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“I was kidnapped and dragged onto a ship, and now I’m facing Leoni. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“What is the meaning of this?”

There was no reply.

Leoni, sitting across from me, looked as if even speaking was a struggle, mumbling to the air while twitching her hands.

“Let me go.”

“Yes, Director.”

The men who had been standing in the corner approached and released my bindings. They cut the ropes that had tied my hands and feet with a knife, even picking up the remnants that had fallen to the floor.

The man spoke Abasian with a fluency that rivaled a native speaker. No, it wasn’t just fluent; it was pure native pronunciation. This meant the bastards who kidnapped me were Abasans.

As my painfully tight arms were finally freed, the first feeling that hit me was an acute pain. Blood that had been starved of oxygen rushed back, causing a tingling sensation throughout my fingertips and arms.

“…….”

As soon as I was released, I rubbed my wrists and scanned my surroundings, but in the midst of my confusion, Leoni only continued to speak her mind.

“It seems you’re curious about what a mess this is.”

“…….”

“Let’s move to another location first.”

Making a loud noise as she stood, Leoni headed out of the room.

—

Episode 13 – A Country with No Magicians

—

Once I escaped from the room I was dragged into, I arrived in a spacious underground chamber.

Screens densely packed along one wall were relaying footage from within the room. It seemed to be a live feed, showing the faces of men passing through the corridor into the room, as well as workers in orange vests bustling around the docks during loading operations.

Leoni, with her back to the screens, pulled out a chair and carelessly tossed files strewn across a makeshift desk aside as she spoke to me.

“Sit down.”

I reluctantly sank into the chair with my exhausted body.

“What is this place?”

“Can’t you see?”

Leoni took a seat across from me and bluntly replied.

“This is a place for pulling out fingernails.”

The moment that response reached my ears, screams began to echo from beyond the wide-open, rusty iron door of the corridor.

As I reflexively turned my head toward the sound, I suddenly spotted a familiar face on the monitor mounted to the wall.

Gabi Schneider.

The magician from the Magic Tower Secretariat’s international department was being beaten like a dog by a man wearing a mask.

With a clenched fist, he struck her left cheek, causing her delicate body to sway. As if her head was about to fall off, the man, having grabbed her by the hair, pulled her up again and threw another punch into her face.

The screen emitted no sound, but the screams leaking through the torture room’s iron door reverberated through the empty corridor like wails of agony.

After staring at the screen for a moment, I asked Leoni,

“…Is this survival training?”

“Does this look like training to you?”

It was evident that this was a real situation.

As I gazed at Leoni, who raised her eyebrows slightly, I turned my attention back to the screen.

The information officer on the screen had struck Gabi Schneider about four more times. Then, bending slightly at the knees, he leaned in close to her head, which was bobbing like a broken wooden puppet, and shouted something in her ear. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it seemed to be a question.

“…….”

Watching someone I had seen just this afternoon—maybe it was even yesterday—being tortured didn’t feel real. It felt surreal, like my mind was floating.

Even though the scene of someone being tortured was unexpectedly unfolding behind me, Leoni didn’t seem to care a bit. If anything, it seemed like the sound bothered her more than the footage. Hearing the screams from the corridor, she ordered the information officer who had followed us into the room.

“Close the door; it’s noisy. You all get out too.”

“We need personnel to record the audiovisual material.”

“There’s a camera in the room anyway. Just compile that later.”

The information officer patted the shoulder of his colleague, gesturing for him to leave. The woman operating the equipment in front of the screen removed her headset and left the room with the other staff.

—

For a moment, the rusty iron door shook and creaked ominously in response to the shock. Leoni, who had been silently guarding her spot in the empty room, let out a deep sigh, furrowing her brow.

“With all the trouble she causes, I sent her on leave to keep her from poking her nose where it doesn’t belong. But she couldn’t help herself and came hundreds of kilometers just to stir up trouble. I didn’t realize it when I was a novice, but she surely has a knack for making things difficult.”

“…….”

“If you have any questions, now’s the time.”

“…Was it company business?”

Leoni nodded. What the hell.

I was on vacation abroad, and the Military Intelligence Agency had gotten involved in an information operation locally. Talk about ridiculous.

Feeling a headache creeping in, I let out a faint sigh and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Was it a rescue operation?”

“Yeah.”

