Spy Classroom - Volume 8 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The Status Quo

“Puppeteer” Amelie had devoted herself to her nation.

She was recruited as a student for her outstanding talent and became a counterintelligence agent for the CIM. Belias, the team she would one day run, was a special unit that answered directly to the agency’s senior leadership. Many of her missions were extremely confidential. She investigated major politicians suspected of treason, detained journalists who had dirt on the royal family, and carried out countless other operations as well. Not once did she ever question her orders. She was a loyal foot soldier, and she did whatever she was told. After all, she herself was nothing more than another puppet.

Everything she did, she did for her beloved homeland. For the Crown. For the sake of the peace her old family and lover were able to enjoy.

One day, though, that loyalty was used against her, and she was forced to reevaluate her entire life. Her superior Green Butterfly ordered her to attack Avian, so attack them she did. Foreign spies or not, the raid was entirely unjustified. Amelie kept on following the bad intel, and it ultimately resulted in her failing to protect Prince Darryn, suffering a humiliating defeat at Lamplight’s hands, and getting detained alongside her entire team.

Through their actions, Klaus, Sybilla, Erna, and Monika had all opened her eyes. A mere foot soldier had no power to protect their nation. She was no slave. She was a spy, and she needed to figure out what it was her nation needed from her.

Ironically, the person who pointed her in the right direction was Green Butterfly, the very person who’d tricked her in the first place.

“There’s a man you could meet who’d give you aaaaall the answers you’re looking for,” Green Butterfly told her. It was like she’d seen right through Amelie’s uncertainty. “He’s a coward, though, so he might not show up if you don’t go alone.”

Fortunately, there was nobody there to hear Green Butterfly but her.

Amelie didn’t hesitate. She knew that this was part of Green Butterfly’s scheme, but she needed to take her destiny in her own hands.

As she waited at the designated pier in the dead of night, she sensed someone nearby. Just as Green Butterfly had warned her, the man was cautious. He took nearly half an hour carefully sounding out the area to make sure that it wasn’t a trap and that Amelie didn’t have people lying in wait.

Eventually, a man with terrible posture showed himself. “Damn, Green Butterfly’s really pulling her weight. CIM senior leadership knows how to pick ’em,” he said. “Tell me, my fair lady, what is your heart’s desire?”

“I want to know everything.” Amelie stood up straight. “I want to know what Serpent and Inferno were fighting for, and I want to know what sin Prince Darryn was sullying his hands with. I want to have all the facts when I make my decision.”

The man gave her a vaguely disquieting smile. “Don’t you worry,” he said, his voice familiar and barely louder than a whisper. “I always side with the underdog.”

The train didn’t slow down as it made its way out of Hurough proper. Its wheels screeched every so often, causing the whole carriage to shake.

Klaus slowly rose to his feet so he could step into the aisle and face White Spider.

“Someone like you could never understand how she feels.” White Spider shot a quiet look over at Amelie. “But me, I respect her. She learned what it meant to lose, she started doubting the things everyone around her took for granted, and she drew her own conclusions. The way I see it, people who use their failures as opportunities to grow are the biggest badasses there are.”

Amelie stood up as well and took a spot beside White Spider. Standing by his side as though to demonstrate her new allegiance, she held her gun at the ready and glared at Klaus. She’d been masking her hostility on the ride over, but now her intent was crystal clear.

White Spider shrugged. “And just for the record, I don’t know how to brainwash people or anything.”

“It’s true. I joined Serpent of my own volition.” There was no hesitation in Amelie’s eyes. “This is me carrying out my duty. I can say that with my head held high.”

This was the most confident Klaus had ever seen her. She was no longer the woman blindly following Hide’s orders or panicking when her team was taken hostage. Everything about her practically radiated conviction.

White Spider and Amelie had teamed up to kill him.

Seeing that laid out for him in black and white caused a lump to form in Klaus’s throat. Although he didn’t hold any particular affection for Amelie, the two of them had still spent no small number of hours working together. Betrayal might have been a fact of life for spies, but that never made it sting any less.

