---

Fortunately, there was a decent accommodation available.

We entered the lodging where the civil servants working at the Rift resided. Since Francesca happened to live here, we could easily get inside the building.

The problem was that three people had to share one room.

“…Why am I even here?”

“Because there are no extra rooms. I can’t just kick out everyone in a perfectly fine room, can I?”

Unfortunately, the accommodation built near the Rift was not in very good condition.

Given its status as a national critical facility and the strategic importance of the Northern Regions, civil servants and civilians working at the Rift received decent treatment, but as the conflict prolonged, they lost the capacity to maintain the increasingly dilapidated accommodations.

Just a few weeks ago, one building had been completely burned down, causing the originally two-person-per-room arrangements to turn into six or even eight-person shared rooms.

“Well, I’m at least getting special treatment since I came from the Magic Tower. I guess I’m probably the only one getting a private room here.”

“……”

I looked around the interior of the lodging with a dazed expression. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but now that I looked, it was far too shabby and worn out for a place where the administrator of the Magic Tower Secretariat would reside.

The hotel provided by the Military Government Headquarters wasn’t in great condition either, but this was on another level…

As I continued my pointless thoughts, Francesca approached me, pacing around the room.

“There’s only one bed, so I guess we should let the Hero sleep first. I’ll take the sofa.”

“I’m really sorry about this. I didn’t anticipate this happening…”

“It’s fine by me. I was feeling lonely anyway, so it’s good to have someone to talk to.”

Francesca added with a nonchalant smile.

“Oh, and the Colonel’s spot is over there.”

Francesca pointed to a corner of the room.

Looking where her finger was directed, I saw a bunch of blankets and sleeping bags strewn messily across the floor.

“…So we’re supposed to sleep on the floor?”

“Yep.”

“…With the cold seeping up like this?”

“Take a potion before you sleep. It has revitalizing effects, so you should be able to withstand the cold seeping from the floor to some extent.”

“……”

Honestly, at this point, it seemed much better to just sleep in the car.

—

Episode 11 – No Issues on the Northern Front

—

The capricious weather of the North is world-famous.

Usually, the clouds block the sun, making it dark even in broad daylight, but those clouds can vanish in an instant, bringing bright skies, or suddenly, a sunny day can be pierced by lightning, followed by a blizzard.

The weather in the Northern Regions of the Kien Empire truly is horrendously unpredictable.

“…Hmm.”

Francesca elegantly shook her head as she gazed up at the gloomy sky.

“It seems like it’s not a good idea to go down today.”

The sky was completely covered with dark clouds.

Despite the sun being high in the sky, it was utterly dark around us. The warm rays of sunlight were nowhere to be seen, only the eerie blue light emanating from the Rift lit up the surroundings.

It was fortunate if it was just dark; now, fog had rolled in, making it impossible to see ahead.

The thin fog, which seemed to have gathered from nowhere, enveloped the basin, making it impossible to see the mountain peaks on the opposite side.

“…Hmm, it really feels like a mist.”

“What’s that, Hero?”

“There’s a movie where monsters come out of the mist. I watched it when I was little, and it made me unable to go out on foggy days. It brings back memories.”

Francesca looked puzzled, tilting her head repeatedly as she struggled to understand Camila’s excited explanation.

Even a magician from the Ivory Tower, known for its vast knowledge, seems to have some gaps in her understanding. Although it’s strange for her not to know about the movie Camila was talking about.

In any case, deciding that comprehending what Camila was saying was impossible, Francesca turned to me for help.

“I think the Colonel and the Hero have a close relationship. Do you know what the movie Mist is about…? No, why do you look like that?”

I shot a pale glare at Francesca.

“…I-I don’t know. D-Don’t talk to me.”

“……”

I didn’t want to stutter, but I really couldn’t help it. My chin was quivering.

The reason I was trembling was none other than the freezing cold of the accommodation.

Whether it was due to drafts or something else, even with a sleeping bag, blankets, and a coat on, I couldn’t fall asleep due to the bone-chilling cold.

Eventually, after tossing and turning in my attempts to sleep in a curled-up position, I was forcibly awakened by the rustling sounds of Camila and Francesca.

“I-I think I’m gonna freeze to death. Eek….”

“…Oh dear.”

Francesca’s face turned to one of pity. However, watching the corners of her mouth twitch upwards and her eyes squirming made it clear she wasn’t feeling that sorry at all.

Now it seemed she was no longer even trying to hide her amusement. Francesca casually remarked without dropping her smirk.

“Did the potion I gave you yesterday not work…?”

I shook my head. The potion had been plenty effective.

