Spy Classroom - Volume 4 - Chapter 4.3

Interlude

Purple Ant  

“Hearth,” Purple Ant declared. “That’s your code name, isn’t it?”

“…That’s right.”

His captive—that was to say, Hearth—gave him a defeated nod.

Even though he was the one who’d made the guess, Purple Ant still found himself surprised.

His mission had been to annihilate any spy who came near the Tolfa Economic Conference so as to whittle away at their enemy nations. Even though the six-month-long conference had only just begun, he had already taken out boatloads of notorious agents.

On top of that, he had also captured a woman he suspected was a spy for the Din Republic. White Spider had warned him to be on guard against Bonfire, so he’d taken her to use as a hostage to lure him in, but he never imagined that she would end up being the Hearth.

Purple Ant took another look at the woman lying before him.

Now that he knew her code name, he was even more shocked at how young she seemed. No matter how you added it up, she had to at least be in her late thirties, but she certainly didn’t look it. Her long hair was a fiery crimson, and her eyes—the right one of which had a deep gash under it—had an energy in them that bordered on ferocity.

Hearth pressed down on the bullet wound in her torso and smiled. “I have to say, I thought you’d have me pegged a lot earlier.” She had already lost a lot of blood, enough so that it was forming a pool around her feet. Her skin was deathly pale.

Most people would have simply let themselves drift away.

“Well, would you look at that. You can talk just fine,” Purple Ant replied. “Why the silence, then?”

“I was doing my best to buy whatever time I could. But it’s too late for that now. Ah, what a shame. I guess this is where I die. There’s no surviving an injury like this.” The look on her face seemed almost refreshed. “I really am surprised it took you so long to find me out, though. All my information’s been leaked, hasn’t it?”

“That it has. And besides, you were famous to begin with.”

“That’s hardly something I’m proud of, given that I’m a spy and all. Why didn’t you see through me from the start, then?”

Purple Ant hesitated a moment before answering.

It was rare beyond words for him to show anyone such consideration.

“Because of how weak you are.”

“Oh dear.”

“Looking at your long list of accomplishments, then looking at you, you’re too frail to fit the profile.”

There was no shortage of legends about her.

The information she gave the Allies about the Imperial Army during the Great War had been directly responsible for bringing the conflict to an end. The Empire cursed the very ground she walked on, but as a fellow agent, Purple Ant couldn’t help but respect her.

“I never realized how rapidly your illness had progressed,” he said. “Why, your judgment was so dulled and your body was so weak that it only took fifty of my Worker Ants to bring you down. How could you possibly be Hearth? I asked myself.”

“Alas, you’ve got me there. Nowadays, I’m just a dried-out husk.”

“You’re at, what, a tenth the strength you had in your heyday?”

“Please, don’t sell me short. I’m at least a ninth the woman I was.”

He couldn’t tell if that was her bragging or being modest.

She shook her head in self-deprecation. “Do you mind if I ask you a question of my own? You seem pretty concerned about Klaus, but is he even coming? I don’t actually know, myself.”

“I haven’t the faintest, either. My teammates set a trap for him, but it sounds as though he escaped. At the moment, the Empire has no idea where he is. I had hoped that capturing you would be enough to get him to show his face, but…”

“But he hasn’t even come to this nation, has he?”

“Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case.”

Purple Ant glanced down at Hearth’s flank. The pool of blood was getting bigger. She didn’t have long left.

“It’s a sorry way to go,” he said. “Ravaged by disease, betrayed by a teammate, having the rest of your teammates killed, coming here to Mitario to fight all on your own, then getting overrun by my Worker Ants and breathing your last in a basement where no light can reach?”

“………”

“This is it, is it? This is how the woman revered as the Greatest Spy in the World dies?”

Sweat gushed from Hearth’s brow as she smiled. “This is how all operatives meet their end.”

“Ah, I see. I’ll be sure to remember that.”

Purple Ant was under no illusions that his own demise would be any more peaceful. Still, something about Hearth’s impeding death filled him with a sense of emptiness.

It all felt so anticlimactic.

Even in the Empire, there were tons of people who respected her. The artistic ways she had of snatching up information were so magical that even her bested foes couldn’t help but sigh in amazement. Serpent itself had a number of her admirers in its ranks.

“In short,” he went on, “spies take nothing to their graves but despair.”

“Oh, quite the contrary,” she said, denying his statement flat-out. Even with death fast approaching, she smiled nonetheless. “Right now, I’m full to the brim with hope. Why, the future’s so bright, it’s hurting my eyes.”

“All your teammates except Bonfire are dead. And sooner or later, Bonfire will die, too.”

“No, he won’t. Klaus is strong.” Her voice rang with confidence. “He’s… He’s my beautiful boy, that’s what he is. We might not be related by blood, but he’s my son all the same, and he inherited every skill Inferno had to offer. In all my life, I’ve never met anyone as talented as he is.”

“………”

“I promise, he can satisfy your desiccated heart. I swear it on my life.”

“Desiccated? My heart isn’t desiccated.”