The train car had been sequestered from the rest of the world, and that was where they were going to gun him down.

“Why?” he asked. “What was it that changed you? When you shed those tears for Prince Darryn’s death in public, was that all a lie? The man you’re standing beside is the one who killed him, you know.”

Amelie’s expression didn’t waver. She’d long since made up her mind.

However, Klaus still needed to say it.

“It’s not too late to—”

“Of course it’s too late.”

It was White Spider who gave the response. He flicked his gun and pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation. At no point had Klaus seen him draw a bead, yet his bullet flew with unerring accuracy all the same—and blasted through Amelie’s head.

It wasn’t Klaus he’d shot, but his own ally standing beside him.

Amelie’s body went flying.

The bullet had gone straight through her skull, and blood came exploding out of her head. As her body crumpled to the floor, the frills of her dress were slowly stained red.

“Amelie…,” Klaus gasped.

“Don’t you dare judge me for that. She knew the stakes.” White Spider shook his head in disappointment. Amelie’s body didn’t move. Anyone could have seen that she died on the spot. “If you pulled off some miracle and changed her mind, that would’ve been game over. Gotta cover all my bases, y’know?”

“________”

Those were the kinds of cold, hard decisions that spies had to make. There was a chance that Amelie might double-cross him and go side with Klaus, and White Spider had killed her for no reason other than to eliminate that possibility.

Amelie knew what she was getting herself into. She knew that spies who turned traitor didn’t generally get to live happily ever after. But still, what kind of person would…

No. Klaus shook his head. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions cloud his judgment.

Some blood had splattered on White Spider’s face, and he wiped it away with his hand. “Now I’ve got you alone, you freak.”

“Indeed you do.”

In a sense, Klaus had been hoping for this. Standing before him was the man he wanted to kill more than anyone else. He hated to admit it, but White Spider was essentially his nemesis. For half a year now, Klaus had thought about little other than capturing him, interrogating him, and squeezing the life from his body. That was the man who’d stolen Klaus’s family, Inferno, from him. That was the man who’d destroyed Avian and Monika.

“I gotta say, it took a whole lotta work getting here.” White Spider had been waiting for this moment, too. He gave a pleased shrug. “Now I can finally avenge Silver Cicada. I’ll make sure to plant your head on her grave.”

“…What?”

That was a name he hadn’t heard before.

White Spider arched an eyebrow. “Whaddya mean, what?”

“Who’s Silver Cicada?”

“…Okay, really? You could’ve figured that out. Remember how we sent Purple Ant after your boss and stuff? Well, we sent someone to kill you, too. A chick named Silver Cicada.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Shouldn’t it have been obvious? Like, from context?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re just bad at explaining things.”

Klaus was caught by surprise; he hadn’t even been aware there was a grudge involved.

That said, he did have some idea of who White Spider was talking about. Around the time he now believed Inferno was getting taken out, Klaus had been through a brutal ordeal of his own. Not only had his body broken down for reasons unknown, but he’d been attacked by a series of assassins. Klaus had turned the tables on each and every one of them, but he’d done so by narrow enough margins that he hadn’t been able to interrogate them and learn their names. Apparently, one of them had been a member of Serpent.

Returning to the topic at hand, he gave White Spider another head-on stare. “I have the same question I asked you before.”

“What’s that?”

“Why did my mentor betray Inferno?” It was the question he’d posed to White Spider back in the Din Republic entertainment district. “I know you people aren’t just acting at random. You have something you believe in. And it’s something so important it was enough to win my mentor and Amelie over.”

“I’ll give you the same answer I did back then.” The smile faded from White Spider’s lips. “If I told you the whole truth, would you join Serpent?”

“…………………”

There was a sincerity in his voice that made Klaus realize he was asking the question in earnest. If Klaus said yes, White Spider might very well tell him everything. As a spy, the right thing for Klaus to do here would be to offer him an empty promise in order to drag information out of him.