To top it all off, it was a kidnapping operation.

The moment I heard that, everything clicked into place.

The Military Intelligence Agency had aimed to kidnap Gabi Schneider. For what reason, I didn’t know, but they had launched the operation in our ally, Patalia. But to my misfortune, I got caught in the crossfire and ruined everything. As the situation twisted, and the operation was at risk of failure, they decided to just kidnap me as a bonus.

Leoni slouched back in her chair, her spirit visibly drained, and began to speak.

“We were only aiming to kidnap her, but when things got tangled up, we ended up taking you too.”

“Does that even make sense?”

I looked at Leoni, bewildered. No, it was genuinely absurd.

Generally speaking, statistically, intelligence operations tend to fail most of the time.

Shifting loyalties of information agents, failed approaches on targets, failure to gather intelligence, misjudgments by information officers, errors in data analysis, and the commanding authorities’ cease orders—no matter how hard you try, if you’re unlucky, you’re bound to screw it up.

Right now, that was precisely what was happening.

Caught in the middle of a kidnapping operation? Sure, maybe it could be seen as my fault.

If I had known the agency was planning to kidnap Gabi Schneider in advance.

“If things went south, they could’ve either kidnapped her when she was alone or lured her away. Or they could have scrapped the entire operation. Why did they have to kidnap me in the process without so much as a heads-up? What do you mean ‘things got complicated’? Is this really my fault?”

Of course, Leoni must have had her reasons to counter. It was probably a very straightforward explanation. And as I expected, she hit the nail on the head.

“Do you really need to know that?”

“Because of security?”

Leoni said,

“Anyway, if everything had gone as planned, you wouldn’t have been loitering around the café. While you were enjoying a meal at the resort in Galbria, the field team would have kidnapped the target and brought her here. In that case, there would be no reason for you to end up here in front of me.”

“For real….”

“The reason you got kidnapped, despite having no connection to the operation at all, is that you came to the capital riding the Warp Gate just to meet her.”

Leoni pointed at the screen as she spoke. Stunned, I turned my head away in exasperation.

The Military Intelligence Agency hadn’t informed me about the ongoing operation for its success. They maintained security.

If I had been informed—even though I wasn’t participating in the operation—it was clear that there would be a risk of leaks or unnecessary scrutiny. So they chose to keep it to themselves.

“Sure. What kind of person would suspect that the military would kidnap someone in broad daylight, of all places, while I was on vacation? If I had known Gabi was the target, I would have just stayed in my hotel room. I wouldn’t have crawled into that narrow alley to mess up company business.”

“Let me remind you, it was something you didn’t need to know in the first place. If you hadn’t been prancing around on your vacation thinking you were here to work, it would have been an uneventful matter.”

In that moment, my head began to heat up, and anger bubbled within me.

I shouted directly at her.

“So you’re saying my work was a crime? Huh?”

“If you were on vacation, you should have acted like a civilian with no ties to the company. Why come here, causing a ruckus for a little snack?”

Leoni’s tone grew slightly harsh as if she found it irritating to hear a junior speak to her like that.

But I wasn’t backing down.

“When I was in the field, you had me working even on vacation! Now you say I should just live like a civilian because I’m on leave? Excuse me, Director, are you out of your mind? Are you showing signs of dementia or something?”

“You have no qualms about talking back to your senior, do you?”

“Oh, well, since I’m currently a civilian, I’ll drop all formalities—why Patalia specifically?”

The types of covert operations conducted by intelligence agencies vary, but operations involving kidnapping and torture like this are all classified as quasi-military operations.

Kidnapping, torture, intelligence theft, raids, assassinations, fostering local warlords, and rescue operations. Breaking into places to assassinate generals or training warlords hidden in Afghanistan’s mountainous backcountry or extracting captured agents from prisons.

It’s not too far-fetched to think of this as the kind of stuff that Call of Duty protagonists do. In fact, quasi-military operations fall under the lower category of special operations, so intelligence agencies sometimes drag military special forces into their operations.

Though it’s hard to find a lawful thing among the activities intelligence agencies engage in, there’s a valid reason why operations like quasi-military operations are called “covert.”

So launching a quasi-military operation within the territory of the Abas Intelligence Agency was utterly insane.

I pointed at the monitor where Gabi Schneider was getting hit.

