Spy Classroom - Volume 5 - Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3

Unlucky

There was something Sybilla had once pointed out.

“Y’know, I feel like Erna came off as way more mature back when Lamplight was just startin’ out.”

At the time, all the girls had been playing a board game. Their training had worn them out so badly that none of them wanted to move, so they decided to play a game instead. They spread the board out atop the table they usually used for their strategy meetings and munched on sweets as they played. It was interesting to see how disparate their play styles were. There was Lily, who focused more on keeping everyone engaged than on actually trying to win; there was Sybilla, who played largely on intuition but was a fierce competitor nonetheless; and there was Annette, whose strategy was inscrutable but who somehow always managed to shift the tides in her favor.

Erna was sulking about being in last place, which was what had inspired Sybilla’s comment about her having seemed more mature back when they first met.

“That’s not it,” Erna replied. “People with social anxiety just throw up a bunch of walls when they talk to new people, so they seem older than they really are. Also, for the record, it’s really embarrassing to having people say, ‘Huh? That’s what you’re really like?’ after I worked so hard to come out of my shell.”

“Well, hey, sounds like you’re talkin’ to us just fine,” Sybilla said.

In truth, Erna agreed with Sybilla. She was pretty sure she’d been way more poised when she first joined Lamplight, and she didn’t quite know where along the line she had become the group’s comic relief.

“Wait,” Lily said delightedly, “does that mean we’ve won your trust, then?”

“Yeep…” Erna could feel her face going red. “Y-yeah, that’s right.”

The others all looked at her with tenderness in their gazes. That made Erna even more embarrassed, and she looked down bashfully.

This feels really nice.

It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed Erna’s mind. Just as Thea had once pointed out, Erna had a needy side. She herself realized how childish she was for her age, and sometimes, she could hardly stand how attention-seeking she felt when she called the others Big Sis. Stop being so manipulative, she would say to herself.

That was precisely why she loved her teammates so much—they accepted her for who she was. And the person who was truest of all about that was—

“You’re playing a board game? That’s a new one.”

Speak of the devil. No sooner did she imagine his face than Klaus himself showed up in the room.

Without missing a beat, Lily said “You wanna play too, Teach? Heh-heh-heh, we’ll beat you around the board and back” and called him over to the table.

Once Klaus joined in, the energy in the room rose even more. Upon realizing that the game only supported eight, he made a decision. “Erna, let’s you and I play as a team.”

Erna, delighted by the proposal, raised her fist in the air. “I’m in!”

Lamplight had accepted her, and she loved them for it.

After all, Erna loathed herself so very much.

There was a strategy meeting going on in Klaus’s base about the joint Lamplight-Avian mission.

As it turned out, their most frequent visitor from Avian was Qulle, which earned Klaus some dubious looks from the locals. “Looks like the wastrel’s got himself a new girl…” However, their misunderstanding actually worked in his favor, so Klaus decided to ignore them and simply put up with it for the remainder of his time there in Longchon.

At the moment, both of the teams were dealing with the same problem: the information leaks Din was suffering from their embassy in Longchon. Their goal was to figure out the exact specifics of which embassy officials the local mafia had paid off, who it was that was buying Din’s intelligence on the black market, and what foreign spies were involved in the whole situation. Lamplight and Avian were doing as Klaus instructed and conducting an undercover investigation, and Qulle and Thea were talking in the study.

“So how did it go, Thea? Were you able to get anything out of that mafia member?”

“Oh yes, Reirin sang like a bird. As we suspected, the Steel Urn Group was behind the whole thing. Qulle, can I ask Avian to pin down the specifics?”

“You got it. This is good, this is good. It feels like all the details of the incident are finally coming into view.”

“Indeed they are. We even managed to track down that classified document’s location.”

The two of them put together their plan with brisk efficiency. By all accounts, Qulle’s role in Avian was much like Thea’s in Lamplight in that she organized the team’s intel and handled their command and control.

