“So what do you have for us?” asked Delphi as the quartet sat around the desk in her office. “You did put together a report, right?”
Several hours had passed since the operation. Long enough for everyone to get back to base and requisition a new set of binoculars for the ones the party goers had accidentally damaged in their antics. The team, for all the influence and chutzpah they could muster, was only granted a single replacement. And a used one at that.
“Of course I have one!” exclaimed Chudsworth while placing a manilla folder on the desk. “Writing a proper report was one of the first things I learned when I was recruited.”
“‘Recruited’,” said Nash in a whisper only Delphi could hear.
Delphi rolled her eyes at the quip and picked up the file while opening it up. She scanned the several pages of neatly written notes, most of it recapping the instructions she had given Chudsworth earlier, before finally getting to the content she was looking for.
She felt a wave of relief wash over her as she saw both the script and the hero’s responses to each prompt written out. Everything they’d missed out on from the rooftop was thankfully here, and she didn’t have to worry about having any more gaps.
But as she flipped the page once more, she could feel a chill run down her spine, as if it were a premonition. And as her eyes followed the words before her, she knew her instincts were correct.
“What the hell is this?” she asked, throwing the folder back onto the desk.
“My… report,” said Chudsworth, puffing his chest out with a frown.
“I mean this page here, the one with your emotional reads on the new companion.”
“They are exactly as you described; the cause of each emotion I deduced.”
The other two teammates leaned over the paper to get a look for themselves, and Nash’s eyes widened.
“It says the spy ‘Hates seafood’?” said the blonde haired woman with a look of incredulity.
“That was the conclusion I obtained from reading him!” Chudsworth exclaimed. “And what did you mean by ‘spy’?”
“It’s quite a mystery how you could have come to that conclusion by reading off the script,” said Ted. “You did read the script, right?”
“Yes I did, I even wrote exactly what I said on the previous page! And you haven’t answered my question. What spy?”
Nash flipped the page back and read through the start of the dialog. “And what part of this script matches with your oh-so-elucidating observation?”
“Here!” said Chudsworth, placing a finger on the line where he suggested the hero’s possible demise at the hands of a local monster. “I used the Giant Stone Lobster as an example, they’re known to be dangerous and mostly inedible, but the little meat they do have is considered an exquisite delicacy! My father has had it served at many galas.”
Nash let out a sigh and leaned back into her seat. “I don’t know why I somehow expected much more out of you, Nepo. This is just disappointing.”
“I don’t see what’s so strange about my observation, but you ought not to base your opinion on me on a single perceived flaw,” said Chudsworth, leaning forward in his seat and pressing his index finger onto the table.
“Your next observation is similarly hard to understand,” said Ted. “How does your discussion about our allies lead you to observing the spy’s apparent liking of velum nightwear over silk?”
“The allies you asked for me to mention included those who own a large number of cattle ranches and silkworm forests. Velum and silk are thus some of their major exports, and the hero let out a yawn when I was talking about them, so of course he was thinking about nightwear! Their latest companion felt happier about Lord Brindal than Count Montesquire, and thus his preference of nightwear material must be velum!”
“I knew Pancer was a jerk for putting an idiot on our team, but I didn’t know he hated us this much!” exclaimed Nash.
“I’m an A-ranked empath, my emotional observations are perfectly sound, the Magical University itself attests to my abilities!” shouted Chudsworth. “This information is vital to determining the compatibility of the hero and his latest party member! How dare you question me when you won’t even answer my one single question: who is this spy?”
Before Nash could continue her tirade, Delphi held up a hand and got both of their attentions. She looked at Chudsworth, not quite able to meet his eyes, and slowly spoke.
“The new party member, he’s the spy.”
Chudsworth stared at Delphi for a long, drawn out moment. Even with how he had puffed out his chest and put on a bulldog-sized frown, the black haired woman felt his true emotions underneath the posturing pierce her.
“And why was I not informed?” he asked with a strangled bark.
“Because he’s an Asura-ranked threat, and if you knew, he’d probably figure out his cover was blown just by talking to you.”
“I-I’ve never even heard of that rank before, you’re making it up. I know you are, I know when people make things up for me-”
“It’s because you’re not authorized to know about that rank. We’re not authorized to know about it!” Delphi said, pointing at the other two. She felt her throat begin to tighten, but let out a single cough and forced the words to keep coming. “We were stuck between a rock and a hard place, and you were apparently the highly specialized agent assigned to us who would be our saving grace. But I knew Pancer was lying, yet I still believed him.”
