Chapter 119
“Just like that techie who fell behind on Mars.”
It seems I’ve gotten myself into quite the mess.
Without much deliberation, I came to a natural conclusion.
I’ve really messed up.
—
Episode 6 – All-Seeing Spy Perspective
—
On my way back to the hotel, I was just passing a spot only a few hundred meters from my destination.
A bright light poured out from a dark alley.
“…?”
Frowning, I turned my gaze to see a parked vehicle in the alley, its headlights illuminating as it revved up.
A four-seater car. It was a model I had seen several times in the Empire, and considering that the Magic Tower was an autonomous region of the Empire, it was a vehicle you could quite commonly see around the Magic Tower.
Up until this point, it didn’t seem like a big deal.
That was until the vehicle picked up speed.
-Vrooosh!
The driver must have slammed on the accelerator, as the car emitted a booming sound and started racing toward me.
“…U-uh?”
I had no time to evade or respond.
The vehicle approached in the blink of an eye, came to a harsh stop, and for a brief moment, I locked eyes with a man who kicked open the back door.
He roughly yanked me, shoving me into the vehicle.
—
“Hey, Jake, have you seen the manager?”
At my colleague’s sudden question, Jake shook his head, shaking off water droplets.
“No? I was in the shower, so I didn’t see him. Isn’t he in his room?”
“He’s not in his room either.”
Then maybe he’s gone to the Hero’s or the Saint’s room?
As I said this, Pippin let out a deep sigh and plopped down on the sofa.
“Do you really not know where he is?”
“How would I know, Pippin?”
“Dang it… then where could he possibly be?”
Jake hung his towel over a chair as he spoke.
“What’s the matter?”
“Well, they say they haven’t seen either the Hero or the Saint. I called the embassy’s security guard, and he said they already clocked out. Shouldn’t they be at the hotel? They’re not even answering their phones.”
“They walk here, right? It must take a bit of time. They clocked out a few minutes ago.”
“About 50 minutes…?”
“50 minutes?”
“Yeah.”
Jake tilted his head, glancing at the clock.
The clock now read 11:58 PM.
—
“…36. …37. …38. …39. …40.”
Humans rely more on sight than one might think.
The human brain processes all external senses, with a high dependency on vision. The second is hearing.
The biggest problem that arises when sight and hearing are blocked is the loss of sense of time and space.
“…41. …42. …43. …44. …45. …46. Right. …48. …49. …50.”
So when sight and hearing are blocked, the ability to perceive time and space is severely diminished. With no external stimuli coming in, proper situational judgment becomes impossible.
If such a situation arises, the human brain creates new stimuli and starts activities to maintain its senses in any way possible, even if it’s based on false information.
Usually, we call such stimuli hallucinations or auditory hallucinations.
In psychology, this phenomenon is referred to as the Ganzfeld effect.
“…51. …52. …Uphill. …54. …55. …56. …57. …58. …Left. …60.”
From what I was trained, and based on my experiences, the organization that most actively employs these psychological phenomena is the Information Agency.
No need to think too deeply. The applicants most favored by the company when hiring were those who majored in psychology.
Even if one isn’t a psychology major, anyone who gets hired receives basic training in psychological concepts. I know this well because I went through it.
I calmly placed my hands behind my back, pondering my current situation objectively.
“…….”
I was now inside a vehicle I had never ridden before, lying on the floor mat between the front and back seats. Essentially, I was shoved in there.
My wrists were bound behind me. My ankles were free to move, but a foot lay on each of my legs. They weren’t stomping down, but if I moved with even a little force, I was poked by the shoe heels.
And there was a stinking piece of black rag over my face with no holes.
I looked like a textbook example of a kidnapping victim from a 9 PM news segment in Central and South America.
“…….”
Well, there wasn’t much to think about here.
I had been kidnapped.
—
“…Yes, Operative. Yes. Understood. Go in.”
Jake hesitated for a moment before putting down his mobile phone. Pippin, who was watching him from the side, asked Jake.
“…What did they say? Did you find out where the manager is?”
“No. Everyone else doesn’t know either. He hasn’t returned, and no one has called.”
“Huh….”
Pippin slumped down onto the hotel lobby sofa.
“How can no one know where the manager is?”
“If they don’t know, they don’t know. He vanished without a word, so how would we know….”
“At least when he leaves somewhere, he would leave a note or something. Where the heck could he have gone…?”
