Spy Classroom - Volume 6 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4

Lamplight and Avian

It was twenty-eight days into the honeymoon, and Avian had just gotten their next mission. Soon, they would be leaving the Republic’s borders.

That day, Klaus and Vindo shared a meal, just the two of them. Klaus was the one who’d invited Vindo when they wrapped up their training. “How about a drink?” he’d suggested. Vindo had been surprised, but he took Klaus up on the offer. At the moment, the two of them were both spy team bosses. Their dinner they would share as equals.

Klaus chose a restaurant near the harbor famed for its seafood and white wine. It had private rooms, making it the perfect spot for holding confidential discussions. Their room’s window offered a view of the large cargo ships coming and going in the harbor, and the air had that unique sea breeze smell.

Vindo was a bit of a glutton, and he gobbled down his food and put away wine like it was water. However, he held his drink well, and his face refused to go flush no matter how much he drank down. It’s no wonder Granny G took a liking to him, Klaus mused.

“Firewalker” Gerde was a sniper who used to be one of Klaus’s teammates on Inferno in addition to having been Vindo’s mentor. Despite her advanced age, she drank like there was no tomorrow. She and Vindo probably made for a surprisingly compatible duo.

During their meal, Klaus and Vindo’s conversation went in all sorts of different directions. They talked about how Inferno had saved Vindo’s hometown during the Great War. Klaus and Flamefanner had yet to join the team at the time, but Hearth had been in her prime back then. They talked about “Sky Monk” Adi, Avian’s old boss. She hadn’t been the most proficient spy around, but Vindo had adored and respected her. They talked about ways to be a good spy team boss. They talked about how best for Klaus to handle Grete’s romantic interest in him.

“By the way,” Vindo said as dinner was coming to a close. “Your team is worse than useless.”

“You still feel that way?”

All of a sudden, Vindo was picking a fight. Klaus had assumed he was joking, but the look in Vindo’s eyes was dead serious. “Your training method’s warped their development. They’re idiots with atrocious fundamentals, and yet when the chips are down, they start punching way above their weight. It’s so volatile I can barely stand to watch them.”

“But that’s what makes them so interesting, isn’t it?”

“True,” Vindo replied with a nod. “They have that going for them.” He downed his entire wine glass. “We’ve been with them all month, so we gave them some pointers. Now they’re at least passable. We focused on drilling the basics into them.”

“I really appreciate it.”

“We were already there to train, so we figured we might as well.” Vindo gave Klaus a piercing stare. “That’s what you were after all along, wasn’t it?”

Klaus nodded. He was guilty as charged. “It was under my tutelage that they lost to you. It pained me to realize how powerless I was as a teacher, but I knew that relying on you was the best option I had.”

“That’s insipid.”

“……?”

“There’s more to being a teacher than just teaching. Fostering an environment where your students can freely exchange ideas is a key part of the job. That’s way more important than protecting your own pride.”

“………”

“Magnificent—that’s what you like to say, right?”

Klaus’s eyes went wide. Vindo had completely blindsided him there. It had been a long time since Klaus had felt that way, but to his surprise, it was an oddly pleasant feeling. I guess there’s more to teaching than I realized, he thought. He was impressed at how much more he had to learn. As an instructor, he still had more than his fair share of shortcomings.

“Granny G,” he said, then corrected himself. “Gerde asked you to look out for me, right?”

He’d already heard about Vindo’s encounter with Firewalker. Vindo had been working for the Naval Intelligence Department at the time, and Gerde had entrusted him with both her technique and a request.

“Yeah.” Vindo nodded. “She told me to lend you a hand.”

“Well, you’ve gone above and beyond. I’m blessed to have an ally like you.”

“Ugh. Who wants to get a compliment like that from another dude?” Vindo grimaced in displeasure. He seemed legitimately annoyed.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Klaus said with a shrug.

“Someday, I’ll surpass you. Enjoy looking down at me while you still can.”

“Well, well, well. You sure about that, now?”

“And it’s not just me. Monika, Vics, Pharma, Grete, Queneau, Thea—the next generation is coming up strong. Avian’s learned a lot this past month, too. It won’t be long before we come for that throne of yours.”

Klaus could imagine nothing that would make him happier than the future Vindo was laying out. “I’ll be looking forward to it,” he replied.

The younger generation was improving by leaps and bounds as though Vindo was pulling them up himself. His raw preeminence inspired the people around him and was driving the whole world to advance. Lamplight had never had a rival like that, and it was motivating them like never before.

Klaus thought back to what Gerde had said.

“…Little Klaus is awful at relying on people, you see.”

Beneath her harsh demeanor, the old bag had really been worried about him, and she’d reached across time to send him a rare gift.

Thank you, Granny G, Klaus said silently to himself. You left me something truly precious—a new friend.

Klaus had been forced to fight on his own after Inferno went down, but now those days were behind him.

“We’re setting out for Fend the day after tomorrow,” Vindo said. “It’s just about time to say good-bye.”

“That it is. But I’m sure we’ll meet again someday.”

“Seems likely.”

“Don’t go dying, now.”

“Oh, please.”

Both of them knew.

In their world, people died all too easily, and that went doubly so for spies. The two of them had both had to overcome the deaths of their teammates to get where they were.

“Besides, even if I do die,” Vindo said, taking another swig of wine, “I’m not going down for free.”

With that, the honeymoon’s twenty-eighth day came to a close.

Lamplight and Avian were fast approaching their parting.

Amelie set aside the matter of Disintegrator Doll’s persistent absence and had Lotus Doll deliver her report. As Lotus Doll put it, there were two things that had caught her attention in the reports she’d gotten.

“As per your instructions, we had two of our people hide in the woods to observe the Din Republic comms station. Their reports suggest that nobody’s gone anywhere near it, but…” Lotus Doll handed Amelie a sheet of paper. “When I looked into it just to be safe, I discovered that the station’s occasionally been broadcasting an odd signal.”

