Spy Classroom - Volume 1 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Lies and Retrieval

They were beside the laboratory’s western storehouse, at the storage site for the facility’s gas tanks.

The bomb Guido threw hadn’t been particularly powerful; the surrounding tanks prevented him from using anything stronger.

Still, the force from the blast sent tingles across Lily’s skin. She fled between the pipes, wincing all the while and eventually taking cover behind a water tank.

From there, she calmly analyzed the situation. Perhaps the bomb’s true purpose had been to make noise. Guido must have wanted to let someone know a battle had broken out, though she didn’t know who that could be.

The pipes running between the tanks extended out every which way like branches on trees—or even a forest of trees. As far as he could tell, the rest of the team had taken shelter among the plumbing as well.

Guido waited a little ways off from the tanks. He made no efforts to pursue them.

“What’s the plan?” Lily heard the white-haired girl’s brisk voice come from somewhere. “Guns and grenades are gonna be off the table if he follows us in here, right?”

The cerulean-haired girl haughtily replied. “No duh. We don’t know how thick these tanks are. If they’re full of gasoline or flammable gas, we could all go up in smoke.”

“So we use knives, or we make a run for it. But…”

“Yeah, neither option seems great. I mean, he might look like a poser, but this is Teach’s teacher we’re talking about.”

The one moment they had spent interacting with him had been enough for them all to realize just how skilled a spy their foe was. It was hard to envision a future in which they beat him, especially not in close-quarters combat.

Lily went silent, unsure of how best to respond.

She was good at bolstering the group’s spirits—with or without evidence—but coming up with actual plans lay outside her area of expertise.

Then, she heard a calm voice coming from the other side of the water tank. It belonged to the red-haired girl.

“If we flee, he’ll just run us down one by one. We’ll have better chances fighting him together…”

Nobody disagreed.

They steeled themselves for a fight. If they tried to use the darkness to escape, there was a fair possibility that some of them would survive, but the odds that they would all make it were slim to none. Call it naive, but they had no intention of leaving anyone behind.

Guido could sense this.

“Seven on one, huh.” He flashed them a strangely excited smile.

“You’re goin’ down one by one. Three minutes from now, I’ll have you all on the ground.”

Three minutes.

Lily had been afraid that they wouldn’t last five, but she realized now that even that estimate had been generous.

Guido reached behind his back and drew a sword. It was an odd tool for a spy, but it seemed to be his weapon of choice nonetheless.

One of the girls audibly gulped.

Guido squared off, lowering his center of gravity.

There were forty feet between him and the gas tanks the girls were hiding behind. With his speed, he could close that gap in an instant.

For a few seconds, all was still.

Then, a whistle broke the silence.

The girls rushed from their hiding places in unison and fired off shots.

“Don’t let him get close!” the black-haired girl shouted. “If he makes it to the pipes, our guns will be useless!”

All seven guns unloaded on him without mercy or hesitation. The girls knew that if they held back, they were the ones who’d end up dead.

Their barrage would have turned any normal person into Swiss cheese.

If only Guido were a normal person.

He zigzagged toward them, occasionally swatting bullets out of the air with his blade. He didn’t look scared in the slightest. If anything, he was enjoying himself.

In what seemed like no time at all, he reached the area thick with piping, and the girls stopped shooting. Guns would do them no good now.

Instead, the seven of them sprang into action, laying wire traps around the pipes as they raced through the shadows. Luckily for them, the forest of tanks and pipes provided ample spots where they could hide.

Guido ignored the other girls and made straight for Lily.

She felt like a rabbit being chased by a lion. She ran atop the pipes as fast as her legs would carry her, but Guido was still faster.

He was going to catch her.

But right when that realization struck, she heard someone whistle.

That was the signal they used when setting traps.

Precisely two seconds after she heard it, Lily took a massive leap.

“Sorry!” Lily shouted. “But we’ve had plenty of practice being outmatched!”

All their training had given them a remarkable ability to rework plans on the fly and coordinate to make snap decisions.

As she somersaulted forward through the air, Lily shot a glance backward.

Guido was still holding his sword and coming after her, but he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

His right foot was caught in a tangled web of wires.

Someone must have laid a booby trap.

When Lily landed and looked up, she saw the cerulean-haired girl flipping Guido the bird.

With Guido rendered immobile, the other girls hurled knives at him, and their ash-pink-haired companion charged him from behind with a stun gun.

Thanks to their impeccable coordination, Guido was in serious trouble. With his leg trapped, there was no way he could dodge the knives hurtling toward him from every direction.

“What are you guys, dumb or somethin’?” he asked with a derisive laugh.

Lily stared in blank shock.

It happened in a flash.

All of a sudden, Guido’s ensnared foot ripped through the wires holding it in place and slammed straight into the ash-pink-haired girl’s gut; he evaded the knives with ease.

“Remember which country you learned about that trap in?”

He then swung his leg and dashed the ash-pink-haired girl against a gas tank. She let out a wordless moan, then crumpled to the ground.

“The Republic’s tricks won’t work on me,” he said in a cool, level voice.

The young spy he’d kicked lay prone by his feet. She didn’t get up.

“Six left.”

The girls understood exactly what that meant.

Their pink-haired comrade, always the innocent, purehearted life of the party—Annette—was down for the count.

The Galgad Empire had a number of covert operatives stationed at the Endy Laboratory.

Considering the bioweapon they had stored there, they would have preferred having more, but they’d made so many enemies around the globe that they lacked the spare personnel. Besides, guarding facilities wasn’t exactly under their intelligence agency’s purview. That was supposed to be the military’s job.

As far as the Empire’s spies were concerned, the Din Republic was already dead.

Not only had their one real threat, Inferno, been annihilated, but the Empire had also gotten its hands on a list of all the Republic’s collaborators within their borders. The only thing left to worry about was Inferno’s sole survivor. That was why they had laid a trap for him at the laboratory and were waiting for him with waves of soldiers. Once he was out of the picture, the Republic was as good as theirs.

In the laboratory’s admin building, one of the Empire’s covert operatives—Eve—let out a yawn.

“Hey, are those Republic shmucks dead yet?”

Eve was a spy in her midtwenties. Her short brown hair gave her a young and girlish look, and her job centered around counterintelligence. Essentially, she was a member of the secret police tasked with tracking down enemy agents.

She was waiting in the communications room with a group of soldiers. Her nonchalant attitude earned her several frowns, but she just smiled and ignored them. Like in any country, the Empire’s soldiers had a bit of a hard-on for order and discipline. Seeing her suck on her lollipop as she waited for news probably caused them no end of annoyance.

Still, they held their tongues.

The Empire’s intelligence agency was completely independent of its Department of Defense, and as a consequence, there was no official hierarchy between the two institutions. Over time, though, the intelligence agency had unearthed a number of the army’s scandals, and before they knew it, the spies could say “Jump!” and the military would have no choice but to ask “How high?”

A young male soldier promptly replied. “It appears that Bluebottle has engaged a spy or group of spies near the western storehouse. Another unit has also reported that they caught the trail of an infiltrator by the eastern gate. They’re in the middle of tracking the intruder now.”

“Heh. Then it’s just like our intel said.” Eve sat back down and planted her feet atop the desk.

The soldiers around her knit their brows in disapproval.

“Um…a question, if I may?” the young man asked.

“Hmm?”

“What chances do you think the Din Republic rats have of succeeding?”

“Hmm…,” Eve replied. “None, I imagine.”

“Surely it can’t be that easy…”

Eve let out a derisive scoff. “The moment Guido…well, Bluebottle now, I suppose… The moment he betrayed them, we learned everything about all the Republic’s spies. We know our enemy’s techniques, their strengths, their weakness—even the plan they’re using tonight.”

“And that’s going to be enough…?”

“See, Bluebottle planted bugs throughout his old home, and our foes have been living there completely blind to that fact. We know about every spy they sent to this compound, and they came here with bad intel, not even aware that we let them come.” Eve snapped her fingers. “All we have to do now is swat a few loose flies.”

