Spy Classroom - Volume 1 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue

Loss and Rebirth

A week had passed since the completion of the mission.

The Lamplight girls were gathered in the main hall, and all were carrying suitcases. A couple of them were restlessly checking the contents of their bags, and several of the others were yawning sleepily. They had been up late partying, so none of them was exactly well rested. There were also some members of the team who hadn’t managed to finish packing yet.

Chief among that group was Lily. She had tried to cram all her clothes in her bag, then started dragging everything out again once she realized there was no way in hell it would fit. She’d loaded in too many nonessentials. Upon retrieving the pistol she had haphazardly stuffed inside, a pleased grin spread across her face.

“Man, when I look at my spy tools, it brings me right back to when I played Guido for a fool… And in that moment, Lily the Great Pretender was born.”

The white-haired girl, who had long since finished her packing, offered a brisk rebuttal.

“I dunno, sounded to me like you were talking out of your ass back there. I mean, divvying up the seven deadly sins?”

“Nobody asked you, Wrath.”

“Just to ask before I clock you, which sin are you?”

“Oh, I’m greed. And envy. And gluttony. And sloth. And pride.”

“Wait, you’re not even divvying them up!”

Back when they listened to Lily’s conversation with Guido, all the girls had silently thought the same thing.

Tricking Guido might have been part of their plan, but Lily had been spouting off some pretty random nonsense.

At the end of the day, though, it had worked, so it was hard to blame her for reveling in the victory.

However, one member of the group poured cold water on her enthusiasm.

“And besides…,” Erna said. “We barely even did anything…”

“Wh-what are you talking about?!”

Erna took a seat atop her suitcase, which was almost as tall as her, and idly kicked at the air. “All we did was sneak into a corner of the laboratory, get in a single hit on a single enemy, and then run away…”

“Yeah! Pretty impressive, right?”

“And in the same time, Teach knocked out a dozen guards, disguised himself as a soldier, snuck in, snatched a key, opened three safes, blackmailed a researcher, stole the bioweapon, destroyed their research results, killed four enemy spies, and also took down the enemy who we could barely touch.”

“………………………………”

Lily took a good long while to mull over the stark truth with which she’d just been presented. She then opened her eyes wide, strode right over to Erna—

“Take that! Cheek pokes!”

“Hwuh?”

—and offered a carefully considered counterargument.

“Divine punishment for being a buzzkill!”

“Sh-shtooop!”

“Oh wow, your skin is so soft. I guess you really do exist.”

“Of coursh I do!”

“It’s just—your presence felt so faint during the mission, it was like…did she dissolve into thin air or something?”

“You’re horrible!”

Lily prodded both of Erna’s cheeks simultaneously as though to make sure she hadn’t turned incorporeal in the last two seconds.

As she kept going, Erna’s expression grew more and more pained, eventually causing the rest of Lamplight to leap at Lily. “Quit bullying her!”

Lily responded by obstinately continuing to poke Erna’s cheeks, while the others tried to pry her off. As Erna was shaken back and forth, she let out an alarmed cry.

“Y-you really should be careful around me, or—”

“Ah! The floor!”

Lily’s foot slipped.

She had tripped over a bump in the carpet, and when she fell, she took the rest down with her. The latch on the suitcase Erna had been sitting on came undone, and its contents poured out all over the main hall. “How unlucky…,” Erna moaned.

Lily lay faceup with the other girls pinned beneath her.

Instead of listening to their demands that she get off them, though, she instead just gazed at the ceiling.

“Ahhh…”

Her voice sounded almost like a sigh.

“Guess we’re not gonna be able to hang out like this anymore, huh.”

That was why the girls had packed—they were going their separate ways.

“That’s right.”

They heard a calm voice.

Klaus was sitting on a sofa over in the corner. “Lamplight was a provisional team designed to take on a single Impossible Mission. With the mission complete, the team’s being disbanded. You did well.”

The girls responded with slight nods.

