Spy Classroom - Volume 4 - Chapter 4.2

Then there was the abandoned property to the southwest of the Westport Building.

After surviving their clash with Barron, the first thing Sybilla and Erna did was head down a back alley so they could get treated. Neither of them had been wounded too badly, but they were covered in bumps and bruises.

The physician they were going to was one Klaus had found—a back-alley doctor who was willing to treat anyone as long as they had cash. According to Klaus’s intel, they could also buy grenades and ammo there if the need arose. Major cities often had people like that who were willing to fill unique niches.

Supposedly, the doctor operated out of an abandoned eight-story multi-tenant building.

However, the only thing the two of them found in the secret fifth-floor clinic was the doctor’s corpse. It had been hacked to pieces with a knife.

“There’s someone here…,” Erna said.

She was the first to notice what was up, and Sybilla grabbed her by the collar and took off at a run. They needed to get out of the building as soon as possible, but the hallway was already packed with people. There were ten of them, and they smiled with relief when they spotted Sybilla and Erna. There was no commonality between their gender or ages, but the one thing they did have in common was the fretful looks in their eyes.

Sybilla could tell—they were like Barron. They had been threatened into following the puppet master’s orders.

“Tch.”

She clicked her tongue and raced up the building’s stairs. There was nowhere to run to up there, but it was the only direction she could go. She already knew there weren’t any nearby buildings they could jump to.

This eight-story building was no different from a set of gallows.

“Yeep,” Erna murmured uneasily.

“Don’t you worry,” Sybilla said as she pulled her along. “There ain’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’m lettin’ someone who called me their big sister die.”

Her words were confident, but it was an empty show of courage.

Defeating Barron had been grueling, and he was just one person. Even if she and Erna both gave it their all, they had no real chance of beating a group of ten if everyone in it was as skilled as he had been.

It pained her to admit it, but there was only one way out of this.

They needed Klaus to come. He was the sole person who could save them.

On their own, all they could do was buy time.

A little bit before their teammates found themselves in peril, Lily and Annette were in an alleyway right beside the Westport Building.

“……………”

“……………”

The two of them lay prone on a roof and surveyed the scene down below. The cops had declared them fugitives and were running around searching for them. They must have also called for backup, as another five police cars had shown up, and the officers were scouring the area. The cops kept in touch with one another via walkie-talkies as they rushed from building to building.

Annette began rummaging around in her skirt like she’d just thought of something, then pulled out a large device. She extended its antenna and put its earpiece in her ear.

Lily did the same with the other earpiece.

The device was an intercept for the cops’ radios. She could hear them angrily shouting.

“Dammit, she got away! How could we let the killer escape like that?!” “This smells like organized crime. She set up a bunch of bombs to distract us, too.” “She must have her sights set on that big economics conference…” “Lillian Hepburn might be some sort of international terrorist. We need to void her passport. We’re going to arrest that lowlife if it takes every officer in Mitario to do it!”

Their voices were filled with fervor.

Annette took out her earpiece and grinned. “Looks like we’re safe for now, yo.”

Lily cradled her head in her hands. “Maybe, but now I have a rap sheet a mile long!”

An hour had passed since she nearly got arrested out by the hamburger shop. Annette had saved her right before the cops could cart her off to the station, and the two of them had fled. Then they’d set off bombs at various spots throughout the city and used the panicking crowds as cover before eventually arriving at the building they were at now.

“Wait, am I gonna get put on the Most Wanted list? How am I supposed to get home after the mission is over?”

“Hey, it’s better than getting arrested.”

“No, it isn’t! I’d rather get arrested a hundred times over!”

Still, the fact remained that the immediate danger was behind them.

“Okay, so there was a bit of a kerfuffle,” her savior Annette commented. Lily’s first instinct was to offer a retort or two, but she realized that she ought to be thanking her.

“Our enemies must be behind this,” Lily said with a big sigh. “I guess they have an insider at the station—someone important enough to be able to get those false charges to stick. They must have set me up once they realized how suspiciously I was acting.”

“Should we kill them?”

“We can’t. Even if we wanted to, we don’t know who they are.”

“We could just kill all the cops.”

“Oh, Annette.” Lily laughed. “You know, there aren’t a lot of duos where I have to play the straight man.”

In any case, it looked like the best course of action would be to let the police pass by, then have the Intel squad figure out what to do next. There weren’t any pressing threats, so all they had to do was wait out the cops.