The two of them had been running the investigation together for the past week, and in that time, Thea had found herself impressed on more than one occasion. After coming from the highly teamwork-oriented Lamplight, it was novel seeing how much discretion Avian gave to its members on the ground. And Qulle found it invigorating as well, often commenting things like, “Wow, you really plan things out that finely?” and “You guys have backup plans for every eventuality, huh.”

The more time the two COs spent together, the more they learned from each other.

On the flip side, though, there were times when the mood got tense.

“Say, Qulle, would you mind if we put Avian in charge of tailing this target? You were able to get some really detailed data on that op three days ago. That was code name Lander who did that, right?”

“Yeah, that’s no problem. I’ll let him know.”

“He’s lying low now, right? Where’s he staying, a café or something?”

“Oh, I can’t remember. More importantly, do you think we could get that Glint of yours to help out? It sounds like you all trust her a lot, so I have to imagine she’s really good.”

“Hmm, that might be tricky. She doesn’t really play well with others.”

What was happening was, they were both fishing for information.

None of the Avian members except Qulle and Vindo had shown their faces, and in turn, Lamplight had successfully kept all specific information about Grete, Monika, and Sara a secret. It was an established fact that the two teams were going to butt heads at some point, and they both wanted to get ahold of any intel that might give them an advantage. As such, both Thea and Qulle spent their time trying to bait the other into overplaying their hand. However, neither of them was willing to cede an inch, and no careless slips of the tongue were forthcoming.

When Thea realized that any further conversing would be pointless, she headed over to the blackboard. That was where they’d hung their big map of the area around the Longchon coast.

“Let’s go over everything one last time,” she said. “This next big op will be the final part of our mission in Longchon. The day after tomorrow, Avian and Lamplight will be stealing back the classified document from its location in the Longchon Walled City. Each team will be working independently, and as soon as anyone gets ahold of the document, the mission will be complete.”

“Right. No matter which team gets it, Avian or Lamplight, we’re golden.”

“And you’re prepared for things to get a bit rocky?”

“Of course. Friendly fire is simply going to be unavoidable, so any level of violence short of outright homicide is on the table.”

Naturally, Qulle knew exactly what Thea was implying with her question. It was no mere mission that would be taking place that day, and during the op, each team had the green light to attack the other. Both of them were going to be actively trying to crush the other one.

Thea smiled. “I think we can both agree that Teach deserves to work with only the finest of subordinates.”

Qulle licked her lips. “But of course.”

With that, the terms of Lamplight and Avian’s battle were set. The starting time was ten PM tomorrow night. Violence was allowed. Sabotage was allowed. The location was Longchon’s massive apartment complex block. The wager was Klaus. And their task was simple—steal back that document!

“Are you sure about this, though?” Qulle cheerfully asked once they finished laying out the specifics. “I hear one of your team members got wounded. Is she going to be okay?”

“………”

Apparently, Avian knew all about Erna’s fall. However, perhaps that much was inevitable. One of their members must have spotted Sara when she came rushing in pale as a sheet two evenings ago shouting about how Erna had fallen off the cliff.

“Well, she certainly got a little too into her training.” Thea smiled. “It’s nothing to worry about, though. It wasn’t life-threatening, and as a matter of fact, it wasn’t even that serious of an injury.”

“Oh, is that right? That’s so good to hear.”

“Isn’t it? It’s not a great situation, though.”

Qulle cocked her head. “How so?”

“Like I said, the whole reason she got hurt was because she was training too hard. And that wouldn’t have happened if a certain few someones hadn’t butted into our mission and tried to steal our boss. You know, up until the incident, some of our members couldn’t even learn liecraft because of how scared of you they were.” Thea glared at Qulle. “But now we’ve made up our minds—we’re going to crush you people into the dirt.”

Qulle glared back, not faltering in the slightest. “There’s this phrase called ‘misdirected anger.’ Ever heard of it?”

Vehement sparks flew between the two teams’ COs.

Over in one of the base’s bedrooms, Lily was helping Erna remove her clothes.

“And now for my homemade salve!”

