A Dark Fantasy Spy

---

I can’t seem to muster the strength in my body.

I can’t speak or move.

Even when I open my mouth, no sound comes out, and my limp limbs tremble uncontrollably.

It’s a seizure.

And so, I collapsed onto the table in an embarrassing position.

My head hurts.

I’m dizzy.

I can’t breathe.

My vision blurs, and spasms begin.

This phenomenon feels oddly familiar.

Hemolytic symptoms. Blood coagulation. Subcutaneous bleeding. Anemia. Organ damage. Headaches. Dizziness. Breathing difficulties. Abdominal pain. Total paralysis. Blurred vision. Speech impairment. Spasms. Seizures. Blood vessels. Lymph nodes. Acetylcholine. Neurological infiltration. Respiratory paralysis. Atropine injection. Oxime injection.

A multitude of keywords flash through my mind.

At the same time, a few words come to me.

VX. Sarin. Soman. Botulinum toxin. Novichok.

I instinctively realize it. The knowledge learned over two lifetimes supports my thoughts smoothly.

So, I am,

Poisoned with a nerve agent.

—

Episode 2 – Heroes of the Continent

– Clatter.

Camila Lowell set down her cutlery. She was full, and drowsiness was creeping in.

When asked if something was wrong, she simply smiled and shook her head.

Outwardly smiling, her heart was in turmoil.

After all, just a month ago, she was an ordinary university student.

She was born in a family home in London, England, and attended university there.

Considering London’s average real estate prices and the prestige of her university, she was far from being considered ordinary in others’ eyes. But Camila Lowell thought of herself as an ordinary person.

Camila Lowell is a 23-year-old university student.

She is an ordinary person.

That’s why accepting the situation unfolding before her was difficult.

“Hey! Stop him from closing his mouth! Don’t let him commit suicide!”

“Shut up, you idiot!”

The people who had quietly been sipping wine just a moment ago were now pinning someone to the floor, putting handcuffs on him.

“Get a healing priest here!”

The soldier who had been chatting just moments before was now face-down on the table, trembling uncontrollably.

No, he’s having a seizure.

His darkened skin and purplish lips felt reminiscent of a dead body, and his grotesquely contorting body looked like something straight out of a zombie movie.

Just a minute ago, he had been laughing and chatting, and now he was dying.

He was the one in charge of his security.

He was a colleague.

—

It seems he was hit with a nerve agent.

A poison needle disguised as a pen. What a romantic weapon.

Someone said it was frequently used by the red scum. Was it my grandfather? My father? Or perhaps an instructor?

I don’t remember.

It’s been over 30 years, so my memory fails me.

Someone came from behind and jabbed a needle into my neck. Judging by the symptoms, it seems they used a nerve agent. It’s an assassination. Probably one of the guys who blew up the bomb. I thought it couldn’t be me, but here I am, the target.

Whoever it is, they’re damn impressive. An assassination at a banquet? They must have waited for hours until I was completely worn out.

Yeah. A truly impressive bastard. With this level of effort, it’s almost worth dying for. Of course, that bastard is probably swallowing poison and dying by now. See you in hell.

Who would do something like this? Is it really the Imperial Guard HQ? Even if they didn’t have nerve agents, it would be hard to get poison needles disguised as pens. It must be operatives from the Imperial Guard HQ.

Why did they carry out a terror attack? Did I offend them somehow?

Perhaps, it could be a political maneuver by the Emperor to swallow both the cult and the heroes.

Or maybe it was an overzealous loyalty from the Imperial Guard HQ’s 2nd Division to gain the Emperor’s favor.

Or it could be that the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the Imperial Guard HQ colluded to take me down.

Maybe someone from Saint Veronica or the cult sees me as a hindrance and wants me dead.

Perhaps.

Even as my consciousness fades, I desperately try to grasp the terrorist’s intentions.

I imagined a terrorist whose face, name, and affiliation I didn’t know.

As I was doing so, I suddenly felt a sense of futility.

What’s the point of thinking about this? I’m going to die soon anyway. Since I was hit near the lymph nodes, I’ll die within seconds at the latest.

My vision is already darkening, and only consciousness remains.

It hurts like hell.

It feels like my whole body is being gouged out with a greatsword. My head pounds, my insides twist, and I can barely breathe.

I’m on the verge of dying.

In fact, if there were an antidote, I could still survive. If I’m unlucky, I might end up with permanent damage to my central nervous system, but in any case, I could survive.

If only there was a supply of atropine and oxime injections.

But in this world, those don’t exist. To get treatment, I need to find a healing priest of at least bishop rank.

By the way, it has to be ‘at least’ a bishop level.