Lily knew her waitress uniform was a bit too conspicuous, so she began changing into the comfortable mission garb that Annette had brought for her. Putting it on always helped her get her head in the game.

Fortunately, they were on top of a building. There was no one else around.

However, Annette leaped at her the moment she started to pull down her skirt. “There’s someone watching, Sis.”

Lily’s face went bright red. “A-a voyeur, you mean?”

“They’re watching through a scope.”

“Th-that’s a pretty darn dedicated voyeur!”

“And they’ve got a rifle, too.”

“Hey, that’s no voyeur!”

A bullet whizzed over their heads as they threw themselves prone on the roof. Chunks of concrete went flying.

Thanks to the bullet hole’s angle, they could tell that the sniper was shooting at them from a room in the Westport Building. Lily stayed hidden as she finished changing, then took stock of the situation.

The sniper’s up on the thirty-ninth floor…and the Westport Building’s the tallest place around, which means they can shoot whoever they want from up there.

She and Annette were using the edge of the roof for cover, but they’d be sitting ducks the moment they took even a step away from it. She hadn’t heard a gunshot, so their foe must have been using a silencer or something. The police officers down below hadn’t even noticed the sniper’s presence.

Their assailant wasn’t part of the police force, but they had clearly been in touch with them. Perhaps the same puppet master was pulling both of their strings.

Lily reached for Annette’s radio interceptor. She could hear another set of voices mixed in with the cops’ radio chatter.

“They’re in that building over there. It’s go time.” “Ten-four.” “Anything to avoid the pain.” “Let’s kill them.” “Yes, let’s.” “If we don’t kill them, we’ll be punished.”

Their Westport Building opponent wasn’t working alone. A number of somber-sounding voices spoke up one after another.

By the sound of it, there were more than ten of them. And with the sniper pinning her and Annette down, they couldn’t even flee.

In all her life, Lily had never felt more cornered than she did right then.

“……………………………………”

She was scared.

It was plain to see that the two of them weren’t going to be able to get out of this alone. They were going to die. They were going to perish. They were going to push up daisies. Their lives were going to end, and there was nothing they could do about it.

The cold hard reality of the situation was that these weren’t the kind of people who a pair of academy washouts could hope to defeat.

Lily clapped herself on the cheeks to kick her faltering heart back into gear.

Don’t you give up, Lily. Make the impossible possible.

She closed her eyes, and Klaus’s words echoed back through her mind.

“I’m appointing you Lamplight team leader,” he’d said.

She knew that he’d done so only as a ploy to motivate her. If it weren’t for that, he never would have assigned someone as clumsy and bereft of spy skills as her to the role. Looking at the situation objectively, there were far better people he could have chosen.

But that lie was precisely what let her hold her head high.

“Hey, Annette?”

“That’s me!”

“Stop me if I’m talking nonsense here, but are you, like, secretly competent as heck?”

“………” Annette’s eyes widened a little.

Not much could earn that sort of reaction out of her.

“I’m curious,” she replied. “What makes you think that?”

“C’mon, give me some credit.” Lily grinned. “I might not look like much, but I’m still the team leader. I just get this feeling from you that you’ve got all sorts of mad skills.”

“………”

“I’ll act as a decoy and draw them away. Once you’re out, you need to report in to Intel ASAP. The others might be in trouble, too.”

Given Annette’s skills, Lily was confident she’d be able to give their enemies the slip and find her way to a nearby pay phone.

They needed to let the Intel squad know what was going on.

That way, their teammates’ odds of surviving would rise dramatically, and the Intel squad could come up with a plan and get in touch with Klaus. It was the only countertactic available to them.

“I figure you know this already…” Annette’s usual smile was gone. Her face was a mask devoid of emotion. “But they’re gonna kill you, Sis.”

“I’d like to see them try. I’ve got poison gas, poison foam, poison smoke screens… I’m a master when it comes to buying time.”

“That stuff’s useless. Has any of it ever worked on Klaus?”

Sometimes the truth was harsh.

Lily’s poison didn’t exactly have the best track record in her battles against elite spies. There was that one time she’d made a poison foam barricade and stopped White Spider in his tracks, but that was all. Poison immunity was a powerful ability, make no mistake, but Lily hadn’t exactly been using it to great effect.

Lily wound her pinkie around Annette’s.

