Chapter: 207
The Counterintelligence Command is fundamentally competent. In fact, it remains one of the few competent departments within the country’s government offices. (All the more competent departments fell under “Kalion” during the last coup. It means they were ripped apart.)
And naturally, competent departments are generally busy. Except for a few special leaders like Alexander, a reasonable administrator would never leave a competent department idle.
Thus, the Counterintelligence Command has always suffered from a lack of personnel, regardless of the season, time, or years. Even with constant staffing, they are still short, leading them to hire external help and spend money to bolster their intelligence network.
Therefore, they cannot discharge agents without legs. If they have arms intact and can hear, speak, and write without issues, can’t they at least handle desk work? (Even if they lost both legs and one arm, they probably wouldn’t be discharged.)
Indeed, rehiring wounded soldiers could be considered a remarkably excellent universal welfare for Krasilov.
As a result, Dmitri is still an ‘active’ agent.
“Colonel, shall we have a cup of tea?”
Now holding absolute power as a Colonel who can boss around the still Colonel Pavel with just a nod.
“My legs are like this.”
Chuckling while seated in a wheelchair.
“So, where did we leave off? Oh right. Did I mention I saved one of our agents with fantastic movements only to end up flattened by that damned branch and had a moment to rest?”
Ivan silently nodded. After he fainted, he sought to hear about the situation in Kalion, only to be met with Dmitri elaborating on his exploits during the ongoing fight.
Brought into a completely unrelated battle and fighting for his life alongside comrades, he couldn’t bring himself to say, “Stop with the nonsense and get to the point,” even if Dmitri boasted the same story five times. (It’s true.)
He decided to quietly enjoy his tea, matching Dmitri’s rhythm. After all, the night was long, and Pavel was the one working.
“Honestly, I didn’t return to see this.”
Pavel sighed deeply, buried under a pile of documents. Being born a noble and initially unrelated to espionage work, having come from the guard, he had to pull all-nighters today just to handle tasks.
“Do you really have no sense of hierarchy? How do you think to pull a fast one on your senior?”
“I only have one senior from the guards, and that’s Senior Ivan.”
“Are you not a soldier? Shouldn’t you calculate by enlistment month and year?”
“Oh, I’m from the civil administration, not the military. The Counterintelligence Command has been under the administrative department since the days of the war intelligence agency.”
In front of him, Dmitri chuckled while swigging his tea, pointing to his own legs.
“If you’re jealous… you know?”
At the suggestion of cutting off his legs to earn a merit, Pavel clutched his chest and whimpered.
Dmitri was promoted to Colonel upon taking command of the Counterintelligence Command. The promotion was more about Elizaveta’s favor for saving Ivan than his achievements.
“Now that I’m at the same Colonel rank as you, shall we see about getting some tea then?”
“Dmitri.”
“Yes, senior?”
“You didn’t come here to rest.”
“Oh, really? I thought you might have come here to escape His Majesty’s tight grip.”
Despite Dmitri’s irreverent comment, Ivan quietly sipped his tea. Recently, Dmitri had been cracking ‘married man’ jokes quite often, which was an objective fact detached from reality.
He neither married nor planned to.
If Elizaveta heard this, she would likely wring her hands in frustration and sob before thinking of sentencing him to life imprisonment again, but it was the truth.
He simply lacked the confidence to make someone happy, and his goal had always been consistent.
Though he had somewhat given up now, the only reason he had risked his life thus far was for one purpose.
To return home.
The image of his hometown had mostly faded away. The colors remained only faintly, like a blur through the descriptions from a folklore collection.
But regardless, whether he genuinely wishes for it or not, the long-accumulated goal became a kind of truth embedded in his life, beyond its purpose.
Though he had given up and failed, it was a truth he had never forgotten.
Excluding that, if everything worked out according to his plans and the Curse of the Seven Dragon Lords befalls him, what kind of end would he meet?
As a person who couldn’t hope to be half of Maximilian, he could confidently assert that was probably the day of his ending.
Thus, as a person with a time limit, he cannot provide Elizaveta with false hopes. That would be too cruel.
“Anyway, at that moment, one fool stood still and was about to get crushed, so without thinking, my body just… you know? That dedication to ensure the sons of the nation return home? Loyalty? With that thought in mind, my body just rushed in and…”
During the confrontation with Senasgeor, outside the Ten Thousand Years Palace, the survivors of the Cleanup Unit and the Swordsmen of the Swordsmanship Faction were risking their lives to draw the monster’s attention.
At that time, there were only three survivors from the Cleanup Unit, including Dmitri. To save one of them, Dmitri took the incoming attacks and collapsed.
Shoving the foolish junior aside, he lost both legs under a branch as huge as a building.
Struggling in pain, he barely managed to hold onto his sword.
“I can see my senior getting beaten from afar, and that unlucky elf queen floats in the sky and starts mocking you as a weaponless, unsophisticated country bumpkin, doesn’t she?”
“I think we need to be more objective in the narration.”
“It’s not entirely wrong, but as a junior, I was enraged and yelled out at that moment, right? You heard, didn’t you?”
Even standing alone, the Cleanup Unit was still a legion.
Dmitri laughed loudly and threw his sword with all his might. Just as he aimed, Ivan caught the sword flying at him and resumed the battle.
Remembering that time, Ivan nodded and said with gratitude.
“Can we move on to the conclusion now?”
“I’m feeling so resentful and upset; my legs are aching. Ah, I have no legs. That’s strange.”
“Phantom pain can be treated physically.”
“Shall I get to the conclusion? Let’s stick to the six principles, Cleanup Unit style.”
Quickly adjusting his uncomfortable posture, Dmitri finished his tea and continued speaking.
“So, you executed that bastard Alexander in style and fainted, right? So I cut off his wrist, performed a mana diagnosis, and burned his body to scatter in the sea.”
