Spy Classroom - Volume 1 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Intel Gathering

A girlish scream echoed through Heat Haze Palace.

That day, their attack had involved booby traps.

In fact, they’d packed the mansion to the brim with them. The idea was to have the target avoid the first trap, only to trigger the second, and then when he evaded that one, to trigger the third trap in turn. Imprisoned in a hellish labyrinth of unending wires, he would eventually fall—or at least, that was the plan. But Klaus hadn’t just avoided the traps, he’d turned them back against them. Things ultimately devolved into a trap battle between Klaus and the girls, and Klaus emerged the overwhelming victor.

The girls needed to be able to detect one another’s traps, so they left subtle ciphers around, but Klaus ended up rewriting all of them.

In the end, the members of Lamplight ended up in the main hall, bound head to toe in wire.

“Ahhhhhhh! Nothing works!”

The black-haired girl let out a hysterical cry at their unseemly defeat. She had come across as mature and elegant when they first arrived, but fatigue was taking a toll on her.

“Urgh, I never imagined I was this lacking… It’s like our skills haven’t grown a single bit!”

“That’s not true at all.” Klaus shook his head.

Normally, he would wound their pride by remarking “Your scheme was lacking,” then finish them off with “That didn’t even make for decent sport,” but today was different.

He crossed his arms, then closed his eyes in admiration. “You’ve become strong. We’re closing in on four weeks, and you’ve all shown dramatic growth since the day you arrived. The only reason you can’t see it is because I’m simply too strong.”

“…Really?”

“Really,” Klaus agreed emphatically. “You’ve grown enough for me to trust you, if nothing else.”

The girls looked at one another.

Klaus often called them magnificent during their attacks day in and day out, but to them, it came off as mockery. Although he doubtless meant it as a sincere compliment, those he was complimenting couldn’t accept that sincerity.

This was the first time he had ever properly praised them, and a sense of accomplishment was finally sinking in.

“Now, it’s high time I told you something.” Klaus took a seat. “Allow me to explain why Lamplight was founded—as well as the details of our Impossible Mission.”

“Not that I’m not super-curious about all that…” Lily cut him off. “But first, could you let us out of these wires?”

“Our job is to steal a sample of a bioweapon.” He wasn’t even listening.

When the girls pictured this all-important briefing, they hadn’t expected to be completely bound while attending.

After coming to terms with their surreal situation, they gave Klaus their full attention.

He had mentioned something about stealing a bioweapon.

The white-haired girl coolly cut in. “Wait, don’t international treaties ban the use of bioweapons?”

“Their use, yes, but not their development—or at least, that’s how the meatheads over in our army chose to interpret the law when they forged ahead with their research. However, a sample was stolen by a Galgad spy. Our scientists estimate it will take them another year to actually analyze its structure, but we can’t afford to be that optimistic. We need to retrieve that sample as soon as possible or, at the very least, destroy it.”

“Ah.” The girls sighed in understanding.

In this line of work, it was simply a fact of life that their country’s military and its intelligence agency would work out of step. Everyone knew the military’s top brass was spinning their wheels in a futile attempt to wash away the shame allowing their country to be invaded. The development of this bioweapon must have been one result of that.

No matter how skilled an intelligence agency was, it was impossible for them to know every little thing that went on inside their borders.

That was a weakness the Empire had exploited.

“B-by the way,” the brown-haired girl asked timidly. “What’s exactly is this bioweapon we’re supposed to steal?”

“Would you like to see a picture from the lab?” Klaus withdrew a photograph from his pocket.

When the girls looked at it, not a single one of them could stop themselves from screaming.

The corpse was in such a horrific state that words seemed hardly sufficient to describe it. Given that they were bound and unable to flee, the experience was akin to torture.

“It’s called Abyss Doll—a killer virus. It has a one-week incubation period during which it spreads through airborne droplets, and once symptoms show up, it kills within twelve hours. As a weapon, it’s pure evil. And now it’s fallen into the Empire’s hands. These are people who have no qualms about murdering innocent civilians while carrying out assassinations. If it’s ever used for subversive activities, Abyss Doll’s casualty count would number in the six or seven figures. And if the military uses it, the world will come to an end.”

Klaus gave his call to action.

“I trust you understand the responsibility we carry on our shoulders.”

Millions of casualties—and if anything, that estimate was conservative.

In the previous war, the Empire had butchered civilians by the thousands, and they stopped at nothing to achieve their ends. If they unleashed this new weapon, then the Din Republic would no doubt retaliate in kind. With both sides spreading killer viruses left and right, everything would descend into hell on Earth. The girls couldn’t even imagine the suffering that would ensue.

They gulped as it set in just how important their mission was.

“Now, this is a mission that was already attempted once before, by a team called Inferno.”

“Inferno…?” The name elicited a reaction from the black-haired girl. “I’ve heard about them!”

“Oh? I didn’t realize that information had leaked. Surprisingly sloppy of them.”

“Not at all! They’re the best spy team in the Republic!”

Her elegant, lilting manner of speech accelerated into a rapid-fire explanation of how Inferno was the ideal to which all spy teams in their nation aspired. How they had played a key role in protecting their country since even before the war. How the information they stole on the Imperial troops’ movements helped evacuate hundreds of thousands of civilians. And how the misinformation they spread helped end the war by convincing the Empire’s military leadership that victory was impossible.

Perhaps she had some connection to them herself, as she seemed oddly well-informed.

“When I became a spy, it was because I wanted to join Inferno!” she announced, finishing her speech.

Despite her passion, however, Klaus was as collected as ever. “Unfortunately,” he replied coldly, “Inferno was wiped out.”

“Huh?”

“They all died during their mission to retrieve Abyss Doll.”

The black-haired girl’s lip quivered. “It can’t be…”

“To be more accurate, there was one survivor. The one person who was on a separate mission at the time—me.” Then, to make himself perfectly clear, Klaus added, “I used to be a member of Inferno.”

Now the girls knew who Klaus truly was.

He was a member of their country’s best and brightest spy team.

None of them were particularly surprised, given his skills.

“That concludes my explanation. Our mission is to take the fate of our nation on our shoulders and succeed where Inferno failed. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Klaus went silent. He had said all that needed saying.

None of the girls uttered a word. They certainly hadn’t been taking their training lightly, but now that they knew the stark reality of their situation, their limbs felt like ice.

A band of washouts had to take on a mission that a group of elite spies had failed.

Every instinct in their bodies was screaming in terror. That 90 percent mortality rate weighed on them heavier than ever.

But they couldn’t flee, either. The image of that grisly corpse had been seared into their brains. If they didn’t do this, countless innocent civilians would—

“If you want out, that’s fine,” Klaus said as their anxiety reached a fever pitch.

Their eyes went wide. That wasn’t what they’d been expecting.

“This isn’t your problem. Yes, I’m here for revenge, but even the lives of millions of your countrymen doesn’t mean you should have to risk yours. This is Din’s problem as well as mine. Of course, there is a reason I chose you all. I do want you to come. But you don’t have to. I can’t force you to undertake a mission this harsh merely for the sake of your country.”

Klaus looked at the girls.

“I’m giving you the day off. Use it to decide for yourselves if you’re coming.”

He waved his arm, and the wires binding the girls came undone. He turned, heading back toward his room. This discussion was over, for now.