However, that was the one thing Klaus refused to do. Not because it was the incorrect move, but because every instinct he had was rejecting the notion flat-out. Perhaps it was immature of him, and perhaps he deserved to be mocked for his decision, but he knew that to ignore that impulse would go against everything he was as a person.

“It doesn’t make sense. Why do you hate Serpent so much?” White Spider frowned in exasperation. “Your own mentor, Guido, joined us. Why can’t you believe in him? It’s not like I threatened him or anything. You really think I could’ve forced that murder machine to do anything he didn’t want to?” The reverence in his voice was impossible to miss. “Up to the bitter end, Guido was never ashamed of the choices he’d made.”

“You don’t get to talk about my mentor.”

When at last Klaus finally showed some emotion, that emotion was fury.

He refused to accept it. There was no way that Guido—his mentor, the man he thought of as a father—had chosen to walk the same path as White Spider.

There was no room for compromise here. Klaus was simply going to beat the information he needed out of White Spider.

“Nothing you say or do could ever make me join Serpent.”

“All right. Them’s the breaks, I guess.” White Spider shook his head like he’d seen this coming all along. He raised his gun, squared his shoulders, and took aim with both hands.

This was a man who’d achieved pinpoint accuracy while firing one-handed. This was not a shot he was going to miss.

“You need to die.” His voice was almost pleading. “If I don’t kill you now, you’re going to become a menace to the entire world. A sinner with the blood of millions on your hands.”

Klaus had no idea what he was talking about, and he doubted his foe intended to elaborate.

White Spider placed his finger on the trigger.

“The sentence for that is death.”

Klaus tensed his arms behind his back.

Unfortunately, his bindings held strong. The five sets of manacles had been fixed firmly in place. Not even dislocating his joints would be enough to slip free. Amelie would never have used restraints that could be undone so easily.

It went without saying that without his arms, he had no meaningful ability to use weapons. All he could do was move his legs, one of which was injured. However, fleeing wasn’t an option. The train was moving too fast for him to safely leap off.

As he finished reviewing the situation, something welled up inside him.

That something was laughter.

“Heh.”

“Huh?”

A single laugh escaped Klaus’s mouth. Once the dam broke, though, there was no going back. He shook with mirth as he let out uninhibited peals of laughter.

“Haaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Heh, heh, ha-ha-ha! Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Heh-heh-heh! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!”

The sound of his voice filled the entire carriage.

His stomach hurt from how hard he was laughing. It had been years since the last time that happened.

“What’s so funny?” White Spider spluttered. “I never took you for someone who would laugh so hard…”

It was true. Under normal circumstances, the idea of Klaus laughing like that would be unthinkable. However, the situation was simply too hilarious for him not to.

“So this was your plan, White Spider? This was you bringing your full might to bear?”

“What…?”

“When I think about how much of your life you spent, how much effort you poured into this, I just…I can’t help but laugh.”

Along with the laughter, Klaus felt a profound sense of emptiness. How many people had devoted themselves to bringing this moment about? Scores of people like Avian and Amelie had lost their lives for this. Countless elite spies had scurried across the globe burning through untold sums of money. And at the end of it all, this was what White Spider had to show for it? This paltry excuse for a trap?

“By the way, I have to ask—”

Klaus spoke the words like he was letting out a sigh.

“—how much longer should I keep playing along with this game?”

White Spider’s eyes went wide. His expression was one of complete and utter confusion.

White Spider stood motionless, his gun still at the ready. Klaus was supremely confident, and it didn’t look like he was bluffing.

What’s going on? He can’t use his arms, and he can barely move his left leg.

White Spider had ordered Amelie to completely lock down Klaus’s arms, and she’d given him an up-to-date report on Klaus’s injury. White Spider doubted she’d made any oversights.

No, but like, seriously, he’s gonna die, right?

He pulled the trigger, as much to blow his own doubts away as anything.

