Spy Classroom - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hostilities

Cars people buildings billboards people people people cars buildings cars people people cars cars cars people people trains buildings people people people people people people billboards cars people people cars cars cars people cars people billboards billboards billboards people people buildings trains cars cars people people cars buildings cars people cars people people—

Thea sighed.

Over time, even the jaw-dropping view from her apartment had become just another mundane part of life.

Two weeks had passed since they’d arrived in Mitario, one of the biggest metropolises in the United States of Mouzaia.

Officially, Thea was working as a contract employee for a company in Din that imported foreign furniture. Her cover story was that she, along with Klaus and Grete, were scouring Mitario for information on top-of-the-line furniture they could bring back home with them.

At the moment, they were staying in a pair of deluxe rented apartments. Each one had two bedrooms, and they were right next to each other on the eighth floor of an apartment complex right in the heart of the city.

Main Street ran directly below them, and the morning’s traffic was just as gridlocked as always. Hundreds of cars inched forward in ordered lines as the massive billboards along the road advertised products to the rows of drivers. Even the TV news anchors were talking about the congestion and mentioning how the government recommended for commuters to take the subway.

Thea glanced up at the rows of skyscrapers stretching up into the clouds. The Galgad capital’s steeples had been impressive, but Mitario was in a whole different league. If one of the skyscrapers was thirty stories tall, then the next would be forty, and the one after that would be fifty, like their builders had been competing or something. Nowadays, nobody ever held the record for “tallest building in the world” for longer than about two years.

It really drives home what a rural backwater we are…

She sighed again.

In the Din Republic, traffic jams happened once in a blue moon, if that. They didn’t have television broadcasts, either. Just plain old radio. And they certainly didn’t have a subway system. Their big cities had only just gotten commuter trains, and out in the sticks, it wasn’t uncommon to see people still riding in horse-drawn carriages. Plus, you could scour the whole country without finding a single building with a double-digit number of floors.

Thea had seen the rows of mega hotels back when she visited the entertainment district in southern Din, but compared to Mitario, even those were little more than dollhouses.

Then she heard Grete’s voice from outside her room. “Thea, breakfast is ready…”

After making sure her outfit and hair were all in order, Thea headed over to the dining room. The mouthwatering smell of toast and sweet jam wafted through the air as Grete placed the plates onto a cart.

“Thank you, it looks delicious. Why the cart, though?” Thea asked.

“Oh, this? I made arrangements with the boss for us to eat breakfast together today. I must confess, I’m a little excited.”

Once Grete finished loading up the cart, she began pushing it along. Thea presumed she was planning on taking it to the apartment next door, where Klaus was staying.

It made for a delightful sight, but there was one thing that caught Thea’s attention.

“Four portions, hmm.”

There were four plates laid out alongside one another. All the bread was nicely toasted, but some of the slices were definitely darker than others—perhaps due to restlessness on the part of the cook.

Thea and Grete headed to the neighboring apartment together and knocked on the door. Shortly thereafter, Klaus opened it up. “Good morning to the both of you. I appreciate you going to the trouble.”

After thanking Grete, he looked down at the cart.

“Four portions, huh.”

Nothing ever got past him.

Grete shook her head in discontent. “…I can’t say it brought me much joy.”

“You really don’t have to go out of your way like this. Starting tomorrow, I’ll do the cooking.”

The two of them sounded like a pair of heartwarming newlyweds. Thea could watch them for days.

Then an unpleasant voice cut in from the bedroom.

“Ooh, something smells nice. What’s that, breakfast? Lucky us, Bonfire! I’m telling you, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

Klaus frowned and threw open the bedroom door. “And who said you were getting any?”

Inside, there was a skinny man bound from head to toe—Roland, aka Corpse.

His arms had been placed behind his back, and he was tied up all over in belts held together by an array of locks. Even just the state he was in was already akin to torture, but the elite assassin seemed unperturbed.

He gave them a carefree grin from atop the bed. “Yeesh, man, have a heart. I’m a legitimate informant, remember?”

“Who refuses to give us a lick of actionable intel.”

Roland casually brushed off Klaus’s snide dig. “Look, just forget about all that and untie me already. I need my hands free to eat toast, you know.”

“………” Klaus took the plate of toast and placed in on the ground in front of Roland. “You’ve got a mouth, haven’t you?”

“…Have you ever heard the phrase POW abuse?”

“You seriously think captured spies have rights?” Klaus spat as he walked away. He didn’t even want to breathe the same room’s air as Roland.

“Teach,” Thea said, “are you really sure that bringing him was a good idea?”

“He’s the only person who knows what Purple Ant looks like. Unfortunately, that makes him valuable to us.”

Klaus sounded none too pleased about the fact, and Thea understood full well how he felt. Her opinion of Roland was just as low as his. After all, the man had spent his days killing politicians and covert agents the world over. Who knew just how many people had died at his hands?

All of a sudden, Grete approached Roland holding a knife and a fork. With a stony expression, she began slicing his toast.

Now there was a surprise. Nobody had expected her to actively choose to go wait on him.

Roland thanked her, but Grete ignored him. “I…have a few questions for you.”

Her voice was stiff. She had a thing about talking to men.

“Oh yeah?”

“Do you remember Olivia?”

Thea recognized that name. It was the spy Grete had fought. Olivia was Roland’s apprentice, and she’d used her position as a major politician’s maid to provide support for Imperial spies.

“What? Of course I do,” Roland replied. “What about her?”

“Did you…actually love her?”

“Oh yeah, for sure. All I had to do was tell her I loved her, and she was willing to go out and risk her life for me. As far as pawns go, it doesn’t get much better than—”

The toast smashed into Roland’s face.

And the plate, too, for good measure.

The red strawberry jam looked almost like blood as it trickled down his body.

“Grete,” Klaus called over to her. “Calm down.”

“Yes, sir… I’m sorry…”

After throwing the plate, Grete left the bedroom and locked it up tight behind her. “Thea, would you be able to look into his heart?” she quietly asked. “The sooner we get that information out of him, the sooner we can dump him into the sea.”

“I never realized you were the vengeful type!”

Clearly, Roland had incurred her wrath.

Thea sighed. Grete was usually the one having to calm her down, not the other way around. “I understand how you feel, but I can’t. I’ve tried over and over, but he never lets his guard down.”

Thea had a special talent—the ability to peek into the heart of anyone she locked eyes with.

Against elite spies, though, that was easier said than done. She had made countless attempts to use it on Roland, but each one had ended in failure. Every time, he averted his gaze before she could get what she needed out of him. That was probably his spy instincts at work telling him to be careful around her.

