A Dark Fantasy Spy

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“Are you causing any trouble lately?”

The words tossed by Leoni, the Director of the Royal Intelligence Department’s National Operations Office, were somewhat perplexing.

Causing trouble? What on earth did that mean?

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say….”

I fumbled over my words, quickly wracking my brain. Was there a problem?

The only thing I had recently been involved in was covert operations (kidnapping and murder of Fabio Verati and his youngest daughter, bombings, assassinations, deceptions, etc.).

Of course, aside from covert operations, I had met several people for information gathering. But I was acting in an official capacity, and the activities of an information officer disguised as a diplomat were activities clearly protected by international agreements. All my information gathering was lawful and within the bounds of conventional intelligence activities.

What was I talking about?

There was no way to stop spies operating from an embassy.

Official diplomats, just like those in China or Russia who handle counterintelligence tightly, can’t be easily touched. If they actively obstructed the activities of an official diplomat, the British and American embassies would have withdrawn from China and Russia a long time ago.

Arrests or legal punishments were impossible due to diplomatic immunity. The only practical way to punish them was to label them as undesirable and expel them. Even expulsion would be carried out thoroughly and unofficially out of fear of deteriorating diplomatic relations.

USA, UK, France, Germany, Israel, China, Russia, North Korea, Japan, South Korea.

Countless intelligence agencies observed this unspoken rule. And this neighborhood was no different.

So if there was a ‘problem’ with my activities, it was likely due to covert operations.

Thus, I questioned Leoni with a blend of confidence from my diplomatic status and slight anxiety.

“…You’re not here to tell me I might get expelled, are you?”

Leoni replied, “Not at all. Your activities haven’t been detected anywhere. At least you’ve managed to deceive the Magic Tower’s eyes.”

“Then what’s this about…?”

The Director of the Royal Intelligence Department said, “I noticed you accessed information from the Royal Intelligence Department. That too, information unrelated to your job. Without permission.”

“……”

“Why did you do that?”

Episode 6 – Omniscient Spy Perspective

To explain why I was being pressed by Director Leoni, I had to rewind the clock a few hours.

To the moment when a large quantity of contraband and drugs were discovered.

Veronica asked me, “So, what are you going to do now?”

“What am I going to do? I’m going to work.”

“Information gathering?”

“Exactly. You’re well aware. I need a driver, so get in.”

I hopped into the car Veronica brought, laying out a prepaid phone and secure device on the passenger seat’s glove compartment. I switched between the prepaid phone and secure device, making calls here and there.

By the way, Veronica was driving.

“Seriously… it’s my first time seeing a Saint as a driver. What kind of situation is this?”

“This is my first time seeing a Saint doing spy work. Is that normal?”

“Well, we do live quite freely, don’t we?”

I smoothly brushed aside Veronica’s grumbling and grabbed the prepaid phone. The first contact was a friend of mine working at the National Security Agency.

“Hey, what’s up, Merlo?”

“Are you still in the Empire?”

“No. Ranieri has gone back to the Magic Tower, so we need to head to the Tower as well. I’m currently waiting for my pickup after finishing my immigration checks.”

“Well, can you give me a piece of information? It’s related to the private enterprise sector.”

“Merlo, please don’t tell me you’ve switched to being an industrial spy all of a sudden?”

“No, it’s not like that. I just need to verify something. It’s about the private enterprise in Patalia. I don’t need detailed information, just find out who owned it before and who’s managing it now.”

“Name?”

“La Cardenal.”

The company that owned the most smuggled goods Veronica informed me about was called ‘La Cardenal.’ Currently of Alandirus nationality, it had previously been of Patalia nationality, so the National Security Agency must have records on it. As long as the preservation period was valid, of course.

“I’ll look into it. Only if there’s data remaining, though.”

“It’s dangerous, so don’t send it; have your representative office send it to ours.”

“Can I charge you for copy costs?”

“Forget it.”

Sofia said she’d check, and then I replaced the SIM card in my pocket with a new one and reached out to another contact.

The second call was also to a friend of mine.

“…Hey, you bastard spy. Why are you calling me?”

“Hey there, journalist. I just need to ask you something.”

“Spill it, you prick.”

“Do you have any information related to smuggling and drugs in this area?”

The ex-reporter Dmitri from an imperial newspaper. Being a reporter in the social department, he knew a lot. Thus, he was the second person among my sources with extensive connections. By the way, the first was currently driving next to me.

“Why? Smuggling? Drugs?”

