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The news that my youngest sibling might actually be a criminal disguised as a drug dealer brought quite a shock.

“How could this be…?”

“Hey! Ayla! Say something!”

Jerry ran his hands through his hair, pacing around anxiously. Adela raised her voice with a vacant expression on her face.

I may have been the one to open Pandora’s box, but my heart was far from at ease.

“Ugh…”

What even is this nonsense?

I shook my cigarette, which I couldn’t even light, and merely smacked my lips in frustration.

“Just tell me the truth. What the heck are you doing?”

“…”

Ayla didn’t respond.

Unable to bear the sight before me any longer, I finally flicked on my lighter. What on earth am I supposed to do with her?

Given that she didn’t show any features typical of those who use or manufacture drugs, it seemed unrelated to that. The problem lay in her role at this mysterious company.

I pressed my irritation down as I stared at Ayla. But something about her reaction seemed off.

“…”

Instead of any attitude you’d expect from a criminal, she just sat there, awkwardly rolling her eyes around.

“What’s your deal? You hiding something?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

Ayla stammered an excuse while scratching her eyebrows.

“Not at all? What do you mean?”

I exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke and added nonchalantly.

“You always scratch your eyebrows when you’re lying. You know that?”

“…”

“What is it? Aren’t you just selling drugs but also playing some kind of game too?”

“That’s not it. Actually….”

As Ayla timidly glanced around, she pulled something out of her wallet.

—

Episode 19 – HELLDIVERS

“Alright. I’ll handle it from my end, so you all keep that in mind.”

-“I’m really sorry, Director. It seems our employee caused some trouble unintentionally.”

“Anyone can make mistakes. Isn’t she a newbie? Anyway, get things sorted. It looks like guests are about to arrive.”

-“Yes, I’ll be there soon.”

Click.

The general hung up the receiver.

The complete darkness had long settled over the office, creeping in through the glass window.

Scattered lights spilled into the hallway lined with numbered offices. Some offices were as bright as daylight, while others only glowed dimly from within their partitions.

In the dim office, the general gazed absently at the capital’s skyline he had seen for decades.

The deep darkness outside melded and flickered with the lights inside.

Suddenly, commotion erupted from the far end of the hallway.

‘You can’t go in there!’

‘Move aside.’

‘If you have business, please come back tomorrow. The director just left….’

‘I saw your ID at the checkpoint, so get out of the way.’

Amid the noise behind him, the general pressed a button.

“Let them in.”

Shortly after came a sound like something shaking off dust. A person entered, pushing open the wooden door.

The man walked up to the desk.

Only after the footsteps ceased did she finally turn the chair around.

“…Isn’t the person who was supposedly released yesterday already back at work?”

Leoni pointed at the meeting table with a flat tone.

“Take a seat.”

*

Even seeing me barging into her office, Leoni didn’t seem particularly surprised.

As usual, she just offered me a seat, as if she already knew everything.

“Care for some tea?”

“No, thanks.”

“Not one for pleasantries, huh?”

While the information agency’s organizational structure was a security matter, it was common knowledge even among civilians that it’s exceptionally challenging to earn a rank in military intelligence.

In reality, this was true.

In the military, advancements to general are indicators of a successful soldier.

If this was true in the field, what about the intense struggles of even higher-ranked promotions? So Leoni chose not to elaborate.

She clearly wanted to skip the small talk and get straight to the point.

“Did you come because of your sister?”

“You knew?”

“I just got a call from there.”

I took a deep breath. My head felt heavy. My eyelids felt the same way.

Now that we already understood each other’s reasons, there was no need to drag the conversation on, but now that I was here, I couldn’t find the words.

I needed a moment to think.

There was a brief pause. Thankfully, Leoni didn’t rush me. She remained calm for a long stretch as I pondered, and eventually, I began to speak.

“…My sister works at the Royal Intelligence Department.”

My words came out less smooth than normal. I struggled to move my lips as I spoke.

“I heard she joined a few months ago. I only found out today.”

The rising steam from the teacup paused Leoni’s hand mid-air as she brought it to her lips.

“How did you find out?”

Although rumors floated around online that there were no ID cards in the intelligence agency, that was all complete nonsense. Where else would you find civil servants without official IDs?

Of course, there were ID cards, and business cards also existed.

Though it was true that, due to the nature of the job, one couldn’t just show off their ID carelessly, it didn’t change the fact that every information officer received their ID. I had mine, and so did Pippin, Jake, and Charnoy.

…And Ayla, too.

“When I had to ask her about some drugs among her belongings, she showed me her ID.”