“Then, when we get back to Din, you should build me the best weapon ever. Something strong enough to take down Teach.”

“………”

“Make me a spy gadget that’ll blow my socks off, okay?”

“……………”

This time, there was nothing little about how wide Annette’s eyes went.

Lily had no idea what was going through her teammate’s mind. She had never really understood Annette. However, she looked her square in the eyes all the same.

Eventually, Annette squeezed Lily’s pinkie back with hers.

Her trademark innocent smile returned to her face.

“You got it, yo. With my tinkering and your poison, I’ll be able to whip up something real nasty.”

“Heh. Teach won’t know what hit him.”

They let go of each other’s pinkies at the same time.

Lily held her gun at the ready and began relocating. Doing so made her a juicy target for the sniper, and she was going to have to rely on instinct alone to dodge the bullets until she made it inside the building.

One wrong move, and her life would end.

“All right, here I go,” Annette said, smiling sweetly as Lily rushed into mortal peril. “Time to leave Lily to die!”

It was a cruel, heartless option to take.

However, it was the best one they had available.

As Lily drew the sniper’s attention, Annette got to work relocating as well. She leaped across to the next building over so she could escape the siege.

Now it was Lily’s job to distract their foes until Annette was free and clear.

I gotta fool them all so Annette can get to that pay phone and report in to Intel!

As she dodged the first sniper shot by the skin of her teeth, she bit down on her lip.

As Lamplight’s leader, the time had come for her to put her life on the line.

It was there, alone and imperiled, that her worth as a spy was going to be tested.

The distress beacons kept flashing.

Their teammates were in danger in three places at once, and none of them was strong enough to make it out on their own.

Thanks to Lily’s noble sacrifice, the Intel squad had a full rundown of the situation.

Now it was up to them to figure out a plan that could turn their desperate position around.

However, none of that knowledge did Thea a lick of good. All she could do was clutch the receiver and stare off into space.

Who… Who are these people?!

She cradled her head in her hands and began hyperventilating.

She didn’t know if Purple Ant was the one pulling the strings, but whoever it was, they were killing anyone even vaguely suspicious who showed up around the conference. This wasn’t the kind of battle she and the others were equipped to fight. There were no tactics or schemes for them to see through, just sheer, overwhelming numbers. If you wanted to kill a spy, that was one of the surest ways to do it.

“What…can we do…?”

She was the commander. She knew she needed to come up with a plan, but she could hardly even think straight.

Tears began welling up in her eyes, and they refused to stop. She knew that her teammates might be dying that very moment, and the mental image of their corpses crowded out every other thought in her brain.

Over on the other side of the room, Grete hurried into her bedroom.

“Grete?”

Thea hurriedly followed after her.

Grete stripped off her clothes and began donning a man’s suit.

“I’ll disguise myself as the boss…,” she said, her voice calm and collected. “If our opponents are working for the Empire, then they should know what the boss looks like. Seeing me will shake them. From there, Monika and I can work together to escape the danger.”

In other words, she was planning on heading into the fray.

It was a brave thing to do, especially for someone as poor at fighting as she was.

However, she and Monika had both received Klaus’s seal of approval. Together, they stood a decent chance of successfully escaping, and with Sara there, too, their odds of surviving weren’t half bad.

“What do we do about Lily’s and Sybilla’s spots, then?” Thea asked.

“…The boss is around, and with how big a commotion this is, I find it hard to imagine he wouldn’t notice what’s going on. I’m sure he’ll rush over to help,” Grete coolly concluded as she finished putting on her disguise. She was the spitting image of Klaus. The mere sight of him sent relief flooding through Thea—

“W-wait, hold on!”

—but there was one concern she just couldn’t shake.

“The numbers don’t add up!” she said. She could feel a pain burning in her chest.

“………”

“There are three places that need backup. If you go to one and Teach goes to another, what do we do about the last one?”

“Thea…” Grete’s expression hardened. She squeezed her fists tight. “We have to do the best we can with what we have…”

“______!”

Thea picked up what Grete was putting down.

She knew full well that they couldn’t save everyone. They were too short on resources. Lamplight simply didn’t have three people strong enough to deal with the three crises, so looking at the situation rationally, it was the only logical conclusion.

Even so, Grete steeled herself and headed for the door. She was going to save everyone she could.

“How do you do it?!” Thea cried pathetically. “How can you be so brave?”

“What do you mean…?”

