A Dark Fantasy Spy

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I was abducted and brought aboard a ship, and now I’m face to face with Leoni. I have no idea what’s going on.

“What do you want from me?”

There was no response.

Leoni, sitting across from me, seemed to struggle just to speak, muttering to the air, “Just let me go.”

“Yes, Director.”

The men standing in the corner approached and released my restraints. They cut the ropes binding my hands and feet with a knife, collecting the remnants left on the floor.

The man spoke Abas very fluently, almost like a native speaker. No, scratch that, he was just speaking with the accent of the homeland. In short, the ones who had kidnapped me were Abas citizens.

As the circulation returned to my arms, the first thing I felt was a sharp pain. The blood, rushing back, supplied oxygen to my extremities, causing a tingling sensation throughout my fingertips and arms.

“……”

As soon as I was freed, I rubbed my wrists and looked around, but even in the chaos, Leoni was rambling on about her own matters.

“I see you’re curious about this ridiculous situation.”

“……”

“Let’s move to another seat.”

With a huff, Leoni stood up and exited the room.

Episode 13 – A Land for Magicians Does Not Exist

Escaping the room I was brought to, I found myself in a spacious chamber of a subterranean building.

Screens crowded a wall, broadcasting the happenings inside the room. The faces of men passing through the corridor appeared on the screen, along with scenes of orange-vested workers bustling about at the dock.

Turning my back to the screens, Leoni pulled out a chair and carelessly tossed files from a makeshift desk to the sides, speaking to me.

“Sit down.”

I dragged my weary body down onto the chair.

“What is this place?”

“Can’t you tell?”

Leoni sat down across from me and spat out, “It’s the nail-pulling place.”

Just as I processed her words, screams began echoing from the corridor beyond the wide-open rusty iron door.

As I instinctively turned my head towards the sound, I suddenly spotted a familiar face on the monitor hanging on the wall.

Gabi Schneider.

The magician from the Magic Tower’s International Division was being beaten like a dog by a masked man.

As the clenched fist slammed into her left cheek, her fragile body staggered. The man who had yanked her hair upward, as if she were a broken puppet, swung his fist again, landing another blow to her face.

Though no sound came from the screen, the screams spilling out from the torture chamber echoed through the empty corridor like a haunting scream.

After staring at the screen for a moment, I asked Leoni, “Is this some kind of survival training?”

“Do you think this looks like training?”

It was a statement suggesting that it was a real situation.

I glanced back at the screen, where the Information Officer had struck Gabi Schneider another four times. Then, he bent slightly, whispering something into her ear as she slammed her head against the ground repeatedly. I couldn’t hear his words, but it seemed like he was asking her something.

“……”

Watching someone I had met just this afternoon, or maybe it was yesterday, undergoing torture felt surreal. It was as if I had lost my grip on reality.

While the scene of the torture unfolded behind me, Leoni showed no interest whatsoever. Instead, it seemed that the screams from the corridor bothered her more. She commanded the Information Officer who followed her into the room.

“Shut the door, it’s too noisy. You guys get outside.”

“We need the staff to record the audio-visual materials.”

“There’s a shooting spot in the room anyway. Just compile and edit that later.”

The Information Officer gestured for the staff to leave. The woman who had been operating equipment in front of the screen removed her headset and exited the room with other staff members.

*

The rusty iron door creaked ominously as the shock subsided. Leoni, who was silently guarding the now-empty room, sighed deeply, creasing her forehead.

“I’ve been letting you off because you’ve caused so many incidents. I even sent you on leave to keep you away, yet you couldn’t resist and flew hundreds of kilometers to create chaos. I didn’t know back in your rookie days that you were such a hassle.”

“……”

“If you have any questions, now’s the time.”

“Was it company business?”

Leoni nodded. What the hell.

I had come on vacation abroad, yet it turned out I was implicated in an operation run by the Military Intelligence Agency locally. It was ridiculous; now I couldn’t even muster the energy to experience any amusement.

As a throbbing headache set in, I sighed softly, closing my eyes tightly.

“Was it a rescue operation?”

“Yeah.”

Nope, it was even a kidnapping operation.

Upon hearing that, everything clicked into place.