The only reason they had been assembled was as a countermeasure against the traitor from Inferno. Now that they had fulfilled their roles, they were to disperse. There was no good reason to continue putting a bunch of inexperienced girls through these harsh missions.

The plan was to have them return to their respective spy academies. The next time they did fieldwork, it wouldn’t be after a provisional graduation but after they had succeeded in graduating the old-fashioned way.

“Now then, it’s about time.” Klaus knew when the train was coming.

They had already finished saying their good-byes the night prior, so the girls made their final preparations, then headed to the front entrance with their suitcases in tow.

One by one, they each thanked Klaus for everything as they left.

Klaus wordlessly saw them off.

“………”

“Hmm? What is it?”

The last to leave, Lily, took an interest in his expression. His lip had twitched for a moment, like there was something he wanted to say.

“No, it’s nothing.” He shook his head. “I hope we meet again someday.”

“Yeah. It probably won’t be for years to come, but…”

Lily gave him a small smile.

“…see you again someday.”

After watching the girls go, Klaus got to work on Lamplight’s final duty.

His destination was the Din Republic’s Cabinet Office Building. It was an unremarkable edifice in the heart of Din’s capital, about two hours’ drive from Heat Haze Palace. After making sure he wasn’t being followed, Klaus headed into the Foreign Intelligence office.

An older man with gray hair was waiting for him inside. His body was as thin as a withered branch, but even though he was no longer in active service, his eyes still gleamed with a steely, raptor-like light.

The man had no name. He was known simply as C.

He was the head of the Din Republic’s spies, and all directives given to the nation’s espionage teams came from him.

Klaus gave his report verbally.

“Well done,” C commended him after he finished. “Now those dogs over in the army owe us one. That should make our lives a good deal easier.”

“I didn’t do this to score points for some internal rivalry.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. At the end of the day, keeping the army from getting too big for its britches is just another part of maintaining peace for the people.”

The Director—which was what Klaus called C—gave Klaus a smile that only went as far as the corners of his mouth.

“Here, let me brew you a cup of coffee.”

“No thank you.”

“No, I insist. I simply love treating my agents when they finish missions.”

Ignoring Klaus’s reply, the Director poured some mineral water into his electric kettle and began boiling it.

Klaus gave him an annoyed glower, but the Director continued paying him no heed, instead getting to work grinding the beans.

Klaus sighed and sat down on the sofa.

The Director said nothing during the entire time the coffee took to brew. Then, after delicately preparing two cups, he sat down across from Klaus.

“So just to make absolutely sure,” the Director said languidly, “you’re certain you want to disband Lamplight?”

“With where the girls are now, they’ll be able to return to their academies without problem. They’ll be better served by taking thoughtful lessons from skilled instructors, not an incompetent teacher like me.”

As Klaus answered, he took a sip of coffee. It tasted about the same as swamp water, but he didn’t let his impression show on his face.

“Well, that’s a shame.” The Director rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d have preferred to keep it around, myself. Can I persuade you to change your mind?”

“Not a chance.”

“Based on your last mission, Galgad has its hands on all our nation’s information. But a group like Lamplight is made up of problem children they never took notice of; it could serve as our trump card against the Empire.”

You’re only saying that because you don’t know them. Klaus sighed internally.

He admired their skills, but there was still a lot about them that made him worry—in particular, their penchant for making rookie mistakes when they weren’t in high gear.

“We can’t ask a group of inexperienced girls to put their lives in danger any more than they already have.”

“But when you consider the situation our nation faces…”

“The leadership shouldn’t be cleaning up their mistakes by forcing grunts to assume greater risk. It isn’t a sustainable solution.”

That was no way to take responsibility. If the top brass had just caught on to Guido’s betrayal, the girls wouldn’t have had to clean up after their mess. Looking at the situation objectively, it was downright pathetic.

The only time they were supposed to take on such perilous missions was after they’d developed their strength and skills at their academies. That was just how it worked.

The Director’s eye narrowed at Klaus’s blunt opinion.

