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“Ah, a coup d’état…”

A few words floated through my mind.

Mohammad Mossadegh and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet. Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal…

All of them were names of heads of state removed by the intelligence agency, along with the puppets it installed.

“…I’m not as surprised as I thought I’d be?”

“What’s so surprising about this? It’s just a typical day’s work for me.”

After over a decade in the intelligence field, I’ve seen much worse than a coup d’état.

Veronica across from me started spinning a tale.

“I don’t have detailed information yet. But it’s certain that a coup will happen soon.”

The intel was somewhat vague.

At least there was some concrete intel regarding the Magic Tower’s independence, but this was almost on the level of rumor.

“Do you not know? Or are you hiding something?”

Veronica smiled silently, leaning back against the sofa.

I looked into her pitch-black eyes.

“What are you saying about the intelligence department getting involved and who they plan to remove?”

“I can’t say that either. I haven’t gotten what I want yet.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Well…?”

Veronica gave a vague answer, turning her head away. She was gazing at the flames flickering in the stove, casting a red glow over her face.

“You should at least tell me the region and the players involved. If the intelligence department is getting involved, it could be serious.”

“The region is the Magic Tower. There shouldn’t be any bloodshed, and it’s not currently an issue involving the intelligence department. Not yet.”

That meant they could intervene at any time.

Veronica smiled wistfully, still staring at the stove.

“I don’t know the details either. They haven’t told me anything yet.”

“Is that so?”

“What’s certain is that a major incident is brewing that could change the regime of the Magic Tower. I’m not sure if it’ll be a revolution or a coup.”

“Why does the term matter so much?”

In any case, changing the leadership is the same.

A successful coup is a revolution, and a failed one is a rebellion. If the regime changes later, they’ll just be seen as rebels.

The important thing is that the leadership will change very soon.

Assuming it succeeds.

So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a revolution or a coup that will explode at the Magic Tower. It also doesn’t matter who will set it off. The one who spoke to Veronica will ignite it, but she clearly had no intention of sharing that information now.

Anyway, she was such a sly fox.

Instead of struggling to regain control of the conversation, I decided to ask a more productive question.

“If a coup breaks out, who benefits? The Empire? The Cult?”

“That depends on who extends their hand first.”

“…So should I go and extend my hand first?”

“Well, if I were to share my thoughts.”

Veronica wore a smile that radiated red energy across her face.

A very typical politician’s smile.

“Whether they extend their hand or not, it means we’re in the same boat, doesn’t it?”

—

Episode 6 – The Traitor of the Revolution

The news that a coup would occur at the Magic Tower shocked me, but honestly, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

Veronica’s words had no real foundation.

Of course, Veronica is a saint of the Cult and an international lobbyist, an excellent information source, but that doesn’t back up the reliability of the info she passed on. How could I trust intel without foundations? Veronica’s intel was merely, as the saying goes, a rumor.

‘Someone, sometime, doesn’t matter how, is going to cause a coup.’

If I were to report that as intel to the higher-ups, I could predict the response.

“Gather additional information.”

That robotic response was all I’d receive.

So, until accurate intel came in regarding this coup issue, I had to keep my mouth shut.

This was a perfectly reasonable action. Gathering significant intel and producing information is a spy’s job and the reason for the existence of intelligence agencies, and collecting intel that doesn’t even fit into the “meaningful” category could lead to who knows what kind of chatter later.

I’d already heard enough of that kind of talk.

Well, that was all in the past.

“Manager, the report has arrived today.”

“Thanks.”

In any case, I planned to send out informants soon to gather additional intel on the Magic Tower coup issue. The report could wait.

So, as usual, I went to the embassy to receive intelligence reports.

The first thing on my desk was indeed a document related to the Magic Tower.

“So the decoy wife was successful? Is it tracking an anarchist group?”

“Yes.”

The Magic Tower Police and the Public Order Maintenance Agency pinpointed the anarchist group ‘Black Flame Conspiracy’ as the culprits behind the bombing. To be exact, it was a conclusion drawn using reverse intel I leaked.

Yet, it honestly surprised me that the Magic Tower blamed an anarchist group for the terror instead of the Reconnaissance Command.

“I thought they’d definitely focus on the Reconnaissance Command. Things are turning out quite strangely.”

“Isn’t that the group known for causing terror? They were disrupted once the leader was executed, but those who haven’t been captured are still operating underground.”