His shot flew at Klaus, not erring in its course.

White Spider doubted that the first shot would be enough to finish him off. However, Klaus couldn’t flee or fight back, so as long as White Spider pumped enough lead into him, he should—should—eventually die.

The bullet soared straight past Klaus.

After dodging it with the smallest of motions and allowing it to merely graze his temple, Klaus closed in on White Spider. White Spider fired a second shot, but Klaus twisted his body to avoid that one, too. His body rose into the air, and he fired off a dropkick so graceful you never would have known he had his arms bound behind his back.

“Wha—?”

White Spider brought up his arms to block the hit, but the impact was still staggering. His posture crumpled. He quickly rose back to his feet by rolling backward first, then readied his pistol again.

With just a single kick, Klaus had forced him all the way to the far end of the train car. The door leading to the engine room was locked from the inside. He had nowhere to run.

“I’m disappointed.” Klaus stood there, resting his weight on his right leg so as not to overburden his left. “You turned my ally against me to wound my leg. You bound my arms. You took all my weapons. And you locked me in this closed space so I couldn’t escape. You know, that all makes sense.”

When he went on, every hair on White Spider’s body stood on edge.

“But so what? You really thought that would be enough to beat me?”

Purely on impulse, White Spider fired another shot.

This isn’t possible. What the hell is he even talking about?!

Klaus sprang up with his right leg alone and dodged the bullet.

That gave White Spider an opening to dash past him and put some more distance between them. He dashed all the way across the carriage, firing a shot aimed squarely at Klaus as he went.

However, it failed to find its mark.

Using his right leg as a fulcrum, Klaus spun his body and dodged the bullet by a hair’s breadth.

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me! How can he move like that with only one leg?!

Klaus was using the space they were in to its fullest potential. Using only his right leg, he kicked off the seats and walls with tight, precise steps as though to show how confident he was that he could dodge anything White Spider threw at him.

White Spider was certain of it now—Amelie hadn’t screwed up at all. The man could barely use his arms or left leg. Bonfire was just enough of a monster that one leg was all he needed.

White Spider barreled from one end of the train car to the other, and Klaus ran with him on that one leg of his.

“Fuckin’ shit!!” White Spider roared.

He was no novice when it came to fighting spies who knew how to dodge bullets. If they did, he simply updated his mental dossier on them, predicted their movements, and aimed his bullets at where they were about to be rather than where they were. The problem was, Klaus was on a whole different level. White Spider would be certain his shot had landed true, but right as his heart swelled with delight, Klaus would vanish. The way he was moving made it look like he was teleporting, like his entire body was shifting to the right.

Guido had warned White Spider about that technique. That was “Firewalker” Gerde’s footwork—the moves that had once carried a sniper hailed as immortal across dozens of battlefields.

He can still use it, even on just one foot?!

White Spider hadn’t factored any of that into his calculations, and every move he made was one step behind.

Klaus closed in on White Spider and feinted with a kick to obscure White Spider’s vision. After crouching down low, he next went for a headbutt.

“………”

When Klaus’s hard forehead smashed into White Spider’s nose, it sent White Spider reeling off-balance.

“The girls set traps like this for me constantly,” Klaus said coolly, “and every time, I turn the tables on them.”

“_____!”

There was a bitter truth that White Spider had no choice but to accept—that Klaus had grown stronger still. White Spider had begrudgingly admitted that Klaus was the Greatest Spy in the World on that day he defeated Purple Ant in Mitario, and his skills had clearly advanced since then.

White Spider was by no means a pushover when it came to fighting. He’d been trained by both Indigo Grasshopper and Guido, and he was confident that he could overpower your average spy with ease. Yet here he was, completely and utterly outmatched by a one-legged Klaus.

Was this guy he was fighting even really human?!

As White Spider fought to regain his balance, he threw out a desperate punch. However, Klaus blocked the hit with his shoulder, planted his right leg firmly on the ground, and used the energy from White Spider’s attack to swivel around it before performing a one-legged leap into the air.

