Ch.54Episode 4 – Why Are You Only Picking On Me

The week-long assignment had ended.

Though the plan had gone somewhat awry, the Military Intelligence Bureau had nonetheless arrested the spy who had been prowling around the Advanced Military Magic Research Institute.

I’m guessing that as soon as dawn breaks, a letter of protest condemning espionage activities that sought military and state secrets will be delivered to the Foreign Affairs Department of the Magic Tower. Or perhaps they might conceal the arrest and launch a counter-operation.

I don’t know what will happen next. In fact, I don’t want to know.

For now, we’ve caught the spy without any casualties on our side, and Camilla Rowell is safe, so I’m satisfied with that. The Counter-Intelligence Department will handle the secondary issues like investigations and legal battles.

After saying goodbye to the counter-intelligence investigators I’d worked with for a week, I left the institute.

And then,

“Take about two weeks off before returning to duty. Good work.”

I finally got my vacation.

Episode 4 – Why Are You Picking On Me?

The truth is, it’s incredibly difficult for military personnel to freely use their vacation time. And this applies not only to active-duty soldiers but also to officers and non-commissioned officers.

Of course, vacation time might mean less to staff who commute from outside the base, but for those stationed at frontline mountain outposts, remote locations, or living on base, vacation is desperately needed.

I was in a position where I desperately needed a vacation.

There’s no special reason for it.

Frequent overseas assignments play a part, but the murderous workload of intelligence units is the main reason.

Across the world, intelligence units are places where overtime is routine and working late is a hobby. There are few people but plenty of work, relatively few positions for promotion, all your competing seniors, juniors, and peers have impressive credentials, and the difficulty level of the work is as high as a radar site hidden at the top of a mountain.

If you want to work in such a place for a long time, you have no choice but to work yourself to death. Or marry your paperwork. Either way, the common factor is that your personal time gets reduced.

Still, the situation is somewhat better now that I’m working in the capital where the Military Intelligence Bureau headquarters is located, or in a relatively livable foreign metropolis. If I had been assigned to some deserted island or mountain valley, I would have gone crazy.

Of course, working in a city doesn’t necessarily mean a high quality of life.

Because I’ve returned to the overseas department.

And in the overseas department, especially for employees dispatched abroad, it was impossible to use vacation time.

Whether you’re an intelligence agent or an operations agent, you can’t take leave when you’re on an overseas assignment. If you work at a diplomatic mission like White, the situation is somewhat better, but people like Black have to rest by reading the situation carefully. Plus, the amount and difficulty of work is murderous. You might even get arrested at any time, and one wrong move could lead to serious trouble. Naturally, your quality of life can only plummet.

So during overseas assignments, all I could do was take a day or two off for a brief rest. Even that wasn’t possible if we were short-staffed or work was piling up. Didn’t we just work Pippin and Jake to the bone for two months? I was ground down the most, though.

Anyway, despite all the talk and trouble, I deserved a good rest.

Two months of overseas assignment.

One week of domestic business trip.

And subordinates returning from their vacations.

“Yahoo!”

Nothing could stop me now.

*

The first thing I did after receiving my two-week vacation was to sleep. Perhaps due to being overworked for more than two months, despite going to bed early, I barely woke up when the sun was already high in the sky.

A powerful, strong morning.

I immediately rushed to the bathroom, hastily wiped the sleep from my eyes, and dashed to the hospital. I had received a few health check-ups when I was at the academy, but Clavins had ordered me to get additional tests.

Honestly, thanks to Veronica and Lucia’s healing, I felt fine except for being tired, so I wanted to refuse. But I was threatened that if I was healthy, I’d have to rest just a little and then return to duty, so I had no choice but to go to the hospital.

Fortunately, the examination ended quickly. Like Camilla Rowell, I had some blood drawn, provided a urine sample, and after chatting with the military doctor and nurse officer, it was suddenly over. They said the examination finished quickly because I was a “real loser” who couldn’t use magic, so they skipped items like magic fluctuation tests and mental contamination measurements.

Anyway, the examination itself was swift, and the process wasn’t too bad.

