Ch.196Episode 10 – Turn Your Course to the North-Northwest

# As the Sun Sets

As the sun sank behind the western mountains and darkness crept in, twilight settled over the city.

A voice came through the military intelligence-issued mobile phone.

“…Are you two together now? Alright. I’ll be there shortly. Wait for me.”

Frederick hung up the phone and looked up at the sky.

As he sat quietly in his chair gazing out the window, a diplomat approached and addressed him. He was an intelligence officer dispatched from the Royal Intelligence Bureau.

“Military Attaché, sir. The vehicle is ready.”

“…What about my aide and his family?”

“They’re all aboard. The other staff are ready as well.”

“…”

Frederick, who had been staring at Petrograd shrouded in darkness, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Let’s go.”

## Episode 10 – Turn Your Course North-Northwest

It was a gloomy night. Whether due to the north wind blowing across the frozen ground or the suffocating surveillance and control, the nights in the Kiyen Empire were always like this.

Yekaterina glanced at her watch.

The time had already passed well beyond working hours. It was around when people heading home would swarm like bees, gradually congesting the traffic.

“Any new information?”

The technician monitoring the wiretapping equipment shook his head. As he removed the headset he’d been wearing for hours, his hair—squashed and pressed in various places—came into view.

The technician roughly fixed his hair with his hands and tossed a water bottle into the trash can. Inside the bin, identical water bottles shifted with a distinctive sound.

“Nothing on the radio. We’re collecting encrypted communications, but we can’t analyze them here. We’ll have to take them back to headquarters.”

“Can they be decrypted?”

“That’s hard to guarantee. The Abas security technicians are exceptionally skilled…”

Yekaterina nodded and said she understood.

A technician who had been napping briefly got up and sat in front of the wiretapping equipment, while the one who had fixed his flattened hair laid his coat on the floor and closed his eyes.

Meanwhile, the team leader-level intelligence officers held a brief meeting with Yekaterina.

“Any new information?”

“No, nothing.”

The team leaders looked perplexed at Yekaterina’s response.

They conversed while looking at a wall filled with papers, photographs, and hardboard sheets brought from somewhere.

“They should be leaving the embassy soon. What are they thinking? Do they have an invisibility cloak or some potion that makes them transparent?”

In response to the domestic intelligence officer’s muttering, an investigator spoke up.

“The Foreign Ministry sent us the list of magical artifacts registered by the embassy, and there’s nothing like that.”

“Could they have smuggled something in?”

“If they were caught using unregistered magical artifacts in a foreign country, would the Imperial Court remain silent? If such a thing actually happened, the Inquisition of the Order would be the first to protest to the Abas Foreign Ministry.”

It’s not illegal for diplomatic missions to register magical artifacts for convenience.

However, unregistered magical artifacts are illegal.

In this neighborhood, possessing unregistered magical artifacts, whether you’re a magician or an ordinary person, is no different from people in the global village secretly hiding unregistered firearms.

“Honestly, it seems no different from hiding a few guns in the embassy. Could the Abas Embassy really have no unregistered magical artifacts?”

“Who knows? But they must know we’re watching them. If they get caught using unregistered magical artifacts here, they’d have problems even if the asylum succeeds…”

“Well, even Abas wouldn’t take such a risk easily.”

While the domestic intelligence officer and investigator conversed, Yekaterina put her heads together with her colleague.

Her colleague read aloud a dispatch from the Imperial Guard.

“The company has issued orders to strengthen border checkpoints. They’ve distributed the personal information of the aide and his family to the border guards and are mobilizing branch employees to crack down on illegal entry.”

In a world where magic, divinity, and mysteries exist, the Imperial Guard was employing all means to prevent defection.

Following orders, the border guards began inspecting everyone leaving the empire—people, vehicles, even livestock. Provincial branches of the Imperial Guard sought “cooperation” from smugglers and human traffickers.

Yekaterina looked at a map showing all territories of the Kiyen Empire.

“The closest asylum routes from Petrograd are the western port area and the eastern Latuan border region.”