Klaus somersaulted through the air, and his acrobatic spin kick pulverized White Spider’s jaw.

“RRRGH!”

A handful of White Spider’s teeth clattered to the floor.

The sensation of his brain wobbling sent him down alongside them, forcing him to scuttle away from Klaus on all fours.

“You made one big oversight.” Klaus just stood there, self-possessed and unhurried. “There was one situation I absolutely needed to avoid—the one where you failed to come after me.”

“………”

It wasn’t like the notion hadn’t crossed White Spider’s mind. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Black Mantis had suggested he do. There was a reason why fleeing hadn’t been an option for White Spider, but Klaus had no way of knowing that.

What exactly had Klaus been plotting?

“The CIM didn’t want that, either. That’s why Cursemaster and I teamed up. We wanted to give you the peace of mind you needed to make an attempt on my life,” Klaus said, “so we agreed to take no steps whatsoever that might get in the way of your plan.”

Now it all made sense. White Spider had wondered why everything had gone so smoothly. Apparently, it was because that was exactly how “Cursemaster” Nathan, one of the members of the CIM’s senior leadership, had wanted it.

Klaus gave him a taunting tilt of the head. “What, did you seriously think you’d captured me on your own merits?”

“________!!”

White Spider bit down hard on his lip. He had no counterargument to make, and the grim situation he was now in was a testament to that.

“Of the two plans I prepared, I never imagined that the first one—the excellent plan that was easy to pull off and required next to no effort—would get the job done all on its own.”

Klaus sprang back into motion. Unafraid of White Spider’s gun, he charged in and closed the gap. White Spider’s bullets curved around his body like they’d been preordained to do so.

Now White Spider understood. Now he knew what had made Klaus laugh.

When you got right down to it, Klaus hadn’t taken any countermeasures whatsoever. Knowing that an assassin was gunning for him, he’d watched Lamplight and the CIM scurry around, and he’d done nothing. He simply sat there and relaxed.

And that had been enough.

White Spider had poured his heart and soul into making sure his assassination plan had all the angles covered, and that was all it had taken to ruin it.

It was no wonder Klaus hadn’t been able to hold back his laughter.

“Hurry up and yield. I have no interest in entertaining this desperate show of resistance,” Klaus spat. He kicked White Spider in the stomach. “You disgust me!!”

Each and every one of his blows was bringing him closer to death.

How is he doing this? This is goddamn unfair!

Was it rage that drove him? White Spider had killed Inferno, killed Avian, and hurt many of the Lamplight girls. Klaus may have only been on one leg, but his attacks were fiercer than any bullet, and the fury behind them was a sight to behold. If White Spider let his guard slip, he might get knocked clean out.

Fuck you. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this? How much I’m carrying?!

The two of them were at point-blank range, but White Spider fired anyway. As he blocked the kick with his left arm, he squeezed the trigger with his right hand. All he needed to do was land a single shot. He fired again and again, growing more desperate each time.

Silver Cicada… Blue Fly… Purple Ant… It’s on me to avenge them…

Klaus used one of the seats’ backrests as a foothold, kicking off it to dodge the bullets.

White Spider went to shoot him out of the air, but when he did, he realized his blunder. His automatic held ten shots, and he’d burned through all of them. He needed to reload, and Klaus was never going to give him the time to do that.

“Shiiiiit!”

He tossed his gun aside to free up his right hand. He needed to focus on protecting himself. With his new battle plan set, he moved to intercept.

Klaus fired off a flying knee strike.

White Spider poured everything he had into blocking it, and as he did, he pulled something out of his pocket and hurled it. That something was a small metal tube about the size of his thumb—a miniature bomb.

Less than a second later, it went off. The explosion tore through White Spider and Klaus alike.

Klaus backed off, forced away by the impact from the blast. After tumbling across the ground, he rolled back onto his feet. “A suicide bombing?!”