“Let’s not worry about him for now,” Klaus said. “We can find Purple Ant through other means. We know he’s meddling with the Tolfa Economic Conference, so starting tomorrow, I’ll begin digging into the attendees. Once we find out who Purple Ant is, we’ll be able to capture him.”

He went on.

“You two are in charge of the others.”

Thea and Grete gave him a pair of resolute nods.

“You got it.”

“Of course…”

From there on out, it was going to be up to them to determine the team’s course of action.

Once she was finished eating, Thea headed back to her and Grete’s apartment.

It was eight AM, and now the city was really alive. The sound of car horns echoed up incessantly from the main road. It was the perfect time for spies like them to get to work.

For the past two weeks, they’d devoted themselves to blending in. Thea had worked diligently as a genuine furniture company employee, and she’d actually gone and visited a number of furniture stores. If anyone looked at her, all they would see was a young career woman, and if the police stopped her for questioning, she would have answers for anything they threw at her.

Everything was proceeding right on schedule, and now it was time for the intelligence work to begin.

Thea made some tea and sat down at the dining table. “All right, well, um… Grete, would you mind summing up where we stand at the moment?”

“Of course. I’ll get right on it.”

With that, Grete took out a notepad and wrote down all the information they currently had.

Mission Name: Mitario Manhunt.

Objective: Capture Purple Ant and gather intel on Serpent.

Assumption: Serpent is getting in touch with important players at the Tolfa Economic Conference and manipulating them for the Empire’s benefit.

Agenda 1: Deploy Lamplight members around various important players and have them search for enemy spies.

Agenda 2: Once we find enemy spies, interrogate them to find out where Purple Ant is.

Addendum: Klaus will be acting independently. The plan is for him to do thorough checks on anyone suspicious he runs into.

“Thank you,” Thea said. “That does about sum it up, doesn’t it?”

After using the note to refresh her memory, she tore out the page and used a match to light it on fire.

Now she had a better handle on what they needed to do—and on just how hard it would be to do it.

“I suppose this goes without saying, but we have an acute shortage of real intel on our opponent. We’re basically in the dark here,” she noted.

“That is true,” Grete replied. “However, we do know where it is we need to be—the Tolfa Economic Conference. The more we dig into it, the more likely we are to run into other spies.”

“I wonder what all the operatives from other nations are doing?”

“I suspect we don’t need to worry about them. The boss has already gotten in touch with our allied nations. The United States and everyone else on our side already know they need to watch out for the Empire.”

Thea nodded.

For the time being, all they needed to focus on was Galgad. If they tried to take on the Lylat Kingdom, the Fend Commonwealth, the United States of Mouzaia, the Bumal Kingdom, and every other attending nation into account, they’d never get anywhere.

“Okay, so the first thing we should check is, um…”

She couldn’t get out the words.

She had gone over the whole mission backward and forward, but now her thoughts refused to come together. Her teammates were scattered across the city, and she had no idea what orders to give them.

Am I really fit to command?

There were hundreds of key players at the conference, and if you counted all the other attendees as well, that number swelled to well over ten thousand. Now, it was Thea’s job to figure out which ones to tell her allies to investigate. Furthermore, each of Lamplight’s members had their own strengths and weaknesses. And what’s more, their various infiltration points had different tasks they were suitable for. Thea had to take all of that into account.

There’s too much to keep track of!

She clutched at her head.

She couldn’t do it. It wasn’t possible.

Grete offered her a lifeboat. “…To start off, why don’t we check in on everyone?”

“R-right, of course. Let’s do that.”

“We should probably make sure they carried out their infiltrations successfully before we start giving them orders, I would think.”

She made a valid point.

In fact, that was Command and Control 101. Thea was humiliated that she’d let something so basic slip her mind.

“Th-that’s our Grete, always on top of things. You know, I was just about to say the same—”

“Of course. Now, these here are their schedules for the day.”

Grete handed her a memo pad she’d prepared in advance. On it, there was a complete list of where their teammates would be that accounted for everything from the bus and subway timetables to how gridlocked the roads would be.

That was Grete for you—always diligent and observant.

Actually, that reminded Thea of something.

“Say, Grete. During your last mission, weren’t you the one in charge of giving orders?”

“It was just for the one operation, but yes.”

Grete, along with Lily, Sybilla, and Sara, had successfully captured an enemy spy alive. And thanks to the detailed instructions she’d given, they had done so without needing to rely on Klaus at all.

To be honest, I wish she could just take over…!

Grete’s skills clearly outstripped hers. Thea had left capturing Roland entirely to Klaus, she’d gotten bailed out by Monika during their battle against the Military Intelligence Department, and ultimately, an enemy spy had laughed right in her face.

“Don’t worry, Thea. I’m sure you’ll do a splendid job.”

Despite Grete’s encouragement, Thea couldn’t muster up a single drop of confidence.

For now, I should just follow Grete’s lead…

It was a pathetic cop-out for a commander to take, but Thea didn’t know what else to do.

Thea and Grete had lied and said that they were both twenty-three. In truth, they were only eighteen, but being treated as minors would restrict their options in a number of ways. When they headed out onto the Mitario streets, they did so dressed in tailored suits and wearing makeup that made them look older.

The main economic conference wasn’t the only thing the city had going on. It was accompanied by a wide array of business-to-business discussions, political fundraising parties, and meetings behind closed doors on issues of military import. All in all, there were probably more than a thousand gatherings of various sizes being held. That was one of the reasons the conference took place over such an extended time frame.

And it wasn’t all politics and economics, either. Mitario was also a major cultural hub, and it was home to everything from world-renowned fashion shows to internationally acclaimed film festivals.

All that was to say, there was a huge number of people there. You could hardly so much as walk down the street without bumping into someone or having them bump into you.

The skyscrapers towered over Thea and Grete as they walked past the long lines of gridlocked cars.

Then they spotted a crowd gathering in front of one of the buildings.

It was shocking to see that the city could get even more clamorous than it already was.

It appeared that some foreign nation’s minister of foreign affairs had just arrived, and his car had gotten swarmed by paparazzi on its way down to the underground parking lot. Camera flashes lit up the air.

Reporters stood in the car’s way and held out mics and voice recorders.

“Minister, what are your thoughts going into this meeting with the Lylat Kingdom?” “I have some questions about the Galgad appeasement policies!”

The old man sitting in the car’s back seat responded to their questions with silence and a scowl.

I guess no matter what country you’re from, reporters are just as relentless.

Thea’s parents ran a newspaper, so it was a sight she was well familiar with. Even so—

“Hey, geezer, we’re talkin’ to you here! Fuckin’ say something already!”

—one young, foul-mouthed reporter in particular caught her attention.

Thea looked at her in shock.

