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“About 30 minutes had passed since I dragged Francesca out of the lodging.”

“We ended up not in the northern regions of the Kien Empire, but at the entrance immigration office of the Magic Tower.”

“That was really fast. I’ve heard a lot about how good teleportation scrolls are, but honestly, I never thought we could jump from the north to Petrogard in one go. Isn’t it amazing, Administrator?”

“…….”

Francesca shot me a cold glare. It felt like a frosty dagger piercing my heart.

“Such a grump.”

I walked ahead, hastening Francesca as we exited the immigration office.

“Come on! We don’t want to be stuck here at sunrise. You must be tired from the long journey, so let’s not keep waiting. People should maintain their manners, you know.”

“The one talking about manners, who barged into a lodging where a strange woman was staying. Don’t you think your words are a bit contradictory?”

“When I do it, it’s romance, and when others do it, it’s infidelity!”

“…Hah.”

I set out with a bright smile.

I could have sworn I heard a sigh beside me, but it must have been my imagination.

Probably.

Episode 12 – The Strongest Magician

Francesca, who had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, grumbled but eventually sighed in resignation.

Having magically traveled hundreds of kilometers, Francesca, with a fatigued expression, turned to me with a question.

“Can we stop it with the joking? What brings you to the Magic Tower all of a sudden? And why did you drag me here?”

“I have someone to introduce you to. I could use the Administrator’s help as well.”

A question arose on her weary face.

Francesca tilted her head, mulling over my words.

“Introduce… Is this about that incident from last time? The black market Dark Elf?”

“Exactly.”

Currently, the black market in the north is tightly controlled by a Dark Elf.

The owner of the Palm Tree Trade Guild, Dark Elf Hormoz. To put it simply, you could equate him to a Jewish loan shark running shady business practices in this world.

That Dark Elf has the information we need.

“Hormoz is the most likely person to know the source of the dark magic used in the department store terror. But he has no intention of giving us information.”

So what can we do?

We have to extract it, by force if necessary.

“The person we’re going to meet right now can help us in tricking that Dark Elf.”

“Umm… Is this person trustworthy?”

“I’ve known him for a long time, so you can trust him. It’s been about five years.”

I halted my steps and glanced back at Francesca.

Though she had just woken up, she stood there looking as composed as ever.

No.

In fact, she looked even more extravagant than usual.

A suit made of high-quality fabric with golden trim on the vest. Form-fitting pants and well-groomed hair.

I told her to dress suitably, and she went all out. I had suspected she had money, given how well she was dressed before, but this level is practically noble.

“…Oh right. She is indeed a noble.”

“What’s with the sudden odd comment…”

Maybe it’s her stunning looks. Francesca didn’t look like someone who had just rolled out of bed.

She seemed more like a child of a prestigious noble family coming back home from a late-night social club. Perhaps a bit of a rake, one might say.

As the saying goes, clothes make the man. With such clothing, she could fly to Mars.

Anyway, this is adequate.

I beamed a satisfied smile and complimented Francesca.

“Looks great! By the way, where did you get that suit made?”

“This? It’s made by the same artisan who crafted the suit the Colonel is currently wearing.”

“Ah! That makes it even better.”

As Francesca regarded me with a slightly suspicious look, sensing something odd about my beaming smile, I shrugged it off.

Whatever.

With an impudent attitude, I turned to Francesca and made a request.

“Administrator, there’s one thing I’d like to ask of you, could you listen?”

“Go ahead.”

“If someone asks about our relationship, just say we’re dating. More accurately, that we’re on the verge of starting a relationship.”

“…….”

“I trust you understand what I mean?”

Francesca beamed at me.

“Seems the concussion is finally getting to your head, huh?”

That was a painfully sharp quip.

*

The great wizards, pioneers, and revolutionaries who were the founding fathers established the Magic Tower.

After thousands of years of waiting, they finally obtained land.

The Archmages lifted the Magic Tower into the sky to preserve knowledge and continue the lineage of future mages against external invasions.

The colossal tower, with the sky beneath its feet, is accessible to no one and cannot be touched.

As of now, lawsuits flood in, claiming violations of landscaping and sunlight rights, but the Oracle stubbornly maintaining the Magic Tower in the air isn’t merely about valuing tradition. The benefits of being suspended high in the sky far outweigh being on the ground.

Since the establishment of the Magic Tower, mages have gradually remodeled the great ancestors’ legacy. They added new floors, expanded horizontally, upgraded spatial magic for efficiency, and so on.

Reckless expansions and developments bred numerous issues like wealth disparity, housing problems, and slums, yet in a place where habitable land is scarce, most defects wouldn’t even be considered problematic.

Thus, in the countless slum areas, a dilapidated apartment slightly off the main road.

On the precarious fourth floor of an apartment on the verge of collapse, where tenants and the homeless jumbled together, lies the safe house of the Military Intelligence Agency.

“What are you doing? Hurry and come inside!”

“…….”

Francesca stood in the hallway, shocked as she peered into the house.

“What is this place…?”

“A safe location. Keep the door open for too long, and a chill will come in, so just step inside for now.”

I ushered the dazed Francesca in.

After tossing the key, buried in the dirt by the flower bed next to the entrance, onto the table, I cursed the Military Intelligence Agency’s curators.

“How stingy can you be? There’s not even a TV?”

The safe house was utterly barren. It was understandable that the old building showed signs of damage; the walls peeling yellow with age made sense.

But not having even the most basic TV, which you could find in a train station waiting room, was a bit much.

Before I knew it, my tongue was clicking against the roof of my mouth. I turned on the lamp next to the sofa and glanced outside.