“If bullets and fists won’t get the job done, then what the hell choice do I have?”

For the first time, there was pain in Klaus’s expression. He was bleeding from the chest where the shrapnel had hit him.

“Still, that smarts like a motherfucker.”

White Spider was lying on his ass. The shrapnel had gotten him in both of his arms.

That bomb had been his last resort. He knew he couldn’t use anything too powerful; anything stronger would have run the risk of damaging Klaus’s restraints. Still, he’d successfully landed an attack. Klaus could probably have dodged it if White Spider had thrown it from a distance, but at close range, even though it meant getting himself caught in the blast, he’d finally wounded his foe. White Spider had even managed to guard his vitals with his arms, an option that Klaus didn’t have.

He raised his voice, hoping to crush Klaus’s spirit. “One of us is eating shit first, and it’s not gonna be me.”

After clashing with the man head-on like that, White Spider could feel it.

There was no doubt in White Spider’s mind that if that man walked out of there alive, the Nostalgia Project would come to fruition. Millions of people would die, and only the strong would be able to survive in the world that ensued.

The question was, who could possibly stop the last survivor of Inferno? Serpent’s boss didn’t stand a chance, nor did Indigo Grasshopper. There wasn’t a spy alive who did. No matter how much of White Spider’s life he had to burn to put that monster down, it was a price he was happy to pay.

Over in the edge of his vision, he saw Klaus’s eyes go wide and his body quiver. “The way you moved just now…”

“Seriously, that’s what’s got your nuts all twisted?” Apparently it was that, rather than the surprise bomb, that had shocked Klaus. When White Spider had switched over to close-quarters combat, he’d used the techniques he’d inherited. “In the end, Guido chose Serpent. Don’t you forget that.”

Guido fought like a tornado, a fact that White Spider had experienced firsthand. That man had put in so much work helping White Spider achieve his dream, and White Spider had nothing but reverence for him.

“The final pupil that Guido taught his techniques to was me. Not you.”

“………”

Klaus’s eyes went wide, and his shoulders stiffened. He stared at White Spider with a pitch-black darkness in his eyes. White Spider had successfully dragged even more rage out of him. “You really,” Klaus growled, “know how to get under my skin!!”

“You honor me, O senior pupil.”

Klaus wasn’t the only one who was livid. The way that Klaus kept professing his love for Guido yet rejecting everything he stood for and slaughtering Guido’s fellow Serpent members pissed White Spider off. Why was he so against walking the same path as his mentor?

“Now, come at me. I’ll kill your ass, I’ll tear down the world’s rules…”

White Spider raised his voice to encourage himself, and for the first time in their whole fight, he took a step forward.

“…AND I’LL INHERIT GUIDO’S WILL!!”

“You don’t get to say his name.”

White Spider readied his next bomb, prepared to put his life on the line to best his foe.

Meanwhile, Klaus leaped forward to face him and got in position to unleash a kick. His plan was to end White Spider’s life once and for all with his next attack.

One way or another, this was going to be their final clash.

White Spider had used every plan he could think of to strip all freedom from his opponent, and Bonfire had intentionally gone in without a plan and had overcome his imprisonment through raw physical might.

In the end, what drew closed the curtain on the battle between those two titans of espionage…

“_____________!!”

“_____________?!”

…was neither Klaus nor White Spider, but a third party altogether.

It took both of them a good long while to comprehend what had happened. Klaus assumed White Spider had put some scheme into effect, and White Spider was afraid it was Klaus who’d pulled some trick out of his sleeve. Mighty as they were, neither of them had foreseen this turn of events.

The moment before the two of them clashed, a bullet tore through Klaus’s right leg.

It had come from a completely unexpected direction. Klaus crumpled to his knee from the blow, and White Spider backed off to ensure his own safety.

As the sound of the shot echoed through the carriage, the two combatants turned in unison to look at where the surprise attack had come from.

“Amelie…?”

The name spilled from Klaus’s mouth at the shocking sight.