Furthermore, they had installed traps and soldiers in every spot to which the Republic operatives were likely to flee. All that awaited them was ruin.

The young man didn’t seem totally convinced. “But Mr. Bluebottle said there was a man we needed to watch out for.”

“What, their boss? Nah, he won’t be a problem, either. Bluebottle taught him everything he knows.”

“Really…?”

“Apparently, they’ve sparred hundreds of times. But Bluebottle never lost once. As long as we leave him to Bluebottle, we’ll be fine.”

Everything she’d said had come straight from the horse’s mouth. According to Bluebottle, he knew every aspect of their foe’s fighting style, having raised him from early childhood.

“After all, we set up this plan to make sure we could kill him. They’ve been dancing in the palm of our hand this whole time. Now it’s just a matter of time until we finish slaughtering them.”

At last, the young man let out a deep sigh.

“It almost makes you feel bad for them.”

“Hearing it all aloud…it does, doesn’t it?”

Then, Eve happened upon an idea.

“Maybe I should put them out of their misery myself.”

The soldiers flew into a panic. “Ma’am, you have orders to stay here.”

“Excuse me? Don’t you look at me like that. You think you can disobey me?”

“But…”

“Well?” Eve gave the soldiers a harsh glare.

The soldiers had gotten tired of this woman’s smug superiority, and the young man took a resolute step forward.

“With all due respect, this laboratory is under the military’s jurisdiction. If you need someone to fight the spies you lured in here, we’re far more qualified to—”

However, he wasn’t able to finish his sentence.

The thread wrapped around his thick neck snapped tight, and he let out a sad, frog-like croak.

The other end of the string was on Eve’s fingertip.

She pulled it tighter, then sneered at the writhing soldier. “Sorry… What was that about fighting?”

Even though he had a much larger physique than her, his eyes were wide with fear.

She gave his head a kick.

“Listen, I don’t care how much of a hotshot you are in the army; soldiers are a thing of the past. We don’t need a bunch of apes who only know how to point a gun. With modern technology, war is simply too risky, too costly, and too wasteful. Am I making myself clear?”

That was why they needed spies. Anyone who could take over a country without jets or missiles was worth their weight in gold.

Eve kicked the man some more to drive her point home.

“You put so much work into training your body, and for what? You think your enemies are just going to walk up and fight you head-on? They’ll shoot you from behind. They’ll fight with deception, with poison. Without a decent mind to protect yourself, how do you plan on surviving in this new world?”

The moment the soldier looked like he was about to pass out, Eve let her string go slack.

“Now then, I have some spies to kill.”

After catching his breath, the young man rushed to stop her.

“P-please, you have to wait! If the enemy is an elite spy, too, then you—”

“They can be whoever they please. I’m not about to get laid low by some surprise attack from the darkness. In my time with the secret police, dozens of enemy agents met their ends by my string.” Eve flashed him her palm and the strings coiled around it. “I’ll be sure to bring his head back for Bluebottle.”

Just as she laughed, a message arrived in the communications room. The intruder had been spotted at the building that housed the main lab.

Perfect. Time to put him down.

As flippant as her attitude was, Eve was all business on the inside. She squeezed her gun tight, ready to act if she heard even the slightest sound. She advanced with hushed footsteps as she probed for signs of the enemy.

The lab’s interior was cold and artificial. Its flooring was state-of-the-art linoleum—hygienic but not hard enough for footsteps to be too loud.

Eve silently let out her string to expand her web. The weapon was silent, of course, and thanks to the dim light, spotting it wouldn’t be possible, either.

Now all she had to do was wait for the butterfly to drift into her spiderweb.

She felt a light twinge on one of her fingertips.

Got you… That’s the weight of an adult man.

She reeled in her string and bound up her foe. Just as she thought, this guy was no big deal.

Eve chuckled to herself, then followed the threat so she could gun down her prey—

“Gack.”

A strange sound escaped her throat.

She didn’t know when he had gotten there, but there was a man behind her.

He wiped the blood off his knife with an annoyed look on his face.

Eve didn’t understand what had happened. Her throat felt warm, and when she reached up to touch it, a torrent of blood spilled from the slit.

“Just some nobody, then?” he murmured. His voice sounded almost listless.

Eve couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her web had caught someone—she was certain of it.

Now, though, her strings were in tatters, and the one being attacked was her.

“The Empire must really be shorthanded if these are the only operatives they can spare to guard this place.”

The man caught Eve’s body before she could hit the ground, then rummaged through her clothes. After determining she had nothing worth taking, he dumped her.

“I’m in a hurry. I don’t have time to waste on the likes of you.” He didn’t even deliver the coup de grâce.

Instead, he raced off as though he’d lost interest, eventually vanishing from her sight altogether.

“Six left.”

Guido’s voice echoed coldly through the dark laboratory compound.

“Annette…”

What had once been a mere theory was now a certainty in Lily’s mind.

It was all true. Guido’s fighting skills were on par with Klaus’s. He might even be stronger.

The way he had moved when overcoming their traps even resembled their teacher. There was no doubt he had once been Klaus’s mentor.

As Lily hid, she felt like someone was squeezing down on her heart.

The man they were up against was on par with the one they’d fought for a month without securing a single victory. To make matters worse, they were already down a member.

Lily strained her eyes at the pink-haired girl Guido had struck.

She was lying on the ground, and her chest was rising and lowering ever so slightly. She was breathing.

“Thank goodness, she’s still—”

“Killing is for amateurs.”

Chains rattled as Guido dropped them by his feet.

After binding the pink-haired girl’s arms and legs, Guido spoke again.

“You have ten seconds to get out of there. Each second beyond that, I break one of her fingers.”

Lily gritted her teeth.

In the world of spies, taking hostages was fair game—in fact, everything was fair game.

To them, foul play was a way of life. If anything, his willingness to take a hostage was something to be praised.

With each passing moment, more sweat dripped down Lily’s cheek.

She and her teammates exchanged glances as they stayed hidden in the shadows.

“Teach isn’t here now…” Lily’s gaze darted around. “Saving her is up to us. There’s no other way.”

She steeled her nerves.

Then, she slowly stepped out from behind the pipes and faced their menacing foe head-on.

Guido let out an impressed sigh. “Looks like someone made up her mind fast.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

That was also the only nice thing he was saying about her, but better to not think too hard about that.

Behind her, she could hear the black-haired girl whispering.

“We have to come up with a plan while Lily buys us time.”

Lily stretched her shoulders to feign composure.

So her job was to divert Guido’s attention. She could roll with that.

“But you screwed up.” Her foe didn’t seem to be in any rush, either. “You shoulda ditched her and made a run for it. Once someone gets captured, it’s their job to kill themselves as quickly as possible. You won’t survive in this world long playin’ buddy-buddy.”

“Sorry, but the only thing we learned was that hostages are like injured swans.”

“That damn kid. After all the work I put into teaching him properly…” Guido rubbed the back of his neck.

Lily clenched her fists and stared down her foe. “We made a promise that we’d all make it back alive.”

Leaving a friend behind? That had never been an option.

“Without Teach and seven cuties like me, Lamplight wouldn’t be Lamplight. I mean, a rainbow’s got seven colors, and there are seven deadly sins… It’s the perfect number. We’ve got Thea for lust, Sybilla for wrath, me for greed… Anyway, you get the idea.”

The white-haired girl shot a retort from the darkness. “Who you calling wrath?!”

Even in their current predicament, her voice was as brisk and dignified as ever.

Cheered on by that fact, Lily’s deflated expression softened a bit. “Six or eight just wouldn’t be right. It has to be all seven of us going back with Teach.”

“And I’m tellin’ you that’s naive.”

The time for small talk was over. Guido switched his sword to a backhand grip and pointed its tip at his hostage. The bound, pink-haired Annette let out a weak moan.

“Bring it.”