The girls had enough to grapple with just taking it all in. They had been given a huge amount of information—the Impossible Mission’s details, Klaus’s identity, the demise of their nation’s best team—and they needed to process it. None of them moved. They simply blinked.

Then, one of them broke the silence.

“I’m in.”

It was Lily.

Klaus stopped in his tracks and turned back around. “Well, that’s a surprise. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be the first to decide.”

“Eh, I figured I wouldn’t change my mind either way.” She bashfully rubbed the back of her neck. “What about you guys?”

When the girls all looked at one another, they broke into grins. Nobody voiced any objections.

Not a single one of them needed time to think it over.

“All seven of you will be participating, then?” Klaus asked once more.

The members of Lamplight nodded and met Klaus’s gaze with determination in their eyes.

Klaus replied with a small nod of his own. “Magnificent. Let’s make sure we all come back alive.”

Klaus sat in front of the canvas in his room.

“…………………………”

This was his routine.

Other than the time he spent working, training, and dealing with the girls, he had allotted his entire schedule to oil painting, yet he still hadn’t made a lick of progress. He would hold his brush aloft with every intention of painting yet be unable to lay down so much as a single stroke. Before he noticed, the brush’s tip would dry out.

The reason he’d fallen into a slump was plain as day.

When he first heard that Inferno had been wiped out, he lost something important to him.

And now he couldn’t make any progress on his painting.

There were two types of painters: those who painted on theory and those who painted on instinct. It went without saying that Klaus fell into the latter camp, and that meant he had few tools at his disposal for overcoming those setbacks. In fact, it was starting to throw him off in other areas of his life as well.

It was unusual for him to get so worked up—but that was a sign of just how much this mission meant to him.

This mission took my family from me…

He was an orphan. His earliest memories were of living in a poverty-stricken town. Shunned by even the other urchins, he was destined to fade away in solitude.

Then Guido met him and invited him to join Inferno.

“From now on, your name is Klaus. I’m gonna make you into a spy.”

When he closed his eyes, he could still hear the things Guido had said to him all those years ago.

“You’ll get a warm bed, three square meals, and hot baths. And most importantly—friends. The team and I will teach you every skill under the sun. Fair warning, some of ’em can be a bit rough. They’re all kinda oddballs, but they’re good folk. Someday, you’ll think of ’em as family.”

And Guido had been right.

To Klaus, the people he had lived with here at Heat Haze Palace were the only family he had.

I have to complete this mission, no matter what it takes…

He reminisced as though slowly flipping through a hefty tome of memories, getting more sentimental with each page he turned.

After a little while in that reverie, he heard a knock on his door.

Before he could reply, Lily popped her head in.

“Hey, Teach, Teach! You got our battle plan drawn up yet?”

“More importantly…” Klaus stepped back from his canvas. “Are you sure about this? When we first met, you made it abundantly clear how badly you want to avoid dying. I thought you would at least take more time to make up your mind.”

“Wait, now I’m the one getting questioned?”

An expression of shock crossed Lily’s face as she flopped down into a chair.

Lately, the girls had become more relaxed around Klaus. It was hard to stay stiff and proper around someone when you spent half your waking hours attacking him with a knife.

“Hmm… Y’know, I don’t know how well I can explain it, but…” Lily scratched her cheek. “…You promise not to be too surprised, Teach?”

“About what?”

“Well, the truth is: I’m actually a pretty self-centered person.”

“Sure, but what’s the surprise?”

“So back at school, I was all like I wanna do great! and I want everyone to think I’m awesome! but I never really thought through any of it. I didn’t have any real goals, y’know? And even here, I was super-psyched about getting to be the team’s leader, but at first, that was all there was to it.” Lily looked at the ceiling as her voice dropped to a murmur. “But lately, I’ve kinda started wanting to become a better leader for the sake of the team.”

“Oh?”

Now that was a surprise.

Klaus had made sure not to intrude on the girls’ personal lives any more than he had to, so her heart must have started to shift without him even noticing.

Before he could admire her too much, though, her whole body shivered.

“Man, whenever I spend more than thirty seconds talking seriously, I start feeling itchy all over.”

“That has concerning implications about your personality.”

“Anyway, I said I’m going, so that’s that. It’s a bit late to be asking me about it, honestly. And kinda insensitive.” Lily acted playfully embarrassed to try to change the subject—although the blush on her cheeks revealed that her embarrassment was genuine.

“…No, you’re right. What’s important now is the plan.”

His very first student was showing some admirable growth.

Klaus raised both his index fingers, then bent them one after the other as he spoke.

“You will all be infiltrating the research facility from the east. I’ll be doing the same from the west.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

He avoided giving any details, instead choosing to outline the plan in broad strokes.

“In the days before the operation, we’ll be spending our time gathering intel. I’m counting on you, Leader.”

That was exactly what Lily had been hoping to hear.

She rushed out of the room, murmuring to herself with great delight. “It’s time for Wunderkind Lily’s big debut!”

One week later, all of Lamplight’s members left Heat Haze Palace.

In order to best infiltrate the Galgad Empire, the team split up into two groups. Klaus and several of the girls obtained work visas by posing as artists, and Lily and the rest got tourist visas as rich young ladies who were coming to enjoy the Empire’s performing arts. It went without saying that all their passports were fakes.

When they got to the customs stations, they were subjected to harsh questioning about the reasons for their visit and the places they intended to stay. Their opposition was twofold: the immigrations officers doing the actual questioning and the soldiers standing behind them keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings. The Empire had no desire to let spies into their borders. All of their luggage was thoroughly inspected as well, and without the fake backstories they’d practiced and practiced ahead of time, they would have gotten arrested on the spot.

Half a day later, though, they were all across the border, and everything after that went so smoothly, it was almost anticlimactic.

Nobody seemed to be tailing them, and they were able to purchase train tickets without any fuss. In fact, the attendant at the ticket window was downright friendly to them.

The girls thought back to Klaus’s lectures.

As far as what they were supposed to do after entering the country went—

“Just walk casually, and you won’t have anything to worry about.”

—his instruction had been perfunctory at best.

When the girls complained, he racked his brains to give them a proper explanation.

“The thing is: It’s trivial to blend in once you’re actually inside the country. You only need to worry after you start interacting with the relevant parties, so there’s no need to be on edge when you’re just traveling.”

“Why’s it so easy…?”

“You probably don’t realize it because you’re so entrenched in the world of espionage, but as far as most people are concerned, the war is long over. Many of them still bear hatred toward enemy nations, but they don’t think of themselves as currently being at war. After all, they have no way of knowing about all the battles happening in the spy world.”

“Huh. When you put it that way, it’s a little sad…”

“This is for the best. It’s the whole reason behind our shadow war.”

After crossing the border, the team boarded a train.

A family sat in the seats beside Lily’s, all dressed in black. Maybe they’d just come from a funeral. Two children who appeared to be brothers were staring out the window with their faces pressed right up against the glass and their eyes gleaming.

As far as they knew, the world was at peace.

They lived their lives blissfully unaware of the things their nation’s spies were doing. They had no idea that politicians were being bought off, gangs were being secretly funded, researchers were being threatened, and people were being murdered under the guise of accidents right under their noses.

