Ch.103Episode 5 – Journalist, Diplomat, Soldier, Spy

The origin of all incidents was the research institute.

Unauthorized communications from the High Military Magic Research Institute, detected by the Military Intelligence Agency’s signals intelligence unit.

And then the dispatched Military Intelligence Agency’s counterintelligence investigators and me.

We uncovered the identity of the communications there. And we discovered that those communications weren’t from some lowlife industrial spy, but were reports sent by an actual spy.

The problem was,

“That foreign exchange student I met before. Giada Bianchi.”

“……”

“Where is she now?”

A person had disappeared.

Episode 5 – Journalist, Diplomat, Soldier, Spy

I sat at the interrogation room desk and questioned Fabio Verati.

“I see you had that kind of relationship with Giada Bianchi… What kind of mindset does a family man need to roll around with a woman young enough to be his daughter?”

First question: Why did you meet Giada Bianchi?

“Well, a honey trap. The beauty trap is a classic method. When you get intimate, relationships form… If you can’t have sex, it’s good for creating a sex scandal… If they seem to refuse, you can pressure them by framing it as sexual assault or harassment…”

“……”

“But I’m curious. Why go through the trouble of involving a sorcerer to alter her face? It’s unnecessarily complicated.”

Second question: Where did you get the sorcerer?

“When you think about it, intelligence officers are similar to operation officers, just in different positions—they’re both handlers. I wonder why they’d complicate things. Honestly, you know very well it’s a violation of the Nastasiya Treaty, right?”

“……”

“Let’s say sorcerers are plentiful in the magical towers. They’re also abundant in Mauritania, so you probably found one through connections there. But I wonder where you trained them. Even the reds bring their spies back to their home country for training, so where did you do it? Fatalia?”

Third question: Where did you train them?

I pointed to a section of the National Security Agency personnel file.

Retired 9 years ago.

“Since there’s no culture of that here, you wouldn’t have worked as a freelancer after retirement. And the National Security Agency wouldn’t get involved in this kind of thing. Violating the treaty would lead the Church to incite heresy accusations and overthrow the country. That’s why we keep our mages in desk jobs or domestic operations, right? So it wasn’t Fatalia…”

“……”

“In the end, there’s only one answer.”

The Magic Tower.

Specifically, the Talent Development Institute under the Magic Tower Representative Office.

“Isn’t that right?”

I asked, but no answer came.

Fabio Verati maintained his silence.

“Tsk…”

I clicked my tongue and stood up from my chair. Then I took out a prepared envelope from my bag.

“I thought it wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t expect you to be completely tight-lipped. Do I really have to resort to this…”

I tore open the document envelope, dumped its contents onto the desk, and tossed the envelope aside.

What spilled onto the desk were photographs.

*

“Here.”

I gathered the scattered photos, arranged them neatly, and placed them in front of Fabio Verati. Next to the National Security Agency personnel evaluation documents were family photos of Fabio Verati.

“These are photos our staff took for you. They went through hell to get these… if you knew the details, you couldn’t look at them without tears.”

These were photos taken directly by the Fatalia branch operation team. I heard the surveillance was so intense that they had to sleep on the streets just to take one photo, and they couldn’t even go to the bathroom while waiting in vans—truly a tearjerker of a story.

From laughter.

Honestly, it’s 70% funny and 30% sad, but seeing my colleagues struggle reminds me of the old days and I can’t help but laugh. At least I don’t have to do that anymore.

I kindly spread out the photos one by one and pointed at them.

“This is your wife shopping. This is the kids returning home from school. This one was taken by your wife at your second child’s college graduation. And this… wow, you have a swimming pool at your house.”

I marveled at one photo. The house had its own pool. I wonder where he got a house with a pool in this world where habitable land prices are skyrocketing.

“Did you receive a generous retirement package? Still, retirement funds aren’t unlimited. I wonder where you got the money for a house with a pool. Do you have a lamp that produces a blue genie when you rub it?”