Perhaps because it was a military hospital established for employee welfare, no one interrogated me about where I got injured, and above all, they handled things efficiently. I left the hospital in a good mood and texted Clavins (or more precisely, Clavins’ aide who was substituting for me) that the examination was complete.

Now there’s nothing more to do.

I am free!

“Haaah.”

The air seems particularly clear today. The sunshine is warm, the breeze is cool—perfect weather for going out to eat lunch. Sure enough, it must be lunchtime, as Military Intelligence Bureau employees who had shed their office uniforms were pouring out of the building.

A team leader walks ahead, followed by grim-faced employees marching in formation, as if they’re going to a company dinner. Beside them, people walk together laughing and chatting, presumably going to eat with close colleagues. An employee who dropped their files while trying to avoid them hastily gathered them up before anyone could step on them and rushed back into the building.

Just an ordinary day. Everyone seems to be living diligently.

As I was leaving the intelligence bureau mixed in with the crowd.

“Huh?”

Familiar yellow hair and black hair caught my eye.

“…You still don’t know where he is?”

“Damn it. How am I supposed to know? I contacted my peers and seniors, but no one has seen him.”

“Shouldn’t you ask the overseas department rather than analysis? Don’t you know anyone there?”

“No. They recruit fewer people and even use a separate building. I’d need a reason to go there normally.”

The one who looked troublesome at a glance was definitely Jake, and the one much shorter than the golden sun was definitely Pippin.

I slid up to them. Pippin and Jake were pressing their thick heads together, spouting their brain theories.

“Seeing how he suddenly vanished, it’s quite suspicious…”

“Maybe he got into trouble some—”

“You think he’s dead?”

“Huh?”

My subordinates whipped their heads around. Then they opened their eyes wide and flapped their lips like goldfish. Blub blub.

“Major, why are you coming from there…?”

“I could ask the same. Why are you two wandering around without a guardian?”

“We’re grown adults, why would we need a guardian…?”

I didn’t want to hurt their pride by saying they were just newbies who went on one short-term assignment, so I deflected appropriately.

“Because you’re both worthless.”

“Excuse me? Did I hear that correctly?”

“You heard me just fine.”

Pushing aside Jake, who was standing there with his mouth open, Pippin spoke up.

“Where have you been all this time?”

“Just went on a short business trip. About a week or so?”

“Wow. So you’ve been on business trips continuously since returning to the country?”

“I did return yesterday, but yeah, that’s right.”

Suddenly talking about work is giving me a headache.

I waved my hands to cut off the conversation and put my arms around their shoulders.

“Let’s stop talking about painful things and go get some food.”

“We were planning to eat at the cafeteria…”

“My treat.”

“Where shall we go?”

*

“So we end up here again?”

“If you don’t like it, go to the cafeteria.”

“……”

“What? Why? What.”

The restaurant I visited after more than two months and a week.

Our once regular lunch spot and a hamburger joint beloved by the overworked employees of the Military Intelligence Bureau.

“Can’t we stop eating hamburgers? I’ve been eating them for years, and now I feel full just smelling them.”

“With export restrictions causing raw material prices to skyrocket and the real economy collapsing, are you going to pay for dining out?”

“For someone who earns more than me to say that is a bit…”

Hamburgers are delicious, why are they acting like this?

I sprinkled salt inside my hamburger and said,

“You must be busy working, so we should eat quickly and go. Isn’t this the fastest option?”

“Even when we go to work, no one gives us anything to do.”

“Why not?”

“How can there be work when our superior isn’t at his desk and we don’t have an assigned office?”

“Ah.”

Right. I’m a team leader now. Not a deputy team leader.

No wonder I had so much damn work to do.

“So where have you been since you reported for duty?”

“Well, some department head, I think the Information Operations Department head, came and told us to wait in our quarters, so we’ve been in our quarters the whole time.”

My goodness, they clocked in and went back to their quarters. That’s even better than working overtime and going home.

“I’m jealous.”

“Is that a good thing…?”

“Then Jake, why don’t you go on business trips instead of me from now on.”

“What?”

“Go.”

“I’ll just stay holed up in the quarters.”

“Fuck off.”

