WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss

Chapter 26

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Blasphemia Branch (6)

Ortes looked down at the biofiber hair he held in his hand. It had been severed from the main body, and the main body itself was already dead.

As the remnants of the mana that had fixed the hair into the shape of a blade disappeared, the biofibers also lost their focal point and scattered strand by strand.

Niobe looked at Ortes. The mana-driven locomotive and the branch chief, both in a gruesome state. Ortes standing before the branch chief’s corpse.

She steadied her trembling voice and asked.

“Why.”

Ortes shrugged. The branch chief’s hair scattered from his hand. A gesture of mourning, like scattering ash after a cremation.

“It’s just that someone who needed to die has died.”

But the words that came out were completely different. A tone that felt ruthless rather than cool-headed.

Niobe felt the gap between the naïve ‘rookie agent’ senior who used to smile amiably and the Ortes of now.

What made fear pile on top of that gap was Ortes’s characteristic faint smile. Whether when they met at the Bikada Wandering Troupe or now, Ortes was smiling the same as ever.

“Now then. Everyone, come out.”

Ortes had sensed that the presence of people in the passenger cars when he boarded the Charlotte branch was ‘almost none.’ Conversely, that meant there was a small amount.

One by one, the Blasphemia agents slowly revealed themselves from the chaos-ridden passenger cars. Each holding their weapons tightly.

Ortes thought.

‘That’s more than I expected?’

I thought it would be about five or six. There are nearly twenty here.

But showing embarrassment here is amateur hour. A master who knows how to pay off a debt of a thousand gold with a single word never loses his smile.

Ortes’s smile was partly a means of intimidation. If you drive your opponent into a lethal trap, and even after they’ve fallen into it, you’re still smiling, they’re bound to think, ‘Did something go wrong?’ just once.

It was Ortes’s survival strategy to induce that ‘hesitation’ in the midst of battle where a single moment of hesitation decides life and death.

But the feelings of the Blasphemia agents facing that smile now were different.

There is a hypothesis that smiles originally originated from the threatening posture of a beast baring its teeth. Ortes’s expression was like that.

A madman who had slaughtered the branch chief, and even used the branch chief’s own magic to stab him to death.

That fear played a part in why the Blasphemia agents did not immediately attack Ortes.

There was another reason as well.

“I suppose I should give you an explanation first.”

Ortes slowly scanned the agents who had revealed themselves. The agents tried to read psychology from Ortes’s face, but his nearly closed eyes were too powerful a shield.

“Blasphemia Charlotte Branch Chief Nardanit was plotting treason.”

A calm, yet shocking pronouncement. Hearing this, Niobe, in her bewilderment and sense of betrayal, let out a short question: “What?”

But what bewildered her even more was the reaction of her seniors.

Half, or perhaps seventy percent, were biting their lips upon hearing Ortes’s declaration. Those clearly already in collusion with Nardanit.

“Oh dear. If you’re going to show your feelings that easily just because your scheme has been exposed, that won’t do, junior agents. It makes it too easy to pick you out, doesn’t it?”

The reason the Charlotte branch had few people was due to Nardanit’s intention. Blasphemia agents are guaranteed a certain period of rest for self-maintenance after completing a mission.

Using his branch chief authority, Nardanit had cleverly adjusted the mission assignment cycles so that the rest periods of the rebel personnel gradually overlapped.

The plan was that if all the personnel recruited into the rebellion ended up with overlapping rest periods, they would join the rebellion along with the entire Charlotte branch.

Seventy percent of the Blasphemia agents now gathered at the Charlotte branch, in other words, the agents recruited into the rebellion, were bewildered by the sudden, unexpected death of their leader and could not decide on their next move.

Niobe, understanding the situation, asked in astonishment.

“Ortes. …Who are you?”

***

That’s done it. I almost let out a cheer of joy. In this kind of atmosphere, I can deceive them all.

The aftereffects of forcing my eyes open to block the self-destruction spell are still severe.

If it was about five-to-one, I could take them all out without any trouble. But twenty-to-one gives me something to think about.

Besides, if an entire Blasphemia branch goes down, that’s a problem in itself. The high-ranking folks in the Ten Towers retirement home would start paying attention to a lowly underling at that point.

It’s too early for a frontal clash with the Ten Towers.

If I have to set a time, I should aim for the protagonist’s arrival. It’s more efficient to move behind the scenes when the resurrected Mage King appears and draws the attention of the Ten Towers.

“Well. First, I owe you an apology.”

I lay out the prepared answer. Sometimes deception is more efficient than killing everyone.

If I throw them a rebel problem on top of the already understaffed Blasphemia, they won’t have the leeway to pay attention to a frontier city like Etna City.

“My name is not Ortes, and my face is not real either.”