“What will you do about kidnapping a magician from the Magic Tower, a foreign national, and even torturing her within Patalia’s territory? If the Patalia folks find out, they’ll probably summon the ambassador and confront us about why we did something like this in their territory, showing the torn-up face of that poor woman.”

Leoni turned her gaze toward the screen with a bored expression. On the screen, Gabi Schneider had a cloth over her face, while the information officer began pouring cold water over it.

Waterboarding, drowning, underwater ballet, etc. Call it by different names, but to put it plainly…

“That’s just water torture. And torture is illegal in any country’s laws.”

Of course, I didn’t bring this up just to create a fuss. Whether they torture or not, it’s none of my business. If things get out of hand, I’d just swing a punch at their faces anyway.

But the real problem lay elsewhere.

“No, Chief. Let’s think logically here.”

I looked at Leoni and laid out the current mess we were in.

“You kidnapped a foreigner on allied territory. I don’t know what he did wrong, but it’s true that Abas officials abducted a civilian on Patalia’s land, right? And you tortured him.”

“…Right.”

“But the last person that guy met was an Abas diplomat, wasn’t it?”

It was my decision to meet with Gabi Schneider, who was crying and pleading with Francesca.

However, it was Leoni who pushed forward with the operation despite the lack of communication that twisted the situation.

“If the last person he met before being kidnapped was a foreign official, then logically, isn’t that official the culprit?”

She pressed her forehead with a deep frown as if annoyed, responding in a dismissive tone.

“Should we just leave him there? A foreign official got kidnapped on Patalia’s land. In front of a foreign official, no less. Who do you think the National Security Agency will suspect as the perpetrator?”

“No, then you should’ve postponed the operation, or quietly kidnapped him when he was alone, or lured him abroad if neither of those were possible. What were you thinking going through with it and getting me kidnapped as well?”

I didn’t point fingers directly, but my point was this in the end.

“If that’s the case, you might as well have kidnapped him in the Northern Regions or the Magic Tower.”

I pressed hard in my excitement, but Leoni’s reaction was icy cold.

“That’s a naive thought for your experience.”

“…….”

“Do you really think it would be easier to kidnap someone in the North than in Patalia? If the field agents made even a small mistake or got caught and interrogated, the Imperial Guard HQ or Counterintelligence Department would have arrested you within three hours. Abas spies are operating in a martial law area. Do you think there would be anyone besides you and your team who would have aided those spies?”

“What about the Magic Tower?”

“The Office of the Prime Minister rejected that operation. They’ve instructed us not to launch any separate missions from the Magic Tower for the time being.”

“…….”

“If any arrested field agents had leaked your identity during interrogation, or if you had been assigned as a staff member for this operation, the National Security Agency would have been the first to raid your hotel room when things went South.”

A heavy sigh escaped her slightly crooked mouth.

“To prevent such unfortunate incidents, I separated the teams. I only informed the Team Leader and Sub Team Leader of your identity to control the information as much as possible… And to top it all off, they carried out the operation in an allied country…”

“…….”

“Yeah, thanks to you hanging around, now the whole team has figured out your identity. Who can you blame? It was my mistake not to anticipate that you’d fly hundreds of kilometers during your vacation just to meet her.”

Self-deprecation and sarcasm intertwined, and Leoni explained the reasons behind my kidnapping.

“If you had escaped, the National Security Agency would have suspected you first. If we had carefully loaded you into a car without kidnapping you, Gabi Schneider would have figured out that she was with the kidnappers and you.”

“…So you’re saying they don’t know I’m part of the company now?”

“They probably think you’re being tortured in another room.”

“Did the National Security Agency catch on?”

“No, they don’t even know you were kidnapped.”

Was it Francesca who didn’t report it? Maybe another Information Officer had visited her and silenced her.

And the cafe owner…

“…The cafe owner. They are part of the company, right?”

“An information agent. It was a cafe that she frequently visited.”

“I figured as much.”

I could sketch the situation pretty well in my mind.

Typically, kidnappings occur in places that go unnoticed by the public. So if someone were to be kidnapped in a commercial establishment like a cafe that draws a crowd, they’d either have to win over the owner to become an informant or operate from a cafe run by an Information Officer. Otherwise, the owner and employees would be the first to call the police.

