Spy Classroom - Volume 4 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Hero

Down in the underground casino, there wasn’t a patron or employee present who didn’t have their eyes glued to the fierce battle between the cerulean-haired Monika and the debauchee college student Miranda.

The twenty-seventh round was over now, and their scores were equal. Everyone had assumed that Monika’s failure to hit the triple 20 on her third dart of the round would be how the match ended, but Miranda’s last dart had missed the mark as well. Aside from that one throw, though, both of them had continued racking up perfect scores.

Each of their tallies stood at 4,820.

That meant that the loser was already going to be on the hook for 482,000 donnies. There was no way anyone could pay a sum like that. Whoever lost would be facing strip show dismemberment for sure.

The next life-and-death overtime round was about to start, and the audience watched intently.

Meanwhile, Monika fiddled with her forelocks as she tried to come up with a plan.

This isn’t looking good…

The problem was what happened in the twenty-seventh round.

For some reason, her third dart had veered low.

It looked like it was some sort of wind. They must have the AC in here rigged…and Miranda must have an accomplice among the bookies. Well, this is a problem. And now, she’ll be watching out for Sara’s mice.

The next time Monika missed, it really would spell her defeat.

She needed to figure out a way to overcome Miranda’s cheating so she could beat her and interrogate her about who she was working for.

Miranda grinned like she had already won. “Come on, aren’t you going to throw?”

She had already finished her portion of round twenty-eight. As was to be expected, she had scored a perfect 180.

“Or what, are you too scared? Gosh, I hope your darts don’t go flying the wrong way again.”

“So it was you.”

“Who, me? I’m sure I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. But let me tell you a secret: Down here, all that matters is where your darts land.”

“Eh, maybe I shouldn’t have been so worried. I figured out a counter.”

If anything, Miranda’s taunting had helped clear her head.

Monika held her three darts tight and took her spot in front of her board.

She stared at the target and looked at the dust motes dancing in front of it. She could see how irregular their flight paths were. Sure enough, there was a strong wind blowing in front of her dartboard and hers alone.

Trying to account for the wind’s influence was beyond her.

No, the solution Monika had reached was far simpler than that.

A gasp rose up from the audience. “What?”

By all rights, what Monika was doing should have been unthinkable. She lifted both her arms high in the air. Next, she bent her left knee and raised it until it was level with her hips. From there, she leaned her whole body back, then snapped forward.

As the crowd stared at her in disbelief, Monika swung her arm forward and hurled the dart with all her might.

A loud thunk rang out. The dart had struck true.

Monika smiled. “Oh, nice, it worked.”

The spectators had seen a lot of incredible things that day, but none had been more astonishing than the miracle they’d just witnessed.

It had reminded them all of one thing—Mouzaia’s national sport.

“D-did you seriously just…?” Miranda stammered.

“I saw it on one of those TV relay broadcasts last night. It’s called the ‘windup position,’ right?”

The stance she’d chosen was that of a baseball pitcher. By using an overhand throw and putting the strength of her entire body behind it, she had launched the dart like a fastball and cleaved straight through the wind. With speed like that, no obstruction could stand in her way. Her second and third darts made sounds just as satisfying as they sank into the triple 20.

“________!”

Miranda was at a loss for words. And the audience was, too. Monika’s stance went against everything they knew about darts theory. Maintaining precise aim with throws like that shouldn’t have been possible.

“That was just a fluke! You’ll never be able to keep that up!” Miranda cried.

“Won’t I?”

Sure enough, Monika did just that.

The twenty-ninth, thirtieth, thirty-first, and thirty-second rounds went by, and Monika’s overhand form earned her the maximum score possible in every single one. All the while, Miranda continued using her standard form to match her.

Over time, public sentiment gradually began shifting Monika’s way. That never-before-seen darts technique of hers had won over the audience. Miranda’s throws were just as flawless, but their monotony caused the crowd to lose interest in her.

Each time Monika threw, cheers erupted from the crowd. The hall had regained its earlier fervor. But in the thirty-third round, the spectators grew more excited still.

“Look, at this rate, we’re gonna be here for the rest of our lives,” Monika said. She offered a proposal. “What do you say we start throwing all three darts at once?”

“Have you lost it?”

“What, too afraid? Look, it’s easy.”

The moment the words left her mouth, Monika clutched her three darts and hurled them all at once.

Once again, all of them found their mark, earning her another score of 180.

Monika had pulled off her biggest miracle yet, and it earned her a round of applause from the audience. She threw them a wave to stir them up even more.

Expectations were high for Miranda’s next move—

“I’m here to play darts, not to do stunts.”

—but she chose to stick to convention and throw her darts one at a time. It was the safer choice, and it got her a perfect score.

She was met with a storm of booing.

“Coward!” the crowd heckled her.

In the thirty-fourth, thirty-fifth, and thirty-sixth rounds, Monika continued overhand throwing all three darts at once, and the crowd kept roaring. In contrast, Miranda received nothing but unending jeers. “Quit being a chicken!” they shouted distractingly at her as she continued making her boring throws.

Not even Miranda was immune to conditions like those. Sweat began beading on her forehead, and Monika showed her no mercy. She went in for the kill.

Sara, now!

Sensing that Miranda’s concentration was wavering, she flashed a hand signal.

A single mouse scurried underfoot, taking care to avoid the spectators’ gazes. Then, the exact moment before Miranda made her throw, it leaped at her ankle.

Victory was Monika’s. She was sure of it.

“Shoo!”

However, Miranda hadn’t flinched.

Contrary to Monika’s expectations, her third dart had landed right in the middle of the triple 20.

“………”

Monika gasped.

There was blood trickling down Miranda’s heel. The mouse had sunk its teeth into her foot.

Yet, even so, she remained unfazed. Neither the booing nor Sara’s surprise attack had thrown her off.

“You look surprised. Did you think you’d won?”

“………”

“It’s no use,” Miranda said as she readied her next dart. “I don’t get shaken.”

It was time for the thirty-seventh round. She carefully threw one dart, then the next.