The Military Intelligence Agency was trying to kidnap Gabi Schneider. I had no idea why, but they were running the operation in Patalia, an allied country. Then, by bad luck, I had inadvertently intervened and caused a traffic accident, and as things spiraled into failure, the operation shifted to kidnap me as well, as a two-for-one deal.

Leoni, slumped in her chair with her back against the seat, opened her mouth, “They only intended to kidnap her, but things went awry, and they ended up kidnapping you too.”

“Does that even make sense?”

I looked at Leoni, baffled. No, it wasn’t just baffled, I was genuinely incredulous.

Typically, information operations tend to fail.

Agent betrayal, failure to close in on the target, failure to acquire information, judgment errors by information officers, analysis errors, cease orders from decision-makers, and more. No matter how hard you work, if luck is against you, that’s how information operations go down the drain.

And that was exactly the case now.

Getting caught up in a kidnapping operation? Sure, maybe it was partially my fault.

If I had known beforehand that the company was planning to kidnap Gabi Schneider, I could’ve avoided all of this.

“If things had gone wrong, you could’ve kidnapped her on the way back alone or lured her elsewhere. Or you should have just halted the operation altogether. Why the hell did you vehicle-kidnap me without any warning while I’m on leave? ‘Things went awry?’ Is this my fault now?”

Of course, Leoni would have her side of the story. A very obvious one too, and it turned out to be exactly what I expected.

“Do you really need to know that?”

“Is it for security reasons?”

Leoni answered, “If things had gone according to plan, you would never have been loitering in that café. While you were eating in a resort in Galbria, the field team would have kidnapped the target and brought her here, and then there would have been no reason for you to be dragged along before me.”

“Amazing….”

“Your being there at all was unrelated to the operation; the only reason you were kidnapped is that you came flying to the capital via the Warp Gate just to meet her.”

Leoni gesticulated toward the screen. Staring at her, I turned my head in frustration.

The Military Intelligence Agency had decided to maintain secrecy about the operation, even from me, who wasn’t part of it. They had their reasons.

Telling me would risk leaks or give false leads since I wasn’t even involved. So they kept me in the dark.

“Sure, any person on this earth would expect the company to kidnap someone in broad daylight, in the very town I’m vacationing in. If I had known the target was a magician connected to the agency, I would’ve just stayed locked up in my hotel room and avoided stumbling into that narrow, filthy alley.”

“Again, you didn’t need to know. If you hadn’t decided to get all involved during your vacation, this would have all gone smoothly.”

In that moment, my head began to heat up as anger welled up inside me. I yelled in her face.

“Is it a crime for me to go to work? Huh?”

“You should have acted like a civilian on leave. What is this mess about flying in just to eat something? Huh?”

Leoni’s expression darkened slightly, perhaps disturbed by receiving cursing from a junior.

But I didn’t back down.

“Back when I was on-site, you had no problem making me work during my vacation, but now suddenly, it’s ‘be a civilian’ because I went on leave? Excuse me, Director, but are you out of your mind? Have you lost your sanity?”

“You certainly don’t hold back when it comes to talking back to your superior.”

“Well, I’m technically on civilian status now, so let me put rank and seniority aside and just ask why Patalia of all places?”

While the types of covert operations performed by the intelligence agency are varied, an operation involving kidnapping and torture is classified under paramilitary operations.

Kidnapping, torture, information extraction, raids, assassinations, terrorism, fostering local warlords, rescue operations, and so on. Whether infiltrating to snipe a general or training a warlord hiding in the Afghan mountains, or retrieving agents jailed in a prison.

It’s similar to the things protagonists in Call of Duty would do. In reality, paramilitary operations fall under the lower category of special operations, and thus intelligence agencies often deploy military special forces into intelligence operations.

Though it’s tough to find anything legal in their affairs, the reason these paramilitary operations are called “covert” is no coincidence.

So, it was insanity itself to carry out a paramilitary operation on the territory of the Abas Intelligence Agency in Patalia.

I gestured to the screen, where Gabi Schneider was getting slapped around.

“You’re kidnapping and torturing a Magic Tower officer from a third country on the territory of Patalia. What are you going to do if the Patalian authorities find out? They’ll call for the ambassador and blast you with questions about why you’re pulling this kind of stunt in their territory.”

