Tauga, who had been gnawing on the arm of the Ogre King, glared at the wizard and said.
"Eating the flesh of the defeated is an important ritual of battle. Interfering with a warriorʼs ritual means death."
Despite Taugaʼs threat, the wizard continued without flinching.
"The Mountain Lord has revived."
At the wizardʼs words, Tauga dropped the arm he had been eating and stood up.
"The Mountain Lord, huh. An old bear like that is good for the body if stewed well. Iʼll go fetch its head."
The wizard shook his head.
"The Mountain Lord is a divine beast that has held this mountain range for thousands of years. We weakened it by severing the mountainʼs veins and planned to wipe it out along with the druids... but a few days ago, a golden energy swept through the entire range, and thatʼs when the Mountain Lordʼs power returned to its original state." Tauga yawned and ground his teeth as the wizardʼs explanation dragged on.
"Humans always talk too much. Get out of the way. Anyway, Iʼll just go and take that old bearʼs head."
The wizard frowned at Taugaʼs words.
"No, itʼs not something you can just say youʼll do easily..."
It was then.
Suddenly, the orks in the village grew noisy.
Tauga shouted toward the orks.
"Whatʼs all this commotion about!"
At his shout, an ork in iron armor came running toward Tauga.
"Captain! Intruders have come!"
At the mention of intruders, Tauga grinned. "Intruders, eh. Is it that Mountain Lord fellow?" The wizard shook his head at those words.
"No, it canʼt be the Mountain Lord. Tauga, wait first. Letʼs figure out who the enemies are..."
Tauga didnʼt listen to the wizard and shouted to his subordinates.
"Bring my armor! Iʼll catch whoever dared to invade our fortress myself and uncover their identity."
The wizard sighed as he watched Tauga move on his own whim.
"Damn ork bastards."
He lamented his situation, having been assigned to handle these hot-tempered orks and stuck in the Ogre Mountains, enduring all sorts of hardships.
"First, I need to report this situation to the superiors."
The wizard shook his head at the orks charging forward with war cries and weapons in hand, then headed to the situation room.
The ogre village was structured by carving sturdy stone walls and creating caves inside for family units to live in. The ogres enslaved by the orks were kept in cages, and the wizard had set up camp in one of the caves the ogres had used, using it as the situation room.
Entering the tent set up as the situation room, the wizard pulled out a crystal orb from a chest.
As he infused mana into the crystal orb to contact the superiors, only static noise came from it, and the connection wouldnʼt stabilize.
"Why isnʼt this working? Ha, seriously, they need to supply proper equipment. Those budget department bastards."
As the wizard raised his hand to tap the crystal orb, a sharp sensation at his neck made him freeze.
"Wh-when did..."
Caught from behind without any sign, the wizard nearly fainted.
Zeke, holding Anexiʼs Dagger and grabbing the wizard from behind, said.
"I wondered where you lot came from, but it turns out youʼre from the Empire. Room 13 of the Imperial Intelligence Agency, right?"
Room 13 of the Imperial Intelligence Agency was the place Boris had once belonged to.
It was a department within the agency that handled only the most classified secrets that couldnʼt be revealed externally.
A wizard from Room 13 had been occupying the ogre village here with the orks.
After binding the wizard with chains, Zeke brought a chair and sat facing him.
Looking at the wizard, Zeke said.
"I wonʼt beat around the bush. Tell me everything you know. Then Iʼll let you go without pain."
Since Room 13 dealt with the highest secrets, its members had something special about them.
Crude persuasion wouldnʼt work.
"P-Please, Iʼll tell you everything, so s-spare me!"
"...!"
Zeke was instead surprised by the wizardʼs reaction, which differed from his expectations.
"What? Heʼs not from Room 13?"
The feeling was completely different from Borisʼs time.
Zeke looked at the wizard and asked.
"Alright, letʼs start by confirming if youʼre really from Room 13." The wizard nodded vigorously.
"Y-Yes. Room 13."
"..."
For the Empireʼs top-secret department, the wizard seemed too lax, and Zeke pondered for a moment.
"Is it an act to undermine trust in the information?"
He considered various angles but couldnʼt find a reason for the Imperial Intelligence Agency to do such a thing.
The wizard, seeing Zeke pondering while looking at him, muttered tearfully to himself.
"Damn... I knew it from the moment I was assigned here. Itʼs all over..." At the wizardʼs resigned muttering, Zeke asked. "You werenʼt assigned to Room 13 for long, were you?"
The wizard nodded.
"Y-Yes. Actually, I was originally a communications wizard in the Imperial Magic Corps, but I was suddenly drafted and assigned here."
Intelligence agents were typically scouted for talent from the start and trained rigorously in isolation.
Moreover, Room 13 required even harsher training than regular agents to be assigned.
It was too strange to place a wizard without basic espionage training in a department that handled only classified missions.
Zeke thought of one possibility.
"There might be issues within the Imperial Intelligence Agency."
From his experience, maintaining an espionage department required substantial capital and a patient director.
If either was lacking, the department would waver.
The Empireʼs Imperial Intelligence Agency operated on a massive scale, requiring unimaginable funds.
Given the nature of espionage, it was intertwined with various power institutions, so complex internal affairs were bound to exist.
There was plenty of room for problems to arise.
Zeke looked at the wizard and said.
"Tell me what your mission here was."
The wizard spoke in a trembling voice.
"The reason I came here is..." Pssh!
Suddenly, a poison needle flew from somewhere.
Zeke extended his hand and blocked the poison needle heading for the wizard with his palm.
It was coated with a lethal toxin that could kill within seconds of a mere graze.