“See, I’ve put in the hours. I’ve made tens of thousands of throws. Hundreds of thousands. No matter what you try to pull, all I have to do is believe in the hard work I’ve done.”

The rhythm, speed, and trajectory of her throws hadn’t changed a bit since the very first round. She was just making the exact same throw over and over, like a machine.

“Hard work, huh? You’re saying that’s the difference between you and me?”

Monika, on the other hand, was throwing all three of her darts at once and ending each of her rounds in the blink of an eye. It was a superhuman stunt that few, if any, could pull off.

The overtime rounds between their two diametrically opposed styles continued.

Now it was round thirty-eight.

“It is. And it’s why I don’t get tired.” Miranda smiled. “I can see what you’re up to, you know. You’re not doing those three-in-one throws to show off. You’re doing it to cut down on the number of throws you need to make. After all, that form of yours puts a lot of stress on your arm.”

“………”

“Eventually, you’ll slip. Not even prodigies are immune to fatigue.”

She had Monika dead to rights there.

In order to get through the wind, Monika had to keep throwing her darts with all the power she could muster. Miranda, however, was able to continue casually using her by-the-book form. It went without saying which one of them would get worn out first.

The thirty-ninth round went by, as did the fortieth and forty-first.

“So?” Miranda asked. “Are you starting to feel it?”

“Hey, I’m sure you’re getting worn out, too.”

“I just told you, I don’t get tired.”

The forty-second, forty-third, and forty-fourth rounds passed as well.

“You could never understand just how long I’ve spent honing my craft. Me, getting worn out? Please. I could throw a thousand darts and never miss once.”

“Why would you go so far?”

“Because of the pain.”

“The what?”

“I can hear this man, talking in my head… Keep training, he says. And if I don’t, the pain comes… His pain… The pain that feels like it’ll split my heart in two… I have to keep throwing…no matter what it costs me… Now this is my life.”

The forty-fifth round came and went.

“It’s like being in hell… My body just moves on its own… I can’t stand the pain. I can’t do it… It’s so scary, all I can do is cry… That’s why I have to win…”

“………”

“And that’s why I believe. I believe that if I just practice enough, I can overcome any adversity!”

After finishing her throw for the forty-sixth round, Monika exhaled. Their conversation just now had started to paint a picture for her—a picture of the puppet master secretly pulling the strings.

She massaged her throwing arm. There was only so long she could keep up the bravado. Just as Miranda had predicted, her exhaustion was starting to build. Being forced to repeatedly perform a motion she wasn’t used to was causing her muscles to tighten. The situation was weighted against her, her opponent wasn’t getting tired, and none of Monika’s attempts to throw her off her game were working. It was becoming a war of attrition, and Monika was losing.

When the forty-seventh round rolled around, she had no choice but to change up her tactics. She raised just a single dart, having given up on throwing all three at once.

Miranda laughed mockingly. “Oh? Going back to throwing them one at a time?”

“Something like that.”

“You must be scared that you’re too tired to aim right. But upping your number of throws is a bad move, too, you know?”

Monika couldn’t do her triple throw anymore because the risk she would flub it was too high. Given the war of attrition they were in, though, having to go back to performing three throws a round was a painful pill to swallow.

Monika grinned self-derisively.

Man, this would’ve been so much easier if I just had some poison on me the way Lily always does.

There was no point wishing for what she didn’t have, but she had to admit, Lily could have turned the tables here with ease. Using poison gas that only she was immune to might have been foul play, but it certainly would’ve been enough to take down Miranda.

However, Monika had nothing of the sort.

She did technically have a special talent of her own: “creepshot,” the ability she’d kept a secret from even her teammates. Her inhuman calculation skills and nigh-mechanical precision allowed her to track moving targets, either with or without the aid of mirrors.

It was a convenient skill for a spy to have…but at the end of the day, it was still just a technique. Monika didn’t have an abnormal physiology or any sort of special ability stemming from a unique origin story. All she had was that single half-baked skill, and it wasn’t even a particularly powerful one.

It’s amazing I’ve made it this far with such a dog-shit ability, she thought sardonically as she continued doing her throws.

Their match continued on into the forty-eighth and forty-ninth rounds.

It was Monika’s second throw in round fifty where disaster struck.

“Ah!”

The moment she released her dart, Monika’s face contorted. She clutched at her arm.

Her dart flew up and to the right, eventually landing on the single 1. All she got for her efforts was one measly point.

“Looks like you finally hit your limit.”

Meanwhile, Miranda’s first two shots had both landed cleanly on the triple 20. As long as she made her third shot, Monika’s defeat was a sure thing.

At the moment, their total scores had nearly reached nine thousand. There was no way Monika could come up with money like that.

Miranda smiled confidently and readied her third dart. “I’ll remember this moment. It always feels fantastic when you surpass someone talented with nothing but hard work.”

She was ready to settle the match.

A stir ran through the audience, and by chance, Monika spotted Sara’s face among their ranks. She was standing on her tiptoes as high as she could go and mouthing a message to her.

“Miss Monika, you have to run!”

The logical part of Monika’s brain realized that that would be the correct course of action. All she had to do was turn tail and flee. All she had to do was abandon her pride. The masked men in black suits had long since surrounded her, but there was still a chance she could break free.

However, Monika didn’t move. She continued clutching her arm.

“Hard work alone isn’t worth jack,” she declared.

Miranda stopped mid-motion, and Monika went on.

“You’ve trained hard; I can’t deny that. But on its own, that’s not enough.”

Miranda raised an eyebrow. “What’re you going on about?”

“You piss me off, you know. You and those shitty values of yours.”

“Excuse me?”

“What was it you said, ‘if I just practice enough, I can overcome any adversity’? What are you, stupid? How many people do you think have died in this world full of pain just because they were born in the wrong place and didn’t have any talent?”

Monika was thinking of the man who called himself the World’s Greatest.

He got it. He understood that sometimes things were just unfair, and no individual could overcome it. He knew about all the people who had died through no fault of their own. About the children who’d never even gotten so much as the opportunity to train. About the lives that had ended due to their bearers’ lack of talent.

He’d explained as much back when they first met.