Klaus felt a tingle run across his skin.

Was it annoyance he was sensing? No, it was outright malice.

“…If you want to overrule me, then go ahead. Just don’t be surprised when I give you pushback.”

“I didn’t even say anything yet.”

“We’re both spies. I can tell how you think.”

“…And what if I threatened to gather talented operatives from across the country to force your hand?”

The Director leaned forward and gave Klaus a piercing stare.

It took a commanding presence to control the nation’s spies for as long as he had.

“You’re welcome to try.”

However, Klaus didn’t back down. He had no intention of changing his mind, even if his choice meant making enemies out of all his colleagues in the nation.

He returned the Director’s gaze with his head held high.

The Director was the first to blink. “…We’ve already lost Inferno. We can’t afford to lose your loyalty, too.”

He smiled, then drank his god-awful coffee seemingly with pleasure.

“I guess that’s that, then. It is the best way to protect those girls, I suppose.”

“I’m extremely grateful to them.” Klaus took another sip of his coffee in turn.

“Don’t worry, though. Even with Lamplight disbanded, there’s nothing to be concerned about. I can keep handling the missions against the Empire just fine by myself.”

When the Director heard that, his shoulders slumped uneasily. “Keeping the Empire at bay wasn’t the only reason I wanted to keep Lamplight together, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

The Director turned his gaze to his coffee cup, staring at it as though yearning for a long-distant past.

“Inferno’s boss used to talk about you a lot. Said you were too dependent on the team.”

“What man doesn’t love his family?”

“She was worried about you. Said that if you ever lost Inferno, she didn’t know if you’d be able to stand on your own two feet.”

Klaus pictured his old boss.

After Guido took him in, the one who’d accepted him most warmly was a gentle woman they called Hearth. Many of the things she’d taught him weren’t about spy skills but morality.

“…When you put it like that, you make her sound like a mother fretting over how to raise her child.”

“Isn’t that what she was?”

“………” Klaus said nothing. That was perhaps an affirmation of sorts.

He didn’t know how she thought of him, but he certainly saw her as something like a mother. There were times when she was kind and times when she was strict, but she always set his heart at ease. He could still clearly remember all the quieter moments they had shared.

But now she was gone.

And it wasn’t just her. He had loved all his teammates, seen them as his brothers and sisters, and now they were—

“You need to take a break, kid.” The Director’s soft voice echoed in his ears.

“…I have to keep moving forward.”

“No. This is one order I’m going to need you to follow.”

The Director drank down the rest of his coffee, then stood and placed his hand on Klaus’s shoulder.

It felt firm and heavy.

“I’m giving you the next month off. You look like a dead man walking.”

“Of course I do. I just lost my family.”

“No,” the Director disagreed. “It’s gotten worse since then.”

“………”

Klaus had no rebuttal to that, so he exited the room instead.

By the time he left the Cabinet Office Building, the day had already turned to night.

The sun had long since set, and the moon sat concealed behind a thick drape of clouds. Due to the soot from the city’s cotton mills, the night had been especially dark recently. Women and children were rarely found out and about after sundown, but even adult men avoided walking the port city’s streets at this time of day. Klaus couldn’t help but mentally compare it to the Empire’s lavish townscape. It reminded him of just how outmatched the Din Republic was, and he let out a sigh.

He was alone.

He idly gazed up at the overcast sky as he strode down the street.

“………”

His mind was consumed with thoughts of the way he and Guido had parted.

Even after retrieving the bioweapon and securing the girls’ escape, Klaus still had one final duty left.

He needed to find out.

Why had Guido betrayed Inferno and led its members to their deaths?

As far as Klaus knew, Guido didn’t bear any grudges against the team. Just like Klaus, he loved them and thought of them as his family. So why?

As Guido lay facedown with blood gushing from his back, Klaus went and knelt beside him. Before he could say anything, Guido let out a hoarse murmur.

“You did good, kid…”

“Master…”

There was no sense in getting torn up over how frail Guido’s voice was. After all, he had delivered the wounds himself.