I leaked reverse intel to the Magic Tower for two reasons.

One was to hide the fact that I was behind the bombing, and the other was to disguise the kidnapping as the work of the Reconnaissance Command so that the Magic Tower’s counterintelligence agency could attempt to attack the Reconnaissance’s operational network.

In other words, a double-edged sword.

With the overseas department of the Imperial Guard HQ crushed after getting shoved out of the power struggle, if the Reconnaissance Command’s operational network within the Magic Tower was hit, the Royal Intelligence Department and Military Intelligence Agency would take that void. It was also a great opportunity to widen my field of movement.

But,

“I went through the trouble of leaving fingerprints at the scene, and they just cannot utilize it. What a hassle.”

Those damn mages can’t even feast properly when the feast is laid out for them.

I had already handed over the fingerprints obtained from the remains of the Reconnaissance Command special forces who fell at the hotel and the fake office of the Reconnaissance Command. Seeing them rummaging around elsewhere made my stomach churn.

If things went well, I could have struck a significant blow to the Reconnaissance Command’s operational network within the Magic Tower. Seems like reality doesn’t work out as planned.

“Anyway, even if I hand it to them, they still won’t be able to use it. I went through the trouble of preparing everything, but where are they even heading with the spoon in hand?”

“Well, at least the decoy wife was successful, wasn’t it? You got your money back.”

“What good is getting a refund? Those Reconnaissance Command guys are still roaming around.”

I never expected the counterintelligence capabilities of the Public Order Maintenance Agency would be this pathetic. Considering how they crushed the Imperial Guard HQ’s Magic Tower branch, they should’ve been able to take down the Reconnaissance Command as well.

I nervously fiddled with my pen while continuing my thoughts.

“Can’t I just poke them for fun?”

“What if you stimulate the anarchist terror and end up attracting suspicion? Just hold back for now.”

Jake’s words had some merit. If anything went wrong because I stirred up the hornet’s nest, it could lead to serious trouble.

Originally, when aiming to strike at the overseas operational network, it’s wiser to spill reverse intel and take down assets than to directly eliminate the operatives. Especially killing operatives is like throwing down the gauntlet for a showdown.

Why do you think the Military Intelligence Agency risked everything to tear apart the counter-revolutionary scum of the Imperial Guard HQ? It all stemmed from meddling with one of their operatives.

In any case.

With the background of the operation concealed, it made sense to stop here.

Still,

“…Ugh.”

It can’t be helped that I feel disappointed.

I closed the file and opened the next report.

This information document was about the movements of the Reconnaissance Command. This was the organization my shoulder had been shot by during the hotel incident.

“Reports say that unusual activities have been detected in the Reconnaissance Command, right?”

“Yes, the volume of classified communications has increased. Over 30 communications have occurred in the past three days.”

The number of communications relayed from the Kien Empire’s Ministry of Defense to the Imperial representation at the Magic Tower had surged.

Considering that the Reconnaissance Command is directly under the Ministry of Defense and that all military attaches dispatched as diplomatic personnel from the Empire belong to the Reconnaissance Command, it’s accurate to say that communications from the Reconnaissance Command have increased.

It’s likely due to the special forces that were killed in action. On top of failing their mission abroad, they died, and their remains ended up at the Magic Tower, so they’d be worried sick.

And by the way, the remains are in the morgue of the Magic Tower Police Hospital. The Magic Tower Police sent out a request for attendance, so I went to the hospital with staff from the attaché office to confirm it with my own eyes.

“Oh, and several identified operatives from the Reconnaissance Command have reportedly departed for abroad.”

“I’m seeing that now. Their destinations are all different, but they were likely congregating at the Magic Tower?”

“Analysts indicate that’s a high possibility.”

If the analysts say so, then I have to believe it.

In any case, the Magic Tower still had no inkling of the culprits behind the bombing, and Reconnaissance Command agents were congregating there.

I methodically closed the file and flipped over to another intelligence document.

“Jake.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t go wandering outside for no reason for a while.”

“What’s going on?”

“Umm, it’s nothing significant.”

Just…

“I have to keep a low profile for now.”

—

Despite saying I’d need a low profile for a while, I was someone who had to go here and there.

It wasn’t because of a mission assigned by the Military Intelligence Agency. Since the operation was already concluded, and I needed rest because of the bullet wound on my shoulder, the Military Intelligence Agency didn’t have any work for me.