“You each have boundless potential just waiting to be unlocked.”

That was the first thing he’d praised them for—their talent.

“There are walls in this world that no amount of effort is enough to get through.”

It was simple, if you thought about it for a second.

If an average person trained and trained, would they ever be able to beat Klaus? The answer was a resounding no.

If you ever met him, you’d understand in an instant just how limited hard workers really are!

Monika had learned that all too well over these past few months. She clicked her tongue. “It’s obnoxious, the way you pretend to be a nobody when you’re just as talented yourself.”

“Is that it? Was that pointless babbling your one final gambit?” Miranda laughed her off, then threw her dart. “Well, it’s no use. That’s game, set, and match!”

The moment it left her hand, Monika readied her dart in turn. “I’ll tell you why you lost,” she said. “It’s your talent you should’ve trusted—not your effort.”

Miranda had it all wrong.

The problem wasn’t how she’d fallen for Monika’s bait and thrown her third dart early. It was how steadfastly she’d clung to her hard work. That was what had led her to choose the same throw for her third dart as for all the others. She threw it from the same spot. At the same speed. With the same trajectory. If she’d changed up her throw even the tiniest amount, things would have been different. But using the exact same form against someone with Monika’s adaptability was a careless mistake.

Monika threw her third dart with the exact same timing.

She wasn’t aiming at the dartboard—she was aiming at Miranda’s dart.

“What?”

Miranda shrieked.

Monika’s exhaustion had all been an act. Her body still had some energy left, and she poured every last drop of it into her dart. It hurtled through the air at breakneck speed and sniped Miranda’s dart right out of the air before bouncing off at an odd trajectory and spinning away.

As Monika watched it fly, she thought back.

There are hard limits to how far effort can get you…and normal people can never surpass prodigies.

Meeting Klaus had beaten that knowledge into her.

That was what happened when you went up against people who were on a whole different level.

But Klaus chose me. And he had the nerve to compliment me, even.

“Magnificent.”

He had said it on countless occasions, and each time, he had meant it.

I guess it’s time for me to face the facts—the fact that I’m a prodigy, too.

When the chips were down, Monika had chosen to have faith in her own talents.

She had watched Miranda robotically perform the same throw 150 times in a row, and she had thought up a maneuver that bordered on impossible.

But Monika was confident that she could pull it off.

After knocking away Miranda’s dart, Monika’s dart spun through the air and landed exactly on target, striking the dartboard almost exactly where her first throw had landed.

“You’re kidding me…”

“All that matters is where your darts land, right? Your words, not mine.”

The fiftieth round was over.

Monika’s final score was 8,901, and Miranda’s was 8,900.

The crowd roared. The battle had raged for nearly two hours, and now at long last it had reached its conclusion. Over in the back, Sara gave her a teary round of applause.

Miranda crumpled to her knees.

Monika looked down at her. “I win.”

“………”

“So? You gonna pay up? Or are you going to have to earn the money in one of those strip shows?”

Miranda’s expression contorted.

Monika went on. “If that’s not your cup of tea, I’d be happy to spot you the money. All you have to do is tell me who it is you’re working for.”

There was a puppet master behind the scenes who’d been feeding her orders and commanding her to take care of anyone who seemed even the slightest bit suspicious. If that puppet master happened to be Purple Ant, they could get tons of intel on him all at once.

She waited with high hopes for Miranda’s response—

—until all of a sudden, Miranda plunged the tip of a dart into her own throat.

“……!” That was enough to shock even Monika. She grabbed Miranda by the arm. “What’re you doing? There’s no need for you to die.”

“It’s no use…” Miranda shook her head. “This is the rule…”

“What are you talking about?”

“‘If you lose, kill yourself,’ he said… If I don’t, the pain will come… The punishment will come… I can’t… I would rather die… My body won’t listen to me anymore…” Miranda fought back against Monika’s attempt to restrain her and continued trying to hasten along her suicide. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she never stopped stabbing her throat. “I don’t want to get punished…”

“______”

Monika could feel a rage welling up inside her. She finally understood what was really going on.

Miranda was a normal civilian. It was the puppet master’s torture that had molded her into a soldier, nothing more. By nature, she was just a playful college student with a likable personality and a knack for darts.

Blood spewed from Miranda’s throat as she mumbled deliriously. “…I wonder if the hero will come for me?”

“What?”

“Someone told me once that when I was in the depths of despair, a hero would show up and save me. Was it all just a lie? I can still hear their words echoing in my ears…”

It was like she was talking about something out of a children’s story.

Realizing that Miranda wouldn’t last much longer, Monika delivered a knife-hand strike to the back of her neck to knock her out. Even after she fell unconscious, though, her hand remained clasped tight around the dart as though duty bound.

“Get her some treatment,” Monika barked at the casino workers. “You were in cahoots with her, right? If she tries to kill herself, make sure you stop her. I don’t need my cut of the winnings.”

However, that was little more than a stopgap. The moment Miranda woke up, she would go right back to her suicide attempt. There was no way to save her. No way, that was, except killing the puppet master.

Monika turned her back on the crowd and let out a low mutter. “Sara, let’s go. We need to tell Intel about what we just saw.”

“Yeah, you’re right…”

The two of them left side by side and headed back aboveground.

Neither of them said another word until they were all the way to the top of the stairs.

They had won, but they didn’t feel good about the way it had ended, and they hadn’t even gained any actionable information. All they had to show for their efforts was the bad taste in their mouth from tormenting an innocent coed.

Monika whipped out her notepad, wrote down a coded message, and tore out the page, passing it to Sara. When she did, Sara retrieved the pigeon from beneath her hat and tied the note around his leg. The pigeon took flight and headed for the apartment where the Intel squad was staying.

“S-still, though!” Once they finished handling the report, Sara thoughtfully spoke up in a deliberately cheerful voice. “You were amazing back there, Miss Monika! It reminded me why I respect you so much!”

“Thanks. Your backup was pretty great, too.”

“Oh, not at all! Honestly, I barely even did anything at—”

“You know, I really wish you’d start recognizing your own talent.”

“……?”