Even the intelligence agencies aren’t fools; they developed nerve agents that are difficult to cure by putting their scientists in.

Of course, if a healing priest of higher rank poured healing magic on me, it would be a different story. But finding someone with that much divine power isn’t easy.

Unless I’m exceptionally lucky and such a healing priest happens to be right next to me, I’m just going to die.

If someone realizes I’m poisoned with a nerve agent and finds such a person before I suffocate, I might live.

But I doubt that will happen.

—

“Please…! Just…!”

Lucia held onto the collapsed Colonel, pouring her divine power into him.

She had experience as a healing priest on the battlefield and had treated patients with serious illnesses or poisonings multiple times.

So she realized he was poisoned and poured her divine power into him.

It didn’t work.

“Why…! Why isn’t it working…!”

Lucia wasn’t well-versed in medicine. It wasn’t because she was stupid. All healing priests in the cult were like that.

Since just a snap of a finger can make a disabled person spring to their feet and a bedridden patient tap dance off their bed, there was no need to study medicine. That’s why medical professors and healing priests often insult each other, calling each other stupid or bespectacled fools.

Anyway, she didn’t know what kind of poison it was. So she mistakenly thought it was a common poison found in nature.

Although Lucia possessed divine power much higher than her peers, her ability alone wasn’t enough to resolve the situation.

Someone yelled to bring a healing priest, while others shouted to get outside, and chaos ensued.

Only the intelligence agency personnel felt the severity of the situation, their faces showing that we were utterly screwed.

At that moment, filled with screams and shouts in the banquet hall, someone was dying.

“Step aside.”

A hero appeared.

—

Is this my first time dying from poison? My consciousness flickers in and out.

Is this what it feels like to be under the influence of sleeping pills? It feels like a good sign.

The fact that consciousness keeps coming back despite the respiratory paralysis from the nerve agent means some form of healing is taking place.

Honestly, I want to survive, but the fear is greater. The loss of breath indicates that oxygen supply to the brain has been cut off, meaning there’s a high possibility of permanent damage.

Well, I don’t want to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet.

That’s a problem to solve when the time comes.

Grasping my hazy thoughts, I pondered seriously.

Why is this happening?

Why are they trying to kill me by detonating a bomb?

Why use a poison needle to kill me?

Why did they push me aside to save their lives?

And why did they foreshadow a terror attack against me?

I kept thinking.

And then, suddenly, one question arose.

Terror.

Ekaterina intervened at just the right moment before the bomb exploded, saving my life. This means she was clearly aware of the means, methods, location, and timing of the terror attack.

In other words, she had detailed knowledge of the terror plan.

But, why did she have no information about the second attack?

—

“Who… are you…?”

“Oh my, are you Camila Lowell?”

A woman dressed in a white priest’s robe, with flowing black hair, smiled gently as tears glistened in her eyes.

As the soft light flowing from her palm touched him, the darkened skin began to gradually regain its color.

The treatment that had shown no progress even after Lucia poured her divine power was now rapidly changing with just a gesture.

A miracle.

A miracle has occurred.

Before long, his skin regained its color, and the hurriedly arrived doctor began artificial respiration.

The nameless woman who completed emergency treatment slowly rose from the floor.

She said, “I am the 58th Saint Veronica of the cult.”

The saint smiled.

It was a brilliant smile, like a painting.

“Nice to meet you, hero.”

—

Something.

Something is happening.

Intertwined like a spider’s web around the bomb terror are numerous figures.

The Imperial Family. The Royal Family. The cult. The Military Intelligence Agency. The Inquisition. The Imperial Guard HQ. The Counterintelligence Department. The Information Agency.

Three nations.

Three agencies.

At the center of their swirling desires stands the hero.

The more I think about it, the more it feels like I’m being drawn into a whirlpool.

My head hurts.

Perceptions that do not lead to thoughts and judgments that cannot be made float like passing thoughts in my mind.

I’m dizzy.

Unnatural thinking continues.

…Now that I think about it,

Everything seems to unfold unnaturally.

…Indeed, during the bomb terror, agents from the 1st Division calculated the exact timing to save my life.

I’m not someone who delves into people’s psyches; I’m someone looking for information; thus, I cannot understand what Ekaterina was thinking when she saved me. I can’t grasp the intentions of the Imperial Guard HQ.

One thing is certain.

During the bomb terror, the 1st Division knew the terrorists’ ‘detailed’ terror plans inside out.

Yet after the bomb terror, the intelligence-gathering abilities of the 1st Division remarkably dropped. They had no idea when the next terror attack would occur, or what method it would use.

The timing is crucial.

