He carried out his missions as a dark mage while hiding his identity as a secret police officer.
If he could have had his way, he would have learned magic formally and worked openly.
But Rud was an ordinary person with no mana.
His parents had also been members of a notorious gang, so even if he applied to the local police, it was obvious he would be rejected from the document screening stage.
In the past, a certain dark mage had once infiltrated the police in an attempt to steal information and had been discovered.
Because of that, identity checks had become even stricter than before, and their technology had improved so that forged documents could be detected immediately.
“Your identification card, please.”
A police officer in a navy-blue uniform held out his hand, a rifle slung over his shoulder.
Rud took his identification card from the inner pocket of the coat hanging over his shoulders and handed it over.
“Here it is.”
The officer who received the card familiarly brought a loupe to his eye.
He was checking whether there were any traces of forgery.
Rud’s identification card had been issued directly by the PMI, the Praid Magic Investigation Agency.
The officer narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at Rud.
The loupe had magic cast on it.
If the identification card had been forged, the letters would glow green, but curiously, Rud’s glowed navy blue.
It was a device that tacitly proved Rud was a member of the police organization.
There was no chance it had been forged.
The magic cast on the identification card and the loupe were connected like magnets, so if either side was wrong, it could be noticed immediately.
“Go on in.”
The officer spoke in a reluctant tone and handed back the identification card.
Rud paid it no mind and was about to pass by him when—
BANG!!
A heavy gunshot rang out from the side entrance.
Startled, Rud looked over and saw a woman in her thirties staggering backward with a small hole in her chest.
“H-how……!!”
Her forgery had been discovered.
The loupe’s algorithm changed every week.
Two police officers aimed their rifles at the woman.
Dark mages were shot without exception. The woman in her thirties coughed blood and quickly looked around.
There were many people.
But there was too little time to steal a lifespan.
Nor was anyone close by. The moment she was exposed as a dark mage, everyone distanced themselves as though they had rehearsed it beforehand.
The bewildered woman’s face slowly withered as if her skin were being stripped away.
The supple skin of the young woman quickly changed into that of an old woman entering her later years.
“Since it has come to this……!”
BANG!!
Another gunshot rang out.
The police had read the old woman’s attempt to use dark magic ahead of time and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The old woman, a tiny hole opened in the center of her forehead, tilted backward and collapsed.
Brain matter flowed across the floor. Seeing it, Rud felt a chill at the thought that he could end up like that too.
‘I need to stay sharp too.’
The two officers cautiously approached the fallen woman.
It was to confirm the kill.
Feeling the danger of this work once more, Rud leisurely left the train station.
Immediately afterward—
BANG!!
A third gunshot rang out behind him, but Rud did not look back until the end.
After entering downtown Galatia, Rud walked around the area as though he were sightseeing.
There were surprisingly many people.
He had honestly let his guard down because it was a small mountain town, but the market had many shops, and exchanges between merchants were lively.
‘Gared said the contact will approach me on their own, so should I eat while I wait?’
Whenever one arrived in a new region, it was only natural to want to try the local specialty.
Rud was about to choose any crowded shop and go inside when he spotted three men entering a deserted alley.
It seemed better to check it out.
The person he had to deal with this time was making drugs with dark magic and selling them.
They might be people connected to the current mission.
Rud nodded and was just about to follow them when, WHOOSH!!, he was suddenly summoned into an unfamiliar house.
“……???”
Rud’s two pupils wandered, as if they had lost their way.
His body had also stiffened and would not move. With a dumbfounded expression, Rud muttered quietly.
“Where in the world is this……?”
“My, a more foolish child than I expected has arrived.”
A cynical woman’s voice came from behind him.
He turned his gaze backward.
A woman who looked as though she had just turned twenty-nine was sitting on a bed with her long legs crossed.
Rud briefly examined her with a face full of wariness.
She had tied her dark hair up in a ponytail, and beneath her navy-blue police uniform, whose buttons were all undone, she wore a white cotton T-shirt.
Her pants were blue jeans, her shoes were dark long boots, and in her mouth was a pipe that seemed more suited to a man in his fifties.
“Auntie, how did you summon me here……?!”
SCHING!!
The woman reacted violently to something, drew her sword, and swung it fiercely.
It was a movement so quick that his eyes could barely follow it.
A clear diagonal line had been carved above the crown of Rud’s head.
The woman held her sword to Rud’s neck.
Her eyes, cold and gleaming, were reflected in the blade.
“Dark mage, you had better watch what you say. I have lived a few years longer than you, and my career in the police is longer as well. So you had better choose how you address me carefully.”
“……!!”
Rud’s heart dropped.
His identity had been exposed at once.
He had no idea how the woman had found out, but Rud struggled to remember the group of men who had entered the alley earlier and shouted loudly.
“Wh-what are you talking about! I do not know whether you are really a police officer or not, but I came here for work. I am not a dark mage!”
“You are not a dark mage?”
The woman continued with a mocking smile.
“Your acting is decent, at least. But this town has magic installed throughout the streets that can detect only dark mages. If you step on it, you are automatically sent to me. How will you explain that?”