With that, she pulled out a bottle of ointment. As of late, Lily had taken to practicing making pharmaceuticals in addition to just poison. Mixing compounds was a particular specialty of hers, and the quality of her medicine was increasing by the day. She might not have shown it often, but she actually took her work pretty seriously.

After loading her hand up with ointment, she lathered up Erna’s left arm, poked her right cheek, carefully lathered up her left shoulder and back, poked her left cheek, then poked her right cheek a second time.

Then, finally, she gave both of Erna’s cheeks another poke for good measure.

“I feel like that was more cheek poking than necessary,” Erna protested.

“I’m pretty sure you’re imagining things.” Lily sealed up the jar, then gave Erna’s body another once-over. “The silver lining is, it doesn’t look like it’s going to leave a scar. It’ll still take a while to heal, but at least you have that going for you.”

“Yeep…”

Erna hadn’t been gravely injured in her fall, but that wasn’t to say that her wounds were light, either. Her body was banged up all over and covered in black and blue. She was going to make it, but she was pretty pathetic to look at.

“For now you should spend the rest of the day taking it easy. It hurts pretty bad to move, right?”

“Yeah. It really does…”

“Then your only job is to rest up,” Lily said gently. “Doctor’s orders, okay?”

At that point, a new voice piped up. “I think she’s a numbskull, yo.”

As Lily had been applying Erna’s ointment, Annette had been lying on the other side of the bed. “Only a total nincompoop would let herself get injured twice in a row like that,” she declared, readying her extendable grabber and zigzagging it out to poke Erna in the back.

“Yeep?! That’s where I’m hurt!”

“My assault begins now.”

“C-cut it out! Johnny, stop her!”

Erna took the black puppy lying by her feet and tossed him at Annette. Johnny landed on Annette’s belly and started licking her neck. Annette kicked her legs back and forth. “That tickles, yo!” she cried.

Erna snorted triumphantly. “Big Sis Sara lent him to me. From now on, I can have him protect me.”

The puppy’s eyes flashed smartly from atop Annette. It was clear to see how seriously he intended on taking his job. He understood full well just how kind his owner Sara was.

“She can be almost overprotective, that Sara,” Lily said with a grin. Then she spoke up as though she’d suddenly recalled something. “Still, I can’t deny that you’ve had a heck of a string of bad luck.”

“Yeep.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, can you explain to me how your condition works again? It’s not just a penchant for misfortune, right?”

Lily had heard the story, albeit just once. Erna’s true, warped desire was that she pursued punishment. Losing her family to a fire had trapped her with a catastrophic case of survivor’s guilt. Subconsciously, she sought out misfortune in order to finally find relief.

However, there were a lot of things about that explanation that Lily didn’t fully buy.

“It’s hard for me to talk about it,” Erna mumbled sadly. “If I do, it means I have to talk about my family. It’s not a happy story.”

“………”

Lily could sense the somber, pained emotions lurking behind those words. She sat down beside Erna and squeezed her hand. “Could you try? Take as much time as you need.”

Erna gave her a small nod. “To start, I was born into a family of aristocrats. The aristocracy’s been abolished, so we were only nobility in name, but we were still pretty wealthy and well-known. But because of that, there were a lot of cruel people who had it in for us.”

Lily had had an inkling that something like that was the case, but this was the first time Erna had told her outright. There had always been something sophisticated about the way Erna carried herself, and it made sense that it was because of her upbringing. She’d clearly been raised with great care.

Erna feebly went on. “We had a tradition of always spending Christmas together. Mom and Dad would buy loads of wine, Big Bro would get some party poppers, Big Sis would bake us a cake… That day was no different. I was eight years old, it was Christmas, and late that night, someone threw a Molotov cocktail into our living room.”

“Oh no…”

Molotov cocktails were just about the easiest weapons for civilians to produce. In contrast with their simplicity, though, they were brutally powerful. People had even used them to stop tanks back in the Great War.

“By the time I knew what had happened, the fire had already spread, the whole mansion was burning, and the only person who escaped before the whole place burned down…” Erna gave her head a sad shake. “…was me.”

Lily gasped. “Why would someone do that?”