Teeeeng-.

The lieutenant who got chewed out by the major picked up the sauce with a deadpan expression.

But why did they get to go on vacation while I was sent on a business trip? I outrank them by two levels. I still don’t understand.

Well, I’m sure they had their reasons.

“Let’s just eat.”

I dipped my french fries deep in ketchup and popped them into my mouth. The salty taste and crispy texture combined with the rich sauce create a fantastic flavor. Watching this, Pippin sniffed his portion of fries and frowned, while Jake carefully spread mustard sauce on his chicken pieces and spoke up.

“Honestly, it’s hard to eat chicken after eating beef and pork every day.”

“Why? Chicken is delicious.”

“Even delicious things are only enjoyable for a day or two. How many months have we been eating this now? I’m telling you, my mouth smells like chicken.”

“The military is buying it up to deal with the bird flu outbreak, what can we do about it?”

“Oh, right. I heard there’s going to be another protest.”

While I was suppressing the insolent Jake who had put down his chicken, Pippin, who was picking out vegetables from his hamburger, suddenly brought up the protest.

“What protest? Did elves destroy factories claiming to stop environmental destruction?”

“No, not that.”

“Then are orcs and beastkin staging a sit-in demanding unpaid wages?”

“Livestock farmers are protesting. They’re saying don’t import cattle, pigs, and chickens.”

Ah. Just an ordinary protest. If that’s the case, it probably won’t cause an emergency at the intelligence bureau.

“What’s your source?”

“The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.”

Hmm.

I gathered a bunch of french fries, dipped them deeply in sauce, and thought carefully.

It was unexpected that Pippin, an analyst at the Military Intelligence Bureau, knew about livestock farmers protesting, but it wasn’t particularly special.

The news of the protest was probably obtained by a domestic intelligence officer with the Ministry of Agriculture as their beat through an informant, and in the process of analyzing and verifying the intelligence, it likely reached Pippin’s ears through analysts.

Of course, it has nothing to do with us.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a domestic issue anyway, and if you know about it, the police probably do too. They’ll deploy plainclothes officers soon enough.”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

Having dismissed the issue unrelated to our work, I looked for a new topic of conversation.

“By the way, has anything unusual happened to you guys lately?”

“What kind of thing do you mean?”

“No, just. Any unusual incidents or problems during your vacation?”

“Nothing for me.”

“Me neither.”

“…Really? That’s good. Nothing happened at headquarters either?”

“There wasn’t anything noteworthy… Oh, come to think of it, I heard a few people from the diocese visited the headquarters.”

Jake lowered his voice and added,

“The Inquisition branch director and two high-ranking intelligence officers.”

“Do you know why they came?”

“We weren’t told specifically. It might be related to security issues, but we don’t really know the exact reason…”

“When did they come and go?”

“I heard it was yesterday evening. When my classmate was on duty as the gate guard commander, so it must have been late at night.”

By classmate, he means an employee who entered the intelligence bureau together with Pippin and Jake.

According to Military Intelligence Bureau regulations, all personnel, including employees and anyone entering from outside, must mandatorily deposit their ID cards at the main gate guardhouse and retrieve them when leaving, so they would have been able to verify their identities.

I dipped my french fries in sauce and thought for a moment.

The Inquisition branch director. And two high-ranking intelligence officers accompanying the director. The time of visit was yesterday. Late at night, too.

There was something oddly concerning about it, but I didn’t voice it.

It was no longer my business.

“Don’t worry about it and let’s just eat.”

Just as I was about to clear my head and devour my lunch.

-Ring ring ring!

A phone call.

I hastily wiped my greasy hands with a napkin and answered the phone.

“Yes- Frederick Nostrim speaking.”

-“Hey, Frederick. I heard you’re on vacation?”

It’s Clavins.

“Yes, that’s right, Colonel.”

-“Where are you now?”

“Having lunch at a nearby restaurant.”

-“Near the intelligence bureau?”

“Yes.”

-“Perfect timing. Can you come here for a moment?”

“Excuse me?”

-“It’ll just take a moment.”

“What?”

-“Come quickly.”

“……”

Life is truly fucking…