Chapter 13: Undercover
As he stared at the swaying waves, Joshua sighed, wondering why he was here in the first place.
“Man, why does everything always fall to me? Give me a break, for crying out loud.”
Just when he’d thought he could finally rest after returning from the Nation of the Beast King, he had been hit with an unexpected order. Not only that, but he was tasked to go to Yadacain—the number one place intelligence operatives wanted to avoid.
Yadacain’s self-isolation made it difficult to conduct any sort of covert operations there. If it weren’t an island, one could at least gather some intel from the surrounding areas, but there was no such luck. With no idea of how life was conducted in their land, any operative would have trouble carrying out their mission. One unwise move would instantly tip off the people, leaving things dead in the water.
Joshua had most likely been chosen because of his quick wits and stealthy movements, but he was still upset that this had happened the second he got back to the kingdom. After such a long trip away, he had lain down on his bed with dreams of sleeping in until noon. Once he’d received word to come to the castle early in the morning, he’d seriously considered just going on the run.
Jade had given him orders to go to Yadacain, and he wouldn’t listen to anything Joshua had to say. Joshua tried all of the smooth-talking excuses in his arsenal to get out of it, but in the end, he’d had no choice but to suck up his tears. After all, Jade told him these were “king’s orders.”
Even Joshua understood it was necessary to investigate if a witch had been involved with the incident in the Nation of the Beast King. Nevertheless, he still spewed complaint after complaint, asking why it couldn’t have been someone else tasked with this job.
As they looked out on the ocean, Joshua’s operative colleague consolingly patted him on the shoulder. Since Joshua couldn’t very well conduct covert operations in Yadacain all by himself, two other agents were accompanying him.
It was honestly difficult to predict when this mission would be over, but the very thought had made Joshua so sad that he’d decided not to think about it altogether and to instead focus on getting this over with. He’d boarded a small boat bound for Yadacain and shouted his determination toward the boundless stretch of sea before him.
“Mark my words,” Joshua had said, “I’m going to get some rest once this is over. I don’t care who says what; it’s happening. No one’s gonna get in my way!”
“Sure thing. Good luck on that,” answered one of his colleagues.
Joshua had been powering the boat by using wind magic in order to travel as quickly as possible, but at a certain point, the wind stopped. No, the naturally generated wind hadn’t stopped; the wind Joshua was generating had stopped. He tried using other magic as a test, but nothing worked.
“So, we’re in their territory, huh?” he mumbled.
The area around Yadacain was a dead zone due to the Spirit Slayer magic crafted by the witches. Seeing as how his magic was now useless, it meant they were in Yadacain territory. There would be no more magic from here on out. They would have to rely on their dragonkin physical strength.
After a while of slowly floating toward their destination, they finally saw land ahead of them. That was Yadacain. Although he should have been steeling himself, Joshua was practically shaking in excitement as he declared, “Let’s wrap this puppy up and get to vacation! Look out, Yadacain, ’cause here I come! I’m gonna expose every single one of your secrets! Hahah!”
“Geez, think he’s been so busy that his personality changed?” asked the one operative.
“No, I think that’s just the desperation talking,” answered the other.
They decided to wait until night to go ashore. Under the shroud of darkness, they landed and pulled the boat up on the bank. But they couldn’t leave it there like that or they’d be discovered. Joshua tried opening up his pocket space and found that it opened like normal.
“Looks like we can use our pocket spaces.”
They had already confirmed in Nadasha that supreme-level spirits could still use their powers even with Spirit Slayer magic active. The one who governed time and space, the Spirit of Time, Lydia, was a supreme-level spirit herself, which meant her magic still worked.
They stored the boat in Joshua’s pocket space and waited for daybreak to begin moving. They knew the lay of the land to a certain extent already, having studied the reports from a different operative who’d visited Yadacain in the past. They headed for what would be the “royal capital,” or at least that’s what they would have called it in the Nation of the Dragon King.
Yadacain was not very big. It was entirely overgrown with trees, but the center of the island had been developed so that the populace could live there. There were other villages scattered around, but Joshua and his cohorts had their sights set on the witches’ stronghold. They started their search in the town that housed the castle, where the witch ruling as king resided.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
The royal capital of Yadacain was smaller than the Nation of the Dragon King’s capital, both in scale and in populace, but the comparison wasn’t fair. There were small villages more prosperous than this one in the Nation of the Dragon King. However, this extremely small town had a unique atmosphere. The houses were wooden with triangular roofs, and despite being rather close to the Nation of the Dragon King, the culture felt entirely different.