“It has?” Amelie frowned.

The spot Lotus Doll was talking about was the place Klaus had taken her that afternoon—the comms station Din had built in the admin cabin of a long-abandoned construction site deep in the mountains. There were signs that “Cloud Drift” Lan had been using it as her headquarters. Now, that same comms station was sending out some sort of signal?

“That’s peculiar. The transmitter in that room was fairly rudimentary. It wasn’t built to be operated remotely or on a delay. It can’t send out a signal unless someone is operating it in person.” The only explanation was that somebody was there in the room. The problem was that their lookouts would have noticed anyone trying to sneak into the building. “What message is it transmitting?”

“A series of nonsensical words. However, their format resembles that of an archaic Din cipher.”

“…………”

The inexplicable situation gave Amelie pause. There was one possibility that immediately sprang to mind.

Could Cloud Drift have slipped past our guards and made it back into the comms station?

“…Why were you looking into the signal in the first place?” she asked.

“The fact that Lamplight failed to meet up with Cloud Drift despite knowing about the station was bothering me,” Lotus Doll replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I thought there might be some sort of secret passage there that even Lamplight overlooked.”

“That makes sense. We’ll need to investigate that posthaste.”

“The other thing I wanted to report has to do with the homing device I planted on Bonfire.”

Lotus Doll handed Amelie another document. She’d planted a transmitter on Klaus during their dance, and according to the location data contained in the report, Klaus had simply stayed holed up in his hotel.

“…What kind of spy simply lazes about in his hotel on the same day Prince Darryn gets killed?” Amelie muttered. “He must have noticed the transmitter. Impressive, seeing through our nation’s microtechnology like that… So? What about it?”

“No, no. The document I wanted you to look at was the second one, Master.”

“The which?”

“I planted a pair of transmitters; one on Bonfire’s collar, the other by his waist. It would appear he hasn’t spotted the latter one yet.”

“_____!”

Amelie’s eyes went wide as she flipped through the second report. The data within described plain as day how Bonfire had only stopped by his hotel briefly before then relocating to one of Hurough’s urban areas. It might well be a trap, of course, but that would be interesting in its own right. It would at least let Belias know how he really felt about them.

“This is some brilliant work you’ve done, Lotus Doll.” Amelie clapped her hands together. “I must say, I’m a bit surprised. It’s not like you to display so much initiative.”

Belias was a team that revolved entirely around Amelie. The vast majority of what they did involved her coming up with plans and her subordinates dutifully carrying them out. It was the most efficient way to take advantage of her intellect, but she often found herself wishing that her aides would be a little more autonomous. As such, she was amazed at the progress Lotus Doll was showing.

“Prince Darryn was important to all of us,” Lotus Doll replied with a bow. “If it’s within this marionette’s power, then I’m prepared to do whatever I can.”

“True… He really was…” It would seem that Amelie wasn’t the only one mourning the crown prince. She took a deep breath. “We’ll divide Belias in two.”

Under normal circumstances, splitting the team was an option she never would have considered. Now that they had two issues that both demanded their attention, though, she didn’t have much of a choice.

“Lotus Doll, I need you to take the lead of our agents and track down Bonfire’s homing device.”

“Yes, Master…”

“I’ll head for the comms station.” As Amelie gave her orders, she rose to her feet with a baton in hand. “If Cloud Drift is there, I’ll kill her where she stands.”

Exultation welled up within her heart. She was ready to resort to whatever methods it took to avenge the crown prince.

After entrusting ten of her agents to Lotus Doll, Amelie took her remaining eleven agents and got moving. They’d been working for over a hundred hours straight at that point, but not a single one of her people so much as grimaced. Prince Darryn’s death weighed heavy on all of them, and morale was high. No matter what hardships awaited them, they were certain they could overcome anything.

Amelie and her team took three cars up into the mountains in the Hurough outskirts and arrived near the construction site, then killed their lights to mask their approach and continued driving into the woods. The rain had stopped, and while the ground was still wet and muddy, it wasn’t bad enough to limit their mobility.

“Stop the cars here,” Amelie ordered. “If we drive any closer, anyone in the comms station is liable to notice us.”

She got out of the car and used the trees for cover.

Right as she was about to start ascending the mountain slope, she noticed something unusual about one of her agents’ cars.

That’s an odd dent.

She was confused for a moment, but she soon realized what had happened.

Ah, that’s right. Disintegrator Doll mentioned that he ran over a girl. He’s been gone for a while now. I wonder if he was successful in silencing the witness.

If word got out that a CIM agent had run over one of their own citizens, it would cause a massive scandal. Sometimes, protecting their nation meant stamping out problematic rumors before they grew legs.

I’ll need to make sure I discipline him later, Amelie thought as she started hiking up the mountain path.

It didn’t take long for her to meet up with the agents who had already been stationed near the construction site. When they spotted her, they greeted her with tense nods. “The signal is still going out. Someone must be there in the building,” they reported.

“Did you ever leave your posts unattended, even just for a second?”

“No, Master. We’ve been standing guard as a pair. Not a moment’s gone by that we haven’t had eyes on the station.”

The agent’s voice rang with confidence. They were telling the truth.

Amelie still had no idea how people were getting in and out of the station.

“Whoever’s in there might try to flee through a secret escape route like they did the last time we came here. We need to be quick about this,” Amelie told her agents. All in all, there were thirteen of them now. “Surround the admin cabin. I want everyone in there apprehended.”

Even if it wasn’t Cloud Drift, anyone they found in there was inherently suspicious. Amelie’s agents held their guns at the ready and silently moved to encircle the building. There would be no escape for anyone within, no matter which way they tried to run. Finally, Amelie took four of her agents and stormed the building. It had been a mere forty-eight minutes since she got the report from Lotus Doll. Considering the time it had taken them to get there, it was a blisteringly fast response time.