“Still, you did save my butt this time around. Once we’re done with this mission, I’m gonna give you some one-on-one coaching. Compared to the rest of Lamplight’s pip-squeaks and numbskulls, you’re one of the only people here with a decent head on your shoulders.”

“R-really?” Sara’s face reddened with joy.

Afterward, Monika took a dart out of her pocket and began twirling it around in her fingers.

Sara smiled. “Oh, you kept one?”

Monika nodded proudly. “Yeah, I thought this might be a good opportunity to start giving it a go.”

“Wait…start giving it a go?”

“Yeah. That was a pretty good showing, right? Considering it was my first time playing and all.”

Monika grinned as she watched Sara freeze with her mouth hanging agape.

The battle in the underground casino ended in victory for the Monika-Sara duo.

But a moment later, they were greeted by—

The Sybilla-Erna duo’s battle was as fierce as could be.

Light had been entirely blocked out from the building, so all they could rely on were their nonvisual senses. However, their opponent, Barron, could traverse the darkness with ease. By listening for Sybilla’s and Erna’s breathing, he could gauge how far away they were. Moving around silently to take down his target seemed to be a core tenet of his fighting style.

He took care not to let them sense his hostility, then closed in on them and lashed out with his trained boxer’s fist. A single direct hit would be enough to put them out like a light.

The only tools they had to fight back with were Sybilla’s physical prowess—

“He’s coming from the left!”

—and Erna’s incredible intuition.

Sybilla reacted to her call by immediately stooping down and throwing out a kick. When her foot made contact, it gave her a decent idea of where her opponent was, and she fired her gun without a moment’s hesitation. During the brief moment her muzzle flash lit up the darkness, she caught a glimpse of Barron’s face.

He had assumed he had his prey cornered, and he was none too happy about her sudden counterattack.

“You little worm,” he spat.

Sybilla hadn’t been able to see her target, so she had failed to deal him a fatal blow. Barron beat a hasty retreat, his footsteps echoing out as he vanished into the darkness once more.

Sybilla nudged Erna behind her back and angled herself so that Erna was sandwiched between her and the wall. There was no need for them to change up their position. Either way, Barron would have no trouble tracking them down.

The deadly clash in the darkness reached a momentary lull.

“Erna, lemme pick your brain for a sec,” Sybilla said. “What do you think we can do to get the upper hand?”

Whenever things started to go off book, Sybilla knew that deferring to her teammates was a better call than relying on her own judgment. Erna might not be on Grete’s level, but she was still pretty good when it came to thinking on her feet.

Barron could hear them, too, but there was no getting around that. Given how sharp his ears were, even whispering probably wouldn’t have made a difference.

Erna gave her reply instantly. “For now, we have to fall back.” The situation was dire enough that nobody would have blamed her for flying into a panic, but she laid out her thought process with utmost composure. “The entrance we came through is blocked, so we’ll have to use another exit, but fighting in here puts us at too big of a disadvantage.”

“It stings, but I guess you’re right. As things are, I’m not seein’ any way we win.”

“Don’t think of it as losing. Think of it as retreating so we can win later.”

“Ooh, I like the sound of that. One question, though—”

“Hmm?”

“—which way’s the exit?”

“………………………………”

Without their sight, they had no way of figuring out an escape route. Neither of them had ever been in the building before, and they’d been forced to rush about so haphazardly that they had no idea where exactly they were.

Behind her, Erna groaned. “How unlucky…”

“Yeah, well, them’s the breaks.”

For now, it looked like they had no choice but to continue fighting in the dark. Given their current situation, fumbling around blindly was too dangerous to be a legitimate option. They would have no way to tell from which direction Barron was going to attack them.

Erna spoke up again. “He’s coming from straight ahead!”

Sybilla took a guess at when Barron would strike, then slid along the wall and used the slight variations in airflow to aim her shot. Their lack of sight made the sound of her gunshot seem that much louder. This time, though, her bullet failed to find its mark. And when it did, Barron’s fist came hurtling through the darkness!

It took everything Sybilla had just to stop the blow. She blocked the jab-hook combo with her arm, then let Erna tug her away.

Barron’s voice echoed eerily through the dark. “Oui. You’re a perceptive one.”

Sybilla couldn’t feel the arm she’d blocked with. She could tell she’d suffered some internal bleeding. She fired a defensive shot, and Barron backed off again. It was classic hit-and-run tactics. Back during his time as a professional, he might well have been an out-boxer.

This time, he didn’t waste a moment before coming in for another attack, and Erna’s warning only barely came in time. If Sybilla hadn’t also heard Barron’s shoes scrape the ground, she would’ve been done for. She dodged the blow to her face by a hairbreadth and had to practically crawl across the ground to make her escape.

I’m not gonna last much longer like this!

Barron would’ve been a nasty opponent to fight in close quarters at the best of times, and even with Erna’s intuition to help, battling him in the dark was a recipe for taking a one-sided beatdown. Plus, escaping would be even harder once she ran out of bullets.

“Yeep…,” she heard Erna worriedly mumble.

Sybilla reached out in the dark and joined hands with her, then followed her lead as she rushed out of the room. Shortly thereafter, Erna crashed headlong into a wall. Sybilla quickly put her back to it and got ready to defend herself from Barron again.

“Hey, Barron!” she shouted, no longer able to hold herself back.

The response came from somewhere in the darkness. “…Oui?”

Sybilla briefly considered firing a shot in the direction the voice came from, but she knew she couldn’t waste her precious bullets on gut reads.

“Why’re you doin’ this?” Instead, she decided to ask him a question. “You coulda kept makin’ it as a boxer, no? Why get involved with this assassination crap?”

The way the VP told it, he had been forced into retirement by an injury, but that clearly wasn’t the real story. It was obvious from looking at him that he was still in his prime.

“Oui. Why should I tell you?” he replied curtly.

“Eh, have it your way.”

As Sybilla shrugged, she heard Barron sigh. “Besides,” he went on. “You’re the same. Neither of us can live out in the sun.”

There was a certain heaviness to his tone.