It was Sybilla, dressed in a suit and pounding on the car’s window.

Even the minister was taken aback by her attitude. He rolled down the car’s window a bit and shouted angrily at her. “Wh-why, I never! What country did you say you’re from, girl?!”

“I’m from the Din Republic’s Random Times, so what? More importantly, do your comments from this morning contradict the department meeting minutes that got published yesterday or what?”

“Excuse me?! Wh-what nonsense are you on about?!”

“Look, I’m just askin’ for you to clear up a few—Wait, hey! Quit closin’ the window on me! Ow, dammit!”

She thrust her arm through the opened window with a force one would normally expect to see in a fistfight and pointed her mic at his face.

Grete lowered her voice and explained the situation to Thea. “Sybilla is working as a journalist-in-training. Due to her position, she’s able to come in contact with politicians and bureaucrats from around the world.”

“I see. Well, I just hope she doesn’t get herself arrested…”

Thea had some concerns, but it looked like Sybilla had things under control.

The car broke free from the reporters and made its way down into the parking lot. The reporters who’d been surrounding it sighed, then dispersed.

Sybilla was no different. “Damn, he got away,” she groaned as she walked toward Thea and Grete.

The moment she passed them by, she slipped something into Thea’s pocket. Thea heard a quiet whisper at her ear. “I lifted that minister’s card case off him. Hope it’s useful.”

She must have done it during that brief moment she stuck her arm in the window. Nobody had been any the wiser.

Then, with a nonchalant “all right, where’s that next scoop at?” she vanished into the crowd.

By the look of it, Sybilla the reporter was in position to get some good results.

The next place Grete led her to was a restaurant attached to a station.

Inside, Thea could hear a jaunty tune playing. She assumed they had a record on but soon discovered that the music was actually live. There was a jazz band playing atop the stage in the back so the restaurant’s patrons could enjoy some live music while they had their lunch.

Mitario was known as the home of jazz, and performances like this weren’t uncommon in its restaurants and bars.

For Thea, though, it was her first time hearing jazz music live. It all felt very refined.

The mellow piano tune melded together with the trumpet and the sax, and they all coalesced into a single beautiful harmony. Even though it was a new experience for her, the sound had a very comforting quality to it.

Thea and Grete made their way to a pair of seats right beside the stage.

Now they could see the jazz-playing sextet up close and personal. They were wearing white tailcoats and stylish hats, and the trumpet and piano players looked mighty slick indeed. The rest of the audience clearly shared that impression. In particular, many of the young women present were watching the band members with passion in their eyes.

And the rightmost member of the band…was Monika.

“………”

She was dressed in a man’s tailcoat and playing the tenor sax.

She didn’t look a bit out of place.

“Apparently, she started out by busking, and she got recruited by the band that very same day,” Grete explained.

By that point, Thea was past being surprised. It was Monika they were talking about.

“That band often gets hired to play at parties and social get-togethers thrown by politicians,” Grete went on. “From what I hear, they’re a huge hit among those politicians’ wives…”

In other words, the plan was to have Monika use her position as a musician to carry out her covert activities.

When the band finished the song they were on, Monika stepped down from the stage and walked over to their seats.

“Hey, you two. What’s with all the staring? You fans of mine or something?”

“No. Get back onstage already,” Thea replied.

“Sorry, girls, but I’m all booked up tonight. Some bigwig hired us to do a concert at this party he’s throwing.”

She threw them a wink, then returned to the stage. The way she was carrying herself was a bit pompous, but apparently, that was what the ladies liked.

Right before she headed back up, she left a matchbox on the table. There was probably a report written inside.

There could be little doubt that Monika the saxophonist would be an asset they could count on.

After polishing off a light appetizer, the two of them left the restaurant.

Apparently, the plan was to have a proper lunch somewhere else, and Thea had a pretty good idea of where they might be heading. There was one infiltration point where the agent stationed there had loudly requested that particular placement well ahead of time.

Their destination was in the Westport Building, the site of the Tolfa Economic Conference. On its ground floor, it had a large chain hamburger joint that offered outside seating.

Ten minutes after they placed their order, a busty waitress cheerfully brought it over.

“Thank you for waiting! Here are your cheeseburger combo meals.”

It was Lily.

She delivered their food dressed in the burger joint’s uniform. The burgers were fat and juicy, the fries were mountainous, and the cups of cola were all but overflowing. Lily looked as pleased as punch. For some reason, she seemed to feel right at home surrounded by junk food. Even the trim red-and-white-striped uniform looked good on her.

Grete called over to her. “Excuse me, waitress?”

“Hmm? Did you have a question for me? That is to say, a question for Lillian Hepburn, the eighteen-year-old exchange student who goes to the Mitario University School of Pharmacy, lives alone, and is paying her way with this part-time job?”

Grete was so flabbergasted that she dropped the act. “…I was going to explain who you were, but I suppose you’ve just saved me the trouble.”

However, there was really no need to explain at all. Thea had already known Lily’s infiltration point. Lily had been going on for ages about how she wanted to be stationed: “somewhere I can eat all the burgers I want!”

Then someone shouted over from inside the shop. “Hey, Lillian! I need you to bring this up to conference room thirteen on the fourth floor.”

“Well, they call it Mitario’s favorite food for a reason. The orders just don’t stop coming!” Lily said gleefully as she left Thea and Grete to their meal.

That particular branch offered delivery, and with the Westport Building right above them, it was no surprise that they got a lot of orders from the conference attendees.

“Well, it’s a relief to see that her infiltration is going well,” Thea remarked.

“It is, but…there is one thing I’m slightly concerned about,” Grete replied.

“Really? Oh, that reminds me. When you called her over just now, what was that about?”

Grete looked down at the meal Lily had brought her. “This is a fish burger, not a cheeseburger…”

“………”

“I’m a little worried she’s going to get herself fired…”

They looked over and saw Lily with a big backpack slung over her shoulder. She was just about to go on her delivery run. “Lillian, over and out!” she shouted as she ran off.

She was supposed to be bringing the food to conference room thirteen on the fourth floor.

However, the elevator Lily triumphantly boarded was heading down to the underground parking lot.

When they got back to their apartment that evening, Thea let out a long sigh.

“Now we have the board in order.”

There were a number of points she wanted to quibble about, but all in all, things seemed to be going according to plan. Now it was up to them to dole out orders and track down Purple Ant.

She didn’t want to spend much effort on dinner, so she took a can of minestrone and popped it in a pot of water, can and all. As the water boiled, Thea strained her ears to hear what was going on in the apartment next door. She couldn’t pick up anything. Klaus must still be out and about.

“We need to spend the evening thinking about how we want to proceed going forward,” Thea remarked. “I’d love to be able to bounce ideas off Teach, but I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon.”