“Th-there is something like that……?”
“I specialize in teleportation magic. Creating something like that is child’s play.”
It was no bluff.
At this rate, he might receive an absurd misunderstanding from this woman.
In the worst case, he could end up in prison before he even completed his mission.
He had to think carefully.
Rud steadied his rough breathing and pleaded desperately.
“I, I am not a dark mage. Please believe me!”
If he worked as a police officer while being a dark mage, he would likely face situations like this dozens of times from now on.
He had to hide it until the end.
He could not reveal his identity until the very last moment.
The woman brought the blade even closer. The keen edge touched his skin. Dark-red blood trickled slightly down his collarbone.
“It would be nothing for me to take your head off here. If you deny it to the end, I will have no choice.”
“What exactly did I do wrong for you to do this to me! F-fine. If I really seem like a dark mage, then you can cut me down with that! Go ahead!!”
As Rud held out to the end while repeating Gared’s teachings in his mind, the woman thought for a moment, then withdrew the sword she had held to his neck as though satisfied.
“Heh, it seems Gared trained you well.”
When a familiar name was mentioned, Rud looked at her as if asking what she had just said.
The woman put her sword back into its scabbard, trudged over to the bed, and sat down.
“Good, you pass. I am Mid-Level Investigator Shedia Rain. I specialize in teleportation and magic swordsmanship.”
He had no idea why she was suddenly introducing herself.
Rud merely stood there in a daze with a stunned expression, then hurriedly came to his senses.
“I am…….”
“I know.”
The woman who had introduced herself as Shedia Rain cut Rud off.
“Rud Ren, the only dark mage among the secret police. They say you barely managed to set foot in this world thanks to Mr. Gared’s recommendation, right?”
“You, you know me?”
“The higher-ups said a genius white-haired dark mage who had taught himself dark magic since the age of eight would be coming to support me. Seeing you like this is fascinating.”
His head went blank.
Rud mulled over what he had just heard from Shedia, then shouted.
“What the hell? Then that means you knew everything from the start. Why did you do that?!”
“I was only testing you. If you call yourself a secret police officer, you have to begin with suspicion no matter what situation you face. But you denied it until the end without trusting me. Well done. This is the mistake new recruits make most often.”
Before becoming a secret police officer, Rud had undergone harsh training under Gared.
Because he was beaten without fail if he made even a single mistake, he had no choice but to learn practical skills with his life on the line.
Suppressing the anger rising through his entire body, Rud asked,
“But earlier, you said there was magic that could detect only dark mages. Does something like that actually exist?”
“Why, are you curious?”
“I have never heard anywhere that such magic exists.”
“Of course not. It was a lie.”
Unlike the confidence with which she had spoken, Shedia lightly snapped her fingers, and Rud returned to the street where he had been earlier.
Then, when he blinked again, he was standing in Shedia’s house.
“What is this……?”
“What do you think? Fun, right?”
Shedia enjoyed Rud’s bewildered reaction as she spoke.
“There is no magic that activates only on dark mages, but there is teleportation magic that summons a fellow police officer. With this, I can wait comfortably until a fish catches on the line.”
“How do you know that person is a police officer?”
“You can think of it as working on a principle similar to the magic cast on identification cards.”
Shedia rose from the bed. Rud watched her silently and asked,
“How did you know I would pass through that street and install the magic there?”
“I thought that once you left the train station, you would definitely wander around the downtown area first.”
There was no harm in being cautious.
As Shedia dispelled the magic cast on the wall, she said,
“Now then, shall we get straight to business?”
RATTLE.
When Shedia pushed the wall aside as if opening a sliding door, a hidden space appeared inside.
Rud’s eyes widened. The room was not large, but inside, countless photographs of people’s faces were pasted all over.
Shedia began to explain.
“Everything posted here is the face of a resident living in this town. Fran Rekdorf is a cautious and meticulous bastard, so rather than moving personally, he hires people with money to sell the drugs for him.”
“So he only manufactures the drugs himself.”
“That is why, during my time living here, I gathered all kinds of information and succeeded in narrowing down several people who work under him.”
When Shedia snapped her fingers, some of the photographs hanging on the wall gathered themselves in Rud’s hand.
“There are around twenty people. Of course, that number is not exact yet. There may be more, or there may not be.”
“Have you confirmed all their identities?”
“Except for thirteen ordinary people, they are all thugs who were caught trying to use dark magic in the past. But whether they had no talent for it or not, they have not attempted it since.”
Dark mages did not keep companions at their side.
Even so, the fact that he had built an organization like this meant he had likely chosen only riffraff who could not threaten his position and hired them with money.
Rud carefully examined the faces in the photographs one by one.
He saw a few familiar faces.
There was the woman who had been caught by the police at the train station and killed, as well as the group of men who had entered the alley earlier.
It seemed he had been right not to tail them.
If he had, he might have been discovered immediately and ruined the investigation Shedia had spent so long working on.
‘I should keep this secret for now.’
Just as Rud secretly resolved this in his heart, Shedia looked at him with a serious expression and spoke.
“Rud, I will explain the operation now.”