They went into the oblong admin cabin and headed for the far end of its second floor. When Amelie got to the door, she heard noises coming from within.

…Looks like someone was in there after all.

She shot a hand sign to the agents behind her.

Programme Number 36. Fire at will.

The order was for them to mercilessly gun down anyone, even if that person was an innocent civilian or a lost child. Worst case scenario, they could always just make the body disappear. Considering how dangerous the situation would be if they really were up against a foe, it was the logical call for her to make. They weren’t soldiers, and they weren’t cops. They were spies, and that meant doing whatever was necessary to safeguard their nation.

Amelie reached for the comms room’s doorknob. The door was locked, but one of her agents produced a picking tool and had it unlocked in no time.

“Go.”

Amelie threw open the door, and she and her agents thrust their gun points inside with their fingers on the triggers. Each and every one of them was prepared to open fire at a moment’s notice—

“……………………Is that a pigeon?”

—but what they found inside left them baffled.

Sitting in the comms room was a bulbously pudgy rock pigeon pecking away at the breadcrumbs atop the transmitter. Clicking noises rang out each time its beak struck one of the transmitter’s buttons.

There was nobody else in the room.

That was the source of the secret message—a pigeon sending out gibberish?

As Amelie and her agents froze, the pigeon noticed that the door was open. Sensing its chance, it flapped its wings and flew out of the comms room. None of the Belias agents could bring themselves to shoot it, and once it took off, it left the building through a broken window before any of them had a chance to catch it.

The bird had a specific destination in mind—the girl standing on an elevated area overlooking the construction site. She was timid-looking and had a newsboy cap sitting atop her brown hair.

Amelie read the girl’s lips from afar. “Good work, Mr. Aiden. It couldn’t have been easy, waiting until so late to start eating. I’m really proud of you.”

Did she get the pigeon to sneak into the comms room?

Amelie immediately dismissed the theory. The comms room had been locked, so given that nobody had gone near the admin cabin, that wasn’t possible. There was only one person who could have made the situation come to be. It was the man who’d gone into the comms room with her and stayed there until right before she locked the door—“Bonfire” Klaus. When he exited the room, he must have taken the pigeon he’d secretly brought with him and left it behind. However, Amelie had had no idea that he’d been keeping an animal hidden on his person. A feat like that would have required impeccable technique and a perfectly trained bird.

Right as she reached her conclusion, she heard a gunshot.

“Master!”

The next thing she heard was her agents’ screams.

“Somebody destroyed our radios!”

She hastily cast her gaze out the admin cabin window to the construction site beyond.

Everything outside was filled with a blinding light.

Visibility up in the mountains wasn’t always great, so the construction site had been furnished with powerful floodlights. Now those floodlights were illuminating the entire area, and the previously mournful-looking cranes and trucks were standing out against the darkness like props on a stage.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen of Belias.”

And there, at the center of it all, stood “Bonfire” Klaus.

Two unconscious Belias agents lay at his feet, as did the radios Klaus had destroyed.

“Now you can’t call other teams for help.” Despite how far away he was, his voice carried unsettlingly well. “I know this must seem abrupt, but I have some unfortunate news for you. As of tonight, Belias no longer exists.”

Amelie’s agents recoiled and let out small moans at the sudden appearance of such a mighty foe. Klaus had planned everything. He hadn’t found just one of Lotus Doll’s homing devices—he’d found them both.

“Don’t let him rattle you!” Amelie shouted. Then she took a step forward and glared down at Klaus through the window. “It’s a shame, Bonfire, it really is. So the Republic intends to make an enemy of the Commonwealth after all?”

“Who can say?”

“Were you the one who ordered Prince Darryn’s death, too?”

“………………”

For all the questions Amelie threw at him, Klaus offered her nothing. He simply stared at her with a gaze that seemed almost pitying in its coldness. “I’m in no mood to talk things out with you right now,” he said with a shake of the head. “When you people attacked Avian, did you give them a chance to explain themselves?”

“………”

So he knew that Belias was involved in Avian getting wiped out.

“It’s a shame, Amelie. It really is.”

Klaus took out a hair tie and fastened his long hair behind his head. Then he took a big step forward with a revolver in his right hand and a knife in his left.

That was the stance of a man who was ready for war.

There was still a good sixty feet between them, but the raw menace he represented came through loud and clear. Amelie knew exactly what he was after.

He intends to wipe out every Belias member here…

Klaus was going to have his revenge by massacring Belias. If he successfully killed all of them, then he’d be able to avoid all-out war with the Fend Commonwealth. That was why he lured them to an isolated spot in the mountains and destroyed their radios.

Knowing all that, there was only one way Belias could emerge victorious.

We need to get someone, anyone, out of here.

Counting Amelie, they had fourteen people there, and if even one of them survived, they could report Lamplight’s crimes to the CIM. That way, their allies would at least be able to avenge them.

They needed to do whatever it took to get someone out alive.

“Master, head for the back entrance,” the man beside her whispered. “We’ll slow him down while you slip out the back and make for the cars hidden in the forest.”

“You have it backward,” Amelie said with a shake of the head. “I’ll hold Bonfire off. I’m not certain exactly how strong he is, but even if the rumors are to be believed, my sacrifice should still be enough to buy you at least five seconds.”

“But…”

“Now, hurry. If he finds those cars, we’re finished.”

Amelie stepped forward as she reprimanded her panicking subordinates. If she didn’t show her face, Klaus would get suspicious.

I’ll see that the truth gets reported, even if it costs me my life.

As the person who walked them all into his trap, it was up to her to take responsibility. She and the seven remaining agents outside the admin cabin were going to have to stop Klaus. Meanwhile, her four agents inside the cabin would make a break for it out the back. That was the best option available to them.