Zeke immediately swung his sword toward where the poison needle had come from.
Shwaaak!
The sword strike tore through one side of the tent.
The man in black, hit by Zekeʼs sword strike, clutched his wound and tried to flee deeper into the cave.
But the ghost troopers Zeke had already summoned blocked the man in black.
Whoosh!
The revealed ghost trooper sliced through the man in blackʼs thigh as it passed, causing him to collapse without moving his leg.
True to his role as an Imperial Intelligence Agency agent, he tried to bite his tongue and commit suicide.
But Zekeʼs movements were faster.
"Recovery."
Zeke, holding Roland, healed the man in black who had ingested the poison and restored his wounds with healing.
Despite having clearly taken the poison, the man in black regained consciousness and looked at Zeke in a panic.
Zeke bound the man in black with chains and dragged him to the wizardʼs side.
He tied them side by side to chairs, removed the man in blackʼs mask, and asked the wizard.
"Do you know this face?"
The wizard looked at the man in blackʼs face and nodded in surprise.
"Y-Yes. Heʼs the agent who usually delivers messages from superiors or brings supplies."
Zeke grabbed the man in blackʼs chin and said.
"Youʼre from Room 13, I see. Unlike that guy, youʼre a properly trained agent." At those words, the man in black glared at Zeke.
He tried to bite his tongue again to die, but Zeke healed him once more, rendering it useless.
Zeke asked the man in black.
"What happened in Room 13 that theyʼre assigning external personnel?" The man in black clamped his mouth shut.
As a Room 13 agent, it was unlikely he would give proper answers even under torture.
Zeke opened his Blood Eye toward the man in black.
"Look at this."
The Room 13 agent trembled under the Blood Eye.
But perhaps due to a mental block against brainwashing, he foamed at the mouth and collapsed.
Zeke shook his head at the Room 13 agent, whose eyes had rolled back to show only the whites.
"Damn Empire bastards. What the hell did they do to their heads?"
Zeke used Shadow Domination to read the remaining information from the collapsed Room 13 agentʼs shadow.
Linked with Dragonʼs Senses, he could extract clearer information than before.
"The director of Room 13 changed? Why suddenly change the command. Wait... the
Emperor. Something changed around the Emperor?"
Zeke delved deeper into the Room 13 agentʼs memories but couldnʼt get details.
What he learned was that something had changed around the Emperor, leading to major personnel shifts within the Imperial Intelligence Agency. The new Room 13 director had drafted external personnel, creating chaos in the internal atmosphere.
"This guy has a lot of resentment toward the new director. Well, dragging in external personnel to secretive Room 13 would make existing agents feel threatened in their safety."
Moreover, the existing agents had to monitor the external personnel as well, leading to excessive workloads and significant fatigue.
From the information gained from the Room 13 agent, Zeke realized vulnerabilities were emerging in the Imperial Intelligence Agency.
"Haste makes waste, after all. I should tell Boris to probe this and find out whatʼs happening in the Empire."
After melting the now-dead agent with Decay, Zeke turned to the wizard.
The wizardʼs face was pale white at the sight of the agent completely melted by Zekeʼs power.
"P-Please spare me! I-Iʼll do anything you want."
"Finish what you were saying earlier. Tell me what you were doing here."
"I was ordered to take these orks and occupy the ogre village!"
"I already figured that out from the situation. Tell me how you brought the orks and what you planned to do after occupying the ogres."
At Zekeʼs words, the wizard trembled and opened his mouth.
"I-I donʼt know exactly, but..."
"Hmm?"
As Zeke glared, the wizard shook his head, nearly wetting himself.
"N-No! I donʼt know where these filthy orks came from, but they said theyʼd tame the ogres with drugs and deploy them to the battlefield!"
"Tame the ogres?"
"Yes! They said theyʼd brainwash them with drugs while the orks hold them and send them to the battlefield."
Hearing the wizard, Zeke realized something.
"The awakening drug the Empire was experimenting with. Theyʼre planning to apply it to ogres."
The mercenaries Boris had tested on had gone berserk like madmen after receiving the awakening drug.
If ogres received it, they would undoubtedly become far more dangerous bioweapons than mercenaries.
Zeke could guess where the Empire planned to use the brainwashed ogres.
"Zoin Tribe Ghetto. Theyʼll release the ogres there to collapse the Zoin positions, then use the peacekeeping forces as an excuse to brazenly take over the ghetto."
Catching monsters provided ample justification to station troops, allowing the Empire to eliminate the Zoin without dirtying their hands while gaining a pretext to enter their territory.
Having grasped the Empireʼs scheme to some extent, Zeke looked at the wizard and said.
"Whatʼs the total size of the ork units in the Ogre Mountains?"
"This unit Iʼm with is all of them. A total of 144 unit members."
The ork unitʼs scale was larger than expected.
Even intelligent ogres forming villages couldnʼt withstand trained ork warriors.
Zeke nodded at the wizardʼs answer.
"Good, you answered very well."
At his words, the wizard smiled and said.
"Th-Then, as promised, youʼll spare me?"
"Iʼll keep my promise."
"Thank you..."
Before he could finish, Zekeʼs dagger sliced the wizardʼs throat.
True to Zekeʼs promise, the wizard died without pain as his head fell.
Zeke disposed of the wizardʼs body with Decay as well, then gathered all the documents left in the camp.
He had stumbled upon the Empireʼs tail by chance.
"I need to release the ogres to make things even more chaotic."
As Zeke, having gathered everything, slipped out of the cave in stealth, arrows like spear shafts flew toward him.
Zeke deflected the arrows with his sword and looked around, astonished to see ork warriors surrounding the cave entrance.