In fact, they didn’t even know that the people sitting next to them were a group of enemy operatives.

What an odd world this is, Lily mused.

And what odd creatures spies were…

As the thoughts quietly swam through her head, one of the boys from the next seat over peeled himself from the window and came running toward them.

“Hey, miss! Where are you all going?”

“Hmm? My friends and I are here to see a musical. I hear it’s the talk of the Empire.”

“Wow, cool! Where are you staying?”

“Hee-hee, aren’t you a precocious little guy. You know, it’s bad manners to ask a girl something like that.”

As Lily sidestepped the boy’s question, another thought crossed her mind.

It’d be nice to go on a trip with friends like this for real someday.

How great would it be if they could forget about the shadow war like this kid and just have a good time?

After they got to their station, Lily pretended to get lost and sat down on a bench.

As she and the other girls unfurled a map, a man sat down on the bench back-to-back with theirs.

“From here on, we’ll be operating separately,” he said without turning around. “Proceed according to plan. Do you have anything you need to say?”

“We’ll have all the time in the world to chat next time we see each other,” Lily replied.

“Very well.”

The man left.

Lily and the others did the same and headed to their prearranged hotel.

With that, the Impossible Mission had well and truly begun.

The Endy Laboratory stood on the very edge of the Galgad Empire’s capital.

As befitted a global metropolis, the Galgad capital was packed to the brim with high-rises. The tallest building in the Din Republic was their parliament at eight stories tall, while the Galgad capital was full of structures that casually dwarfed it. One peculiarity of Imperial architecture was that all their high-rises were steepled; the rows of black spires jutting into the sky evoked both awe and unease.

The city had served as the Empire’s capital since the medieval era and had flourished ever since. The sea and mountains flanking it provided a great defense against invaders, and its tall steeples allowed the city to best make use of its limited real estate.

A thousand years of force and violence had enabled this pincushion of a city to prosper greatly, and the Endy Laboratory had been built on a cliff overlooking all of it.

The good news was that it was hard to miss.

The bad news was that the number of infiltration routes was limited.

This was the building Lamplight needed to infiltrate.

“The sample is somewhere in the Endy Laboratory. That was where our transmitters cut out, and there’s no sign it’s been moved.”

They had held their strategy meeting in advance.

“Our objective is to sneak in and steal it.”

“…Security will be tight, won’t it?”

“It will. Although it’s officially a branch laboratory for a legitimate pharmaceutical company, the facility’s actual purpose is to develop cutting-edge weaponry, and they have military personnel stationed on-site as permanent guards. Our success or failure will be determined by how much intel we can gather ahead of time.”

“Does it have any vulnerabilities…?”

“Of course. Anytime humans are running the show, there are going to be weaknesses. No matter who they are, everyone has to eat, everyone has to shit, everyone has to bathe, everyone needs time off, and everyone likes to get laid sometimes. We aren’t machines.”

Then Klaus made his announcement to the girls.

“For this mission, I’ve divided you into three squads.”

“Intel squad—your job is to coordinate with the other squads and gather as much information as possible.”

The black-haired girl smiled gracefully as she thought back to Klaus’s instructions.

It was nighttime, and she was sitting at a sidewalk café.

She had neglected her skin care regimen during their battles against Klaus, but after resuming it in preparation for the mission, she looked more radiant than ever.

She was the most attractive and physically mature member of the team, and she knew exactly how men saw her. Her outfit wasn’t extravagant or flashy but trim and tidy to a T. She knew that the best way to attract men wasn’t with an outfit that lay her skin bare but one that covered it and accentuated her body’s natural curves. The dress she was wearing hugged her breasts just right.

She sat on the café’s terrace and sipped her ice coffee. When she looked over her shoulder, she discovered that the bespectacled young man in the seat beside hers was glancing at her chest. Even after he looked away, he couldn’t help but snatch another few peeks.

With that renewed confirmation of her own attractiveness, the black-haired girl smiled to herself. The self-confidence Klaus had all but shattered was back with a vengeance.

My first instinct is to try to make contact as soon as possible by spilling coffee on him, but…

She thought back to her battles against Klaus.

She had tried using fake apologies to start up conversations, but that was so heavy-handed that all it had done was put him on guard.

She wasn’t going to make that same mistake here.

Instead, she just paid close attention and waited. Impatience would ruin everything. Whenever her actions were even a little bit off, Klaus saw through them in an instant. She needed to imagine her target as him.

She sat there for nearly twenty minutes, waiting for the perfect timing.

The best option isn’t to spill my drink on him, it’s to get him to spill it on me.

The moment the man stood up, she saw her opportunity and slid her cup over to the corner of the table, where the man’s backpack smacked into it. Her glass toppled to the ground and loudly shattered, splashing coffee all over her dress.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I’ll pay you back for it!”

The man got even more flustered than she’d expected as he began gathering up the shards.

The black-haired girl grabbed his hand. “No, no. You mustn’t pick up glass with your bare hands.”

When she did, his face went bright red. He clearly didn’t have much experience with women.

He was no match for her.

“Oh, forgive me. I—I didn’t mean to grab your hand like that…,” she apologized, putting on an innocent facade. “But…you have such nice fingers. Are you an artisan?”

“N-no, just a regular old researcher…,” her target said falteringly, scratching his head in confusion.

“Wow! You must be really smart, then.”

Between the guilt from breaking her glass and the exaltation of having a pretty girl touching him, his brain was having trouble keeping up.

The black-haired girl squeezed his hand to shatter the last of his defenses. “Hee-hee. This is a pretty expensive dress, mister. How are you going to apologize for staining it?”

“Um, er, I…”

“My date just stood me up, you know. How about you treat me to dinner?”

She smiled, and the man timidly nodded.

“Specialist squad—your job is to use your abilities to assist the other squads.”

The blond girl—Erna—hummed to herself as she strolled down a road on the capital’s outskirts.

Night had fallen, and it had just begun to rain. Although the moon hung high in the sky, the road Erna was on was nearly pitch-black. She could barely see a foot or two in front of her, and on more than one occasion, she came dangerously close to tripping. It had also gotten chilly, so she had to warm her hands up with her breath. She was surrounded on all sides by fields, with nary a house to be seen anywhere.

Then, an oncoming car’s headlights cleaved through the darkness across from her.

Erna sniffed the air, and after confirming there was no danger around her, leaped out in front of it.

As the driver’s scream and the car’s horn cut through the air, Erna gently flopped onto the ground.

The car came to an abrupt stop, and a woman rushed out. “A-are you okay?”

Erna suddenly realized that her clothes didn’t look dirty enough, so she surreptitiously smeared her skirt with mud. She then pretended to cry.

“I-I’m so scaaared… I went for a long walk, and then all of a sudden, it was dark, and then a car showed up out of nowhere…”

Flustered, the woman offered to give Erna a ride home. The young operative got in the back seat, and the woman set off. She clearly was sorry for the mud-covered girl. Erna felt bad about manipulating her, but this was no time to be worrying about things like that.

“Oh, that right turn there!” Erna guided her. The woman yanked her steering wheel.

When she did, the car ran straight into a pool of mud on the side of the road.

Its right wheel lurched, then came to a stop.

The roads that far from the city center were poorly serviced, so these things happened all the time when it rained.

