Why I Had to Go to the Magic City (2)
The bespectacled man across the desk furrowed his brow. He tore his eyes from the documents in his hand and shot me a pointed look.
"You're wrong, Alpinia."
Cedric Dinator. The heir of the Dinator family, who had risen to Deputy Minister of the Magic Security Bureau at the young age of thirty.
"The best course of action in that situation was to prevent the problem from ever occurring in the first place."
He was my cousin, and—
"Not to flatten the entire district."
"That's true."
—simultaneously my direct superior at work.
And this is why desk jockeys are the worst.
If I'd been clinging to that safe and damaged the magical device instead, he'd have been throwing a fit about evidence tampering all the same.
The detection device that Subordinate 2 had deployed on-site was linked directly to the Security Bureau's archive, transmitting its records in real time. The logs sent at that moment were already more than sufficient evidence to prosecute the mages.
We caught the criminals cooking drugs, we secured the evidence — shouldn't that have been the end of it?
But no, he had to insist on gathering physical proof. Leaving an unknown spell to activate on its own, risking the situation spiraling out of control, was far worse than simply blowing it up right away.
Knowing something and doing something are two different matters.
People like Cedric, who sit at a desk and view the world through paper, never understand that. And so they endlessly demand "ideal outcomes" while grinding the field agents into the dirt.
Not that there was anything I could do about it. In the end, right and wrong bend as easily as anything else in the face of rank.
"Fine. Deploying you there was my decision, so I won't cut your pay."
"Oh."
"...Sigh."
Having finished his lecture, Cedric buried his head back into the mountain of paperwork. When he slipped into work mode like this without another word, it meant we're done talking, now get out. I was just shifting my weight toward the door when—
"An identity check on those men revealed they'd purchased train tickets to the Magic City for several days from now."
"I see."
Wow. Riveting stuff, truly.
Whether they headed to the Magic City or bought themselves a magic dojo, what did any of it have to do with me?
"No doubt they intended to make contact with a 'buyer' in the Magic City and sell the drugs there."
"Aha."
"The investigation team that originally secured the transaction ledger planned to pose as the sellers and lure out anyone looking to distribute the drugs in the Magic City."
"...Aha."
"Tragically, however, the key operative they sent to retrieve that very ledger made the 'best' choice to blow everything sky-high."
Cedric held out a set of documents to me. General information about the Magic City, a residence and cover job for use during the assignment, a list of precautions.
And a single train ticket.
"This is your restitution work. Go there yourself and bring in their buyer."
"Kkh."
/
Restitution work.
I'll overlook this little accident of yours, so pay for it with your body instead.
In other words: complete the mission and receive not a single coin. Fail, and the debt would only grow.
How much was left, again?
I hadn't checked in a while, so I couldn't say for certain.
Still, I feel like I've paid off quite a lot.
Workplace negligence was always docked from my own pocket without exception, so nothing was ever guaranteed. ...Let's just say I'd racked up quite a bit over the years on the job.
"Hah."
I folded the transfer orders carefully and tucked them into my coat, then knocked on the door of the infirmary room.
"Come in!"
I pushed the door open to find Subordinate 1 wrapped head to toe in bandages and Subordinate 2 peeling an apple.
"Oh, Boss. Good to see ya."
"How are you feeling?"
Subordinate 1 gave me a thumbs-up.
"Hurtin' like I'm gonna die."
"Oh dear."
Even with protective magic deployed immediately, she'd been far too close to the blast's center — a few iron fragments had torn free and buried themselves in her body. Thankfully she'd missed anything vital, but it looked like she'd need at least a few months of rest.
"Didn't I tell ya to stop tryin' to solve everything with explosions?"
"......"
"But it was the right call, though."
"...What kind of spell was it, exactly?"
"No idea. Blood magic isn't somethin' you can identify just by lookin' at it."
Subordinate 1 speared an apple slice with her fork.
"But even so, if we'd just left it alone, it wouldn't have ended with injuries this minor."
If even Subordinate 1, who'd been closest to it, had no idea, then there was no way for me to learn anything more about the spell I'd detonated. And with that, the matter was closed.
"You said you were from the Magic City, right?"
Subordinate 1's expression twisted into something oddly strained.
"When did I ever say that?"
"?"
"No, I mean — how does 'graduated from the academy there and got dragged into a research lab' add up to 'I'm from there'?"
Subordinate 1's gaze and mine turned to Subordinate 2 in unison.
"Every time she drinks, she goes on about how 'the Magic City is my hometown,' so I think the Boss got the wrong idea."
"That's right."
"Well, either way."
That means she lived there long enough, doesn't it?
Whether it was her true hometown or not didn't really matter to me.
"I'll be heading to the Magic City soon."
