Chapter 281 — The 25th Squad in Action

And in the course of it he could not merely ask questions, for the people around him might at any moment be drawn by the topic into asking questions of their own. But as an excellent spy, Hall well understood the art of improvising; in the shortest time he could always fabricate smooth answers out of the intelligence he had observed and his own guesses and inferences, so that no one would suspect that he was in fact an outsider who knew nothing and was fishing everywhere for information.

After chatting a little while, Hall would sensibly steer the conversation elsewhere so as not to rouse suspicion, and then he would find a way to slip naturally out of the others' sight and seize a chance to be alone.

The dormitory was a relatively safe place, but it was not suitable at this hour, since several of his dormmates had likely already gone back. So he turned a corner and made for the latrine in the dormitory building.

There were plenty of latrines here, and they even had "stalls." To be honest, Hall had not understood it at all at first: this territory actually forbade people from relieving themselves wherever they pleased, and the lord had spent great effort building so many latrines and sewers, as though he had some sort of cleanliness fixation. But by now Hall had grown used to the strange rules here, and he reckoned that those odd regulations laid down by that ancient duke had in fact brought him great convenience.

Entering the latrine, Hall saw a row of stalls with their doors shut. He knocked on the first few, and to his surprise they were all occupied; at last, however, he found an empty one and slipped swiftly inside.

He did not forget to turn and shut the door properly, and to drop the latch from within.

Then he took out the charcoal pencil and slip of paper he carried hidden on his person, and once he had made sure it was safe, began to write a secret letter:

To my master:

I am settled and have become a construction worker. This place develops extremely fast; the population has already reached over ten thousand. Today there was a monster attack, and it is said that...

He described what he had seen in the most precise words he could manage, but it was not easy—after all, he had seen far too many things here beyond imagination, and even as an excellent spy he felt the poverty of his vocabulary in describing them. Still, he finished the secret letter and hid it carefully on his person.

In the near future, merchants from the Carroll domain would be passing through, some of them bearing secret marks; he would wait for his contact to come by and then send the letter out.

After confirming that all was in order, Hall stood up, deliberately made a little rustling with his clothes, and pushed the door open to leave the stall.

Someone emerged from the neighboring stall as well—an ordinary construction worker.

Hall nodded and greeted him, and the man nodded back, showing not the slightest sign of suspicion...

And so the members of the 25th Squad moved about the residential district, chatting, keeping up appearances, gathering intelligence from those around them while constantly giving off intelligence of their own. Apart from a handful of Military Intelligence agents planted among them, not one of them was a seasoned resident who truly understood the situation in Cecil—and yet, wonderfully, countless pieces of intelligence about the Cecil territory fermented among them and were passed on outward.

Some of it was what they had seen with their own eyes, but more of it... heaven only knew who had first imagined it up and then spread it through the whole squad.

As for the soldier who had chaired the meeting, after leaving the 25th Squad he made his way to the military district and walked into the quarters of the Military Security and Intelligence Bureau.

In the office, two people in winter work clothes were reporting intelligence to Amber; they were Military Intelligence agents planted in the 25th Squad.

The contents of their report left Amber blinking in astonishment.

Things like: the Cecil territory was built on the ruins of a Gondorian city; the monsters had been summoned by mad ancient mages from the Dark Mountains; the weapons used against the monsters had been smuggled in secretly by the Silver Empire...

In the strange process of the 25th Squad cultivating its own poison, it had actually relied on internal imagination, fermentation, and the spread of rumor to conjure up a wholly fictional version of the Cecil territory.

Even Amber could not help but exclaim:

"It really is just like Old Zongzi said—this is a miracle conjured out of thin air..."