The woman pressed on the gas pedal a couple times, then scratched her head. “I have to get out to push the car. Would you mind holding the wheel for me?” she asked.

When her target got out, Erna moved up to the front. Maintaining her cool nonchalance, she fiddled with the seat and grabbed hold of the envelope in its hidden compartment. As she did, the car came free of the mud.

From there, she had the woman drop her off on a corner in a residential area. “Thank you so much, miss!” she said as she vigorously waved and watched the woman go.

Once the car was gone from view, another girl slunk out from behind the houses.

The second girl had brown hair, and she observed Erna with even greater concern than usual on her often-anxious face. When her faltering gaze landed on the envelope Erna was holding, she let out an impressed cry.

The uncharacteristic smile vanished off Erna’s face and was replaced with the cold eyes of a spy as she offered her contact the stolen envelope. “Get this to the Intel squad as quickly as possible.”

“Out of curiosity, what is it?”

“That lady is a Din Republic informant, and she’s been passing us valuable information for years. But now…”

Erna opened the envelope.

Inside, there were instructions from the Imperial army.

“…She’s switched sides to the Empire. If we’d taken her intel at face value, we could’ve been in serious trouble.”

“Wow, yikes. I felt bad for doubting an ally, but it looks like I was right to.”

“No, that was excellent. I think it’s good for a spy to be a bit of a coward.”

“Well, we did have a teammate who betrayed us for a few sweets…” The brown-haired girl smiled bashfully, then whistled through her fingers. “All right, all set for delivery. As long as they’re within five miles, they’ll have it within ten minutes.”

As Erna looked at her quizzically, a hawk swooped down toward them and slammed straight into Erna’s face. With a quiet “How unlucky…” she keeled over backward.

The hawk then took the envelope and quickly vanished into the sky at fifty miles per hour.

“Operations squad—your job is to exploit the data the Intel squad gathers and use it to interact with key individuals.”

A white-haired girl walked briskly down the city’s main drag. She kept her head low so as not to be noticed, shooting keen glances around her as she went.

It was nearing noon, and the streets were packed with workers taking their lunch breaks. The white-haired girl wove her way through the crowd, waiting for the perfect timing to pass by her target.

Meanwhile, the silver-haired girl beside her—Lily—bemoaned her empty stomach. “I could sure go for some lunch…”

“We can eat later,” the white-haired girl shot back in exasperation. As she did, a brawny man started coming toward them from the other direction. That was their guy.

When the white-haired girl began fretting over when to give Lily the signal, she suddenly heard a comical growling sound coming from Lily’s stomach. She must have been ravenous. Lily tottered unsteadily across the sidewalk—

“Yeep!”

—then crashed right into their target.

“The hell’s your problem?!” the man roared.

He was far heavier than Lily, and she tumbled to the ground the moment she slammed into him. She pressed down on her head. “I-I’m sorry!”

The people around them watched the exchange with concern, but the man had had enough of their stares. He clicked his tongue and kept moving.

Lily let out a big sigh. “Yeesh, that was scary.”

“More subtle next time.” The white-haired girl flicked Lily right in the forehead.

“Ow! …So?”

“Got it.”

The white-haired girl grinned and flashed her the inside of the bag slung over her shoulder. The man’s wallet sat inside. She had picked his pocket while his attention was focused on Lily.

“Just to be sure, that’s the real one, right?”

“Duh. You really think a dummy wallet’s gonna fool me?”

“Teach fooled you with dummies fourteen times.”

“Yeah, and now I know better. When you crashed into that guy, the wallet he immediately reached for was the one by his chest, not the one in his back pocket. That means this one’s the real deal.”

The two of them headed away from the main road and began making their way down a side alley.

“Let’s get back to the hotel and rip this sucker open,” the white-haired girl said. “The big guy back there was a drug dealer, and his wallet’s got a list of his clients in it. If Intel is right, some of his buyers work at the lab.”

“I’m looking forward to dropping that anonymous tip.”

“Yeah, once we’ve wrung ’em for all they’re good for.”

Lily let out a pleased hum. “You know, I was kinda worried at first, but we’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, and no wonder. Even if it was just a month of training like that—”

But right as the two of them turned to each other and smirked—

“You two! Stop right there!”

—they heard a sharp call from behind them.

They turned around, then let out quiet groans. It was a spy’s natural enemy—the police.

A pair of male officers blocked their escape route.

“Don’t move. We need to see what’s in your bag.”

“Uh, we’re just regular old tourists, though…”

“Sorry, but we’ve had a rash of pickpockets around these parts. We hope you don’t mind cooperating.”

The white-haired girl’s coolheaded deflection ended in failure.

“Why’d you pick somewhere that has a pickpocketing problem?” Lily whispered to her.

“Because you wanted to get lunch afterward,” the white-haired girl shot back with a glare.

If worse came to worst, they could take the officers down, but that would cause all sorts of problems. That had to be an absolute last resort.

The white-haired girl obediently handed the bag over.

The officer snatched it from her hand, then stabbed it without so much as hesitating. The bag’s false bottom wasn’t going to do them any good. In mere moments, the officer would find a wallet containing somebody else’s ID.

Now then, how were they going to lie their way out of this one…?

“All right, looks like we’re all good.”

Despite their fears, the officer quickly ended the search. He never found the wallet in the bag or on their persons.

Once the officers were gone, Lily cocked her head to the side. “So where’d you hide the wallet?”

“I dunno.”

“Huh?”

“It’s gone.” The white-haired girl seemed vexed. “Someone stole the wallet I stole—and there’s only one guy I know who could pull that off.”

She thought back—and then she remembered the last thing Klaus had said after splitting them up into their squads.

“And as for me—I’ll be focused on providing you backup.”

Right then, a man strolled past them.

He was dressed in a lovely suit, and by all accounts, he was a typical elderly gentleman. The disguise was perfect. He lifted his lapel ever so slightly and revealed the wallet inside so only the girls could see. With a look of utter nonchalance on his face, he exited the alleyway.

Not everything went perfectly.

All in all, though, the Lamplight girls did a damn fine job.

For interested readers, the exact details of their plan were decided as follows.

“As far as specifics go, the Intel squad should make like a rose sweetly blooming, the Operations squad should zoop-zoop-zoop around, and the Specialist squad should watch over them like they would a baby bird—”

“……………………”

When he felt the girls staring icily at him, Klaus cut himself off.

“—I was joking.”

Not a single one of them laughed, but they did breathe deep sighs of relief. They didn’t know what they’d have done had he been serious.

“Actually, the details are yours to decide.”

He cast a gentle gaze across the group.

“I’ll provide overarching direction and check-in regularly, but I’m leaving the specifics in your hands.”

“Are…are you sure?”

“You’re ready, aren’t you? It’s what you’ve been doing for the past month.”

His words were meant to spur them into action—and they achieved just that.

The team glanced at one another, and an elegant smile spread across the black-haired girl’s face.

“Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll come up with a plan so perfect it will knock your socks off.”

“Magnificent.”

That was their signal. The girls spread a map out across the table.

How were they going to deceive their foes? Who should be the ones to approach each target?

Whenever one of the girls offered up an idea, another one would find a hole in it, a third would come up with an amended proposal, and a fourth would argue with that. The most common retort offered was “That didn’t work against Teach.” Many of the initial proposals suggested were ones that had already failed against Klaus, so they all worked together to make them craftier.

