Soul of the Warrior

Chapter 184: Counter Intelligence

The search for Harriet didn't take too long. Serilla returned with the unconscious woman within an hour. For whatever reason, the girl had been kept alive, though she was in a coma.

"She was left alone in a nearby inn room," Serilla said, gently placing the girl on a table. "It seems there wasn't a person dedicated to keeping tabs on her, or if there was, that person wasn't anywhere to be found. She doesn't appear to be in any danger, though she won't wake up."

"Let's put some men on surveillance to make sure," Reivyn said. "Can anyone here determine the cause of her coma?"

Serilla had come into the conference room while Reivyn had been going over the incident with the imposter as well as the debriefing. He didn't want to alert the enemy that they had discovered one of their moles. Serilla and Refix understood the need for secrecy, so they hadn't sent everyone into a frenzy during the search. They had been broken up into several smaller units to comb the surroundings, trying to act like they were just out to explore and goof off.

In the same vein, Reivyn had still conducted the meeting with his officers as usual. He had simply added information about the intruder.

None of the officers spoke up to answer the question. While Reivyn could peek at the surface of someone's Status with his Sense Threat Skill, it didn't reveal anything other than a comparison based on Levels. He would need an entirely different Skill to be able to determine someone's Status Effects. None of the officers were well versed in the Healing Arts, and all of the mercenaries who had some medical training were restricted to mundane Skills like First Aid.

"We'll need to contact a Healer, then," Reivyn said after a moment of silence. "Jekle, send some of the auxiliaries out to 'secure some supplies' and have them stop by the infirmary. Make sure they know not to run their mouths."

"Yes, sir," Jekle saluted and strode out of the conference room.

"We'll need to contact the general right away," Refix commented. "The girl seems stable for now, so we should focus on the things that we can actually do."

"All right," Reivyn nodded. "I don't want to go trudging down the main road with a corpse slung over my shoulder, so we'll have to think of a way to get her there. I don't have a spatial pouch large enough to fit her in."

"I can teleport to the general's office," Kefira spoke up. "Since I've already been there, I can find it with my Space Affinity. I can jump myself, Serilla, and the corpse over after you get there. I'll just need you to contact me with one of the short-range communication devices when you're ready."

"Sounds like a plan. In the meantime, let's put together some reports to deliver to the general. Serilla, write down everything about the rescue operation. I'll write down what I know about the interaction with the intruder. The rest of you write down your impressions of the patrol mission.

"These aren't strictly necessary, but if I have a stack of papers, it can give me an alibi for visiting the general."

Everyone got busy with their task. Jekle returned shortly, and he got to work with the rest after finding out what they were doing. It didn't take long to compile several pages of reports. None of the pages were extremely long and detailed, but all of them added together created the illusion of a thick stack of paper.

Reivyn nodded to the officers and dismissed all of them except Jekle. It would be a little strange to visit the general on official business without an aide or assistant, so he simply took Jekle with him.

Reivyn and Jekle conversed about the patrol and other topics, appearing like two people simply going for a stroll. Reivyn kept his attention on his Divine Sense as well as other senses with his enhanced Perception to make sure nobody was following them or suspicious of their movements. It was inevitable that the enemy would find out that one of their spies had been caught, but Reivyn wanted to prolong it as long as possible. He could spot the skin-masks with his Divine Sense, but it wouldn't matter if they learned of the danger and aborted their missions.

The walk to the administrative building in the center of the city wasn't long, but because of their heightened awareness of their surroundings, it felt like the journey dragged on and on. Reivyn didn't spot any suspicious behavior, so he was confident they had moved quickly enough to keep ahead of the news. He didn't know how the spies would contact their counterparts, but if it was something that was done infrequently, they might actually have a large window to devise a scheme to find as many infiltrators as possible.

"Captain Reivyn here to see the general on official business," Reivyn announced himself to the guards at the gate. "I don't have an appointment, but I have important reports that need to get in the general's hands right away."

"Yes, sir," one of the guards acknowledged. "I'll just check with the guard captain, and he'll see about getting you in to see the general."

"Thanks."

The guard left his station to enter the guard house nearby. After a couple of minutes of patiently waiting, the guard returned and held his hand out, indicating for Reivyn to follow him.

"The general happens to have an open slot in his schedule right now, so he'll see you right away."

Reivyn nodded. He scanned all of the guards on duty within range of his Divine Sense, but he didn't spot any intruders wearing masks among them. Reivyn kept his focus on scanning everyone he passed by as the guard led him to the familiar office.