She pointed to the ports closest to the imperial capital and the Kiyen-Latuan border formed along the river.

Red lines being drawn on the map. Her colleague, who had been silently watching Yekaterina, smirked.

“Yekaterina. Do you know how long it takes to drive from here to the western port?”

“How long?”

“At least 7 hours. That’s driving non-stop without rest.”

The closest asylum route via ship, the western port, is 562km from Petrograd. It takes 7 hours by car or 5-6 hours by train.

The eastern Kiyen-Latuan border takes 9 hours by car or a whopping 14 hours by train with stopovers.

Note that these times don’t account for road conditions or driver fatigue.

“Vehicles will be caught the moment they cross the border, and trains are useless. Police and railway ministry staff check people at every station.”

“What if they used forged IDs and disguises?”

“Do you think IDs can be made in a day?”

The implication was clear: there was no possibility of crossing the border with a disguised identity.

Whether this was true or just a kind lie to reassure her, Yekaterina knew for certain that creating new identification was extremely difficult.

She put down her pen and reviewed the compiled information.

The military attaché suspected of being a spy who had recently contacted the aide had no external schedule today.

While his colleagues attended events, masses, or read magic books at the library, he remained holed up in the embassy without moving an inch.

Yekaterina scanned the document containing the schedules of foreign guests. She spoke with evident puzzlement in her voice.

“What? There’s no tracking information on the Hero, Saint, and Alchemist?”

This meant they weren’t being monitored.

To this, Yekaterina’s colleague smacked the back of her head and clicked her tongue.

“What would happen if the intelligence bureau got caught monitoring those people? Get a grip, Yekaterina!”

“But they’re important figures, they need protection…”

“That’s the Foreign Ministry’s role. The police have already assigned security personnel without us getting involved.”

Yekaterina checked the schedules of the three individuals provided by the Foreign Ministry.

The new Saint from the Order was scheduled to officiate a mass and visit poorhouses and hospitals today, while the Alchemist from the Magic Tower had meetings planned with the Imperial Magic Department and magical community figures.

If the schedules were accurate, the Saint would now be at the cathedral or a poorhouse, and the Alchemist would be active in the eastern outskirts of Petrograd.

The issue was elsewhere.

The guest from another world, who was receiving the most attention and was at the center of discussion, had been visiting libraries and reading books all day. Apparently, he also met with magicians for education and participated in training. But today, it seemed he hadn’t gone anywhere except the library.

“Why does this person only visit libraries? Does he like books?”

“I asked friends at the Foreign Ministry, and they said he’s a college student? Something like Camb… some university.”

“What’s his major? Magic?”

“No? I don’t remember his major, but they said he comes from a world without magic.”

Yekaterina paused, as if experiencing brain freeze, and stared at her colleague.

“…There are worlds without magic?”

“Yes.”

“How do they live with such inconvenience?”

The technician wearing a headset and continuing the wiretap suddenly jumped up from his seat.

“They’re moving! Vehicles are leaving the embassy!”

The team leaders stopped what they were doing and gathered by the window. Some picked up binoculars to see who was coming out of the embassy’s main gate.

Yekaterina was already broadcasting the situation over the radio.

“Vehicles coming out of the main gate. Everyone stay sharp and confirm who’s inside.”

The intelligence officers pressed the button once briefly and adjusted their positions to take photographs.

And then,

“…?”

The main gate opened, and a vehicle came out.

Vehicle”s.”

“…What?”

Cars began pouring out of the embassy.

*

On a rooftop near the Abas Embassy’s main gate.

Imperial Guard intelligence officers waiting to photograph the vehicle interiors looked away from their equipment with confused expressions.

“Huh?”

“It’s not just one car?”

Multiple cars were passing through the main gate. And at a very fast pace.

In the brief moment of confusion, more than four vehicles were already visible to the naked eye. The intelligence officers belatedly regained their senses and tried to photograph the vehicles, but they couldn’t focus properly.

Meanwhile, an Imperial Guard employee waiting below reported via radio. The backseat was filled with shutter sounds, but there was no time to worry about that.