“Hmm.”
“After that, Lord Cohenulf stood up from the Council and killed precisely three elves who were about to cause havoc!”
“Hmm.”
“And then what? The elderly Speaker handled the situation, and I, as plenipotentiary, secured a non-aggression pact, pledging to keep silent about what happened in Kalion in return…”
The downfall of Kalion surpassed any scale that could be concealed. The Seven Dragon Lords had devastated the capital of the kingdom; there was no way to hide that fact.
Moreover, Kalion was a center of maritime trade. They couldn’t enforce silence on all the trading ships crossing the sea.
So when rumors spread, if the elves’ weakening became widely known, soon individuals with different thoughts could appear.
For example, ‘inland’ elves might realize they no longer had powerful backers…
Or, while casually navigating coastal waters, the elves might claim they crossed a maritime border and levy ‘taxes’ in return for passage.
Or perhaps they might start to ponder why they couldn’t simply create a better international port instead of going through expensive Kalion as a trade route.
Or, after shooting down all the airships, they might control resources heading to Kalion, effectively leading Kalion to just wither away.
Among these, the most lethal strategy for Kalion’s Council would be that last part.
“I already mentioned that dwarf artillery is to be installed at the ports of Tylesse.”
Dmitri grinned as he spoke.
“Are they really going to verify that right away? The defense of Tylesse is mostly in debt to us at this point, and there happens to be a dwarf princess present there?”
The mere existence of Rundis could be evidence of Krasilov’s alliance with the dwarves.
Dwarves had a record of shooting down airships even during wartime. Krasilov was also widely known for large-scale artillery deployment, but the dwarves operated on a different level.
Those little bastards operate military factories on the scale of cities. And Krasilov was already notorious as a mad war fanatic even before the Great War.
With the commonality of being mad war fanatics and gunpowder lovers, what the elves can see as the Krasilov-dwarf alliance is exactly…
-Here lies the peace of our era.
They could only feel strange fear when faced with a Krasilov butcher (laughing and bleeding from a freshly severed leg).
-Going beyond the sea, the inland border… that is, across the coastline, we cannot launch any airships. All coastal cities will be armed with anti-aircraft artillery, and at the mid-trade port of Tylesse, we’ll establish Krasilov’s garrison.
Unless attacked by airships, elves would never exert military influence on the United Kingdom.
-In response to any attempt at forceful landing contrary to this agreement, we will retaliate with artillery fire.
-That amounts to a declaration of war!
-If you bring me a declaration of war, would that satisfy you? The Krasilov-Tylesse-Dwarf declaration of war will not state that all of Kalion is hostile.
Even during the war, the United Kingdom never truly united in the ‘real sense.’ The differences in stance between countries directly engaged at the front and those providing rear support were stark.
Even when it was clear civilization would be destroyed upon defeat, the support countries relatively “casually” provided military supplies. This wasn’t entirely unavoidable. If a nation were to operate as fully mobilized as the frontline, it would collapse immediately.
Many weaker nations could not endure this and vanished.
What about the nations capable of maintaining the frontlines? Among the four powers, Tylesse, Drovian, and Krasilov directly connected to the frontline were not much different.
Unlike those risking their lives on the front lines, the nobles handling military support from the rear indulged in luxury and pleasure.
All wars are wrapped in the corpses of the righteous. The righteous die, and only the selfish survive to form the present United Kingdom.
And this was not significantly different in Kalion either.
-If that’s the case, can those ‘great’ nobles of this country gather amicably around a round table and chat just like they do now?
When declaring war, can we guarantee that ‘those’ elves won’t turn against their own kin?
And even this war has nothing to do with destruction. Unlike the war against demons, it’s merely economical or political warfare occurring within the United Kingdom.
Those schools that don’t suffer ‘relatively’ will naturally join the fight with ‘relative’ reluctance.
-So, according to what our late king once said…
-Peace is not something to be acquired by sword.
With that, Dmitri could leave feeling good.
Kalion collapsed. While the elves certainly possessed tremendous military and economic power, they would never be able to control the inland as they once did.
The mediating royal family has crumbled, the milestone that promised a future for the elves has vanished, and forces are prepared inland to counter airships.
At this moment, with the mana guaranteeing ‘no more civil war’ fading away, the elven academies could no longer uphold peace under the system of the Council to monopolize the remaining resources.
Thus, the almost unique authority capable of obstructing the Council now resided with the Councilor, sending Oswald. Betrothed to the Councilor’s daughter, he himself was also a son of the Council.
“Unofficially, it seems we now have an intelligence asset inside Kalion.”
“Excellent.”
Ivan nodded pleasantly. It was a commendable act.
As long as elven interest doesn’t turn inland, they would become one of the strongest powers to counter the demons.
After all, they were among the four powers, formerly known as the strongest nation of the United Kingdom.
“So you’re enjoying peace right now, aren’t you? Everyone is quiet; it’s wonderful.”
Dmitri, finally smiling with happiness at the peace that had come to the continent.
Pavel, reviewing the bloodshot intelligence report, spat blood upon hearing that remark.
“The Ecumenical Council… how long has it been?”
“It’s a significant matter, Saint.”
“At least call me the Dean within the school, would you?”
Patricia gently smiled as she unfolded the letter bearing the Pope’s seal.
“I’ll need to gather my attendants. Thank you, brother.”
“Yes, Dean. Have a good night.”
The priest bowed deeply and stepped back. As the door closed smoothly, Patricia watered the shrub on the pot, smiling.
“I’ll need to ask Sister Elizaveta for permission.”
With a hint of regret towards the friend currently in a honeymoon mood.
“It’s been a while since I traveled, and I’m a bit excited.”
With a bit of anticipation for the journey with her old friend…
