Barbed wire and sentry posts spread around the field headquarters.
There were soldiers standing guard inside the posts, but no one noticed me jumping over the barbed wire and passing right by them.
Aside from the soldiers on watch, the rest were all sprawled inside the tent barracks.
Night had only just begun, yet the tents felt utterly devoid of life.
No one was exercising or chatting.
The soldiers were either trying to sleep in worn-out sleeping bags or sitting around with gloomy faces.
A depressed atmosphere permeated the entire unit.
Perhaps because of that, I was able to move even more easily after getting inside.
I passed several tents and arrived at the center of the base, where the missile launchers were.
Next to the missile launchers guarded by soldiers stood a large field command tent.
Unlike the other tents, two soldiers were guarding the entrance.
They looked neater than the other soldiers.
Even so, their expressions were equally poor.
I approached them.
As I drew near, I heard the soldiers whispering.
“This is rough.”
“It’s all because those American bastards came charging in. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have ended up in a place like this.”
“That goes without saying.”
At one soldier’s complaint, the other cursed America.
However, there was no real emotion in his words. It felt no different from a reflexive curse.
At the predictable insult, the other soldier spoke again.
“I’m starving to death. Tomorrow I ought to go requisition some food from the civilian houses near the port.”
Though he called it requisitioning, it would be looting in the end.
Looting targeting Chinese civilians, at that.
“If you get caught, it’s a firing squad. This isn’t our country.”
The soldier beside him raised an objection just as I had, but the one who spoke merely shrugged.
“One way or another, we’re going to die anyway. Our lives are tied to Comrade Chairman’s life regardless. How long do you think this is going to last?”
It was a somewhat strange thing to say, but the other soldier nodded.
“True. One way or another, in the end we all die.”
I felt I needed to find out what that meant, too.
To find out, I had to ask someone high up.
Someone as high-ranking as the person inside this tent.
I quietly walked up behind the two and placed my hands on their shoulders.
The moment they flinched, I cast magic.
“Sleep.”
With the incantation, the two fell asleep.
I caught them from behind before they could collapse and propped them against the tent.
I leaned them carefully so they wouldn’t fall even in their limp state, then entered the tent.
As I had confirmed with my senses, one person was inside.
A middle-aged man who looked even thinner than he had on TV.
The supreme leader and dictator of the North Korean government, now merely the head of the remnants of a destroyed nation, was drinking alone.
Scattered across the desk before him were various documents covered in dust.
Military maps and all manner of operation plans.
Documents that would have been top secret during wartime lay strewn about, buried under liquor glasses.
“Verflucht! You bastards! What the hell did I do wrong?”
Spitting out a curse in German, he flared up in anger, refilled his glass, and raised his head.
He saw me standing before him and tilted his head.
“W-who are you? I didn’t call for anyone.”
Seeing the man unable to come to his senses even after looking at me, I asked Soph.
“Do you happen to have a sobering spell?”
[That would be mind magic, and forbidden magic at that. But there is another spell that produces a similar effect.]
Soph immediately chanted the spell.
[O water, gather. O chill, pour down.]
With the incantation, a lump of water formed above the man’s head.
It was a mass of cold water, so frigid that I could feel the chill even from where I stood.
The moment the startled man looked up—
Splash!
The water poured down.
“Uwaagh!”
The man screamed at the cold water, but I didn’t care.
When I entered the tent, I had already blocked the sound with magic.
No matter what bizarre screams he let out, no one would know what was happening inside.
I watched the man flailing about drenched in water, then asked again.
“Are you a bit more awake?”
At my words, the man raised his head.
He looked like a drowned rat.
But his mind seemed to have returned.
“Who are you?”
“Someone who came to ask a few questions.”
“From South Korea?”
“Who knows.”
At my answer, the Chairman smirked.
He swept his wet hair back and spoke to me.
“Judging by your appearance, you’re completely clueless. I figured South Korea would send special forces, but I never expected them to get this close to my nose. If I had known, I would have warned those South Korean bastards beforehand.”
He clicked his tongue at me.
“Let me tell you before you do anything stupid. Why do you think those American bastards and Chinese bastards are leaving me and my people alone? It’s because they know my life is tied to the lives of countless others.”
The Chairman lifted his wet outer garment.
As the clothes rose, things tied to his chest became visible.
I thought they were bombs, but they weren’t.
They were electronic devices.
Devices that looked like pacemakers with signal transmitters attached.
He tapped the device on his chest with his hand.
“It’s connected to the nuclear weapons. If I die, the launch sequence initiates immediately. It won’t explode right away, but there’ll be no stopping it.”
A curse burst from me at his words.
“Crazy… What if there’s a malfunction?”
At my words, he grinned.
“Everyone dies. What good is anything if I’m dead?”
This guy was insane, too.
To attach such a device to nuclear weapons that should have multiple layers of safety mechanisms.
I felt like a fool for having tried to check safety procedures or authorization systems.
“Can’t we fool that device with magic?”
[Magic is not omnipotent. It is impossible to deceive an object you do not understand.]
I nodded at Soph’s answer.