So what I was doing now was more like community service than a mission.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

“Next person, please. Please don’t push from the back.”

Most of my time was spent helping Lucia with her medical volunteer work.

Over the past few weeks, Lucia had been tirelessly moving around the nooks and crannies of the Magic Tower, aiming to save all the people who fell through the cracks of welfare and health.

Done.

Watching a blind person open their eyes and an amputee spring to their feet after just one heal felt like witnessing a miracle. In truth, studying the divine had been strictly prohibited for any reason (unless you were a priest, as researching the divine would lead to the Inquisition), so calling it a miracle wasn’t far-fetched at all.

The next person I spent the most time with was Camila.

“This area is done. We just need to kick it over to that area over there.”

“Where?”

“Can you see the place I’m pointing at with my finger?”

Camila practiced her magic at the place assigned by the Magic Tower for her training. I always just referred to this as practice, but in the Magic Tower, meditation, training, and learning to enhance magical abilities were collectively referred to as cultivation.

However, I had no idea such a term even existed. I had never seen anyone at the Academy, the military, or even my sister, doing nothing in a room all day, use the word cultivation.

Anyway, my knowledge had increased.

“You have to insert it correctly. If you mess up, everything nearby will be destroyed.”

“Do I have to compensate for it?”

“Surely not. The Magic Tower will handle it.”

I had no idea if the Magic Tower would actually compensate for the damage done to the residents.

To be honest, I didn’t care. The responsibility was too ambiguous to bother with.

Having lived here for 28 years, I had never encountered someone saying to a person who arrived from another world with nothing, “You have caused damage, so compensate!”

If I were to claim compensation from Camila, she would be labeled an ‘ungrateful magician,’ and if I demanded it from the Abas representative office, I could simply argue that they had ‘no legal responsibility to compensate for damage caused by a foreign national.’

Regardless of what the Magic Tower claimed, it didn’t matter. If they were upset, they could bring in the law and precedent. That’s how a law-abiding society functions. It might seem a bit petty and dirty, but that’s how information agencies operate. The Foreign Affairs Ministry was similar.

Of course, there was no scene of a Magic Tower civil servant sobbing and wailing in front of a wrecked building.

“Have you become accustomed to using magic?”

“I’ve gotten used to it as I’ve been using it!”

Camila displayed skills that belied her status as a newbie who had only been studying magic for three months. Her control over flames was far smoother and more delicate compared to before.

While the old Camila would recklessly unleash flames without care, she was now showing a more refined skill as a magician.

I couldn’t help but admire her rapidly growing abilities, even though I didn’t know the first thing about magic.

“Wow. That’s no joke.”

“Is it the smell of sewage? Or is it about my skills?”

“Looks like you’re confident in your abilities, huh?”

“I’ve always been overflowing with confidence!”

Camila grinned confidently as she hopped onto her broomstick.

I naturally sat behind her, and the broom began to lift into the sky.

Of course,

“Okay, let’s take off—!”

“Whoa—!”

“Ahhhh—!”

-CRASH!

Sometimes there were occasions when the broom would go crashing into walls.

*

Time flowed on, and suddenly, three days had passed.

The past three days had been a continuous cycle of the same monotonous routine. I would arrive at the representative office in the morning for reports, assist Camila and Lucia with their chores, meet with the information police to exchange information about protests and terrorism… and that’s how I spent my time.

I dedicated myself to information collection during that dull daily grind.

So far, the cover for the secret operation was a success. The Magic Tower was unaware that the Military Intelligence Agency was behind the bombing and kidnapping incidents, and the investigation into the bombing and the disappearance of Fabio Verati was stagnating due to intense protests.

The analysts at the Military Intelligence Agency concluded that the cover operation had yielded significant results, and thanks to the perfect follow-up measures for the residual personnel from Project 73, the truth would likely never see the light of day.

The Magic Tower would remain clueless about who perpetuated the bombing and kidnapped Fabio Verati. Even if the truth were uncovered, it would surely take months or years, making the political and diplomatic fallout lesser than ‘initially expected.’

This conclusion was reached because protests at the Magic Tower had intensified.

With police announcements linking the bombing to anarchist groups, protests in the Magic Tower grew even fiercer. In the meantime, there was also infighting among the factions within the protests.