“I just hope he isn’t overworking himself…”

Grete sliced up a baguette and popped the pieces in the oven. Her voice quivered with concern.

Thea gave her a smile. “If he is, then it’ll give you a chance to soothe his fatigue. Once we’re done here, I’ll teach you a massage that men just die for. This time, he’ll be like putty in your hands for sure.”

The moment the subject turned to romance, Grete’s expression immediately brightened.

“Oh, Thea… Thea the Brilliant and Wise, I can’t thank you enough.”

“The key is to focus on the groin area.”

“Come to think of it, Monika warned me that I should stop taking your advice.”

“Oh yeah? And what does she know?”

“Oh, wise one. You always know just what to say!”

Taking part in their usual back-and-forth helped calm Thea’s nerves. There was only so long she could spend with her nose to the grindstone before it started wearing her out.

Then they heard something smack into their window.

Grete seemed to have some idea of what it was. She rushed happily over to the windowsill.

“What is it, Grete?”

“The boss brought us some intel.”

There was a rock lying outside their window with a newspaper wrapped around it. It was the same paper you could buy on any old street corner, but it had a secret cipher written on it in special ink. The question was, how had he gotten it all the way up to the eighth floor? Had he seriously thrown it?

Grete read through the message. Her breath got caught in her throat. “…We might find ourselves face-to-face with the enemy a lot sooner than we expected.”

“What does it say?”

“Our allied nations’ agents are getting taken out one after another. Apparently, there are a number of skilled spy hunters lurking in the city.”

Thea quickly skimmed over the encoded text.

According to the message, tons of people were getting murdered, dying under suspicious circumstances, and going missing. And what’s more, the vast majority of the victims were intelligence agents who’d been investigating the Tolfa Economic Conference.

Furthermore, the murder methods were all over the spectrum. There was everything from stabbings and fatal falls to suicides, disappearances, and even traffic accidents. There was no discernible pattern to it.

It wasn’t clear if Purple Ant was the one behind it all, but there could be no doubt that someone was going around killing people.

Thea was worried about their teammates’ safety.

“Wh-what should we do?”

“We’ll have to keep closely in touch with the others,” Grete said calmly. “That way, we’ll be able to use my disguises and your negotiation skills to rush to their aid if anything happens. And if worse comes to worst, we might have no choice but to get help from the boss.”

“M-makes sense. I’ll make sure to be ready to act at a moment’s notice.”

“Even so, there’s only so much we’ll be able to do for them… In a lot of cases, we’ll have to just trust them to handle things on their own.”

Thea felt her gaze drift toward the window as though drawn there by Grete’s words. “True enough…”

Night had fallen on Mitario, and neon lights filled the city. The main road’s bright billboards ensured that the city never slept.

As they spoke, their teammates were doubtless still hard at work.

Then, two weeks after the mission began in earnest…all of Thea’s worries came true.

It started in the hotel across from the Westport Building.

It was an upscale hotel favored by many of the conference’s attendees, and it had a bar on its second floor where you could order spirits and light meals. Not only did all its seating come in the form of private rooms, but the rooms were also soundproofed, making them perfect for patrons who wanted to share meals or have conversations without being overheard. Its clientele ranged from politicians and bureaucrats to captains of industry.

Each of the rooms was outfitted with leather sofas, a glass table, and a gorgeous overhead light fixture.

Sybilla sank her teeth into her plate of spareribs, enthusiastically munching down on the heavily seasoned salty-sweet meat and leaving behind nothing but well-cleaned bones.

She wiped her hands. “You’re really sure you don’t mind treating me to all this?” she asked with a smile.

There was a stocky older man sitting across from her. “Oh, no, not at all. With the way you saved my bacon, this is the least I can do. Please, don’t hold back! Here, try something from this menu next.”

“For real? You’re a lifesaver, man. In that case, I’ll go for this one here, third from the top on the left.”

“Ah, the perfect choice for a youngster like you. I love it!” The man laughed heartily and quaffed down the rest of his wine.

He was a vice president at a Bumal Kingdom tea manufacturer, and he had come to the conference alongside a Bumal Kingdom diplomat to help negotiate the tariff rate on luxury goods being exported out of Tolfa. While he was there, he had also been in discussions with a few other countries about opening food processing plants within their borders.

He was a talented man in many regards but sloppy in others—such as how he’d left all his classified documents in an easily stolen briefcase.

“I must say, that almost ended quite badly for me. I never imagined someone would steal my briefcase right out of that coffee shop. If you hadn’t gallantly come along and retrieved it, I don’t know what might have become of me!”

“Nah, it was nothin’. Heck, I wasn’t even able to catch the guy who did it.”

“Details, details. This is about me wanting to show you my gratitude.”

“In that case, what would you say to givin’ me an exclusive one-on-one?”

“I wouldn’t mind one bit. If you have questions, then ask away, ask away.”

“That’s mighty generous of ya. With a heart like that, you’ll be president in no time.”

“Oh, you can skip the flattery. I’m still just a humble VP.”

Continuing to play the part of the newspaper columnist, Sybilla began asking the man interview questions. The VP was clearly a chatty man, and he told her all sorts of things she hadn’t even asked about. Every nod and “mm-hmm” Sybilla gave him seemed to brighten his mood more, and he guzzled down booze at an ever-increasing pace.

On his urging, Sybilla had a beer as well.

By the time half an hour had passed, the VP was well and truly plastered. “Gotta shay, I’m real exshited about this interview. You are going to publish it, right?”

Sybilla gave his slurred question a confused laugh. “Of course. I’m goin’ to all the trouble of writing it, aren’t I?”

“Will you really, though? I’ve done one-on-ones with a whooole buncha journalists, and they never went to print.”

“…Oh yeah?”

“I dunno why for the life of me. I guess I’m just unlucky, but nunna the journalishts even return my calls. ’S just plain rude’s what it is.”

“………”

Sybilla scratched her forehead a bit. The sharp stimulus helped her focus her senses.

“Hey, not to change the subject—”

She gestured with her pen.

“—but who’s that behind you?”

Sybilla and the VP weren’t the only ones in the room.

There was also the VP’s secretary, as well as a man standing wordlessly behind him.

The man’s skin was as tight as a drum, and even through his clothes, it was easy to picture how incredibly toned his muscles were. His button-down shirt was at its limits just trying to contain his bulging biceps.

“Hmm? Oh, him. That’s Barron, my chauffeur.”

Barron nodded a little. “Oui. Don’t mind me.”

Sybilla gave him a small wave. “His voice is kinda gloomy, but his pronunciation’s really good. Is he local?”

