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I thought of wiretapping the moment I received Veronica’s call.

Sure, wiretapping is one thing, but there were too many listening ears around here.

First, I needed to get to a safe place.

“Let’s end this call. I’ll get in touch again.”

As I stepped out of the hotel room, I tried to press the call end button.

-‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’

“What?”

I asked back in a dazed voice, but Veronica’s voice faded on the prepaid phone.

Instead, a lively voice rang in my ears.

“Hi there.”

A woman with sunglasses suddenly appeared and peeked into my face.

I recognized that voice.

I couldn’t say a word, just stared at her face while she chuckled at my reaction.

“What are you staring at? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

After a good laugh, she pulled down her sunglasses slightly and flashed a grin.

“Wanna step out for a bit?”

*

Episode 6 – The Traitor of the Revolution

Out of nowhere, I ran into Veronica at the Magic Tower.

It was indeed ‘that’ Veronica I knew.

The 58th Saint of the Cult, a politician and lobbyist, a noble orphan from the Empire, a former Imperial Guard HQ information agent, a woman who played the Empire for fools, a drinker and a smoker.

There were many titles to describe her, but I just called her one thing.

A crazy woman.

“…How on earth did you get here?”

“Uh, Warp Gate?”

Veronica playfully tapped her shoulders and giggled. I had no idea what was so funny about that.

“…Sigh.”

Anyway, Veronica was a weirdo.

She was unpredictable, a person whose guts were outside of her body. She was someone I couldn’t quantify at all.

If she were a friend, she would be hilariously amusing, but as an information agent or operative, she would be the worst—a real handful.

In short, she was a difficult person to manage.

“Did you learn to just show up unannounced from the Guard HQ?”

“Nope! I’ve always been like this.”

She was bragging.

It didn’t matter how she got to the Magic Tower. What mattered was that she was competent enough to take care of herself. I needed to find out why she came and what her purpose was.

Thinking along those lines suddenly drained me of energy.

“…….”

What sins did I commit in my past life to be entangled with a woman like this? I hadn’t even done anything serious, just mingled with a few misfits.

No matter how I thought about it, that wasn’t a crime. Maybe some god or whatever was just angry at me for it.

“…Lord, do you think dying would satisfy you?”

I lamented, banging my head against the car seat.

“Lord? What’s this? Our Colonel has some religion now?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m in the car driven by a Saint; I can’t help but pray. At this rate, I might speak in tongues too.”

And so it was.

I was sitting in the vehicle Veronica was driving.

I had no idea where she found it, but it was an impressive ride. It looked just like the kind of thing a wealthy person would drive around in.

“You must have a good amount of money. Driving around in something like this. Did the Cult gather a lot of donations lately?”

“What’s with you? This is all personal property. I earned it through honest labor.”

“Wait, does the Cult give out cars like this?”

“I wouldn’t know about the Cult, but the Empire does.”

She meant she received it from the Imperial Guard HQ.

A gift for an information agent. That kind of makes sense. Considering Veronica is the Saint of the Cult, giving her something like this would be worth it.

I always thought such things were only for those in the cookie factory, but it seems the Empire has more money than I thought.

I glanced around the car’s interior, nodding my head.

“The Ministry of Finance probably hates this.”

“The budget battles between the Ministry of Finance and the Guard HQ are fierce. The Deputy Minister throws a fit every day about the receipts not being processed…”

“Where in the world is there an information agency that creates receipts? That’s all classified. By the way, where did you get your passport? The Cult’s passport wouldn’t have been accepted at the Magic Tower, would it?”

“Oh, I have an old one from the Guard HQ.”

A Saint carrying a forged passport. Is this really fantasy or what?

I sighed heavily while sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window. Beyond the dark-tinted glass, the sparkling night sea reflected.

“So, where are we going now?”

“Hmm~?”

Veronica grinned and dragged out her words.

“Your honeymoon house?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

*

We sped along a deserted mountain road toward the villa.

Though it was called a villa, it was basically a mansion. The mansion overlooking the seaside cliff boasted a great view of the ocean below, and a dense forest stretched behind it.

Listening to the distant sound of waves, I questioned Veronica.

“Did you get this from the Guard HQ too?”

“I bought it with the money I got from the Guard HQ.”

“Sounds like bragging.”

I half-heard Veronica’s words as I settled into a rocking chair.

Meanwhile, Veronica kept chatting nonstop.

“It’s registered under a name that doesn’t show up in property records, so the Magic Tower won’t know about it. And I doubt the Guard HQ knows either.”

“No wonder it doesn’t show up in asset surveys.”

“Oops.”

Veronica covered her mouth.

“Don’t tell me you investigated me?”

“Of course I did.”

Extracting every detail about a target is the first step in an infiltration mission. You need to know something to either blackmail or deal with them.

So I dug up all her properties, relationships, and childhood, yet I didn’t even know she had a house like this.

Veronica pouted and pretended to cry at me. Of course, she was only making crying sounds.

“How could you do this to me….”

“Did someone else not investigate me?”

“Aha, caught me.”