Leoni cast a disinterested glance at the screen. The image showed Gabi Schneider, her face covered with a cloth, while the Information Officer began pouring cold water over it.

Waterboarding, water torture, underwater ballet—whatever you wish to call it, what it boils down to is plain torture. And torture is illegal under the laws of any country.

Of course, I wasn’t bringing this up to argue about the morality of torture. Whether they tortured her or not, it wasn’t my concern. After all, I’d probably end up getting slapped in the face too if things went south.

The true issue was something else.

“No, Director. Let’s think about this rationally.”

I looked at Leoni, laying out the current state of affairs.

“You’ve kidnapped a foreigner on the territory of an ally nation. I don’t know what she did wrong, but the fact remains that the Abas officers kidnapped a civilian on Patalian soil, and you also tortured her.”

“…true.”

“But the last person she met was an Abas diplomat, right?”

The last encounter with Gabi Schneider, where she had been crying and clinging to Francesca, had been my decision.

However, the decision to carry out the operation without open lines of communication had been Leoni’s.

“If the last person she met before being kidnapped was a foreign official, wouldn’t it make sense that said official is the suspect?”

Leoni, with a furrowed brow, answered with a hint of exasperation.

“Should I leave you there? A foreign official was kidnapped on Patalian soil, and it happened right after meeting another foreign diplomat. Who do you think the National Security Agency will suspect?”

“No, then you could’ve delayed the operation to another day, quietly kidnapped her when she was alone, or if that wasn’t an option, drawn her to a foreign land or simply stopped the operation. Why go ahead with it and kidnap me on top of that?”

I didn’t point out any specific details but ended up hitting on the main issue.

“Instead, you could have just kidnapped her in the Northern Empire or at the Magic Tower.”

Even with my intense inquiry, Leoni’s expression remained icy.

“That’s a naive thought for someone with your experience.”

“……”

“You really think it would be easier to kidnap someone in the North rather than in Patalia? Just one small mistake by field agents or if they were captured and interrogated, within three hours, the Imperial Guard or the Counterintelligence Department would have apprehended you. Would an Abas spy like us be gallivanting in a state of emergency? Who else could possibly have been aiding those spies aside from you and your team?”

“What about the Magic Tower?”

“The Prime Minister’s Office shut down the operation. They said to refrain from conducting other businesses in the tower for a time.”

“……”

“If any capturing agents leaked your identity during their interrogation, or if you were indeed working as part of this operation, when things went south, the National Security Agency would have rushed to your hotel room first.”

A sigh barely escaped from my lips in frustration.

“That’s precisely why you divided the teams. Limiting information to just the team leader and sub-team leader to keep everything under wraps… And as if that wasn’t enough, you decided to conduct operations in an allied nation, huh…?”

“……”

“Right, thanks to you loitering around, the entire team must now be aware of who you are. Who’s to blame? It’s a mistake I made, thinking you wouldn’t be foolish enough to cross hundreds of kilometers just to meet her during your vacation.”

With hints of self-deprecation and sarcasm, Leoni explained why I’d been kidnapped.

“If you’d managed to slip away back then, the National Security Agency would have suspected you first. If they had just quietly thrown you into a car without kidnapping you, Gabi Schneider would have easily figured out that you were aligned with her.”

“Are you suggesting they don’t know I’m with the company now?”

“They probably think you’re undergoing torture in another room.”

“Has the National Security Agency caught on?”

“No, they have no idea you’ve been kidnapped.”

Had Francesca failed to make a report? Perhaps another officer had visited her and pressured her to stay quiet.

And what about the cafe owner…

“…the cafe owner. He’s an employee, right?”

“An information agent. That’s her regular spot.”

“I figured.”

I could now vaguely picture the situation.

Kidnappings typically take place in locations that don’t draw attention. So if one were to carry out an abduction inside a commercial building like a cafe frequented by the general public, they would need to either coerce or recruit the owner to assist or ensure that it was a cafe directly operated by an intelligence officer. Otherwise, the owner or staff would be the first to call the police.

The Military Intelligence Agency had likely recruited the cafe owner to assist with the kidnapping operation targeting Gabi Schneider, as the secluded alley next to the cafe would mean that none of the patrons would report it.