Their intelligence-gathering abilities were shattered ‘after’ the bomb terror.

No longer is ‘why’ important.

It’s ‘how’ that matters.

How did a bomb go off at the heart of the cult? How was an assassination possible within the cult’s event?

How did Ekaterina know about the terror plans? And how did the Counterintelligence Department agent know nothing about the terror plans?

They are all from the ‘1st Division.’

The ones who capture spies. Public security.

Though I’m from the Overseas Operations Department, I know that public security are experts at using informants. In our terms, they are the straws.

The 1st Division must have inserted straws into the terrorist organization. They either embedded their own agents or bribed supporters with money.

Originally, valuable information is based on trust, and reliable information comes from the mouths of ‘trustworthy’ people.

In fact, Ekaterina acted as if she possessed knowledge of the bomb terror plan. Considering the panic within the Inquisition and the Military Intelligence Agency at that time, the intelligence-gathering and analysis capabilities of the Imperial Guard HQ are astonishing.

Yet, that capability only extended to predicting the second terror. They had no knowledge of the means, methods, dates, or times.

If I were a terrorist, the moment the bomb terror failed, I would suspect a leak of information. And I would find and kill the informant. I would do so even if I were in charge.

If the 1st Division was grasping the trends of the terror through an informant, it would make sense. The assassination attempt failed, and the informant died, so naturally, their operational capabilities would shatter.

An informant must meet at least four conditions.

Someone who has known the Imperial Guard HQ and the terrorists long enough to have gained their trust.

Someone with the authority to access the terror plans.

Someone who knows a bomb was to be used in the terror.

And, someone who was purged after the terror failed.

—

…Only one person fits this description.

Someone who brought the bomb, ‘transferred it’ to a member of the cult, and someone ‘high up’ who could review the terror plans.

Someone who was executed after the failed terror.

An agent found dead in the sewer a week after the terror.

Neither black nor white, but an ambiguous gray.

Operative Yuri from the Imperial Guard HQ’s 2nd Division, in charge of the Locust Publishing House.

—

“Your breathing seems to have returned to normal now.”

The doctor wiped sweat from his brow as he explained the condition.

“The treatment is finished, but we should keep a closer watch on the patient’s condition after regaining consciousness. Considering the poison was injected through the vessels in the neck, we need to check for any irregularities in the brain…”

“Ho-it.”

Veronica poured divine power toward his head. A bright light filled the room, startling the doctor.

Healing priests, as I’ve repeated numerous times, lack medical knowledge.

“You should be fine now.”

Veronica spoke calmly. One might mistake her for a specialist with her confident demeanor.

Camila Lowell bowed her head to her, while Lucia offered a slight, unsure nod, and Veronica received their greetings with a bright smile.

Only Pippin and Jake sensed that something unusual was happening.

“Oh, are you the Colonel’s subordinates? Nice to meet you, I’m Veronica.”

Pippin and Jake shook hands with Veronica in a daze.

Veronica briefly exchanged greetings with the people in the room before leaving.

As they watched her exit, the two spies opened their hands.

A note was tucked inside.

—

I can finally breathe properly, but it feels like my body is tearing apart with every breath I take.

My abdomen ached with a burning, searing pain. It felt like every fiber in my lungs was being pulled apart. A horrific pain emanated from the area of the needle wound on my neck.

It hurt.

“…!”

What happens now?

Will I wake up with all my limbs intact?

I feel like I’ve obtained crucial information, but I need to convey it. I wish I could just speak.

“Help…!”

Are the kids okay?

I’m worried about Pippin, seeing how she clearly can’t fight. Not so sure about Jake, though.

I hope Camila Lowell isn’t too shocked. She’s been going through so much lately. She can’t crumble because of this.

I wonder if Sister Lucia managed to heal me. In games, stats increase so easily with points, but I have no idea how to increase them in this world.

“Colonel…!”

I feel like someone is calling for me.

Is it my mother? Or my grandfather? Perhaps my father?

…No matter how I think about it, it doesn’t seem to be any of them.

They are people I’ll never see again.

“Colonel…!”

My eyes opened.

“Colonel….”

Camila Lowell was shedding tears as they trickled down.

Sister Lucia hurriedly dashed off somewhere, and loud commotion echoed from afar.

I wanted to say something, my mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“…?”

“Y-yes…?”

Camila Lowell leaned closer to listen.

With hazy consciousness, I gathered my thoughts, fumbling to speak.

“It… hurts, damn it….”

It hurts like hell.

—

On a summer night.

All are sleepless in the early dawn.

An emergency report flew into the Military Intelligence Agency Headquarters.

It was a report that the assassination attempt on the operative had failed.