A Dark Fantasy Spy

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Five days had passed since my little brother’s (spy) coming out.

Older Brother Jerry was worried about the fact that his younger siblings had both joined the Information Agency, while Older Sister Adela mocked us, saying the family was in good shape.

A lot of conversations were exchanged.

Unable to watch Ayla’s nonsensical antics any longer, I decided to enter a mental restructuring phase with a club I named ‘Justice Stick.’

Of course, it was a failure.

“Hey, hey, don’t be like that.”

“If you’re really worried, why don’t you teach him yourself, jerk? What are you gonna do, swing a bat at a grown lady’s backside?”

“Let go. I’m teaching him right now.”

“Teaching what?”

“Guts.”

The heartfelt education meant to foster pluck and guts was completely thwarted by the ardent opposition of the firstborn son and daughter. It was truly a disheartening situation.

Adela confiscated the club, scolding me to teach with words instead. I replied that I understood.

However, teaching that kid with words never happened.

Four hours later.

I found myself in another country.

—

Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS

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The sky, which looked like it might rain at any moment, remained quiet even after the sunset.

Just when it seemed to be calm for a while.

As the night softly descended, droplets began to patter down onto the city.

The rain soaked the dark canvas, even staining my shoulder. As streams fell onto the canvas, splashes of orange, blue, and white swirled together.

That strangely familiar yet novel weather suddenly reminded me of my days in East Africa.

Thick strips of rain pierced the canvas.

Within that, smoke began to rise right after a tiny match was lit.

– Sizzle…

My crimson lips flicked their breath, igniting the air. The moment my breath faltered, a silken strand of gray smoke vanished, only to be rekindled instantly.

In the darkness, fireflies twinkled. Reflected in the screen was a face.

Moist with a hint of dampness, my leather gloves grasped the handle tightly.

Lost in the unique musty smell of rain, I blankly stared at the city. The man, who had a cigarette clamped between his lips, stood by the roadside, aimlessly gazing into the darkness.

The 5.8-inch blade flew through the heavy raindrops.

The thigh artery between my thigh and hip was severed, and the carotid artery running through the neck was ripped apart. The sensation traveling along the handle of the full-tang knife was remarkably similar to slicing into lotus root.

The knife, after piercing through the ribs, collided with the heart, entering and exiting the man’s torso several times. The blade, which had lodged into the back of his thigh, grazed past under his chin as I forcefully twisted it.

When that knife, now reinforced by pressure, pierced into the temple area for the last time.

A car stopped in front of me as I retrieved the knife.

The information officers who jumped out, opened the doors, and knelt over the fallen man’s face, shining lights at it.

“Mohammed bin Abdul Hakan al-Badin. Confirmed deceased.”

The information officers hoisted the target and loaded him into a van.

Stepping on the dark canvas soaked with red dye, I took my seat.

As I clamped my precious dry cigarette between my lips and flicked the lighter—click, click—the moment I exhaled the smoke while leaning my head against the soaked seat, I muttered.

“Phew. Shit…”

What am I doing because of that Ayla, for real?

—

The number of mistakes I’ve made in my life is countless.

Among them, the three mistakes with the biggest aftershocks were as follows.

First, joining the Military Intelligence Agency instead of the National Intelligence Service. Second, bringing Saint Veronica on board as an information agent. Finally, stepping in to replace Ayla.

To be honest, those first two mistakes were almost unavoidable, like natural disasters.

Back in school, I had applied for ROTC to pay off my student loans, leaving no time to even prepare for the National Intelligence Service.

And while working at the cult, if I didn’t accept Veronica, I would likely get in trouble with the protection agency.

So, my decision to step in for our family’s troublemaker, Ayla, was entirely mine.

That was my mistake.

“Director, no, Director Leoni. What did you say about sending someone?”

“There’s a new recruit from your company, right? His older brother is a colonel in our department, and he said he’d go there this time.”

The Royal Intelligence Department was in the midst of preparations for a regular personnel exchange with the Military Intelligence Agency. Though they called it ‘preparation,’ they had practically written up the list already.

But Leoni removed one name from the list and added a new one.

Even if she was a senior officer, the Royal Intelligence Department was still a national intelligence agency, while the Military Intelligence Agency was a division information agency. Even the National Intelligence Service couldn’t just dictate things indiscriminately when collaborating with the military, let alone if Leoni was pulling a stunt like this—many people would end up in trouble.

However, when the newly updated list arrived, the smiles of the Royal Intelligence Department’s personnel selection committee reached the heavens.

“Ah, oh wow— so it’s this person! You should have said so sooner. Then I believe this is the final version of the list. It’s tight on the deadline, so it’d be troublesome if you brought another list later. Ah yes, good work~”

Normally, the personnel exchanges were filled with elite names soaring high, so a sudden change in the list would seem to be merely a tiring administrative hassle. However, this time it felt quite different.

Perhaps that’s why? The Royal Intelligence Department’s personnel selection committee visited me before leaving for vacation.

“You’re Colonel Frederick, who has been dispatched this time, right?”

“Yes. But I’m on vacation right now. If you are here because of the training sessions starting after the personnel exchange…”

“Upon checking, I see that your name isn’t on the training participants list. I’m really sorry, but it seems you will have to undergo training later. For now, let’s get you packed for your trip. Yes.”

“…What? No— What the hell does that mean—”

After tossing Ayla (the new recruit who joined the Royal Intelligence Department this year) to the Royal Intelligence Department officers who were trying to drag me along, I quickly dashed into the restroom to screen the situation back at the office.

