Ch.174Episode 10 – Turn Your Course to the North-Northwest

“So, what brings you here?”

Camilla asked as she tidied her disheveled hair. She seemed to have just woken up from a nap.

“I’m bored.”

“…Don’t you have anything better to do as a grown adult?”

“No.”

“…”

Episode 10 – Turn Your Course to North-Northwest

“Camilla, let’s go out for a bit.”

“Now?”

Camilla pulled back the carefully drawn curtains. Pure white snowflakes sparkled in the slightly dark navy sky, and the whole world was painted white.

She looked at the swirling snowflakes, then back at me, repeating this several times.

“Um… are you suggesting we go out in this?”

“No. You were just complaining about getting restless staying in the hotel. Now you’re making excuses because of a little snow? Really?”

“Even so, this doesn’t seem right.”

Camilla, who had been pressing down her floating hair with her palm, opened the door. Then she frowned slightly.

“My goodness, why are you so cold?”

“Well… because I just came from outside?”

“Come in first. It’s warm inside.”

She opened the door wide, and I entered the hotel room, rubbing my frozen hands. I had forgotten to buy new winter gloves after my old ones tore.

Camilla turned on the lights and switched on the coffee pot. Powered by magic, the pot began to boil, releasing white steam.

After hanging up my coat, which had become damp from melted snow, I sat on the sofa and waited. Camilla took out two mugs and began brewing tea.

“Where on earth did you go in this weather? It looks freezing outside.”

“Work, of course.”

“Ah… your company?”

“Yes.”

Camilla, who was making tea, looked slightly surprised. She clearly hadn’t expected that.

“Didn’t you say you were on vacation? Even for a company, isn’t it against labor laws to make you work during your time off…?”

“That’s technically correct. Legally speaking.”

But intelligence agencies will contact you even at dawn on weekends if something urgent comes up. Actually, just getting a call would be fortunate. There have been times when I was told to come to the office after 10 PM.

“How’s your magic study going?”

Camilla handed me a mug and answered.

“Good. Thanks to Francesca’s help, I’m learning well. She explains things clearly and demonstrates well.”

“Is that so? That’s good. Making any progress?”

“Well, I’ve learned a few spells, but I’m not sure if they’ll work in real situations.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I faint.”

“Ah.”

I was warming my hands with the mug when I exclaimed. The Abas Advanced Military Magic Research Institute, the Royal Magic Society, and research teams from famous magic tower universities are racking their brains to determine the cause and solution for the fainting, but they haven’t even properly identified the cause yet.

But Camilla reassured me with a bright smile, as if everything was fine.

“It’s okay. I’ve learned from experience that if I adjust the magic properly while using it, I don’t faint. And there don’t seem to be any issues after I wake up.”

“How would you know that?”

“Intuition…?”

“Good grief…”

Despite my half-hearted scolding, Camilla just smiled. While she was making tea, I blew on the hot tea she had prepared for me and took a sip.

Drinking the hot tea warmed my body. Now I feel like I might survive.

“So, why did you come here?”

“To see you.”

Camilla paused for a moment.

“…You came to see me because you were bored?”

“I’m joking. Who would wake someone up just because they’re bored? I’m not crazy.”

Actually, I did come because I was bored. Though it wasn’t just because I wanted to hang out with her.

Camilla hesitated, picking up and putting down sugar cubes repeatedly before dropping a couple into her tea and asking again.

“Then why did you come?”

Her tone was slightly curt.

“Camilla.”

“What?”

“How long has it been since you trained? I know you’ve been skipping physical training because of the snow for quite some time.”

“…”

I smiled brightly and said:

“Oh, surely not…?”

“It’s exactly what you’re thinking, so get dressed right now.”

Camilla’s face turned pale.

I looked out the window at the swirling snowstorm and put on my clothes piece by piece.

*

Several hours later. We arrived at a factory district, far from the brilliant center of the capital.

I turned off the engine and said to Camilla in the passenger seat:

“Get out.”

Camilla opened the passenger door and got out. After getting out of the driver’s seat, I went to the trunk to gather my things.