The Military Intelligence Agency must have recruited the cafe owner as an informant to assist with the kidnapping operation. Since there was a cafe tucked away in a back alley, once they sent the customers away, there wouldn’t be anyone to report it, making it the perfect spot for a kidnapping.

It made sense why business was good, but they kept clearing out the customers.

“….”

I had many questions, but I didn’t have the energy to ask. What on earth did Gabi Schneider do? Why had Martinez and other magicians become targets for the company’s scrutiny? What was the reason for causing this ruckus in ally territory?

I furrowed my brow in pain, lifting my head when suddenly—

“Chief.”

An Information Officer who had been outside came in to call for Leoni.

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve received a report from an informant. The police came to the house after receiving reports from local residents about the commotion today.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s at the house.”

Leoni didn’t add anything more.

“You guys handle the cleanup. Make it neat so there are no further comments.”

“…….”

“And ‘neat’ here goes for your informant too.”

The head of the overseas operations department of the Military Intelligence Agency issued his orders to me.

“Make sure that woman doesn’t spill anything. Do whatever it takes, even if that means threatening or bribing her.”

They were referring to Francesca.

After giving that command, Leoni beckoned the Information Officers outside. Then pointed at me.

“Take him back to the mainland. Set up an alibi for him in advance. What anesthetic did you use? Chloroform?”

“What we use at the company. A bit stronger.”

“Get him a cup of cold water to wake him up. He needs to report when the director comes in the morning, so keep the engine running.”

As a staff member poured water from the kettle and handed me a cup, Leoni put on her coat and started to speak.

“I know there are plenty of questions because the situation got complicated. But you’ll find out everything when you return, so don’t make a fuss and just go quietly on your vacation.”

“…….”

“See you back at the company.”

*

As I stepped out of the dark underground interrogation room and boarded the ship, the sun had already dipped below the horizon, and the sky was filled with stars.

I sat on the deck and gazed at the indistinct shapes of a nameless island shrouded in darkness as we slowly drifted away.

The Information Officers, acting on Leoni’s orders, brought me back to the mainland.

Just before the ship touched the dock, I grabbed the line marked with a glowing stick-like magical tool, then quietly slipped into the water and emerged onto dry land along a path out of sight.

When I crawled out, drenched like a wet rat, a car was waiting for me. As I approached the person who flashed the agreed signal with headlights, he silently opened the back door of the sedan.

I couldn’t tell if they were a man or a woman. Maybe it was because I was exhausted, but my eyes weren’t focusing properly, and my whole body trembled after coming out of the cold sea. How unsteady must I have been to spot cat ears protruding from the driver’s seat?

Not a beastman, but a human with cat ears on their head…

“…….”

There was a blanket sprawled across the back seat, so I hastily covered myself with it. It had some kind of fur on it, and its animal-like smell almost turned my stomach, but I needed to maintain my body temperature somehow.

The car transporting me moved along the highway and then onto coastal roads towards an unknown destination.

I hadn’t spoken to the driver, so I didn’t know where we were headed, but I figured out from the stars that we were heading south. Wrapped in the blanket and resting my head against the window, I reluctantly closed my drooping eyelids and fell into a brief nap.

I had no idea how much time had passed when I naturally woke up.

The view outside the window was dim, as if twilight had fallen. I opened the door and got out to survey my surroundings.

As I turned my head towards a strangely familiar landscape, I spotted a hotel standing tall about two blocks away. I led my unsteady body through the blue-tinged alley.

It was just as I approached the front of the hotel, where not even a bellboy was standing, that a familiar face emerged.

“…Have you arrived?”

A woman with beautiful violet hair cascading to one side, holding a smoking pipe made of haepo stone.

Her skin glowed like alabaster against the dense darkness, her purple eyes shone. Like violets, her gaze slowly turned towards me.

On the deserted street of early dawn, Francesca stood all alone, waiting.

She looked exceedingly tired, yet smiled forlornly as she spoke to me.

“I’m glad to see you returned safely.”

And then, extending her hand that wasn’t holding the pipe, she said,

“Shall I guide you this time?”

14 hours and 21 minutes.

Crossing the sea and returning to land again.

Finally reaching the hotel after what could hardly be called an adventure spanning a whole day, I approached her as if I was just returning home from work, taking her hand.

“Let’s go inside.”

“…Yes, let’s.”

In front of the brightly lit hotel, I held Francesca’s hand as I slowly led my weary body into the room.

 

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