The implication behind his words was clear.

Drag this out any longer, and the girl dies.

“If you’re as good as Klaus—”

Lily exchanged a glance with the other girls.

“—then I guess it’s time for us to surpass him.”

This was what they’d been doing for the past month.

A bunch of weaklings, working together to take down a Goliath.

In her heart, she knew—it was time to show the fruits of their labor.

They had never once succeeded, but they knew how it could be done.

“…Use deception to take them down.”

By piling lies on top of lies, it was possible to make someone mistake a zero for a one—or a one for a five. And that would give them an opening.

The red-haired girl walked up to Lily and quietly whispered the plan in her ear. Lily gave her a wink in lieu of a verbal confirmation.

Then, the battle commenced with one of the girls hurling a bomb at Guido.

A cloud of smoke billowed up. White fumes spread through the darkness, then faded.

Guido didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t so much as flinch. He just stayed by his hostage.

By the time the smoke screen cleared, the girls had already finished getting into position.

Two of them leaped out—the white-haired and cerulean-haired girls.

They were armed with gloves and a knife respectively, and they rushed at Guido from opposite sides. When it came to combat prowess, those two were the best in the group. Guido casually fended off their attacks with his blade, and the pair only barely managed to evade his counterattacks.

The white-haired girl had set her backpack down before diving into the fray. Newly unencumbered, she used her steel-plated gloves to block Guido’s sword, and her cerulean-haired partner used the openings that created to level deft knife strikes at their foe.

However, Guido eventually put a stop to that, too.

His expression hadn’t changed one bit during the entire skirmish, and he was even enjoying himself. Little by little, though, the girls found themselves completely on the defensive.

“Urk—”

When the white-haired girl groaned, her black-haired backup rushed in to lend them a hand with another smoke screen.

Smoke filled the air once more, and the white- and cerulean-haired girls used that opportunity to fall back.

They heard an annoyed murmur. “Enough of this shit.”

Guido dashed away from his hostage. He had a new target—the black-haired girl.

She frantically tried to flee atop the pipes, but Guido wove through the snaking mess of metal without slowing down for a moment and quickly gained on her.

Suddenly, her foot slipped.

“Oh no…,” she lamented as she toppled to the ground.

Down below, Guido was waiting for her with his sword at the ready. “You ain’t getting away this time.”

“Stay back…”

The black-haired girl choked the words out, her eyes dripping with tears. She scrambled pathetically backward with her butt still planted on the ground. The way she was twisting her body to the side and cowering accentuated her natural curves.

To make matters worse, her clothes caught on something while she was fleeing. They tore, leaving her buttocks fully bare.

The more she scooted backward, the more they ripped, and the more her seductive legs came into view.

“No… Don’t come any closer…” Her voice came out frail and feminine, a far cry from her usual courageous tone.

“………”

Guido’s response was as cold as ice.

“You’ve got the eyes of a vixen trying to lure in her prey. You tryin’ to stir up my sadistic side or something?”

The girl immediately stopped her fake crying. “Maybe, but you’re out of time.”

A web of piano wires surrounded Guido and swooped toward him. He had already stumbled into their spiderweb of a trap.

Given his skills, he could cut himself free before they sliced him up, but—

“Magnificent.”

—there was a follow-up ready for him, too.

Appearing from the dead of night, the man attacked from overhead, plunging a knife through the sole opening in the piano wire web.

That man was the one person Guido couldn’t afford to ignore.

“This is checkmate for you, Guido—”

“You really think that’s gonna work on me?”

But Guido didn’t offer them the slightest opening.

Without so much as flinching at the fake Klaus’s arrival, he sliced through the piano wire, coolly blocked the knife strike—which was miles slower than the real Klaus’s would have been—and grabbed the imposter by the arm.

“Agh…” The girl let out a moan.

“The disguise ain’t bad. Problem is, he always calls me Master.” Guido hurled the fake Klaus with all his might.

As she flew through the air, her head skidded against the ground, and her mask came free. After rolling to a stop, she tried to lift herself up, but her arms quickly gave out.

The gentle red-haired girl who polished Lamplight’s plans and strategies until they shone—Grete—was down for the count.

“Five left.”

Guido tied up the red-haired disguise artist.

It only took him a scant few seconds. The black-haired girl didn’t even have time to escape.

As she tried to scurry backward, Guido struck her jaw with the flat of his sword. The blow didn’t look that hard, but she slumped to the ground all the same.

The beautiful, mature black-haired vixen who always brought the team together so elegantly—Thea—was down for the count.

“Four left.”

At that point, the white- and cerulean-haired combatants finally caught up with him.

Guido evaded their attacks, then raced up a gas tank and looked around for his next prey.

Lily had been hiding and surveying the situation. Their eyes met.

“Y’know, your two buddies have been chasin’ me around for a while.”

He pointed his sword at her.

“You talked a pretty big game earlier—what’ve you been bringin’ to the table?”

“………”

As Lily ran away, she cocked her head to the side.

As things stood, she was leaving planning, commanding, and fighting—pretty much everything—to the others.

“…Moral support?”

“Well, ain’t that just peachy?”

Everyone had things they were good at and things they weren’t. And that’s just the way the world works.

As much as Lily wanted to defend her honor, though, she sadly didn’t have time.

Guido had chosen her as his next target. He bolted toward her so fast, he seemed like lightning from the heavens.

There was no way she could dodge. His dropkick, so efficient it bordered on beautiful, smashed into her shoulder—

“That and grit!”

—and with willpower alone, she grabbed his leg.

Moral support wasn’t the only thing she was good for. She had a weapon that was hers and hers alone.

The poisonous fumes, bursting from all over her body!

“Gas…?” Guido’s eyes went wide for an instant. He quickly clamped his mouth shut.

“Do it!” she shouted, still holding his leg.

He immediately shook her off, but the damage was already done.

Guido staggered.

The team’s two combat specialists launched what was now their third attack. “Fuckin’ die already!” the white-haired girl cried briskly as she leaped, and her cerulean-haired cohort grinned haughtily as she thrust her knife at him.

The battle was over in an instant.

However, not in the way Lily had anticipated…

“Three left.”

Struck on the chin by the flat of Guido’s blade, the white-haired girl was the first to fall.

“Two left.”

Then, after running afoul of his roundhouse kick, the cerulean-haired girl’s body slammed into the piping.

The white-haired girl’s—Sybilla’s—cool, fearless remarks always pulled the team forward.

And arrogant as she was, the cerulean-haired girl’s—Monika’s—outstanding efforts had brought the team success after success.

Now they were both down for the count.

Screw this.

Lily broke into a run as well.

Two of her friends had just gotten pummeled before her eyes, and she was pissed. More importantly, though, she knew she couldn’t afford to let this opportunity pass. Her toxin must have worked.

Guido shot Lily a look of admiration.

“So you’re a little special, huh? You must be, if you can move around in this paralytic poison.”

“Stops you; doesn’t stop me!” she shouted confidently. She charged him, knife in hand.

However, he blocked the blow with ease. He was just as fast as ever.

“This can’t be…” Lily gaped at him in shock. “Why didn’t my poison work…?”

Her special gas had been sufficient to stop even Klaus for a short while.

How was Guido so unaffected?

“Nah, it worked. I quickly stopped breathing in, but still, this is some nasty stuff. Look, I can’t even feel my fingertips.”

Guido waved his hand, then clenched it to demonstrate.

“Still…you really think that’s enough for you to beat me?”

Suddenly, Lily heard a voice from behind her.

“Miss Lily, run!” A teary-eyed girl rushed out on her own, then leaped at Guido from behind. “I’ll buy you some time, so go—”

“Oh, shut up.”

Before she could finish her sentence, she, too, fell victim to Guido’s blade. His attack was so swift, she hadn’t even been able to buy a couple seconds.

The team’s timid, brown-haired worrywart, the one always acutely aware of the danger they were in—Sara—was tragically down for the count.