"Sir, Captain Reivyn is here to see you," the guard announced outside the door.

He didn't knock. He simply walked up to the door and started speaking. At their Levels, it wasn't necessary to announce their presence with a knock. Prince Allik would be able to hear the guard clearly from the other side of the closed door.

"Send him in," the general said.

Reivyn nodded to the guard and opened the door. He strode up to the desk Prince Allik was sitting behind, Jekle trailing behind him, holding the sheaf of papers.

"Good afternoon, sir. Captain Reivyn reporting as ordered!" Reivyn stood at attention and executed a salute.

Even though he wasn't technically ordered to report to the general, it was the proper etiquette to say such. If one wanted to get into the technical details, it could be argued that the general saying, "send him in," was the order.

Prince Allik set his pen down and leaned back in his chair. He appraised Reivyn for a moment. Reivyn nodded his head toward Jekle, and the other man stepped forward to place the reports on the general's desk. Prince Allik glanced down at the papers.

"You know, you don't have to report to me after each of your missions," he said.

"Yes, sir," Reivyn answered. "That's not what this is about. If you'll flip to the middle page..."

Reivyn raised his eyebrows as he said so. Prince Allik nodded his head as he lifted the top few pages away to reach the report in question. His face turned into a frown as he read the words, getting deeper and deeper the further he read.

"Are you 100% serious about this?" He asked, giving Reivyn a sharp look.

"Absolutely, Sir. If you allow me to contact Princess Kefira, she can bring the package over."

Prince Allik nodded his head. Reivyn fished out his communication device. They weren't nearly as powerful as the ones issued to them in Drallo. They had been given to him by the Wispan Imperial Army, but they had given him a few with the functionality for companies, not battalions.

"Send it," Reivyn said into the device.

They only had to wait for a short moment before Reivyn detected the ambient Mana getting agitated. Prince Allik noticed it too, and he looked over to where three people suddenly appeared out of thin air: two girls standing, one girl lying on the floor.

Prince Allik got up from his seat and walked around the desk to squat next to the dead body. His mouth formed a line as he inspected the brand on her forehead, and he made note of the traces of poison around her mouth.

"This is very serious," he said, standing up. He walked back over and sat down in his seat, dismissing the corpse for the time being. "How did you notice the mask if nobody else could see it? Your Vice Captain is apparently significantly higher Level than you, but he didn't notice anything, either?"

Reivyn made a mental note that the prince had noticed his father being much higher Level, but he didn't say anything about it.

"I have a Skill that lets me see more deeply than others," Reivyn answered. "The skin-mask looked like she was wearing a shirt on her face to my Skill. That's all I can say about it."

"Hmm... Can it be replicated?"

"Unless they find a way to graft the mask onto their face in place of their own skin, I'll be able to notice it within a certain range."

"What's the range?" Prince Allik asked. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers in front of this mouth.

Reivyn glanced at his Skill description quickly before answering. He was slightly surprised as he hadn't checked in a while.

"Forty yards," he replied. "Anyone within forty yards of me, as long as I have line of sight, will be exposed to the Skill."

Reivyn didn't need to see them, obviously, but he wasn't about to reveal everything about one of his most powerful Skills. If Prince Allik learned that he could do the same thing through a wall 39 yards thick, there might be some unintended negative consequences.

"You were at the briefings these past mornings. Is it safe to say that none of my officers have been replaced?" Prince Allik asked.

"None of the officers that attended the meetings had anything suspicious about them," Reivyn replied.

"That's good, at least," Prince Allik relaxed a little at the information. "They're the main core of the command structure. That doesn't rule out all of the officers, though, just the ones in core positions.

"We need to move on this fast. You mentioned that you found the girl that was being impersonated. I can't imagine her disappearance will go unnoticed for too long. I'll summon all of the officers in an all-hands meeting. While I'm setting that up, I think you should go to the admin office and get some of these reports copied. Maybe even get yourself acquainted with the other personnel in the building." Prince Allik gave Reivyn a look.

"Yes, sir," Reivyn replied.

"Good."

Prince Allik lifted an inconspicuous bell off the corner of his table and gave it a ring. Reivyn saw the man in the room next door suddenly get up and make his way to the prince's office. The man in question wasn't an imposter, either, and Reivyn pretended like he couldn't see the man before he entered the office.

The man glanced at the four other people in the room, pausing for a second at the sight of the corpse. He took everything in at a glance and then threw it all to the back of his head as he walked up to the prince's desk.

"What can I do for you, my prince?" The man asked.