The illegitimate children of the two-faced Führer strongly criticized the anarchists. As everyone knows, Nazism despises socialism, and anarchism is a faction of socialist thought, so this was a natural progression. Anyway, the Nazis at the Magic Tower unleashed political attacks on the anarchists. Misunderstood as engaging in armed struggle, the anarchists split into two factions.

The moderates claimed the police’s announcement was slander, while the hardliners, who had been subdued under the public security’s oppression, rose up by arguing that only through struggle could true freedom come to the Magic Tower. Meanwhile, the communists in the Tower also divided into moderates and hardliners, starting to tear at each other.

Thus, there was consecutive division and internal strife within the protest factions.

I certainly hadn’t anticipated this outcome. It wasn’t the intended result either. I had merely chosen any random terrorist group to utilize, yet somehow it had escalated to this extent. The rapid unfolding of events surprised even me.

As the leaders fragmented, the protests lost direction and control, causing the Magic Tower Police and Public Security to feel the heat from this uncontrollable beast. As the media whipped up a frenzy declaring ‘the Magic Tower is doomed,’ the police and counterintelligence were forced to abandon all their ongoing work to focus entirely on suppressing the protests.

Protests erupted all over the Tower, creating gaps in security, and various crimes surged, taking advantage of these lapses.

Still, the Magic Tower was pouring efforts into suppression, and the protesters were managing some degree of self-correction, so the protests did not devolve into a full-blown riot. It wasn’t completely peaceful either, though.

Anyway, that was none of my business. I didn’t know anything at all.

“Hmm….”

I closed the report from the Magic Tower Police that had been relayed through the foreign police. The corner of the document read, ‘A sudden division has occurred within the protest factions. Information collection is necessary.’

This was everything I had managed to gather over the past three days.

“…….”

I had no intel on the movements of the Reconnaissance Command.

The information officers and operatives in the Kien Empire could not track the reconnaissance agents who had departed, and those stationed in the areas where the reconnaissance agents arrived could not collect additional intelligence.

The Military Intelligence Agency had failed to detect anything.

That was the conclusion of the report I received that morning.

The operational network of the Reconnaissance Command within the Magic Tower was entirely unscathed, and no one knew where the deployed reconnaissance officers were heading. While the likelihood of them coming to the Magic Tower was the highest, it was only at a 40% probability. The probability of heading to Mauritania was 30%, and to neighboring countries was around 15%.

That wasn’t the only issue.

Veronica, who had mentioned that a coup or revolution would erupt in the Magic Tower, had yet to provide any intelligence. Even when I urged her to speak up if she had something to say, Veronica only responded, “I’ll inform you when the time is right.”

I tried to utilize all my connections to gather intel on a coup-like situation. Military Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Inquisition, media outlets, Ministry of Foreign Affairs… But nothing captured my attention. I thought perhaps the Royal Intelligence Department might know something, but the only person I knew there was Leoni, and she had gone off the radar, making her impossible to find.

Time was passing, and I had no idea what was unfolding.

Delaying a report might be manageable for a day or two, but when it came to issues related to the coup, I could no longer procrastinate.

Yet there was nothing on the Military Intelligence Agency server, Dmitri had failed at information collection, and Leoni had vanished. Sophia had gone silent.

There was no source for information to emerge.

I let out a deep sigh and looked up at the ceiling of my office.

“…….”

Not even Clevenz, Pippin, and Jake could be relied on. If the Military Intelligence Agency moved to gather intel now, it would clearly cause problems—politically and diplomatically.

Furthermore, I couldn’t discuss this issue with related agencies. Whether it was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Military Intelligence Agency, or the Royal Intelligence Department, sending a formal request for information collection would leave a recorded trail.

Thus, it became clear that I had to gather information in a manner that absolutely left no record.

An informal route,

an agency or organization that could easily obtain information from the Magic Tower,

someone with decent authority and a friendly relationship with me,

a trustworthy person.

As luck would have it, I had someone like that.

“…Huh.”

Taking a deep breath, I picked up the receiver and dialed. The distinct tone of Abas’s phone rang, and after a brief wait, the other party picked up.

“…Hello?”

-‘…Frederick?’

It was a voice I hadn’t heard in three years.

“Uh, it’s me. Long time no see.”

I wiped the cold sweat from my face with my hand and continued speaking in a tentative voice.

“…Sister.”

 

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