They were driven by a single goal—come up with plans good enough to fool Teach!

That was the fruit of their month of labor.

One night, as Klaus sat in his hotel room reading the newspaper, he heard a knock.

“I have the wine you ordered.”

He opened the door. One of the hotel’s bellhops stood outside.

He invited the bellhop in and turned on the room’s record player. That would prevent any potential listening devices from being able to make out their conversation.

The bellhop let out a deep sigh, then reached up and appeared to tear his face off, although it was just a mask. Underneath were a pair of gentle eyes and a face that seemed somehow transient. They belonged to the red-haired girl, who was a member of the Intel squad.

“It’s an excellent disguise,” Klaus said as he took the wine from her, “but there really was no need for you to take off the mask, was there?”

“But I don’t like cross-dressing around you, Boss…”

“…I’m not complaining; I’m just saying.”

He got the feeling that the girl might hold an unusual amount of affection toward him.

Rather than investigate the matter further, though, he simply told her not to call him Boss.

He peeled the wine’s label off and looked at the coded message on its backside. It contained the intel the girls had managed to dig up. One glance was enough to tell him just how hard they were working.

The red-haired girl gave him a modest bow.

“We’ve confirmed that Abyss Doll is still in the laboratory, but…infiltrating it is going to be a challenge. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, and its surroundings are under constant surveillance. Also, only a small number of people hold the keys to the deepest parts of the lab, so we won’t be able to get into those areas even if we use disguises to sneak into the building. Our only option is to break in, but we need more time to—”

“No. If we take any more time, the Empire will finish analyzing the sample. We can’t put this off.”

“But…”

“I haven’t been slacking, either, you know.” Klaus lifted up the room’s bed.

A huge quantity of documents and IDs had been sewn to its underside. There were enough of them to cover the whole mattress, and they included everything from criminal records of laboratory personnel, details on their families, blueprints from when the lab’s buildings were first constructed, lists of politicians who had ties to the facility, military personnel records, and even the Galgad Ministry of Finance’s budget documents on the lab.

“You did all this on your own…?”

The red-haired girl blinked. After quickly skimming through the documents, she let out a deep sigh and looked at Klaus with eyes full of wonder.

“This is amazing. It’s so heartening, watching an expert work.”

“An expert, huh…? I suppose so. As the Greatest Spy in the World, this was child’s play, but—”

Klaus paused. He looked at the ceiling, then closed his eyes.

“—would you mind giving me a moment?”

The red-haired girl blinked again.

Klaus headed out into the darkened city.

This particular excursion hadn’t been planned, but here he was. If asked why he’d gone out, his only answer would have been I just felt like it. Explaining the reasoning behind his actions wasn’t exactly his strong suit.

In all likelihood, the real reason was that he had gotten anxious.

…I’m not perfect. Certainly not the way I let them think I am.

Everything he could do now was entirely thanks to the harsh training Inferno had put him through.

When he’d first joined Inferno, he’d had even less polish than the girls did now. It was only after a group of the finest spies in the nation personally taught him that he had become the person he was now. And during those days of intense training, he had failed constantly.

Guido’s lessons, in particular, had ended with him flat on his face more times than he could count.

“Your fighting’s shit. You don’t have what it takes to beat me.”

No matter how hard he’d tried, he could never match up to his mentor.

Each time Klaus tried to strike him, he’d found himself flying through the air, and Guido blocked even his strongest punches with ease.

“You’re a tenth of a second too slow—and you always will be.”

“You really gotta ask the others for lessons every now and again. Learn about negotiation and disguises and stuff. Fighting ain’t even a core spy skill.”

“You already learned everything else by intuition? Learn some theory, dumbass.”

“You’re gonna end up teaching others someday, you know. You want your students to end up dead?”

“You’re not interested in teaching? Haaah… Fine. Then I’ll keep beating you up till you’ve had enough.”

Klaus never defeated him.

They sparred hundreds of times, but Klaus lost each and every one.

I never could close that tenth-of-a-second gap… I’m no expert. I’m barely less of an amateur than them.

Klaus arrived at the park and sat down by the edge of its fountain.

Due to the late hour, the park was full of people returning home from parties. They hummed to themselves with flush faces, enjoying life to the fullest. Klaus could tell there was still at least one party going on in the capital somewhere, as he could hear a violin playing off in the distance.

He focused on the sound of running water coming from behind him and closed his eyes.

“Hey there, good-looking. Three bills will buy you a round with me. What do you say?”

He opened them back up.

It sounded like a prostitute. Perhaps she’d mistaken him for a lonely bachelor.

When he looked in the direction of the voice, he found Erna swaying her body from side to side.

“…I’m not looking to buy.”

“But if you don’t, it’ll ruin my ‘exchange information by pretending to be a hooker’ plan.”

“I think you should come up with a different plan.”

As far as bad moves went, anything liable to get her arrested was pretty high up on the list.

Undeterred, Erna sat down beside him. Klaus tried to shift over to at least put some space between them, but she followed him every step of the way.

“…Even if you want to pretend we’re strangers who just happened to meet, spies need to avoid publicly interacting whenever possible. Why do you think I put the Intel squad in charge of communications?”

Despite his quiet reprimand, Erna showed no signs of moving away.

“What I’m delivering can’t be passed on in a secret message.”

“And what’s that?”

“Love and affection.”

What in the world was she talking about?

He considered asking that out loud but decided not to risk hurting her feelings.

“Are you…worried?” Erna turned her concerned gaze toward him.

Her words rang a hair too true, and her round, doll-like eyes watered.

She had seen the wavering in his heart.

He didn’t love the prospect of confiding his emotions to his subordinate, but he didn’t want to spurn her kindness, either.

“Before I tell you that…I should tell you my real age.”

“I’ll admit, I am a bit curious.”

“It’s as you can see.”

“So you are twenty-eight!”

“…Twenty, actually.” Klaus was used to being seen as older than he was. It didn’t hurt his feelings. Nuh-uh.

“…You’re a lot younger than I thought,” Erna remarked in amazement.

The oldest members of Lamplight were eighteen, so he was only two years separated from his subordinates.

“And as such, I have the same worries anyone my age would have. This is my first time being responsible for other people’s lives. Not that I haven’t put my own life on the line a fair few times, mind you.”

“……”

“I know it’s pathetic, but…it scares me, imagining how my own inexperience could get one of my subordinates killed.”

He couldn’t afford to show this weakness around the other girls. He could barely stand to show it to himself.

Erna gently laid her hand atop Klaus’s.

“I’m not good at talking… So I can’t come up with anything nice to say…” Her clear gaze was focused entirely on him. “So instead…I’ll just hold your hand until the worries go away.”

He was well past the age where holding his hand would be enough to calm his nerves, but the warmth from her touch conveyed just how earnest her feelings were.

He felt his heart lighten a little.

When he told her so, Erna gave him a satisfied smile and headed back the way she came.

The next evening, Klaus was in his hotel room writing out a coded message when he heard a knock on his door. He looked at the clock. It was nine o’clock sharp. Every day, she arrived at exactly the specified time. Klaus turned on the record player to counteract any potential bugs.

