The Double Spy
I ordered the men under my command not to file any duty reports and to rotate the watch on their own, then slipped out of the camp. Hux's and Pirean's corpses came with me, bundled into sacks. The Ernest forces had no intention of leaving this place anytime soon. They meant to wage a guerrilla campaign with this camp as their hub.
Having granted Baron Melun a rest period, I now had the breathing room to return to the Coulon army. I made my way back with the two bodies in tow, having told the sentries I was heading out to bury Hux.
Hauling the corpses of two grown men was no small task. Grudgingly, with no other choice, I had to dump bonus points into Strength.
The Strength I'd forged through sex and training sat at two hundred and eighty. This body's Synchronization Rate, however, was only fifty percent—which meant the force I could actually bring to bear was a hundred and forty. And even that much was only possible because I'd been putting in serious work in bed to raise the rate.
I reached the camp before dawn. The Transformation Potion had already worn off. As I approached the Coulon encampment, one of the sentries spotted me and leveled his spear.
"Halt! Identify yourself!"
"Derick Walker, mage attached to the Coulon vanguard. Mission complete. I'm returning to camp."
I raised both hands and approached slowly. The sentry took one look at my face, lowered his spear, and bowed his head in greeting. At this point, I was a hero to the Coulon army.
"You've done well, Master Walker. His Lordship gave orders to admit you the moment you returned. He also asked that you come see him at once."
"It's late. Is it all right to call on him now?"
"He said to come regardless of the hour."
"Understood. Carry on."
"Yes, sir! Ah—what's in the sack, if I may ask?"
"The corpses of Ernest officers."
"What?! I see. You've done well, sir!"
I went straight to Count Coulomb's tent. A lamp was still burning inside. The knight standing guard took one look at my face and snapped a crisp salute.
"You've done well, Master Walker. His Lordship is waiting."
"He still hasn't gone to sleep?"
"No, sir. He just woke."
"A diligent man. I'll go in, then."
Inside, I found Count Coulomb in light attire, bent over a map. It was a look that suited a field commander. He glanced up at me with an expression of genuine welcome.
"Ah! Sir Walker. You've returned? I heard the news your subordinates brought. You infiltrated the Ernest army in secret? Extraordinary. Your abilities are like something out of a fairy tale—a hero stepped straight from the pages of a storybook!"
"Yes. It was possible thanks to an interesting little item I acquired while trading in the East. A potion that lets you assume another person's appearance perfectly."
"And that sack—what is it?"
Count Coulomb eyed the enormous bag I'd brought with open curiosity. I would have been curious too. I untied it and pulled out the two corpses inside.
"The bodies of Ernest officers. I assassinated these two and assumed their identities. This one is Bert Hux, their logistics officer. This one is Gion Pirean, their security captain."
"Oho! Well now. A splendid achievement. Assassinating two enemy officers!"
The moment of my feat lit up Count Coulomb's face with excitement. What commander in the world wouldn't be delighted when a man walked back into camp having killed two of the opposing army's officers?
"We'll confirm their identities first… Ah, this isn't because I doubt you, Walker. It's simply standard procedure."
"I understand. Of course they should be verified."
"Truly, I cannot count the times you've astonished me! Meeting you was nothing short of providence! To rack up another great merit a mere day after the last!"
"It was no easy process. In the course of it, one of the knights you assigned to me was killed. I have no excuse. I'm deeply sorry."
I dropped to one knee as I spoke. The death of a knight was a serious loss of fighting strength. Count Coulomb's expression darkened at once.
"Delcourbar… is dead?"
"Yes. Losing a precious knight to an operation I undertook on my own authority is a failure I cannot explain away."
"No. Delcourbar's death is a grave loss, that much is true. But you have already delivered results worth more than a single knight. His death will surely prove a worthy sacrifice for our victory."
In raw military terms, it was a loss for the Coulon army. Count Coulomb, however, had already grasped the true value of what I'd accomplished: the fact that I could now serve as a spy inside the enemy's ranks.
A spy who can assassinate enemy officers… That's a military asset no single knight could ever match.
I was relieved he hadn't exploded the way I'd half expected. I could feel that Count Coulomb thought well of me. If he had flown into a rage here, I'd been prepared to feed him the rest of my intelligence in stages—to make the case that what I'd brought back was worth far more than one knight's life. Fortunately, he kept his composure.
"The cost of this operation was high, but we gained a great deal as well. I successfully infiltrated the enemy camp and obtained a considerable amount of intelligence. Please look at this first. It's a record of their supplies."