The moment Joshua and his crew arrived in town, they felt the heat of the townspeople’s suspicious glares. Their party looked like regular people, so as long as they didn’t transform into dragons, no one would recognize them as dragonkin. Demi-humans might have been able to perceive a dragonkin’s particular, intimidating aura, but the research told them that only humans lived in this nation, which meant they could avoid detection. And since they couldn’t use their magic right now, their mana wouldn’t be noticeable either.
This nation had been founded by witches. Witches could use magic called “sorcery” without the aid of spirits. Because of this, they had been persecuted, and had fled with their tribesmen to seek sanctuary. For reasons unknown, no demi-humans had been living among them. That was why there were only humans living here.
Though Joshua and the others looked no different from a normal human being, their clothes differed from the residents of this land. They were clearly outsiders. Also, this town wasn’t even a quarter of the size of the Nation of the Dragon King’s capital, so most of the townspeople probably knew each other by face. Then, out of nowhere, a pack of strangers had walked into town. It only made sense that the people would be cautious given their land’s lack of foreign diplomacy.
After Joshua and the others had walked around the town for a while, a group of people with weapons—presumably soldiers—approached them. Joshua’s group subtly smirked; they had been wondering when their welcome party would come.
“Who are you people?!”
“You’re from a foreign land. What are you here for?!”
The soldiers threatened them with their swords pointed. Joshua and his crew pretended to be innocent newcomers who were afraid of their weapons.
“We are but simple travelers,” Joshua explained, reciting the lines he’d mentally rehearsed beforehand. He was acting as helpless and confused as possible. “We met upon a whale during our journey, which destroyed our ship and washed us ashore on this island. Although we managed to survive, our boat is damaged beyond repair, so we were wandering around lost until we stumbled upon this town.”
The soldiers exchanged glances. They were slightly less cautious now, but they still kept their swords drawn.
“Dreadfully sorry to ask, but where might we be?” Joshua asked, of course knowing where they were.
“This is Yadacain,” one of the soldiers answered.
“Yadacain? My word, I never thought we’d end up in Yadacain!” Joshua cried, his head pointed toward the sky as if he were screaming his dismay at the heavens. Joshua’s two colleagues thought he was overdoing it a smidgen, but Joshua continued, undeterred. “We are in such luck that we washed ashore somewhere with people. But as much as I’d like to repair our boat and leave the island, all of our belongings were unfortunately washed away—we have nothing but the clothes on our backs.”
“I see. That sounds pretty rough.”
“We would like to earn some money to fix the ship, so could we trouble you to introduce us to some form of employment?”
Joshua’s performance seemed to be convincing enough, because the soldiers bought his story. They looked at each other and began to discuss what to do about the island’s rare and unexpected guests. After a while, they said they would talk it over with their superiors and told the three of them to follow them. Joshua and the other two dragonkin complied.
They traveled deeper into the heart of the town where the Yadacain castle stood. This was Joshua and his crew’s final destination. However, they hadn’t expected to be allowed inside so soon, so they entered the castle with growing tension. Even so, they had no intention of making a move at the moment. The soldiers were wary of their heretic group. They needed to loosen their guard first. A single screw-up would make the soldiers even more cautious, which would spell failure for their operation. For today, they would follow the soldiers’ orders and behave themselves.
The soldiers led Joshua and his crew to their superior, who proceeded to ask them a list of questions—place of origin, purpose of travel, so on and so forth. It seemed that any outsiders were interrogated once they entered the castle. But the three of them had already hashed out their stories beforehand, so there were no discrepancies.
The superior bought their stories, albeit warily. Joshua and his crew were allowed to rent a vacant house, establish a base for themselves, and acquire jobs. After that, they kept from making any moves for a while and proceeded with the jobs they had been provided with.
“Woo, it’s payday! Oh yeah!” Joshua exclaimed.
“You sure have gotten used to life here, haven’t you?”
“Gonna just ditch going home and keep living here instead? Ahahah!”