Klaus had yet to make his move. He simply stood motionless, defending his position under the floodlights’ glow. Whatever his plans were, they didn’t involve coming after them just yet.

…Why isn’t he doing anything?

Amid the silence, Amelie’s thoughts turned.

Ah, that makes sense. He can’t afford to let anyone escape, so he needs to maintain a position where he can observe everything that happens.

The problem was that maintaining the deadlock wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

…Is he waiting for something?

The moment that realization dawned on her, she gloated internally. Now she understood why Klaus was acting so boldly. He was trying to goad them into attacking him.

“I know how we can win.”

“Huh?” her agents replied doubtfully.

“I have reason to believe that Lamplight hasn’t found our cars yet. If we escape into the woods, his plan will fall apart. That’s why he can’t afford to carelessly come after us.”

Amelie’s realization put the initiative back in Belias’s hands. She shot a hand signal to her agents: On my mark, scatter to the winds. No foe could possibly chase down a double-digit number of people all fleeing in different directions, no matter how superhuman they were. Her agents relayed the hand signal to each other, making sure they all had the message. In the space of an instant, all her agents—not just the four inside the admin cabin, but the seven outside, as well—knew the plan. Now all Amelie had to do was work out the perfect timing.

However, that was when Amelie noticed some suspicious movement in her peripheral vision.

What’s going on with that crane?

Someone must have been operating it, as the abandoned mobile crane from the construction site was slowly extending toward the night sky. There was nothing there, though, so Amelie had no idea what its operator hoped to achieve.

A blond girl stood beside the crane. The fact that the floodlights didn’t reach the cliff’s edge she was standing on made her seem strangely ominous.

A powerful gust of wind blew by.

The construction site sat in an open area high in the mountains, so strong winds probably blew through it all the time. However, this one’s timing couldn’t have been worse. It caused the crane to topple over—right toward the blond girl.

“How unlucky…”

The girl watched it all unfold with an oddly absent-minded expression. From the way she was acting, it was like she’d known it was going to happen. She smiled as though she’d known that raising the crane’s center of gravity would make it topple over—like she’d loved that fact.

“I’m code name Fool—and it’s time to kill with everything.”

The crane practically grazed her as it collapsed by her side, taking it and the vehicle carrying it careening over the cliff’s edge. When it landed, it crushed the trees beneath it and sent a deep boom and tremor across the entire mountain.

Amelie knew exactly what the goal behind the accident was. The crane had destroyed their one escape route—the cars they’d parked hidden in the forest.

“Now you have nowhere to run.”

Klaus finally made his move. He vanished, and the next time Amelie spotted him, he’d already closed in on one of the agents hiding outside the cabin. The agent just barely managed to shoot at him, but Klaus casually swatted away the bullet with his knife and smashed his revolver’s grip into his opponent’s jaw.

Amelie had lost yet another agent.

“Now your annihilation begins,” Klaus growled. “It’s high time you took a turn tasting the despair of being hunted.”

Thea shuddered from her vantage point a safe distance from the construction site. “You really are something else, Erna.”

Ahead of her, she had a clear view of the cliff. When the crane fell down, it had crushed all three of the cars Belias took to get there. Not a single one of them had emerged unscathed.

“Today was a special occasion,” Erna said quietly from beside her.

Behind them, they could hear gunshots. Lamplight and Belias’s battle had just begun in earnest. Combat wasn’t Thea’s and Erna’s forte, which was why they were stationed away from the battlefield. The only Lamplight members who were directly participating in the fight were Sybilla, Monika, and Klaus.

A mountain wind buffeted Thea as she stood atop the cliff and looked down at the crane.

“It’s easier for accidents to happen on windy days like today,” Erna explained. “Between that and the mountain terrain, all I had to do was move the crane to the right spot.”

“Oh my, you drove the crane yourself? That’s impressive.”

“It wasn’t easy, but I got it done,” Erna said. She triumphantly planted her hands on her hips. “My legs could only just barely reach the pedals.”

Thea had never seen Erna look so proud. It was surprisingly moving. “How did you know Belias’s cars were here?” she asked.

“I planted a homing device on one of them.”

“Really? When?”

That wasn’t the answer Thea had been expecting. Belias watched their cars like hawks, and Thea had no doubt that they would apprehend anyone who so much as looked at them funny.

“When they ran me over,” Erna replied. “I let them hit me on purpose so I could stick the device on.”

“………”

A chill ran down Thea’s spine at the nonchalance of Erna’s answer. Ever since Erna learned the art of liecraft back in Longchon, her techniques had gotten more extreme than ever. Alarming though her methods were, she’d grown into quite a capable operative who dove unflinchingly into disasters to manufacture tragedies. Thanks to Accidents × Starring in Her Own Productions = Catastrophe Creation, Erna was taking full advantage of her talents.

As an aside, Erna had blunted the impact from the hit-and-run and emerged with no wounds save a bump on her head thanks to some body armor that Annette whipped up.

“Annette also bugged a ballpoint pen, and I planted that on the car, too, so that Big Sis Sybilla could retrieve it and trick our opponents into taking it from her.”

“You really pulled out all the stops, didn’t you?”

“I’d say that what you did was even more impressive, Big Sis Thea.” Erna clenched her fists in delight. “Even as a hostage, you managed to scoop up loads and loads of intel on Belias.”

“Why, thank you.” Thea patted Erna’s head for the compliment and smiled. During her time as Belias’s hostage, Thea had successfully twisted a female agent around her little finger. That was how they’d known that Belias had exactly twenty-six members, and without that information, they never could have carried out their plan. “I can’t take all the credit, though. Up until now, I never would have been able to intentionally get captured as a way of gathering intel.”