“People like us have nowhere we can go. All we can do is scuttle about in the dark. Am I wrong?”

His voice rang with a resigned determination.

Sybilla hadn’t had high hopes, and sure enough, talking him down wasn’t going to be an option. She had no choice but to fight.

The sound of Barron’s breathing vanished, as though to say that the time for talk was over. He slipped back under the cover of darkness and got ready to launch another attack.

Sybilla braced herself.

For a moment, everything was silent. Combined with their inability to see, the total lack of sound made it feel as though the world itself had ended. None of the light from Main Street’s dazzling billboards or the raucous sound of its gridlocked car horns could reach them there.

“He’s coming…from the right?” Erna whispered. Her intonation was a touch different than it had been the other times.

Sybilla could sense that something was up, too.

Their foe was mixing up his attack pattern. She could still sense the punch coming her way, but something about it was different. After focusing every nerve in her body, Sybilla realized what had changed. Barron wasn’t going after her this time—he was going after Erna.

Instead of targeting the athletic Sybilla, he had decided to attack the weaker member of the duo.

He silently swooped past Sybilla and bore down on her partner—

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

—but Sybilla reacted by firing off a beautiful backspin kick.

It was a feat that demanded extraordinary reflexes, but that was precisely what Sybilla had.

Her attack had been a complete shot in the dark, but she felt it land solidly on Barron’s face. Her body had moved on its own this time, and that was what had made the difference.

“You’re not layin’ one goddamn finger on my girl!”

It was a critical hit.

She still couldn’t see Barron, but at long last, she’d landed a blow on him.

The problem was—

“Oui. What a child, falling for bait that simple.”

—her foe had seen it all coming.

Barron had been planning on taking Sybilla’s attack from the get-go. He caught the leg that had slammed into his face and threw her off-balance.

Sybilla immediately grabbed at him.

Barron sank his fist into her exposed abdomen. “It’s over.”

The punch landed right in her solar plexus. She couldn’t breathe, and her mind went blank.

Before she knew it, she had already fallen to the ground and landed hard. She tumbled across the dusty floor. By the time she finally came to a stop, she couldn’t lift her arms or legs anymore.

“Big Sis Sybilla…?”

Erna sounded grief-stricken.

“Nah, I’m good,” Sybilla replied, fighting through the pain to raise Erna’s spirits. She smiled. “Check out what I just nicked.”

And in the darkness, there was light.

A tiny flame lit up the room. Everything came into view—the abandoned desks, Erna’s widened eyes, and Barron, who was staring at Sybilla in shock.

She was holding a lighter.

“You little…,” Barron growled.

Sybilla had remembered everything. She had remembered the lighter Barron had used to light the VP’s cigarette, and she had remembered exactly which pocket he put it into afterward.

She squinted and used the dim light to look around. There was a map hanging on the wall.

There’s the exit!

They didn’t have time to dawdle. If the lighter ran out of fuel, they’d be done for.

Sybilla summoned up her strength and rose back to her feet. Then she grabbed Erna by the arm and made a break for it.

Barron watched calmly as the two girls fled, then gave chase. However, he didn’t run at full throttle. He tracked them by the light from the lighter they were holding, but he made no efforts to close the distance.

“Time for us to get the hell out of here!” the girl called Sybilla cheered.

Her voice was spirited. She was confident that she’d won. Once she escaped from the darkness, she’d have a chance to gather her bearings and prepare for round two.

The thing is…, Barron thought to himself as he continued feigning agony. You won’t be going anywhere.

At the end of the day, he had nothing to fear from shallow-minded children like them. Everything was still going exactly according to his plan.

You were too conspicuous. You ended up showing me everything.

It had happened by pure coincidence, but Barron had spotted her.

When he saw an apprentice journalist doggedly covering suspicious politicians, he immediately put his guard up. Then he used her personality to infer how she operated. By the time she approached the VP he worked for, he already had a pretty solid idea about how good of a pickpocket she was.

That information had let him devise the perfect plan.

The fact that you’re a hothead let me predict you’d come charging at me, and the first thing you’d go for would be my lighter. It’s the obvious choice to make for a person trapped in the dark.

Barron watched Sybilla run off, lighter in hand.

And when you spotted that map, you’d have no reason not to follow it.

She wasn’t unskilled, not by any stretch of the imagination. Barron had no doubt that she’d trained to be able to commit things to memory within an instant of seeing them. Unfortunately for her, though, she lacked the prudence to pair with her talents.

The map had directions to a set of stairs leading to the fifth floor. All you have to do is take a left at the fire extinguisher and go straight past the break room, and you’ll arrive at the fire escape.

Barron squeezed his fists tight.

But that fire escape is where I laid my trap!

Any foot they set on those stairs would get hacked up by the piano wire he’d strung across them. From there, they would be helpless to resist as gravity and inertia carried them down and the piano wire sliced them to ribbons.

Then he could hunt them down at his leisure.

Barron’s foes tended to be wary of his combat prowess and his sharp ears, but his true weapon was his craftiness. Whenever he went after someone, he made sure to carefully back them into a corner, then lure them into his traps without ever relinquishing the advantage.

“Oui… Get back here…,” he shouted after them threateningly. He pretended to be out of breath, like he couldn’t possibly catch them.

“No thanks!” Sybilla shouted back.

Barron quietly gloated. Perfect.

Scrabble and claw your way to the light. Flee the darkness as fast as you can.

If anything, it wasn’t Sybilla he was worried about—it was the younger one. With senses as sharp as hers, there was an outside chance she might figure out the piano wire trap. However, Barron had already seen that when he put the pressure on, those abilities of hers were greatly diminished.

“Big Sis Sybilla, we need to hurry…”

Sure enough, there was sweat gushing from the younger girl’s brow as she used the lighter’s flame to guide her. There was no way she’d be able to make unclouded decisions in a situation so relentlessly stressful.

Battling to the death in the dark was a nerve-racking experience. It tended to make people act hastily.

Barron’s victory was assured.

You two will never escape this darkness. Your lives will end in this prison I’ve built.

His eyes widened with amusement.

This here is the end of the line!