“Hey, you didn’t have a choice,” began Nash in a soft, caressing voice.
The black haired woman simply shook her head and held out a hand, taking a moment before continuing. “Your readings are essentially useless, but that’s not your fault. It’s ours. I’m sorry to have put my burden on your shoulders while lying to you like that, and somehow expecting everything to turn out alright. I wouldn’t blame you if you asked your father to get put on another team, but when you talk to him, know that we did what we had to. For us, and for the hero.”
The room remained silent for what felt like minutes. Delphi, her heart now laid bare, was able to look Chudsworth in the eye. The latest team member’s own eyes looked between the other three’s, while Nash stared down at the table. Ted’s eyes were still locked on the report, his face schooled into a neutral expression.
“And for your country.”
Everyone looked at Chudsworth as he’d spoken the words.
“Is that not the purpose of the HIA, to protect our country?” he asked, looking at the others with a melancholic smile. “I was happy I could actually be of some use for once, but even if that was all another lie, I think I’m even happier now to meet someone who is being honest with me.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The others stared at him for several seconds longer.
“That’s… not what I was expecting you to say, Nepo,” said Nash, the first one to collect herself. “I thought you’d double down on being a spoiled brat.”
The other two quickly turned their heads to look at her; Delphi with a face filled with shock and Ted with a cool, inquisitive look.
“That’s what my father would expect me to do, so as to not appear as an even bigger embarrassment, but what good living that lie has gotten me,” said Chudsworth. “My entire life is a lie! From my social standing, to my abilities, all of it! From the moment he realized I wouldn’t measure up to my siblings, my father has pushed me a long and fabricated all of my qualifications. He used his influence to get my ranking at the Magical University on a technicality that would have otherwise gone overlooked, and he had me hired by the HIA and assigned to such an important team! And somehow he still expects me to live the lie he’s woven for me all my life?”
Everyone remained quiet again, but each of their eyes flashed with some level of understanding. Delphi for why Chudsworth was placed on this team, and Nash…
“Hold on, what technicality did you get through with? Are you telling me you’re not even a real empath?”
“I might be useless, but that part of my qualifications is at least true,” he said with a sniffle. “The test is only supposed to check if I can read the raw emotions themselves, not match them to a specific reason. I’m… I’m not capable of reading social situations. It was never something I could do, even as a child, and it makes me useless as an empath.”
“Shut your stupid mouth,” said Nash. Chudsworth and Delphi stared at her shocked, and flinched when they saw her hardened eyes and clenched and shaking fist. “You are not useless for something like that.”
“I-I’m not?” asked Chudsworth.
The other two’s eyes flashed in understanding and they gave the pair some space.
“No, you’re not,” said Nash. “So what if you can’t read a social situation to save your life? That doesn’t make you any less useful. You just need to find where your skills make the most difference, then outshine all of the losers who think they’re better than you!”
Chudsworth’s eyes began to mist over once more, but this time with a smile. However, his lips stopped halfway up his face and he spoke up. “But how am I supposed to do that with what I can and can’t do? I’m useless!”
The fire in Nash’s eyes began to fade momentarily as she looked down to the ground. She wracked her brain for several seconds, but eventually let out a grumble. “We-we’ll need to figure that out, but I’m sure you have a place!”
“He does,” said Delphi, interjecting. “You can read raw emotions, right? Can you tell us what specific emotion you felt from the others at each part of the dialogue?”
“Um… yeah, I don’t forget anyone’s feelings so soon.”
“Then what was the new party member, the spy, feeling when you suggested the hero might get killed by a Giant Stone Lobster?”
“He felt fear as I said the hero might die, and then disgust when I mentioned the monster’s name.”
“It appears he does not wish for the hero to die,” said Ted. “All the better for my continued position here.”
The other senior agents nodded.
“And how about when you mentioned Lord Brindal and Count Montesquire?” asked Delphi. “What did he feel then?”
“A kind of sleepy contentedness with Lord Brindal,” replied Chudsworth. “As for the Count, it was a sort of an itchy frustration, as if he was feeling suddenly twitchy.”
“You know, I can’t really blame him for thinking those feelings were about nightwear with descriptions like those,” said Nash. “But it looks like Count Montesquire has the spy feeling on edge.”
