Spy Classroom - Volume 5 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4

Ideals and Reality

Klaus watched over the battle from the middle of the Longchon Walled City. As he’d expected, both sides had put hunting down the document on the backburner in favor of trying to knock out the competition directly. Fierce battles were being waged all across the complex.

Klaus moved nimbly across the Walled City in order to keep tabs on both sides. Just a moment ago, he’d spotted Vindo taking down Grete. Afterward, Lily and Erna had fled, and Vindo had given chase.

Ah, that makes sense, Klaus thought as he watched in admiration. I wondered why Vindo’s mission success rate was so strangely high, but looking at that footwork… One of Inferno’s members must have taught him the secret to shifting his center of balance.

Now that he’d seen Vindo in action, he finally understood how the young man had gotten so strong. Just like Klaus, he’d learned the ropes from someone truly talented.

Once Klaus was done observing, he descended to the main street. The others had left Grete there unconscious. None of them had had the bandwidth to get her to safety.

When he approached her, her eyes fluttered open. “…Boss, is that you?”

“Are you all right? I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

Klaus moved around to her side and scooped her up. As soon as he did, her face went red. “What…?” she stammered, followed by an “I—I…,” but eventually, she went limp and leaned gently against Klaus’s body.

“I’m sorry, Boss… I lost…”

“You took one of them out, didn’t you? You did well.” Klaus had already gotten Qulle to safety, and she’d told him all about what Grete had accomplished. “You can rest easy now and leave the rest to the others.”

“In that case, would it be all right if we stayed like this a little while longer…?”

“Be my guest.”

Grete softly squeezed at Klaus’s clothes. They’d been so busy with missions lately that Klaus hadn’t been able to make much time for Grete. He didn’t mind indulging her a bit here.

He carried her inside.

“Those movements of Vindo’s…,” Grete said as he did. “I couldn’t help but notice how much they resembled yours, Boss… Do you have any idea why that might be?”

Apparently, she’d noticed it, too.

Klaus nodded. “It’s an Inferno technique.”

“It is…?”

“That footwork belongs to a woman named Gerde. Her code name was Firewalker, but I called her Granny G. Vindo must have met her somewhere and learned the technique from her.”

It wasn’t that odd, once you thought about it. Inferno’s work took them all over the world, so there would have been plenty of opportunities for something like that to happen. “Hearth” Veronika had met Thea and passed her spirit along to her, and “Firewalker” Gerde must have passed her technique along to Vindo in much the same way.

Inferno’s memories seem to be living on in all sorts of unexpected places…

Gerde’s secret technique was a form of footwork involving sharp acceleration and deceleration—zero to one hundred, one hundred to zero. She liked to use it while rapidly firing off rifle shots, and even once she hit her sixties, she continued using it to dive straight into firefights. Back in her youth, she worked for the army and racked up results that left scores of men in her dust. Eventually, she became one of the scariest geriatrics in the world.

Klaus had mastered the technique, too, of course. He knew just how effective its speed was at overpowering one’s foes.

“Not many are even capable of learning it, and Granny G rarely taught it to people. She must have really taken a liking to Vindo. It wasn’t often that anyone measured up to her standards.”

“…Is there any way to counter it?”

“That’s a hard ask. In places like this with lots of cover, things often devolve into close-quarters combat. If Vindo is combining Granny G’s footwork with those knife skills of his, he could probably give Corpse a run for his money.”

“………”

Grete’s eyes went wide at Klaus’s evaluation. At the same time, though, she doubted he was exaggerating. Corpse was an assassin who’d traveled the world doing covert ops at Purple Ant’s behest, and while spies from all across the globe had struggled to best even one or two Worker Ants, Corpse had managed to beat a whole dozen of them.

Here in the Longchon Walled City, Vindo’s skills might well be on par with his. Lily’s and Erna’s prospects looked grim. At this rate, their defeat was all but assured.

“Ultimately, what decides the contest is going to be whether any of you are capable of explosive improvement.”

They hadn’t had nearly enough time to train, and Klaus hadn’t been able to help them much. However, he’d given them the one secret they needed in order to turn the situation around—liecraft. If even just one of the girls was able to master it, they would stand a fighting chance against Avian.

