The Most Difficult Mission in the World
The Most Difficult Mission in the World
The Military Security Department under the Corps Headquarters.
Underground First Floor of the Headquarters, Temporary Archive.
"Major Daniel Steiner has been in the archive for ten hours already. I'm starting to get worried—shouldn't we check on him?"
At the soldier's remark, Sergeant Salodam of the Security Department shook his head.
"The Major said so himself. He told us absolutely not to come in, as he needed to look around the archive alone. Don't even think about disobeying orders. I don't want to die because of you."
"D-die? What do you mean by that?"
"This bastard doesn't know a thing. The reason Major Daniel can freely stride around the Security Department is because the Corps Commander personally granted him the authority. Do you understand what that means?"
In short, anyone who disobeyed Daniel Steiner's orders here would be treated the same as disobeying the Corps Commander's orders.
At that, the soldier's face turned deathly pale, and as cold sweat dripped down his forehead, he suddenly snapped to attention.
Sergeant Salodam, who found that amusing, let out a low laugh.
"Look at this bastard, scared stiff. You're such a coward—can you even fight the Kingdom Army? Though admittedly, we're unlikely to ever set foot on the battlefield......."
"S-s-sergeant!"
The soldier, his eyes quivering, shot a sidelong glance at Salodam.
Wondering what on earth could cause such a fuss, Salodam turned his head—and his face turned just as pale as the soldier's.
Because Lieutenant Colonel Kalpren, the Corps Commander's Aide, was watching them from not far away.
Salodam raised a salute almost reflexively.
"S-sir, Aide! What brings you here......!"
Kalpren stood with his hands behind his back and smiled amiably.
"I came for an unannounced inspection, and to check whether Major Daniel is getting the job done. I'm sorry this old man seems to have interrupted your pleasant chat."
Kalpren's words and tone were gentle, but the meaning within them bristled with thorns.
To put it bluntly, what he meant was this.
The men guarding the archive entrance were chattering away without even noticing a person walking right up to them?
The soldier had relaxed, thinking Kalpren had come to offer encouragement, but Salodam, having read Kalpren's intent, stood frozen without even thinking to lower his salute.
"Well. I didn't come to torment you, so don't worry. More importantly, Major Daniel?"
Only then did Salodam snap to his senses and stammer out a response.
"Ah. Well...... he went in to look around the archive alone, and it's already been ten hours."
"Again today? Wasn't he practically living in the archive yesterday as well?"
"Yes. He said he had to prepare for the negotiations and only had four days left, so time was tight......."
Hearing Salodam's words, Kalpren inwardly admired Daniel.
He had assumed Daniel would interpret the Corps Commander's demand as a kind of 'passing the buck' and either refuse, or at best merely go through the motions if he accepted. He hadn't expected him to prepare so diligently.
'The rumors said he always gives his best in everything—so they weren't wrong.'
When a capable talent also put in the effort, their potential was boundless.
Just as Kalpren was contemplating Daniel Steiner, a light knock sounded from the iron door that Salodam and the soldier had been guarding.
It was the signal that he wanted to come out. Since the door was designed not to open from the inside, this was an unavoidable procedure he had to go through.
"Just a moment, please!"
When the soldier grabbed the iron door and opened it, Daniel Steiner emerged from within.
He looked exhausted, but his wolf-like eyes stared straight ahead unwaveringly.
It was the gaze of a seasoned staff officer, not a greenhorn just promoted to Major—enough to make one's shoulders flinch.
After observing Kalpren for a moment, Daniel raised a respectful salute.
"Aide. What brings you all the way here?"
His tone was firm, but the courtesy due to a superior came through.
Kalpren returned the salute and answered with a certain tension.
"......By the Corps Commander's orders, I came to ask whether you needed anything in the course of your work. But are you alright? You look like you haven't slept properly."
"I'm fine. More importantly, could you step aside? It's time for me to draft the negotiation plan now."
Only then did Kalpren realize he was blocking the way, and he took a step to the side.
Daniel lowered his head briefly, passed Kalpren by, and climbed the stairs.
Watching Daniel's retreating figure, Kalpren exhaled a hollow breath.
'He's a tenacious one. I can practically see the fighting spirit—to succeed in the negotiations no matter what.......'
But due to His Majesty the Emperor's arbitrary decisions, the negotiation was in a situation close to impossible.
'Could he really have devised a way to overturn that?'
He didn't know for certain, but in Daniel's self-flagellating diligence, Kalpren saw a spark of hope.
The hope that perhaps, he might conclude the negotiations and save countless lives.
*
Walking down the corridor, Daniel confirmed that no one was following him and let out a sigh of relief.
'......I thought I was caught.'
When the iron door opened and the Corps Commander's Aide was standing there, Daniel had felt his heart drop.
He had thought he'd been caught secretly jotting down classified matters in the notebook he'd brought into the archive.