“Hmm?”

“If Pharma hadn’t taught me that, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a thing.”

Thea buried her face in her hands. She’d taken a while to realize just how impactful those chaotic days had been to her. It wasn’t until it was almost time for Avian to leave that she finally understood why it was they’d been coming to Heat Haze Palace every day.

All that time, Avian had been teaching the Lamplight girls their techniques. Sure, wanting to train with Klaus had been part of it, too, but Avian had gone above and beyond in showing Lamplight their spy skills and unique talents.

Erna sadly hung her head. “…I learned what I did from Queneau, too.”

“Feather” Pharma had endowed Thea and Grete with her technique—the art of charging boldly behind enemy lines so they could use their abilities to their fullest.

“South Wind” Queneau had endowed Erna and Lily with his technique—the art of remaining unseen and destroying their foes without ever being noticed.

Over the course of their interactions during the honeymoon, Avian had guided the washouts to even greater heights.

“Belias used to have forty-nine members, and it used to have five aides-de-camp, as well,” Thea said softly. “But when they launched their assault on Avian, they lost twenty-three people, including three aides. Vindo, Vics, and Pharma took out nearly half of them for us.”

“It makes sense, given them.”

“If not for that, this whole ordeal would have been a lot more treacherous for us.”

To be fair, even the remaining twenty-six members still posed a major threat. Not being able to let any of them escape was a constraint that meant that, on his own, not even Klaus could deal with them all. If they screwed this up, it could mean all-out war between the Fend Commonwealth and the Din Republic’s spies, and what’s more, Belias was a counterintelligence unit that specialized in neutralizing enemy agents. They were the exact kind of first-rate spies that the girls had yet to successfully overcome.

“Let’s do this.” Thea drew her gun. “This time around, nobody’s going to stop us. Victory is ours to take. We’re not washouts anymore. We have the greatest of elites by our side.”

Erna sucked in a deep breath and took her place by Thea’s side. “I know.”

Avian had put their lives on the line to fight the good fight in Fend. Even when faced with a surprise raid, they’d still managed to get Lan out alive, and the whole reason Lamplight was able to operate at the moment was because of the intelligence Avian had left them.

Erna wiped away the tears spilling from her eyes. “With Lamplight and Avian working together, there’s no enemy we can’t beat.”

Klaus relocated again.

He was likely moving to take down his next target. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before he wiped them all out.

A thunderous crack split the air.

It was no gunshot. It was the sound of Amelie clapping her hands together. Her disquieted agents returned to their senses and focused their attention on her.

Amelie took a deep breath to fire herself back up. Now that they’d lost their escape route, it was time to come up with plan B.

He’s come prepared, no doubt. Trying to flee at random in the forest at night is too dangerous to be a feasible option. That said, duking it out with Bonfire would be tantamount to suicide.

Amelie didn’t know any specifics, but from what she’d heard, “Bonfire” Klaus’s combat prowess was terrifying to behold. In short, there was only one real answer.

We need to engage the opponent, and we need to do so in a way that doesn’t involve fighting him.

Amelie bit her lip and withdrew her weapon from her pocket.

Anyone without prior knowledge who saw it would no doubt laugh at her, and even people entrenched in the world of spy work would probably stare at it in bewilderment. Hers was about the least lethal weapon imaginable.

It was a conductor’s baton.

What’s more, the baton had no special features to its name. It was merely a stick. Yet in the hands of the woman who bore the name Puppeteer, that baton freely wielded had the power to strike down any foe.

Amelie gave her baton a sharp flourish, and the loud crack through the air caused her well-trained subordinates to snap to attention.

“We’re not fleeing,” she declared. “However, there’s no need to fight Bonfire directly. We’re going to take one of the girls hostage.”

Klaus had brought a number of his subordinates along, and as Amelie understood it, Klaus held deep attachments to them. Taking one of them hostage should be an effective tactic against him.

“Mechanical Doll, Programme Number 5.” Amelie flicked her baton to the side. “Exorcism Doll, Programme Number 23. Intercourse Doll, Programme Number 34. Fallen Doll, Programme Number 183. Divider Doll, Programme Number 217. Imitation Doll, Programme Number 63. Dusk Doll, Programme Number 2—”

She was giving each and every one of her agents their instructions.

The fact that she could give orders with mere baton gestures instead of needing to vocalize them was yet another of Amelie’s virtues. That was Puppeteer’s true strength—her ability to direct up to fifty people as if they were extensions of her own body.

“We have our pride, too, you know.” Amelie pointed her baton straight at Klaus. “The pride of a counterintelligence unit that’s defended this nation through thick and thin!”

Her ten agents sprang into action, shooting suppressing fire at Klaus and searching for girls to use as hostages all at the same time. This was nothing like the banal fear-based control Purple Ant had once used. The devotion Amelie’s charisma inspired in her units didn’t lessen their skills in the slightest. To the contrary, their steadfast devotion drew out 120 percent of their strength.

Amelie leaped out of the second-floor window, and as she did, she used her baton to pull her agents’ strings. What she was giving them were prearranged orders called programmes. For example, there was Programme Number 23—the order to snipe the target’s right foot, close in to a distance of twenty-three feet, switch off with an ally to the rear, and rotate around to the left to provide covering fire to block off the enemy’s escape routes. There were over two hundred such programmes, and all of them were exceedingly detailed. Amelie had drilled each of them into her agents so they could draw on them if the need arose. Thanks to the auditory processing abilities she used to grasp everything that was happening on the battlefield, the superhuman intellect that let her deduce the most effective strategies, and most importantly, the magnetism that allowed her to inspire absolute trust, Amelie was able to engineer coordination on an incredibly precise scale.

Five of her especially well-trained agents moved to surround her. That deadly sequence of moves had allowed them to capture countless spies, and yet—

“I know all that.”