“That’s right. My usual chauffeur was s’pposed to come over from home, too, but he got a bad case of food poisoning. Had to find a replacement in a hurry. Barron here might look scary, but he’s good at what he does, both behind the wheel and away from it.”

“…Oui.”

The VP popped a cigarette in his mouth to demonstrate, and Barron immediately offered him a lighter. Apparently, driving wasn’t the only thing he took care of for his client.

“………”

“Ah, you worried ’cause he’s sho big? Up ’til a few years ago, he was a middleweight boxer. I hear he was quite accomplished.”

“Oui. But I tore a ligament and had to retire.”

“What a shame. Ooh, you think you could write an article about that? Or is it a little too inside basheball?”

Sybilla and Barron ignored the VP’s drunken rambling and exchanged a glance.

Then their waiter arrived with a fresh bottle of wine.

Barron was already closest to the door, so he took the bottle. “Oui. I will pour.”

The interview came to an end when Sybilla started feeling queasy.

“Ugh, I don’t feel so good…”

“That one might be on me. Sorry for makin’ ya drink sho much,” the VP said apologetically as Sybilla covered her mouth with her hand. “Barron, give the nice reporter a ride back to her plashe, will you?”

Sybilla quickly waved him off. “No, no, you really don’t need to.”

“It’s fine, it’sh fine. Perfect excuse to keep the party goin’. Now, make sure you give me a call once you’ve got a date set for that article, you hear?”

The VP strolled away merrily with his secretary in tow. They were heading off in search of female companionship, no doubt.

That left Sybilla and Barron alone in front of the hotel bar.

“Oui. This way.”

“Thanks.”

According to Barron, the car was parked beneath the hotel.

Sybilla followed his directions and tottered unsteadily on the dark stairs. On the way down, she lost her footing, bumping into Barron a few times. He didn’t seem pleased about it, but he helped support her all the same.

Once they were all the way underground, Sybilla rushed over to a gutter. “Urgh, I can’t take it anymore.”

She vomited out the contents of her stomach. Everything she’d eaten and drunk back in the room came out the same way it had gone in.

Beside her, Barron frowned. “…Oui. I’ll get you some water.”

He headed back to the stairs. On his way up, he fished for something in his breast pocket, then let out a quiet sound of confusion. Whatever he’d been searching for, it wasn’t there.

“Lookin’ for this?” Sybilla called out to him.

There were a couple of small pills resting on her fingertip.

“Sleeping pills, huh? That’s some messed-up stuff you were slippin’ me.”

“………”

“I had to throw up in a hurry, or that coulda gone bad. All right, who put you up to this? I can’t imagine it was that VP.”

Sybilla was already certain of Barron’s guilt.

Back when the VP had brought up the journalists who’d gone missing, Barron’s expression had shifted ever so slightly. He knew something. And on top of that, there were the drugs he’d slipped into the wine. When he poured it, he had made sure to position the bottle in a way that hid his hand.

He was no ordinary chauffeur.

“Now, tell me who your client is, or I’ll call the police and tell ’em what you—”

Sybilla was cut off mid-sentence.

Barron had just turned tail and dashed up the stairs.

Sybilla had no intention of letting him get away without a fight. She clicked her tongue, then ran after him. Her drunkenness and poor physical form had all been an act. Now it was time to use those leg muscles she’d trained so tirelessly.

However, Barron was no slowpoke, either.

Upon reaching the ground floor, he shoved a few hotel employees aside and fled out the back exit.

Looks like that story about tearing his ligament was all bullshit. Just who the hell is this guy?

Sybilla had more questions than ever as she charged through the back exit in hot pursuit.

Behind the hotel, there was a worn-down, eight-story, multi-tenant building. Barron dashed up its exterior staircase, and Sybilla drew her gun and continued following him. Once she backed him into a corner, she’d be able to pump him for information.

Her foe seemed to have entered the building on its sixth floor. The door was unlocked.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere!” Sybilla shouted as she charged inside.

Inside, there was an office complex that looked like it was scheduled for demolition. There were no tenants inside, and all the offices were vacant. That said, it still had power, and there were fluorescent lights illuminating its hallways.

A long corridor stretched out in front of her. Sybilla didn’t see anyone there.

Why can’t I hear his footsteps anymore? Hell, I can’t hear anything… Is he hiding somewhere?

She assumed his plan was to launch a surprise attack, so she clasped her gun tight as she strode down the corridor.

All of a sudden, she heard something collapsing out on the exterior staircase.

The next moment, the lights went out.

“Huh?”

The moment after she yelped, something large shifted behind her. She leaped to the side on pure reflex to dodge it, and she felt something whiz by her face.

“Oui,” Barron said calmly.

Sybilla whirled around and tried to put some distance between them. However, she only made it a few steps before stumbling over something. The visibility was terrible. After tumbling onto the floor, she fled into one of the unoccupied offices.

Dammit, for real? Well, at least I know what’s goin’ on…

She realized now that he had lured her there on purpose, but it was too late. She was already in his hunting grounds.

It was pitch-black there.

All of the building’s windows were boarded up. Not even a single ray of light from outside could make it in, and she couldn’t see a thing. Her eyes were useless. All she had to rely on were the tiniest of sounds to find the hulking mass of murder approaching her.

“I’ve trained long and hard to be able to fight without needing to see,” Barron muttered.

After that, everything went silent for a bit. Then a mighty fist bore down on her from behind.

It took everything Sybilla had just to sense the attack a moment before it landed so she could avoid suffering a direct hit. Even still, the force from the blow was so fierce, she felt like her whole body was going to get blown away.

“This prison of darkness will be your grave.”

As Barron’s voice echoed out, she sensed the next invisible blow coming. But she had no way to dodge it.

Shit… I seriously can’t see a—

It was there in that lightless darkness that Sybilla realized she was going to die.

Meanwhile, over in the Lylat embassy…

The embassy sat in the nicest part of the city, and there was a party being held there to celebrate the anniversary of the Lylat Kingdom’s founding. The Lylat conference attendees were far from home, but they threw a big shindig nonetheless and invited all sorts of foreign dignitaries so they could deepen their ties.

In addition to the other guests, Monika’s jazz band had been invited to the party. A bureaucrat they were on friendly terms with had insisted that they come help liven things up. His request for them to play jazz versions of a bunch of Lylat classics had been an unusual one, but they rose to the occasion and still delivered a performance for the ages.

After they finished playing, the band stuck around and made pleasant conversation with the partygoers. Several of the attendees had brought their families along, and the jazz players took it upon themselves to entertain the children by dancing around and playing music with them. According to Monika’s fellow band members, going the extra mile like that was the trick to landing repeat gigs.