Down in the pool of blood where she lay, Amelie was clutching a gun. Her body wasn’t moving. However, the barrel of her gun was aimed squarely at Klaus.

Amelie had long since lost any ability to see or hear. All she could sense in that silent darkness were the faint vibrations traveling across the floor. The people who’d just been dashing throughout the carriage were still now.

I do have my pride, you know.

She could feel the life draining from her, but she smiled triumphantly all the same. Or rather, she would have, if the muscles in her face still worked.

She’d fired her shot at the person moving on one leg—Klaus.

He wasn’t moving now. Her shot must have found its mark.

Amelie didn’t regret the decisions she’d made. At no point did she ever have proof that White Spider would treat her with compassion after she turned traitor. She’d had an inkling he might end up shooting her dead. Yet through to the bitter end, she remained true to her desire—to protect her beautiful homeland. She was willing to do anything to achieve that end, even work with Serpent.

Dying here is my penance. Retribution from all those I’ve killed myself.

She knew that the one life she had would never be enough to balance those scales. The only person she was satisfying was herself. But she didn’t care. As far as final moments went, landing a blow on the Greatest Spy in the World had to be up there.

I wonder, Bonfire, did that change your evaluation of me?

She didn’t care about that either, of course. The opinions of others were none of her concern.

As she went to her death, she did so of her own volition, not as anyone else’s puppet.

Klaus was unable to rise to his feet.

The bullet had passed straight through his calf and damaged the tendons he needed to move his leg. He couldn’t even muster any strength in it.

Stuck kneeling on the ground, he stared at Amelie in shock.

She was still able to move…?

The attack had caught him completely unaware.

Did she really play dead so well that neither me nor White Spider were able to notice?

Klaus immediately dismissed the possibility. She had definitely been dead. Nobody could survive having their brains blown out from point-blank like that.

But then, she came back.

Even in the absence of mental activity, people’s hearts continued beating for a short while, and given the right electrical stimuli, their muscles could move, too. The shock from getting shot could stop their brain activity, but random happenstance could start it back up and momentarily bring a corpse back to life.

It sounded like something out of a ghost story, but that was what had happened to Amelie. Her pride as a spy had brought about a miracle. She was well and truly dead now, but her final action had dramatically shifted the course of the fight.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-hahaha-haaaah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” White Spider cackled. “Holy shit, Amelie! You are one hell of a spy! Nothing but respect for you!”

Klaus wanted to be mad, but he had to admit it. He and White Spider had both completely underestimated her. “Puppeteer” Amelie was a uniquely talented counterintelligence agent who’d led spies from across the world to their doom in order to protect the Fend Commonwealth, and that final attack of hers was a heavier blow than Klaus could afford to take.

“Damn, man. I really do have the devil’s own luck. It’s the one thing I’ve got going for me.” White Spider drummed his fingers on his face in delight. Beneath them, the look in his eyes was crazed. “There’s no way you’re still able to fight, not in that state.”

“………”

Klaus wished more than anything that he could simply bluff and tell White Spider he was wrong. His right leg was unusable, so if he wanted to flee, he would have to do it with his yet-unhealed left leg. However, it was taking everything he had just to stay upright. If he jumped even a single time, he had zero confidence he would so much as land on his feet.

Death was upon him.

White Spider scooped up his gun, savoring his victory, and loaded in his spare magazine. Based on his gun’s model, Klaus knew it held ten shots. There was no way he would be able to dodge all of them.

“Here’s a one-gun salute for ya…”

White Spider fired at the ceiling like he wanted to make sure his bullets were really there.

“…to celebrate the moment where I break the status quo.”

It was classic loser behavior, getting carried away the moment he realized the situation had turned in his favor. However, the fact was that that man had brought Klaus, the self-proclaimed World’s Strongest, to his knees. His bizarrely intense obsession had carried him through.

Then a sound reached them from behind the train car. Something had just come down from above. White Spider didn’t notice it. His own gunshot had been too loud for him to hear anything.

