A Dark Fantasy Spy

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The world I’m in right now is a game world. To be exact, it’s the universe of a game called ‘Heroes of the Dark World,’ which I started after a recommendation from a colleague who worked at the Eastern European embassy.

In the game, the protagonist, or the player, is referred to as a ‘Hero.’ It sounds like something you’d expect from a typical Japanese nerd game or web novel, but surprisingly, it was developed by a studio in Eastern Europe.

If you ask why a game made in Eastern Europe uses a Japanese-sounding term, I wouldn’t really have an answer for you.

The reason is simple: there is no official Korean support, so players patched together a Korean translation, but it’s hard to believe that such a translation became a mess because of a nerd who was on the translation team. That nerd happens to be the very colleague who recommended the game.

Self-proclaimed Japanese culture expert. Often called a nerd. He studied Japanese the hardest because he wanted to go to Japan more than anyone else among our colleagues, yet ironically, he ended up going to Eastern Europe due to his major. Poor guy.

Anyway,

In the world of ‘Heroes of the Dark World’, players are called ‘Heroes,’ but living here for 28 years, I’ve learned that the title for a player varies depending on religion and country.

Due to religious reasons, the cult calls them ‘Hero’ or ‘God’s Representative,’ while in the Mauritania Continent, they are referred to as ‘Mother’s First Child.’ In some Eastern countries, they are called ‘Godless,’ and unofficially in the magical society, they are known as ‘Guardian of the Edicts.’ Of course, in countries like Abas, which fall under the cult’s influence, they just call them Heroes.

The reason why Abas, which is not a theocratic state, still uses religiously colored terms is primarily to avoid conflict with the cult over just one title. The second reason is that the empire and Patalia and most neighboring countries have been under the cult’s influence for a long time, so there’s no need to change terms that have been in use. While the second reason is also considerable, the first reason is the most significant.

In a world where phenomena beyond common sense like magic, divinity, sorcery, and the mysterious exist, ‘language’ carries immense meaning. Priests and shamans chant prayers to receive divine powers, and magicians cast spells to use stable magic. Living in a world where this is the norm, you can truly feel that a single word or syllable holds vast meanings.

From those who mistakenly make political statements and throw themselves off balconies to cultists who warp official prayer texts to pray to foreign gods, strange occurrences arise because of a simple word or syllable, which makes the people here sensitive to language. Politically or religiously.

But as is the case with all pointless debates, the argument over language here mostly arises from unnecessary pride.

Just like now.

“Manager, no, Colonel. This morning I received a message from the cult. They’ve lodged a complaint through the imperial embassy to the Magic Tower?”

“What’s the issue?”

“They complained not to use the term ‘Guardian of the Edicts.'”

“Here we go again.”

—

Episode 7 – Everyday Life

Although I had quit my work in operations, I was not unemployed.

The Intelligence Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are always bustling, and I was a liaison officer at a diplomatic mission. This means I couldn’t take a break even if I wanted to.

“Colonel, regarding the external director of the private security firm we contacted last week. The company employees are having issues.”

“What kind of issues?”

“It seems they want to speak directly with you, Colonel. To put it specifically… They seem to hope for a connection with the Saint. Apparently, they want to get contracts from the cult as well as the Magic Tower.”

“So instead of extorting compensation from me, they want to connect through me to Lucia and Veronica, huh? Those religious folks want to score some business. And the branch employees are looking to get a piece of that pie, I see.”

“Yes, the founder is a former imperial soldier, so they think it would be a loss if they let this go.”

“Someone’s trying to conduct covert operations in the empire… Alright. Put the documents related to that security firm on my desk.”

I was living a busier everyday life than usual. The world was half-crazy, so I was even busier.

The Magic Tower was frantically trying to mop up the chaos caused by the Abas Information Agency, and as a consequence, the magic society on the continent was shaken, with many countries caught up in the mess.

The cult, which hated sorcerers more than anyone, was busy implanting their information network in the Magic Tower, while Patalia, the Magic Tower’s ally, was sniffing around looking for anything to gain.