Before being the administrator of the Magic Tower Secretariat, Francesca was a magician. And the area where she could fully utilize her abilities was alchemy.

According to the materials handed over while Leoni served as the head of the Royal Intelligence Department, many of Francesca’s papers and research results had been registered at the Ivory Tower in the Red Desert.

Even the alchemists of the Red Desert, who had dug into alchemy for thousands of years and merged it with indigenous religions, acknowledged her skills; there was no way her potion would be ineffective.

In fact, I had slept soundly when I first took the potion yesterday. The problem had been that I woke up after the effects wore off.

“Maybe it was just the amount that was insufficient. Should I prepare some more potions for you?”

“If y-you have any left, p-please give me some….”

Francesca smiled and handed me the bottle, and I poured the potion directly into my mouth.

Watching from the side, Camila suddenly asked a question.

“What does it taste like?”

“Tastes like children’s cough syrup.”

“Yuck.”

—

It seemed the capricious goddess of the North was not allowing us to descend down the mountains.

In the end, Camila and I had no choice but to stay put in the basin with the Rift.

“I guess there’s nothing we can do. We’ll just have to stick around for a bit and go down as soon as the weather clears.”

Given the situation, we had to find the military units responsible for the Rift. Fortunately, this part was taken care of by Senior Lyudmila, who had come along as a guard for translation.

As we lingered near the campfire from the previous day, key executives quickly gathered and greeted us.

“Welcome to the Rift, Hero and Colonel. I’ve heard the situation from Senior Lyudmila.”

The officer with the rank of Colonel introduced himself as the commander of this unit.

Behind the presumably older Colonel stood senior officers at the general officer level and non-commissioned officers above the rank of sergeant. There were hardly any junior officers or privates around.

After getting assistance from the higher-ups to have a look around the Rift, I surveyed the unit responsible for this area and made some estimates.

“Um… these folks are a lot more elite than I expected.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Look, Camila.”

I shared my recent analysis with the rookie spy Camila.

“Do you remember the ranks of the people who came to us earlier?”

“Of course I remember. The Colonel and the special sergeant… so the Colonel and warrant officers greeted us first, and then we shook hands with the general officers and sergeants.”

“Isn’t it strange?”

“What part?”

“There are tons of high-ranking military officers packed into this tiny basin.”

Generally speaking, senior officers or non-commissioned officers above the rank of sergeant don’t cluster in one place unless it’s at the headquarters.

What’s more, the number of general officers is far higher than that of junior officers.

“In regions abundant with young elite officers, there are certain characteristics.”

The characteristics of places rich in young elite officers are as follows.

First, promotions…

This is advantageous.

Secondly, it’s a unit with major positions.

Thirdly, the military judges that the area is a strategic location.

Conversely, if there are many young officers who are not from elite backgrounds, the situation changes a bit.

Units like that are usually not in strategic locations or tend to have little value in terms of occupation.

“And in both cases, they share the commonality of not dealing with particularly important military secrets.”

“Um….”

Camila let out a small sigh and murmured in a voice filled with thought.

“The secrets that lower-ranking executives can handle… are limited, right?”

“That’s right.”

While there is more information that junior executives can manage than one might think, there isn’t much truly core information. Therefore, units with many junior executives do not require stringent security and do not handle significant confidential information.

In other words, it means they are targets that the information agency doesn’t particularly need to pay attention to.

However, units with many senior executives are different.

“Units where there are older officers or sergeants generally handle important secrets and tend to require strict security. They are based in major strategic locations or strongholds.”

“For example?”

“Navy bases operating nuclear submarines, units managing ballistic missiles, air defense units protecting the capital, and such.”

Units located in strategic areas or tactical strongholds, or those handling critical weapons are indeed very important units.

Such units handle high levels of confidentiality and require tight security. That’s why they are loved and closely watched by foreign intelligence agencies.

Right now, the unit responsible for the rift was just like that.

There were many senior executives but few junior executives, and the unit was not exceptionally large either.

“One characteristic of such units is that their level of armament is very high. Just like those armored vehicles and tanks over there.”

I pointed with my finger at the armored vehicles parked nearby. Armored vehicles and tanks covered by waterproof tarps lined up in rows.

“I didn’t notice well yesterday because it was dark, but there are cover trenches here and there. It seems that if something happens, they’ll pull those armored vehicles and tanks into the trenches for defense.”

“…That must mean the rift producing magic stones is important, right?”

“Of course.”

I added as I led Camila, who was looking around.

“But that’s something we can say because we know there’s a rift here and that those people are defending it. If we didn’t know that there was a rift here, and if we didn’t recognize that was a defense unit in advance….”

