A Dark Fantasy Spy

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Stand up against foreign invasion and join the wave of revolution.

The soldier turned his gaze away from the phrase decorating the gray wall.

The paint had chipped off the walls, plastered with the warlord’s propaganda, and corpses lay strewn about, lined up here and there.

There was nothing special about the corpses dressed in various clothes; it was as if one would struggle to find any uniqueness. Yet death is always relative, and the soldier strolling through the alley couldn’t take his eyes off the body that appeared before him.

It was a boy wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts with a neck stretched long. He seemed to be around the same age.

The boy had a height just shy of his own. This was something the soldier realized while looking down on the boy for a long time.

“….”

A youthful face and soft hands. The boy’s hands were much more delicate than his own, which had grown rough and calloused over time.

However, the rifle gripped by those fragile hands felt so out of place that the soldier couldn’t easily look away.

As he brushed his fingers across the buttons fastened to the top of his outfit, he lowered his head to gaze at the military uniform he was wearing, which was a stark contrast to the sleeveless shirt the boy had on, covered in dust.

The soldier leaned his rifle against the propaganda-laden wall. He squatted on the dirt ground, staring at the boy’s face.

With bulging eyes and red blood flowing down, soaking the boy’s upper lip—a soldier clad in uniform gently closed the sleeveless boy’s eyes.

“….”

At that moment, while he gathered his hands to mourn the death of a boy about the same age, he heard a voice.

“Nasir! Where the hell have you been messing around?”

“Ah….”

“There you are. Hurry up and get out, soldier. We’re moving to the next village!”

“I’m coming!”

Hearing his superior’s commanding voice, the soldier hastily grabbed his rifle and rushed out of the alley.

—

Episode 15 – Life Is Beautiful

In a town far from the capital, decent jobs are scarce.

It’s a natural occurrence if one is born in the countryside where they make a living farming.

Looking around, barren land and rock-strewn mountains spread out, while the scorching sun shines directly overhead. Next to one mountain, another rises, and behind that, an unnamed peak peeks out shyly.

Over those mountains, there might be the mountain range where Dark Elves and nomads led their mules, crossing lives thousands of years ago.

The sun that kills life, the desolate land, and the rocky mountains are no different from a farmer’s adversaries, making it not an easy life for those who have to scrape by in such a town.

Once upon a time, goblins had built what they called “collective farms” for the people living on barren land, but that was already a decade ago. The flames of a civil war ignited by a clash between the military and local forces burned everything to ashes—nomadic settlements evading monsters, the farms cultivated by farmers, and even the people.

Thus, the past ten years have been hell for those who live off farming.

The situation in his hometown wasn’t much different.

His homeland, where his grandfather’s father and his great-grandfather had lived, was a typical rural village surviving off farming. So, to him, home symbolized hunger.

Perhaps it was due to the lack of decent jobs, or the cursed land, or maybe because there’s a loathsome upper class that only feeds their tribe. The reason is unclear but the fact remains—most people have spiderwebs in their mouths.

Unable to eat. Unable to wear. For those uneducated souls, there were no other options.

For those living in barren lands, there were two choices.

First, to snatch away the property held by others to survive, and second, to leech off the country, subsisting on their handouts. The former is what you call a robber, the latter is just a civil servant who receives paychecks.

But how could a farm kid who has been holding onto agricultural tools since childhood have attended school? Illiterates have long been prevalent in rural areas.

However, the military was the only place that accepted anyone as long as they were sound, and so the boy wore the military uniform.

—

“Are you out of your mind?”

A cold voice reached the boy’s ears while he was leaning against a building.

He was surrounded by young men. Clad in military uniforms that were too big for him, he looked rather ridiculous in the oversized gear.

The young men encircling him were soldiers belonging to the same unit.

Every time he opened his mouth, yellow teeth would show, and one young man berated the boy.

“Are you even awake? Didn’t I tell you this is a rebel-occupied area?”

“Yes….”

“But you went prancing around the alley on your own? Do you have a death wish or something?”

The young man slammed his helmet down and scolded the boy.

The rank insignia on his uniform was faded, but the boy’s rank clearly shone through the layers of dust. Just by looking at that, it was easy to infer who held the higher position.