I produced the bundle of documents I'd taken. They were Hux's ledgers—an accounting of the Ernest army's provisions. I'd only brought the most recent ones, but they listed everything the enemy currently possessed: food, weapons, clothing, and the rates at which those stores were being consumed.
"Invaluable information!"
"And that's not all. I also learned their operational plans. The situation, however, appears more serious than expected."
At that, Count Coulomb's face grew grim.
"More serious? Was the damage they suffered not as great as we believed?"
"That's part of it. The larger problem is that they have a follow-up force on the way. And not a small one—a sizable War Mage Division."
"A War Mage Division?!"
Count Coulomb was stunned. The enemy's current strength was already nothing to dismiss. And now additional troops? Not ordinary soldiers, either, but a powerful unit of combat mages—a trump card capable of shattering a stalemated front.
"Is that true?"
"It is. Count Ernest has summoned the War Mage Division stationed in his own territory. He said they would arrive at the front within a week."
"And their numbers?"
"A unit of at least twenty War Mages, from what I gathered."
"Twenty War Mages…"
Once they joined the main force, there would be no hope. Even ten War Mages would be enough to bury us in a crushing disparity of power. Despair settled over Count Coulomb's face.
"Then we have no time. We must drive them off before the War Mages link up with their main army."
Fail, and the front would collapse. Fail, and the territorial war would be lost. As Count Coulomb said, a war of speed was the only answer in a situation like this. I disagreed.
"That will be difficult. They know it too. In their war council, they resolved to buy time with an extremely defensive guerrilla campaign. No matter how quickly we try to crush them, driving the Ernest army out of Mount Aden in a single week is impossible. That mountain is vast, and they intend to use every inch of it."
If they put their minds to it, they could hold out for a month, not a week. At present, the Coulon and Ernest armies were not so different in size.
"Then what would you have us do? We can hardly sit idle and watch the War Mage Division join them, can we?"
"There is a way. We ambush the War Mage Division before it links up with the enemy army. Fortunately, their escort appears to consist of only a handful of regular soldiers. They believe we don't even know the division exists. We exploit that."
"Of course! Even mages, without knights to protect them, are no better than clams pried from their shells! A sound plan!"
The move I'd proposed was the ideal one. Executing it, however, required a single prerequisite—and Count Coulomb realized it at once.
"Wait. For that, we would need to know the War Mage Division's route of march, would we not? Did you happen to learn that as well, Walker?"
Having read the strategy guide, I knew the War Mage Division's route perfectly. I did not answer right away.
"Unfortunately, I wasn't able to learn that."
"Hah… Then an ambush is impossible, is it not?"
"I can still infiltrate their camp. They still believe Gion Pirean is alive. Which means I have an opening to go back in and extract the information."
"Then—!"
"Fortunately, Gion Pirean is an officer who enjoys considerable trust. I'll infiltrate their ranks and bring back the War Mage Division's route of march. Without that, we have no path to victory."
"But to ask such a dangerous thing of you… A spy's work always carries the risk of death, does it not?"
Is he actually worried about me? Count Coulomb's affection toward me had stacked high enough for him to say something like that. I couldn't care less about grinding favorability with some man, but if that goodwill gave me more freedom to move, I wasn't about to complain.
"I am a merchant. A merchant must sometimes accept great risk for great profit. I am confident. I will obtain the enemy's intelligence. You have my word."
"Very well! Then I shall place my trust in you alone!"
And just like that, I became a spy inside the Ernest army. I summoned Luna and Sera and arranged a method for making contact. For the time being I would be embedded with the Ernest forces, which meant returning to the Coulon camp would be difficult—so we set up a liaison to carry out whatever intelligence I unearthed.
Infiltration required a Transformation Potion. Fortunately, I had a fair number of them on hand.
If it comes to it, I'll have to burn coupons at the shop. Good thing I've stockpiled plenty of credits.
I had drained enough of Pirean's blood that his corpse was practically a mummy. Disguised as Pirean, I headed back to the Ernest encampment. Linger too long and people would start asking questions.
"Captain! You're back!"
"I gave Hux a brief burial and scouted the area. No unusual traces, thankfully."
"You've done well, sir!"
The sentry waved me through without a second glance. Having nearly run myself into the ground racing across Mount Aden, I trudged back to Pirean's tent. Being security captain had its perks—the tent was small, but I had it to myself.
From this moment on, I was a spy. I would not, however, be working solely for a Coulon victory. My ultimate goal was to take Coulon Territory for myself, and for that, Count Coulomb and his two sons were obstacles as well.
I was a spy—but not just any spy.
I was a double agent.