“Gotta say, this was a surprise…” Guido smiled weakly. “Never thought I’d get done in by my pupil’s pupils…”

“It was all thanks to my brilliant teaching.”

“Like hell it was.”

Klaus thought of arguing but quickly realized it would be pointless.

All the conversations they’d had in Heat Haze Palace had been bugged. Guido knew exactly how terrible Klaus’s lessons had been.

“I know how bad you are with words and stuff. You really worked your ass off, didn’tcha?”

“If anyone worked hard, it was the girls. Of course, now that they’ve beaten you, we’ll be parting ways.”

“Disbanding, huh? Bet you’re gonna be lonely.”

“Not at all,” Klaus replied. “Not if you come back with me.”

“What?” Guido’s mouth hung open in disbelief.

Klaus softly touched Guido’s throat to check his pulse. “I know it’s bad, but I can still give you emergency treatment and save your life.”

“Are you for real?”

“Of course, Master. Together, the two of us can rebuild Inferno.”

Klaus took off his suit jacket and retrieved the needle and thread stored within its lining. Then, he began slicing it up with a knife to make bandages.

“You’re too soft…” Guido watched him in stark disbelief. “Klaus, you idiot… How do you think that’s gonna go over with the brass…?”

“The only mission I was tasked with was retrieving the bioweapon, and that’s what I did. I won’t let them give me a hard time.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just—”

“You’re the only family I have left.”

Klaus didn’t care if people accused him of letting his emotions dictate his actions. There was a future he wanted, and he didn’t care who denounced him on the way there.

However, there was a bare minimum requirement he needed to meet first.

“So please, you have to tell me. Why did you betray the team? Your motive decides your fate.”

Klaus gave Guido a pointed look as he heated his needle over a lighter.

Depending on his teacher’s answer, that needle would either be used to stitch up his wounds or go straight into his throat.

“Serpent.”

The words spilled from Guido’s mouth.

“They’re a new Imperial spy team, and they’re a bunch of creepy fuckers. Made me wanna puke just lookin’ at ’em.”

“…I’ve never heard of them.”

“They came to me and—”

“Master, be quiet for a minute.” Klaus cut him off.

Now that he knew there were circumstances outside of Guido’s control, his top priority was getting him stable.

“I’m going to do some basic surgery now. I can tell you had your reasons. Once we get back—”

However, Klaus never got a chance to say You can tell me all the details.

As he leaned forward, a bullet came flying.

He had sensed no enemies. No noise.

Even for Klaus, stitching up a wound in lighting conditions that poor required a fair bit of concentration. His entire focus had been directed at his dying mentor. He had no chance to react to the bullet aimed right between his eyes.

He was wide open. It was the perfect surprise attack.

I’m going to die.

The moment after reaching that conclusion, blood splattered all around him.

His entire body was covered in red.

“Master…?”

And Guido was lying on top of him.

The moment he realized Guido had taken the bullet for him, he also realized that the liquid he was covered in was Guido’s blood. The bullet had hit him square in the chest.

When Guido’s body slumped off him, Klaus got a clear look.

In the distance, on a rooftop, a person was holding a rifle.

The sniper turned around and disappeared into the shadows.

Klaus had no intention of giving chase. He pressed down on Guido’s wound to stanch the bleeding. Guido’s life was fading away before his eyes, and he had to stop it.

However, he knew he was already too late.

Guido let out a whisper. “______”

After those final words, he never spoke again.

When Klaus got back to Heat Haze Palace, he didn’t see a single soul there.

The only noise echoing through the manor was the sound of him opening and closing the door.

His mind raced with thoughts about the mysterious spy team Serpent, and he had no desire to devote the next month to relaxation. He wanted revenge, and as a spy, he felt a sense of obligation, too. He needed to investigate.

When he tried to ascend the stairs to his bedroom, though, his feet came to a stop. The Director was right—he was exhausted. He would need to get at least some rest.

He headed to the main hall and sat down on a sofa.