Meanwhile, the Kien Empire was in a hurry to get the Magic Tower out, fearing something might happen to Camila and Lucia, the Lushan Federation was trying to revive the construction industry by securing large development projects from the Magic Tower, and the Kingdom of Abas was maintaining an oddly suspicious silence.

Amidst that complex web, I was running around like crazy trying to manage informants and take care of my colleagues, leaving no room for leisure.

It was madness.

“Oh, and regarding the Hero’s health check, the Magic Tower has completed the necessary procedures, and we just need to wait for the results.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“None.”

As I was chatting with Jake in the office, someone knocked gently and entered.

“Good morning, Colonel.”

“Oh, Pippin, welcome.”

“Yes. Jake, what are you doing? Why are you here so early?”

“Pippin, aren’t you the one who came out late? I’ve told you again and again to either wake up early or at least widen your stride— Ah, crap, wait a second. Don’t stomp with your army boots—”

“Drop dead—!”

Pippin, who arrived on time, was trying hard to smash Jake’s shinbone. It wasn’t particularly serious.

I clicked my tongue, watching the subordinates tease each other just like every other day.

“Hey, how come you guys have been teasing each other about skin color and height for three years? Aren’t you tired of it? Just stop before it raises some dust. Adults should start acting their age. Seriously…”

There were no special events to bring thrilling adventures away from the everyday routine.

This town was just the same every day, and I was no exception.

“So what do you plan to do when I return? Do you think you’ll be able to manage?”

I checked the return date marked on the calendar and asked my subordinates. The response was delightfully simple.

“World domination—!!”

“Shut up!”

“Oh dear, what a mess….”

It was the start of another ordinary day.

—

Though I lived an everyday life just like anyone else, sadly, I was a person far from normal. That’s because I was an intelligence officer.

Intelligence Officer.

The intelligence agency has numerous titles, but all intelligence agents fundamentally fall under that category because they all handle ‘information.’

So today, like any other day, I dealt with an immense amount of information. To be more precise, since the correct expression would be ‘intelligence.’

There were doctors who wanted to see Lucia’s healing with their own eyes and refused to let the hospital director get free medical services, executives from a security firm trying to gain contracts through Veronica, resident officers asking questions about military secrets and Camila’s abilities under the pretense of fostering relationships, officials from the Magic Tower’s secretariat lugging around gifts hoping to butter up Francesca Ranieri, and diplomats who invited me to eat comfortably but continued to talk about work. Today I interacted with an endless stream of people. This is what I usually do as a military intelligence officer.

Just like we call people who work in the Ministry of Public Administration ‘civil servants’, and people who work in the foreign ministry refer to themselves as ‘diplomats’, employees of Samsung Electronics or Lotte Chilsung Beverage are referred to as ‘company employees,’ similarly, those working in the intelligence agency can all be called ‘intelligence officers’, and when the moment comes for me to introduce myself, I opted for ‘intelligence officer’ rather than ‘operative.’

“So calling someone working at an intelligence agency, ‘informant’ or ‘operative’ would lead to big trouble. To put it metaphorically, informants, operatives, and collaborators are somewhat like subcontractors, while intelligence officers and operatives are the main contractors. If the titles aren’t used properly, intelligence officers can get quite upset. We’re people too.”

“I got it! I’ll be careful!”

“Good response. I like it.”

Of course, my unordinary routine had turned a complete 180 lately.

What caused that was right in front of my eyes.

“Camila, did you have any problems today?”

“None!”

Camila beamed and nodded. Her crimson hair fluttered gently with her head movements. Perhaps it was the striking color of her hair, but looking at her naturally brought an image of flames to my mind.

She spoke to me.

“I completed all the tasks you assigned yesterday. Psychology, forensic science, national intelligence, first aid, and general knowledge, all of it.”

Camila has been training under me these days.

It’s not the standard training for newly hired intelligence officers by the agency… Rather, I’ve been teaching her based on experiences and recollections from my fieldwork.

“Is this your organized content?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s take a look.”