Joshua and the others knocked their mugs, filled to the brim with alcohol, together and toasted. They appeared to be fully engrossed in their merrymaking, but their minds were focused on a presence outside. Someone was outside the house, looking inside. Even though the presence had remained hidden, Joshua and the others had detected them with their superior senses. It was probably someone from Yadacain. They were monitoring them—the foreign intruders.
Thanks to that, Joshua and the others couldn’t carry out their plan. Tap, tap, tap, tap. They all started tapping on the table—a sound-based communication method used among intelligence operatives.
(Those guys are still here, though,) tapped the one operative.
(Yeesh, someone’s got time on their hands. When are they gonna drop the surveillance?) tapped the other.
Joshua tapped, (I swear, I can’t wait to go home! The food here tastes like crap.)
How long did they have to keep up this charade of a life? Joshua wanted to go back home so bad, but that wasn’t an option. He had expected it to take a long time, but he hadn’t thought he’d go this long without making a single move. The people of Yadacain were more cautious than they’d expected.
Joshua let out a weary sigh. His two colleagues shot him looks of sympathy.
After some more time had passed, Yadacain finally lifted the surveillance. That didn’t necessarily mean they could take action right away, though. First they had to gather intel. Luckily, the townspeople had accepted Joshua and his companions as residents and were beginning to loosen up around them.
The purpose of their visit here was to find out if the witches had been involved in the Church of God’s Light incident. To do that, they needed to learn about the witches’ abilities. It was a given that they could use Spirit Slayer magic, but the real question lay in that method of resurrecting the dead. It was uncertain whether a witch of Yadacain had taught that to the church.
“This country is ruled by a witch, isn’t it? What’s the king like?” Joshua asked the housewife who lived next door. She would occasionally bring them food.
“I don’t know. The witches are in charge of this land, and we commoners don’t know who currently resides at the top,” she explained.
“Is that a fact?” asked Joshua.
“It’s said that the witch with the strongest sorcery at that time will stand as the king. But they don’t ever show their face, so only the people who work at the castle know what they look like.”
If the king was a mystery even to the citizens, then investigating them was going to be annoying.
“By the way, what can this ‘sorcery’ do? I’m kind of interested.”
“Not sure. Only the witches are capable of it, so I have no clue. If you want to ask, ask a witch themselves. Well, not that you’d be able to meet them anyway. I was born and raised here and not even I have ever even met one.”
“Huh. No kidding?”
Joshua asked some other people the same thing, but he learned nothing significant. However, after some time and some additional frustration, he finally caught a break.
“Is that for real?!” Joshua exclaimed as the neighborhood delinquent kids told him some information. The kids found it easy to cozy up to Joshua, not only because of his friendly nature but because he would always reward them for their troubles.
What he gained from the kids was a way into the castle, a secret passageway that only the children knew about.
“So, where is it?” Joshua asked.
The children grinned deviously and held out their hands, demanding compensation.
“Yeesh, you kids sure are shrewd. Here.”
Once he gave the children a small tip, they smiled happily and told him the secret location.
Joshua finished up work and went back to their house. He leaned in a chair and let out a loud sigh, like a father just off from his day shift. As he did, one of his colleagues smiled in delight. After he carefully scoped out the area around the window, he closed the curtain and spread a sheet of paper on the table in front of Joshua. Tap, tap. Then he began speaking in the intelligence operative code.
(Look, I’ve done it. I got the schematics of the castle.)
Joshua’s eyes bugged out and he leaned forward, digging his eyes into the paper. (Seriously?! This isn’t some fake, right?)
(Nah, it’s absolutely real!) replied his fellow operative with his head held high and proud. (With this, we can break into the castle and check it out.)
However, Joshua frowned. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He tapped, (No, not as long as we don’t have any idea how many guards they have posted.)
The other operative flared his nostrils, drawing the two’s attention. He then slammed yet another sheet of paper down on the table.
(Here’s a diagram of where the troops are stationed and their patrol times.)
(Holy crap, seriously?) tapped Joshua.
(Hot damn, you’re a genius!) the other operative tapped.
(Actually, how did you guys even get all this stuff?!)
His colleague clicked his tongue aloud and wagged his finger. (Heh, heh, heh. That’s top secret, my friend.)
His cocky display irritated Joshua a tad, but he couldn’t really complain since he himself hadn’t done anything. But that was when he noticed something. Upon closer inspection of the plans...