"Oh, are ya makin' up with your sister?"
"No."
"Goin' to observe somethin', then?"
Subordinate 1's gaze and mine swung to Subordinate 2 once more.
"...The Boss's little sister is enrolling at Eretz Academy soon."
Ah. Right, that was around this time of year. I'd poked at the topic once before, gotten a get lost for my trouble, and promptly forgotten all about it.
"It's not because of that. We're still on the same terms as ever."
"Oh no..."
I shrugged at my subordinates' sympathetic faces.
"It's about the drugs."
"A new mission?"
I wish.
"'Restitution' work."
"Ah..."
"That's right."
One train ticket. This wasn't a mission issued to the Security Bureau's Inspection Unit as a whole — it was an order handed down to me, Alpinia, personally.
Which meant the Inspection Unit, minus the injured Subordinate 1 and myself, was operating as normal.
Unless someone volunteered to burn their vacation days to help out, that is. And no Inspection Unit member existed who was devoted enough to surrender their own hard-earned leave to assist with the Boss's assignment.
Not that I'd mind if they at least sulked about it instead.
Subordinate 1, right in front of me, would have — if not for those serious injuries — immediately tagged along and, unable to actually help, spent the entire trip loudly insisting she was on vacation and doing absolutely nothing.
In any case, mobilizing other Inspection Unit members for this mission was out of the question.
"I was wondering if you happened to know anyone useful."
I needed an ally. I'd never once set foot in the Magic City, and on my own I couldn't use magic or magical devices. For all sorts of reasons, it was better to secure at least one person to help before the work began.
"Well, I know plenty of folks, mind."
"Is there a problem?"
Subordinate 1 shook her head with a dubious look.
"Not exactly. It's just — I know plenty, but most of 'em are useless bags of trouble, so it's kinda hard to pick."
"Just pick whoever and be done with it."
"Hmm..."
By the time the wrinkles on Subordinate 1's forehead had deepened another notch—
"Senpai, what about Jakina?"
"Hasn't she quit that gig yet?"
"Doesn't look like it. Word is she's taking her first homeroom class this year, too."
"Then she's the one for the job."
Subordinate 1 and Subordinate 2 exchanged a nod of agreement.
"Jakina's a junior of ours — a nun who also works as a professor at the academy. She already knows all about 'that side' of things, too."
"Why's that?"
At Subordinate 1's words, my head tilted to the side.
That side. The Inspection Unit was an organization that rarely surfaced in the outside world. Whenever the Unit "handled" something, the official record credited the Security Bureau's investigation teams.
As a result, the avenues for learning of the Unit's existence were limited. Either you were high up in the Security Bureau, or a criminal who'd clashed with the Inspection Unit directly.
"Hey — the eyes! That ain't what ya think, so quit givin' me those creepy eyes."
"Then explain."
Could there be any reason besides leaks from within? Nothing came to mind.
"She signed a confidentiality oath and took the Inspection Unit's entry training — then got cut twice in the final evaluations."
"Aha."
Without sufficient ability, forget completing missions — you couldn't even keep secrets. That was why the standards for selecting Inspection Unit members were brutally strict.
First, candidates were run ragged within the Security Bureau for several months, and only once their character and competence proved acceptable were they cautiously offered a place in the Unit. If they accepted, weeks of intensive training followed before formal selection.
Since these were people who'd already survived months of grueling preliminary vetting, washouts during the intensive training were rare.
Serious character flaws discovered mid-course, or performance records padded well beyond the truth. Short of a problem on that scale, you'd become an Inspection Unit member without a hitch.
But if someone's teaching at the academy, doesn't that mean they've got both the character and the skill to some degree?
I couldn't say for sure, but the hiring bar for an academy professorship could hardly be a low one.
And in the first place, once you were judged unfit for the Inspection Unit, there was no second chance. So how had she failed twice?
Subordinate 1 caught the question blooming on my face and continued.
"Well, first off, she didn't flunk out for lack of skill. Purely on ability, she's leagues ahead of me or you."
Subordinate 2 nodded along in agreement.
"Mixed motives. She didn't come out of duty to the Unit — she came to scratch her own personal itch, so she got cut. Second time, she snuck back in under a fake identity, all fired up, then couldn't let go of her greed at the end and got caught."
"Personal itch?"
As a secret organization, fame was impossible. We didn't wield absolute power, and there were no special perks to speak of. The pay was decent, sure, but measured against an academy professorship, it wouldn't have made much difference.
I mean, there was absolutely nothing to be gained. What kind of personal itch could anyone possibly scratch here?
"She's the Boss's number-one fangirl. When ya meet her, give her an autograph or somethin'."
"......?"
Nope. What is that? Terrifying.