We continued exchanging lighthearted banter while sitting across from each other. Usually, she would throw a line, and I would respond, and I knew from the start that this was just her nature.

Then Veronica said to me.

“Don’t be too heartbroken. I hid it well.”

“Well, right now…”

“Bragging about hiding assets…”

“Oh, but I always pay my taxes!”

“How can you pay taxes on hidden wealth? That’s tax evasion…”

“Ah, this person just doesn’t get it. Anyway!”

Veronica continuously defended her asset hiding (tax evasion) activities, explaining how clean of a person she was. In truth, it was almost propaganda.

Still, compared to the cult members who siphoned off funds behind the donations, this was just child’s play. Without even having to delve into the core of the cult, the tax evasion activities of the priests active in the Abas Parish were already under the scrutiny of the Abas investigation authorities and intelligence agencies. It’s quite a sight to see the Ministry of Finance’s Taxation Department, the Cabinet Security Office, and the Special Investigation Bureau chasing after the assets hidden by cult members.

This issue often led to clashes with the Inquisition, and the Imperial Guard HQ and Intelligence Agency also had quite a few run-ins with the Inquisition over the cult’s tax evasion problems, making the corruption and malfeasance of the cult one of those unspoken issues in diplomatic and intelligence circles.

In response, the saint, the power figure of the cult, passionately proclaimed,

“At this level, I’m a clean person. Did I ever touch the donations or evade taxes with the parish assets? Why the fuss over something like a real estate contract under a false name…?”

“Seems like you’re lamenting quite a bit. Are you feeling guilty?”

“Oh, really! I just mean it like that! Why do you keep poking around?”

Looks like she might be feeling guilty after all.

They say absolute power corrupts absolutely, and it seems Veronica fit that bill perfectly. I have no idea how much she’s pocketed, but if a knight were to mess up just once, their political career might be over.

Of course, she was not just the saint of the cult and a lobbyist; she used to be an informant for the Imperial Guard HQ, so this was a topic everyone in the know kept quiet about.

Too much dirt was on each other’s hands to simply do her in.

But you never know what could happen in this world.

…Perhaps it would be better to cut her off before a problem arises.

I shook off my thoughts and returned to reality.

“Well, it’s natural for dough to stick to your hands when you’re kneading it. I understand.”

Fancy cars and expensive mansions, forged passports and hidden assets, tax evasion.

None of that really mattered.

She was my informant under my management. For now.

“So, what brings you here this time?”

Veronica sat down in front of a magically heated stove, brushing her hair to one side as she began to speak.

“Do we have to have a reason to meet?”

“Just get to the point.”

“Tch.”

Veronica clicked her tongue and pouted briefly before she stopped complaining and got to the main topic.

“I told you something interesting would happen at the Magic Tower, right?”

“Yes. I heard that on the train.”

When heading to Abas with Raul and sixteen counter-revolutionaries from the Imperial Guard HQ, Veronica had called me, saying something interesting would happen at the Magic Tower.

I tilted my head and asked the informant,

“But wasn’t that already resolved? There was a fuss about independence, and then it got shut down.”

“Oh, that was just an unexpected accident, not an interesting event. I didn’t even know that was going to happen.”

Is that so?

“So, you’re saying there’s something else interesting going on?”

“That’s right.”

Veronica nodded affirmatively.

Given her definition of “interesting,” it surely wasn’t anything trivial, but unfortunately, I had already weathered quite a storm.

Just a few days ago, I witnessed the diplomatic strife between allies, which escalated to a break in relations. I even saw the independence movement of the Magic Tower, which had supposedly emerged for the first time in a hundred years, get shattered before it could even begin.

Therefore, even if I was intrigued by what Veronica offered, I didn’t think I’d be surprised.

I pressed my temple and responded,

“Tell me what it is already. With the weight you’re putting into this visit, it doesn’t seem like something mundane.”

“What? You don’t seem that interested? I thought it would elicit a more varied response since it’s quite the intriguing topic.”

“Is there anyone who gets interested just from the title of a movie? You’d need to watch the trailer or at least see the faces of the cast to pique your interest.”

“That’s true.”

“Ugh…”

Just as I was contemplating what to do about this informant, Veronica suddenly leaned forward sharply.

The blanket covering her fell to the floor, and the rocking chair nearly toppled backward.

We found ourselves locked in an indescribable position, exchanging gazes.

“……”

“……”

Silence enveloped us.

The magically operated stove crackled quietly, and the sound of waves crashing against the cliff far below reached my ears, while I could hear the soft breathing from Veronica’s lips.

Veronica spoke up.

“I told you something interesting would happen at the Magic Tower, right?”

“…That’s right.”

The saint added,

“Recently, there’s been a lot of commotion at the Magic Tower. Bombs going off and suspicious people coming and going…”

“I’m not really sure. The embassy doesn’t get involved in terror or intelligence operations.”

She leaned closer, our distance minimizing, and her hair scented with violets brushed against my nose.

“Then how about something like this…?”

“Let’s hear it.”

The former information agent of the Imperial Guard HQ, the 58th saint of the cult.

A current politician and lobbyist.

And my informant.

She told me,

“Coup d’état.”

 

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