“I don’t know. There were no witnesses, and the perpetrator was never caught. The police said that whoever did it was probably jealous of us for being rich.”

“Ah,” Lily replied.

Lily knew all about how chaotic things had been in Din after the war. People across the nation had fought and scrabbled over what little money there was, and looting became rampant in the urban areas as people with no job prospects came together and formed gangs. Back then, simply being rich was reason enough for people to want you dead. The world they’d been born into was a world awash in pain, and the tragedy that had claimed Erna’s family was just one more example of that.

Johnny let out a small whine from within Erna’s arms.

Erna looked down in anguish, and Lily gave her hand a squeeze.

“Ever since then, I—”

“Yo, hold it! We’ve got an eavesdropper in the hallway, Sis.”

That was when Annette spoke up.

Lily gasped, rushed over to the door, and threw it open.

Vindo was standing just outside the room. He was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets looking as smug and confident as could be. “In my defense, I wasn’t planning on eavesdropping.” He gave them a look with no small amount of contempt in it. “I was waiting here in the hallway for Qulle, and I happened to hear someone carelessly running their mouth. I just came a little closer because it sounded interesting, that’s all.”

Lily shot him a pointed glare.

Ever since their missions got merged, Vindo and Qulle had spent a lot of time stopping by the base. They were clearly trying to harvest information about Lamplight.

“Yeah, people usually call that eavesdropping.” Lily dismissively waved her hands at Vindo. “Plus, whose fault do you think it is that Erna got herself injured like—?”

She tried to push him back out the door.

“Lay not thy hands on Brother Vindo’s personage.”

When she did, a voice came down from the ceiling, and a string wound its way around Lily’s outstretched hand. By the time she tried to shake it off, it was already too late, and the first string was joined by several others. By the end of it all, she couldn’t so much as wiggle her fingers.

In the blink of an eye, Lily had been completely restrained.

A beat later, a girl landed on the ground beside her. She’d been hiding above the ceiling. She was short of stature but carried herself with great poise. Her dark-red hair was long and straight, her androgynous facial features were strikingly clear-cut, and the gaze she leveled at Lily was composed in its dignity.

“Who’re you…?” Lily asked.

“I am Lan, vassal of Avian. ’Tis a pleasure.”

Lily had heard the name before. It belonged to code name Cloud Drift, third-place scorer on the graduation exam and one of the two people who filled out the middle of Avian’s ranks.

Lan gave her fingers a bored shake and released the strings binding Lily’s arm. Then she strode past Lily and stared at the girls gathered in the bedroom. She let out a sigh. “To think that Lamplight was home to such runts. ’Tis a disappointment, I daresay.”

Erna and Annette tilted their heads to the side in confusion. It took them a moment to understood what Lan meant.

Annette’s mouth contorted malevolently. “Yo, did you just call me a runt?”

Her fingertips twitched, and her skirt rustled. One of her inventions was just begging to be unleashed.

“Cease this chicanery.”

However, Lan was faster. With a single wave of her hand, she stopped Annette in place. Her technique was blisteringly fast, and the strings extending from her fingers snaked around Annette’s arms almost like they had a mind of their own.

“I need but halt thine actions, and thou’rt no threat to me.”

Annette’s eyes went wide. She froze. “……!”

Lan had stopped her before she could activate any of her prized inventions. She’d been completely neutralized.

Lily was just as flabbergasted at Lan’s display of talent, too.

“Cut it out, Lan,” Vindo interjected. “We’re not here to pick fights over petty nonsense.”

“Hmph. I had every intention of standing by, and had they not provoked—”

“Besides, you’re pretty damn short yourself.”

“At least I’ve more height than those runts!” Lan cried. But after a displeased “As thou will it, Brother Vindo, so shall it be done,” she did release Annette from her strings. With that, she turned around and strode off toward the villa’s entrance. “Sorry about the fuss,” Vindo said before following after her.

The Lamplight girls could do nothing but glare silently at the Avian members’ backs.

They’d been completely derailed from Erna’s story.