I still vividly recall Ayla, nervously handing over her ID while stealing glances around.

The blue card bearing the emblem of the Royal Intelligence Department resembled those I had seen during my years of working.

I rested one hand on the table and closed my eyes for a moment.

“My sister joined the Royal Intelligence Department. Could it be….”

“I didn’t know.”

Leoni sipped her tea and continued in a dry tone.

“How could I know when the agencies are different? It’s been almost a year since I returned from deployment.”

That makes sense.

Ayla said she joined this year. Leoni returned to her post at the end of last year. She couldn’t have known, especially since it was she who commanded the refugee operations in the Kien Empire.

Legally, Ayla’s application and exams would have been last year, but typically, from the moment new intelligence officers pass, they undergo training, so Leoni wouldn’t have had the chance to meet her sister.

Besides that, senior intelligence officers have too much on their plates to even spare a thought for new recruits undergoing training. Those commanding hundreds in the field wouldn’t have enough time to even breathe.

There are people who bring work phones into their bathrooms for shaving and catch up on things while doing that, so where’s the time to care about anything?

The overseas director of the Military Intelligence Agency looked surprised, touching his temples.

“Seems your sister reported to the company that her identity was exposed. They haven’t managed to assess the situation yet, so they couldn’t update me with much news, but what I just heard should be okay to report?”

“…Yes, that’s fine.”

“Then let’s wrap this subject up.”

Leoni asked.

“What do you want?”

Without hesitation, I answered.

“Get her out of there immediately.”

A question came back, wondering if I had any special reasons for that.

So I calmly began to explain.

“After seeing her ID, I asked her a bunch of things. What she did at the Royal Intelligence Department, where she was deployed, why she went, and what her job was.”

“And?”

“She’s in the Mauritania Continent.”

No matter what kind of drugs she was on, Ayla, who recklessly ventured herself into the Royal Intelligence Department, was assigned to the Mauritania Continent.

Considering she had just joined and was now a fresh recruit, Ayla was basically clueless.

And the Mauritania Continent was notorious for being a chaotic hellhole to rival Africa.

“Isn’t that a place where even active duty personnel avoid?”

Sure, newly hired recruits sometimes got stationed in tough places, but at least in my opinion, Ayla was not fit for such a situation.

And yet, she was out there working on the ground.

By the way, the drugs I caught her with were evidence seized from local crime syndicates. Why on earth was she even carrying that?

When I asked, the team leader casually mentioned that since Kim was back on leave, he thought it would be a good idea for him to poke around the local offices and mess with the distribution network a bit.

Of course, it’s only natural that the information agency would be diligently tracking drugs, given that they are a financial source for international organized crime and quasi-military organizations (warlords). But that unnamed team leader who handed this off to Ayla? I simply couldn’t comprehend his reasoning.

“If he goes to those places, he’s going to blow the cover of the team members. Or he’ll end up doing all the hard work himself.”

“So, you want me to request a reassignment? Is that what you’re saying now?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, good grief….”

Leoni gasped in disbelief, clearly taken aback.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Amidst the sound of fingers drumming on the table, the chief’s voice began to softly resonate.

“Listen, I understand your concern for family, but you need to rein it in a bit. Bring me a realistic alternative. How on earth do you think we can overturn a decision made by another agency here? Huh? Even if we go out for an investigation, we can’t do anything without a warrant in this world.”

With a sigh, she added that the scarcity of personnel was a universal issue.

“Even if they could be moved, it poses a problem. Especially since it’s already a no-go zone with precarious conditions—are we supposed to just pull a newbie out? The other teams are all busy training their newcomers, and you’re suggesting we leave our staff twiddling their thumbs until the youngest one arrives?”

That was a factual statement.

My team had only received Charnoy and nothing more, after all. By the original plan, our team was supposed to be composed of five members, including myself.

I had even gone to the personnel department, pleading for a new recruit, but nothing changed. There were even other employees vying for new recruits who were equally helpless. Even a major, sergeant, and captain had been working together when one transferred to another department, leaving just two behind.

I rubbed my forehead.

“Please, just transfer me to the embassy.”

“Do you think the embassy is some neighborhood corner shop? Even if a spot opens up, they select who gets in there.”

“Isn’t it the case that new recruits are usually sent to the embassy to get training first? They all do that for local adaptation and language acquisition.”

“Ah, the sentimental bond of family is touching.”

Leoni shook her head in disbelief.

And I asked her,

“…Excuse me? What do you mean by that?”

I stared at her, puzzled, as if I had just seen something ridiculous.