“One left.”

Lily had to choose. Run or fight?

She hesitated for a moment—and that hesitation spelled her doom.

The instant she took a step forward, Guido was already there waiting for her.

He buried his fist deep in her gut.

“You’re finished,” he succinctly declared.

The girls had spent the past month constantly training.

And that training hadn’t let them down. They had grown stronger, and their skills had advanced dramatically from where they had been before. The talent Klaus had seen in them had truly begun to bloom.

But at the end of the day, it had only been a month.

Guido had spent over two decades living as a spy on the front lines. He had never once neglected his training, and he had dozens of times more experience in live combat than the girls.

It was just math at this point. Nothing more, nothing less. They weren’t ready to face him.

“Zero left.”

The solemn verdict echoed in Lily’s ears.

She crumpled to the ground.

Klaus was running.

The explosion he had heard earlier still weighed on his mind.

Impatience gnawed at him, and he raced through the laboratory as fast as he could.

He needed to hurry.

He wasn’t going to lose an ally again.

He smashed a glass window with his foot, then leaped out of the building. He was on the third floor. He then cast out his wire, hooked it onto the adjacent building’s roof, and smashed his way in through its window. He would have preferred moving about a bit more subtly, but given time was of the essence, shortcuts were in order.

How much longer would the girls be able to hold out against an elite spy?

No…if their opponent was only an elite spy, that would be one thing.

But if the person they’re fighting really is him…

…then he needed to act fast if he was going to save them.

Fearing the worst, he urged his legs on faster.

He soon found that the hallway in front of him was blocked by a large metal door. Klaus drew his picklock as he raced toward it. However, he discovered the door didn’t contain any sort of keyhole.

A deep voice sounded out from behind him.

“That door isn’t going to open no matter how skilled at lock picking you are. It’s just a wall.”

He turned to find a middle-aged man standing behind him. Klaus could tell by his outfit that the man was a seasoned spy, and he was accompanied by four soldiers to boot.

It would seem he had a new obstacle with which to contend.

Klaus tried to kick the door down, but it didn’t so much as budge. The sensation in his foot told him that bit about it being a wall had been true.

The middle-aged operative spoke boastfully. “You want to take the shortest route to the gas tank repository, right? To save your little friends?”

“Oh? And how is it you know what I want?”

“A little bird told me all about you. Everything you people have done, you’ve done by our leave.”

He burst into laughter, though it wasn’t clear what exactly was so funny.

“The map your subordinates got their hands on was a fake. This here is a dead end.”

“………”

“I can’t believe you only just realized this was a trap. You’re not too bright, are you?” The man shrugged disappointedly and let out another laugh. “It’s pathetic, really.”

His voice was downright grating.

“And you’re supposed to be a teacher, too, aren’t you? I have to tell you, those kids of yours are a hoot. Not realizing that the Empire was onto their every move, getting excited over the bad intel they got their hands on… I’ll bet they had a blast playing spy.”

“………”

“I mean, come on. From what I hear, they were a bunch of spy academy washouts. You seriously thought you could trick us by polishing a bunch of turds?”

“………………”

“You should feel bad for being such a shitty leader.”

The wall disguised as a door had no windows around it. It was well and truly a dead end.

The soldiers standing beside the middle-aged spy raised their submachine guns. It was the perfect weapon for firing down a straight, empty corridor.

The man raised his arm and coldly gave the order.

“Now, take your regrets to the—”

“I don’t have time to mess around with you.” Klaus had been hoping this fellow would spill useful information, but all he had gotten were unwarranted insults.

A large burst of flames rose up around his ambushers’ feet.

The fire quickly filled the closed-off corridor, surrounding the men before they had a chance to flee. The only one unaffected by the blaze was Klaus, as he had backed up as far as possible and spread his flame-retardant suit out in front of him beforehand.

The flames died down just as quickly as they had arisen, but even that was enough to knock the soldiers out.

The middle-aged agent, who had used his allies as human shields, was the sole survivor. He screamed as the flames worked their way across his body, glaring at Klaus all the while.

“Y-you set a bomb…?”

“I fell for your trap on purpose.” Klaus put his suit back on and took a deep breath. It was all almost anticlimactic.

The older man goggled at him in disbelief. “It doesn’t make sense… How were you able to sense Eve’s string? How did you know you were walking into a trap?”

“I just did. Although, there was also a bit of a trick to it.”

“You little… You’re nothing but a worthless spy from a worthless nation…”

The agent began backing off, but he soon stumbled and collapsed to the floor. His legs had suffered serious injuries as a consequence of the explosion.

“E-even if you get past me, you’re still going to die anyway.”

Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted.

“Bluebottle’s going to massacre you. You—and all your pathetic little pipsqueaks!”

It was impressive, in a way, that he was still such a loudmouth after being bested so thoroughly.

However, Klaus had little admiration to spare for the man’s ranting. “Enough with the wailing.” Klaus drew a weapon as he closed the gap between them.

“No…”

“This isn’t my favorite part of the job, you know. I’d rather you not annoy me while I have to do it.”

The man’s face went pale as a sheet.

What Klaus had produced was a thick, stained knife, jagged and nicked enough that cutting anything with it would be a slow, lengthy affair. It was a weapon designed for torture.

After laying Lily low, Guido let out an exasperated sigh.

Well, that was hardly satisfying. They barely even lasted a few minutes.

It was odd. Had the girls really believed they could beat him? They had gone up against Klaus for a month straight and come up short every time. What had possessed them to think they stood a chance against his mentor?

Guido threw a pair of handcuffs at each of the downed girls. When the restraints made contact, they snaked around his captives’ limbs like living creatures and bound them up. The vanquished members of Lamplight probably wouldn’t have been able to move anyway, but Guido wanted to be absolutely certain.

Right when he was about to throw a pair at Lily, his transceiver crackled.

“Bluebottle, what’s the situation over there?”

The call was from one of his allies.

Annoyed by the unfamiliar code name, he spun the handcuff around his finger. “I’m just wrapping up. I’ve incapacitated most of the intruders, and I’m in the middle of securing them.”

“Excellent work.”

“Any sign of Klaus?”

“About five minutes ago, yes. One of our men located him in Building B, but it appears the target was able to escape. There’s a good chance he threatened our man into spilling everything.”

Guido’s eyes went wide.

He had told them to report Klaus’s movements in as much detail as possible, but his former student was making his way through the compound far faster than anticipated. The soldiers standing guard simply weren’t able to keep up with him.

Seven more minutes till he makes it here… No, more like five.

Guido was confident he could take Klaus in a fight, but he also knew there was no poison half as deadly as overconfidence.

He was all too familiar with what Klaus was capable of.

“…Better make sure I tie these guys up on the double.”

Guido hurled a pair of handcuffs at the last of his victims to seal the deal.

“Hyah!” She batted them away.

Guido looked over to find her glaring at him.

It was the silver-haired whelp—the one her allies called Lily.

“Scratch that… Looks like there’s still one left,” he said, restarting his countdown. “You’re better off not resisting. Hurts like hell every time you move, I bet.”

Guido had punctured her liver with great precision. Whenever the slightest pressure was applied to the wound, blood would pool in her liver, rapidly draining her stamina. Forcing herself to move in that state must have put a tremendous strain on her muscles.

“…Aren’t you going to kill us?”

“Huh? No.” Guido gave a small wave with his hand. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ve got no plans of eliminating you right now, so you can go ahead and rest easy.”

“All the more reason I can’t rest, then.”

And with that, Lily rose.

With shaky footsteps and a swaying torso, she tried desperately to straighten her knees and stand. She stumbled but made another attempt.

“Why even get up? It’s not like you can beat me.”

“I know what you’re after…” Lily flashed him her pearly whites. “You’re going after Teach, right? He’s been your real target all along…”

“That he has.”

Guido gave her a round of applause.

He wasn’t mocking her—the praise was sincere.

“Got it in one. Dealing with him is just as important to the Empire as keeping the bioweapon.”