“Vehicles are leaving. Currently five.”

Even as the radio transmission continued, more vehicles kept coming out. Five, six, seven… the number quickly rose to ten.

“All registered embassy vehicles have left. What should we do?”

“…Damn it!”

Spitting out a curse, Yekaterina grabbed her coat and rushed outside. Several team leader-level intelligence officers followed her.

As she ran down the stairs, Yekaterina shouted into the radio while roughly putting her arms into her coat.

“Leave minimal personnel for surveillance and deploy all vehicles to follow them!”

Yekaterina threw the radio onto the driver’s seat and struggled to start the engine.

The deputy team leader who had been observing the situation nearby got into the passenger seat, and the rest of the team members, except those on surveillance duty, boarded the back seats.

The deputy team leader reported to Yekaterina while fastening his seatbelt.

“Vehicle inspection failed. Traffic police attempted to inspect, but embassy security rushed out and blocked them.”

“Damn it…”

Yekaterina handed the radio to the deputy team leader.

“Request police reinforcements immediately. Don’t let those bastards escape by car.”

“Yes.”

While the deputy team leader requested police reinforcements, Yekaterina drove the car onto the main road.

In the distance, she could see the Abas Embassy vehicles moving like a herd of animals.

Yekaterina grabbed the Imperial Guard radio installed in the vehicle and began directing other employees.

Given the circumstances, they had likely noticed the vehicle surveillance, but even the Imperial Guard had no authority to stop diplomatic mission vehicles.

Therefore, Yekaterina planned to use numbers to forcibly slow down the vehicles and confirm the identities of the passengers.

Fortunately, Imperial Guard support teams arrived on time and joined the formation. As the Abas Embassy cars moved ahead, Imperial Guard vehicles followed closely behind.

Yekaterina skillfully changed lanes while trying to see who was in the embassy vehicles.

“…Damn. Can’t see.”

The interiors weren’t visible, perhaps because the sun had set. The tinting was already dark, and with the surroundings being dim as well, it was difficult to even distinguish human outlines.

The deputy team leader in the passenger seat radioed the employees who had been taking photographs from the rooftop and ground.

“Got anything? Check which vehicles have many passengers. If you can’t see the license plates, at least tell me the type and color.”

-‘….’

After a slight pause, the Imperial Guard employee’s response came back.

-‘Um, I’ve checked all the photos, and there are many vehicles with multiple passengers.’

“What? What do you mean?”

-‘There are several vehicles with people in the passenger or back seats. At least three that we can confirm?’

The Imperial Guard employees who had taken photographs confirmed that there were multiple vehicles with at least two passengers. Hearing this radio transmission, Yekaterina frowned.

“These bastards are deliberately misleading us.”

“What should we do, Team Leader?”

“What else? We have to check each one. Tell the people watching the embassy to make sure no one else leaves.”

Multiple vehicles, including Yekaterina’s, began to speed up to catch up.

The Imperial Guard employees navigated through the complex rush hour traffic of Petrograd, holding their breath and waiting for an opportunity.

And soon, an opportunity came.

“…Team Leader, the signal has changed. Red light.”

“I see it.”

As the signal changed, the vehicles stopped. Citizens heading home from work, Abas Embassy cars, and Imperial Guard vehicles all halted at the intersection.

The Abas Embassy cars stopped at the front, with the Imperial Guard vehicles behind them.

Yekaterina, who had been checking to make sure no vehicles had escaped before the signal changed, confirmed that all ten were stopped on the road and breathed a sigh of relief.

Engine sounds and occasional honking. The noise of busy people moving about.

Amid the road filled with all sorts of sounds, a radio transmission rang out.

-‘I just heard from the police traffic department. There’s been a collision accident on the road ahead. The police are currently controlling the lanes.’

The Imperial Guard intelligence officer added that it would take some time for the signal in this section to change.

It was a blessing in disguise. A car accident had occurred, and lanes were being controlled.

Relieved, Yekaterina fiddled with the steering wheel, looked around quickly, and nudged the deputy team leader.

