Off to Detention - 1
Watching the leader lose his head and crumple left me feeling like every drop of blood had drained from my veins. Pure instinctive fury made my fist fly out before I could stop it.
No—throwing a punch itself wasn’t the problem. A little physical persuasion during an interrogation was only natural. Yeah. A little.
Fuck.
The real issue was that it had been pure spinal reflex. I completely failed to control the force. Our most important prisoner went down in the most pathetic way imaginable.
Get up, Leader…! Show us that revolutionary spirit that dared to preach republicanism in a class society! Prove you still have the will to live even without a head!
“Pff… pffhup…”
A strangled hiss of escaping air made me glance sideways. The First Division Chief was desperately fighting back laughter.
Her face was flushed crimson, teeth sunk into her lip—so pitiful I almost felt sorry for her. One poke and she looked ready to collapse right there and wail at the top of her lungs.
Damn it.
At least she wasn’t laughing in my face. I supposed that counted as a final mercy.
With a heavy heart I looked at the Fourth Division Chief. She stood rigid as stone, carefully reading the room.
Ah. She didn’t know about the Confrontation Incident. She’d been on another operation at the time and must have missed the news.
No wonder she never texted.
This was the same Fourth Division Chief who, whenever I was involved, would dig up anniversaries even I didn’t remember just to send check-in messages. Even the First Division Chief had been making tofu jokes, so the radio silence had felt strange.
Anyway, the completely clueless Fourth Division Chief shrank back at my sudden rage-management-failure face. Sorry. She must have been just as startled during the Third Glory business.
“…First Division Chief.”
“Y-yes, yessir— Chief— nihhihim…!”
She finally lost the battle. The First Division Chief dropped into a crouch and wheezed with laughter.
Even I had to admit it was legendary. How many people in history got told by the leader of the Red Wave himself, “You actually sound more republican than we do lol”?
As far as I knew, the answer was zero. Common sense said it was impossible. If such a person existed, I’d want to see the face of that absolute lunatic.
That lunatic is me.
Wow. Truly an identity I never saw coming.
“Erzebet.”
But the Fourth Division Chief, who had no idea of the backstory, went pale at the First Division Chief’s state and started shaking her by the shoulders—as if demanding how she could possibly laugh right now. The nearby Mukgwangdae operatives fell into equal confusion as a bonus.
Yeah, unearthing an unexpected dark history had definitely short-circuited me. But I wasn’t actually angry enough for the Mukgwangdae to worry.
A simple explanation would clear up the misunderstanding just fine. The problem was I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. How was I supposed to explain that with my own mouth?
“I’m heading out first. Explain it to the kids for me.”
In the end, the option I chose was pure flight.
I turned around as casually as I could—only to lock eyes with the Second Division Chief hurrying toward us.
“Ch-Chief.”
“I’m leaving first.”
I waved a hand at the sweat-drenched Second Division Chief and started walking toward the Academy.
Not long after, the First and Second Division Chiefs’ roaring laughter echoed after me.
Fuck.
It hurt. My body was fine, but my mental state was in agony.
If the Red Wave’s goal had been to thoroughly screw over as many blue-bloods as possible, then they’d scored a partial success. First the Second Division Chief, and now me—both of us had taken emotional damage.
“Chief. Does that make you the new Red Wave leader?”
Shut up.
“Incredible. Audit Department Chief and Red Wave leader? This will go down in the history books, won’t it?”
I said shut up.
The twin psychological assault from the two Division Chiefs snickering on either side of me was going to drive me insane. Please, everyone just disappear, you absolute bastards.
— Chief, are you all right?
Even the Fourth Division Chief’s worried voice over the crystal couldn’t reach my heart right now.
She had probably contacted me out of genuine concern, but the timing was terrible. Still, I couldn’t just ignore her message.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
I forced a smile and tried to reassure her.
At least the communication crystal only transmitted audiovisual data. The fact that the hand gripping it was trembling wouldn’t get through.
Goddamn it.
Until a moment ago I’d even felt a spike of rage toward Robin, still left behind in the forest. If you thought about it, everything that had just happened was Robin’s fault. Why did he have to report something so completely unnecessary?
But I managed to hold it in. At the time Robin had been a Red Wave spy. A spy reporting a major incident at his infiltration site was only natural.
And even if I couldn’t hold it in, what then? I couldn’t turn Robin into a middle-finger emoji, after all.
“Why are you even here?”
I belatedly noticed something off and turned to the First Division Chief.
The Second Division Chief was one thing, but the First should have been in the middle of an interrogation. She wasn’t the type to abandon a fresh new toy and come back this soon.
“I laughed so hard my hands are shaking. If I try to work like this, a few more people are going to die.”
It was pure mockery, but I couldn’t scold her. The intent was teasing, yet the logic was airtight.
In reality the First Division Chief often folded the entire operation the moment a tiny variable appeared. The work required such fine control that forcing it was dangerous, or so she claimed.