From his seat beneath the grandfather clock, he had a clear view of the entire room.

It had been a while since he last sat there.

Back when Inferno lived in Heat Haze Palace, that was his usual spot. He often liked to nod off in it, and whenever he came back from a life-or-death mission, he would always sit on that sofa to set his heart at ease. When he looked up, he would find the boss had brewed him some tea, one of the other members was baking financiers, and Guido had gone to buy cheesecake. Then, he and his teammates would shoot the breeze and thank one another for their hard work.

Ever since Inferno had disappeared and Lamplight had replaced it, though, the main hall had become a room that he simply passed through. Maybe he should have spent more time with the girls. Some nights, when he came down through the main hall to get some tea, he would hear their heated discussions. Their goal was to polish their skills however they could in order to beat him. At times, that took the form of arguing; others, it manifested as mutual encouragement. Klaus had some concerns about the fact that they’d failed to notice their target—him—passing through the main hall, grabbing tea leaves from the cabinet in the kitchen nearby and leaving, but he remembered clearly how much he had looked forward to seeing how they would attack him the following day.

There were no end to the memories this place held for him.

He treasured the time he’d shared with Inferno, and the days he’d spent with Lamplight hadn’t been half bad, either.

But now he was alone.

Both of those eras were lost to him.

“It feels so empty…”

It felt odd, sitting alone in a room that used to be so full of laughter.

What was that emotion eating away at his heart?

His plan had gone perfectly. His work was worthy of the moniker Guido had given him—the World’s Greatest.

He’d completed his mission, hadn’t let a single teammate die, and had dealt with the traitor who’d destroyed Inferno.

He had even devised a method to get around his inability to teach.

Surely, no one else could have achieved all that.

So why wasn’t he satisfied?

“Was this…?” Klaus said aloud. “Was this really the ending I wanted?”

In the final analysis, what had the last two months really been good for?

Then, just as the lament left his lips, he noticed something.

He couldn’t move his right arm.

Was it bound?

By wire? Since when?

By the time he realized something was off, it was already too late to react.

A vast web of wires snaked out from behind the sofa, ensnaring his neck, legs, torso, and head, one after another, and preventing him from moving.

At first, he considered trying to evade them. That was when he noticed the gun muzzles pointed his way.

As a matter of fact, he was surrounded. The girls had emerged from behind the furniture.

The black- and white-haired ladies were pointing their guns at his flanks, their brown-haired partner was aiming at his legs, and the red-haired member was leveling her gun straight at his heart. The pink-haired girl was watching over the proceedings with delight, and her cerulean-haired comrade was watching them coolly. Klaus couldn’t see the blond—Erna—so he assumed she was standing behind the sofa.

“We finally got you!”

Their silver-haired ringleader—Lily—wasn’t doing much of anything, but she stood before him and threw out her chest proudly all the same.

“You…you’re all supposed to be back at your academies by now…”

“Oh, that was just an act,” Lily replied nonchalantly.

What had prompted the change of heart?

For several days now, the girls had been making preparations to return to their spy academies with referrals from Klaus. They had even thrown a going-away party the very night prior.

“Heh-heh, victory is finally ours. Now we can make you follow whatever demand we want!”

“And what demand is that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We want to stay together as Lamplight,” Lily announced confidently.

Klaus wanted to tilt his head to the side, but the wires wrapped around him made that impossible.

“But why? When we first met, you made the exact opposite—”

“Yup, and I’m the exact opposite Lily as I was back then.”

Lily made a peace sign in front of her face, then wiggled her two upright fingers back and forth as she proudly elaborated.

“We talked it out among ourselves, see. And it’s, like, instead of going back to school and graduating and getting put on some spy team full of strangers, we’d all rather stick with the teammates we’ve already gone through trials and tribulations with.”

“That’s not unreasonable, but…” Klaus couldn’t help but nod; Lily was coming on terribly strong.

That much all made sense, but there were still some things he didn’t understand.