“Please, I don’t understand! What do I do? I don’t have the kind of ingenuity you do, and I don’t have the mental fortitude to dive into danger like that. What can someone who gets crushed by her failures even do?”

She needed Grete to guide her.

She needed Grete to show her what to do, just like she’d been doing all mission long.

“I’m not strong at all…,” Grete said, shaking her head. “All I have is a desire to repay the boss. You might call it dependence or perhaps even an obsession. I want to do right by the man who returned my affection, even after my love was unrequited.”

Unrequited? Something must have happened there.

However, Thea chose not to press her for details. She could tell by the passion in Grete’s voice that it was a subject best not broached lightly.

The question was, how did Grete feel about Klaus? What was the nature of that affection that had surpassed even love? What could have been powerful enough to turn an academy washout into a brilliant spy?

“Thea,” Grete ultimately said. “Please read back through the reports and figure out the best course of action you can take. I believe in you…”

That was all she had for her.

With that, Grete ran off, and Thea was left alone in the room. She could hear every police siren that roared past the apartment complex with alarming clarity. Her knees went weak, and she sank to the floor. Fat tears began rolling down her face and tumbling onto her hands. The tears were fearfully hot.

Now she realized just how truly powerless she was.

There’s nothing I can do…

Could she rush over and help her allies? Maybe, but a fat lot of good it would do.

Her ability wasn’t suited for combat.

She had a power called “negotiation,” but it came with a prerequisite. To use it, she needed to first lock eyes with her target for several seconds. That made it useless against anyone who was actively trying to kill her. Even if she made it to one of the fights successfully, all she would do was slow the others down.

She was helpless to save her team.

In fact, she was helpless to do anything but sit on the floor of her apartment.

I’m a joke of a spy and a failure as a commander…

In the end, she’d delegated everything to Grete. Grete had called the shots, and Thea had done nothing but nod along. It was pathetic, was what it was. And now that Grete was gone, all she was doing was sitting on the floor and crying.

“Ms. Hearth…” She whispered her idol’s name. “What can I do? What is it you even saw in me…?”

Seven years ago, she had met a mighty spy.

Not only did the woman save her, she gave her life purpose, too.

“You’ll be the strongest spy around.”

“But the thing is: I don’t want you to become just any old spy. I want you to become a hero and save your enemies, too.”

Hearing her say that had filled Thea with joy. She dreamed of a bright future, one where she joined Inferno someday and worked side by side with Hearth.

But reality had different plans.

Inferno got destroyed before she had a chance to join it.

Hearth had died after getting betrayed by an ally.

And Thea’s dreams of becoming a hero who could save her enemies had led to her enemies manipulating her and laughing in her face.

Matilda’s mockery had been a bucket of cold water for her.

Now, on top of that, her teammates were improving without her, she had failed in her duty as their commander, and she was doing nothing while their lives were in jeopardy.

“I wish I could just disappear…”

She dug her nails into the floor and wailed.

“What is someone as useless as me doing here anyway?!”

She pounded the floor again and again.

“I wish I could just disappear!” she shouted. “I’m too soft on myself, I’m too soft on my enemies, I don’t have any real talents, I let myself feel superior to the others just because I have a little bit of sexual experience, I leave everything up to my teammates, and I act full of myself when I’m not even the team leader! I’m the weakest, most childish girl on the team, and I wish I could just die!”

“Hey, Sis.”

Suddenly, a voice came through the receiver.

She hadn’t realized it, but her call with Annette was still connected.

“I don’t want you to disappear, yo.”

“Annette…”

“I had fun last month. You know, when you did all that stuff for me,” Annette went on in the kind of tone you would use to comfort a child.

It made it hard to tell which of them was really the older of the two.

“I was surprised. I was all, She’s such a meddler, and she never actually accomplishes anything, and all she’s good for is being a slut.”

“You, uh, have a way with words…”

Thea hadn’t known that about her.

“But it’s not like I hate you or anything.” Annette went on. “Yo, Flower Garden asked me to do something. She said there was some info she wanted to pass along to you.”

“She did?”

“According to her investigation, there’s this rumor going around the city. Something about a hero who rushes over to save people who are in the depths of despair.”

“A hero…?”

The word reminded Thea of something, and she quickly remembered what that was. “Monika said something similar in her report. She said that Purple Ant’s minions believe in some sort of hero.”

That coed named Miranda had told them as much after her suicide attempt.