In a village seized by rebels, regular soldiers began to scold their own comrades. The reason for the scolding was his unauthorized solo actions off the formation.

“You’re gonna get shot, you punk. If you die, that’s it. Your rations for your siblings back home will be cut off too.”

“….”

As he faced his superior’s scolding, the boy lowered his head instinctively, not even because of the hand that was hitting his helmet.

The boy had chosen to enlist to avoid starvation, but not everyone made the same choice as him. After all, the military is a place nobody wants to go, especially in a village embroiled in civil war.

At first, he did not want to join the military. However, the recruiting officer’s phrase stating that once enlisted, rations would be sent to his family each month had been incredibly tempting for a boy who needed to take responsibility for his siblings.

So he wore the military uniform. He chose to mortgage his present in exchange for his future.

Of course, the seniors were not magnanimous enough to appreciate the boy’s stern resolve. It was the same for them; they too had families to take care of.

“Where did this dimwit come from?”

“Hey, that’s enough. You’re gonna kill the kid at this rate.”

“Yeah, Sharwal is right. Let’s slow it down.”

Other seniors stepped in to stop the one bullying the rookie.

Their words did not come from any sense of camaraderie or kindness towards the mistreatment of a minor.

“We can’t waste any more time before the unit moves out.”

With the squad leader’s remark, the scolding paused.

The senior, releasing his grip on the collar of the boy, spat between his yellowing teeth and growled in a low voice.

“We’ll see about this back at base.”

“….”

Left alone after the squad leaders departed, the boy leaned slightly against the crumbling wreckage. As he blankly stared into space, his eyes often vanished behind his eyelids, and he suddenly faced a sergeant’s shout.

“What are you doing?!”

“Ah, nothing!”

“Nothing, huh? Hurry up, Nasir! We’re moving now!”

The boy, clutching his rifle, hurriedly joined the unit.

After finishing the mop-up of the rebels, the twenty or so soldiers exited the village to head to their next destination. As the boy glanced at the retreating village while following the unit, he noticed that they had no luxuries like vehicles—just a poor-quality rifle and a single machine gun.

Occasionally, generals would come to inspect the troops riding in vehicles left behind by foreign armies, but for some reason, not a single wheeled vehicle was functional among the unit the boy belonged to.

He wondered how it would have felt if he had a car like the one the general was driving.

Though he was just a rural boy who had barely seen a car, let alone a mule roaming around the village, for a moment, he entertained such thoughts.

The soldiers walked along the road, mixing sand and gravel.

They walked, walked, and walked some more.

It was so far that it took crossing a mountain for the village’s vague outline to appear, but there was no luxury of time to complain. The boy, burdened with a rifle nearly as big as himself, started to walk after the young man.

Crossing mountains, crossing rivers, and passing through a village turned to ashes, they trod the road.

The boots were scraping at his soles, the salt-stiffened military uniform clawing at his armpits and groin.

At the point where the boy’s feet started to swell and tingle with pain, it happened.

“Stop.”

At the officer’s signal, the unit came to a halt. The soldiers huddled together on the path, sneaking glances as they searched for a safe spot to hide.

The boy hid behind a rock alongside the young man who had just been scolding him.

Was this finally the destination? Doubts crept in, but regardless of how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch the whispers of the officer from afar.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

The squad leader confirmed.

“That’s the village we’re attacking today.”

“Why did we come all the way here to that village?”

“I heard an executive of the United People’s Party is there, but I don’t really know the details. Even if I saw the face of an Orc on the wanted list, he looked just like the ones selling goods at the shop…”

“A shaman?”

A shaman, huh. The boy, though he had never seen one in person, had heard of how dangerous they were through rumors.

They could kill people with curses and manipulate puppets with sorcery. Stories even said they could walk on air and fly. It was unfathomable to think such a dangerous shaman could just be shot with a rifle.

However, just a single line from the young man was enough to dissipate the fear lodged in his heart.

“The bounty on rebel shamans is enormous. Just killing one could change your fate.”

It meant there was a reward for killing a shaman. The boy’s expression brightened at the amount that the young man murmured.

With that kind of bounty, he could live comfortably. It might not be relevant in the capital, but in a quiet countryside, that amount could sustain him for years.