“…Why bother tricking me, tying me up, and holding me at gunpoint when you could have asked normally?”

“We’re just picking up your lesson where we left off.”

“The lesson ended a while ago, though.”

“Oh. Call it payback, then.”

“You really do have a warped personality.”

That could be a useful trait for a spy, but it made Lily more than a bit of a handful.

She beamed at him, tickled pink by her victory.

“Hee-hee. Complain all you like, it’s not gonna help. We’ve got a hostage, too.”

“What?”

“Take a look.”

Their white-haired member gave the wire some slack for a moment to show Klaus what was beneath the sofa.

At some point, they had moved his canvas there. Because of where it was placed, any violent moves would destroy it under their feet.

“It’s the painting you spent so long working on. If you’re not careful, it’ll get totally ruined.”

“You’re a monster.”

“See how much stronger we’ve gotten? And we have one person to thank for that.” Lily gently extended her hand. “That’s why we want you to keep teaching us. Teach us how a bunch of washouts like us can come into bloom.”

The other girls all followed up by chiming in as well.

“Training with you was the best training I’ve ever done,” they said, and “Yo, samesies!” and “You’re the one who helped me get closer to my dream, Teach,” and “I’ve admired Inferno for so long, I can imagine no better teacher”…

One after another, they all told him how much they trusted him.

Guido’s last words lingered in Klaus’s mind.

“Make sure you protect ’em this time.”

It was his final order before breathing his last.

Klaus had followed that instruction and tried to get the girls as far away from his missions as possible. Sending them back to their spy academies was his way of protecting them. Now, though, he realized he had been going about it all wrong. The myriad techniques being wound around his body showed him that. The girls had grown.

He might not be able to teach, but he was still their teacher.

The choice he had to make was clear.

“All righty, Teach! You ready to say I surrender?” Lily’s voice still rang with pride. “Agree to let Lamplight keep operating, say you surrender, and while you’re at it, maybe apologize for trouncing us so badly each—”

“One question—,” Klaus asked. “How much longer should I keep playing along with this game?”

He ripped his way through the girls’ restraints.

Taking advantage of the moment they were most assured of victory, he pulled hard on the wires. The girls holding them in place lost their balance, and the swinging wires mowed the rest of the girls down as well. Their guns probably didn’t have live ammo anyway, but they never got a chance to shoot. Fear of friendly fire made them hesitate, and that gave Klaus time to use the restraints to snatch their guns away.

It wasn’t the cleanest solution, but he was working with what he had.

Not having seen his counterattack coming, Lamplight was caught completely off guard. Klaus stepped all over his canvas as he ensured his students were immobile. They still lacked experience. Clearly, more training was in order.

Beneath his feet, the canvas was a shredded mess.

“T-Teach, why would you go so far?! You destroyed your precious painting!”

“Just now, I decided to stop fixating on the past,” he replied with conviction.

His desire for revenge wasn’t about to just up and vanish, of course. But he had discovered a new path he could take.

If all that awaited him after exacting his vengeance was a big house with nobody in it, then that was too lonely a future to bear.

Surely the boss wouldn’t have minded. His master and the rest of his team would have approved, too.

“You all aren’t qualified to be my enemies,” Klaus casually remarked.

They weren’t his enemies.

He doubted they ever could be.

But perhaps they could become something else…

Life was full of irony.

He had spent the last few months working to avenge his team but in doing so had obtained an entirely new one.

Klaus gathered up his mangled painting and tore a strip of dried paint off it. Then, after locating a blank spot on the main hall’s wall, he pressed the dry paint against it and drew a single line. It was thin, red, and fleeting, yet it was powerful all the same.

Now he was finished.

Klaus compared the two paintings.

One of them, the violent mess of red paint titled “Family,” was like a blazing inferno.

The other, painted from a single piece ripped from the first to create something new, was like a faint lamplight.

“Magnificent.”

Klaus smiled.

He could come up with a name for the new piece later.

Now the room he had once shared with his family was adorned with a painting of his new team.