Guido was under orders to do whatever it took to protect Abyss Doll. It was the ultimate deterrent, and as far as the Empire’s politicians were concerned, their military capabilities were the backbone of their international influence. Even if war itself was an inefficient way of achieving their ends, that only made effective saber-rattling all the more valuable.

But in the Imperial intelligence agency’s view, there existed a threat much more menacing that any bioweapon…

“Here’s a fun fact for you. On the day Inferno got wiped out, the plan was to terminate him on his mission, too.”

The fact that Klaus had been sent somewhere else that day hadn’t been a mercy from Guido.

Klaus needed a very special trap if Guido wanted him dead. At worst, Klaus might even have ended up saving the rest of Inferno.

“But here he is, alive and kickin’. He even took out all the Imperial spies we sent to do him in. The way the Empire sees it, killing him is a top priority.”

Their assassination attempt should have been enough to take out anyone, yet he had survived all the same.

No human could have pulled that off. Klaus referred to Guido as a monster, but in Guido’s eyes, Klaus was something even more inhuman.

He was too big a threat to the Empire to be allowed to live.

“But this here’s the end of the line. As his mentor, I can say with certainty that not even Klaus could survive this.”

They had set everything up perfectly to ensure that.

Guido pointed his gun upward and fired. The shot echoed through the night sky—all the way to Klaus’s ears.

“After hearing the gun and the bomb from earlier, he’ll come here. And then, with his seven teammates taken hostage, he’ll come after me. He’ll know the odds are against him, he’ll know it’s pointless to fight me, but he’ll put up a brave, gallant stand—and he’ll die for it.”

Lily laughed at Guido’s explanation. “Ha-ha, you really think he’ll come…? You sure he won’t just leave us to our—?”

“That stupid pupil of mine will come.”

He would.

As Klaus’s mentor, that was the one thing of which Guido was certain.

“He won’t abandon an ally. He’ll sacrifice everything, walk into whatever trap he has to, but he won’t leave a man behind. That’s just the kind of person he is.”

Even in this world of lies and deception, Klaus had principles he refused to break.

Given the choice between sacrificing the girls to survive and risking his life to save them, he would always pick the latter.

“Yeah, you’re right. Ha-ha, no, no, I get it. He’s totally gonna come.” Lily exhaled and looked at the sky. “And when he does, he’s gonna die protecting us.”

“He cares too much about his allies. And that weakness makes it surprisingly easy to plan against him.”

“Damn, you’ve really got us against a wall. If Teach comes, he’s gonna die, and if he doesn’t, then you’ll kill us. We’re doomed!”

A big grin spread across her face.

“Guess that makes it my job to stand up and fight you, huh?”

And so she did.

Her legs trembling, she struggled to her feet.

“If Teach is gonna die when he gets here, then I just have to take you down before he does.”

“You know that’s not happening, right?”

Guido lightly tossed a knife Lily’s way.

She swatted it aside, but in doing so, she lost her balance and crumpled back onto the ground. Her legs were still weak.

“You can’t win. You know you can’t. So why do you keep getting up?” Guido scoffed.

He wasn’t praising her blind, hopeless assault as a flight of youthful enthusiasm. The only thing in his voice was scorn.

“Because it feels nice here.” The words spilled softly from Lily’s mouth.

“…The hell?”

“That’s why I’m working so hard.”

Her tone became firmer.

“You probably wouldn’t get it. You wouldn’t get how much fun we had coming up with plans to take down Teach and bickering during our postmortems. You wouldn’t get how every minute I spent with these girls fueled a fire inside me to be a better leader. You’re a traitor; you could never understand.” Lily rose to her feet and spat on the ground.

“What a pathetic person you are.”

“………”

She was goading him.

He could see the contempt burning in her eyes.

However, Guido wasn’t about to lose his cool over drivel like that. He had no obligation to lend an ear to the desperate grumblings of a spy who refused to accept when she’d lost.

“If anyone’s pathetic, it’s you.” Guido laughed mockingly. “It feels nice? Yeah, I’ll bet. Buncha washouts lickin’ one another’s wounds and getting to live in a swanky mansion? I bet you’re having a blast. And I get why you’d want to protect that. But at the end of the day, all your buddy-buddy nonsense achieved was gettin’ you taken hostage and weighing Klaus down.”

It pissed him off that she still didn’t get it.

It was precisely that softhearted comradery that had been their undoing.

He redrew his sword. “You’re done.”

With that, he smashed the flat of the blade into her gut. The attack was so fast she couldn’t possibly defend herself.

Her back slammed into the pipes behind her, and blood trickled from her mouth.

“Take a good, long look. Look at what your posse of washouts was good for. And watch that stupid man die for the sake of his team.”

“Gah…” Lily choked out a weak, hollow cry. “Teach, no… Stay away… He’ll kill you…”

“He’ll come, though. He will.”

Unable to abandon his allies, Klaus was going to come despite knowing he couldn’t win. The man, fatally unfit for spy work, was going to prioritize his subordinates’ lives over the completion of his mission.

It had been about five minutes since Guido got his last call.

Where was he loitering while his helpless girls suffered?

Had he already arrived? Was he waiting for the right moment to strike?

“Hey, stupid pupil… Quit screwing around and get out here…”

If he was, he was leaving that poor girl to fight on her own.

“You’re here somewhere, aren’t you? C’mon… The enemy you’re lookin’ for is right in front of you, dammit!”

His voice burned with barely contained fury. He never knew the man he’d taken in, the man he’d raised, was such an idiot.

“The one who killed your family is right here!”

Guido shouted even louder, his voice booming through the night.

“The mentor you need to surpass is right here!”

He shouted again.

“Your student’s ready to die if she has to!”

His voice echoed off the tanks—and that was it. No proud retort, no soft hints of someone sneaking around.

It didn’t make sense.

Five minutes had come and gone, so…

“…Why isn’t he here?”

“Mr. Guido, I have to ask…,” Lily said quietly.

Guido looked down at her.

Then, a chill ran down his spine.

The girl’s teary expression was gone, replaced by the cold, eerie gaze of a reaper come to herald his end.

He didn’t get it.

If Klaus came, Klaus would die.

If Klaus didn’t come, the girl would die.

The situation should have been utterly hopeless for her—

“…how much longer should I keep playing along with this game?”

—so why was she…smiling?

At that moment, he heard a message over his transceiver.

“Magnificent.”

Guido would recognize that voice anywhere.

It had been transmitted from communications room one—the room right next to the main lab.

Instead of coming to Lamplight’s aid, Klaus was finishing his mission.

It was the night before the mission.

After the end of their party, Klaus had called Lily to his room. She was blushing up a storm when she arrived; Klaus quickly realized she’d misunderstood but chose to save himself a headache by just ignoring it.

He cut to the chase. “I have a dangerous job I’d like to ask you to do.”

A look of bewilderment crossed Lily’s face. As usual, she made a few inane, self-aggrandizing remarks but ultimately ended up agreeing. “If it’s for the team, then I’m in.”

The genuine love she felt toward her teammates was liable to get her into danger, but it was also one of her most endearing character traits.

Klaus had high hopes for her. He lowered his voice. “In all likelihood, the Empire knows what we’re up to.”

“Huh?”

“As I told you before, all our conversations in Heat Haze Palace were bugged. They’ve probably been following our every move, and every bit of information Lamplight gathered was false intel prepared by our enemies. We may as well burn the lot of it now.”

“Wait, but what about all our hard work?”

“It meant nothing.”

“At least put it nicer!” Lily slumped her shoulders dejectedly.

The news came as quite a shock to her.

“I’m going to be blunt. A single month of cramming isn’t going to be enough for amateur spies like you girls to surpass first-rate professionals. Especially not with my questionable teaching skills.”

Lamplight had definitely grown. Given that they had started as all but dropouts, though, there was no way they would be able to go toe to toe with elite spies so quickly. It simply wasn’t possible.