***

“There’s no way an inspector would reveal his real name and appearance, right.”

Niobe stared blankly at Ortes, Inspector L13.

Was the code name he gave her real?

“It’s quite regrettable that I have to use a false identity even when meeting an old comrade, but it’s work.”

The inspector shrugged and added a few words. He said that because he needed a pretext to infiltrate the Charlotte branch, he decided to use Niobe, who was dispatched to the Bikada Wandering Troupe. He happened to approach the Wandering Troupe by disguising himself as an executive, since a rising organization called Hydra Corp was monitoring them.

She had thought it was strange from the beginning. A Blasphemia agent should not pursue personal gain, but this person seemed to be appointed to a key position in a Magic Tower.

Unless he intended to betray the organization, it wasn’t an attitude someone who wanted to return to the organization would show.

But to think everything from their meeting to now was all a disguise.

What held Niobe back from stopping her thoughts was the training she had received as a Blasphemia agent. A psychological analysis method for agents to deduce the whole from small clues.

A technique that combines the subject’s words and actions to filter out the information closest to the truth.

The hair scattered as if in mourning and the current mention of ‘old comrade.’ The branch chief Nardanit and the inspector must have had a relationship of acquaintance.

“Nice to meet you, junior agents. I am an inspector. There’s no need to tell you my name or code name. After all, it’s better for both parties not to meet again. Forget my face too. It belongs to someone else anyway.”

To Niobe, that playful tone seemed to carry a hint of sadness somewhere.

“Charlotte Branch Chief Nardanit conspired with traitors to hand over the entire Charlotte Branch to them. The above situation has been reported to the Blasphemia Audit Office. The entire Charlotte Branch is under inspection.”

Of course, Ortes was not sad at all.

“The database files are scheduled to be submitted as evidence after my audit, so from this moment on, anyone is prohibited from tampering with them. Personnel from headquarters will soon arrive to handle the situation.”

This was to create an excuse for Ortes himself to manipulate the database. Video manipulation was not his specialty, but if he put Arabel on it, she would handle it well.

“Those who conspired with Nardanit’s plan, put on mana-suppressing handcuffs and wait. That is all.”

As Ortes headed toward the database, he recalled the reporting system of the Blasphemia Audit Office.

It was only natural that secret inspectors went around erasing their traces, so there was nothing strange about that, but the problem was how to guide the Audit Office.

He had to call the Audit Office but avoid meeting them face-to-face. That would expose his false identity to the whole world.

‘Normally, these things are handled with a thorough handover. I need a reason why the inspector couldn’t meet the follow-up team and had to leave in a hurry.’

Ortes decided on that ‘reason’ without much thought.

‘The survivors of the Golden Desert Operation returned after being eroded by an extradimensional, right? I can just report that I’m leaving the scene to pursue clues about the eroded ones.

The false report Ortes prepared was simple.

『Confirmation of Charlotte Branch Chief Nardanit’s act of defection. Backed by extradimensional eroded ones. Note: The eroded ones are presumed to be agents deployed in the Golden Desert Operation. Leaving the scene for pursuit. Send personnel for a formal inspection as soon as possible.』

‘I know quite a lot about this organization thanks to raiding plenty of Blasphemia branches, but I’m not even familiar with this kind of document format. Rather than forcing details, giving the impression that it was written succinctly because I was chasing the rebels will be more convincing.’

Normally, the mana core and its surroundings are the core parts of a mana-driven locomotive. Special bulkheads are installed to avoid exposing the mana core’s location, thereby erasing its presence.

But the magic inscribed on those special bulkheads also seemed to have been completely ruined by the fight between Ortes and Nardanit. Ortes could easily follow the mana released from the mana core and approach the database.

Ortes opened the door to the database and entered, looking around.

“It should be around here somewhere.”

He was looking for Arabel’s spider.

***

Meanwhile, Arabel had been in a state of mental turmoil for a while after seeing that message Nardanit had tried to send.

A secret inspector of Blasphemia? What the hell is this?

She had heard a hint when she and Divius were summoned that the President and Ortes might originally be high-ranking members of the Ten Towers.

But that means they weren’t expelled, they were active?

A sound that added to Arabel’s confusion came from beyond the screen. It was the sound of Ortes’s approaching footsteps.

“Director? There’s no one around here right now, so come out for a moment.”

Arabel hesitated, but she couldn’t waste any more time here. The spider drone slowly crawled under Ortes’s feet.

“I have a favor to ask. You have the stored surveillance camera footage, right.”

‘Uh.’

Arabel felt a different kind of bewilderment. A bewilderment mixed with anger that she had felt quite often over the past few days.

“Please appropriately alter or delete all the parts where my face appears in there. And go to BS 52: 5 in the database and send a message as I dictate.”

It was the bitterness of an office worker facing sudden overtime.

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