A few more yards, and they’d be able to reach the fire escape.

The two girls charged down the hallway, and the moment they reached the corner with the fire extinguisher—

“Nah, this ain’t right.”

—Sybilla stopped in her tracks.

It was unthinkable. Why would she stop when she was so close to freedom?

“What’s going on?” Barron muttered.

They hadn’t reached the stairs yet, so there was no way she could’ve noticed his trap. And he hadn’t heard her partner say anything, either. She, too, looked up at Sybilla in surprise. “Yeep?”

Sybilla stripped off her jacket, tossed it to the floor, and hurled the still-lit lighter at it. The jacket caught fire and began burning in seconds.

“With this much fire, we can get in a good three minutes of fighting. That’s plenty of time for either of us, right?”

The flame’s light lit up her face, revealing the fearless grin she was wearing.

Barron’s eyes went wide.

Why would she stop there? When the fire dies out, she’ll be plunged back into darkness again…

He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what had inspired her change of heart. Instead of trying to advance some tactic, he simply asked the first question that came to mind. “Aren’t you afraid of the dark?”

“Why would I be? I’m not some kid.” Sybilla laughed mockingly. “Nah, runnin’ away’s just a little too cowardly for my tastes. And I don’t need this gun, either. Let’s settle this thing mano a mano.”

“Wh—?!”

Barron really hadn’t seen that one coming.

Sybilla fished her gun out of her pocket and tossed it over by her teammate. She even dropped her knife on the floor with a dry thump.

I don’t get it… Why would she go and do something so illogical?

Barron’s heart began racing. His body heated up, and he was sweating from every pore.

All his calculations were falling apart. He thought he had his opponent trapped in the palm of his hand, but she’d broken free and become something he couldn’t comprehend.

Calling something “cowardly” when we’re fighting to the death? What does she think this is, some sort of sporting match?

Barron was under no obligation to rise to her challenge. He had a gun. He could just shoot her. The only reason he hadn’t done so already was because not even he was any good at aiming in the dark.

By the time he reached into his jacket, Sybilla had already closed the gap. “Y’know what I think?!” She slammed her fists into him. “I think you’ve been stressed as hell this whole time. It’s like you can barely even breathe!”

From the way she sounded, it was like she actually enjoyed fighting. Barron couldn’t even begin to understand her. Her movements were keen and nimble, and she threw out combinations of punches and low kicks without pause.

“Breathing…is overrated…,” Barron groaned as he weathered her attacks.

He was thinking of the violence that man had wrought.

Barron had been enjoying a nice Christmas get-together with his family when the man and his henchmen showed up. Before he knew what was going on or why they had come, the men dragged them off and subjected them to horrible pain. Barron was powerless to do anything but watch as the people he loved screamed.

“Have you ever had to listen to your son wailing his lungs out? To your wife pleading for her life? You could never understand the agony of hearing your family suffer or know how that pain burns its way into your brain…”

After ten hours of that—after it had worn his soul ragged—the man had whispered to him.

“Become my Worker Ant and kill spies for me.”

Barron had had no choice but to obey. His body moved on its own. He had been reduced to nothing more than the man’s puppet. He killed without hesitation, taking his years of boxing experience and using them to learn how to assassinate people.

“I’ll kill you… I’ll kill you and save my family…”

Close-quarters combat? Bring it on.

He evaded Sybilla’s attack, then took advantage of his larger build to leap at her like he was trying to smother her. They each grabbed the other’s shoulders and began grappling for control.

There was no way Barron was going to lose in a battle of raw power. Sybilla might have been strong for a girl, but she was no match for him. He began pushing her backward. Once he had her up against the wall, he could strangle her.

“Family, huh?”

Yet, even so, her smile refused to fade.

“I get that. I wanted to save my family, too. I wanted to save my kid brother and kid sister.”

“Then why…are you smiling…?”

“Outta regret. I charged forward like an idiot, and all I did was mess everything up. I tried squeezin’ what little brains I had for all they were worth, and I still couldn’t see shit. I’m tellin’ you, man, it felt hopeless. Like I didn’t have a future.”

Her eyes shone, piercing and true.

“But then, there was this guy who said I was ‘magnificent.’”

“………”

“Those words gave me a little shot of hope. And now? Hell, now I’m a goddamn optimist.”

Barron couldn’t relate to a word she was saying. All he’d been given was a set of orders by a mysterious man.

“Kill them all.”

“If you lose, kill yourself.”

“If you don’t, your family is done for.”

Barron had been killing for three long years.

He’d trained in the art of espionage, he’d studied how to extract information from people, he’d learned the exact angle it took to snap someone’s neck in close-quarters combat, and he’d mastered the technique of relying on sound to move about in absolute darkness. And yet, once every month, his phone would ring, and he would hear his wife and son screaming through the receiver.

“Then you and that happy-go-lucky brain of yours can die here,” he shot back, “and be forgotten in the darkness.”

“You’re wrong, you know. I can go anywhere I damn well please.”

Barron shoved her against the wall as though trying to rebut her remark. “You’re finished.”

He reached for her slender neck.

Then he saw a head of blond hair flit across the corner of his vision.

He let go of Sybilla on reflex. The moment he did, a thunderous roar split the air, and a bullet grazed his face. The bullet was massive—the mere airflow from it passing by was enough to make his face go hot.

After whizzing past him, it sank deep into the wall.

Was that a magnum round? That’s a big gun she must’ve used…

Barron took another look at the blond girl.

The recoil from the shot had been too much for her, and she was in the middle of tumbling over backward. The gun she’d used was much too large for her petite frame. She rolled away helplessly and hit her head hard on the wall.

“Yeep!” she groaned. Then she mumbled, “How unlucky…,” and passed out.

Barron hadn’t even needed to waste any time on her.

She had been a mystery to him from start to finish, but once he killed her, that would be that.

He turned back toward Sybilla. “All right, it’s high time I finished th—”

But before he could complete his sentence, a gunshot rang out.

“What…?”

His legs gave out under him, and he crumpled to the ground.

The next thing he felt was a sharp pain in his knee.

He’d been shot.

