Spy Classroom - Volume SS1 - Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1

Sybilla’s Case

“Attacking him at night’s gotta be the call, right? I say we go after him after he falls asleep.”

“We already tried that twice, and it didn’t work. As far as frontal attacks go, I’m about ready to throw in the towel. Is Klaus much of a drinker? Could we slip him some poison?”

“I think we should kidnap his girlfriend, yo!”

“I would prefer to avoid dragging other people into this if we can help it… What if we merely made it seem as though we had kidnapped her? We could hand him a hair ornament of hers and say, ‘Does this look familiar?’ to give him the wrong impression.”

“First things first, do we know if Teach even has a paramour? I mean, I suppose we could always lure him into getting one.”

It may have sounded like a gathering of violent gangsters, but that wasn’t it. It was actually a group of spy girls doing a training exercise.

They were crowded around a table in the manor’s main hall, and suggestions and countersuggestions flew through the air as the eight of them pointed to various spots on the map of the manor’s floor plan and tried to work out a strategy for attacking their target.

The target in question was a man named Klaus.

Klaus was Lamplight’s boss, but aside from that, the girls knew next to nothing about the man who’d gathered them all together.

Why were they planning on assaulting him, one might ask? As it turned out, they had a good reason. Back when Lamplight was first founded, the original plan had been for Klaus to teach them himself. However, it turned out that there were some catastrophic issues with that arrangement, so when it fell apart, Klaus came up with a new training method for them in its place: having them try to make him say “I surrender” by any means possible.

They could poison him. They could get him to gamble away all his money. They could even seduce him. Just like in an actual spy battle, they were allowed to use any and all tricks at their disposal.

It didn’t matter how they beat him—just that they did.

Lily, the girls’ leader, summed up the group’s thoughts. “Hmm. What I’m hearing is we want to keep it pretty simple this time around.”

She gave the others a cheery smile, then tilted her head a little.

“Now, we’ll need to start by luring him out. How do we want to play it?”

“You could try seducing him,” her white-haired teammate suggested. “Y’know, flutter your eyes a little and be all, ‘Oh, Teach, I want you to massage me with your big strong hands…’ Maybe get him to rub your tits a little.”

Lily’s face went bright red. “No thanks???”

“Why make ’em so big if you’re not gonna use ’em?”

“It’s not like I had a say in the matter!”

“Well, if seduction’s off the table, I guess that leaves us with fibbing. ‘Could you come to my room? I’ve got something I wanna talk to you about,’ or whatever.”

“Now that I might be able to get behind…”

Lily crossed her arms. Better that than trying to seduce him, certainly.

“Hmm.” After a moment, she blinked. “Is this really gonna work, though? Whenever we lie to Teach, he always sees right through us.”

“Nah, nah, you’ll be fine. Here, take this pouch with you.”

The white-haired girl who’d suggested the plan picked up a pouch from the table and tossed it over. Its latch was broken, so it would make for the perfect prop.

Afterward, they finalized their plan.

Lily was going to lure out the target, and once she did, the rest of them would swoop in and attack. The plan was simple, but the classics were classics for a reason.

Their target, Klaus, was over in the storage room, which was a small space tucked away in a far corner of the manor’s first floor. At the moment, he was in the middle of organizing his mission tools. It was the best opportunity they were going to get.

The girls readied their weapons and hid themselves in the corridor. The hallway was long, and it had no shortage of good hiding places. They snuck behind pillars, stoves, and cabinets and waited for their target to show up.

The air was thick with tension as Lily took the pouch and headed into the storage room.

“Teach, I have a favor I want to ask! My pouch broke, so could you come to my room to help fi—” Lily’s voice cut off.

A massive sound like a balloon popping came from inside the room, and as red powder blasted through the gaps in the doorframe—

“THE POUCH EXPLODED INTO CHILI POWDERRRRR!”

—Lily let out a scream.

““““““………””””””

The rest of the team turned their gaze as one onto the white-haired girl who’d provided the pouch.

“So I had this slick idea, see.”

With a proud look on her face, she began handing pairs of goggles out to each of her teammates. She had a sharp stare and roughly cut short white hair. Her body didn’t have a single pound of excess fat on it, and her eyes had an intimidating look about them. The bracing dignity she carried herself with was like that of a wild animal bounding through a meadow.

Her name was Sybilla, her code name was Pandemonium, and she was the mastermind behind the current operation.

She nodded as she revealed the actual plan to the others.

“If the target’s gonna see through any bullshit we try to feed him, then all we gotta do is have the attacker not know what’s up, either. I call it Operation: Collateral Damage!”

““““““Yeesh…””””””

The others were taken aback, but Sybilla chose not to pay them any heed.

She snapped on her goggles. “C’mon, let’s not let Lily’s sacrifice be in vain! Capture the target while he’s still blinded!”

As soon as she barked out the order, the rest of the girls all started racing in Klaus’s direction.

“Well, I suppose what’s done is done.” “Rest in peace.” “I’ll never forget the memories we shared, Sis.” “…You all know that Miss Lily isn’t actually dead, right?”

The time for second-guessing themselves was over. The girls charged into the storage room with their convictions renewed.

After all, that was the way they trained—through lies and deception, with no holds barred.