“Hey, Deputy.”

“Yes, Team Leader.”

“Do you see that traffic officer? The one next to the signal control device.”

The deputy team leader’s gaze followed Yekaterina’s pointing finger. As she said, there was a police officer controlling traffic near the road.

Wrapped in a thick coat and exhaling white breath, the officer tried to create a flame by flicking his fingers a few times to warm himself. The wind prevented the fire from lighting, though.

The deputy team leader immediately understood what Yekaterina was trying to say.

“You want to delay the signal?”

“Yes. Ask him to delay it a bit. Show your ID and ask for cooperation. He’ll comply.”

“Yes.”

The deputy team leader, who had taken out his ID, prepared to get out of the car. Yekaterina instructed the team members watching the nearby lanes from the back seat.

“Get out and check those cars.”

“What? Check the vehicles?”

“Go see who’s inside. We can’t inspect them, but we can look inside.”

“Ah, understood.”

The team members, with expressions suggesting they didn’t really understand, went out onto the road where the wind was howling.

Other teams seemed to have similar thoughts. One by one, employees got out of their cars and moved toward the vehicles with diplomatic license plates.

The traffic officer who witnessed this scene blew his whistle and shouted for them to go back, but he was intercepted by the deputy team leader, and the whistle sound abruptly stopped.

Just as Imperial Guard employees who had arrived began to look into the Abas Embassy vehicles that had stopped at the back,

The deputy team leader who had gone to find the traffic officer returned to the vehicle.

“How did it go?”

“He says he’ll delay the signal a bit from now.”

The deputy team leader looked at the traffic officer he had just spoken with. The officer removed his thick gloves, blew on his hands to warm them, took out a key, and opened the traffic signal control box.

And as he reached out to control the signal,

The signal changed.

Green light.

Her hand moved before she could understand the situation. Yekaterina changed gears and was about to step on the accelerator, but.

She was too late.

As soon as the signal changed, the Abas Embassy cars at the front increased their speed and started driving. Some even violated the signal, turning left and right.

With a roar of engines, someone shouted.

-‘Those bastards are fleeing! Catch them!’

Taking that as a signal, Imperial Guard employees began sprinting across the asphalt road.

The chase had begun.

*

An unexpected chase broke out at an intersection in central Petrograd.

Some of the vehicles with diplomatic license plates ignored the signal and began turning left and right.

Imperial Guard employees also ignored the signal and turned their steering wheels. Note that the intelligence officers who had gotten out of the cars were left stranded on the road.

-‘Our cover was blown long ago! Let’s use the siren!’

After hearing the radio transmission, the deputy team leader placed a beacon light on the roof. A siren began to sound from the speakers.

Meanwhile, intelligence officers shared the situation through the radio network.

Four Abas Embassy vehicles had escaped to the left and right. Six vehicles were continuing straight ahead following the signal.

-‘We’re each chasing the ones that escaped to the sides, so please continue straight ahead after the ones that went straight!’

Yekaterina was pursuing the cars that were going straight.

She chased the six vehicles ahead with three other Imperial Guard vehicles.

The Abas Embassy cars, which had been observing signals until just now, no longer stopped at red lights. The roads were filled with sirens, honking, and occasional screams and curses.

The deputy team leader, who was holding the radio tightly and swaying left and right, shouted at Yekaterina.

“Police forces are coming from the road ahead! If we keep going straight, we’ll meet them!”

“Are you sure!?”

“Yes!”

As the deputy team leader said, the radio of police forces reinforced from the network could be heard. The police, who had received reports of cars violating signals and speeding in the middle of the capital, were blocking the road.

Imperial Guard employees prevented the Abas Embassy cars from escaping while guiding them toward the police blockade.

Since employees with good driving skills were placed in the driver’s seats for vehicle surveillance, the effect was definite.

However, the Abas side was not an easy opponent either.

-‘Oh, oh, oh! That bastard is turning left!’

“Damn…!”

Some crossed through the narrow spaces between cars to escape to other roads, and some even broke through the center line.