“It’s not going to break,” Klaus said from down on his knees. “Master didn’t teach you anything, did he? You can’t break the status quo.”

White Spider’s grin faded. “What’re you on about? Got some final words for me?”

“There’s only one kind of person who shapes the rules like that. The strong. Nobody’s going to lend an ear to the ramblings of a weakling.”

“I’m telling you, that’s exactly what I’m here to change—”

“You can’t. You lack the conviction.”

White Spider bit down ever-so-slightly on his lip.

That was the reaction of a man who’d been told the same thing before, and Klaus had a pretty good idea of who that might be.

“Ah. Master told you the same thing, didn’t he?”

“________”

Upon seeing the scowl cross White Spider’s face, Klaus could tell that his deduction had been true.

A feeling of warmth rose up in his chest. Guido may have been a traitor, but he’d still been Guido.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” Klaus said, his heart tranquil. “Master wasn’t saying that you needed to make mistakes, embrace your weakness, and sacrifice everything in pursuit of your goal. Conviction like that is cheap.”

A masochistic smile crossed his face.

“Do you really think I’ve never lost or made mistakes?”

He may have called himself the World’s Strongest, but he’d been doing so for less than a year. He hadn’t always been that way, not from the start. He’d never won a fair fight against Guido, the boss scolded him constantly, and he’d whined and complained the whole way through Gerde’s training. Every member on Inferno had strengths that Klaus couldn’t hope to compete with.

“I’ve lost more in my life than I’ve gained. But even so, I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Even when I’m beaten, even when I fail, I never stop believing in my own potential.”

His voice rang true.

“The only people who have the right to change the world…are those with the conviction to see themselves as strong.”

Beside him, the carriage’s rear door swung open.

Klaus didn’t even have to look. He knew she’d made it.

This was his second plan—the terrible one that was next to impossible to pull off and carried nothing but risks and costs. Klaus and Cursemaster had taken zero measures to stop White Spider. It was clear that White Spider had carried out his plan and that his traitor had thrown the CIM into turmoil. Yet even so, even in spite of that, Klaus still believed that the girls would find a way to get to him.

After all, those magnificent students of his were testaments to his worth as an educator.

“I’m here to save you, boss.”

With her head held high, “Meadow” Sara came valiantly rushing into the train.

Here, the clock rewinds a bit.

Immediately after Klaus’s disappearance was discovered, the CIM put their plan to assassinate White Spider into motion. Realizing that Amelie was planning on using the old train at the rail factory, they dispatched their finest agents to Queen Clette Station. The agents stormed the sleeping station and fired up its top-of-the-line locomotive.

Thanks to “Cursemaster” Nathan’s leadership, they’d immediately pinpointed the train White Spider was on.

“A steam locomotive’s performance is hugely affected by the talent of its crew. I can’t imagine he’s drawing out the train’s full speed with some random makeshift stoker,” Nathan calmly explained. “He can’t have gotten far. With one of our nation’s newest steam locomotives on our side, we’re certain to catch up with him.”

Some twenty elite CIM agents had made it to the train in time for departure. And there was one more person standing triumphantly up on its roof—a girl who’d yet to remove her bandages.

“Heh. I was standing at alert should anything go amiss. ’Twould seem my prudence was warranted.”

The girl had sharp features and dark red hair tied back behind her head. It was “Cloud Drift” Lan—the girl who’d been under CIM surveillance just like the Lamplight members. Her wounds were far from fully healed, but she’d begged the CIM to let her accompany them.

In her hand, she was clutching a bag full of weapons and the like.

“I’m code name Cloud Drift…no, perhaps another moniker would suit the occasion better.”

As the steam locomotive began chugging along, she cried out with pride.

“I’m code name Insight—and ’tis time we soared the heavens.”

However, not everyone on board that train was a friend to Lamplight.

The battle of intrigue had been defined by its countless traps, and now both sides were deploying their final aces in the hole.