The former social department head from the imperial media caught the scent. The scent of a scoop.

Of course, he didn’t let on, but the sounds coming from the phone suggested he was mildly excited. Here we go again…

“Why do you need that kind of info? Are you on some international crime investigation?”

“Nope. I just need it, so figure it out, damn it.”

“Whoa now, you bastard spy. Look at how you’ve shortened your words. Sure, what do you want to know?”

“Everything! The items coming in and out of the Magic Tower, drug categories, arrest records, handling companies, folks involved, the notorious corruption cases, their identities.”

“Hey, what do you think this is, a detective agency? Do you seriously expect to find out something like that? I’m not some economic sector journalist turning over stock tidbits…”

“So do you have any information? Yes or no.”

Dmitri didn’t demand payment. He wasn’t a man motivated by money. What drove him was a sense of mission, pride, and a dash of ambition.

While I couldn’t directly provide that, I could hint at ways to achieve it. The choice was always Dmitri’s to make.

“How much time you gonna give me?”

He decided to help with my request again.

“How long do you think it’ll take?”

“Hmm… if lucky, a week?”

“Finish it within three days. If you need anything, say it now.”

“I know some but they’re all small-time. I need a connection with the big boys playing in the big leagues. Uhh, the information officers at the embassy must be chock-full of knowledge in these matters.”

He had a point.

While people often don’t realize, those with official capacity have connections not just with host country officials but also with gangsters, smugglers, drug dealers, and intelligence agents. Dmitri, as a former social department head, wasn’t ignorant of this.

Though, a whiff of greed was evident. Why did the social department head want me to connect him with the information officers?

It was all part of a scheme where he hoped to ingratiate himself with the information assets of the Abas Information Agency, to forge his connections, extract information, and hunt for exclusive stories. I wasn’t oblivious to that.

“Alright. I’ll contact you when I’m ready.”

“Cool.”

“But this isn’t my jurisdiction, so I can’t guarantee it either.”

I chose to overlook that.

Providing what the source demanded was the handler’s duty, and that was the rule of the game.

Thus, I kept myself in debt with Sofia, while fulfilling Dmitri’s requests. Someday I’d have to repay Sofia, but that was a matter for the future. I could just pay her back when the time came.

After that, I continued reaching out to various contacts. Jake, Pippin, 73rd Combat Unit, Defense Attaché, Police Attaché, Magic Tower Police agents, Magic Tower government officials, Magic Tower counterintelligence agents, Inquisition…

Sometimes orders were exchanged, other times requests, and occasionally harsh words were exchanged. I kept making calls, keeping in touch with someone.

And after quite some time, I noticed the sharp gaze from the driver’s seat and turned my head.

“…Why are you looking at me like that, Saint?”

“Uhm…”

Veronica, wearing sunglasses while steering, let out a hum.

“I was wondering if I should ask Colonel for a favor later.”

“Well, I feel like you’ll just make unreasonable requests of me.”

“Who knows?”

She said with a gentle smile, “That’s hard to say.”

*

Veronica dropped me off at a park far from the Abas representative office. Though I glanced around the passenger seat a few times, I checked carefully if any tails were following me as I wandered among nearby buildings and alleys.

Only after confirming there were no tails did I confidently push open the door to the representative office.

“Jake!”

“Yes! I’m coming!”

Upon calling his name, Jake popped out to greet me.

“Where’s the information I asked for?”

The information I had referred to was the data regarding La Cardenal and its connections to smuggling and drugs. Jake placed the documents he found from the Foreign Affairs Police and Military Intelligence Agency servers on the desk.

“Here it is.”

“Thanks for your hard work.”

I sat at the desk and began to quickly skim through the reports. Clearly, the volume wasn’t something I could finish before clock-out time, so I had a foreboding sense of another late night ahead.

Eventually, I divided the documents accurately into three parts, passing one stack to Jake. I called Pippin to hand over another stack.

“What’s all this? Director, you didn’t get into trouble again, did you?”

“Trouble, my foot. What do you think I am?”

“I mean… you seem to attract trouble wherever you go…”

Despite Pippin’s and Jake’s complaints, I had grown accustomed to it, so it had now become routine to sit down and begin reviewing documents. We gathered around the office desk and examined the reports.

“Jake, you handle the information on La Cardenal. Pippin, review the smuggling-related info. I’ll look at this one.”

“What’s that? Drugs? Did the Inquisition request information sharing?”