Purple Ant wasn’t sure what to make of her promise, but he made sure to file it away in his brain anyway.

It was clear just from listening to her that the things she said had the power to etch themselves deep in people’s hearts. Sometimes, words were more than just words.

“And he’s not the only one,” she continued. “There’s another child who inherited my will as well.”

“Oh?”

That was news to him.

As far as they knew, Hearth didn’t have any blood relatives, nor was she close with anyone outside of Inferno. And she certainly didn’t have an apprentice.

“I saw it in her eyes. She inherited my will, and someday, she’s going to make my dream come true. She’ll save more people than a dried-out husk like me could ever hope to.”

“And who exactly is she, this mystery child of yours?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say… It’s been seven years since the last time I saw her. I’d love to see what kind of person she’s grown into since then.”

Hearth shook her head. The look on her face was so serene, it was hard to believe she was at death’s door.

Purple Ant squinted at her. “I’m finding this all a little difficult to believe.”

There was a good chance Hearth was using her final moments to spread misinformation in an attempt to shake him up. There was no way she was actually placing all her hopes on some child she hadn’t seen in seven years.

However, her claim reminded him of something.

That word save had been showing up in the odd rumor circulating around Mitario, too.

“Wait, was it you?” he asked. “Are you the one who’s been feeding my Worker Ants those weird rumors?”

“Oh my, whatever might you be talking about?”

“The stuff about a dark-haired hero coming to people who are in the depths of despair.”

Originally, he’d written it off as meaningless nonsense. He never would have imagined that the one and only Hearth was the culprit behind it. Still, even with her back totally against the wall, spreading rumors like that would have been child’s play for her.

“You found me out, huh?” She sighed. “I mean, how could I not feel bad for them? Those…‘Worker Ants,’ you called them? Your minions needed the light of hope. So I planted it deep in their brains for them.”

“Spreading false hope? You’re crueler than you look.” Purple Ant scoffed. “And besides, they don’t deserve your sympathy. The people I dominate are a bunch of human scum who make their livings off the misfortune of others. Losing the war drove the Empire to destitution, and these people are growing fat and rich off our losses. I mean, did you even see how gaudy that Main Street of theirs is?”

He thought back to the rows of skyscrapers and glowing neon billboards.

All that wealth had come from selling goods to the countries suffering on the Great War’s front lines. The resources they’d supplied the Allies with had played a huge role in the Imperial Army’s downfall.

“After the wounds we suffered in the Great War, we have every right to hate these people.”

Purple Ant had no pity to spare for the people he forced to give up their lives and become Worker Ants. Compared to the way the Empire’s people were suffering under the massive war reparations, they were getting off easy.

If anything, they should be grateful they got to live under the rule of a king as benevolent as him.

Hearth gave him an icy look. “You sicken me. You and your whole rotten ideology. I don’t know where you get off playing the victim, but I still remember full well the lives we lost when you people invaded the Republic,” she said pointedly. “See, a hero doesn’t leave anyone behind.”

“…What?”

“Do you know what your weakness is? Your domination can’t control people’s hearts. No matter how much violence you threaten them with and how much despair you plunge them into, you can never extinguish their light.” She went on confidently, her voice proud and dignified. “The hope I gave them wasn’t false. A hero is coming. She’ll come to Mitario. Klaus will bring her. She’ll see the light dwelling in their hearts, and as your natural predator, she’ll save this city’s people.”

Hearth let go of her wound, reached into her pocket, and withdrew a bullet from within. She must’ve kept spares. She held it between her fingers and showed it to Purple Ant.

“She’s my final bullet, the one I put everything into—and she’s going to tear through you.”

Now she was really talking nonsense. Her judgment must truly be shot.

“Please stop ruining my image of you,” Purple Ant said. “I derive no pleasure from seeing you like this. Oh, how far you’ve fallen. I guess the disease must have reached your brain.”

He didn’t even want to look at her anymore. At this point, putting her out of her misery would be a mercy.

He raised his revolver and pointed it at her forehead.

“Then I have one last thing to say.” Hearth turned her gaze toward the entrance. Blood dripped off her hand as she reached out. “Klaus, help!”

“………”

Purple Ant whirled around on reflex. Had Bonfire really come?

However, there was no one there. The door was still closed. He looked back and found Hearth sticking out her tongue. “Did you fall for it?”

He pulled the trigger.

Hearth’s body jerked as the bullet impaled her skull and penetrated her brain. Purple Ant fired another five shots. Each one of them hit an organ. The pool of blood grew bigger than ever and stained Purple Ant’s shoes a deep red.

The bullet slipped from Hearth’s fingers.

Purple Ant looked away from the corpse and, with a dazed look on his face, gave his pet dog a sharp kick. “I need you to deliver the corpse to the Din Republic. Make sure nobody can follow your trail back here.”

Then he left the bar.

He felt no sense of accomplishment, just a gnawing emptiness. Even a spy as legendary as Hearth had still died just like anyone else.

He stared up at the Westport Building as it towered into the sky.

To him, its wordless silence made it look like a gravestone.