—there was one brave soul who charged in to break that very formation.

A young woman rushed out from behind the building at a breakneck speed to face them. It was Sybilla. The Belias agents tried to draw a bead on her, but a hawk and a pigeon swooped out of the sky and messed up their timing.

“Programme Number 25,” Amelie calmly ordered. She and her agents switched from guns to knives and moved to intercept Sybilla.

“I’m code name Pandemonium—and it’s time I cleaned you out.”

That was when her body flickered.

“_____?!”

Amelie gasped.

It wasn’t just her malice and her hostility. Her entire existence had vanished. It wasn’t possible, yet that was how Amelie felt. By the time she was able to perceive Sybilla again, it took everything she had just to dodge to the side. If Amelie hadn’t been so completely focused, she might well have given Sybilla an opening to fatally stab her.

Fortunately, all of her agents managed to avoid getting struck as well. Instead of attacking, Sybilla had simply run right past them. Amelie whirled around to shoot her in the back, but when she tried to swap her gun back to her dominant hand, she found that it was gone.

She stole it?

Amelie gasped yet again.

“And I get that you’ve got responsibilities and shit.”

Sybilla came to a stop a short distance away. In her hands, she was holding six guns. She nimbly disassembled them and scattered their components to the ground.

“But the thing is that we’ve got stuff we can’t give up, either.”

With their firearms lost, Amelie’s squad fell into disarray. Amelie heard a pair of screams from behind her as Klaus took out another two of her agents.

It was twenty-nine days into the honeymoon, and Vics had continued his surprise attacks on Sybilla all the way through to the end. He was strangely sadistic for how demure he looked, and once again, he came to her and said, “You ready to go on that group date? ♪” Sybilla did her absolute best to try to flee, but Vics overpowered her with his liecraft and raw strength and captured her anyway.

“You’ll have to try a lot harder than that. ♪” Even that night, with their farewell fast approaching, Vics still grabbed Sybilla by the ankles and hoisted her into the air. “Guess I’ll mark you down as a male RSVP for that group date. ♪”

“I DON’T WAAAAAAAAAAANNA!”

Once he had her in his grasp, there was no way for her to escape that monstrous strength of his. He hauled her off with her body still suspended upside-down. Sybilla’s wardrobe was pretty masculine to begin with, so all Vics had to do was mess with her hair a bit to get her looking like a strapping young man.

Sybilla’s head dangled by the floor as Vics dragged her down Heat Haze Palace’s hallways.

This has gotta look sketchy as hell. I mean, he’s literally kidnapping a seventeen-year-old girl.

There were plenty of things wrong with that picture, but ultimately, it was what it was. If anything, it was Sybilla’s fault for not being able to escape from him. She still hadn’t mastered liecraft—the one technique that would allow her to pull one over on her betters.

“Hey, what do you think I should do about my liecraft?”

When she shot Vics the question, he turned back and looked at her. “Hmm?”

She’d tried and tried, but she’d never been able to find a style of deception that meshed well with her abilities. She’d come up with a couple of potential options and even tried them out on Vics from time to time, but none of them had borne fruit.

She choked back her shame and asked him straight out for advice. “Brains aren’t my strong suit, so I’m no good at tricking my opponents. What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Vics burst into laughter. “Dang, you really are kind of a dunce. ♪”

“Shaddap! You think I don’t know that?!”

“That’s not what I mean. ♪ I gave you a hint, back at the very start. ♪ I guess you never realized. ♪ That kinda hurts, you know? ♪”

“Huh…?”

“I steal their attention away—and stealing’s what you’re good at, right?”

Sybilla painstakingly looked up and found Vics shrugging at her in exasperation.

Vics’s liecraft, Concealment, involved him hiding weapons and tools away in his thick muscles. Refusing to let his opponents see how he was going to attack them until the last minute kept them constantly on their toes, and the ability was broadly useful in other aspects of intelligence work as well.

Vics was describing it as “stealing his opponents’ attention away,” and he’d said the same thing when he showed it to her on a previous occasion, too. Now it finally clicked for her. There were more kinds of deception than leading people astray with mind games. In a sense, stealing people’s weapons was a form of deception as well.

“As things stand, it’ll be a while yet before you figure out your liecraft ♪,” Vics said, laughing. “For now, there’s another method you’d be better off trying out. ♪”

Sybilla tilted her head. “What’s that?”

If there was some sort of secret trick she could use, she was all ears.

“Letting someone else deceive people for you ♪,” Vics replied nonchalantly. “For a bonehead like you, sometimes the best call is to leave it up to someone smarter. ♪”

“Huh? But that’s got plenty of problems of its own, right?”

“Nah, it’s fine. ♪ I mean, that’s what makes you so strong. ♪” A hint of gloom entered Vics’s voice. “I could never do something like that. I’m too much of a coward, and I let my stupid pride get in the way. That’s why Vindo and I don’t work well together. I meant what I told you back in Longchon, you know. It’s ridiculous how hung up you get on petty labels like ‘washouts’ and ‘elites.’”

“………?”

Sybilla wasn’t quite sure what to make of Vics’s sudden soul-baring. That was the first time she’d ever heard him talk about his feelings like that. He glanced away bashfully, clearly not having meant to say as much as he did. If anything, though, his awkward laugh did give Sybilla an even bigger window into his complex.

It reminded her of something he’d said back during their fight in Longchon.

“I want to put up better results than Vindo. ♪”

It would seem that there was some discord between Vindo, who’d secured the top score on the academy graduation exam and even risen to being Avian’s boss, and Vics, who’d had to settle for second place.

“The way I see it, you’ve got it all ♪,” Vics said, gazing at her in admiration. “You’ve got the athleticism to react at the drop of a hat, you’ve got a mindset that lets you build bonds of trust, you’ve got the reckless bravery to hand off your decisions, and you’ve got a team that has faith in you to have their back. ♪”

“………”

“Being able to coordinate with others is a key weapon in your arsenal.”