It was the expected answer.
But I wasn’t disappointed.
If I was lucky, the current situation might be better than before.
I nodded and approached the Chairman.
“I told you earlier, didn’t I? I have a few questions. I’d appreciate good answers.”
As I approached, he shouted.
“Guards! Is anyone there! An intruder!”
Naturally, there was no response from outside.
He looked at me with startled eyes, and soon a scream echoed inside the tent.
Kuaaaaaack!
It was the Chairman’s scream.
The scream continued for quite some time.
After a while, I stepped back and spoke to him.
“See, lying only made things harder for both of us.”
I spoke with regret, but the Chairman only stared at me with terror-stricken eyes.
No matter how he looked at me, I checked his outward appearance.
Setting aside his terrified eyes, he seemed to have soiled himself along with sweating buckets, but there were no visible wounds.
That was enough.
[To think you could torture him to this extent without even using mental magic… If anyone else saw this scene, they’d all think you were the villain.]
“I don’t care.”
Soph was telling me to become a hero, but I was far from a hero—not even a decent person.
Just a soldier struggling to survive.
I could do anything to get results.
Anyway, thanks to that, I was able to hear what I wanted.
“Fortunately, it’s not the type that activates when a continuous signal stops, but rather one that sends the signal directly.”
If it activated when a continuous signal was interrupted, I would have had to keep the Chairman alive with me.
If necessary, I would have done so, but fortunately that wasn’t needed.
Since that device sent a signal to the nuclear missiles when the Chairman died, things had become much easier.
“They won’t launch if they don’t receive the signal.”
The Chairman replied to my muttering.
“E-even if you destroy the device, it’s useless! I made it so the signal is sent no matter how it’s destroyed!”
Despite being gripped by fear, he didn’t stop talking.
“In the end, the missiles will launch! One to Beijing, another to Seoul, and the last to Hawaii! We all die together!”
He seemed to have given up on living.
Rather, he seemed happy at the thought of everyone dying together.
Unfortunately, his joy ended here.
“I don’t need to destroy the device. There’s a way to block communications without doing that.”
The Chairman’s eyes widened.
There was no need to use separate magic.
I just had to put it in the box.
As long as the box wasn’t opened, signals couldn’t reach inside it.
“Then what remains is replicating the signal?”
[Since it is a radio wave pattern, I can create a lightning magic circle here and store it.]
There was no need to find handlers or passcodes.
When I wanted to detonate the nuclear weapons later, I just had to take them out of the box and send the replicated signal.
“There’s a way to block the signal? Does that mean you can take the nuclear missiles to South Korea?”
As he spoke, the Chairman seemed to be slowly breaking free from his fear.
“But even if you take them, do you think you lot can keep the nukes? Do you think the American bastards would let you?”
He twisted his face, trying to mock me.
It was wrong to say I would use nuclear weapons in Korea, but I agreed that taking the nuclear weapons away like this would cause problems.
American, Russian, and Chinese satellites were likely monitoring this place even now.
If the nuclear missiles suddenly vanished in the midst of all that, everyone would be baffled.
It would be something unexplainable by science, like magic, so someone might suspect me.
So I decided to create an alibi.
“Don’t worry. The nukes will explode.”
With those words, I thrust my spear forward.
Thuk.
The Chairman looked down at his stomach.
The spear was embedded deep in his abdomen.
With the suddenly appeared spear piercing his stomach, the Chairman looked at me with surprised eyes.
“I was careful with the adjustment, so you won’t die immediately. You should have time to be lost in your final thoughts.”
When I pulled out the spear, blood flowed from his stomach.
A wound that had deeply damaged his organs, rendering it impossible to treat.
He would soon stop breathing.
Watching the Chairman lying on the floor bleeding, I moved quickly.
First, I sealed the dying Chairman’s mouth with magic, then drew a magic circle invisibly on the floor.
It was a magic circle to store the signal that would flow out the moment the Chairman died.
I immediately exited the tent and placed the missiles in the box.
The task of putting the missiles in the box and replacing the vanished missiles with illusion magic.
If it were daytime, someone might notice the illusory missiles, but right now no one was looking at the missile area.
Leaving just one, I put the remaining missiles in the box, then returned to the front of the tent.
I woke the sleeping soldiers and pushed them inside the tent.
The soldiers who saw the bleeding Chairman.
“Ugh! What is this!”
The soldiers shouted.
“Emergency! The Supreme Leader Comrade has been wounded!”
Hearing the soldier’s shout, I shot outside the base.
After running like that for a while, I turned around on the hill where I had first descended.
Wheeeee!
Sirens blared from the base, and I could see people running out.
The soldiers who poured out buzzing began running in all directions like locusts.
They had realized the Chairman was dying.
Feeling the Chairman’s life fading away through my senses, I launched my body into the sky.
Rising high, I began flying toward Korea.
I soon passed the port and reached the sea.
How long did I fly like that?
I felt that the signal had been stored in the magic circle.
And.
Flash.
A blinding light burst out from behind me and covered the world.
The nuclear bomb had detonated.
To America (1)