As they followed the escaping vehicles one by one, only two Imperial Guard vehicles remained.

For reference, there were still four Abas Embassy vehicles.

Yekaterina, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, contacted the other vehicle and instructed them to continue straight ahead.

-‘What?! Just keep driving?’

“The police blockade is just three blocks away! Just keep going forward!”

At that moment, Yekaterina noticed a car deviating to the right.

A vehicle from the Abas Embassy. As the headlights illuminated the side, the silhouettes of people in the sedan were briefly visible.

The deputy team leader, who also saw this, pointed at the escaping vehicle.

“Four people! There were four people in that car just now!”

“I saw them too!”

While the three Abas Embassy vehicles that continued straight entered the area with the police blockade,

Yekaterina turned the steering wheel and entered an alley.

*

It had been a long time since they left the center of Petrograd and entered the outskirts.

The Abas Embassy vehicle, which had barely escaped just before reaching the blockade, was continuing its escape along unfamiliar roads. It was like the skill of someone who had used these roads many times before.

Although it was her first time on this road, Yekaterina, with her eyes fixed on the target, pursued closely with gritted teeth. The deputy team leader in the passenger seat maintained radio contact and guided the police.

“When are the police coming?!”

“They’re nearby, but they can’t keep up because the speed is too fast!”

“That bastard is flooring it, what am I supposed to do! Tell them to take a shortcut, a shortcut!”

Unfortunately, there were no shortcuts.

Petrograd is a massive city where buildings were centered around the old downtown areas of various regions, and the boundaries between cities were broken down and merged into one.

Petrograd is a huge city with over a thousand years of history, and its area is more than three times that of New York. It’s comparable in size to the entire Moscow.

The current chase was taking place in one of the old downtown areas on the outskirts of Petrograd. Having existed for hundreds of years, it retained an antique charm.

Buildings never exceeding five floors,

Architecture that preserves the style from hundreds of years ago,

A river crossing the center of the city and beautiful churches,

And terrible roads.

That was why the police were arriving late, and why Yekaterina was clenching her molars.

“How does that bastard know this place?!”

“Maybe it’s a diplomat who’s been stationed in the empire for a long time!”

“Check the license plate!”

The deputy team leader suppressed his rising nausea and checked the license plate with binoculars.

Due to the shaking and movement, nothing was clearly visible, but he could identify a few numbers written on the back.

The deputy team leader, recalling the embassy vehicle numbers he had memorized, suddenly turned his head to look at Yekaterina.

“It’s the military attaché’s vehicle!”

“What? I can’t hear you!”

“That military attaché you told us to monitor at the diplomat’s residence! It’s the car that was in his garage!”

Her hands gripping the steering wheel tightened.

As she pressed the accelerator deeply, the engine boiled up, and Yekaterina pursued the vehicle closely as she passed through narrow alleys.

Suddenly, she could feel the police sirens getting closer. The sound of sirens echoing from afar was clearly audible through the noise.

The persistent chase between the vehicle with four passengers and Yekaterina continued, always just out of reach. The vehicle chase had already lasted more than 2 hours, but neither Yekaterina nor the opponent showed signs of fatigue.

But as all beginnings have endings,

The persistent chase was abruptly halted by a garbage collection truck that cut in front of Yekaterina’s vehicle.

“You son of a—”

-Honk!

Yekaterina struck the horn with her fist. The civil servant collecting garbage was startled, but he responded by raising his middle finger.

At that moment, the military attaché’s vehicle could be glimpsed escaping beyond the garbage truck. The vehicle, which had slowed down, smoothly turned right and entered an alley.

Yekaterina immediately jumped out of the car and approached the civil servant.

“Move your car, you bastard!”

The civil servant, who momentarily flared up and was about to shout something, flinched when he saw the beacon light on the roof of the car.

The civil servant, eyeing Yekaterina and the deputy team leader nervously, backed up the garbage truck to clear the way.

“Get in!”

Yekaterina and the deputy team leader boarded the vehicle like lightning. The siren sound echoed through the quiet suburban downtown, and residents poked their heads out of windows to see what was happening.