Though we promised to balance training with theoretical education, since I’m a diplomat and couldn’t find time on days like today, Camila had no choice but to review the theory by herself.

“Ah, by the way, I’m sorry for being late. I had a lengthy appointment this evening….”

“Who did you meet?”

“Quite a few. Medical associations, private enterprise executives, NGO heads, resident officers, civil servants, and diplomats.”

“That must’ve been tiring.”

Of course, I couldn’t just toss my duties as a diplomat aside. I’m a civil servant, after all. Luckily, Camila understood that part with great understanding.

However, I couldn’t exactly tell her to spend the entire day just reading, so I assigned her a few tasks. In other words, training in information analysis.

“Camila. You confirmed the issues with the location estimation of the core members of that hypothetical Islamic extremist group we practiced before, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I think it would be great if you could work on speaking a bit more slowly. Other than that, there’s nothing really problematic.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

I nodded while placing her organized notes down.

“Your analysis report is above average. The annotations are appropriately included, there’s consensus on terminology, and you remembered to include the confidentiality notice well.”

Camila interned for 11 weeks at the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service), widely known as MI6, which is Britain’s foreign intelligence agency. It was a sort of recruitment-linked internship program where British intelligence agencies recruit candidates from graduating university students.

Her responsibilities involved foreign intelligence analysis.

Of course, Camila wasn’t actually analyzing top-secret intelligence like Pippin; rather, she was responsible for transforming far less classified intelligence into usable information. Intelligence agencies don’t just handle classified stuff.

Intelligence agencies produce a multitude of intelligence reports, and some of them are hard to even call classified. For instance, demographics or geological structures of certain areas, international news posted on foreign media and Twitter, papers and journals published by academic societies, and rumors thrown out by journalists who seem to have a stockpile of shares.

Just by browsing the internet, unfiltered intelligence can be easily obtained. The 21st century is an information society.

But intelligence agencies are the ones that transform even seemingly useless pieces of intelligence into ‘information,’ and the magicians who make that possible are analysts. That was Camila’s role.

Of course—

“I’ve had my fill of it. I quit because it was so boring and didn’t extend my contract….”

Camila was someone who found analysis work painfully dull and left.

“How could you quit a job because you found it boring? Wasn’t it a waste? Once you’ve worked hard enough to extend the internship contract, you’re almost guaranteed a job afterward. It would’ve been great if you landed a job right after graduation, wouldn’t it?”

“Eh, how could you do such a mundane task every day?”

“……”

I was about to express that sometimes ignorance is bliss, so I sealed my lips. Sometimes it’s better to protect her ideals and innocence.

I organized the documents Camila had diligently prepared and sat down opposite her.

“Well, having internship experience means you’re absolutely good at information analysis.”

“Then what can’t I do?”

I clenched my fists, bringing them up to my chest.

“Everything!”

“……”

“……”

“Did you just imitate Salah ad-Din from Kingdom of Heaven?”

“Oh, it’s an old movie, so of course I know it.”

Camila nodded calmly.

“Because it’s a masterpiece.”

She clearly knows a thing or two.

—

“Hey, Colonel? No, Frederick?”

“Just call me whatever you feel comfortable with. It doesn’t matter.”

“Come to think of it, I don’t know anything about you.”

Camila tilted her head curiously.

“I don’t know your profession, where you lived, how you lived, and not even what your name is.”

“I’m a military man. I live in the single quarters of the unit. I can’t remember the unit’s location, and I can barely recall my name. After graduating from high school, I entered Korea University and joined the Student Military Training Corps. I went for interviews at Gyeryongdae, received a scholarship, and enlisted as soon as I graduated. My first posting was probably in a division covering the GOP in Cheorwon, and the second was a coastal boundary unit in Uljin.”

I spread my arms and smiled at her with a grin.

“Do you need to know more?”

“You forgot your name? Surely, your memory isn’t that bad? How does a person forget their name?”

“Well, there are just too many names to remember, I suppose.”

I shrugged casually, and Camila looked at me with a deflated expression.

“Are you trying to tease me?”

“I could do that all day.”

“Oh, seriously!”