On My First Day Undercover, the Organization Collapsed - Chapter 368

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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First Day of Infiltration, The Organization Was Destroyed — Episode 368
Searching for the Secret Base (2)
Ziel had found the third candidate for a secret base.
“Boss, this place…….”
Gilbert was somewhat surprised.
“There was a place like this in the Academy?”
“Yes. I discovered it before. After observing it, not a single person has passed through here since I arrived at the Academy.”
After infiltrating, Ziel had examined every corner of the Academy.
This was a location he’d found in that process — a place where almost no one came and went.
“This spot seems decent, doesn’t it, Boss?”
“I think so too.”
This place was none other than a temple that had been used long ago.
But as the Empire began to distance itself from religion, it fell into disuse, and since it was a temple, it was difficult to demolish outright — so it was simply abandoned!
“The size is right, and no one comes here…….”
“Yes, it seems good.”
Gilbert and Kelvin agreed as well.
The proper method for a secret base is to set it up in a place that doesn’t look like one!
An abandoned temple.
“Of course, it’s not as good a location as the Imperial Palace. There’s a possibility that unspecified people might gain access.”
“That may be true, but…… who would come? Nobody comes here. There’s a rumor that it’s a cursed temple.”
“A cursed temple?”
“Yes. Among the students, there’s some kind of ghost story floating around. If you go near it at night, supposedly there are eerie sounds…… or something about ghosts wandering…….”
Shiver.
At those words, someone trembled.
“What, why are you shaking?”
“G-ghosts?”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“No!”
Kelvin denied it earnestly, but no matter how you looked at it, that’s exactly what it seemed.
“A guy bigger than me and the boss combined being scared of ghosts…….”
“G-ghosts don’t exist in this world!”
“Yeah, I get it. I understand.”
“They don’t!”
Whether ghosts or ghost stories existed didn’t matter.
Ziel walked toward the temple.
And the moment he drew near, he stopped at a sound that grazed his ear.
“There’s something inside.”
“Really? Truly?”
“A-a ghost!”
Gilbert’s eyes gleamed with interest, and Kelvin went pale.
“M-master. I-I suddenly have a stomachache.”
“Fight it here.”
“…….”
Kelvin’s face crumpled.
“Boss, is there really something inside? Could it be a living being?”
“I don’t know. There’s something moving. But I don’t sense any breathing.”
“Then it really is a ghost……?”
Whether someone was there or not, the three of them didn’t stop walking.
Though Kelvin did hesitate occasionally, trembling legs holding him back, he was still following along.
An abandoned temple.
A place where human footsteps had ceased long ago.
According to Gilbert’s knowledge, it was often used as a courage test site, but ultimately no student had ever actually set foot inside.
And the reason was this.
-Groooaaaaaah.
-Wooooooouuuuuh.
These bizarre sounds that grew louder the closer one approached the temple!
The professors and other faculty members had no reason to come here.
Because they all left for home when night fell.
They had neither the leisure nor the reason to conduct courage tests like the students.
Therefore, strictly speaking, these three faculty members approaching now was nearly unprecedented.
“Is it really a ghost……?”
Gilbert was far more frightened of the Boss than any ghost.
So he wasn’t particularly scared.
“M-Master! My, my legs—”
But Kelvin’s legs had gone rigid.
Of course, Ziel wasn’t about to let that stand.
Tap, tap.
Ziel sent a trickle of mana through his fingertips, touching two points on Kelvin’s legs.
Remarkably, the paralysis released.
“Move now.”
“…….”
Kelvin wanted to cry.
Truly.
A low, trembling moan echoed through the darkness.
At last, the three of them reached the temple entrance.
The eerie sound had grown even louder, now filling their ears completely.
“This goes beyond ghost stories, Boss. There’s something genuinely wrong in there……”
Kelvin had given up.
He wanted to faint on the spot, but the mana Ziel had infused him with moments ago kept his entire body thrumming with life.
It was maddening.
“We’re going in.”
The ancient hinges groaned.
Clouds of dust billowed forth as the door slowly creaked open.
It felt as if no one had opened it in dozens, perhaps hundreds of years.
As the door swung wide, the interior revealed itself—marked by the passage of time and the ravages of long neglect.
“Magnificent.”
The interior was austere and sturdy.
It pleased Ziel immensely.
Though dust had accumulated and the structure showed age, the temple had been built with proper craftsmanship—solid enough to withstand centuries.
“But Boss, once we stepped inside, the sound stopped.”
“Prepare yourself.”
“Sir?”
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
The moment Gilbert answered, something hurtled toward them.
The impact rang out like a gong.
Just as Gilbert reflexively drew his sword, Ziel had already deflected the incoming object.
‘We’re alive.’
Something clattered to the ground before them with a sharp clink.
A fragment of something.
“A shard from a broken altar.”
Looking where Ziel gestured, Gilbert could indeed see a partially destroyed altar.
By now, he’d stopped wondering how Ziel could distinguish such details in this darkness, at such a distance.
“So there really is something here.”
“Because we’re intruders.”
Two more attacks came in quick succession.
Whoosh! Snap!
Clang, ting!
This time, Gilbert intercepted them.
Once he’d recognized the pattern, defense became manageable.
What came next was the problem.
“Ah……”
Gilbert’s mouth fell open.
Something was coming at them.
Crunch, crack!
The tiles of the temple floor were being torn loose, hovering suspended in midair.
“Magic……?”
“No. I don’t sense any mana.”
“Then—is it really a ghost?”
And above that, something appeared.
A hazy silhouette.
It wavered in the dim light of the torch Gilbert held, a shapeless something that seemed to ripple in the darkness.
Thump.
