Chapter 54
Chapter 54
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 54
>Chapter Title: Stalker vs. Stalker (9)
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*
One of the common misconceptions is that rain washes away smells. This is a trivial misunderstanding that can be corrected by simply raising a single dog.
In the rain, one’s sense of smell doesn't dull; the scent itself does not. And a transcendent’s senses are not impaired by something as trivial as a summer shower.
Getting wet in the rain naturally amplifies one's body odor. This would be true even if you dropped distilled water on a lab rat in a sterile room, and with the pre-modern standards of hygiene in this world, it was even more of a given.
On top of that, wasn't the one being tracked a man from ‘Droan’ who had just arrived in the city after running on foot for days?
Setting aside Droan's characteristic disregard for public health, the scent of a foreigner was always easier to distinguish.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs…?”
Ivan muttered, dumbfounded, as he stared down the path where the scent led.
Even by Earth's standards, there were three places an undocumented immigrant should never go.
A rural employment agency offering suspiciously high wages.
>A local factory (or farm, or any workplace with ‘field’ in its name) where an unusually large number of fellow countrymen worked.
>And finally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As with all such lists, the last item was the most important. The first two cases merely ended in being exploited to death, but the last case involved the official, state-sanctioned execution of the law.
In the Republic of Korea, an illegal immigrant would be sent home cleanly. The generous Krasilov, in this case, would offer two suggestions.
1. Return to your homeland and be killed by your king.
>2. Follow our laws and be killed by us.
To interpret it more ‘aristocratically,’ one might say they offered the remarkable choices of repatriation or citizenship. (In this world, even a dead citizen was still a citizen. Because they had to pay taxes.)
Krasilov's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was a massive department, a complex combination of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the military (the direct royal command, not belonging to the Court or the Military Administration), and a police agency for foreign nobles (personal jurisdiction did not exist in this world).
Furthermore, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Minister, was none other than the eldest son of the current king, Kirill II. Crown Prince Aleksandr.
“This is too… clumsy.”
Ivan frowned.
Looking at it with common sense, the cause of this whole mess in the capital was Crown Prince Aleksandr.
The strangely missing royal, whose whereabouts were unknown, had likely colluded with the military's Capital Guard to smuggle dwarves into the country.
The targets were probably the children of the Hero's Party, and therefore the objective was internal strife or chaos throughout the entire United Kingdom.
To have made several moves with a single play, he must have been a brilliant strategist, which made the current situation all the more bizarre.
If you were to hide a foreign terrorist in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even in the Republic of Korea, the Foreign Minister's life could not be guaranteed. (In Krasilov, it could be guaranteed. The man would die.)
Ivan rolled his shoulders once and tied a rope to his axe.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve infiltrated a central government agency.’
He never said he hadn't.
During his active duty, he had experience carrying out almost every special operation with ‘infiltration’ in its name. (The Demon King’s castle was an exception.)
*
Right now in Pritzhenkaya, a bomb plot by righteous citizen activists, a VIP kidnapping by national separatists, and a guerrilla campaign by armed communist bandits (literally, communist bandits, since they were dwarves) were all happening simultaneously.
If there were those who should be the first to preemptively suppress this chaotic situation, one would be the Capital Guard Division, and the other, the Counter-Intelligence Command.
Of the two, the Capital Guard Division seemed to have been influenced by Aleksandr, as they had allowed the armed bandits' attack, so that could be set aside.
At this point, Ivan couldn't help but wonder.
‘What on earth is the Counter-Intelligence Command doing?’
The reason this valid question could not be answered immediately was that nearly all agents of the Counter-Intelligence Command were currently split in half, performing their state duties in different locations.
“This is, this is… treason…!”
>“Treason, you say.”
Dmitry and the agents of the Counter-Intelligence Command were currently occupying the command office of the Capital Guard Division.
He sat with his legs crossed in the commander’s plush chair, pulling out a ridiculously high-end cigar from a drawer and placing it in his mouth.
- *Snip.*
His adjutant, standing beside him, quickly cut the tip of the cigar and lit it with a magical flame from his fingertip. *Szzzle.* The cigar ignited, and hazy smoke infused with the scent of almonds and vanilla rose into the air.
“Do you even know the meaning of treason when you say it?”
>“You, you all… what you’re doing is…!”
>“No, you’re wrong. Treason is a charge reserved for the losers. To attempt it is revolution; to fail is treason; to succeed….”
He took a long, deep drag of the cigar, then slowly exhaled.
Through the thick smoke, the lieutenant colonel’s piercing blue eyes flashed.
“Is to issue a royal command.”
>“How dare…! How dare you rebels!!”
>“To speak of rebellion in front of us. You’re quite brave, Brigadier General.”
Dmitry chuckled and flicked his fingers. The adjutant placed a heavy pistol in his hand.
Holding the pistol, he tapped the table. On it lay two reports and one transcribed manuscript.
“This is the preliminary investigation report you wrote after the dwarven terror incident on the outskirts of Pritzhenkaya. This is the perimeter guard log you’ve kept for the past month. And this… is something we ‘coincidentally’ acquired. A ‘transcribed copy of secret telegrams.’”
>“How… did you get that…?”