“Right,” said Delphi with a nod. “So the question is, where did you send the hero’s party on their next quest?”
“Count Montesquire’s domain of course, bad sleep brings out the worst in people.”
Nash bobbed her head several times in quick succession. “But his lands are pretty big, what part did you send them to?”
“To Web Forest Village,” replied Chudsworth. “I had the displeasure of being brought there alongside my father when we visited his lands when I was a child. The place is utterly barren, with the only locations of note being a tavern and forest. And of course, I wasn’t allowed to partake in alcohol or wander the woods as a young boy, so it made for a terrible time!”
“Yup, truly a horror,” said Delphi in a monotone voice. She quickly dropped the affect and gave the other man a wry smile. “But on the bright side, this is one thing you did perfectly.”
“I did?” asked Chudsworth?
“He did?” asked the other two.
Delphi nodded. “Being in the middle of nowhere and also in the center of the country, this place is guaranteed to be as far away from the Dark Lord’s influence than anywhere else in the kingdom. Less influence means less resources for the spy to call on while he’s there, which means better opportunities to send him running for the hills or straight to hell. On top of that, I heard there was an HIA outpost near there too, so that gives us the home field advantage.”
“O-oh,” said Chudsworth. “That’s wonderful, I’ve been truly useful! And to think all I had to do was subject another man to my own childhood miseries.”
“Well get ready to live those miseries again, because Web Forest Village is where we’re also going.”
Chudsworth’s face immediately fell, and so did Nash’s when she also realized where they were going.
“Well come on then, pack your bags, we need to keep a close eye on this spy and it’s already been a day!”
Everyone got up to scramble out the room, with Nash at the front and Chudsworth at the back. But as the last man was about to leave, he stopped and turned around.
“Oh yeah Delphi, I almost forgot. I got this letter from the hero’s party,” said the man as he dropped it on her desk and turned around once more to leave. “I’ll be back after I pack my bags.”
The door gently closed and the sound of footsteps echoed from the hallway, growing softer until they were no longer audible.
Delphi let out a sigh and picked up the plain white envelope. She began to untie the string holding the flap down while thinking to herself. It wasn’t like the Hero to go about writing letters, he was more of the kind of guy to shout something at you or tell someone else to send the message instead. Besides, he’d never addressed her before, he didn’t even know she existed!
The black haired woman froze.
“I really need to catch up on my sleep if I’m going to do something as stupid as this.”
She looked back at the unmarked envelope and the now-open flap.
“If this was filled with some kind of magical poison or plague, I’d already be a goner. But if it’s something cooked up by the spy, then so is the whole building.” She paused for another moment. “Eh, if everyone’s already dead, then it’s not my problem anymore.”
Delphi reached into the envelope and pulled out two pieces of paper. The first one was written in neat, blocky handwriting and was directly addressed to the HIA.
“To the Hero Intelligence Agency,” Delphi read aloud. “Interfere with my plans and I shall retaliate two-fold. Do not try to kill me, as I have set up a dead-man’s switch that will expose your agency and their deeds to both the kingdom as a whole and the hero himself. To be dragged into the light is a fate worse than death.”
Delphi carefully reread the paper several more times before finally letting out a long, drawn out sigh. “Well shit.”
Before she could get up and deliver the note to her boss, she separated out the second sheet and read it.
Unlike the other letter, this one only had two words on it, and it made the black haired woman’s heart stop.
“Find Me,” it read, in a much larger and rougher font. Underneath the words however was a rough drawing. One that would have looked like a random doodle to most, but blazed in Delphi’s vision.
She quickly reached into her pocket and let her fingers move over the metal object there. Rather than stay there though, she pulled it out and looked at it.
The small, metal crest, the last remnant of her family and unknown legacy, was held there in all its faded bronze glory.
And on the second letter was a doodle that matched up for it perfectly.
Delphi looked between the two for a full minute before her nervous system forced her to breathe.
“Now? And with this guy?” she whispered to herself.
Delphi looked back at the first letter, and the threat it contained.
She continued to look between the three objects, and wracked her brain.
Finally, she winced. The hand holding the crest went to the second letter and shoved both of them into her pocket. Delphi then grabbed the first letter, put it inside the original envelope, and carried it out the room. She’d have to visit her boss with some bad news before heading out with everyone. And while it was definitely bad news for Pancer and the higher ups, maybe it would catch her and her team a break?