The fact that I had been the one to introduce that variable was truly regrettable.
— The captured Red Wave members will be collected by the Ministry of Special Affairs. Mages from the Magic Tower will arrive shortly.
At my sigh, the Fourth Division Chief carefully spoke up.
Right. If we weren’t going to interrogate them here anyway, shipping them to the Imperial Capital ASAP was better.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you went with them, Chief?”
Hearing the Fourth Division Chief, the Second Division Chief smirked and opened his mouth.
“You’re going to get disciplined for this anyway. Might as well ride comfortably with the mages. Just write the disciplinary report and come back.”
He laughed—then his face suddenly froze, as if he had only just remembered something critical.
I had a pretty good idea what he’d remembered and let out a hollow chuckle. When a person is driven to the absolute limit, the rage is real, but the sheer sense of emptiness is no joke either.
“Um… Chief?”
“What.”
“I’m only asking because my memory’s really fuzzy—how many disciplinary reports is this now?”
I gave no answer at all.
In the face of my silence, the Second Division Chief, the First Division Chief beside him, and even the Fourth Division Chief on the other end of the crystal all found themselves unable to speak.
Only an awkward silence settled over the desolate dawn.
At least the insane scenario of being escorted to the Imperial Capital alongside the Red Wave prisoners never materialized. No formal summons had been issued yet, and I had zero desire to walk myself in.
Of course I knew the saying about taking the beating early if you were going to get beaten anyway. But when you already know the destination is detention, who in their right mind would hurry there? I wanted to breathe free air for as long as possible.
— I’ll handle the report to the Ministry of Special Affairs myself.
“Yeah. I’m counting on you.”
To delay any summons as long as possible, we decided the Fourth Division Chief would report the cause of the Red Wave leader’s death. If I reported it, the answer would be an immediate “Get your ass back to the capital.”
She had suggested we just list him as killed in action, but I told her to stick to the truth.
Hiding it will only make things bigger later.
One thing I’d learned from civil servant life: no matter how hard you try to bury an incident, it always comes out. Even the perfect cover story is still a cover story. Better to come clean now before you also get hit with the “obstruction” charge.
Even the time the Fourth Division Chief killed that corpse-brigade captain had only been managed carefully—it hadn’t been completely buried.
Yeah. Coming clean was the right call. It was heartbreaking, but this was the correct path.
Fuck.
I knew it was right. So why did it still feel so damn sad?
“Eriko Trian and Robin have both been expelled.”
The principal’s voice finally scraped away the gloom eating at my heart.
“I never imagined members of the Red Wave would be among the faculty.”
“Please don’t take it too hard. They’re extremely clandestine, after all.”
I offered a small word of comfort to the principal, who was sighing in pure disbelief.
From his perspective, having Red Wave members not among the three-year students who merely passed through, but among the permanent faculty of the Academy under his care, must have felt like a personal failure.
But how was that his fault? The blame lay with the lunatics who joined the Red Wave in the first place.
“And Robin, at least, repented his crimes and returned to His Majesty’s embrace. A man who once joined the Red Wave of his own free will found his way back to loyalty right here at the Academy.”
Using Robin as an example seemed to ease his mind a little; the principal’s expression brightened.
Looked at positively, a traitor had been reformed by Academy life and transformed back into a loyal subject. It was actually a pretty decent edifying tale.
“I expect I’ll be away for a while.”
After a few more exchanges I finally got to the point.
“Away?”
“There are some matters that need cleaning up.”
The principal gave me a puzzled look.
On the surface this incident had ended without a hitch. The internal spies had been exposed before they could cause chaos, and the Red Wave forces approaching from outside had been intercepted. A perfect victory with nothing left to improve.
Matters that needed cleaning up? What could those be?
There are.
This whole affair only ends when I go to jail. What a magnificent ending.
Still, I couldn’t exactly look the principal in the eye and proudly declare, “I killed a prisoner so I’m getting disciplined. It’s my turn for detention, so I’ll be in the capital for a while.”
And when I woke up this morning, a useless spark of hope had flickered to life. Maybe the Crown Prince would let it slide? The leader was dead, but the senior officers were still intact—maybe he’d just overlook it?
I still don’t know.
Whether I got disciplined or not would only be clear once I saw the result. If I told the principal first and then the Crown Prince showed mercy, it would just make things awkward for both of us.
I believe. I believe the Crown Prince is a man of boundless tolerance and compassion.
Please, Your Highness the Crown Prince… if only for the sake of my past service, just this once…
The Audit Department Chief’s devotion and toil for the Empire are blessings upon the realm; yet it is regrettable that unforeseen incidents occasionally arise. I desire to receive the report in person. Return to the Imperial Capital at once.
The message arrived through the communication crystal the moment my meeting with the principal ended.
Thankfully it was a gentler summons than the one after the Ryutis assault incident.
Please… please just let me off the hook this one time…!