Monika chose to do likewise. She mingled with the crowd, showing off her tenor sax skills while freely giving out the bright smiles she was normally so stingy with. “If you like what you hear, feel free to hire us for your next parties!” she suggested to the various nations’ officials she crossed paths with.

As she was making connections, someone spoke to her from behind.

“That performance you gave was really something. I gotta say, it really pulled me in.”

The speaker was a young woman who looked to be just north of a decade older than Monika. She had long, flowing blond hair and was wearing a dress that left her shoulders almost bare.

“Thanks,” Monika replied cordially. “You were, uh…”

“Miranda. I’m just a college student; one of the old guys brought me as his date.”

There was a libertine nonchalance to the way she offered Monika her hand.

As Monika returned her handshake, Miranda leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “So, you trying to hook up with the fat cats here? Maybe do a little gold digging?”

“Nah, that’s not my scene.” Monika shook her head. “The band’s still trying to make a name for itself. Gotta pound the pavement to get those gigs, you know?”

“Really? I heard you guys were pretty famous already.”

“Oh yeah? To tell you the truth, I only just joined up,” Monika replied, sticking her tongue out bashfully.

Miranda gave her a toothy laugh. “Girl, I like your style. I think you and I could get along just fine.”

“Well, hey, that makes two of us.”

“Say, you want to get out of here?” Miranda whispered in her ear. “I’ve got somewhere nice I want to show you. You’ll love it—lots of folks with deep pockets.”

Monika licked her lips. “Tell me more.”

The two of them slipped out of the party, and Miranda led her to an alleyway just outside of Mitario’s business district. After they passed by a series of cramped-looking bars and bordellos, they reached a coffee shop.

Miranda flashed the manager a coin, and he let them through into the back. From there, they headed down a staircase leading underground and arrived at a large door.

It swung open and revealed the large hall within.

It was well lit inside, and there were nearly fifty people there with their faces flushed red and their voices raised.

They were crowded around a series of tables featuring cards, roulette, dice games, and slot machines. Every so often, someone would cheer with joy, and a scantily clad woman would slide them a big pile of chips.

“An underground casino, huh?” Monika lit up. “I love it. Feels like the kind of place where people would let all sorts of secrets slip.”

Over at the poker table, the Fend Commonwealth vice minister of foreign affairs was sitting next to the president of a Mouzaian pharmaceutical company, and they were far from the only conference attendees in the room.

Miranda smiled proudly. “You want me to put in a good word for you? I’m friends with the owner, and I bet I could get ’im to let your band play here.”

“You’d really do that? Man, where have you been all my life?”

Miranda handed her something. “Here, take these.”

That something turned out to be three small arrows about as long as her hand.

“Huh? Darts?”

“Yeah. It’ll grease the wheels better if you play a round before I introduce you. Have you ever played before?”

“Heh. Wouldn’t you like to know?” Monika replied, dodging the question as she followed after Miranda.

There was a pair of dartboards hung up in the corner of the hall surrounded by men who looked to be the casino’s bookies. They were all wearing masks that covered the right halves of their faces.

“The game’s dead simple. You just throw the darts at the target.” Miranda stood in front of one of the dartboards and positioned herself perpendicular to it. “Like so.”

Moving only her elbow, she threw her three darts one after another.

Monika had a decent grasp on the rules. All of Miranda’s darts sank into the triple 20, the highest-scoring spot on the board—which was only a half-inch square.

There was a large blackboard hanging next to the dartboard, and Miranda’s feat earned her a 180 on hers.

Monika followed Miranda’s lead and stood in front of the dartboard beside hers. She thought she saw the bookie smirking, but she ignored him and readied her darts. Then she positioned herself the same way Miranda had and threw them using only the power of her elbow.

“Like this?”

One after another, Monika’s shots landed in the triple 20.

Miranda’s expression stiffened. “…W-wow. You’re pretty good at this.”

A masked man retrieved her darts, then wrote a 180 on her blackboard just like Miranda’s.

From there, Miranda and Monika continued taking turns throwing sets of three darts. Neither of them ever missed the triple 20, and in no time at all, each blackboard was covered in a long series of 180s.

Before long, a crowd started gathering and letting out cries of amazement at Monika’s and Miranda’s incredible techniques.

“Who are these ladies?”

“I can’t believe it…”

“How do they keep hitting that tiny spot?”

“What’s wrong with these chicks?”

“So, how do we know who wins?” Monika asked once she finished her seventh round. By that point, she had successfully hit twenty-one triple 20s in a row.

Miranda, who had matched her score every step of the way, readied her darts again. “Normally it ends after eight rounds, and the winner is whoever has the higher score.”

“What if it’s a tie?”

“We go into overtime.”

“Wait, this game sucks. We’ll have to keep playing for the rest of our lives,” Monika replied in exasperation before throwing her darts again.

Sure enough, the match quickly stretched into overtime. The blackboards got wiped clean, only to be populated with a fresh round of 180s.

After the ninth and tenth rounds ended the exact same way, Miranda loudly clicked her tongue. “Just as a warning, I’d be careful about scoring too many more points.”

Monika frowned. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Down here, we play for keeps. The loser has to pay up to the tune of a hundred donnies for every point the winner gets.”

Monika took another look over at the blackboards.

After ten rounds, she had a total score of 1,800. If you multiplied that by a hundred of Mouzaia’s donny currency, it came out to a sum roughly four times what an average adult man made in a year.

Yeah, I figured that was what was going on.

However, the expression she put on was one of heartbroken betrayal. Her lips twitched. “What the hell, Miranda? I didn’t agree to any bet.”

“You agreed to it the moment you walked in that door.” Miranda triumphantly threw her darts. Her score for the tenth round was, yet again, 180. “If you don’t have the cash, you can always pay with your body. This place does strip shows, too.”

“I didn’t agree to that, either.”

“They’re pretty gnarly, though. They’ve got this big old guillotine they like to use to dissect the performers.”

At that point, Monika noticed that there were more masked men around than earlier, and they were positioning themselves to box her in. The bookies probably all belonged to some local gang, and they were clearly no strangers to violence. It was their job to capture the loser.

The onlookers began grinning evilly in anticipation of Monika’s defeat.

Losing would mean getting dissected live onstage. There was no guarantee she’d even walk away with her life.

She shrugged and lined up her darts. “I’ll never understand the stuff rich people are into.”

Miranda watched her with a sadistic smile. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the first prodigy I’ve gone up against. It’s rare, but it happens.”

“………”

“The thing is, though, people are funny creatures. Even if you’re a prodigy who can throw a perfect game like it’s nothing, the moment you get stuck in a life-and-death situation, you fall apart in no time. Me, though, I’m totally fine. This is exactly what I’ve trained for.”

