

Veronica silently swished some wine in her mouth, nodding slightly.

Watching her, I pressed a question.

“What do they say?”

“Life stories. Work stories. Just normal tales.”

“…….”

“I went somewhere, and the scenery was beautiful. I came from a place where something exists. I tasted something that was delicious. What would be a good gift for my family? I miss someone I parted with. The superiors suck. Kids these days have no manners…”

The saint reminisced about the past while looking at the night sea from the Magic Tower. Whether she was intoxicated or just lost in time, her murmurs were not eloquent.

If a journalist heard it, they would immediately pull out their notepad to jot it down, but I didn’t need that. I could easily remember most conversations or situations in my head. I had been trained in that, gone through those experiences, and developed that habit.

It was the same even now.

I absorbed all the information Veronica shared, pondering what kind of report I would need to write upon returning. It was a natural thought process without consciously deciding to do so.

Suddenly, I found myself questioning how I ended up like this.

So for the first time, I asked Veronica a personal question.

“Veronica.”

“Yeah?”

There were many questions I wanted to ask her.

What was her reason for accepting the proposal to be an Intelligence Officer?

Wasn’t she scared when she was first summoned by the royal family?

Knowing very well that she was assigned a dangerous task, why didn’t she refuse?

What had she done with the compensation received for helping the Imperial Guard HQ?

When Lucia went to war, she was already a saint—why didn’t she stop her younger sister from going to the battlefield?

Was there a reason to live, even while vilifying Lucia and trying to eliminate Raul?

Why did she send an assassin when Lucia had not become a saint?

There were many questions I wanted to ask.

Some were simple inquiries that I could easily find out with a little effort, while others could be answered by accessing classified records at the intelligence agency, and some were questions I wouldn’t expect to be answered, even if I asked them now.

But in the end, I couldn’t ask anything except one simple question that floated to my lips.

“Why did you become an intelligence agent?”

“…….”

Why she became an intelligence agent.

At this question, Veronica lifted her head to answer.

“To survive.”

“……”

“Does living need a reason?”

It was quite a challenging question.

It had no definitive answer. Hence, it was a question difficult to respond to.

Philosophy, beliefs, ideologies, past experiences, inner thoughts—all those had to be tightly packaged to give an answer.

This question was more difficult than the one asked during a high school club interview about which came first, the chicken or the egg.

In fact, all matters in the world were like that.

If someone were to ask “Who are you?” they would respond, “I am who I am, holding this rank in this organization.” But if someone asked, “What kind of person are you?” they wouldn’t be able to reply easily.

Humans are beings that can’t be simply defined, and all things in the world ultimately stem from them.

In turn, the saint posed me a question.

“Colonel.”

“Yes?”

“Why did you become a soldier?”

It was, indeed, a difficult question.

As I pondered over a response, the scent of violets mingled with the smell of alcohol wafted in from the sea breeze. I must be drunk.

With a deep sigh, I rose from my seat.

In the end, I hadn’t gotten any decent intelligence today. I didn’t possess the courage to indulge Veronica’s drunken folly, so I decided to try to take the wine she held.

In retrospect, I might have done that to avoid answering as well.

“I’m drunk. Let’s head in and get some sleep…”

“Aah…! Let go!”

“No, you’re clearly drunk right now!”

“I’m not drunk…!”

Under the night sea, the two of us tugged at the wine bottle, engaged in a playful tug of war.

Anyone watching would shake their head and think, “If you’re going to get drunk, do it gracefully.”

I tried to coax the drunken Veronica into compliance. She surprisingly had a lot of strength.

“Crazy woman! If a drunk person is by the water at night, they’ll die! Get up and go home!”

“Are you the elder now or what…!”

“I’m losing my mind! Damn it!”

“It’s mine…!”

Veronica sprawled out on the beach, acting like someone who couldn’t possibly be a saint. It was already hard enough to deal with a madwoman, but with alcohol in the mix, things quickly got beyond control.

Should I threaten to report her to the Inquisition? But seeing her sprawled out with no one around, clutching a wine bottle and whining away, I figured that kind of threat would likely have no effect.

“Fine, just go back and drink quietly!”

“You didn’t answer me!”

“Why are you so concerned with someone else’s family issues, you lunatic!”

“It was about family, wasn’t it?”

The voice coming from the drunk was far too reasonable to be believed.

Wondering what the situation was like, I looked up to find Veronica staring at me with a composed expression, free of her drunken haze.

“What? If that’s the case, you should have said something. Just say it once.”

“Why do you ask such things? You’ve already done your research, right?”

“Knowing about someone else’s family while refusing to talk about yours is quite rude.”

Now that was a stupid logic. If Aristotle heard that, he’d likely jump out of his grave to slap her in the chest.

Yet the boldness in Veronica’s demeanor, along with the strength in her grip on the bottle, was beyond all imagination. No matter how hard I tried to yank it away, it wouldn’t budge an inch. Did their religion really allow their prayers to buff up their muscles? I should have diligently attended church more often.

“Let’s put this down and talk it over.”

“If you don’t tell me, I won’t let go.”

“…Ugh.”

Ultimately, I could only let out a deep sigh and speak up.

“…My dad was a soldier. Is that good enough?”

“Dad? Your father never served in the military, did he? He worked at the Ministry of Finance, if I’m not mistaken.”

“…Let’s just say he was someone like that. Whatever.”

“How about your entry into the intelligence agency?”

“I passed the exam.”

“Not that. Was there someone like your father in the agency?”

“…Yeah, let’s just say that’s plausible.”

“Eh, really?”

Veronica looked disappointed, laying the bottle down as if her interest had vanished. The bottle rolled and sank into the sandy beach.

I wobbled and stood up, brushing the sand off my clothes, while Veronica sprawled out on the ground like a child, gazing up at the sky.

With no strength left to argue, I left her sprawled on the beach and took a seat in the folding chair.

“…Get up. If we’ve had our fun, it’s time to go back.”

“…….”

“…Veronica?”

“…….”

“Could it be you’re sleeping?”

“…….”

“……”

Worried she might actually be asleep, I shifted to peek over. The magically created moonlight illuminated Veronica’s face. Her eyes had closed. Not wanting to believe it was a trick, I poked her and even touched her nose. She didn’t flinch, which confirmed she had indeed fallen asleep.

“…I’m losing my mind.”

With all my might, I carried her back to her villa. I also nicely cleaned up her things and bottles that were left behind.

Only upon tossing her onto the bed did I realize my left shoulder was throbbing.

The stitching had come undone.