A Dark Fantasy Spy

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“Hey? Suddenly Frederick?”

Camila, who was busy starting a fire, tilted her head in confusion. Amid the unusual cold snap causing fatalities, people like her, who could make a fire with a bit of effort, were welcomed anywhere in the North.

Her ivory-like hands waved gently in the air, and the heat shimmered as the flames blossomed like petals.

“Fwoosh!” The fire erupted, and the workers around the cavern glanced over at the two of them, while Camila’s face blushed unexpectedly in a vibrant hue.

“Hmm….”

Francesca, who had been standing around observing the underground cavern, broke the silence.

“Hero. Don’t you feel anything unusual?”

“Eh? What do you mean by feel?”

“Yeah. Like suddenly feeling cold or having an upset stomach or anything like that.”

Camila, handing out embers to the workers, fell into deep thought.

With her arms crossed and one leg propped, she hummed softly, then suddenly tilted her head with a mysterious expression.

“Now that I think about it, I’ve had a strange feeling for a while.”

“A chilling feeling?”

“Like someone is definitely watching me? It just makes me want to step away for no reason, you know?”

“….”

After hearing her response, Francesca took one glance at the collapsed canal, then turned her body and trudged away from the site.

Camila, tilting her head, quickly followed her in a hurried step.

—

Episode 12 – The Strongest Magician in History

“Oh gosh. Is it already this time…?”

As the sun sank in the west, I sat in the office, looking over some documents and paused to gaze out the window at the view.

With a stiff neck and drooping shoulders, I twisted my sore wrist and suddenly remembered an uncle I used to meet frequently a long time ago.

The Colonel with a wallet-type smartphone case stuffed full of cards and business cards, sitting in the office with a golf ball massager hung around his neck. I couldn’t understand back then why that was good. Nowadays, I often think I should buy a massager myself.

“Am I getting old…?”

“At 28, you’ve eaten enough. It’s about time you start worrying about your blood pressure, isn’t it?”

“Shut it, Jake.”

Jake, with a delinquent appearance that was hard to believe as a civil servant, snickered as he approached with a stack of documents. It was today’s approval paperwork.

Snatching the paperwork from his hand, I glared at Jake while picking up a pen.

“Anything unusual today?”

“Oh, there were plenty of unusual things.”

“What kind of things? Magic Tower? Cult? Or is it the Empire?”

“The magicians from the Magic Tower are causing us problems. Take a look at this page over here.”

—

The report, likely compiled by Pippin and Charnoy, contained information about the movements of the magicians from the Magic Tower.

Even though the author was noted as ‘Pippin,’ I assumed Charnoy had collaborated with her on the report for a specific reason.

“Hey, who doodled sunflowers on the report?”

“…Ah.”

I pointed at the sunflower drawing on the back page of the report while looking at Jake. It looked like something a five-year-old might draw with a kindergarten teacher’s help.

“I could go crazy….”

“My apologies. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Whatever, it’s no big deal.”

The intelligence contained in the report was vast, yet the organized data was straightforward.

Due to recent incidents in the past month, the magicians from the Magic Tower were uneasy.

According to the intelligence network in the Northern Regions compiled by the Information Officer of the Magic Tower, there were serious concerns among the magicians and high-ranking officials regarding the Duke’s approval of the Inquisition’s investigations.

Further, the report included a list of materials the Magic Tower had prepared to support the Empire and the Cult’s investigation activities, along with a list of those within the Tower opposed to that support. The former being data I obtained through Francesca.

“Hmm….”

It seems the magicians are currently feeling the heat. I thought all the murders and incidents were the Cult’s doing, but now substantial evidence pointed towards the Necromancer as the perpetrator.

If I were a magician, it would be devastating, but alas, I was not a magician.

Which meant the fate of the Magic Tower was of no concern to me.

I signed my name in the signature box and handed the documents back to Jake.

“The Magic Tower will soon reorganize internally with the Oracle, and I concluded that Francesca and Evangelos will manage the site, so that’s done. I know enough about the Cult already… What’s the Military Government Headquarters up to these days?”

“They’re busy. Everyone’s in a frenzy preparing to catch demons.”

The Imperial Ministry of Defense was wholeheartedly committed to demon hunting. From one perspective, they were taking a much more aggressive stance than the Cult.

Materials, personnel, funds, intelligence, and so on. The military was pouring every available resource towards the North.

On the occasion of the National Foundation Day event, they aimed to put an end to the disputes with foreign powers, and with all this chaos erupting, it’s no wonder they’re losing their minds.

The military, not wanting to see the Emperor’s reprimand result in a shower of stars, gathered troops from across the Empire to exterminate the demons.

Up to this point, I had predicted such outcomes. However, the contents of the report were deviating greatly from my expectations.

“Turning units sent from the center into defensive reserves? Wait, weren’t they sent to hunt demons? Why are they going into reserves?”

“It’s according to Commander Mikhail’s orders.”

“Commander Mikhail?”

“He wants to prepare the troops for any issues that may arise on the frontlines or in the rear during the demon hunt, organizing them into reserves to mitigate the potential damage. Given the current situation and considering the Rift attacks from before, we can’t tell where danger will emerge next, can we?”

“Uh-huh….”

It was indeed a reasonable decision.

I scratched the area below my lip with my finger as I nodded.

“After all, if monsters pop up, we can’t have a unit ready to respond.”

“There are voices of dissent within the military as well, but Commander Mikhail seems to want to minimize any damage as much as possible.”

“Well, that’s up to the Imperial Army to handle. Is there anything else?”

“Today that’s all… Oh, wait.”

Just as he was about to pack up the documents as if the report was over, Jake suddenly remembered something and snapped his fingers.

“Manager, about the team you mentioned would be dispatched to the North.”

“Yeah? I remember. Why?”

“I was in touch with that team from the embassy yesterday, and they’ve successfully completed their infiltration.”

“Really? That’s great to hear.”

“Due to time constraints and a backlog of work, they can’t be active right away, but it seems they’ll start their main operations around the beginning of the new year.”

The operations team that Clevenz mentioned was coming.

I didn’t know where they were coming from or what operations they were assigned to, but at least I clearly understood they were keeping an eye on the staff of the Magic Tower Secretariat.

I pulled my sleeves out from my coat and tossed my words carelessly.

“Don’t worry about that team. They’re probably not even going to cross paths with us.”

“That’s true. Oh, but Manager, is there a team going overseas that’s bringing along pets?”

“Pets? Why do you ask that out of the blue?”

“When I was communicating with that team yesterday, I suddenly heard a cat meowing over the radio. It had a really unique cry, you know?”

“What did it sound like?”

Jake cocked his head. Pondering how to pronounce it, I contemplated for a moment and then suddenly opened my mouth to say.

“Meow.”

It was an unheard-of, captivating meow.

What a peculiar sound!

“Is it a stray cat?”

“Well, that seems to be the case from my perspective.”