Grete spoke up. “………Don’t worry, Boss.”

Klaus looked down and saw her smiling assuredly in his arms.

“This mission taught me something,” she prefaced her statement. “All of us love Lamplight with our whole hearts, and the thought of losing one of our own is rousing us to action. For better or for worse, our bonds of camaraderie are strong.”

“You have a point,” Klaus agreed. Perhaps it was the sort of solidarity you only saw in washouts at work, but whatever the reason, the girls had grown dependent on Lamplight. Klaus cared deeply about the team, but the girls’ feelings were stronger still. Even the ever-timid Sara had taken on a member of the Longchon mafia in order to improve their chances against Avian. The girls always had a way of unlocking their potential at the oddest of times.

“When that person is you, Boss, the feeling is that much stronger. And the injury Erna suffered because of all this only adds to the pile. Everyone is firing on all cylinders, Lily and Sybilla in particular.”

“……………………………………”

“I believe in the others. I believe they’re going to pull through.”

Grete’s tone was soft, but her declaration was confident and firm.

“You have a point,” Klaus replied concisely.

She was right. They were just going to have to believe in Lamplight—and trust they were capable when their backs were against the wall.

“I’ll say it again: You’re not unfortunate—you’re a fool who brings misfortune down on your team.”

Vindo’s words pierced Erna deep in her heart.

Her throat stung. Her legs trembled. Her eyes welled up with tears. She knew it was pathetic, but all she could do was hang her head.

Vindo was on the verge.

He’d almost figured out the huge secret Erna was keeping.

Erna simply stood there in the dank, musty room. She’d forgotten all about fleeing. She envisioned mold growing all throughout her body and eventually rotting her away completely. Oh, if only it were that easy. Sadly, though, her heart kept on beating, and her vital activity refused to cease. Pathetic as she was, she was still alive.

“…You’re dead wrong.”

Then a voice came from a wholly unexpected direction.

It was Lily. Vindo’s knife strikes to her shoulder and neck should have knocked her out, but she’d returned to her senses and was back on her feet.

“You’re tenacious, Silver, I’ll give you that.” Vindo narrowed his gaze at her, impressed. “In your spot, any normal person would’ve gone down ages ago.”

“Oh, I’ve never been better. Your attacks are nothing compared to how bad Monika’s fists hurt when I spilled water on her book.”

“…That’s an odd analogy.”

“And that time I doodled on Sybilla’s face? Her punches hurt a dozen times more than your knives.”

“…Why do you make your teammates hit you so much?”

“The point is, you’re nothing.” Lily stood tall and proud and glared at Vindo. “Those weakling words of yours ring hollow. The insults you’re throwing at my teammate aren’t even worth listening to.”

Once she was finished tearing Vindo a new one, Lily strode over and planted herself between him and Erna.

All Erna could do was stare helplessly at Lily’s back. Lily was normally such a jokester, but now there was something almost radiant about the figure she cast from behind, and her fists were trembling.

She’s furious. And it’s on my behalf.

Erna felt a heat bubbling up at the back of her throat. If the situation hadn’t been so tense, she probably would have started crying.

“Damn, you really let me have it,” Vindo said with the slightest of smirks. “All I did was point out the truth. It’s like I said—everything that happened, happened because of her mistakes. And I’m not just talking about during the mission.”

“…What do you mean?” Lily asked.

“That fall she took not long before this competition. She had a big fight coming up right around the corner, and she got injured. What do you think? You really believe that she fell because she was scared of us?”

Vindo’s voice was ice-cold.

“Well, she didn’t. It was heat. I checked out the fence, and it showed signs of heat damage. It wasn’t a great fence to begin with, and that combined with the heat made it easy for the fence to warp. And it had the same root cause as the last one—converged light.”

He dispassionately went on.

“I’ve got an eyewitness who says they saw a kid sitting there for ages with a crystal ball. The crystal ball was focusing the sunlight against that fence that whole time. All it took was a little weight, and the aluminum fence bent over.”

“………”

“Normally, having that many accidents happen in a row would be unlucky, yeah. But see, spies don’t get to make excuses like that. All those screwups are on her. She’s her own worst enemy.”