“I wonder if the hero will come for me?” she’d said.

Come to think of it, Sybilla had mentioned the same thing. Right before Barron passed out, he had muttered something about a hero as well. Thea hadn’t given it much thought, but with all those data points in tandem, it didn’t feel like it was just an idle rumor anymore. It was like someone was spreading it on purpose.

“But what does it mean? Did someone working with Purple Ant start it…?”

“Apparently, the rumor even includes what the hero looks like.”

That little tidbit hadn’t been in either of the reports. Lily must have done some digging.

When Thea pressed the receiver against her ear, Annette said something wholly unexpected.

“According to Flower Garden, people are saying that the hero is a beautiful girl with black hair.”

“What?”

That was pretty darn specific. When most people heard the word hero, they tended to think of a large, muscular man. Who was spreading the rumor, and to what end? Thea had no clue.

But to make things even more peculiar…

“Wait, that’s exactly what I look like!”

The description matched Thea to a T. She had dark hair, she was a girl, and she was beautiful. Three for three.

“This next part is a message from Flower Garden.”

Annette went on.

“‘Pretty lucky, huh? Now, go piggyback off the rumor and become a hero for real.’ That’s what she wanted you to hear. Now I gotta get back to her.”

After one-sidedly relaying the message, Annette hung up.

None of it made sense. Had Thea gotten lucky with the rumor’s specifics, or was there more to it? Could a rumor that convenient really spread by mere happenstance?

“What… What does it all mean?”

She set down the receiver and moaned.

There was so much she didn’t understand, but at least she’d managed to collect herself. Crying wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Her team needed her, and she was going to do whatever little she could to help.

She stared intently at the wall.

Klaus’s apartment was just on the other side, and he’d given them a copy of his key. Grete had used it to sneak in on numerous occasions, though she’d gotten thrown out each time.

Right now, there was a man being held prisoner in there.

Thea wasn’t strong enough to save her friends. But she knew someone who was.

She took a deep breath.

This is all I can do for them.

Thea followed Grete’s instructions and read back over the reports before heading next door.

The lights were off, and the apartment was dark. Klaus wasn’t there, of course. He was off on the front lines, doubtless fighting fierce battles of his own against Purple Ant’s minions.

The living room was neat and tidy, and it had none of the characteristic smells to it that domestic life usually carried. Beside it, one of the doors was locked up tight.

Thea used her key, gingerly opened the door, and found a gaunt man sitting on a chair within. His arms were tied up behind him and bound with heavy chains. It was like his captor had been afraid of what might happen if the man was allowed to move so much as a single finger.

“I figured it was about time.”

It was Roland—the Imperial assassin she and Klaus had captured.

Despite his body being bound from head to toe, his eyes still gleamed with a fiery light, and he was just as inscrutably intimidating as ever. It might have just been Thea’s imagination, but he seemed even more intense than he had before. His prolonged captivity had caused him to grow weaker and thinner and closer to death, all of which served to make his presence that much more striking.

His smug grin told Thea everything she needed to know.

This was his plan all along. He knew it would come to this!

He knew about Purple Ant. He knew about Purple Ant’s ability and methods. He knew that the city was completely under Purple Ant’s control. And he knew that Lamplight didn’t have the combat assets to stand up to him.

Roland let out a shrill laugh. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” he said in an overfamiliar tone. “Come on. This is, what, the fourth time we’ve met? You gotta stop being so afraid of me, kid.”

However, Thea still couldn’t get the words out. Roland had nearly killed her on two separate occasions. Even with him restrained, her fear refused to subside. It took everything she had just to keep her knees from rattling.

Roland stared at her mockingly, then laughed. “Heh. Looks like everything’s going right according to plan. Purple Ant’s Worker Ants are destroying you people. But hey, it’s not your fault. There’s no way you could take ’em down without advance warning. And see, that’s how I know what you came to me for.”

“………”

“You want me to save your teammates, right?”

She did.

Roland was the only one who could do it. He might not have been on Klaus’s level, but his assassination skills were still best in class. There were crises in three different locations, and saving everyone was going to require more manpower. At the rate things were going, Lamplight was going to suffer casualties.

Thea clenched her fists.

The thing was, how could she trust him?

A look of sympathy crossed Roland’s eyes. “Sure, I’ll do it.” He gave her a friendly smile. “What can I say? I’ve grown a soft spot for you guys. I’ll lend you a hand.”