“The police have come very close. They’re behind the building!”

Upon hearing the deputy team leader’s report, Yekaterina drove the car into the alley where the embassy vehicle had entered.

“…Ah!”

The vehicle was parked inside the alley.

The path to the main road was blocked by two police cars flashing their emergency lights, and the path to escape by reversing was blocked by Yekaterina’s vehicle.

Just then, she caught sight of a man in a suit getting out of the embassy vehicle and talking to the police. It was too dark to see clearly, but Yekaterina instinctively recognized him as the military attaché she had been chasing.

Having assessed the situation, Yekaterina’s body was already halfway out of the car.

The deputy team leader followed the team leader and got out onto the shoulder, and the two approached the vehicle parked in the middle of the alley with guns drawn.

The diplomatic license plate, which she had confirmed in photographs numerous times over the past week, was clearly visible to her eyes.

Yekaterina flung open the back door with her gun drawn. Simultaneously, the deputy team leader forcefully opened the door on the opposite side.

“Hands up!”

“Get out of the car!”

And,

Nothing happened.

“…What?”

Yekaterina muttered in a bewildered voice as she looked at the empty back seat of the vehicle. The deputy team leader checked under the seats and opened the passenger seat, but there was no one.

While they were looking around the empty car and surroundings, unaware that their gun barrels were slowly lowering, the diplomat who had been standing at the front approached them with the police.

“What are you doing now?”

Yekaterina recognized the diplomat. But there was something much more important than acknowledging him.

She asked Frederick, who was closing the car door, with an obvious lie.

“…You were caught for signal violation and speeding. Why didn’t you stop?”

Frederick retorted. He took out his ID from his pocket and thrust it at Yekaterina with a brazen attitude.

“I’m a diplomat. I don’t need to stop when the police tell me to.”

As if to say, “What’s one more traffic enforcement?” Frederick muttered and took out a cigarette.

Indeed, cases of diplomats being caught for speeding, signal violations, drunk driving, and illegal parking are abundant. Even if the police try to enforce the law, they use diplomatic immunity to avoid even being investigated, and if fines are imposed, they often go unpaid if the embassy refuses to pay.

But whether police, diplomat, or any other identity, knowing that excuses are commonly used in urgent situations, Yekaterina did not back down easily.

“So that’s why you fled all the way here across Petrograd?”

“I was busy.”

“Busy?”

Yekaterina looked around.

A quiet suburban downtown with no government or public institutions. It was a neighborhood where diplomats would have no reason to visit.

Yekaterina asked.

“What were you doing here?”

“…”

“I’m curious why you ignored the emergency lights.”

And the answer came not from Frederick but from someone else.

“Ah, he came to pick me up.”

Yekaterina and the deputy team leader turned their heads at the sudden female voice.

A woman was walking out of a vintage apartment that looked like it was built in the 1800s.

Purple hair darker than stachys, purple eyes as deep as her hair. The distinctive pattern on her cape proved that the woman was a magician belonging to the Elemental School.

As she held her skirt and slowly descended the stairs, a police officer stammered.

“Who are you…?”

“I’m Francesca Ranieri from the Magic Tower.”

The police officer didn’t know about the woman named Francesca, but he certainly knew about the Ranieri family. It was one of the few families with an Archmage as its founder.

Francesca surveyed the police, Yekaterina, and Frederick.

“I heard that a professor I was indebted to during my college days was staying here, so I came to visit… Since I didn’t come with my attendants, I had no convenient way to return. This is my first time here.”

“…”

“Is there a problem with the military attaché?”

The police officers on duty, who had been dispatched after receiving a reinforcement request, looked at Yekaterina with confused expressions.

But Yekaterina kept her mouth shut and alternately looked at Frederick and Francesca.

“…No. Have a good day.”

After a brief greeting, Yekaterina turned and headed toward her vehicle.

She appeared flustered. The deputy team leader, who had discreetly put his gun back in its holster, approached and spoke.