Lily cradled her head in her hands. “Great, now you start talking sense…”

“That’s fine, though. We’re going to feign ignorance and go ahead with the infiltration anyway.”

“But how’re we supposed to get the bioweapon like that?”

“Because they’ll think we know nothing, our foes will underestimate me and try to lure me into traps. That knowledge will let me counter them. I’ll turn the tables on the people they send after me and steal intel from them directly.”

“Sounds like it’s gonna be superhard for you…” She wasn’t wrong, but it was the best option they had.

Fortunately, he had spent the last month with a group of girls trying to catch him in traps, so he was certainly warmed up for the task.

“Meanwhile, there’s someone I want you to deceive.”

“So we’re gonna be a diversion?”

“Exactly. Your true mission is to feign weakness—and to use that to create an opening.”

That was the real reason he had gathered the girls together and why he had trained them.

If he really had betrayed them, then Klaus wouldn’t be able to pull this off on his own.

Upon hearing the full scope of their plan, Lily pressed a finger against her cheek and tilted her head to the side.

“Hmm… I’m not totally sure I followed all that, buuut…”

Always with the theatrics, that one.

“…basically, our job is to take on this Imperial spy who’s been laughing at us from the shadows this whole time, then use all our lies and training and comradery to land a big ol’ wallop right in his face and be like Ha, serves you right?”

The corner of her lip curled upward.

“I gotta say… I think it’s gonna feel real darn good.”

However, that shameless mental fortitude of hers was precisely why Klaus knew he could count on her.

He spoke, his tone earnest and firm.

“Show him what you learned from our game of cat and mouse—and use deception to take him down.”

“Can you hear me, Master? It’s certainly been a while.”

His pupil came through loud and clear.

Guido looked at the light on his transceiver to double-check where the call was coming from.

Communications room one…?

That was right next to where the bioweapon was stored at the southernmost end of the facility. Guido wasn’t anywhere near it, so Klaus must have had his run of the place.

“I’m calling to report that I just secured the bioweapon.”

Klaus spoke in the same disaffected voice Guido remembered. Of course he had the bioweapon; it had been obvious from the moment the call came in.

No, the problem was that he had gone to the main lab instead of saving the girls in the first place.

“Never thought you’d prioritize your mission over rescuin’ your team,” Guido replied candidly. “Gotta say, that one’s a shocker.”

Klaus should have come after him right away.

This was an unexpected turn of events—but it was still one for which he had an answer.

“You have five minutes to get your ass over here before I start killing the girls one by one.”

His students’ lives were still in his hands. Nothing had fundamentally changed.

Klaus would come. And Klaus would die.

“No…,” Klaus said. “…I won’t be coming.”

“What?” Guido was sure he’d misheard.

A dumbfounded murmur escaped his lips.

Klaus then explained himself, deadpan as ever.

“I completed the mission, so I’m heading home. Even if I came, I know I can’t beat you in a fight. I have my own survival to consider.”

And that was that, as if this were a casual conversation.

“You set quite an impressive stage—my pupils in danger, my foe a traitor, and my master secretly being alive—but sadly, you and I won’t be fighting today.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“You failed to protect the bioweapon, and you failed to kill me. There really isn’t any more to it.”

Any normal spy would have agreed that this was the correct decision. Sacrificing his allies to complete his mission was the rational thing to do.

But that was a choice the man Guido was talking to would never be able to make.

Klaus would never abandon a teammate. That was the whole premise behind the plan.

“Don’t make me say it again. You have five minutes to make it to the west side of the compound. If you’re not here, I’ll kill them.”

“Don’t make me say it again. I’m not coming.”

“You’re just going to abandon these girls—your allies?”

“That’s the plan.”

“You know the Empire’s gonna torture ’em, right?”

“I hear gut punches are just the thing.”

It was downright uncanny.

How could he be so calm about all this?

Why did he sound so in control when his teammates’ lives were in imminent danger?

Cold sweat trickled down Guido’s back.

Guido’s men had listened to all the conversations in Heat Haze Palace, and on the fourth day after the girls moved in, Klaus had sworn that he wouldn’t let them die. Had that promise been a lie? Had he been playing them for fools and sending them to their deaths?

No. This man was incapable of something like that.

As someone who knew Klaus better than anyone, Guido could say that with confidence.

“But, Master, you’re operating under one giant misapprehension.”

“Hmm?”

As confusion racked Guido’s brain, Klaus’s words sank into it like water into parched soil.

“I had a feeling from the start that someone from Inferno turned traitor. I am surprised it turned out to be you, but I knew all along that Inferno’s destruction was an inside job.”

“You didn’t have any proof, though. How could you be so sure?”

“I just was.”

“…Y’know, sometimes I forget how much of an airhead you are.”

“If I absolutely had to give a reason, I probably figured it out when I found the bugs you planted. And besides, it was hard to imagine a group as strong as ours getting wiped out by anything but treachery from within.”

He found the bugs?

But wait, that meant…

“As such, everything we did was with the knowledge that a traitor was wiretapping us.”

“Everything…?”

“For example, one of our rules was to never use our special abilities inside Heat Haze Palace.”

Suddenly, Guido remembered.

According to his men who’d been in charge of the wiretap, the girls had reacted with confusion when they first arrived at the manor.

The odd passage, Rule  : Give it your all when you’re out and about, hadn’t made any sense to them.

“You didn’t know that one of the girls was a poison user, did you?”

“………”

“No, you didn’t. You thought you knew what the girls were capable of, but in truth, you knew nothing. Not even you could have known about the hidden geniuses lurking in the spy academies.”

Klaus raised his voice until he was practically shouting.

It was like he wanted to declare his superiority as loudly as possible.

“What I’m saying is: There’s no need for me to come. The girls will beat you all on their own.”

“They’ll what?”

“Each and every one of them is an even greater prodigy than me. You couldn’t possibly prevail against them.”

Guido couldn’t even begin to understand what Klaus was saying.

Klaus was going to abandon the girls, and they were going to beat him themselves.

The plan was completely detached from reality. It was little more than a delusion.

That was when he saw Lily and the confident smile stretching across her face.

“Ha-ha, guess that means I can stop stalling now.”

“Stalling…?”

“Now, I’m gonna get seriouser than serious. You’ll finally get to see what happens when Lily, Din’s slumbering wunderkind, finally wakes up.”

Was she trying to imply that she had been holding back this whole time?

Even after having been knocked down countless times already, she rose to her feet once more.

Guido couldn’t begin to fathom the source of that tenacity of hers.

“…Hidden geniuses? What a joke. The only reason I don’t know who you people are is ’cause you’re a bunch of washouts, right? I made sure to keep tabs on all the top students.”

“Th-that’s not true…”

It clearly was.

Klaus must have just been lying. There was no way in hell there could be seven bigger monsters than him.

Still, I don’t get it. These girls can’t beat me…so ain’t that stupid pupil of mine coming?

Was he really beating a tactical retreat? No, he must have some sort of plan.

Did he really think that a little out-of-the-box thinking would be enough to beat Guido?

“Comms room two.” Guido made another call. “Did Klaus’s transmission really come from comms room one?”

“It did. He knocked out the soldiers stationed there and was occupying the room. We ran over, but there are signs he left.”

The spy stationed in the other communications room explained the situation.

“Klaus is…nowhere near you.”

“This doesn’t add up…”

Help wasn’t coming, and Guido was sufficiently stronger than the girls that they wouldn’t be able to pull any cheap tricks on him.

That left two possibilities.

One—that Lily truly was a secret weapon of the Din Republic who had somehow escaped Guido’s notice.

Or two—that Klaus really was abandoning them.

The former simply wasn’t true. Guido could tell that much from fighting her. She certainly had some skill, but it wasn’t polished in the slightest.

So was it the latter? He loved his allies so dearly and went to such lengths to protect them; was he even capable of that?

“Did my stupid pupil…actually change…? Is he really not gonna come help his—?”