“No, it’s just personal. Not directly related, but there’s something I’m concerned about.”

I began reading the drug-related documents stored by the Foreign Affairs Police. The number of drug offenders caught near the Magic Tower, drug transaction statuses being carried out inside and outside the Magic Tower, production scales, identified facilities, the dealers, contacts, manufacturers, financiers, and so on.

‘Strategies for tackling drug crimes.’

‘Collaboration methods with local and international agencies for arresting drug offenders.’

‘Management methods for chemicals and alchemical materials to block drug crimes.’

I filtered out all the useless information like this. I wasn’t interested in such matters. What I genuinely wanted to know was something else.

The steadily increasing numbers of drug offenders every year.

The types of drug offenders and their causes.

The production methods and distribution channels of drugs.

The customs clearance process for drugs manufactured in the Magic Tower.

Organizations and groups dealing drugs inside and outside the Magic Tower.

People and companies making profits from drugs, warlords, etc.

What I truly wanted to know were these things.

“……”

In fact, there wasn’t an essential reason I was searching for this information. It was just an instinct.

Having witnessed some red guards’ drug dealings a few times and seen how such activities funded warlords and government forces in Southeast Asia or Africa, I had also seen jihadists in the Middle East get caught growing opium poppies.

If the drugs I discovered today were managed by the Magic Tower’s Secretariat—specifically, the Economic Management Department—it would be a serious problem.

If it were revealed, nations like the Empire or the Cult, which experience drug booms, might designate the Magic Tower as the ‘axis of evil’ and project military force against it. Allies like Abas or Patalia could also mobilize various means to pressurize the Tower.

Then, Francesca Ranieri would surely get caught in the crossfire. That was inevitable. The alchemist was working in the Secretariat’s Economic Management Department, after all.

“……”

The best scenario would be proving that those drugs had no relation to the Magic Tower. But if they were genuinely linked to the Tower, I had to devise some countermeasures.

For example, I could package it as a whistleblower to manage the image. Or I might quietly dispose of the drugs or forge documents to ensure no connections could be traced.

“Director?”

Jake’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. When I looked up, the blond troublemaker with a pen in hand was flipping through the documents and calling on me.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“This document is a bit… or rather, a lot odd, isn’t it? Right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Please take a look at this.”

I took the document Jake was holding and quickly read through it.

And then I understood why Jake suddenly brought up something strange.

“…What is this?”

“I’m not sure. Did they mess up the printing?”

“This. No matter how I look at it, it’s not a printing issue.”

I slammed the documents down loudly and leaned back. I rubbed the back of my neck and let out a deep sigh.

“Ugh….”

The documents I had set down contained most lines that had been redacted during the security review process, marked out with black bars.

I murmured looking at the papers.

“Here they go again…”

In the middle of the paper, there was the emblem of the Royal Intelligence Department.

*

Most of the documents sent from the Royal Intelligence Department to the Military Intelligence Agency had been redacted. To be precise, it was a document sent from the Information Management Office of the Abas representative office to the Defense Attaché Office. But both were overseas branches of intelligence agencies, so they were akin to the same entity.

After that, what came next was predictable.

I took the documents and confronted the intelligence officer I caught in the Information Management Office and inquired why they hadn’t shared the information properly. The officer rebutted by asking why I was trying to access documents unrelated to my duties.

Ultimately, I found myself grabbing the receiver and calling the Abas representative in the Tower (who had just gotten off work and was showering), whining that the Royal Intelligence Department wasn’t properly sharing information.

To be honest, it was a huge breach of etiquette to complain to people I had barely even seen a few times, but I didn’t have the luxury to care about such things right now.

The Royal Intelligence Department was hiding information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was being passive about intelligence matters, and the Military Intelligence Agency didn’t even respond to the reports.

Who else could I talk to? It was my responsibility to handle this.

Anyway, without even a moment to explain, I threw a tantrum and managed to snag a couple of documents regarding La Cardenal from the Royal Intelligence Department.

And then I got caught by Leoni.

“I noticed you accessed information from the Royal Intelligence Department. That too, information unrelated to your job. Without permission.”

“……”

“Why did you do that?”

That was the crux of the matter.

“It’s problematic to suddenly come at me without a proper reason. No matter how unglamorous my title as a diplomat may be, I still represent an institution.”

Director Leoni from the Defense Attaché Office confronted me in my seat.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, reasons are important in this field…”

“……”

“Why did you do that?”

I quietly closed the binder I had received from the Royal Intelligence Department.