“The upkeep of this safe house comes from the branch’s budget. But still, having just a sofa and a bed, it’s a bit….”

“…Is this really a safe house? Really?”

“Yep.”

Francesca muttered in disbelief.

“What the…?”

“Well… this is way different from what I expected…”

“This isn’t how it usually is. They normally fill the place with furniture and secure a good location for the house, but I guess since this is just a hideout for emergencies, it looks like this.”

I muttered with a disgruntled expression.

Every conversation we’ve had here is probably being recorded by the Military Intelligence Agency personnel dispatched from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Abas at the Magic Tower.

That means the conversation I’m having with Francesca is also being recorded. If possible, I wish they wouldn’t just record it but also report it to the higher-ups. What kind of safe house is this, really?

“Tsk… it seems the person I was supposed to introduce hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Weren’t they supposed to be here waiting for us…?”

I shrugged my shoulders and replied nonchalantly.

“They’re probably already here. They’re checking if this place is safe. They’re quite a shy friend.”

“…Isn’t that usually called being cautious or cowardly?”

“That’s pretty much the same thing. Just make yourself comfortable and wait.”

I opened the window wide for ventilation and pulled out a handkerchief to dust off the old sofa.

Francesca, finally coming to her senses, used magic to clean up the dust from her seat and sat down on the sofa, looking a bit uneasy.

“Oops.”

I brushed off the remaining dust and plopped down next to Francesca.

“……”

“What are you staring at?”

“Well, there are chairs and plenty of other spots, so why sit right next to me, Colonel…?”

“Isn’t it better to stick together if we’re pretending to be in a relationship?”

We’re not some display couple living in separate rooms or anything… As I muttered with that kind of nuance, Francesca let out a deep sigh, her shoulders slumping as if filled with disappointment.

“I don’t understand. Who brings their lover to a business meeting on a first encounter? That’s just bad manners.”

Manners, huh.

“Ordinary people would think so. But that person isn’t ‘ordinary.’”

“…?”

They’re a friend who’s a bit hard to grasp with common sense…

Anyway,

“I don’t need to say more. You’ll understand once you meet them in person, Francesca.”

Having said what I wanted, I turned off the lamp next to the sofa and buried myself deeply. The entrance to the apartment reflected in the window.

Francesca stared at me, then swiftly turned her head away, and thus silence enveloped the safe house.

*

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The calm ticking of the clock echoed in my ears like ripples spreading across a lake.

Rolling up my sleeves and glancing at the clock, about 40 minutes had passed.

“……”

We were waiting for our guest in a lake of silence. The seating wasn’t uncomfortable, but no one was willing to break the silence.

Where there’s a beginning, there’s also an end.

The first to throw a stone into the lake was none other than Francesca.

“Colonel.”

“Yes.”

“That person you’ve known for a long time, are they really coming?”

With her legs crossed and arms folded, Francesca lightly asked the question.

I glanced out the window and casually replied.

“Yes.”

“……”

I gave a confident answer, but it seemed it didn’t satisfy her.

Francesca nodded as if to indicate she understood, but there was no sign of agreement in her violet eyes. While she was willing to wait, her expression suggested she wasn’t pleased.

Instead of clearing her doubts, I kept my silence, looking out the window. Francesca cast sidelong glances at me before eventually turning her gaze away.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The tranquil ticking sound began to echo within the safe house again. 10 minutes passed, then 20. Before long, it had exceeded 40 minutes, and there was less than four hours until sunrise.

Still, I waited, gazing outside, leaning against the light of the streetlamp illuminating the alley.

“……”

That was the moment.

A strange noise, like a switch being flipped, entered my ears.

-Pick…!

The strange noise was quickly followed by a bizarre sight. Like a scene from a horror movie, the streetlights standing in line began to extinguish one by one.

Even Francesca, who had been staring blankly into space, turned her head at the enchanting sight.

“…What is that?”

Feeling an ominous vibe like a startled animal, Francesca attempted to get up. I raised my hand to gently push her back down onto the sofa.

“Don’t worry.”

“……”

“I believe it’ll be fine.”

As if my words were a signal, the streetlights in the apartment building’s entrance flickered off. It was the moment when the last remaining light on the block went out.

Looking at the street now shrouded in darkness, I turned my attention to the entrance.

Step, step, step. I could hear footsteps approaching.

The footsteps passed through the communal entrance, ascended the stairs, crossed the hallway, and finally stopped right in front of the safe house.

A moment later,

The front door creaked open.

“……”

A hulking customer entered through the door. The lights that should have turned on upon sensing a person only cast a faint glow before being swallowed by the darkness.

The figure that emerged from the gloom opened a small box he held in his hand. He withdrew a very tiny matchstick and struck it.

A tiny flame ignited in the darkness.

I raised my hand to greet the man who stepped into the safe house with the match alight.

“Welcome, Jammer-Victor.”

“I’d prefer you call me Victor.”

“If that’s what you want.”

In the flickering crimson light, a massive fang hidden beneath the skin came into view.

The skin covering the fangs gleamed green, reminiscent of a beast’s teeth.

“It’s been a while, Victor. Looks like business is good these days? You look sharper than when you were a Sergeant.”

The orc, referred to as Victor, grinned, his fangs glistening in the shadows.

“Surprisingly, you still have your head on your shoulders.”

The orc greeted me with a gruff voice lightly tinged with amusement.

“It’s good to see you alive, my friend.”

In an old apartment that avoided the slums of the Magic Tower.

It was a moment of reunion with an old friend.

 

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