Lily’s expression was pained. She tried to come up with a rebuttal, but no words came out. Then she glanced back at Erna.

Her eyes were swimming with doubt.

Erna wanted to scream.

Stop it.

She wanted to yell at the top of her lungs.

Please, stop exposing all of my shame.

“And while I’m at it, how about I make one more reveal?” However, Vindo offered her no such mercy. He raised a finger. “This is partially conjecture, but I’d bet that fire she was in as a kid was her own fault, too. The thing is, her story didn’t check out. The fire started at night, then spread unnoticed and burned her whole house down. The only survivor was a single girl. There were no witnesses, and the culprit never got caught. Do I have all that right?”

“I don’t get it. What’s the problem—?”

“Then do tell me—How did she know it was a Molotov that started the fire?”

“………”

Lily’s eyes went wide. Now she saw it, too.

The most basic style of Molotov cocktail was simply a beer bottle filled with kerosene or gasoline and topped off with a piece of cloth. Once you tossed one, the only evidence it left was cinders and broken glass. Even if you used the scorch marks to figure out what room the fire had started in, it was difficult to identify an exact source. However, Erna had stated confidently that the fire had been started by a Molotov cocktail.

“What’s more, she said her parents bought loads of wine that afternoon. Even if they found an unidentified bottle in the burned-out living room, how could a girl that young be sure it was from a Molotov?” Vindo said. He went on. “Here’s what I’m thinking. The only person who could have known it was a Molotov was the survivor. In other words, she must have been there when it landed. But that still leaves mysteries. If she saw the fire start, she could easily have gone and woken up her family. Molotovs are powerful, but not powerful enough to burn down an entire aristocratic mansion in the blink of an eye. It begs the question, then, why did her family die? There’s only one logical answer—little Blondie there fled all on her own. The fire itself might have been man-made, but her family’s deaths were caused by her own blunder. That’s my theory.”

“……………………”

Erna couldn’t move. It felt as though every drop of blood in her body had just frozen solid. Words were failing her, too. Vindo had used his keen intellect and arrived at a story exceedingly close to the truth. It was like that harsh gaze of his was peering right into her heart. Erna was worried her legs were going to give out under her. It took everything she had just to stay upright—

“………And?”

—yet beside her, Lily was totally unfazed.

“Is there a point to all these selfish little theories of yours?”

“…Look, you’re the one who asked.”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Who cares?”

“Look, I’m just looking out for you. Spies who live like fools can only ever fight like worms.”

Vindo flicked his arms and produced a new set of knives from within his sleeves. He held three of them clenched within the fingers on his right hand and another two between the fingers on his left.

The man was ready for war.

“You should cut her loose sooner rather than later. Want me to do it for you?”

“You and me are never gonna see eye to eye, are we?” As soon as Vindo’s voice turned murderous, Lily sprang into action. She pulled out a rod from behind her back and held it in front of her. It was metallic and looked oddly bumpy. “Time for Deluxe Annette Weapon Prototype #72,” she roared. “Destr—”

“You think I’m going to lose to some pathetic prototype?”

However, Vindo was faster. He didn’t even give Lily a chance to use her weapon. After using his brutally quick footwork to close in on her, he smashed the backs of his knives into her wrist, her neck, and—for his finishing blow—the side of her head.

Lily’s body toppled over to the side. “Erna…,” she barely managed to say. “I’ll buy you some time. Run for it…”

Erna choked down her desire to burst into tears and fled past Lily. Lily had put everything on the line to secure an escape route for her.

“You’re not going anywhere, Blondie.”

Vindo’s arm extended toward her from behind.

He’s going to get me.

Right as fear seized her, though, Vindo’s arm froze.

Erna glanced back to see that Lily had caught Vindo by the leg. There was barely any light left in her eyes, but even so, she was grabbing him so tight her nails were digging into his skin.

“God damn it, you’re hardy.” Vindo raised his knives aloft. “Will you please just go down already?”

A heavy sound echoed through the room. Vindo must have struck her with the butt of one of his knives.

The despair-inducing match results of Vindo vs Lily had just come out.

I’m sorry…Big Sis Lily…!

As Erna raced down the Longchon Walled City hallway, each step felt like it was tearing off a little piece of her heart.