Then, he heard the red-haired girl’s gentle voice from the other side of the door.

“Boss, I have the wine you ordered…”

Klaus nearly dropped his pen. He marched over to the door and was greeted by the serene smile of the red-haired girl in her male disguise.

He quickly ushered her inside. As she took off her mask, Klaus shot her an icy look.

“Don’t go calling me Boss outside the room. It defeats the entire purpose of the disguise.”

“Right. Sorry, Boss…”

“And don’t call me Boss inside, either. If you don’t like Teach, just Klaus is fine, too.”

The red-haired girl looked down. “But I want to call you Boss, Boss…”

“Stubborn to the end, I see.”

If she cared that much, Klaus had no choice but to fold. His dislike of the moniker was his problem, not hers.

By the time she finished giving her usual report, the red-haired girl was back to her normal, modest self. “There’s one other thing, if you don’t mind.”

“What?”

“Lily asked me for a favor. She wants to have a party the evening before the mission for good luck.”

“………”

Surely she must be joking.

Klaus squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“…Boss?”

“Sorry, I must have misheard. Did you say a party? She wants to have an entire group of undercover agents get together for a dinner?”

“That is what she said, yes.”

“I really wish you’d just turned her down…”

He’d never so much as heard of spies holding a gathering like that. If even a single one of them got tailed, they would all be exposed.

The whole point was that even if one of them got made, the rest of the team could still carry out the mission without them. Getting together would defeat the entire purpose.

“You need to talk her out of it. It’s unheard-of.”

“I think she’s already made a reservation at a fancy restaurant, though…”

“That girl doesn’t have an ounce of shame in her body, does she?”

“I think she’s worried the group is getting worn down.”

That was a fair point.

Unlike him, for the girls, this was their first real mission. It made sense that exhaustion was taking its toll on them.

Even the red-haired girl’s voice lacked vigor, and she had made the amateur mistake of calling him the wrong name before entering the room.

“…Fine, do what you want. I’ll tell you the name of a restaurant with ties to our intelligence community. Make absolutely sure you don’t get tailed.”

The red-haired girl shook her head slightly at his concession.

“With just us, I’m a little concerned that something might go wrong…”

“Then don’t do it.”

“But if you came, too, that wouldn’t be a problem…”

“………”

What, was he supposed to be their personal bodyguard or something?

However, she did have a point. At the end of the day, that was probably the best option.

“…I guess looking out for my subordinates is part of the job description.” He exhaled with exasperation and covered his face with his hand. “I’ll handle the reservation. And I suppose I’d better do some reconnaissance, too…”

The red-haired girl replied by giving him a deep bow.

The term spy contained a wide variety of different subcategories.

Although there were certainly some like Klaus and the girls who worked directly with their government, there were also informants who lived in foreign countries who got paid each time they passed along information, as well as sleeper agents who simply lived in those countries as regular citizens during peacetime.

The spot Klaus had selected for their party was a restaurant whose proprietor held the Empire in low regard. Although the owner didn’t engage in any espionage directly, they had no interest in reporting Klaus’s comings and goings to the authorities, either.

Klaus had reserved them a private room there.

He himself arrived a little bit late, as he first had to ensure that there weren’t any tails and that the owner hadn’t turned on them. He was still decidedly dubious that any party could be worth the labor that this one required.

The moment he entered the room, Lily gave him a big wave. “Hey there, stranger!”

“…Lily, do you have anything you’d like to say to me for letting you carry out this harebrained scheme of yours?”

“…You’re welcome?”

Klaus silently flicked her in the forehead. “My skull!” she cried.

Klaus sat down, then glanced around at the girls’ faces. It had been two weeks since he’d last seen them, and their expressions were visibly tenser, although their youthful innocence still leaked through.

When the food arrived, the festivities got rolling in earnest.

As always, Lily was at the center of the action. “Y’know, now that I think about it, I’ve kinda been killing it. Who’da thunk I’d do this well on my very first mission?!”

Predictably enough, her conceit earned her a good heckling from the other girls.

The first to pile on were her fellow Operations squad members.

“You spent half the time getting lost!” complained the cool white-haired girl, while her arrogant, cerulean-haired partner added, “And the other half sending me out to look for stuff you dropped.”

By the sound of it, it was fortunate Lily had good people watching her back. As had become custom for the group, Lily’s self-aggrandizing nonsense and the other girls’ wry retorts helped keep the conversation lively.

Klaus elected not to join in, instead eating his food in silence.

I didn’t realize it would get this noisy with all of them in one place. He frowned.

Meanwhile, one of the others came over to him.

“Teach,” said Erna. After slicing up her lamb steak, she stabbed a piece with her fork and offered it to him. “Say aah.”

The others let out cheers of delight.

“You go, girl!” “Yeah! Show him how manly you are!” “My, how aggressive…”

Klaus felt a headache coming on.

He felt for Erna but ignored the proffered fork.

“…Why aren’t any of you nervous?” Klaus glared at the girls. “Do you really understand the situation we’re in?”

Much as he was loath to give it, they needed a lecture.

This was no picnic they were on. They were heading into a life-or-death mission with millions of civilian lives on the line.

Now was no time to be letting their guard down.

It was the first time he had ever properly scolded them.

“………”

Lamplight all went silent. You could hear a pin drop.

He was worried he’d sunk their spirits. However, that wasn’t the case.

The white-haired girl glared back at him. “Nervous? Of course I’m nervous. How could I not be? I’m scared stiff. Hell, my legs have been trembling since the minute we left Din.”

“Then, why?”

“’Cause now you’re here with us,” she said, pursing her lips. “Right now, I figure we might just be okay. Your strength is the one thing I can count on.”

Her companions nodded to signal their agreement.

Even so, they should have been more on guard. Klaus was tempted to chastise them further but decided to swallow his words.

It made sense now. The only reason they had looked carefree to him was because he was by their side. It would seem that a month straight of being bested by him had inflated his worth in their minds.

Klaus approached the white-haired girl.

“Wh-what…?” she asked, bracing herself.

“Here, your turn.” Klaus held out the fork he’d stolen from Erna. “Say aah.”

The white-haired girl’s face flushed bright red. “What—? You—I… What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“If that’s enough to shake you, I would reconsider that sense of security you feel.”

Klaus gave his victim’s forehead a flick, and the room erupted in laughter once more. He then offered the meat that the white-haired girl had rejected to Erna, who gleefully swallowed it down. For some reason, that earned her a round of applause from the others.

Luckily, Klaus was able to avoid spoiling the mood. Before long, it was just as clamorous as before.

Out of the blue, Lily made a comment. “Y’know, this is actually a first.”

“A first what?”

“The first time you’ve joined us for dinner, Teach. You should eat with us more often.”

“………”

It was a fair point.

Back at Heat Haze Palace, the girls all cooked together, whereas Klaus prepared his meals on his own. It wasn’t particularly efficient, all things considered, but he had been taking the arrangement for granted.

Meals were something you ate with your family. Since Klaus had lost his, eating alone simply made sense to him.

Perhaps that was something he needed to loosen up on.

Klaus silently left the room.

After returning from the bathroom, Klaus was greeted by an unexpected sight.

All the girls were slumped over on the table.

Had they been attacked? Klaus glanced around to get a handle on the situation.