“……”

“Well, we can talk about that later.”

I took my hands off the photos and interlaced my fingers on the desk.

Then I said to Fabio Verati:

“Sigh. Let’s not do this. Being a goose father is hard enough, do you really need to be investigated for aiding espionage on top of that? Fatalia and Abas are supposed to be allies.”

“Do allies engage in covert operations against each other these days?”

“Haha.”

I smiled.

I was more deflated than pleased that Fabio Verati finally spoke.

In all my life, I never dreamed I’d say lines like this. Me, of all people.

“It’s aaall for the sake of country and people, isn’t it?”

I grinned while spouting a classic intelligence agency line.

That’s when he, who had been silent, asked me a question for the first time.

“The youngest.”

“……”

“Was that your doing?”

I maintained my smile and tilted my head.

“Why ask me about a runaway? You should go to the police.”

“……”

“Anyway, where was I… Ah, right.”

Ignoring Fabio Verati’s question, I continued.

“Allies are still foreign countries, aren’t they? When you think about it, we’re strangers. Sending spies and planting industrial spies is what everyone does. Right? In my 28 years, I’ve never heard of an intelligence agency going after an allied country’s official, but this much is just playful banter.”

“……”

“Or not.”

I unclasped my fingers and swept the photos aside.

“Actually, this level of conflict between allies can be resolved with some diplomatic maneuvering. It should be seen as a traffic accident caused by poor management of retirees. How could the National Security Agency know their retiree would sell information after retirement? And to an ally, no less.”

Then I opened my bag.

“Let’s say the Abas government, whether it’s the intelligence agency or the foreign ministry. Both are reasonable counterparts. That’s what I think.”

I took out other ‘documents’ from my bag.

It was a thick bundle of papers, and I placed it down on the metal desk with a thud, then slowly began to untie the binding.

“But you know… since I’m not a fortune teller, I don’t know if others share my view.”

“……”

“I thought this was the first time, but…”

Thud.

A brown-covered document was placed in front of Fabio Verati.

I personally opened the first document and showed it to him.

“It turns out there was more than one.”

*

“A woman who suddenly jumped off a bridge while returning home with gifts after a business trip.”

A water-soaked corpse. Twisted legs and strange markings protruding above the neck. A magical toy for infants left in the vehicle.

[Internal Investigation Report on the Death of a Ministry of Defense Scientist by Sorcery – Kien Empire Counterintelligence Command, 03.15.1991]

“A successful businessman who went mad and set fire to his house, killing his wife and children.”

A burned house. Something blackened in front of the door. Handprints left on the door. Burned documents. A photo of the man shaking hands with a general, smiling. Employees surrounding the man, popping champagne.

[Internal Investigation Report on Military Secret Leakage in Major Magic Defense System Project – Lushan Federal Kingdom General Intelligence Bureau, 11.09.1993]

“A graduate student who received many job offers for promising research but suddenly disappeared, leaving all belongings behind.”

A photo of someone smiling brightly in a borrowed graduation cap. A cape with campus insignia. Presentation materials for businessmen. Optical communication magitech. Belongings left in the dormitory. A poster seeking the missing person.

[Final Investigation Report on Graduate Student Disappearance – Kashubiya Police, 07.23.1996]

I nudged the documents beside me. Papers cascaded in front of me: intelligence agency archives, police investigation files, foreign ministry telegrams, defense ministry communication records, treasury reports, parliamentary hearing records, and more.

The victims were different, but their misfortunes were similar.

Disappearance. Death. Imprisonment.

“Wow… what is all this?”

I was genuinely amazed.

After more than ten years in intelligence, I thought I’d seen every dirty trick in the book, but this seems to cross a line.

It looks like the Magic Tower’s doing, but there’s no hard evidence. Nobody kills people using sorcery or magic. Not even the Imperial Guard. They tried it once, got caught, and the Inquisition raided the Imperial Guard headquarters. After that experience, intelligence agencies don’t use magic to kill people.

So who could it be?