The way he addressed Prince Allik led Reivyn to believe the man was a personal retainer of some sort. He wasn't simply some cog in the machine of the army. Prince Allik plucked the pages that mentioned the spy out of the stack of papers and slid the rest back to the edge. Jekle stepped forward and picked them up.

"Captain Reivyn needs to make a quick stop at the scribe's office to make some copies," Prince Allik said to his retainer. "After that, you will escort him around the building and introduce him to all of the personnel."

"Yes, my prince," the man said with a bow.

The retainer didn't ask any questions. He followed the orders without hesitation. Reivyn nodded to the man and then led his companions out of the office.

He hadn't particularly paid attention to the scribes that were further away the last time he had been here, but he did so now as he entered to get some copies made. There were no scribes behind walls, so he didn't have to reveal his ability to see through them, but it didn't matter anyway. There were no imposters among the scribes.

After the quick stop with the scribes, the retainer led Reivyn from room to room in the admin building, starting on the first floor. There weren't too many offices he needed to inspect. There were the general administrative soldiers who took up the majority of the personnel in the building, and there was the quartermaster.

The retainer led Reivyn into the offices and simply introduced him to the officers in charge. The rest of the staff gave him curious looks, but nobody said anything. There wasn't enough time to have any kind of real conversation, so the introductions were brief, and they left the officers scratching their heads in confusion as to why the mercenary captain had been introduced to them by the prince's retainer. No answers were given, though, and they simply shrugged their shoulders over the oddity.

None of the military personnel on the first floor were imposters. There wasn't just the military personnel, though, and Reivyn made sure to inspect the civilians they passed as well. His Divine Sense was enough that he could check over most of the building, first and second floor, from just standing in the center foyer, but he had to put up appearances. There were enough people in the building that it took him as long to scan their faces diligently as it did to traverse the floors, anyway.

The second floor was the home of more senior officers. There were officers for several different specialized tasks: Personnel, intelligence, operations, logistics, plans, and communications. Reivyn was led to each office, and the same introductions were done over and over. None of the staff members in each of these offices was a spy, either.

The retainer led the group back to the prince's office, and Reivyn suddenly stopped and stepped in front of a young teenager dressed as a manservant. He appeared to be even younger than Reivyn, and if he had to make a guess, he would say he was barely old enough to have advanced to his Tier 2 Class.

"Excuse me, young man," Reivyn addressed the boy. The boy stopped and looked up at Reivyn in surprise. "The prince instructed me to bring some help along when I returned to his office. I'll need you to accompany me for now. It'll be really quick."

The retainer watched the interaction without saying anything. The young manservant was about to open his mouth to say something, but Reivyn didn't give him an opportunity. He grabbed the young man by the arm and started to lead him down the hall to the prince's office. He was somewhat lucky that he had run into the boy so close to the office, but upon thinking about it, it made some sense to him.

Before the boy even had a chance to protest, they were already entering the office of the prince. Reivyn felt the man's body stiffen when they walked in, and he saw the corpse still lying on the floor. The blade of a sword immediately appeared on the neck of the manservant as Jekle understood Reivyn's intentions.

"Kefira!" Reivyn gave a low shout.

Mana flared, and the boy's body locked up, unable to move a single inch. Reivyn turned and stuck his fingers into the man's open mouth and forcefully yanked one of the teeth free. He put the tooth in his pocket and drew his own sword with one hand, and he dug the fingers of his other hand into the boy's face. Kefira didn't let up on her Space Mana that she was using to lock the imposter in place.

Reivyn yanked with his free hand, pulling the skin-mask off the manservant's face. Suddenly, a middle-aged man was standing where a young boy had once been.

"This is the only one I saw," Reivyn said, addressing the still-seated prince. "None of the military personnel were imposters."

The retainer had strategically positioned himself right next to the prince as soon as Jekle had drawn his sword, a hand to his breast pocket. He had a concerned look on his face, though he didn't appear to be nervous or scared. Reivyn mentally nodded at the man's composure.

"Good work," Prince Allik said. He stood up and walked around his desk once more to get right in the spy's face. "Don't worry, we'll make sure to take good care of you," he smirked. "Bind him and take him to the underground dungeon."

The retainer let go of the dagger he was clasping in his breast pocket and immediately stepped forward. He came up with some binding ropes from somewhere, and he expertly tied the imposter up, placing a gag in his still-open mouth. Kefira had still held him completely still, and he had been unable to close his jaw. Blood and spittle trickled out of his mouth from where his false tooth had been unceremoniously yanked out of his head.