When he got closer, though, he realized they were breathing peacefully. There were no traces of gas in the air, no signs they’d been injected with anything, and no poison in the food. They had simply fallen asleep from partying themselves out.

The team had been working ceaselessly day and night, and it had been a month and two weeks since any of them had had a proper day off. The relief of finally being reunited with their friends and allies must have uncorked their pent-up exhaustion.

Even so, it takes a lot of nerve, falling asleep here and now of all times.

He reached over to shake them awake—but then decided not to.

There was no need to wake them up. Better to let them rest.

Even if they were ambushed, he could just fend off the attacker on his own.

I could tell myself this is all part of being in charge…but I’m not sure I’d believe myself.

When the waitress came over to deliver their post-meal coffee, Klaus asked if he could pay extra to extend their reservation. He didn’t want to use official Lamplight funds for something like that, so the money came out of his own pocket. The waitress smiled happily as she looked at the comfy scene inside the room and readily agreed.

These girls… If they knew half the worry they cause me…

He looked at their sleeping faces and took a small breath.

Something his boss had once said flashed back through his mind.

“When someone lets you watch them sleep, that’s how you know they really trust you. Those are the people you have to protect, no matter what.”

Back when Klaus was much younger, he had dozed off in Heat Haze Palace’s main hall, worn-out from his constant training. When he woke up, he discovered that the boss and the rest of Inferno were gathered around him, chuckling.

“Wait, Boss… Ain’t it part of our job to wait for our enemies to let us catch ’em sleeping so we can do ’em in?”

“Come on, Guido. Don’t say stuff like that in front of the kid.”

“He’s not a kid, Boss.” Guido had clapped Klaus on the back. “He’s a prodigy. And when he grows up, this bastard’s gonna be a better spy than any of us.”

“Well, for now, he’s still a kid. An adorable kid who nods off in the middle of the day.”

Klaus had resisted the kindness. “I’m…I’m not a kid.”

He’d been at that tender age when he was still a boy but wanted to be seen as a man.

The boss burst into laughter, and the rest of the team followed suit. Guido rapped Klaus on the head. “Hey, he’s got a mouth on him!”

“This is a violence-free household,” the boss had scolded, to which Guido fired back, “No, it isn’t; we’re spies.” Klaus had smiled at the heartwarming exchange.

He was deep into reminiscing when a question suddenly occurred to him.

…Hmm? Why is it that I looked at them and immediately thought of Inferno?

The two teams were nothing alike.

One was a band of elite spies, and the other was a slapped-together group of amateurs. The two were as different as diamonds and gravel.

Regardless…it feels like their resolve is firm.

Klaus took another look at the girls. They were all resting peacefully, and Lily was even leaving a puddle of drool on the tablecloth.

He had to protect them, no matter what.

They were a bit of a handful, but that didn’t matter.

If they believed in him, he would have to put his faith in the choice he had made, too.

Lily opened her eyes with a start.

Her cheek was wet. Had somebody pranked her? Did they get her while she was asleep? Clearly, revenge was in order.

She shook her head to clear away her drowsiness and wake herself up. When she did, she realized the situation she was in. She was still at the restaurant, but the table had been cleared, and her teammates were all asleep. They must have dozed off during the party.

“Ack! This is bad!” Lily leaped to her feet.

She could remember clearly how displeased Klaus had looked when he was pointing out how lax they were being. The fact that he so rarely scolded them only made their current blunder all the more egregious.

She frantically clapped her sleeping teammates on their backs.

“Up, up, up! If you keep sleeping, Teach is gonna pour olive oil up our noses!”

“I’m going to do what?” Klaus shot her a concerned look from the corner of the room where he was sipping his coffee.

Thanks to Lily, the other girls started waking up and fearing the wrath of Klaus. They had been determined to get their acts together but had succumbed to their drowsiness all the same.

However, Klaus reacted with utter calm.

In fact, this was the gentlest they had ever seen him look. He was even smiling, albeit only slightly.

“There’s been a change to the plan. I originally said that you all would be infiltrating from the east and that I would be going in from the west, but we’re switching sides. Make sure you’re ready.”

Klaus stood up and made to leave the room. He’d only been waiting for them to wake up.

Just as the girls began wondering about his unexpected thoughtfulness, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“And one other thing…”

He hesitated for a moment, which was unusual.

“…it’s as you can see.”

“What is?”

“I suppose that’s not enough to understand, is it?” Klaus frowned disappointedly.

He went silent for a moment as though searching for the right words. “It can’t have been easy, keeping up with a boss who couldn’t teach or give proper instructions. Thank you.”

And with that, Klaus briskly took his leave.

It took the girls a moment to register what had just happened. None of them so much as moved. It was only when they all glanced at one another and nodded that they could finally believe what they had just witnessed.

He had thanked them. That aloof airhead of a man had thanked them.

They didn’t know why he’d said it. He might well have just done it on a whim.

Later, though, the girls would look back on that moment.

Later, they would realize that that was when they truly became a team.

The day had come to carry out their plan.

It was time to recover the bioweapon sample—an Impossible Mission that even Inferno had failed to complete.

The operation was scheduled for late on the night of the new moon, when the darkness would be deepest.

After finishing their final preparations, the girls snuck out of their respective hotels and raced through the darkness to the designated gathering point. There was a cliff overlooking the capital with a hill that provided a good vantage point, and that was where the team assembled.

That night, they weren’t dressed in the student uniforms they used back in Din; neither were they wearing the tourist clothes they used to sneak into enemy nations.

No, they were clad in specialized black outfits designed for maneuverability and stealth. That way, they could utilize their full strength.

The laboratory they were going to infiltrate stood in the distance.

Seeing it reminded them just how difficult it was going to be to break in.

Its buildings were five stories tall. Only a small handful of authorized people were allowed on-site, and once evening came, they got kicked out, too. At night, the area was swarming with military guards. The only ways in were to sneak past the guards’ watchful eyes and scale the compound’s sixty-foot walls or to mount a bold frontal assault on the only road with access to the facility.

Inside lay the sample they needed to steal—the horrific viral weapon Abyss Doll.

The Lamplight members glared at the objective.

“The plan’s still the same. We’re infiltrating via two routes, with me taking one and the rest of you taking the other.”

Klaus was wearing a suit, just like always, but in his case, the big change was to his hairstyle. Now his shoulder-length hair was tied back, leaving his forehead completely bare. That wasn’t the hairdo of a man trying to blend into a crowd—that was a man ready for battle.

“The laboratory has both soldiers and spies stationed on-site. If anyone stands in your way, use deception to take them down.”

The girls nodded.

With each sentence he spoke, their tension mounted.

The intelligence work they’d been doing had been nothing more than a prelude to this infiltration. It had had its dangers, but compared to the task on which they were about to embark, that preparation had basically been a walk in the park.

From there on out, a single wrong step could prove fatal.

“Let’s go.” Klaus raised his right hand up high. “And let’s all make it out of this thing alive.”

He snapped his fingers, and Lamplight melted into the darkness.

When the mission began, the girls started by forming a circle.

Then, the seven of them thrust their hands out and glared at one another.

Lily gave the opening shout.

“All right, time to decide who has to carry the bag!”

““““““Let’s do this!””””””