*

Now I realized that Leoni assumed I was acting this way because I loved my younger sister. What a naive and rational thought!

In reality, it was a bit, no, a lot different.

I wasn’t acting to protect Ayla from getting into trouble.

I was there to stop her from causing mayhem.

“That’s not it! That kid shouldn’t be an information officer!”

What type of person was Ayla?

The troublemaker of the Nostrim Family. A magician who flips ordinary human attire upside down. An adult who appears to have come undone with her mental faculties somewhere along the way.

Chaotic and reckless. If Camila was the bomb for the Duke, Ayla was mine.

Though certainly smaller in scale than Camila, it was undeniable that Ayla could be downright embarrassing to show off. (This was a fact acknowledged by our parents and even mentioned in the historical texts about Goguryeo.)

I’m not joking.

Just looking at the circumstances where Ayla, who has been living a double life, was caught by me was enough evidence.

“During a family meal, she picked up her bag, clearly not knowing whether it contained any evidence or not, and walked right into me. Who was in charge of the selection? I want to know who the idiot is that picked such a kid and stuck them in a special unit.”

From the perspective of someone who has been a human scanner for over ten years in the information officer role, it wasn’t even an exaggeration to say that Ayla was practically a liability. While no rookie is flawless, this was just pushing it too far.

Carrying company property in her work bag? Sure, that happens. Everyone tends to shove their laptops, wallets, and documents in one bag when commuting. I can understand that. But with such a bag, you’d think she’d be a bit more careful, or at least have the sense to empty it out beforehand.

How could she walk out without even knowing company property was inside?

Though she was my sister, her mental state was hopelessly beyond saving. I usually cover for her, but this was something I just couldn’t handle.

“How poorly did they conduct the selection to let someone like her in? There must be plenty of bright candidates out there. I mean, there are bound to be sharp kids who studied foreign languages and lived overseas.”

I couldn’t say how her future would look, but if I were to send Ayla overseas now, the chances of her causing trouble would be through the roof. I could bet my retirement on that!

Because she wasn’t the only airhead around.

When someone screws up mildly, people say, “Everyone makes mistakes,” but later on, there are always those few who end up tanking entire teams, showing up every year.

“This is not right. It seems like there’s been a serious mistake on your personnel department’s part; we really need to review this.”

I had to stop her.

There was no way I could let a younger sibling who can’t even handle one assignment blow the cover for the whole team before catching someone in her troll antics. This wasn’t love for family; it was camaraderie for public servants I didn’t even know.

“If this continues, she might really harm someone. It’s painfully obvious she’ll make a significant blunder that’ll lead to a disaster later. Handling a kid who can toss evidence like it’s some critical item is better than sending her abroad. What on earth? Who is so desperate to ruin someone?”

“…Do you, by any chance, really dislike your sister?”

“I’m merely stating an objective fact, Chief.”

Leoni began to look as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, her expression contorting in disbelief.

However, I genuinely wanted to prevent Ayla from being sent abroad.

It would be far preferable to resign than to witness my clueless sister blow up the entire team.

But it seemed Leoni had a slightly different perspective.

Suddenly recollecting her senses and quietly listening, she took a moment to ponder, then launched into a non-argument.

“I get what you’re saying. But we can’t annul what the Royal Intelligence Department has already decided. And as you know, the selection process for local officers is competitive, right?”

“Yes.”

“The very fact that she was chosen amid that competition proves that your sister possesses at least the minimum qualifications required by the agency. She must be a superior resource compared to other applicants to have been sent overseas.”

“No, what…!”

I was at a complete loss. That was the most ridiculous thing I’d heard in my life.

The person who squandered the money I saved to buy a car on gambling has ‘qualifications’? Damn it. Is this country finally done for?

This was really not acceptable. I never imagined things could be this hopeless.

I began to quietly weep inside while trying to find a way out of this hellish train heading for doom. But given that I wasn’t an ordinary soldier and was instead from the information department, chances of getting banned or blacklisted if I immigrated were incredibly high.

Ultimately, I had no choice but to stick around and eat my proverbial dirt.

Damn it. If I had known it would come to this, I would have just been a civil servant like my brother or sister….

“…….”

I squeezed my brain for a way to navigate through the impending crisis caused by the biggest liability spawned by the Nostrim Family, while also figuring out how to protect the Royal Intelligence Department employees and prevent the disasters that Ayla would bring.

And finally.

A brilliant idea struck me!

“Then, can’t I just take her place?”

If time travel were possible, my future self would probably slap my head repeatedly every 0.24 seconds for that thought.

 

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