“If we didn’t?”

“You should be able to roughly predict, just from looking at those things, ‘Ah, there must be something important here.’”

After nodding once, Camila asked as if in a mumble.

“Do we have to learn that too?”

“Your question is off. It’s not about having to learn this; it’s about if you don’t know even this, you should be taking off your clothes.”

Since you’re not getting a paycheck for nothing, it’s right to leave if you can’t do your job.

In any case, I continued to teach Camila while touring the rift (managed by the Imperial Army). It wouldn’t be easy for her to come across a military unit of this level, so it would be a good experience for her.

Anyway, since there was nothing to do, Camila decided to enjoy the sights she hadn’t been able to see until now, and I absorbed as much of what was visible as I could into my memory. I planned to report everything without missing a thing when we returned to the embassy.

“Are we going to be suspected of being spies?”

“I’m a diplomat, so I don’t care. What’s the point of having immunity if I’m not going to use it?”

“What about me? I’m not a diplomat, so how do I get out of this?”

“I’m not sure about that… But, Camila, how about visiting a detention center while we’re at it? I went in once when I was stationed in Iran, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

“I don’t care about the detention center, but I’d like to hammer a nail into a coffin lid.”

“I’ll write in my will that if I die, you should bury me with you. Sound good?”

We continued to roam around the rift, smiling and chatting. I felt like Francesca sighed deeply and drifted away a bit, but I thought it had nothing to do with us.

In any case, it didn’t matter.

Regardless, that was how it was.

*

The guidance from the imperial army executives had long since ended, but we decided to take a closer look around.

As a core area producing strategic resources, it was impossible for ordinary people to move around freely; however, unfortunately, there was no one bold enough to stop Camila, who was being honored by the Military Government Headquarters.

Thanks to that, we were able to move without anyone’s interference.

I parted ways with Francesca in the middle. She said she had to go lead someone for a bit.

“Who is she leading?”

“Well, isn’t it the people from the Magic Tower?”

After all, despite being Camila’s colleague, Francesca was formally affiliated with the Magic Tower.

They had also assigned personnel from the Secretariat to assist her, and people from the pro-empire Oracle committee were personally escorting her, so she was indeed a person of high status.

“Maybe it’s people from the Magic Tower. Whether they came to research the rift, conduct mining operations, or settle here, what does it matter?”

“But aren’t they colleagues? Don’t you worry?”

“Worry? About what?”

Anyway, when we meet again, she’ll kindly explain who she led, why, and where.

“Anyway! Set aside your worries about Francesca and focus on your own. Don’t fall behind; move up.”

“…Okay.”

After wandering around for quite a while, we had unknowingly climbed up to a high ground.

As it happened, we had reached a spot where the entire basin was visible, so I took out my camera to capture images of the rift and the buildings around it.

Although the fog was thick, the outlines of the buildings were faintly visible, so taking photos was not an issue.

By the way, Camila decided to be on watch. I handed her binoculars and told her to keep a keen eye out.

Just as I was engrossed in taking pictures.

“…Excuse me.”

Camila nudged me as I was fully focused on photography. Her whispering voice reached my ears.

“What’s up? Is someone coming up?”

“That’s not it. Isn’t something strange down there?”

“Wait a minute. This is a crucial moment. If I get one good photo, I could even earn a medal….”

“No, look at those people gathered down there.”

Camila, with her face stuck to the binoculars, tugged at my clothes.

“Where?”

“The building with the blue roof. Can you see it?”

“Oh, I see it.”

I received the binoculars from Camila and checked the spot she pointed to.

I let out a big yawn while peering through the binoculars.

“What do you want me to see? I can’t see anything but people.”

“Look at the people! The people! Honestly, you’re frustrating me!”

“I’m looking! What’s the problem….”

“Aren’t their clothes a bit unusual?”

“Take a closer look!”

With Camila pressing me to examine more closely, I stubbornly leaned my neck forward and peered deeply through the binoculars.

“I see it, but it’s nothing significant. Just so you know, I might roll down to the bottom if I fall.”

“Just look closely.”

In the misty basin, I crouched down under the rocks, waiting for the blurred moving silhouettes to show themselves.

After a minute passed, then three minutes, and around five minutes later.

The figures of people gathered together briefly emerged through the fog.

“…What do you see?”

“…Wait a moment. Hold on. I think I just saw something.”

I examined the moving people within the fog closely. More specifically, I scrutinized the clothes they were wearing.

The colors of the clothing were distinctly different from dull military uniforms or work attire.

In other words.

What was that?

“…Academy?”

It was the academy uniform.

 

---