That explained why business was suddenly booming, yet they were chasing out customers.

“……”

I had too many questions, but I didn’t have the energy to voice them. What the hell did Gabi Schneider do? Why had Martinez and other magicians become targets for the agency’s surveillance, and why had this chaos needed to unfold on ally territory?

As I furrowed my brows, battling the throbbing headache, an information officer who had been outside entered, calling for Leoni.

“What is it?”

“We received a report from our informant. Police have come to the house following a report from residents about the commotion at the scene today.”

“Where’s the location?”

“Her house.”

Leoni did not elaborate further.

“You all take care of it. Clean it thoroughly so that no loose ends remain.”

“……”

“What I mean by ‘clean’ here includes your informant too.”

The head of the Military Intelligence Agency’s Overseas Information Operations was giving me orders.

“Make sure she doesn’t chatter. Blackmail, bribe her, do whatever it takes.”

She was referring to Francesca.

Having given her orders, Leoni gestured for the information officers outside to come in. Then, she pointed at me.

“Take him back to the mainland. Set up an alibi for him. What anesthetic did you use? Chloroform?”

“The stuff we use at the company. It’s a bit stronger.”

“Get him a cup of cold water to wake him up. We need to get this report in before the Director arrives in the morning, so fire up the ship.”

While a staff member poured water into a cup and handed it to me, Leoni donned her coat and spoke up.

“I know you have a lot of questions now due to this unlucky mess, but you’ll find out everything when you return. So don’t make a fuss and just enjoy your vacation.”

“……”

“I’ll see you at the company.”

*

When I stepped off the ship after being released from the dark torture chamber, the sun had already set beyond the horizon, filling the sky with stars.

The information officers, following Leoni’s orders, had brought me back to the mainland.

Just before the ship docked, I caught hold of the line marked with glowing sticks, then slipped into the sea and stealthily made my way ashore through secluded paths away from prying eyes.

As I emerged drenched in seawater, a car awaited me. Approaching the person who had signaled with blinking lights, I noticed they silently opened the back seat of the car.

Frankly, I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or perhaps I just couldn’t focus, but I was shivering all over after coming out of the cold sea. It was comical how, at that moment, I spotted a pair of cat ears peeking out from the driver’s seat.

What the heck… a person with cat ears stuck to their head.

“……”

There was a blanket thrown in the back seat, so I hastily covered myself with it. It smelled of fur and carried that distinct animal stench, but I needed to keep my temperature up.

The car I was in began moving along the coastal road.

I hadn’t talked to the driver, so I had no clue where we were headed, but I figured out we were going south by the constellations outside the window. Draped in the blanket and leaning my head against the window, I fought to keep my eyelids open, succumbing to a brief nap.

Time melded into a blur indistinguishable from ages as I gradually opened my eyes.

The landscape outside turned dim, akin to twilight. I opened the door and stepped out of the car, surveying my surroundings.

Somehow, the scenery felt oddly familiar. To my surprise, I noticed a hotel standing tall a couple of blocks away. I dragged my unwilling body toward the azure-tinged alley.

As I sluggishly approached the hotel entrance, I noticed something unsettling; the bellboy wasn’t even standing at the door when I arrived. A familiar face awaited me outside.

“…You’ve arrived?”

A woman with sumptuous purple hair cascading to one side held a lit clay pipe, from which tendrils of smoke billowed up.

Even in the shadowy darkness, her porcelain skin and violet eyes glimmered. Her eyes, reminiscent of violets, slowly turned to meet mine.

On a deserted street devoid of passersby in the early morning, Francesca stood waiting there all alone, looking remarkably weary, smiling sadly as she spoke to me.

“I’m glad to see you returned safely.”

Then she reached out her non-pipe-holding hand, saying, “Shall I show you the way this time?”

14 hours and 21 minutes.

Leaving the land, crossing the sea, and returning to the land again.

It really could hardly be called an adventure, but after a day full of twists and turns, I finally arrived back at the hotel, approaching her like someone finally coming home after a long day’s work.

“Let’s go inside.”

“…Yes, let’s.”

In front of the brightly lit hotel, I held Francesca’s hand, leading my weary body toward our room.