In the end, Sybilla would have been hard-pressed to say that she fully understood how Vics felt deep down inside. However, the techniques he beat into her through brute force were with her for good.

As far as spies went, he was an ambitious one. He kept it concealed beneath his frivolous grin, but in truth, he was brimming with drive. Apparently, even his womanizing ways were just another part of his training. Negotiating with female opponents was one area where his skills actually surpassed Vindo’s.

That was who “Lander” Vics was—a spy who hid his true self behind a smile and fought with a combination of power and finesse.

Amelie stared in horror at the scene unfolding before her.

They were being crushed.

They were being crushed.

They were being crushed.

It went without saying, but there was no stopping “Bonfire” Klaus. Amelie ordered her agents to buy whatever time they possibly could, but Klaus took them down with his knife one after another with an almost mocking ease. The Belias members who still had guns all tried firing at him at once, but he deflected their bullets without breaking a sweat.

However, that much was in line with Amelie’s expectations. If it had just been him they were fighting, they might well have found a way to pull through. Now, though, the subordinates she’d stood beside to protect her nation were getting overrun by a group of young girls. Her agents who’d lost their guns could do nothing but brandish their knives and throw rocks at the girls, but a resistance that meager could never compete with a group of trained spies with firearms. Some of her agents tried to take cover behind the side of the building, but when they did, they discovered that their foes had anticipated that move and rigged the area with traps. Once their legs were sliced up, it was even harder for them to flee.

Up above, a large hawk was flying circles through the sky. It was like it was there to keep an eye on Amelie and her agents as they tried to stay hidden. They shot at it, but the hawk’s dark body allowed it to quickly melt into the shadows and disappear from sight.

Perhaps it was time to try a dangerous all-or-nothing escape through the forest—

“Too slow.”

They heard a new girl’s voice, and bullets flew with unparalleled precision to deny them that escape route, too. One of the agents got hit in the leg and crumpled to the ground.

For an instant, Amelie caught a glimpse of someone up on the building’s roof—a girl with cerulean hair. Something near the girl’s hiding spot was catching the light, and that something was a set of mirrors. Amelie spotted at least five of them. The girl was doubtless using them to keep watch in every direction at once.

Amelie simply couldn’t believe it. She was losing one agent after another.

It doesn’t make sense… The young lady was such an amateur…

Amelie still remembered the impression she’d gotten from Sybilla when they first met. Sure, Sybilla had been acting back then, but everything about the way she carried herself spoke to an unmistakable lack of experience.

Those girls couldn’t possibly have been reliable spies.

Every so often, Amelie had gotten a whiff of the inferiority complexes they’d felt toward Avian. It wasn’t just Sybilla, either. From the way Sybilla had been talking, that was a feeling her teammates had shared, as well.

Amelie’s intuition was time-tested and battle-forged. It never let her down.

…They must be improving at a terrifying pace!

That was why her initial read had been off. The girls’ skills were developing so quickly that their self-evaluations hadn’t had time to catch up yet. And what’s more, that transformation they were undergoing…

They’re trying to become something. Something unthinkable… Something beyond the pale!

The girls were striving to reach the grand stage where Amelie and the first-rate spies she fought did their scheming.

I have to eliminate them here.

Amelie steeled her resolve.

If I don’t kill those girls now, each and every one of them could become a threat to my nation someday.

As soon as she arrived at her verdict, she heard a set of voices coming from behind her.

“Master!”

She whirled around.

A pair of large cars had just stormed onto the construction site. The cerulean-haired girl shot out their tires, so both cars spun out, but they reached Amelie in one piece. Riding inside were the ten agents she’d sent to work with Lotus Doll.

“What are you all doing here?” Amelie asked.

“Lotus Doll’s orders. She said to come here as fast as we could.”

What a fantastic call that was.

Amelie had split their forces to minimize their risk, but having backup show up now was a godsend. What made Lotus Doll’s decision even better was that Lotus Doll herself wasn’t in either of the cars. If worse came to worst, at least she would survive to report Lamplight’s villainy to HQ.

They still had a shot at turning the situation around.

Amelie took an automatic from one of her agents, then gave the order. “Programme Number 92.” That was the formation Belias took in order to launch counterattacks.

People who gain strength too quickly often let that very same strength consume them!

She calmly analyzed the situation.

Lamplight was going to get impatient. They’d been a hair’s breadth from wiping Belias out, and even though Belias had backup now, the girls wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to stop. They would keep charging in, out of a refusal to relinquish the upper hand. And when they did, Belias would spring their trap. Belias had experience on their side, and that was what was going to turn the tables.

They’ll give us the tiniest of openings, and in that opening, we strike.

Sure enough, one of the girls came barreling out from behind the building.

“Capture the reckless young lady!” Amelie shouted.

Her agents opened fire on Sybilla from their positions within the cars.

“!”

Sybilla hurriedly dodged to the side and took cover behind a nearby road roller. Naturally, Amelie wasn’t about to let that opportunity slip by her. If they could capture even just one of the girls, they could force Klaus into a hostage exchange. It was the last way Belias had left to fix the situation.

Amelie waved her baton. “Programme Number 45.”

That was the order to launch a do-or-die offensive. Eight of her agents got in formation and headed for the road roller to capture Sybilla. They ate a couple of shots on their way there, but their attack was unrelenting.

When they surrounded Sybilla, she stood bolt upright. She offered them no resistance.

Klaus was nowhere to be seen anywhere around her.

That’s right, that’s Bonfire’s weakness—his inability to coordinate with his teammates!

Amelie had already seen that for herself.

When you truly get going, nobody can keep up with you. Why, you can’t even dance with them properly!

