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On a dark night, in a hotel room illuminated by dim moonlight, I faced Camila.

Camila was looking down at me.

Her face, reflecting the moonlight, was eerily pale, almost emaciated like a sick patient.

She stood there absentmindedly, gazing at me with cold eyes.

As I looked into those chilling eyes, a sudden thought crossed my mind.

Was it intuition or instinct? An indescribable sensation brushed through my head.

Right. Perhaps this was a kind of supernatural ability, or maybe a habit honed through years of spying.

So, I gazed into Camila’s moonlit eyes, thinking that she knew something.

—

Side Episode – Spy Game

It was dawn. The silence in the room was only broken by the hum of the air conditioning. The drizzling rain had lowered the temperature of the Magic Tower, and the humidity had peaked, making it hard to breathe even when standing still.

I took a slow breath of the drying stuffy air. Just breathing felt like being underwater.

That irritability had me feeling strange, and I couldn’t help but share my bewilderment and frustration with Camila.

“What do you mean?”

Camila looked at me with a beaming smile.

“Are you hiding something from me?”

“…….”

Her smile became slightly enigmatic.

It seemed like she was laughing. Or maybe sneering. Upon closer inspection, it even looked like a smirk, yet at a glance, she seemed almost angry.

Camila’s usual smile was as warm as her scarlet hair, but with her face so pale in the moonlight, it was hard to find any warmth there.

In my exasperation, I sat down on the single sofa and racked my brain for memories. What did she know? Where had I made a mistake?

“…….”

To be honest, I hadn’t always told the truth to Camila. So, the number of things I was hiding from her was uncountable.

For instance, the truth behind past bombings and assassination attempts, or the identity of Cardinal Raul.

All those incidents were mere fragments of a fierce intelligence war woven around the Information Agency, and Camila was one of the participants. She had just arrived and experienced a bombing incident, even watching me die from a poisoned dart right in front of her.

Of course, that information was not something she needed to know. At the same time, it was information she shouldn’t know.

It was classified.

Everything that had happened within the Cult was meticulously kept secret among those involved, and all documents, memos, recordings, videos, and photographs produced in the process were classified. The ones who knew the truth had signed non-disclosure agreements. So, I was aware that the first thing I did after returning to the Military Intelligence Agency was prepare the NDA. Naturally, the subsequent operation to catch spies from the Advanced Military Magic Research Institute and the secret operations at the Magic Tower were the same.

While I wasn’t sure of the exact classification, all of that information was at least classified as level 2 military secrets. It might even be level 1. Level 1 is produced by the Information Agency, while the Military Intelligence Agency is officially a military intelligence organization.

So, this wasn’t something Camila needed to concern herself with. She had never been interested in such matters anyway.

But what I was hiding from her didn’t stop there. I hid so much from Camila.

That I wasn’t just an ordinary Army Major or Defense Attaché but an Operative belonging to military intelligence.

That the Cult members she greeted every morning were information agents from the Inquisition.

That the police she saw sitting in the same spot on the first floor of the hotel were not just regular police but police information officers.

That Veronica, whom I had spoken to several times while risking my life, was not only a Saint but also an aide to the Information Agency.

That Francesca Ranieri, whom I had just met in the Magic Tower, was actually a dissident and a rebel.

That I wasn’t even from here.

Some information I could have shared, but other information was hidden because I simply couldn’t. Perhaps ignorance was bliss. I had seen too many people get sucked into the quagmire after getting tangled up in this line of work.

I had hidden an uncountable amount of information or truths, and Camila was oblivious to it all.

So, here I was, saying this.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. What am I hiding?”

Even at this moment, I was lying through my teeth, but sadly, that was my job.

I told lies as easily as breathing, manipulating and controlling people to my liking, and showing a counterfeit passport stolen from China or Japan instead of my South Korean passport with my real name.

Tricking and conning people was what I always did. In fact, I still was doing it now.

As I laid out plausible denials, Camila smiled faintly and lowered her head. Though she looked down at me as she bowed, she still retained her stance.

She opened her mouth.

“People have their own characteristics. Not just in appearance, but also in speech and behavior. I do, and Lucia does too….”

“…….”

“It applies to you too, Major.”

Camila quietly held my hand. It was my hand.

A woman holding a strange man’s hand was unusual, whether here or on Earth. But upon closer inspection, Camila wasn’t just holding my hand; she was gently stroking my wrist with her fingers.

“Your characteristic is that you always use examples when explaining things so others can understand easily.”

She continued speaking slowly.