“Why aren’t you asking more questions? Weren’t there clearly four people in the car earlier? Should I call for backup and search the area?”

“No.”

Yekaterina added briefly.

“We might have seen it wrong. It was a glimpse of a car entering an alley in a dark moment. Neither you nor I saw it clearly.”

“…”

“Let’s first check how the other teams are doing.”

Striding to the vehicle, Yekaterina picked up the radio and contacted the other teams. Until she made the radio call, there had been no sound from the network.

“How is everyone doing? Have you found the asylum seekers?”

The answer came immediately, as if they had been waiting.

-‘Domestic Intelligence Team, we searched the vehicle that escaped first, but the aide wasn’t there.’

-‘Investigation Team here. There was a passenger in the vehicle, so we checked their identity. It was an Abas Embassy employee? They’re claiming they were just heading home together.’

-‘Our team members have looked around, but there’s no sign of the aide, his wife, or daughter. Everyone in the vehicles were people working at the embassy.’

-‘We couldn’t find anyone trying to seek asylum either. We checked the three vehicles that were inspected by the police, but no one was there.’

“…”

-‘How about you, Yekaterina? Did you find anything?’

Yekaterina threw the radio to the ground.

“Fuck!”

The radio, which hit the hard ground, shattered into pieces. The broken fragments spread left and right like a burst water balloon, and parts that escaped from inside flew into the air.

Belatedly wanting to interrogate them, she looked toward where the military attaché and alchemist had just been, but,

The car was already leaving for the main road following the police’s signal.

*

In a park along the massive river that crosses Petrograd.

I parked my car near the park and leaned against the door, smoking a cigarette. Francesca rested her chin on the window, looking at the river.

She muttered while gazing at the dim river.

“You suddenly said you’d come pick me up, but it was because of your work, I see.”

I silently exhaled smoke and smacked my lips.

“It’s not so much work as… I just needed your help.”

Francesca raised the corners of her lips in a slight smile. It was an ambiguous expression, hard to tell if she was smiling or crying.

Although she was a non-smoker and probably didn’t appreciate cigarette smoke, Francesca said she was used to it and stayed by my side.

The river crossing Petrograd was full of romance.

The river, which captured the city’s night view, flowed majestically, and beyond it, the brilliant imperial capital shone brightly.

We conversed while looking at the shining city.

“Driving makes me tired. Three hours, no, I’ve been behind the wheel for over 4 hours just today.”

“It is quite tiring. Though I suppose it’s more comfortable than a carriage.”

“Were you uncomfortable being together? You must have waited a long time since I was delayed.”

“Not really? It wasn’t uncomfortable or boring. The professor actually enjoyed it.”

Francesca added.

“It’s not often you get to meet someone from another world directly. After chatting a few times, he asked if we could meet again.”

“Well, as long as he’s happy, it’s fine. What about the administrator? Do they seem to be getting along?”

“I wonder?”

Francesca, who had been leaning on the window without moving, turned her head to look up at me.

“What about you, Military Attaché? Do you think you’re close friends? Judging by the fact that you entrusted this task to me, it seems like more than an ordinary relationship.”

“…”

I silently looked at Francesca.

Francesca made an interested sound as she looked at me, but soon lost interest and turned her head away.

“Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to tell me.”

“…”

“Perhaps it’s better not to know.”

Francesca, who had been leaning against the door enjoying the night view, got out of the car, saying she should head back now. I suggested waiting a bit longer and going together, but she declined.

Francesca moved to catch a tram crossing the center of Petrograd. I helped her use the correct line before parting ways.

After watching the departing tram, I returned to the park where the car was, and a familiar back of a head caught my eye.

“…”

I walked toward her with a sigh of relief.

She too seemed to sense my presence, as she was sitting on the car swinging her legs gently before hopping down.

Camilla waved her hands enthusiastically to welcome me.

“I’m back!”

“Did you go well? Were there any problems?”

“No!”

Camilla showed a bright smile. Her cheeks, reddened from the cold wind, dimpled.

She put down her broom and confidently continued.

“All three of them crossed the border safely.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The asylum was successful.