“I’m just doing my job, like the intelligence officers here.”

“Since when was tracing a shell company part of your mission? I don’t recall receiving such an assignment.”

“I have never officially or unofficially been assigned to covert operations. I’m just looking into—”

“The fact that you haven’t been assigned a mission means it’s a personal matter.”

The Director interrupted me.

“……”

“So, you accessed the Intelligence Department’s data on your own accord?”

I countered.

“I won’t deny that I haven’t been ordered by the Military Intelligence Agency to gather intelligence on La Cardenal. But this activity is still relevant to my duties. You can’t unreasonably restrict that.”

That was a defense at best and at worst, a provocation.

No matter what, she was a policy decision-maker at the National Intelligence Agency, and I was just an officer from the military intelligence agency.

Moreover, she had a background in military intelligence herself.

To be honest, considering Leoni’s personality, I expected her to hurl some curses at me, but surprisingly, she didn’t say anything and just stared at me.

“……”

“……”

We maintained an uncomfortable silence, gazing at each other. The experienced intelligence officer’s impassive expression conveyed much despite not saying a word.

After a long silence, Leoni finally spoke.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“I don’t have anything more to add.”

“You don’t seem to plan on quitting anytime soon.”

“……”

I decided against saying anything further.

“…Alright. You can go now.”

Leoni stood up and gathered her belongings before leaving the office.

She didn’t say anything more.

“I hope you won’t regret this.”

That was all she said.

*

Time passed in an instant. Leoni left the office without uttering another word, and I remained in the office, continuing to review the documents.

Pippin and Jake had already clocked out. With the Director of the Royal Intelligence Department coming around, it wouldn’t look good for me to keep them there late.

And now, the office lights were off.

The documents stored by the Royal Intelligence Department turned out to be less than crucial. I only learned that La Cardenal was a company dealing with magical tools, resources for magical tools, and herbs or materials required by magicians.

What it owned, why it went bankrupt, who owned how much of the shares, and where the materials and transports managed by the company went after it collapsed were not provided.

I couldn’t tell if the Royal Intelligence Department just had such meager information or if they were deliberately hiding it.

“Thank you for your service, Colonel.”

“Take care.”

“Oh, by the way, a communique came down from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday. They advised caution when moving alone at night, as it may be dangerous. If you need, I can arrange transportation to the hotel?”

“…No, I’m fine.”

The embassy security guard mentioned he was aware and advised me to head in carefully, sealing the entrance to the representative office. I heard they were a special forces unit, but I wasn’t particularly concerned enough to know their exact origin.

Feeling a sense of unease, I exited the representative office and headed toward my hotel.

The security had always been unstable, but the night was particularly cold and dark, with turmoil from the protests breaking out in the Magic Tower.

But that darkness did not approach me.

The patrolling police would step aside if I showed them my diplomatic passport, and with only police around the main roads, I didn’t have to worry about any thugs appearing before my eyes.

“……”

Walking the night streets without worry for my safety inevitably led to intrusive thoughts. The first and foremost thought was concern.

What will happen to me now?

I could provide ample reasoning should I elaborate on everything, but given that I’d caused a stir and accessed the Royal Intelligence Department’s documents without valid reasons, I might face disciplinary action.

Perhaps even if the intelligence agency did not impose sanctions, the representative could issue a suspension.

Engaging in capricious access to sensitive information didn’t bode well for me.

In fact, it would seem odd for the representative not to grant the information willingly.

It didn’t appear that they were looking to help out. Perhaps regarding it as an issue for the Royal Intelligence Department, they might simply have wished to leave it to be dealt with.

Those worries about the future ended there.

It was anyway something that hadn’t happened yet. Worrying over it endlessly wouldn’t do me much good. If anything, it would be better if the representative authorized a suspension. I could take it as time off, hanging out with Camila or Lucia. I could also manage the information agents while collecting information.

As I contemplated that, I found myself standing near the hotel.

A quiet night street loomed ahead, and the hotel could be seen far off.

A place where I could rest comfortably. With that thought, I strained to take a step forward.

The night in the Magic Tower was cold and dark, but that darkness did not approach me. I steered away from the dark pathways toward the bright street, taking steps forward.

However, what I miscalculated was that this was not the relatively safer Cult or Abas, but the Magic Tower.

-Vroom!

-Squeak!

“…?”

In this filthy, dark fantasy world, living as an information agent means there’s no such thing as things going exactly as predicted.