>“It’s our job to get curious about anything labeled ‘secret.’”
Dmitry smirked and flipped through the manuscript.
“The recipient is Crown Prince Aleksandr. The main content of the report is, oh. A plan to create civil engineering projects and field training exercises to conceal the excavation sounds of a dwarven engineering battalion heading for the capital’s underground? How meticulous.”
>“It’s, it’s a frame-up! That’s a frame-up!”
>“Did you mean to say ‘adventure’? That grand adventure of letting demons into Pritzhenkaya… You have a surprisingly adventurous spirit for a soldier. Perhaps you should have chosen a different profession.”
Dmitry looked down calmly at the brigadier general, who was kneeling, bloodied and sobbing.
With the cigar still in his mouth, Dmitry asked casually.
“Where is the real Crown Prince Aleksandr right now?”
>“R-real? What do you mean by that…? His Highness the Crown Prince is, of course, in the West Palace….”
>“My, your skill at cutting off tails is something we could learn from. How does one execute such a complex plan without revealing a single location?”
Dmitry gave a bitter smile and stood up. He slowly raised the pistol and faced the brigadier general.
“Just one question before the execution of your sentence.”
>“Spare me. I, I know nothing. It’s a frame-up, a frame-up. Her Highness the Princess… n-no! No! Let me see His Majesty!”
>“To whom do you pledge your loyalty?”
>“Wh-what do you mean! Of course, of course to this country… to the great Krasilov royal family…!”
- *Click.*
>- *BANG!*
A thick plume of smoke, qualitatively different from the cigar smoke, scattered from the muzzle, and the brigadier general’s mouth fell silent.
Dmitry handed the gun to his adjutant, pulled on his gloves, and turned away.
“Record this. The punishment for the traitorous faction that plotted against the state was death, executed by royal command.”
>“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel.”
>“The fake Crown Prince?”
>“Teams 2 and 5 have reported success in suppressing the West Palace.”
>“And Team 3?”
>“Fifteen minutes ago, they succeeded in ‘protecting’ the person of the ‘former king’ from the ‘traitors’’ terror attack.”
>“Good. What about the explosives in the city?”
>“Team 4 has finished identifying all burial locations and quantities, Lieutenant Colonel. Shall I give the order to begin dismantlement…?”
>“No, that’s not it.”
Dmitry opened the door to the command office and spoke softly.
“A coronation ceremony wouldn't be complete without celebratory gunfire. If they want to blow up Pritzhenkaya, let them.”
>“…Then what about the people at the epicenter….”
>“Evacuate the civilians. There’s no need to shed innocent blood. The explosion is what's important, not the casualties.”
The bombs were planted by foreign criminals.
>The one who hired those criminals to blow up Pritzhenkaya was Crown Prince Aleksandr.
The Crown Prince's goal was to seize the throne amid the chaos in Pritzhenkaya, which was successfully thwarted. The Crown Prince's whereabouts subsequently became unknown, and the King, shocked by his son's rebellion, abdicated his power.
Since everything was based on facts, all the Counter-Intelligence Command had to do was proclaim it to the citizens and the international community.
“Then the children of the Hero's Party….”
>“That was always Senior’s job, wasn’t it? Don’t touch it. Lieutenant Colonel Petrovich dislikes it when people intrude on his work domain.”
The one to fasten the only missing button in this whole affair would be a single lumberjack.
The best field agent the Annihilation Squad had ever produced during the war, Ivan Petrovich.
With this, the job was all done. Dmitry smiled faintly, his heart feeling lighter.
*
Esidis shivered from the throbbing pain in her head as she barely managed to open her eyes.
The dark interior was incredibly bleak… like a prison… wait, this really was a prison.
What, why was I captured? A prison…? What crime did I commit…?
Esidis, who could look up at the sky without a single point of shame, felt wronged.
“You’re awake, Esy?”
>“B-Bella! And Oskar, you’re here too?!”
She spotted the two people in a corner of the cell and beamed. Of course!
“You came to rescue me!”
>“No, we were captured too.”
Isabelle and Oskar replied with hollow smiles.
*
‘So the Tilles kids were captured too.’
Ivan clicked his tongue as he looked down at Dian, who was unconscious and injured.
He had been found in an interrogation room on the second floor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.
Unlike Mord, this one had no fatal injuries. That was a relief. It meant there were no traitors from Tilles.
If Tilles had also been involved in this incident, Dian wouldn't have been brought here alive. He would have been killed to be silenced.
Ivan clicked his tongue again and opened the door to the interrogation room.
‘The Counter-Intelligence Command… needs training.’
With so many holes in the security for state guests, how could they possibly call themselves a domestic intelligence agency?
Ivan was appalled. When he was on active duty, something like this could never have happened.
He strode forward, his mind already formulating numerous training plans to apply to the Counter-Intelligence Command.
- *Splish, splosh.*
In the corridor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a broken magic lamp flickered.
Blood and rainwater pooled all over the floor, and a squelching noise echoed with every step.
Along the shortest route to the top floor, the remains of all the armed forces that had tried to stop Ivan flickered red under the light.
Ivan walked silently down the corridor, his breathing not even the slightest bit ragged.
*