“For instance, when trying to ride a broom for the first time, you should wear protective gear like when riding a bicycle to avoid scraping your knees, and practice in a safe place…”

“That’s what I mean.”

After Camila finished speaking, I took a brief pause before calmly opening my mouth.

“Isn’t it obvious? Whenever you start something, you have to do it in a safe place. Riding a bicycle for the first time is tough enough as it is, sitting on top of those two wobbly wheels and trying to balance.”

“Why is that obvious?”

“Isn’t safety important? If you rush things, there’s a risk of injury—”

“No, that’s not it.”

Camila interjected.

“I’m asking why it’s obvious that a bicycle has two wheels. It could have three or even four wheels, you know?”

She said it with an air of peculiarity. Her voice was ordinary, but I could instinctively sense something sticky lurking beneath.

“….”

But I didn’t know exactly what that something was. I couldn’t tell which part she found strange. The very nature of her question was one that seemed too obvious to even ask.

So, feeling weird, I thought it would be better to backtrack rather than awkwardly stumble over my words. I hurriedly continued.

“Your question is strange. What’s so important about how many wheels a vehicle has? Ultimately, a bicycle is just a mode of transportation that moves when a person pedals, regardless of the number of wheels.”

“Do you have a reason to think of a bicycle as a wheeled mode of transportation?”

“Well, you see people riding bicycles all the time; is there any need to overthink it?”

Camila responded.

“That’s here in this story.”

The university student from England said.

“In the place I come from, a bicycle may not be considered a wheeled mode of transportation.”

*

In that moment, it felt like I’d been struck on the head with a hammer.

My mind went blank, and, piece by piece, the puzzle clicked into place. I realized where I went wrong. I saw what she had detected.

As I thought things through as naturally as breathing, I knew I was in deep trouble.

Yet even amid that, my mouth instinctively kept moving.

“I don’t need to hear more. This is merely a paranoid delusion at best.”

I instinctively pulled out a tactic I used often in the past. To put it nicely, I was the devil’s advocate verifying the analyst’s judgment; to put it bluntly, I was employing the typical obnoxiously nitpicky style.

“It’s a stretch to say a bicycle isn’t a wheeled mode of transportation, even if it’s just an example. Sure, a bicycle might not be a wheeled thing in your neighborhood, Camila. But as a resident here, I know bicycles to be wheeled modes of transportation.”

“….”

“The same goes for other things. All my explanations are based here. Of course, the places where you and I live could be vastly different. But if my explanations bear any similarity to something from the neighborhood you lived in, that’s purely a coincidence.”

“….”

“Right now, Camila, you seem to be in a psychologically unstable state. I understand that. It’s only natural you feel that way after suddenly being dropped into another world.”

I was desperately trying to locate her logical gaps to flip the core judgment back.

Yet, Camila remained still, her head hanging low. The smile lingering on her lips was unchanged.

“So, Colonel, you see my thoughts as delusions? Just inflated notions stemming from psychological factors?”

“Delusions is a very negative word, so let’s call it imagination instead.”

She silently drew a line with her fingertips at the corner of her mouth. That look of hers seemed so exceedingly strange, bizarre, and ominously unsettling. It likely wasn’t just because of the two fingers resting on her wrist.

The stale air had grown dry, and a pleasant breeze began to blow, but I still felt a suffocating sensation, as though submerged underwater.

“….”

Suddenly, my mind flashed back to the psychological warfare training I once received.

A person’s voice directly reflects their psychology. When conveying accurate facts and strong opinions, the tone remains stable, with little variance in frequency. However, when uncertain or lying, the frequency wavers and stutters. The speed of delivery quickens, breathing gets shorter, and the voice tonal shifts slightly.

That’s because blood pressure and heartbeat quicken. Breathing and skin conductance are interrelated as well. Even the nose flares up.

So, to bypass a lie detector or fool an investigator, maintaining the most stable state possible is crucial. Not to mention, it’s essential that the words stay coherent.

Lie detectors analyze collectively using breathing, skin conductance, blood pressure, and heartbeat to judge the veracity of the lie.

And all four elements are tied to the heartbeat.

Camila’s voice broke my musings.

“I have one more thing I’m curious about.”

She slightly bent her knees and squatted in front of me, looking up.

Our gazes met, and there was a strange emotion I could perceive within them.

“You mentioned before that elves love nature immensely, right? You remember?”

“…Yes.”

Her two pupils,

“Then you’ll remember this as well.”

She seemed quite certain.

“How did you know what Greenpeace does?”

 

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