“I’m telling you: We don’t need any help.” Lily cut him off.

She gave him a cold smile.

“How much longer are you gonna stand there thinking of me as a little damsel in distress who needs saving? I’m no damsel—I’m cheeky, I’m strong, I’m cool, I’m pretty, and I’m the leader of this here team.”

She stood on her own two legs, gallant and brave.

“See, there’s something I found here in Lamplight. I found a way even a washout like me can blossom. And so as its leader, it’s my job to take the whole team’s skills and power and pound them into you!”

Her voice was unwavering.

Despite having her back up against a wall, her eyes burned with fierce determination.

“You talk a big game for a washout.”

“Yeah, keep looking down on me. See how that ends for you.”

Lily spread her arms out wide.

“I’m code name Flower Garden—and it’s time to bloom out of control.”

She introduced herself boldly enough that it called her instincts as a spy into question.

The change was immediate—something began bubbling across her body.

Just like flowers coming into bloom.

“Foam…?” Guido growled.

Lily’s skin had just released a massive amount of bubbly foam.

It poured out from her sleeves, her collar, her buttonholes, and her skirt.

After gushing forth from every conceivable opening in her clothes, the soapy bubbles spilled out onto the ground around her. Even after landing, though, they refused to pop, instead flowing around and sticking to the pipes and tanks.

The bubbles were a shade of purple so noxious that just looking at them would have been enough to make anyone want to give them a wide berth.

As they spread, they let out a horrible burbling noise.

In the blink of an eye, the entire area was bathed in her foam.

“Y’see, Teach was able to beat my poison gas, too.”

“Huh?”

“So after a month of effort, this is the innovation I landed on. A poison foam that makes full use of my special trait.”

Guido had experienced firsthand what that was.

The girl had been able to move freely amid a cloud of powerful paralytic gas.

If he hadn’t acted fast, he would have been in danger from such a powerful toxin, yet she had shrugged it off like it was nothing.

In short, the girl was immune to poison.

Lily stuck her tongue out at him. “Wanna find out how strong this stuff is?”

The only way her tone could have been more carefree was if she were literally humming.

Was the foam really poisonous, then?

Guido fell back as he observed the ever-expanding mass of bubbles.

Some of what she said was probably a bluff…

He calmly analyzed the situation.

There was no good reason for her to go and reveal her ability like that.

…but what if the poison’s strong enough that it’ll kill me in a single hit?

That wasn’t fear talking. As a spy, he had to consider every possibility.

As Lily stood in the unidentified froth, she gave him a provocative smile.

She didn’t look afraid in the slightest.

She knew how much stronger he was and that Klaus wasn’t coming to help, yet she was proudly baring her teeth.

Could it be true? Could it be that she wasn’t a washout, but a genius?

Could any person truly act so composed in a situation they knew was hopeless?

Questions swirled through Guido’s head, and an instant later, he made his choice.

“Hey, stupid pupil, you still there?”

“Yes?”

“You probably can’t see, but the only girl still able to fight is Lily.”

“That’s more than enough.”

Klaus’s voice was brimming with confidence.

I just don’t know…

In that moment, Guido began worrying for the first time.

It stings, but he’s right… I don’t know how strong the girl’s tolerance is…

If she were any other spy, he’d have been fine.

He had memorized everything about all the Din Republic’s official spies—as well as all the top students at the spy academies. Even beyond that, word about the male problem students often got back to him, too. He could have easily come up with strategies to deal with any of them.

This was his sole blind spot—underachieving female students.

“No, this is fine… Whatever her plan is, I’ll just smash through it head-on.”

He had fought his way out of plenty of grim situations when he didn’t have a lot of intel with which to work.

He relaxed his body and waited for Lily to approach.

All he had to do was take her hostage and force Klaus to come. That was all there was to it.

She seemed to be ready, too. Clad in the foam—

—she dashed toward him.

She ran with all her might.

Her speed wasn’t anything to write home about, but her intensity set Guido’s nerves on edge.

She closed in on him, still wearing her eerie lather like armor.

Her long hair disheveled and a roar coming from her throat, she charged into him head-on—

“Wha—?”

—then let out an abrupt cry.

“Too slow.”

The conclusion Guido arrived at was that he simply had to attack fast enough that she couldn’t pull anything.

Lily didn’t seem to realize he had stepped toward her. She hadn’t even seen him. Guido had intentionally staggered his advance to make her misconstrue the distance between them.

He didn’t give her so much as a chance to react.

After carefully avoiding her foam as he passed her by, he landed a clean blow on her back with his sword.

“Gah!”

She had finally reached her limit. Guido could feel the power drain from her body.

The silver-haired novice whose resolve and shamelessness were a match for any elite spy’s—Lily—was down for the count.

“Zero left.”

With that, he had bested them all.

Guido was certain he had ruined their plan. He wiped his sword clean and sheathed it.

As he did, he suddenly noticed the foam bubble that had landed on the back of his hand. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to dodge them all.

He reflexively swatted it off, but his skin was the same as ever. The suds hadn’t caused any rashes or pain. As far as he could tell, it was just regular old foam.

“…Was the part about the poison a lie? Or is it just slow-acting?”

Either way, it didn’t seem to be deadly.

Exasperated, he looked around at the seven girls sprawled out on the ground.

Even just a glance was enough for him to notice that they all had different hair colors—ash pink, red, black, white, cerulean, brown, and silver. Lily had likened them to a rainbow, and sure enough, there it was. Seven colors.

As he looked at the defeated spies, Guido’s mouth curled into a grin.

“Klaus, all your girls are—”

However, he didn’t get a chance to finish.

All of a sudden, something came rushing down at him from overhead.

“Wha—?”

One of the pipes was falling toward him.

The impacts from the fight must have knocked one of its bolts loose.

Guido immediately leaped backward.

Had Lily used her foam to lure him there?

The timing seemed too good to be true, but the logical part of his brain quickly took over.

That wasn’t it. The accident must have been just that—an accident.

It was probably random, he thought. Merely a weird coincidence.

After all, there was something he didn’t know.

Guido was wholly unaware of a girl who could predict accidents.

And even if it was on purpose, a measly pipe is hardly gonna be enough to—

A falling pipe was something he could handle with ease. In fact, he was already clear of the impact site.

Then, something moved.

In Guido’s peripheral vision, he saw something shift in the sea of foam Lily had laid.

However, he couldn’t react. He was already leaping backward, so he had no way of dodging.

The thing raced toward his back, and pain shot through him.

“Agh?!”

Blood gushed from his mouth, and he felt a burning sensation in his back.

But Lily was still down. The other six shouldn’t have been able to move, either.

What was going on?

Guido fought through the pain to look behind him.

There, he saw the unsheathed blade that had appeared out of nowhere from the foam he had assumed was poisonous…

“How unlucky…”

…as well as a blond girl.

She was holding the knife tight and stabbing it into his back.

His assailant, who possessed a certain doll-like beauty, turned her melancholic gaze toward him.

“Our first coordinated plan, and I get stuck with the hardest job…”

What Guido was seeing was impossible.

He took another dumbfounded look around.

There were seven girls lying prostrate on the ground in the laboratory’s western storehouse. He had counted right the first time.

In short, the only possibility was—

“An eighth…?”

The one with white hair had been carrying a massive backpack—was that where she’d been hidden? Afterward, she must have used Lily’s foam as cover to get into position.

Even if he understood it rationally, he still couldn’t come to terms with it.

At Heat Haze Palace, hadn’t Klaus always called them you seven? Hadn’t the girls always said “the seven of us”? Didn’t Lily just finish proudly declaring that there were seven colors in a rainbow?

There were supposed to be seven of them.

All of a sudden, he got another call from communications room one.

“By the way, I didn’t mention it…”

A cold voice echoed through his transceiver.

“…but one of our rules was that the eight of you have to live your lives as seven people.”

“What…?”