“………”

“Hey, don’t look so surprised. I’m being serious here. So come on—let me free.”

Thea could feel her heart tighten, like someone had just grabbed it and was squeezing down. This was the moment. Her teammates were in peril, and she had one decisive choice to make.

She could release Roland, or she could ignore him.

There was nobody around she could ask for advice. Grete was gone, as was Klaus. This was a choice she was going to have to make on her own.

Roland clicked his tongue. “What’s the holdup? If you keep dawdling, people are gonna die.”

“…………………”

“You really want to let your teammates get killed ’cause you couldn’t make up your mind?”

Thea remained silent as she tried to use her unique talent.

Once she locked eyes with someone, she could suss out their deepest desires. All she needed to do was fulfill that condition, and her ability would tell her what Roland really wanted. Then she could use that to get him under her thumb.

If I could just look him in the eye…!

She had made countless attempts to do just that. It was an easy enough feat to pull off on men allured by her beauty, but each time she tried it on Roland, he quickly averted his gaze.

“All right, what’s going on here?” Roland sighed. “You get off on looking me in the eye or something? Look, we both know that’s not what’s up. Here’s a pro tip: If you’re too scared to even talk to someone, trying to look ’em in the eye over and over is just gonna make ’em suspicious.”

“………”

“Your little party trick’s not gonna work on me, kid.”

He was stonewalling her. It was just like with Klaus—his spy’s intuition was telling him to be on alert. Thea had never succeeded in using her ability on an elite spy. It hadn’t worked on Matilda, either.

She was out of options. She had been able to pull it off against Monika by kissing her, but getting that close to Roland would be too dangerous to even try. The moment she laid her lips on his, he could easily rip her tongue out.

There’s nothing… Nothing I can do…

Time was slipping away.

She couldn’t bring herself to risk it all by untying him. If she did, she’d be doing the exact same thing she did last time. It would be just like how she had followed Matilda’s lead and rescued her without ever managing to find out who she really was.

The laughter still echoed in her ears.

“Thea, honey, you’re a nobody.”

She couldn’t make that same mistake again.

Suddenly, Roland spoke up. “…Oh, I get it. Not too long ago, you blew it.”

This time, his voice wasn’t menacing at all. It was gentle.

“I can see it all over your face. I shouldn’t have been such a dick to you. Sorry about that. I’m a little on edge myself.”

He shook his head slightly.

He’s apologizing? An elite assassin is apologizing to me?

As Thea stood dumbfounded, Roland made an embarrassed gesture with his chin. “I guess that makes two of us. I blew it pretty badly, too.”

At long last, Thea finally managed to speak. It was only two words, but still. “You did?”

“You were there, weren’t you? You saw me take on Bonfire and get my ass handed to me on a silver platter. And after all that embarrassing shit I spouted off about being his rival or whatever, too.”

“Ah, right…”

“You mind if I tell you a little story about myself? Don’t worry—it won’t take long.”

He gave her a thin smile.

Not even the Foreign Intelligence Office had been able to turn up anything on Roland’s background. She couldn’t help but lend an ear.

“I used to be a pretty boring dude. I was born to a couple of well-to-do parents here in Mouzaia, and they told me I needed to inherit the family business. So that’s what I spent my life getting ready to do—right up until I met a weirdo named Purple Ant and his posse.”

“Purple Ant…”

“Apparently, he took one look at me and saw I had potential, so he kidnapped me and molded me into a spy. Honestly, I didn’t end up minding it that much. I was good at this stuff. I mean good. I surpassed the other Worker Ants in a flash and got all sorts of special treatment. Then I went around the world, killing whichever spies and politicians he told me to.”

Roland shrugged.

“But in the end…it got boring.”

“………”

“You get it, right? There was no goal behind the killings I did. All I was doing was following his orders. But he’d brainwashed me, so I couldn’t disobey them. I was a slave. A puppet. A machine. The conveyer belt brought me people, and I slapped a big old ‘assassinated’ sticker on them. There was nothing more to it.”

Thea couldn’t begin to comprehend Roland. He was talking about ending human lives like it was some sort of menial labor.

However, she felt like she understood him a bit better now.

Killing people was too easy for him. Due to his profound talent, assassination had been reduced to a mere item on his daily itinerary. Most people didn’t give cracking eggs or shopping for groceries a second thought, and for him, crushing human hearts was the same way.