“This goes way too far. I wonder why they did something like this.”

“……”

“Well, at least the cover identity seems to have worked so far, since they haven’t been caught yet.”

This is the Magic Tower’s doing.

It’s my personal opinion, but a reasonably sound deduction.

I muttered while pushing the documents around:

“I wonder where I got all this from?”

From among the many documents, I pulled out the thinnest file placed at the very bottom.

The file consisted of only three pages. And unlike the other documents, it had markings embedded for forgery prevention.

Not magic, not science, but something entirely different.

Divine power.

“The Inquisition.”

What’s on the desk now are documents compiled by the Inquisition after seizing files kept by various governments. They were based on internal documents stored by government departments and intelligence agencies, some even had original internal documents attached as appendices, and among them were several documents from Abas and Fatalia.

“They do espionage quite diversely. With so many religious fanatics around, they’ve planted moles everywhere. It’s like rice planting season.”

I wasn’t particularly surprised.

The person who provided this information was a mole planted by Military Intelligence in the Inquisition. And in a very high position.

Of course, the delivery was made by a low-level employee. Since Peter couldn’t move directly, Priestess Rebecca stepped in.

In my view, the person who leaked all this information was clearly a believer of the Church. And a very devout fanatic at that.

Usually, people who commit such bold acts often act according to their beliefs. It’s a method the Israeli Mossad frequently uses to build overseas intelligence networks, and what the Chinese Ministry of State Security employs when exerting power in their sphere of influence, the Chinese-speaking world.

Such people are difficult to find. Accusations of religious persecution would be inevitable.

Anyway, the person who delivered the Inquisition’s internal documents to me is a fixed spy.

Known only to Military Intelligence.

Keeping that in mind, I tapped the Inquisition documents.

“Other agencies may be uncertain, but the Inquisition has already outlined the picture.”

Evidence is scattered all over here. Most documents are adequately copied duplicates, so there’s no way to verify the magical power in the anti-forgery markings, but the Inquisition document is an officially produced copy.

That means the divine power in the anti-forgery markings can be verified.

Someone of Fabio Verati’s caliber would certainly recognize it.

“Actually… from what I hear, they don’t know much either. But.”

I pointed my finger at the man sitting across from me.

“There’s someone right in front of me who might know? A Magic Tower official, no less.”

“……”

“And one with an intelligence background working at the Foreign Ministry. Well. Yeah.”

He was someone the Inquisition would be interested in.

The problem is that their interest isn’t the positive kind that awards medals for diplomatic achievements, but the kind that drags you to an interrogation room for a beating.

Fabio Verati spoke:

“I know nothing about this.”

“Ah, yes, I’m sure you don’t. But I’m not certain the Inquisition will feel the same way.”

I don’t know if the aforementioned incidents were really committed by the Magic Tower, or if Fabio Verati knows the inside story. But in truth, that doesn’t matter to the Inquisition.

People who torture their own members into becoming black mages for fear of tarnishing the Church’s reputation wouldn’t hesitate to do similar things to foreigners. They’d do worse, if anything.

“We’re not the only ones pursuing your superiors. Other agencies are doing the same.”

“……”

“Whew… I wonder if you’ll even be able to take a family vacation, let alone emigrate. All your entry records will show up.”

Does he think immigration records aren’t digitized here?

I placed the family photo in front of Fabio Verati, stood up, and moved behind him.

Then I said:

“Even if your children are grown, how can you let your youngest daughter grow up without a father? It would be difficult for your wife to raise four children alone.”

Just give up.

“Your family is waiting for you.”

“……”

“Let’s confess quickly and find salvation.”

I patted Fabio Verati’s shoulder with a bright smile.

He didn’t say a word as I left the interrogation room, taking the documents but leaving the photos behind.

*

In the early morning after returning to the hotel,

A communication came through on the secure line terminal.

It was a report stating they had identified the mastermind behind sending the spy to the High Military Magic Research Institute and Giada Bianchi’s whereabouts.