Once he was securely fastened by the retainer, Kefira finally let up on her Spell. Her shoulders slumped in relief. To those that were able to perceive the Mana fluctuations, they would have seen a fierce contest of wills taking place between the two until the binding ropes were fastened around the man. It hadn't taken everything out of Kefira, but it wasn't a walk in the park, either. The imposter had a "3" branded on his head like the other spy, but he had been quite a few Levels higher than the fake maid.

The retainer dragged the man away, and the prince once more resumed his seat. He looked up at Reivyn and nodded his head in appreciation.

"There are only two examples so far, but I think we should pay more special attention to the servants and civilians," Prince Allik said. "That's not to say we're not going to inspect all of the officers and as many of the other military personnel as we can, but maids and manservants are invisible to a lot of people most of the time. It makes sense that they would choose that as an inflection point.

"The other officers have been summoned to the conference room downstairs. It'll take some time for everyone to get here, but you can go ahead and head there now. I'll be down shortly."

"Yes, sir," Reivyn once more gave a salute.

The group of four made their way back down to the first floor and entered one of the larger offices they hadn't had a chance to step into before. They each found a chair and took a seat.

"So, how strong was that guy?" Reivyn asked Kefira. "You didn't break out into a sweat or anything, but you seemed awfully relieved when it was over."

"It wasn't that he was necessarily strong," Kefira said with a shrug. "He was just slippery. His willpower and Mana Skills weren't anything amazing, but he seemed to have a unique perspective on how to use them. He could worm his Mana in between the weaves of my Mana, and I suspect he might have been able to unravel some of the knots if I wasn't paying attention and spotted what he was trying to do."

"Hmm... Considering his job as an infiltrator, he probably had some special training in escape methods. Maybe if he was captured by someone not as strong as you, he might have been able to get out of the magical restraints. The fact that you had Space Mana to enforce your lock on him also played a factor. If nothing else, maybe we can pry some of their training methods out of him."

"Hah," Kefira chuckled. "Leave it to you to immediately think about the training implications."

"Hey! This could be super useful information for you and me, both."

Kefira rolled her eyes.

"Don't think that I don't see the gleam in your eye," she said. "You can't wait to figure out a new method to train. If you weren't needed to identify the infiltrators, I imagine you would immediately chase after that retainer to participate in the interrogation."

"Hmm..." Reivyn stroked his chin as he looked off in thought. "I bet Interrogation would be a Skill I could get."

Kefira smacked him on the shoulder with the back of her hand.

"Be serious!" She shook her head. "Besides, you don't need that Skill. That's what subordinates are for. You don't have to try and get every Skill in existence, you know."

Reivyn laughed and gave Kefira a one-armed hug.

"I know, I know. You know I was just joking."

The four relaxed in the conference room by themselves, but it wasn't long before others began to arrive. The first several officers to enter the conference room were on the younger side, and several of them were panting and sweating upon their arrival.

Looks like the young lieutenants aren't willing to make the higher ranking officers wait for them, Reivyn chuckled.

Reivyn and the others nodded to each new person to arrive, and Reivyn made sure to scan their faces with his Divine Sense. None of them were problematic.

The order of arrival was expected, but it was still amusing. Even the lowest-ranked officers from the furthest away locations in the city arrived before their superiors. All of the lieutenants arrived first, followed by the captains and then the majors. Reivyn didn't know how many officers there were for the army in Piori, but he started to wonder if the conference room they were meeting in would be large enough to hold everyone.

He didn't have to worry, though, as the new arrivals trickled off and the higher-ranked officers with offices on the second floor finally made their appearance. That was the signal to everyone present that all of the officers in the city that were going to be in attendance at the meeting were present. Shortly after they strode in and took seats at the front of the conference room, the prince arrived with his retainer in tow.

Prince Allik scanned the room as everyone stood up and assumed the position of attention. He waved his hands to indicate for everyone to relax, and then he locked eyes with Reivyn. Reivyn shook his head, and Prince Allik gave a slight nod before he motioned to Kefira, waving her to the front of the conference room. She shared a look with Reivyn, and he simply nodded to her. Kefira got up and walked up to the prince.

"Everyone, this is Princess Kefira of Wispan," Prince Allik said. "I know it's short notice, and I apologize for that, but I have my reasons. All of you are going to return to your barracks and muster your troops. Princess Kefira is here with her mercenary company and has indicated an interest in learning about how our imperial army operates.

"We're going to give her a tour."