After leaving the Lamplight base, Vindo and Lan boarded a boat and returned to the Longchon mainland. Midway there, they realized that they’d forgotten to tell Qulle they were leaving, but they decided it wasn’t worth worrying about and bought some shengjian bao and fried chicken. When they got to their downtown apartment building, Vindo checked to make sure they were alone, then karate chopped the top of Lan’s head with all his might.

“That hurts! Verily!” She squatted down with tears in her eyes.

“Don’t go revealing your tricks to our opponents like that,” Vindo scolded her.

“’Twas but some harmless fuuun,” Lan protested, clutching her head.

“…Also, why are you talking like that?”

“’Tis mimicry. There come times when spies must falsify their speech patterns.”

“All you’re going to do is make yourself more conspicuous.”

Lan lent Vindo no heed, instead choosing to mutter “Thee, thy, thou” to herself as they ascended the stairs.

Vindo didn’t press the issue.

Avian’s members changed their appearances and accents on the regular as a safeguard against the fact that one of their countrymen had leaked info about every spy in the Din Republic. To this day, there is still a lot of uncertainty about how much of the top academy students’ info had been exposed as part of that.

“I do say, ’tis most wonderful,” Lan murmured happily. “’Twas a harsh road we’ve walked. Taking that expedited graduation exam, being put in a team, immediately getting sent to the front lines, losing our boss, having to complete missions all on our lonesome… And thou didst fight the hardest of all of us, Brother Vindo. But now our reward is at hand.”

“………”

“We shall have the finest boss there is, then undertake missions harder than any other. ’Tis the greatest honor a spy can receive.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Vindo replied. “It’s not a done deal yet.”

Lan’s smile stiffened. “True enough,” she said with a nod right as they reached their apartment.

“We’re back,” they said as they went in, to which they got a number of replies. Everyone else was already gathered there, even Qulle, who’d returned as well.

All in all, there were four other people crammed into the tiny apartment. Some were sitting atop the bunk bed, whereas the others were lying sprawled directly on the floor.

“Ooh ♪,” one of the young men cooed delightedly when Vindo began doling out the paper-wrapped bao. “These are from that Hyakuben restaurant, aren’t they? ♪ You know me so well, Vindo. I’m always out eating with the ladies, so it’s been forever since I got to dig my teeth into something so macho and garlicky. ♪”

The man’s name was “Lander” Vics.

Vics was a handsome young man with a face as childish as a boy’s. He was generous with his smiles, making it wholly unclear whether he was complimenting Vindo or being snide.

Beside him, there was a woman wrapped up in a blanket with a languid look on her face.

“Reeeally, Vics? You went on another date today? Must be niiice. I want someone to pamper me. I want moneeey. Does anyone want to give me some money?”

Her name was “Feather” Pharma.

Pharma’s hair was disheveled from over three months of neglect, she was a little chubby, and her mouth hung dazedly half-open. It was like someone had taken every unkempt feature they could think of and packed them all into a single woman.

She leaned against the legs of the young man who’d been standing stoically in the corner of the room.

“Come on, Queneau, provide for meee. Shower me with gobs and gobs of cash. If you do, there’s loads and loads of benefits. Serving me is the best joy there is, you know? Findom, they call it.”

“…Nay. Not interested,” her counterpart bluntly replied.

His name was “South Wind” Queneau.

Queneau was wearing a white mask that obscured his entire face. He was tall and big-bellied, making him look almost like a large bell. Between that and the mask, he had an almost ursine energy to him.

Unsurprisingly, having the whole team together like that was a recipe for quite a hubbub.

“…Nay,” Queneau said again. “And you all should turn her down, too.”

“Whaaat? But I can’t dooo anything without money,” Pharma protested.

“C’mon, Queneau ♪,” Vics agreed. “You should know that I can never say no to a lovely lady. ♪”

“By the way, what is this ‘findom’ thou doth speak of?” Lan asked.

“Ooh, Lan, are you interested? It’s a world brimming with love and dreams,” Pharma replied.

“I’m interested! ♪” Vics piped up.

“…Nay,” Queneau repeated. “Nay.”