(Wait, this info is filled with friggin’ holes!) Joshua tapped, slamming the paper down on the table in anger. The info they’d brought was something he really wanted, but the schematics of the castle were oversimplified and full of unexplained areas. The soldier layout and patrol times were also extremely minimal.
(Hey, lay off of us. You should be thanking us that we were able to nab this much intel!)
(Hell yeah. We worked our tails off for this!)
Joshua sighed and tapped, (Okay, sure, hard work and all, but you can’t get any details off of these.)
The operative patted Joshua on the shoulder. (Well, we’ll just have to break in and find out. Meaning it’s your job to break into the castle.)
(Pardon?! Why me?!) Joshua tapped, freaking out.
(Isn’t it obvious? Because you haven’t done anything.)
(Yup, yup. It’s time for you to get to work.)
(Damn it! Listen, I’ve put in work too. Why, I got info about a secret passage into the castle from the delinquent kids, you know!)
(Then that’s even more reason for you to go.)
(Yeah, get out there. I’ll make sure to collect your ashes.)
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
Joshua carried out his operations on moonless nights. He would always enter the castle under the shroud of darkness.
His objective was to determine if the witches had any involvement with the Church of God’s Light. In order to find out for sure, he needed to examine the area around the witches. The problem was that he had no way of knowing who was a witch. He had no choice but to check every room from top to bottom for the time being. However, he was dumbfounded by the schematics of this large castle, even though it was only a fraction of the size of the one back home.
Basically, he would move at night when there were fewer people and hide out during the day. He had been doing this for a few days now. There had been many occasions where he had almost been discovered, but he’d managed to avoid detection and stealthily move through the castle while comparing his cohorts’ intel.
So far, Joshua hadn’t found a single thing that seemed off. The only place he hadn’t checked was the king’s area—the area most heavily guarded. It was reasonable to think that the most promising area would be where the king, said to be the strongest of all the witches, resided. But there would likely be other witches around them. It was a sizable risk going near there. After all, Joshua couldn’t use magic, but his targets could.
Joshua had only operated at night so far, but it seemed he would also need to search during the day if he wanted to gain any more intel. Normally, he would have pretended to be a castle worker by swiping and wearing one of their uniforms, but there weren’t that many workers in this castle. And since most of them were familiar with each other, he’d be found out if he tried infiltrating that way. If he had been able to use wind magic, he could have obtained information while staying put, but that was off the table too. The only way he was getting anything was with old-fashioned espionage, a process that demanded a lot of time.
And so, after many hours of nerve-racking infiltration—while whining about wanting to go home—Joshua managed to ascertain that the king left their duties to the other witches and hid themselves during the day. They would confine themselves to a certain room and do something there, something that only their aides seemed to know.
Joshua waited until nightfall to break into the room. It was locked, but opening it wasn’t too difficult. Joshua had the lock picked in a matter of seconds.
There was nothing out of the ordinary inside. In fact, if one were pressed to note something, it would be that there was literally nothing in there. What had the king been doing in this room the entire day? Joshua immediately picked up on something, however. There was an oddly strong wind blowing from underneath him.
(These things always have some kind of mechanism somewhere...) Joshua thought as he carefully patted down the walls and floors. He must have triggered something, because a part of the wall caved in with a click. The floor moved to reveal a staircase leading to an underground area.
Joshua grinned and slowly made his way down the dark set of stairs. He climbed all the way down and walked the passage below until he saw the floor above move again and close shut. He was confident there was a switch on this side as well, so he didn’t panic and instead proceeded down the path as intended. He eventually reached a single room at the end.
The dark room didn’t have any source of light, so Joshua had to provide some light of his own. But since he couldn’t use magic, he lit the lamp he’d brought out from his pocket space with a match. Not using magic was inconvenient to no end.
The flickering flame of the lamp soon shed light over the room—and that was when it happened.
“Hngaaaah!”
Joshua jumped with a start. He looked in the direction of the scream to find several people locked in a cage. Their bodies were skin and bone, their eyes sunken and lifeless, and their flesh dry and wrinkled. Their appearance was sadly familiar to him.