All Amelie had to do was take advantage of that rift and capture one of his teammates when they fell out of formation. She gloated to herself at how reality had played out just the way she’d planned it.

“You still don’t fuckin’ get it, huh?”

Then Amelie heard a voice. Her eyes went wide with shock.

Sybilla was staring mockingly at her from across the road roller.

“You seriously think that him and me have bad chemistry?”

Amelie’s analytical skills only got her partway to the truth.

The fact of the matter was that the girls had never truly done battle by Klaus’s side. Even when they were on the same mission as him, they usually operated independently of one another with the girls relegated to supporting roles while Klaus stepped in and fought solo at all the most dangerous moments. It was no lie to say that Klaus had been unable to collaborate with his subordinates.

When Vics had watched Lamplight as an objective outside observer, though, there was one girl who caught his attention—the one girl who harbored the potential to be able to truly gel with Klaus. None of the others could have pulled it off. Monika had the athleticism, but she lacked the mindset to be able to coordinate well with others. In contrast, Grete had excellent rapport with Klaus, but she lacked the ability to keep up with his movement.

Eventually, there would come a day when they were up against a foe too powerful for Klaus to handle all on his own.

It was in times like those that Sybilla would truly shine.

The two of them had confirmed that fact back at Heron Manor, right before they began waltzing. They’d placed their hands on each other’s hips and looked each other in the eye, and when Amelie scolded them, they’d shared a short exchange.

“Whaddaya think? Sounds like they’re worried about our coordination.”

“It would seem so.”

“That’s pretty fuckin’ funny.”

“That it is.”

In that moment, Klaus and Sybilla achieved perfect harmony.

Amelie couldn’t stop them in time.

The whole thing seemed to play out in slow motion. As soon as her eight agents surrounded Sybilla, Sybilla’s body rose lightly into the air, and Klaus emerged from beneath her. He’d been hiding behind the road roller.

“I have to ask,” he said as he pulled Sybilla toward him, “how much longer should I keep playing along with this game?”

The two of them held each other’s shoulders and did a dramatic twirl. When they did, Amelie’s agents got sent flying. Klaus had taken the lead and spun Sybilla as she kicked the guns out of the Belias agents’ hands, then shifted his hand down to Sybilla’s hip and fired his own gun in one fluid motion, shooting out the agent’s knees with unerring accuracy.

The way their bodies were changing places over and over, it was like they were doing the waltz as they unleashed their attacks. Theirs was a dance of bullets and roundhouse kicks. Klaus pulled Sybilla’s body, and she leaped through the air. The way she wove through the enemy bullets while firing off flying kicks was almost captivatingly elegant.

That clumsy dance of theirs was just an act?

Amelie realized now that she’d been played, but it was far too late to do anything about it. All she could do was watch powerlessly as her agents fell, one after another.

There was nothing for her to conduct.

Every single one of her people was within Klaus’s and Sybilla’s attack range. Each time Klaus reached out as he spun, another Belias agent fell to one of his backhand chops. Meanwhile, Sybilla danced to his tune and shot anyone in the feet who tried to flee through his blind spots.

It was a beautiful sight, enough so that Amelie was captivated despite herself. Fleeing wasn’t an option. She was already surrounded, and she could sense the numerous guns being pointed her way.

With a backhand chop of her own, Sybilla knocked out the final Belias agent. Amelie’s entire force was gone.

“It’s over.”

Klaus’s words echoed across the construction site. Sure enough, Amelie was alone now.

“...........................................................................................................”

It took a good long moment for reality to sink in. Amelie’s pride refused to let her acknowledge her defeat.

It can’t be… We’re not supposed to err…

She’d served the CIM for over a decade. First, she was hired to do grunt work for a top team called Retias, but after pressing her nose to the grindstone, she got recognized for her talents and was assigned to work in domestic counterintelligence. Eventually, the agency’s governing body, Hide, took a liking to her and appointed her as the boss of Belias, the counterintelligence unit that answered directly to them.

Everything she’d done, she did to protect her nation.

The Fend Commonwealth had been in an economic slump with no end in sight ever since the Great War, and Amelie had people she loved. She had parents. She had siblings. She had friends. She even had someone she pined for, though she’d fallen out of contact with them without ever telling them how she felt. And most importantly, she had the Crown—and the way it carried the hearts of all the people of the nation.

Amelie had bested countless enemy spies in the name of righteousness. Never once had she let her prey escape her.

Now, though, she was experiencing the unmistakable taste of defeat.

Perhaps her fate had been set in stone the moment she failed to protect Prince Darryn.

…So this is where I die.

As she stood in the center of the construction site, she quietly accepted that she’d been beaten. It wasn’t as if the possibility had never crossed her mind, after all. She just hadn’t thought that today would be the day it happened.

The good news was that she had one faint hope still remaining.

Thank goodness I sent Lotus Doll off separately. At least she’ll be able to report what happened.

Disintegrator Doll’s disappearance meant it was safe to assume he’d already been taken out. However, Belias still had one aide left—Lotus Doll, who’d started taking initiative in the wake of Prince Darryn’s death. When Amelie failed to return, she would be smart enough to figure out what fate had befallen her. Then she would report that news to their CIM brethren and get them to acknowledge the Din Republic as an enemy state.

Their deaths wouldn’t be in vain.

Upon realizing that, Amelie closed her eyes in relief. All they needed was one person. As long as Lotus Doll survived—

“As I already told you—”

Then she heard Klaus’s voice.

“—we’re wiping Belias off the face of the earth. Every last member.”

Amelie felt a chill. It was like he’d read her mind, and that one phrase was more than enough for her to picture the worst. It felt as though the ground was crumbling beneath her feet.

Without Amelie noticing, a new person had shown up in front of her. Amelie gasped, and her eyes went wide. For that person was none other than…