Between biting my nails and shaking my legs, I called Clavens.

– “Oh, it’s you?”

“Sir? The Royal Intelligence Department people are telling me to go on a business trip. What the hell is going on?”

– “That’s just how things turned out. Oh, you know how things are at the office.”

After pulling strings and spinning the radar around, it turned out that this surprising incident was an ‘administrative error.’

Normally, when you go on a personnel exchange, there’d be a stroll around for training and whatnot, taking things easy for a while.

For that to happen, they need to circulate official documents between the personnel departments. However, it seemed like an executive at the Military Intelligence Agency accidentally forgot to send the updated list to the Royal Intelligence Department before going on vacation.

“Damn it!”

Therefore, I threw my phone against the tiles, tearing at my hair, and the Royal Intelligence Department officer who burst into the restroom started banging on the door as if to break it down.

“Excuse me? Sir! I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s talk about it outside!”

“W-What are you talking about, sir? Uh, our older brother has, um, constipation issues…”

“Oh, so that’s why you swore? I was shocked there.”

Ayla. Please shut your mouth.

With the incident that erupted due to the shortcomings of an administrative officer, I realized there was nothing I could do. It meant I had to readily pack my bags and be on my way, mere days into my vacation.

Personally, I suspected I wouldn’t be directed towards Kien, but as I dragged my suitcase out, the Royal Intelligence Department officer’s thunderous words shattered my illusions.

“Where are we headed?”

“Indeed. To the Eastern Mauritania countries.”

“Isn’t that a war-torn area? Did I misunderstand? I think my colleagues were deployed there.”

“That’s correct. The Abbas military deployment forces are stationed right there.”

For reference, the Eastern Mauritania region was known for coups and civil wars, much like the eastern and western parts of Africa.

‘Somalia’, where the Cheonghae Unit was active, represented the quintessential disaster country in East Africa.

Famous for terrorism like the Sahel Triangular Border area was Ethiopia, which had even fought in a war with Uganda, and although Tanzania was said to have improved somewhat after the end of its civil war, it still had a reputation as a shockingly disastrous locale like Mozambique.

If we talk about West Africa, it was well known for its ‘Coup Belt’ that spanned Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso-Chad-Sudan, especially with a series of coups occurring since the 2020s leading to South American drug cartels establishing new trafficking routes through Europe.

According to what I had heard, Eastern Mauritania was where Pippin served as a naval intelligence officer, combating pirates, and where Jake, during his time with the Special Forces, had gone into hunting down rebels.

Even though I had never been to Eastern Mauritania, during my time at the Military Intelligence Agency, I’d traveled through Eastern and Western African countries.

“…Ah, no!”

The civil servant, recalling the horrors from his time at the Military Intelligence Agency, was so startled he threw down his suitcase and declared, “I’m not going, you bastards!”

But the Royal Intelligence Department officers, excited at the new recruit, stuffed the civil servant (at 29, he’s a ‘Chunsigi’) into the car and tossed him into the pit of fire that was Eastern Mauritania.

Thus!

The reverse-coup hero who saved the Jamria Federation!

A paragon of self-sacrifice who dove into the blazing pit of hell in place of his younger sibling!

Though he studied French and Kien, he had barely seen the country of France and the Empire, but he had wandered through Eastern Europe, China, Russia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America!

(??? : Who told you to fail the selection? lol / ??? : Bastard…., damn it!)

The proactive Chunsigi administrative soldier voluntarily flew to Eastern Mauritania!

The rebel bandits, warlords, pirates, terrorists, criminals, and cartel gangs were soon to experience the wrath of a foreigner, honed by years of training!

—

The handling of new personnel astonished the head of the branch stationed in Mauritania.

Whether it was intelligence collection or information analysis, even if you gathered all overseas deployment experiences, five years just barely cut it, yet they had done better than many who had spent ten years in the field.

The branch head, who never expected anything, was deeply moved and requested a meeting, shedding buckets of tears in the process.

“Can you believe it! He jumped into this perilous post just because he was worried about his sibling! This place, where even the company’s employees are desperately trying not to come!”

Moreover, despite the sudden deployment, hadn’t he diligently worked without wasting a moment?

It was an ordeal that couldn’t be told without tears.

“Please send me home…”

Impressed genuinely, the branch head would discipline the employees who, instead of completing their work, had sneaked off to the department store (they had gone out for intel collection but crowded into a café because of the heat) and, while sipping on bootleg liquor at dawn, would submit reports via the communication line.

Having seen the astonishing results, the headquarters granted the deployed intelligence officer ‘special leave.’

Soon, the officer with ‘special leave’ would travel to the neighboring towns, the upper town, the lower town, and even to the branch that required crossing borders four or five times within 38 hours.

“Please bring me back…”

Look at that! Despite the dizzying motion sickness and the tepid airflow reminiscent of a public bath in Chinese outskirts, even while inhaling dust from the window, he was analyzing intelligence on his device.

Squatting among boxes laden with equipment for a grueling 14 hours, chewing on motion sickness pills and diving into work—wasn’t he supposed to be a mere luggage piece?

“Hey, I was on vacation, you bastards…”

Those murmurings only echoed as empty pleas in the arid desert, trapped in Mauritania.

In desperation, his signals never reached the Abbas Labor Agency, lost in the sands.

The sixth failed submission screen appeared long after.

—

Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS – END –