“Damn, don’t scare me like that. Hey, wait, ain’t these the zombies from the Nation of the Beast King?” They seemed just as incapable of cognitive thought and bellowed just as incomprehensibly as the zombies from back then. “If these things are here, then that means the witches of this nation were involved with the Church of God’s Light after all?”
Joshua searched around, shining his lamp in all directions. He then found a magic circle and vials filled with blood, just like in the Church of God’s Light’s hideout.
“Is this dragonkin blood? No, I mean, how would the witches of Yadacain even get their hands on dragonkin blood?” He looked through the mess of papers atop the room’s table. “Resurrecting the dead with dragon blood? Summoning from another world?” The results of those experiments were written down—none of them successful.
(Well, looks like we’ve caught them red-handed. Also, I’m pretty sure this other world summoning stuff is the same magic Nadasha used to summon Ruri. Those guys used Spirit Slayer as well, come to think of it. Were they connected with the witches of Yadacain too?)
Joshua was about to stuff some of these documents into his pocket space when he heard the footsteps of someone walking the hall from outside.
(Crap! No one’s supposed to be here at this hour!) Joshua thought. His investigation from the past few days had shown that no one visited this room at this time of day.
Joshua scrambled, ducking behind whatever cover he could find. He was in luck; the room was so cluttered with things that he had plenty of places to hide.
A few moments later, the door slowly opened and a couple—a man and a woman—walked in. Joshua realized that the woman was a witch and the king of Yadacain. He remembered her face since he’d caught a glimpse of her talking with her aides during his search. Joshua wasn’t familiar with the man with her, but he always seemed to be near the king, conducting business with her. He looked like an ordinary man, but something struck Joshua as odd. He listened in to their conversation, being careful not to be spotted.
“It looks like you don’t have much blood left, beloved one.”
“I know! But this is all the blood they left behind. I can’t do my research at this rate. I will not allow that to happen. Not until I bring them back to life,” the woman said, biting her nails in frustration. “I have to get dragon blood somehow.”
“Yes, but this isn’t just something you can obtain easily. You gained this blood because that individual provided it.”
(That individual? Who are they talking about?) Joshua wondered. Someone gave them the blood. A collaborator?
“If we don’t have the blood, then why don’t we just go out and get it?” the king asked.
“Beloved one, that would mean—”
“We will send an army to the Nation of the Dragon King. We’ll capture a dragonkin and take their blood.”
“That would start a war with the Nation of the Dragon King.”
“It matters not. We’ll bring back as many dragonkin as we can,” she said, proposing war like it was absolutely nothing.
Did she really think she could win a fight against dragonkin? Or was she saying that her experiments were worth the risk?
“Will Yadacain’s army be able to capture dragonkin, I wonder,” said the man.
“I’ll unleash the kraken. If we use Spirit Slayer, then we’ll be able to capture at least one or two dragonkin, no matter how strong they are. If that doesn’t work, you’ll lend your powers.”
(Whoa, whoa. Are you for real here? I’d better contact His Majesty as soon as possible.) Joshua thought.
The man placed his hand on the woman’s shoulder, his face tense. “Beloved one...” He hesitated, seemingly struggling to find the right words. “Why don’t you stop already? Even if you continue this research, wasn’t bringing them back a failure?”
The woman glared at him and replied, “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you know just how much I’ve sacrificed for this? The research shall succeed! It will just take some more time.”
“But it was impossible, nonetheless, wasn’t it? So many years have passed since then, but your research has bore no fruit. The dead simply keep amassing. Well, that doesn’t really matter, but don’t you think they’d want you to give up and live a peaceful life, for their sake? I believe that would be the happiest solution for both you and them.”
“That’s not true! I will get them back! I swear upon it!” she declared, her words backed by a bitter sort of hope.
Based on their conversation, it was safe to assume that there was someone she wanted to bring back to life and that the zombies in the cage were the failed results of that research. That still didn’t explain the connection with the Church of God’s Light, though. Joshua wanted to learn the answer, but his priority now was to inform the king that Yadacain might try to invade.
(Guess it’s time for me to take my exit, and fast.)
Just as Joshua finished his thought, his elbow bumped into a statue. He realized his mistake and reached out—too late. The statue shattered on the floor with a violent crash.
“What was that?” the woman asked.
“It seems that we have a rat,” said the man.
(Oh crap!)
The two of them had started to walk in Joshua’s direction.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login