“Most common choice wins! Rock, paper, scissors—shoot!”

The girls all threw out “paper” in unison, with one exception—their white-haired sister, who had chosen “rock.”

She instantly rushed at Lily and grabbed her by the collar.

“LILYYYYY! You said we were going to pick rock together!”

“Huh? Was that what I said?”

Whenever the group had to decide something, they always used that rock-paper-scissors variant to do so. Over time, it had devolved into a fierce, no-holds-barred information war.

Lily continued feigning innocence, and the white-haired girl was ultimately assigned the largest piece of luggage. Thanks to her loss, she was going to have to carry out the mission while wearing a massive backpack. Of all the girls, though, she was physically the strongest, so the delegation of labor ended up being fairly reasonable.

As the white-haired girl groaned at the rucksack’s weight, the team set off.

Their first hurdle was the lighting that had been set up around the laboratory to deter intruders. The girls had to deftly weave their way between the lights in order to get close.

Then came the sixty-foot wall surrounding the compound.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have all seven of us go up at once…”

On someone’s suggestion, they sent their two most agile members up first to hang a wire near the top of the wall. As those two checked to make sure there weren’t any lookouts up there, the next pair waited on standby halfway up. Once they made sure the coast was clear, they sent the last three up as well, including the heavily encumbered white-haired girl.

Although the wall was equipped with an alarm, they had laid the groundwork to make sure it would be disabled.

The seven of them then descended behind a large warehouse. The area was home to dozens of storage tanks several times taller than they were, as well as pipes going every which way, probably filled with gas or petroleum intended for use in the laboratory. The girls hid behind the tanks and each quietly readied her weapons.

They were deep in enemy territory now.

If anyone found them, they wouldn’t be able to talk their way out of it.

From what they had heard, intruders were shot on sight.

“The next soldier patrolling this area has a key. We need to take it from him quickly,” the black-haired girl whispered.

The others gulped. They hadn’t been able to get their hands on the key ahead of time, so they had no choice but to secure it during the mission. Given the Empire’s security, though, stealing it in advance would have taken a miracle.

Lily was torn between her knife and her automatic pistol, but she ended up going with the knife. She quietly applied poison to its blade.

She then noticed that her teammate beside her was sweating and barely breathing.

“Are you okay?” Lily asked as she rubbed her back.

“I’m pretty scared…” The brown-haired girl scrunched her face up in fear. “I have this bad feeling that won’t go away. Like we’re making a huge mistake…”

“Enough with that,” the cerulean-haired girl sharply cut her off. “Now’s not the time for doubts.”

It was a prudent decision, but it had come a moment too late.

Lamplight had blindly accepted that everything was going to turn out all right, just because it was Klaus’s plan they were following—but that belief was starting to waver. It was their first mission, and their elite boss’s words were supposed to be their emotional bedrock.

They couldn’t afford to doubt them. But no matter how hard they tried to believe, questions swirled through their minds all the same.

What if their foes were more powerful than Klaus expected?

What if their enemies had a plan even he had failed to anticipate?

Trying to retrieve the bioweapon had been enough to wipe out his old team, Inferno. Did they even really stand a chance?

The moment that fear was first born, it began spreading through their ranks like a virus.

“Don’t you worry.”

Before despair could swallow them up, though, Lily spoke. “If something goes wrong, we’ll work together and make a plan—just like we always have.”

Thanks to her speech, her comrades’ fear subsided a bit.

Right when one of them was about to poke fun at Lily to further lighten the mood, they suddenly heard footsteps.

The soldier was coming, right on schedule.

The black-haired girl signaled the others with her eyes, and three of them dashed out from behind the tank. The guard was alone. They snuck up behind him, then pulled out a gag and shoved it in his mouth.

As he began panicking, another pair stepped forward to flank him. He was stronger than they were, but thanks to the joint-lock technique they employed, they were able to render him powerless.

Inside his pocket, they found the key.

The girls grinned.

“Now then, shall we interrogate him?” the black-haired girl asked with an air of grace while the others started lifting their captive. “Let’s find somewhere safe to—”

A scream cut through the air. “Get back; it’s dangerous!”

The girls reflexively leaped back from the body.

When they did, they felt a wind rush by them.

Someone had darted in too quickly for them to track visually and snatched the soldier away. This person hadn’t made a sound and hadn’t left a trace. The soldier’s body had merely floated up, then vanished as though whisked away by a current.

Once they finally turned their gazes, they saw a tall man.

His arms and legs were lanky like a bug’s, and the jacket he was wearing was navy blue. He had a sort of fickle energy to him that hardly seemed suited for the time or place. By the look of it, he was probably somewhere in his thirties, but the girls could just as easily have believed that he was still in his twenties. His bright hair came across as youthful, but his beard gave the impression of middle-age. All in all, his appearance almost came across as flippant.

The man tossed the soldier he’d just saved to the ground.

“That’s weird. That idiot pupil of mine was supposed to come in from the west.” An almost disappointed-looking smile crossed his face. “Did he change his mind at the last minute? Well, no biggie. I can just take you kids hostage, and that’ll be that.”

Lily knew that man.

She had heard his description from Klaus.

“Are you…?”

Her voice came out hoarse.

“…Mr. Guido?”

Guido was Klaus’s mentor and a member of Inferno—a group that was supposed to have been annihilated.

By all rights, he shouldn’t have been alive. And certainly not here in enemy territory.

“Huh?” Guido scratched the back of his head. “Why the hell do you know my name?”

“Teach told us about you once…”

“What, he was reminiscing? I guess that’s fair. After all, it’s not like I’m the only one whose information got leaked.”

Guido’s gaze slid across Lily’s skin.

What did he mean by leaked information…?

Lily could feel her heart rate rise. Sweat broke out all across her body.

“Why did you know the routes we’d be taking…?”

“Bit slow on the uptake, aren’t ya? I was with Inferno, and that means I used to live in Heat Haze Palace.”

An ominous smirk spread across Guido’s face.

“I’ve got that place bugged to the gills.”

Upon hearing that, the girls finally understood everything.

Now they knew how the legendary spy team Inferno had been wiped out.

And how that tragedy had taken place in Klaus’s absence.

It was because Klaus’s mentor, Guido, had betrayed them.

At the same time, they also realized their peril.

If what they had heard from Klaus was true…

“So I’ve got your plan pretty much figured out. Welcome to your own personal slice of hell.”

Guido pulled something spherical off his waist and threw it at them.

As Klaus raced through the facility, he heard an explosion off in the distance.

The sound had come from the west side of the laboratory—the side where the girls were making their approach. Someone must have found them, and a battle must have broken out.

The explosion’s languid echo reverberated in his ear.

That sounds like the bombs my master used to use…

Explosions were just as varied as the bombs that made them. The distinction was slight, but Klaus could make it out.

What he was hearing reminded him of a certain man.

Although he didn’t have any hard evidence yet, a memory flashed through his mind all the same.

When he’d found out about Inferno’s demise, one corpse had given him pause.

It was his master’s—Guido’s.

They had located a body they assumed was his, but it was so badly mutilated, they couldn’t be certain one way or the other.

As such, there was no way of knowing what fate had befallen Inferno’s strongest combatant, the man whose skill exceeded even Klaus’s—the man who could well and truly be called a monster.