'If the Aide had noticed me trying to smuggle out classified material, things would have gotten quite difficult.'
In the worst case, he could have been branded a traitor and executed on the spot.
But contrary to the situation he had feared, the Aide had simply come to ask after his well-being.
Thanks to that, Daniel had avoided having his notebook—densely packed with classified information—confiscated.
'Now I just need to document this and.......'
All that remained was to hand it over to the Kingdom's Foreign Minister at tomorrow's armistice negotiations and request asylum.
No matter how much Daniel was treated as a hero of the Empire, if he leaked Class 2 military secrets to them, they wouldn't doubt his sincerity either.
'I'm finally escaping this goddamn Empire.'
Thinking that a rosy life was about to unfold, his steps felt light.
As Daniel walked along, suppressing the laughter threatening to spill out, he came to a sudden halt.
Because Lucy was approaching from the opposite direction.
As the distance between them shrank, a strong perfume scent tickled his nose.
Just when he was wondering why she had put on perfume, Lucy, now within close range, gave a light nod of her head.
"Major. So you were here."
"......Were you looking for me? Did the Corps Commander summon me?"
"That's not it. It's just......."
Lucy hesitated.
Putting on perfume to seduce Daniel was all well and good.
But how was she supposed to carry on a conversation naturally?
In the first place, what even was 'seduction'? When it came to winning someone's heart, Lucy's knowledge was essentially a blank slate.
So she had hurriedly read a book about romance that very morning.
Drawing a deep breath, Lucy looked at Daniel and spoke.
"......Could I perhaps know your schedule for today?"
"I have to draft the negotiation plan from now on. The outline is roughly in place, so I plan to leave work early today. But why do you ask?"
"Ah. Well......."
She had to be confident. Embarrassing as it was, this was a mission.
"If you have time this evening, together with me......."
The rest of the words wouldn't come out properly.
She didn't quite know how to deliver the embarrassing lines she'd learned from the book.
"I mean, just the two of us......."
By the time Lucy had said that much, Daniel was thinking.
Her unstable eye contact, her breathing slightly quickened, her meaningful request to meet alone.
Running the abacus in his head, Daniel arrived at a single prediction.
'......Could it be, an assassination?'
Had the assassination order come down from the Allied Nations? He had thought something like this would happen someday, but the timing was far too soon.
'Yeah. The timing is too soon.'
Just as he wondered if he might be mistaken, Lucy looked at Daniel as though she had steeled herself.
'I read it in the book. To seduce a man, you should give him a subtle smile.......'
But what on earth did a subtle smile even mean?
For Lucy, who had never even properly smiled an ordinary smile, let alone a subtle one, it was rather perplexing advice.
But since the Allied Nations' order to 'seduce Daniel Steiner' had come down, Lucy, as an intelligence agent, had to carry it out.
After wrestling with herself several times in her heart, Lucy finally managed, with great difficulty, to show Daniel a smile.
Seeing that smile, Daniel couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath.
With her eyes narrowed sharply and the corners of her mouth raised into a thin line—it was, quite literally, a 'killer smile.'
It was like watching a hunter observing prey that was about to die.
The pressure bearing down on him was immense.
'This is a hundred percent assassination......!'
Never once imagining that Lucy was trying to seduce him, Daniel let out a dry cough.
He decided he needed to distance himself from Lucy as naturally as possible.
"Adjutant? I'm afraid I'll have to work overtime tonight."
"......Sir? But you just said you would leave work early today."
"Something suddenly came to mind that I need to do. Well then......."
Just as he was about to pass her by, Daniel turned back to look at Lucy as if something had just occurred to him.
"By the way, haven't you put on too much perfume? Normally, perfume is used to mask one's body odor. I don't understand why you, Adjutant, would be using it."
"Ah. I......."
"Your skin doesn't give off any odor. If anything, it's fragrant. So don't rely on such luxuries as perfume."
Daniel tapped Lucy's shoulders lightly a couple of times, then resumed walking.
'Good. We had an ordinary conversation, so she won't suspect I've caught on to the assassination order.'
As Daniel breathed a sigh of relief at having evaded danger, Lucy—still rooted to the spot—felt her ears flush red.
Because Daniel's compliment had, without him realizing it, embarrassed Lucy.
She didn't know exactly what kind of embarrassment it was.
Feeling an emotion she had never experienced before, Lucy leaned against the window and let out a low sigh.
'How foolish.......'
Her superiors who had given the strange order, and herself for following it—they all felt like fools.
Still, as long as the order had been given, sooner or later she would have to seduce Daniel.
It felt like an overwhelming task.
Lucy, who had been staring down at the tips of her shoes for no reason and biting her lower lip hard, forced herself to push aside the shame and slowly resumed walking.
For now, she decided, she would go back to her quarters and get rid of the perfume smell first.