“The question I asked myself was, what was my purpose in life? I spent ages trying to puzzle it out.”

“I see…”

“But a couple of years later, I ran into someone who told me something. ‘I know someone who can fill that void in your heart,’ they said. It felt like I’d just heard a prophecy. Apparently, there was this monster who was stronger than anyone, who no one could kill, and who could complete any mission. I figured that meeting him would give my life meaning.” Roland laughed, like it was all one big joke. “But you saw how well that turned out for me. I couldn’t even lay a finger on the guy.”

“………”

“See? We’re not so different, you and I. We both made a big blunder that broke our hearts into pieces, and neither of us has any idea how we’re supposed to get our lives back on track. You feel me?”

He had seen right through her.

She could picture herself tied up right where Roland was now. Maybe they were the same. Her body may have been unfettered, but her heart was bound up just as tight as he was. Neither of them had been able to recover from their crippling failure. Not Thea, not Roland.

“Come on—let’s you and me team up. We’ll be fellow failures, trying to take our lives back together.”

His voice was reassuring. So much so that Thea had to quickly grab hold of her wavering heart.

“What you’re proposing doesn’t make sense,” she said, her voice so feeble, she barely even sounded like herself. “Going off what you just told me, you work for Purple Ant.”

“Yup. He calls his minions his ‘Worker Ants,’ and I’m one of them.”

“But if that’s the case, you shouldn’t be able to betray him. The reports I got said that his hold over his minions was absolute.”

“Hey, don’t lump me in with those losers. He doesn’t have as much sway over me.”

“What proof do you have of that?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I? Haven’t you heard? All the other Worker Ants try to kill themselves when they’re beaten.”

He had a point.

According to Monika’s and Sybilla’s reports, their defeated foes had made attempts on their own lives and avoided treating their own wounds the moment they were defeated. But not Roland. His story checked out.

“Now it’s time to make a choice. Are you gonna let me out or aren’t you?”

He quietly gave her a look.

She was out of time. The more she hesitated, the more the opportunity slipped away.

Visions of her teammates flickered through her mind.

They had spent so many happy days together living and laughing under the same roof.

Whenever Thea’s stories started to get sexual, Lily would always run away in embarrassment. Sybilla would feign exasperation but secretly be interested. Sara would turn bright red. Beside her, Grete would diligently take notes, and Monika would give her an icy look as she covered up Erna’s ears. Annette would cock her head quizzically, but she always seemed to be enjoying herself.

Occasionally, Klaus would stop by as they were partying it up in the dining room. When he did, the team would hound him with questions about his romantic history, and he would grimace at them and flee. Lily would try to stop him, but she’d invariably end up tripping, causing laughter to fill the dining room.

Thea wanted to make sure they could go back to those halcyon days. She wanted to complete the mission so they could spend their time together in blissful harmony. And she didn’t care what she had to give up to do it.

She unfastened Roland’s restraints.

Using her spare key, she removed the chains tying him up. All in all, there had been more than twenty locks holding them together.

The moment the last lock came open, Roland slumped forward, and his face slammed hard into the floor. He had been tied up for so long that his muscles weren’t working right.

A surge of worry coursed through Thea. Was he really going to be able to defeat their foes in that state?

After lying on the ground for a good long while, he grabbed the chair and began hoisting himself up. Even after he successfully rose to his feet, his torso continued swaying every which way, and his head wobbled back and forth.

Thea rushed over to help support him. That was when she got her first good look at his face.

Roland grinned.

“One more thing, for the record.”

He gave his body a big stretch.

“That thing about me being special was true. The order Purple Ant gave me for what to do if I lost wasn’t to kill myself. It was to trick my enemies and make my way back by any means necessary.”

A horrible creaking sound rang out from every joint in his body—so loud it was like his bones were cracking. As it did, his muscles settled back into place. His torso, so wobbly just moments before, snapped to a stop as he stood there, imposing and dignified.

Now she’d really gone and done it.

She’d freed an assassin feared the world over.

Thea inched away. As her back bumped against the bedroom’s window, Roland closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. He was in full form again, and he grabbed Thea by the throat and pressed her hard against the wall without giving her a moment to flee.

The latch behind her popped free, and the window swung open.

Thea’s torso protruded out the opening eight stories off the ground.

“You’re not the brightest, are you, kid? I can’t believe you fell for it that easy,” Roland sneered as he squeezed down on her neck.