I could see a sign swaying in the fierce winter wind. The sign faintly read “Welcome to the Blessed Land.”

While I was stacking large boxes and tying them to a sled, Camilla, who had been looking around like a meerkat, approached with small steps and spoke to me.

“Where are we?”

After locking the trunk and putting the keys in my pocket, I answered her question.

“Anwortin.”

“Anwortin?”

“That’s the name of this area. Anwortin.”

I calmly left the vehicle and slowly started walking. Camilla adjusted her hat, tightened her collar, and followed closely.

She looked at Anwortin through the swirling snow.

The wide, straight main road reminded her of La Défense in Paris, where she had gone with her parents during high school. The somewhat modern red brick buildings and the old-fashioned structures visible in the distance. The city, divided by a single railway, seemed frozen in time.

“Anwortin… What kind of place is this?”

“It’s a failed city now. But in its heyday, hundreds of thousands of people lived here.”

A failed city?

Camilla tilted her head.

“Why did it fail?”

“It was a place that survived on the coal industry.”

Coal was what sustained Anwortin’s economy. I pointed to a specific spot.

“See that lake? If you go over the mountain behind it, there’s a mountain range stretching out. There’s an enormous amount of high-quality coal buried there. Right there.”

A small boat floated on the picturesque lake. Beyond it, the peaks of the massive mountain range touching the lake were faintly visible.

I tapped the railway that crossed the middle of the road with my foot and continued.

“I believe tens of thousands of workers commuted to the mines by tram and boat. This railway is where the tram used to run. Oh, right. Tram was Russian, wasn’t it? In English, it was tramway?”

“Yes.”

“Actually, I think it was closer to an elektrichka (Электричка) than a tram (трамвай)… I’ve never seen it myself. Anyway, Anwortin was so prosperous that there was a rumor that you could become rich by working in the mines for just 20 years.”

The small town where thousands lived developed remarkably after the Royal Geological Society published a report stating that “high-quality coal is buried in large quantities.”

Hundreds of thousands of residents, tens of thousands of miners, enormous private mining companies, densely packed factories, and mines that didn’t run dry even after extracting tens of millions of tons of coal annually.

A railway was built next to the old town where few residents lived, and across the railway, a city dense with accommodations and factories emerged. And as people came to live there, along with many others who wanted to sell things to those people, the small town transformed brilliantly.

Hwayangnyeonhwa (花樣年華). The most beautiful and happiest moment in life.

And so Anwortin became a blessed land.

Until magic stones were discovered, that is.

The massive city, which had survived the emergence of oil and natural gas, rapidly declined after the discovery of magic stones. Now, all that remains are people who can’t let go of past glory and attachment, and those who have given up hope.

“It completely collapsed. Originally, land in this area was so scarce that property values were astronomical. But here, there’s not even a single supermarket, let alone infrastructure, so no one wants to come. The security is also terrible. They even joke that Anwortin is a land abandoned even by the king.”

“From what you’re saying, it sounds like Cleveland or Detroit.”

“Those places are better. In Anwortin, except for the old downtown, you never know who might be living in which building.”

“Probably homeless people?”

“It would be fortunate if they were human. Occasionally, monsters appear, and the army has to be deployed…”

Camilla was startled by the mention of monsters. And she began to glare at me. Though she didn’t say anything, I could guess what she wanted to say.

“Why are you only telling me this important information now?!”

“It’s okay, it’s fine. The factory district here is safe. There are still operating businesses, so people live here, and the government consistently deploys police to try to revive the area. Of course, where we’re going is even safer.”

“Oh really! You scared me!”

“Ow! Don’t hit me!”

Camilla pounded my back with her fists, expressing her anger.

She huffed as if she was very angry. Thankfully, her punches weren’t too hard, and she had a gentle personality. If it had been my sister Adela, she probably would have laid me down in the snow and stomped on me.

I clicked my tongue softly.

“Can’t I make a joke?”

“You call that a joke?!”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Camilla sighed as if to calm herself down. Her white breath mixed with the navy sky.

After calming down, she put her hands in her pockets, muttered something, and then abruptly asked me a question.

“So, where are we going?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t bring me all the way here just to show me a failed city, did you?”