“I’m sure you’ve figured it all out by now, so as a special favor, allow me to introduce the team to you.

“Our boisterous first member has silver hair, a loud mouth, and a penchant for making trouble—Lily.

“Our no-nonsense second member has white hair, gets along well with Lily, has a foul mouth, and is always the first into the fray—Sybilla.

“Our timid third member has brown hair, a good head on her shoulders, and a nervous temperament—Sara.

“Our graceful fourth member has black hair, a knack for seduction, and is the team’s de facto leader—Thea.

“Our demure fifth member has red hair, a tactical mind, a ladylike tone, and a bad habit of calling me Boss—Grete.

“Our arrogant sixth member has cerulean hair, a tomboyish tone, and the skills to back her attitude up—Monika.

“Our purehearted seventh member has ash-pink hair, an irreverent manner, a simple spirit, and she always helps keep the team’s morale up—Annette.

“And our quiet eighth member has blond hair, showed up late to the group after running into a series of accidents, and mostly kept to herself at first—Erna.

“I may have called them you seven, but there are eight girls in all.”

The trick had been built around the wiretap.

If Guido had seen them with his own two eyes, it would have been obvious in an instant that there were eight of them, but distinguishing between eight girls by just their voices was no easy feat.

“Just how deep…did the lying go…?”

Klaus’s first meeting with the team had been a lie, the oath he swore to them was a lie, their games of cat and mouse had been a lie, their daily lives had been a lie, Lily’s posturing had been a lie, and her poison foam had been a lie—all to mask that single attack.

Guido finally realized the truth.

The girls had never harbored any illusions about being able to beat him.

They had traded a month of their lives, just to land a single blow.

However, that realization came too late.

A spurt of blood gushed from his back.

As she watched Guido collapse, Lily squeezed her fists tight.

Elation filled every inch of her body.

It worked…!

That was the grand trap Klaus had set—having the eight girls live as though there were only seven of them.

Heat Haze Palace Communal Living Rule  : Work as seven to live together.

When the girls first read the rule, they didn’t understand why it was there. After all, when Lily arrived and when Klaus first appeared, there actually were only seven of them. The rule came across as childish.

But on the second evening, it all became clear.

That was when Erna, who had been delayed by a series of vehicular mishaps, finally showed up.

The eight of them were being told to work as seven.

As such, at least one of them made sure not to talk whenever all eight of them were together.

Also, they did their absolute best to avoid calling one another by name.

Selling the lie had taken a coordinated effort by the entire team. Together, they had set a trap and used their foes’ bugs against them.

Of course, we still only barely pulled it off…

Lily chuckled to herself, then got back to work.

Erna reached into Guido’s pocket and pulled out a key.

Lily took it from her, then began releasing the girls Guido had tied up. None of them were seriously injured. That came as a big relief, but more than anything, she was again impressed at the precision of Guido’s technique. For a spy, being able to hurt a foe without leaving any wounds or injuries was an invaluable skill—especially when trying to threaten them into giving up information.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here! Teach can handle the rest!”

As Lily scurried around freeing the others, Erna gave her a disappointed look.

“So much for that attitude from earlier…”

“Oh yeah, no, we’re all damsels in distress, and we definitely need saving!”

“Why would he make a whole team of damsels in distress?!”

If they ran into a traitor from Inferno, the girls’ job was just to keep them busy. Meanwhile, Klaus would handle everything related to actually securing the bioweapon. All grandstanding and posturing aside, the thing Lily wanted most was to get as far away from this terrifying place as possible.

After quickly freeing all the others, Lily finally reached her white-haired teammate. Then, right as she got the brilliant idea of doodling on her face—

“Behind you!”

—she heard Erna scream.

Lily was able to dodge the sword flying at her head, but only by the slimmest of margins. One of her hair ribbons was shredded to pieces.

Erna’s sensitivity to danger was really something else. Developing it must have taken a truly unfortunate life indeed.

In any case, though, Lily really wished she wasn’t seeing what she was seeing.

Guido got to his feet. He was breathing hard, and his eyes had a feral gleam to them.

“I stabbed you, though, I’m sure of it…”

“Yeah, but I shifted to catch the blow between a muscle and a bone.” He wiped away the blood trickling from his mouth. “Still passed out for a bit, though. Gotta admit, it’s been a while since the last time that happened.”

Erna bit her lip as she stood by Lily’s side. However, nobody could possibly blame her for what had happened. Seeing through an elite spy’s trickery was far easier said than done.

“This guy’s seriously a monster…”

Guido combed back his hair with his hand, leaving a rusty streak thanks to the blood. He stared the girls down as the wind gradually dried his newly blood-caked hairdo.

“Ruuun!” On Lily’s signal, Lamplight fled.

Her reasoning was simple: Guido was seriously wounded, so there was no way he’d be able to give chase.

He was acting tough, sure, but it had to just be an act. And her reasoning was dead wrong.

“Ah—”

Guido’s speed didn’t seem to have suffered in the slightest.

By the time they saw him leap, he was already springing from pipe to pipe, almost dashing through the air. It was no more than a blink of an eye before he was directly over the fleeing girls’ heads. He launched something at them.

Blood.

With a big swing of his right arm, he hurled a handful of blood at them like a shotgun blast. The fluid was so sticky, they couldn’t get it out of their eyes, and it slowed them down just the way he wanted.

His target was Lily, and his kick whizzed through the air and made straight for her face. At the last moment, the white-haired spy blocked the blow. However, his foot continued on unabated, sending Sybilla crashing into Lily. They both went flying and slammed into the two girls behind them. They all tumbled to the ground.

One kick had laid four of them low.

They were no match for him.

Guido was a wounded beast now.

The girls were utterly helpless.

“A tenth of a second.” Guido raised a finger. “That’s how much you slowed me down. Congratulations.”

That was little more than a rounding error.

They had thrown every scheme they had at him, and that was all it had accomplished.

Guido looked down at the still-prone spies and pointed his gun at them. He wasn’t worried about the gas tanks behind them. He knew he wouldn’t miss.

All the emotion left Guido’s expression as he placed his finger on the trigger.

“Magnificent.”

A cold, imposing voice rang out.

Guido’s gun was knocked aside. He leaped away from the girls, just as Klaus landed on the very spot he’d been standing.

“Teach!” Lily joyfully cried.

Klaus turned to her and tossed her his briefcase. “This is the bioweapon. Take it and run.”

“Wow, you really got it all on your own…”

“Only because you ladies distracted my master.”

Klaus turned away from his team and looked at Guido.

“Go on ahead; I might be a while. Use route number four to get back home. And like a fountain welling up from a plateau, remember your training.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, but you got it.” Lily went to check on the others.

Behind her, Klaus and Guido were having their reunion.

“It’s been a while, Master.”

“Klaus…”

Lily was extremely curious—what would this mentor and pupil have to say to each other when one of them should have died?—but now was no time for voyeurism.

The girls made a beeline toward the facility’s perimeter.

“My subordinates did some fantastic work, I see.” Behind them, they heard Klaus’s voice. “Your movements are a tenth of a second slower.”

It rang with confidence.

“Looks like I finally caught up.”

Filled with rage, Guido bellowed in reply, “KLAUS!”

As she fled, Lily looked back over her shoulder.

Guido was charging at Klaus, gun at the ready. He was moving fast enough that she knew she wouldn’t have been able to react.

“I’m sorry, Master…” Klaus’s lips moved ever so slightly. “…but as you are now, you aren’t qualified to be my enemy.”

The last thing Lily saw was Guido spinning spread eagle through the air.

She couldn’t tell what Klaus had done.

The two of them were on a whole different level, and their battle had been too fast for her to follow.

However, it was clear that Klaus had emerged the victor.

Five minutes later, the girls reached the laboratory’s wall and made their escape through a rain of gunfire.

Then, after losing their pursuers, they headed to a predesignated truck and made their way across the border hidden among its cargo.

And with that, their Impossible Mission ended in success.