The king’s rule spread despair all throughout Mitario.

What could they possibly do to prevail?

When Thea woke up, she found herself lying on a cold floor.

She was somewhere underground. The room had no windows, and its indirect lighting only dimly illuminated her surroundings. Still, she could tell that she was in a small bar, one with only two seats. One of the walls was lined with rows of spirits, and there was a slender man polishing a glass behind the counter.

Upon touching the floor, Thea realized that something was odd about it. She squinted at it. The entire floor was red with blood. Her gut told her that no one person had that much blood in them. Several people must have been killed there.

“Where…am I?” she asked, but the bartender said nothing.

Her gun was gone, but she wasn’t bound.

When she sat up, she heard footsteps coming from behind the door beside the counter.

Then a man came in wearing a hat and a suit. He had a kind look about him, and his smiling eyes in particular gave him a gentle impression. He seemed like the sort of person children just adored.

When he spotted Thea, he nodded slightly. “Escaping on his own and capturing his foe to boot? He never fails to impress. That’s some frightening talent he has.”

Thea knew exactly who he was.

He might have looked harmless, but in truth, he was the lowest of the low.

“Are you Purple Ant?”

“I see I can skip the introduction.” He tipped his hat and smiled. “It’s so nice to meet you. I am sorry, though. I’m a bit short on time, so I’m afraid I have to skip straight to killing you. As you die, do be sure to leave behind your dying words. I would love to hear what you have to say.”

“How…thoughtful.”

“Oh, indeed. I make it a habit to be kind to women.”

“Somehow, I find that difficult to believe.”

“I’ll have you know that while I may not look it, I’m actually quite the gentleman. I always feel remorse when I hit a woman.”

Thea was well past caring about the man’s messed-up moral code.

However, she had a pretty good idea of why he was in such a hurry.

“I presume you’re going after Teach?”

“That I am. I’m hoping that showing him your corpse will throw him for a bit of a loop. He’s a tenacious one; I’ll give him that. I sent seventy-three Worker Ants after him, and they still haven’t put him down. It makes a man wonder, is that boy really human?”

Just as she assumed, Klaus was locked in battle. By the sound of it, he was surrounded by waves of enemies and was unable to move about freely.

The bartender offered Purple Ant a gun, and Purple Ant took the Mouzaia-made revolver and began diligently loading it one shot at a time. He almost seemed to be musing over which bullet to kill her with.

Thea bit her lip. It was all too obvious what was about to happen.

She was going to die, and Lamplight was going to lose to Purple Ant. The numbers he had at his disposal were beyond anything they’d imagined. Not only was he going to use those numbers to trample them into the ground, Klaus was going to be so busy with the seventy-plus Worker Ants that he wouldn’t make it in time to save any of the others.

If everything was as it seemed, that was how it would all play out.

Thea shook her head.

“You really are unbeatable.”

“Hmm?”

“I can say with full confidence that as of this moment, you’re the strongest spy in the city. It hardly seems fair. Picking a fight with you now was the worst move we could have made.”

“Well, yes. I’m the king,” Purple Ant replied offhandedly. “Did you only just realize that?”

He was an uncommonly confident man, but perhaps that was to be expected. It was only natural that one would feel omnipotent with power such as his. His ability let him control people through pain and command them so completely, he could even order them to kill themselves.

With his slaves filling the streets of Mitario the way they did, he truly was this city’s king.

It seemed foolish to even think of opposing him.

“But that’s just it. As of this moment, you’re unbeatable, and picking a fight with you now was the worst move we could have made.”

The tactics they’d been using had been fundamentally misguided. If they wanted to take him down, doing so now would be pointless. Tons of spies had tried to do just that, and tons of spies had failed.

They needed to change the way they approached it.

Now, Thea finally understood how to break free from the despair he’d created.

“If we want to win, we need to look at it all differently.”

She went on.

“We can’t beat you now. We have to use the passage of time to take you down.”

She had found the answer. The intel her teammates had risked their lives to gather had led her to the truth.

The moment she worked it out, all the little things that had seemed off finally made sense. Now she understood how Purple Ant had reacted to them so quickly, as well as what the true meaning behind the rumor spreading throughout Mitario was.

There was only one way to overcome despair—and it was to guess the name of the woman who’d died there.

And so she posed a question to Purple Ant.

“Let me ask you this: Six months ago…did you kill Ms. Hearth here?”