“………”

“Now, let’s see how long you can keep cool now that you know the—”

“So, if you look at it another way…” Monika ignored Miranda’s jeers and threw her next dart. It landed smack-dab in the middle of the triple 20. “Then if I win, I’ll have you at my mercy just like that. That’s what I like to hear.”

“……!”

“This works out nicely. I gotta say, I was pretty darn curious about why you came after me.”

Monika’s second and third darts struck home as well.

“The thing is, you picked the wrong mark. Once I take you down, I can just make you tell me.”

“Sounds like someone’s getting ahead of themselves.”

With that, the two monsters began their battle in earnest.

No matter how many rounds passed, the both of them continued racking up perfect 180-point scores. It got to the point where the dartboards were coming apart from being hit in the same spot so many times and had to be replaced.

Up through the fifteenth round, the spectators continued hooting and hollering in excitement. Around when the twentieth round arrived, though, the voices started dying down. They had started to realize what it was they were watching—a fight to the death between two people who had transcended human limitations.

Now every person in the hall was gathered around them, waiting with bated breath to see how the match would end.

It was the twenty-seventh round where fortune’s winds shifted.

That was the round where Monika’s third throw ended up veering low.

“What the—?!” she exclaimed.

Her dart had landed in one of the single 20 sections.

It flew wrong…?

She hadn’t made any errors in her form, yet she had missed her mark.

Something must have interfered with it in midair. There was no other way to explain it.

“Well, well, well. Sorry, but that’s game over.”

Miranda gave her a suspicious-sounding laugh, then readied her third dart.

It went without saying that her first and second throws had been perfect. As long as she scored at least twenty-one points with her third throw, she would secure the win.

“Make sure you watch closely. This is the moment where your whole life ends.”

As the crowd watched expectantly, she threw the decisive dart.

An hour before Sybilla and Monika had their run-ins with their foes, another event took place in Mitario.

Up on the Westport Building’s third floor, Lily got a hunch that she would come face-to-face with an opponent soon.

It happened while she was delivering burgers and doing her espionage work.

“Ah, sorry. I got the wrong room again.”

“I feel I see you do that a lot…”

Lily could move freely throughout the building, and all it cost her was some exasperation from the conference big shots. By “accidentally” entering the wrong room, it gave her an opportunity to set up her handiwork.

All right, got the bug in place.

The moment she opened the door, she stuck her device to the bottom of the table. Pretending to be a scatterbrained waitress was a job she was uniquely suited for. Plus, it gave her a ready-made excuse for the times when she really did misremember what room she was supposed to go to.

She apologized and made to leave the room. Before she could, though, someone called over to her. “Hey, kid, hold up.”

“Hyeep! Yes?” she replied nervously.

The man snickered. He was a bureaucrat from the United States’ Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. “There’s no need to get so defensive. I just wanted to pick your brain about this rumor I heard.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you knew anything about this ‘hero of Mitario’ people are talking about. Supposedly, this hero swoops in to lend a helping hand when people need them most. You ever hear your friends talking about anything like that?”

Lily had never heard anything of the sort. “I haven’t, but then, I did just arrive from overseas.”

She pressed him for details just in case, but it turned out to be little more than an urban legend. Apparently, little bits and pieces of information were flying around town.

As the story went, there was a hero—someone who only appeared to people who were in the depths of despair. Someone who offered them hope and liberty.

Lily cocked her head. “Someone who offers liberty… So, kinda like the big statue in the harbor?”

The man laughed. “Ha-ha. You might be onto something there.”

It was a nice rumor, but Lily found it hard to imagine it being relevant to her mission. She asked him if he knew any more specifics just to be on the safe side, then left the room.

She was getting on the elevator and idly fantasizing about the hero, when all of a sudden—

“Huh?”

—a chill ran down her spine.

It wasn’t because of anything she’d seen. Still, she could definitely sense some sort of change in the air.

She licked her dry lips.

I guess after all that training I did, I’m finally developing a spy’s intuition.

Thinking about it, Klaus often got through his missions on hunches and I just dids.

It would seem that she’d developed a similar sixth sense of her own.

Someone’s coming…and they’re not friendly!

Lily took a deep breath and braced herself for battle.

She got out of the elevator, but she still didn’t see any foes.

However, she was certain that her hunch was accurate. She returned to the burger shop.

“Oh, hey, Lillian, you’ve got a visitor,” one of her coworkers said when she got back. “There’s someone who says they want to talk to you.”

Lily couldn’t think of anyone who would come asking for her like that.

“You can take off early. They’re waiting for you out back.”

“You got it,” Lily replied with a nod. She headed over to her locker in the back of the store.

Well, I definitely didn’t expect them to come at me so brazenly…

She opened her backpack’s false bottom and retrieved her handgun from within, then stashed it in her leg holster and covered it up with her uniform’s skirt.

She clapped her cheeks to brace herself.

It’s okay. I got this. I’m gonna take all the skills Teach taught me and turn the tables on ’em!

Losing wasn’t an option.

The other girls were probably going up against fierce foes as well, and it was her job as team leader to be the first one to overcome her opponent.

It was go time.

She headed over to the back of the building and found a man and a woman each wearing a suit and an overcoat. Lily didn’t recognize them, but she could tell by the keen look in their eyes that these were no ordinary civilians. Their faces had that grizzled look to them exclusive to those who operated in the world of violence.

Lily could feel it in her bones—these two were no pushovers.

She let out a long exhale and traced her fingers over her gun through the skirt. “You two, is it? I gotta give you credit; it was pretty sporting of you to come at me head-on like—”

“Hello, ma’am. We’re with the Mitario Police Department.”

“Huh?”

That wasn’t the line Lily had been expecting them to lead with. She tilted her head in puzzlement.

The police?

True, they did look the part of police detectives. And they were holding up the proper ID, too.

“………”

Lily went silent for a bit as she tried to logic the situation out.

She quickly arrived at her conclusion.

“I see, I see. Pretty bold of you to pose as detectives.” She scoffed. “Did you seriously think I wouldn’t see through those disguises?”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Something didn’t quite fit. The man and the woman looked at her in confusion, and it didn’t seem like they were acting.

Only then did Lily put the pieces together.

“W-wait, you’re actually real cops?!”

“What are you talking about?” the male detective said, frowning. “Look, I’m going to cut to the chase. You’re wanted as a suspect in a murder case. Would you mind coming with us?”

“A suspect in a what?!”

“There’s an eyewitness who says you shot two people dead the day before yesterday.” The female detective fished a document out of her pocket and showed it to Lily. “We have a warrant out for your arrest.”

The warrant was the real deal. It was stamped with the official seal of a United States of Mouzaia court, and it authorized the detention of a one Lillian.