The thought suddenly crossed my mind—what if he had been kidnapped?
But there was no way a group brazen enough to kidnap a diplomat existed in the Magic Tower.
Sure enough, Jake’s thoughts matched Pippin’s.
Denounced it.
“Kidnapping a diplomat here is insane, Pippin. You managed to handle room 51, but the manager is a whole different story.”
“…Isn’t there a possibility with the Reconnaissance Command? The manager has had some friction with them lately.”
“Even in the Empire, kidnapping a diplomat carries a huge risk. If it’s found out, war breaks out that very day! Remember last time when the Cult went for an assassination? The Ministry of Defense was debating whether we should go to war with the Empire.”
That made a lot of sense.
“Then could he have had an accident?”
“That might be it. I’ll call a nearby hospital, Pippin, you check with the local police station to see if the manager is there.”
“And if he’s not at either the hospital or the police station?”
“…Well then.”
It’s an unavoidable scenario.
“…….”
“We have to report it. Whether it’s the Information Agency or the embassy.”
*
As some time passed and I began to calm down, my brain started to churn a bit.
Who kidnapped me? Why was I kidnapped?
Well, I didn’t know who the kidnappers were, but at least they didn’t seem to have any intention of killing me. If they wanted me dead, they wouldn’t bother dragging me around like this. They could just shoot me, run over me with a car, or stab me.
Thinking along those lines, I concluded naturally that these guys’ intention was abduction, not assassination.
But doubts still lingered.
“…9. …10. …11.”
Any sane person wouldn’t go around kidnapping or killing a diplomat.
Kidnapping or killing a diplomat under the protection of international law would invite condemnation from the global community, so most countries avoided such risky endeavors.
The only groups that would engage in such dangerous gambits are essentially terrorist organizations. And as far as the Magic Tower is concerned, no terrorist group capable of such brazen acts existed there. At least, that’s what the Magic Tower Police and the Abas embassy’s officers had in their files.
So, they were definitely not terrorists.
That said, it also didn’t have enough evidence to suggest that the government, meaning the Information Agency, was behind my kidnapping.
The Inquisition and the National Security Agency collaborated with the Military Intelligence Agency based on their circumstances, so they had no reason to harm me. The same goes for any foreign intelligence agency. There are intelligence agencies that cooperate with the Military Intelligence Agency on the continent, as well as those that oppose it, but there was no compelling reason for them to target me specifically.
Honestly, I’d only been working in the headquarters office until three months ago; why would they kidnap someone who hadn’t done anything? If anything, they’d target an operative or information officer working in a foreign branch. Plus, getting caught kidnapping an official would spell immediate war.
The only groups that might have a reason to kidnap me would be the Imperial Guard HQ or the Reconnaissance Command. But those two had no need to undertake such ventures.
The Imperial Guard HQ had already suffered a tremendous headache from being unable to control their operatives. After sustaining a major blow to their overseas intelligence network, they had no reason to stir a hornet’s nest again before cleaning up their mess. The same should apply to the Reconnaissance Command; they were also wary of diplomatic risks.
Terrorist organizations lack the capacity to pull off such stunts, and intelligence agencies either can’t manage the aftermath or, even if they could, have no reason to do so.
So who the heck kidnapped me?
“…57. …58. …59. …60. …1.”
I lay there, dead still, processing my thoughts. I pieced together hypotheses while the vehicle continued to roll along.
I had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like it was around 40 minutes. The time I calculated from the moment I was abducted matched up to about that as well.
I clocked out and left the embassy at 11:12 PM. If I walked at my pace, it took about 20 minutes to get to the hotel, so it was definitely past midnight by now.
During this time, I kept counting numbers, desperately trying to remember how the vehicle was moving. I gauged speed based on the vibrations and engine noise. As the vehicle turned, I tried to guess where we were heading based on how my body shifted.
All of it turned out to be futile.
I couldn’t see outside, so gauging our location was impossible, and I couldn’t even accurately calculate speed.
At least I was relieved that I hadn’t switched vehicles at any point. If I had changed modes of transportation, tracking would’ve become even more difficult.
“…47. …48. …49. …50. …51. …52.”
As I mechanically counted numbers—
-Clunk!
The vehicle slowly turned and began to slow down.
“…Left turn. 48 minutes and 52 seconds.”
Brrrum.
With the sound of the engine shutting off, the vehicle finally came to a stop.
“…….”
The thugs had halted the movement.
We had arrived at the destination.