Barron looked up in blank shock. There, he saw Sybilla holding his automatic.

“You shot me…?”

She must have nabbed it during the brief moment the blond girl stole his attention.

The problem was, it didn’t make sense. Sybilla herself was the one who had wanted to fight mano a mano. Why go back to using a gun?

“I—I thought you said you didn’t like cowardly tactics?”

“What? We’re spies fighting to the death. There ain’t no rules here. That was just some bullshit I fed you to get you to lower your guard,” she responded flatly. “I didn’t mean it.”

Everything she was saying was totally logical. However, the contrast between her words and her actions was still throwing him off. “Then… Then why not just flee through the fire escape?!”

Earlier, Sybilla had stopped in her tracks and chosen to fight him fair and square instead of escaping out of the darkness. If she didn’t have a problem with using cowardly tactics, she could have just fled down the fire escape in the first place. Her behavior was inconsistent. Barron couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“It doesn’t make sense. You saw the map, so you could’ve gotten down from the sixth floor. Why hesitate?”

Sybilla grinned like she’d just figured out what he was talking about. “Ah, I see. So that’s why your plan fell apart. I take it you rigged the stairs with a trap or somethin’?”

“………”

“Looks like I was right about how stressed out you were. The answer was dead simple, and you couldn’t even see it.”

“I missed something…?”

Barron had been observing Sybilla, and he’d watched her working as a journalist as he devised his plan for how to kill her. What was it he’d overlooked?

Everything he’d seen and heard flashed back through his mind.

“Do your comments from this morning contradict the department meeting minutes that got published yesterday or what?”

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

“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.”

Realizing the truth took Barron’s breath away.

It was impossible. It was utterly unthinkable, and here she was, casually confessing to it.

“Don’t tell me you seriously can’t…”

“Look, I studied my ass off on the boat ride over here. But I’m tellin’ ya, this Mouzaia language is a doozy. There just wasn’t enough time. I learned how to speak it, but that’s as far as I got.” She stuck out her tongue. “As far as written stuff goes, I can’t read a word of it.”

It finally made sense. That was why she’d given up on fleeing—she simply hadn’t been able to read the map. The words fire extinguisher, break room, and fire escape had meant nothing to her. She had just picked a direction and run. She hadn’t had the first clue where the fire escape actually was.

But how could he have predicted that?

What kind of spy infiltrated a country without even learning its language?!

It was like she wasn’t even taking her job seriously. Still, though, it was a possibility Barron had overlooked, and as a result, he ended up dancing to her rhythm. The moment things went off plan, she had stolen the initiative from him at every turn.

Well…I guess I lost.

The bleeding from his knee wasn’t stopping. She’d punctured an artery. He hurriedly tried to stop up the wound, but in the back of his mind, he still remembered the man’s order, and he still remembered the pain.

“If you lose, kill yourself.”

Barron’s body refused to move. His brain had been thoroughly trained, and it had no interest in stopping the bleeding. It wanted him to end his life.

However, he knew that if he died, his wife and son would be killed. He had no illusions about a man that cruel having an ounce of mercy in his body.

I want to live… I don’t want to die… I want to see my family again…

He searched for hope. He wanted so badly to find a light in that darkness.

The blood loss was making everything feel hazy. It wouldn’t be long before he bled to death.

I can hear a voice. What’s going on? Who was it who told me this?

“A hero is coming. They’ll show up and save you when you’re at your darkest hour.”

“You have to make sure you survive until they get here.”

He could no longer remember who it was who had said that to him, but he remembered their voice being warm—the exact opposite of that cruel man’s. However, it was all a lie. He was reaching out to be saved, but no one was coming.

There was no hero in Mitario.

Sybilla muttered incoherently to herself as she watched Barron slip into unconsciousness.

The hell’s goin’ on with this guy? He didn’t even try to stanch his own wound…

Her goal had never been to kill him. After all, she needed to pump him for information on the puppet master. However, he had let his blood run freely and passed out. At this rate, Barron was going to die.

Sybilla was under no obligation to save him, of course, but still…

“Goddammit!” she shouted as she began administering emergency first aid.

The bullet had passed clean through, so he was losing a lot of blood, but there was still a chance she could save him. She bound his wounded knee up tight to stop the bleeding. All she needed to do now was get out of the building and call an ambulance.

She just hoped he’d be able to hold on until then. It was pretty obvious from what he’d been saying that someone had been manipulating him, and Sybilla doubted that he deserved to die.

Erna was still conked out with a lump on her head, so Sybilla had to go wake her up before quietly escaping from the sixth floor. Sure enough, the fire escape connecting to the fifth floor was filled with traps, so they had to disarm them before heading down.

“Well, I can’t say it feels great, but a win’s a win,” Sybilla remarked.

“Yeah.”

Sybilla wrote up a report as they walked, then tied it to the mouse Erna had brought with her. The mouse was Sara’s, and it had been trained to carry messages to the Intel squad.

Side by side, the two of them rushed out into the open. They could see the lights from the other buildings now. In unison, they sucked in big breaths and drew oxygen into their lungs. Then, upon realizing how they’d both done the exact same thing, they burst into laughter.

“Y’know, we make a pretty damn good team.”

“I feel like I can do anything when I’m with you, Big Sis Sybilla.”

After complimenting each other’s efforts, they exchanged a light fist bump.

Sybilla scratched her cheek bashfully. “Big Sis, huh…”

She still hadn’t told the rest of her team about her family. She hadn’t told them about how her dad had run a gang, how she was the one who’d turned him in to the cops, or how she and her siblings had fled to an orphanage. Or how…

She shook her head.

“I like it! Don’t you worry about a thing; your big sis has got your back!”

Visions of the past overlaid with the present, and Sybilla gave Erna a lighthearted smile.

The battle in the multi-tenant building ended in victory for the Sybilla-Erna duo.

But a moment later, they ran into—

A pair of small creatures showed up at Thea and Grete’s window.

It was a mouse and a pigeon, both of which belonged to Sara. The critters were Lamplight’s primary means of communication. Radios and telephones could both be tapped, so save for emergencies, they passed their messages to one another via animals.