What if he collected the bounty and returned to his hometown? Though it was hard to imagine, a future came to mind—one where he’d have a meal with his siblings after he was discharged.

“….”

The boy tightened his grip on the dust-covered rifle as if it were a lifeline sent from the heavens.

In that moment, the young man knelt down in the gravel, lowered his body, and began to mumble a prayer as he kissed the ground. It was a prayer to ask for mercy from the deity of Al-Yabd, aimed at the sacred land where the prophet was said to have rested.

Even the most devout believers aren’t obligated to pray outside the assigned times, but the young man had the habit of praying before every battle. The reason was that whenever he skipped prayers, misfortunes always befall him.

While the believer, with his lips kissing the earth, offered a prayer for mercy, the boy’s eyes captured a human figure in the village.

A tall person, surrounded by others. It seemed like a very big man.

Dressed in traditional tribal attire, many people gathered around him. Those covered head to toe were women from the tribe, while those wearing kufis were men.

And among them was a tiny figure. Too far away to discern the gender, but the sharp green ears sticking out from between the fabric hinted that it was not human.

“…It’s a goblin.”

His grip on the rifle tightened.

Though he couldn’t be certain it was the shaman, it was unmistakably a goblin. Following the coup, goblins forcibly relocated and targeted by the military have bounties placed upon them when operating without government approval in other regions.

Though that amount was absurdly small compared to the bounty on the shaman, the amount itself was of no importance. What mattered was that there was a reward, no matter how big or small.

Just as the boy lifted his rifle and gazed at the sky.

A sight he had never seen before unfolded before him.

In the clear sky with not a cloud in sight, a bird was flying. The enormous bird, wings spread wide, could be seen soaring even from a distance.

But there was something wrong with it.

It was simply too high in the sky to be just any bird. Having shooed away birds while helping with farming many times before, he knew it wasn’t common to see birds flying at such heights.

And the wings.

With such a considerable altitude, how could the wings be seen so clearly?

Regardless of how large the bird was, it was distinctly strange. The boy stared at the enormous bird sailing high in the sky.

“Hey, what are you looking at?”

“…Over there.”

The boy pointed his finger at the bird. The young man raised his head to follow his gesture.

What both of them saw was a colossal bird soaring in the sky.

Then, suddenly, the bird that had been soaring in the vast blue sky nosedived towards the ground.

“Uh…!”

A gasp escaped from the boy’s mouth. It was an involuntary sound.

It was loud enough that every soldier lurking nearby turned to look at the place where the boy was.

Even the officer, who had been jabbing the map with the radio, was no exception.

“Who made that noise—”

Just as the officer began to raise his voice at the soldiers.

The massive bird crashed right in the center of the village.

As the soldiers sensed something unusual, their gazes directed towards the village at that moment. A blinding light erupted from the core of the village,

Flash!

*

With the crash, everything brightened up.

The world was painted pure white. The sharp ringing echoed in their ears, causing a painful sensation as if their eardrums would burst and their heads throbbed like they had been hit by a hammer.

A person wearing a headset, swearing quietly, got up. The headset, connected to a terminal, had been carelessly thrown on the desk.

The brightly lit screen gradually regained its natural colors. It was merely a black-and-white screen, but the important thing was that the display had returned.

“Damn… that noise was deafening.”

“Are you alright, Manager?”

“No. I think my eardrum’s burst.”

The suit man made a joke, and the other suit man chuckled. The suit man, with his hair tied up in a bun, looked at the screen and began to speak.

“Salha Al-Afri. Mid-level executive of the Independent Ethnic Alliance. Confirmation of death at 17km southeast of Dames.”

“I got it. Once the BDA (Battle Damage Assessment) is done, get the doves in and have them eat something.”

The suit man patted his subordinate on the shoulder before turning away.

The suit man with bronze skin and bright blonde hair paused, stirring his coffee when he asked the superior, who was leaving the operation room.

“Where are you going, Manager?”

“I’m going to report to Leoni.”

“Go ahead.”

“Yeah. Pippin, Jake. You two better come in soon.”

The operations room, located underground at the Military Intelligence Agency.

I waved goodbye to those two and left the room.

“I’m heading out first.”

“How envious!”

Now eight years into my intelligence unit life.

Once again, it was just another ordinary day.