“Hmm, hmm. Ah, I see! Ha-ha-ha, thou’rt debauched. Debauched, I daresay!”

The cramped room resounded with the youthful sound of their voices. Over on the bed, Qulle stared off into space. “Why do you guys always have to be so crass? I miss Lamplight…” However, her protestations failed to dampen the conversation.

Together, the six of them—Vindo, Qulle, and the four noisy ones—made up Avian.

At that point, a no-nonsense voice cut through the room. “I hate it when things get noisy.” Vindo clapped his hands together. “Shut up—we need to get our strategy meeting underway.”

With that, Avian ate their bao and began going over their plan. The room that had been so loud just moments before was silent now save for the sound of Qulle’s voice. The others had been chattering away since the moment Vindo walked in the room, but now their lips were sealed, and their expressions shifted from their age-appropriate smiles to the hardened faces of spies who lived in a world marked by strife.

The reason they were able to change gears so quickly was because they were elites through and through. They were always ready to shift their full focus should the need arise.

Qulle quickly rattled off the pertinent information, and the others committed it to memory. Then once she was done explaining everything in brief, she gave them her outlook on the situation. “If things go smoothly, we should win this. That said, we still need to be careful. Mr. Klaus might have been looking after them, but the fact remains that our opponents have completed multiple Impossible Missions.”

“…Aye,” Queneau muttered.

“In particular, they have a girl called Glint who could be big trouble. Monika, I think.” As Qulle spoke, she pulled out a document. On it, she’d listed out all the intel they’d gathered on Lamplight’s members over the past week. They hadn’t gotten ahold of anything truly decisive, but by keeping an eye on which Lamplight members handled which tasks, they’d gotten a decent idea of how strong each of them was. “We don’t have any details on her, but her teammates clearly think really highly of her. We should put two people on her.”

Baffled cries rose up from the others.

“Twooo people? When we’re already at a numbers disadvantage?” Pharma said sluggishly.

“We’ll be fine with just one. ♪ You’re giving her too much credit ♪,” Vics jabbed amusedly.

However, Qulle didn’t change her marching orders. A tension filled the room. Everyone turned and looked at Vindo, their leader. They wanted him to make the call.

Vindo made his call without a moment’s hesitation. “There’s no way we’re putting two people on her.”

The others smiled, satisfied with his answer.

However, he went on. “That’d never be enough. I’m sending three of you after Glint.”

Every member of the team stared at him in blank shock. Naturally, they had their pride, and they were confident that their skills were the real deal. What reason could he have for assigning three of them to take on a single ex-washout? All told, there were only six of them. His plan involved sending half their personnel after a single opponent.

“Art thou sending three to get Glint out of the fight quickly, then?” Lan asked, her eyebrows arched in confusion.

“No,” Vindo replied sharply. “Even with three people, you’re still going to lose. Your job is to buy as much time as you can before that happens.”

“If thou dost say so, then believe it I must, but…” Lan crossed her arms in dissatisfaction. “What basis hast thou? And once we contain Glint, what wouldst thou have us do about the other seven?”

“A hunch. And we’ll take our other two members and have them deal with one Lamplight opponent each.”

“That doth leave five of them unaccounted for.”

“I’ll handle the rest myself.”

Vindo made it sound simple, but the plan was unbelievably lopsided. Every Avian member glared at him, Lan included. Vindo’s words made it clear how little he thought of his teammates’ abilities. He was basically telling them not to get in his way while he took care of everything. The others had all graduated from their academies with top marks, and his comments were wounding their pride. However, none of them could rebut his unilateral declaration.

“If you’ve got complaints about that, then back them up with results,” Vindo said almost tauntingly.

The thing was, Vindo really was in a league of his own. Even amid a group of elites like Avian, he still stood head and shoulders above the others. And ever since they lost their boss, he’d been learning and growing with no end in sight.

“I’ve got this under control. Lamplight has a weak point, and all I have to do is attack it.”

Eventually, they concluded the strategy meeting by deciding to adopt Vindo’s plan as is.

Each pair of eyes on the team was filled with a burning readiness to fight.