The thing was, Lily obviously hadn’t committed any murders of the sort.

It was then, at long last, that she realized what was going on. In all likelihood, their enemies were behind this.

“B-but it’s not true! This is a conspiracy set up by a Galgad spy!”

She desperately tried to plead her innocence, but the detectives just frowned at her.

“…Is there something wrong with her?”

“We should probably test her for drugs.”

“But I’m telling you the truth here!”

“Look, kid, if you’re going to lie, at least try to make it believable. Why would an Imperial spy go after some exchange student who works at a burger shop?”

“That’s, uh, that’s a good question…”

She couldn’t exactly come out and tell them she was a spy.

“Um…” She smiled sweetly. “Well, why do you think?”

“We should take her in.”

“Yup.”

“You’re heartless! S-stay away from—”

The detectives crept toward her, and Lily swung her arms about. Then she accidentally hit her thigh.

Clunk.

Her pistol fell out of her leg holster and toppled to the ground.

“““…………………”””

All three people present looked down at the gun in silence.

The male detective cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. “Um, Lillian Hepburn?”

“…That’s me.”

“The time is eight forty-seven PM, and I’m placing you under arrest for suspected murder.”

He clicked the handcuffs tightly around her wrists.

Lily had been captured.

Three members of the team—Sybilla, Monika, and Lily—were in three different forms of peril.

“………”

Thea stood by the window and gazed out at the Mitario cityscape.

There was an apprehension eating at her that refused to go away.

Her teammates hadn’t sent in their regular reports. The system was that once a day, each of them was supposed to use a specific method to send back the intel they’d gathered. Then Thea and Grete could use that intel to inform their next orders.

Today, though, the scheduled time had come and gone, and there was no intel to be seen.

Something was wrong. Sybilla, Monika, and Lily had run into trouble.

“Are they all right, do you think? What should we do?” she asked Grete, who was looking down at the big map spread out across the dining table.

Grete’s expression was just as grave as hers. “That’s a good question… We all share a common weakness, so I’m a little bit concerned.”

“We do?”

What was she talking about?

She gave Grete an inquisitive look, and Grete nodded. “None of us has had any proper defensive training.”

“Ah…”

That made perfect sense.

Their training regimen had revolved around defeating Klaus, so it had placed a huge emphasis on gathering intel on a known enemy and using it to attack them. They hadn’t developed the skills and talents required to defend themselves against an unknown foe.

“Because of that,” Grete continued, “I fear we might be especially vulnerable when we come under attack.”

“………”

Thea was reminded of the Annette Incident.

Back then, she was played for a fool because of her inability to see Annette’s mom for who she really was. They succeeded in breaking through the Military Intelligence Department’s net, but doing so had led them right into their enemy’s trap. It was a painful memory, and Grete was exactly right—they lacked the experience necessary to defend themselves from enemy attacks.

Right now, her teammates might be losing in that exact same way.

Thea started to gnaw on her lip as she feared the worst.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll all capture their opponents and bring us back some valuable information.” Grete smiled. “We have a countermeasure in place for just such an occasion. After all, a small spy can make a big difference.”

Thea thought back. Grete had devised a plan as she strolled around the city.

Grete gave her an elegant nod. “And on top of that, if there’s one time where we truly shine—”

Grete’s tactic produced an immediate change on all three battlefields.

Over behind the Westport Building, Lily was being wrestled into a patrol car.

“Ughhhhh, this is all a setup. I’m telling you, it’s an Imperial scheme!”

“You’re still going on about your conspiracy theory?” the female detective replied as Lily began crying in earnest.

“Hey, kid,” the male detective said. “What’s with that stuffed animal hanging on your back?”

Lily cocked her head. “Huh?”

When she looked back over her shoulder, she discovered that someone had stuck a stuffed cat onto her.

But who?

As Lily pondered the mystery, the stuffed animal suddenly emitted a blast of smoke.

“Yo, Sis, time to book it!” she heard someone exclaim happily from amid the fumes.

The sound of a stun gun crackled through the air, and the two detectives crumpled to the ground.

A moment later, Lily let herself get pulled away, and she and Annette began making their grand escape.

Down in the underground casino, Monika and Miranda were having a darts match.

“Ah!”

Miranda’s third shot of the twenty-seventh round skewed a little high.

It ended up scoring the same as Monika’s had—a single 20. With that, their scores remained equal, and the overtime rounds continued.

Miranda let out a red-faced shout. “Th-there was a mouse! It just threw itself against my ankle!”

“Really? That’s the excuse you’re going with?” Monika mocked her as though she’d planned it all.

As she did, she silently complimented her teammate. She knew that somewhere among the thronging spectators, there was a girl squeezing her fists together as tight as she could.

Nice one, Sara. Sneaking all the way down here must’ve taken a lot of guts.

Monika flashed a surreptitious thumbs-up.

Over in the crowd, Sara clandestinely retrieved her mouse and smiled.

Up in the darkened office building, Sybilla and Barron were squaring off.

By all rights, his punch should have been unavoidable.

Sybilla’s training let her operate just fine in low-light environments, but pitch darkness was a whole different story. With no ability to see at all, she had no way to counteract Barron’s attack.

She could tell from the sound that the blow would knock her dead.

Unless, that was, someone grabbed her and yanked her backward.

She tumbled to the ground, just barely avoiding the attack. Barron’s massive fist passed right in front of her eyes. Afterward, her savior tugged on her arm, and Sybilla followed her and took off at a run.

However, her savior couldn’t see in the dark, either. With a loud wham, they crashed into a wall.

“How unlucky…,” Erna moaned.

“Not from where I’m standing, it wasn’t. You did good.”

Sybilla patted Erna’s head and backed herself up against the wall. If she could just reach a corner, it would limit the number of directions from which her foe could approach.

“Oui. Backup, hmm?” Barron’s voice boomed from the darkness accompanied by the raw bloodlust of a ruthless killer. “It doesn’t change anything. You two will never escape this prison of darkness.”

He was right. The situation was still overwhelmingly in his favor.

Sybilla was fighting to the death in the dark against a boxer who could move around freely. It would be no exaggeration to call the situation desperate.

However, she didn’t so much as falter. What could she possibly have to fear? She had spent ages fighting a man who was leagues stronger than Barron.

“Tough luck, man, but the moment you failed to take us out with that first hit was the moment you sealed your doom.”

A dauntless smile spread across her face as she raised her fists.

By a strange twist of fate, her next line was the exact same as the one Grete had said in another part of the city.

“See, if there’s one time where we truly shine—it’s when we go on the attack.”

Across all three of Mitario’s battlefields, the girls were beginning their counteroffensive.