Behind them came the sound of something collapsing.
More precisely, someone had crumpled to the ground.
“A g-ghost! A real g-ghost!”
Kelvin was nearly shrieking.
“L-light! Light! Drive it back with l-light…….”
Kelvin went quiet.
He had rendered himself unconscious.
Gilbert shook his head slowly, as if utterly baffled.
“How on earth did he manage a mercenary career?”
Children fearing ghosts—that was understandable enough. They appeared constantly in the fairy tales children read.
But a grown man who’d spent over a decade in the mercenary trade, trembling at the sight of a specter? It defied reason.
“Boss, shall we give him some special training with ghosts?”
“A fine idea.”
While they conversed idly, the stone tiles that had been hovering in the air came rushing down upon them.
The speed was terrifying.
But.
Shing.
Ziel drew his sword, infused it with mana, and released it—
Crack! Boom!
The stones shattered in a shower of fragments, clattering to the ground with a thunderous sound.
“……How exactly are you managing that, boss?”
“It simply works.”
Questions rarely yielded useful answers, it seemed.
Splitting the very ground with a single strike, this—none of it followed ordinary rules.
It had long since crossed from swordsmanship into a realm of acrobatic skill that only the boss could perform.
“Still, boss, at this rate you’ll demolish the temple pillars too.”
“Hmm.”
He was right.
Whatever force was at work, once all the stones had been exhausted, there would be nothing left to hurl but the pillars themselves.
Whoosh, crack!
As the stones rose once more, Ziel made his decision.
“I’ll suppress it.”
But the enemy had no physical form.
Ziel pushed the Polar Night Breathing Technique to its limits, yet sensed nothing—no breathing, no presence.
Though he faced an opponent unlike any before, Ziel felt no panic; instead, his mind methodically searched for a solution.
Ziel harbored no prejudices.
Thus he did not deny the spirit’s existence.
If it existed, then it existed. If it did not, then it did not.
‘Light,’ he thought.
Kelvin’s cry, spoken just before he lost consciousness, suddenly echoed in his mind.
Ziel’s hand moved to his pocket.
“Gilbert, close your eyes.”
And—
Flash!
A tremendous radiance exploded throughout the temple interior.
For an instant, the brightness was so intense one might have thought the sun itself had risen within these stone walls.
Kelvin, mercifully unconscious, had his eyes already shut, yet the moment the light erupted he flinched reflexively, turning his head—such was the intensity of the luminescence.
And the stones hovering in the emptiness fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
“It’s over.”
Though neither mana flow nor breathing had been perceptible, now at last Ziel understood.
The other force that had pervaded the temple interior had vanished.
Or rather, it had grown so faint it now cowered in a corner, barely a whisper of itself.
In an instant, Ziel moved toward that place and finally confronted the entity itself.
“So this was it.”
Gilbert, following close behind, discovered something incongruous in the shadows.
A Sceptre.
“This is far too pristine.”
It lay unnaturally in a secluded corner of the temple, bearing neither dust nor the slightest sign of age.
“There’s definitely something dwelling in this.”
“So it really is a ghost…… Boss, have you ever encountered something like this before?”
“Never.”
The world was full of incomprehensible occurrences.
For instance, the power Ziel displayed.
Thinking of this as yet another inexplicable phenomenon, Gilbert quickly came to terms with it.
“But when we shot light at it, it shrank right away. Kelvin mentioned something about light earlier…….”
“That helped.”
Unfortunately, Kelvin remained unconscious and never heard the praise.
Ziel picked up the sceptre without hesitation.
In that instant, he felt his mana being pulled inward.
-You’ve been caught! Your body is now mine!
It wasn’t.
At the ominous voice that reached his ears, Ziel immediately pulled his mana back in.
-What? How?
“It just works.”
Controlling the mana of whatever object—or living creature—his hand touched was simpler than anything else for Ziel.
“Was it trying to possess your body?”
“Yes.”
“It picked the wrong target. So it really is a ghost.”
-A ghost? I am resentment itself!
A voice that no longer sounded eerie or frightening now bellowed out.
“Resentment?”
-The Empire dragged us out! They trampled this sacred temple and forcibly removed the priests! I alone remained, hidden away!
“I see.”
-Yes! I starved to death in the end, but my resentment dwelled in this sceptre! Begone! This is no place for Empire dogs.
“Then I’ll dispel you.”
-What?
As Ziel sent a surge of mana coursing forward, a panicked voice spilled from the sceptre.
-W-wait, please wait!
“It won’t work?”
-Dispel? My resentment cannot simply vanish like this!
“You keep being so loud that I’m dispelling you.”
A moment passed.
-……If I stay quiet, you won’t dispel me?
“That’s right. And from now on, this place is my secret base.”
-……Secret what?
Ziel tilted his head.
“You don’t seem to understand words.”
“Just ignore the resentment talk anyway.”
“Dispelling it would be better.”
Another panicked sound came at the word “dispel.”
-Ah, understood. Do whatever you want. Just, just not dispelling…….
“Was it you who sent those strange voices to the people who approached this temple?”
-Y-yes.
“Your answer is too brief.”
As Ziel drew his mana to full strength again, the response was immediately corrected.
-Yes, it was.
“Good. Continue doing exactly that.”
-Pardon?
“That will be your payment for attacking us.”
-What do you mean…….
“I said it. This place is what we’ll use as our secret base going forward. And a secret base needs thorough security and a mechanism to prevent access by the general public.”
The gist of what Ziel said came down to this.
“You’re a security guard now. A security guard—do you understand?”
-I have a proper name!
“I don’t care. You’re a security guard from now on.”
It was the moment of sudden appointment as the secret base’s security guard.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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