The fact that they’d just shown up meant that Monika and Sybilla had successfully made it out of danger. Thea breathed a sigh of relief and let in the two animals, and Grete wasted no time in reading the notes strapped to them and passing the information along to Thea.

She told her about the darts game in the underground casino and the battle in the darkened building. Then she went on to describe how the others had overcome their still unidentified foe.

“…and there you have it,” she finished.

Thea couldn’t help but let out another sigh. “That’s incredible,” she replied. “They really did it. They defeated their opponents!”

They were in a foreign land with no idea what their enemy even looked like, and the girls had defeated their foes all on their own. Thea was overwhelmed at how quickly her teammates were improving.

“…Just as I expected.” Grete nodded calmly. “Monika and Sybilla both have tremendous physical abilities at their disposal. With Sara and Erna there to provide backup, I knew they would be able to overcome nearly any obstacle.”

“Y-yeah, you’re right. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Still, they’ve lived up to my expectations wonderfully.”

“………”

What surprised Thea wasn’t just the fantastic result the Operations and Specialist squads had just put up. It was the fact that Grete had seen it all coming. By and large, she was the one who’d decided where to deploy the field teams. Assassins had come after them just like Grete wanted, and because the Specialist squad members had been able to run interference, Lamplight had succeeded in turning the tables on its foes. The way she’d assigned them to their locations and considered the synergy between each respective duo was nothing short of impeccable.

You know, I always thought that Monika stood head and shoulders above all the rest of us, but now…

Now Thea realized how wrong she’d been. As it turned out, there was another girl on the team whose talents were similarly outsized.

Grete hadn’t been nearly so skilled back when Thea first met her. She had been resourceful, sure, but between her frail physique and her androphobia, it had come as little surprise that she had washed out of her academy.

Something must have triggered that change.

Something…like having an encounter so intense it had turned her entire worldview on its head.

As Thea sat there struck utterly speechless, Grete remained totally on the ball. “I am still worried about Lily, though. We should send the others over to rendezvous with her. There’s still so little we actually know, and if we don’t brace ourselves for the unexpected, things could quickly take a turn for the worse.”

“Y-you’re totally right. I’ll get in touch with them via radio.”

“You should make sure to loop in the boss, too, if you can get ahold of him.”

Thea headed over to the radio setup sitting in the corner of the room. She was relieved that her friends were okay, but that was only one of the emotions swirling around in her heart.

It’s almost funny how pathetic I am…

Her teammates were out risking their lives, and here she was sitting pretty in her safe apartment and doing nothing but following Grete’s instructions.

It was a sorry state of affairs. She bit down on her lip and got to work operating the radio.

For now, though, I have to do what needs doing. It’s best I just keep my head down and make sure I don’t get in Grete’s way.

There were no options remaining to her. The others had all advanced their skills and left her in the dust, and this was the only part she could play.

The moment she went to turn on the radio, the telephone in the center of the room began ringing.

“We’re getting a call?” Her fingers froze. “From whom? Whoever it is, it must be urgent.”

Grete gave the phone a quizzical look as well. Maybe someone had new intel. Thea stopped reaching for the radio and picked up the receiver instead. She was immediately greeted by a sunny voice.

“Yo, it’s me.”

It was Annette. Last they had heard, she was with Lily.

“Wh-what’s going on?” Thea asked.

“I’ll make it brief. The cops were on our heels, so me and Flower Garden had to run around for a while. We ran into a biiit of a kerfuffle, but I ended up getting away.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

It sounded like those two had overcome their trial as well. If whatever kerfuffle they’d run into was minor enough that they were able to get away, then all was well that ended well. Annette and Lily’s teamwork must have been pretty impressive, too.

But if that was the case, then why the phone call?

The next words Thea heard sounded almost unsettlingly cheerful.

“That was when a dozen assassins came after us, yo.”

“A dozen?!”

Thea yelped with shock, and Grete, who was listening beside her, did as well.

According to the reports, their assailants had been formidable enough that it had taken two girls apiece to defeat each of them, and even then, the fights had been dangerously close. Securing victory had required surviving more than a few brushes with death. Going up against twelve opponents like that at once would be a one-way ticket to the slaughterhouse.

“So how long are we gonna have to keep them busy for, yo?”

“W-wait, back up a few steps. You’re safe now, right? Where’s Lily?” Thea asked, unable to stop herself from accidentally referring to Lily by her actual name.

Annette’s reply came promptly. “She distracted them so I could get away. Now she’s buying time.”

“She did what…?”

“The thing is, she’s not gonna last long.”

Lily was fighting all on her own.

She had entrusted the intel to Annette, and now she was putting her life on the line to stall their foes.

“I-I’ll send the others to you right away! Just make sure you survive until they get to—”

“Nah, see, that’s what she wanted me to tell you,” Annette said. “There’s a good chance the same thing is happening to the others, too.”

The radio buzzed.

That was their emergency distress signal—the way their teammates could call for help if they needed it badly enough to be willing to risk their message getting intercepted.

Two of its lights were lit up. One was white; the other was blue.

“Thea…,” Grete murmured, “those are SOS calls from Sybilla and Monika…”

That was enough to make Thea go as pale as a sheet. Now she finally understood the score. They had gone up against an opponent they were wildly underequipped to handle.

Who were these people who were willing to sacrifice everything else in their lives to train, who carried out orders from above without hesitating, who tried to kill themselves when they lost, and who had their allies come in afterward to crush their foes with sheer numbers? The only way someone could do all that was by throwing away their sense of self altogether.

It was like they were soldiers. No, it was more than that—it was like they were ants, willing to throw away their very lives to serve their regent.

Was that Purple Ant’s power?

If a dozen assassins were arriving at three places at once, that meant that there had to be at least thirty-six of them. It boggled the mind. If there really were that many, it was cause for despair. Lamplight had no chance against numbers like that.

Just how many people were they up against?

Thea started running the numbers on just how much danger they were in. She needed to figure out how deep their opponent’s roster went.

Were there thirty of them? Forty? Or worst of all…fifty?