Camilla urged me to answer quickly. But I just smiled mysteriously without giving a direct answer.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“See for yourself.”

“What?”

Ignoring Camilla’s puzzled expression, I gestured with my chin toward something. Her gaze followed my gesture.

At the end of that gaze was…

“…A farm?”

It was a farm.

*

On what could be described as a shallow mountain rather than a hill, there stood a fairy-tale-like house and a solitary farm.

We reached the farm after passing through an evergreen forest that remained green all year round. The road was narrow, and with the snow, vehicles couldn’t enter, so we had left ours behind.

Following the path through the evergreens, we came to a fence, and beyond that fence stretched a flat area.

A serene farm covered in snow.

I pulled the sled as Camilla and I headed toward the farm.

“This is where you’ll be staying for the time being.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

Camilla looked around the farm, opened and closed her mouth a few times, and then nodded as if she had made some decision. I unloaded the boxes I had brought from the vehicle one by one.

“You’re not asking what this place is.”

“Well…”

After a brief pause, Camilla opened her mouth to answer.

“If there were sacks of fruits or grains in the farm, I might have asked what this place is. But seeing the field beds packed inside, wouldn’t anyone know what kind of place this is?”

I chuckled and nodded.

“This is a safe house. A property operated by the Military Intelligence Agency.”

“A safe house? Like the ones always shown in movies?”

“That’s right. And it’s also where you’ll be staying for the time being.”

To be precise, I should stay here too, but I don’t plan to move in right away, so for now, Camilla will be staying alone.

Of course, that’s not the important part right now.

“For just over a week from now, Camilla, you will receive several types of training here. You can think of it as learning overall intelligence knowledge, such as shooting skills, espionage collection, and information analysis.”

“Here?”

Camilla’s face showed bewilderment as she looked around the farm.

“But there’s nothing here. What am I supposed to learn in this empty field?”

“What do you mean nothing? I brought everything here.”

I opened a box to show Camilla its contents. Terminals and communication equipment used by the Military Intelligence Agency, documents with official seals, and equipment whose purpose was difficult to gauge all revealed themselves.

Camilla’s mouth fell open.

I was a bit worried she might start drooling, so I bent down to take a closer look, but she seemed to come to her senses and closed her mouth.

“Are all these equipment?”

“Yes. There’s espionage collection equipment, office equipment like computers… and documents I need to show you.”

“Documents?”

“Documents containing information about your next deployment location. Don’t worry, I have permission to show these to you.”

These are documents produced by the Abas diplomatic mission in the Empire. Normally, these confidential documents would never be shown to civilians, but…

“It’s fine as long as I have permission. With the approval of the cryptographic officer and the agency head, I can show them to you.”

“Is that possible?”

“It’s usually a bit difficult, but the cryptographic officer is my colleague from when I joined.”

“Ah.”

The person managing confidential documents in the Empire is my colleague from the Military Intelligence Agency. The director is about to retire, but he’s still active, and since I know him, getting approval was easy.

Besides, these aren’t highly classified secrets; they mostly contain information about the political situation, so there’s little chance of problems.

Camilla once again opened her mouth wide and peered into the box. She was squatting down to look inside, and I was slightly worried she might bump her nose.

“Alright!”

I clapped my hands to get Camilla’s attention.

“Let’s organize our belongings and prepare for bed before it gets dark. We’ll rest today and start training tomorrow.”

“…Huh?”

Camilla, who had been rummaging through the box, blinked her eyes as if to say, “What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“What?”

“Wasn’t I supposed to stay here alone?”

What is she talking about?

“I have to stay here too. What are you saying? Do you expect me to get a hotel room and commute every day? Now?”

“…What?”

“This safe house was assigned by the company to prepare for the next business trip. So of course, I have to stay here until my vacation ends.”

“…”

“I need to go back to my hometown in two days. Except for that time, I’ll be at the farm. It’s cold, so let’s light a fire and get ready for bed quickly.”

I closed the box and pushed it into a corner. Camilla, who had been following my every move, could only stare blankly into space.

It was the beginning of a strange cohabitation.