Spy Classroom - Volume SS1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sara’s Case

Erna was getting crushed.

She had blond hair, and though she was fourteen years old, her body was small for her age, and she had enough of a babyface that she could have easily been mistaken for a ten-year-old. In addition to her beauty, she also gave off an almost doll-like impression.

At the moment, though, she was moaning from between the floor and door.

The door wasn’t squishing her horizontally, either. It was crushing her from above.

“How unlucky…,” she whimpered, but there was no one around to hear.

The world was awash in pain.

Two weeks had passed since Lamplight was assembled in order to take on an Impossible Mission.

At the moment, the girls had yet to come anywhere close to completing Klaus’s “defeat me” assignment, but they were all showing definite signs of growth. Through Sybilla’s run-in with the pickpocket and Erna’s incident with the kidnappers, the team had deepened both their coordination with each other and their trust in Klaus.

The more they worked together as a group, the better they understood each other’s strengths and specialties.

This was the point where Monika and Thea were starting to stand out for their excellent performance.

At the same time, though, it was also the point where one of the girls was starting to fall behind.

“All right, I think we’re at the point where we need to consider blowing up Klaus’s whole room,” Monika suggested.

“I like it,” Lily agreed. “When would be the best time to do it?”

“The simplest thing to do would be to invite him to dinner, right? We can tell him we made some food and get him to come to the dining room.”

“Ooh, that sounds good! Then, we can sneak in, plant the bomb under his bed—”

The girls were still at it with their training.

Aside from how extreme their proposals were getting as of late, it was starting to become a familiar sight. The girls were crowded around a table in the manor’s main hall and laying out their violent suggestions.

“I mean, let’s be real, not even this is gonna be enough to take down Klaus. We might get some decent intel out of it, though,” the cerulean-haired girl—Monika—said snobbishly as she twirled her hair around her finger. Her height and weight were both dead average, and oddly enough, she had no distinctive physical attributes aside from her hair.

“No, no, I think this plan has a real shot! We just gotta think big. And by big, I’m talking about our boom!” Lily’s projections, on the other hand, were much more carefree. Unlike Monika, Lily was lovely in all the ways that drew people’s gazes. She had an ample chest and a beautiful head of silver hair. “The way I see it, there’s no need to hold back with the blasting powder. After all, we could blow the whole room to smithereens and Teach’d still probably walk away with just a couple scratches.”

“There you go, talking out of your ass again… Believe it or not, there are reasonable limits to these things, you know.”

“Remember last time, though? How we blasted that door off its hinges with our hose attack and it still wasn’t enough to beat him?”

“How’re you even planning on getting the blasting powder inside? Is that hole we drilled in his windowpane last week even still there?”

“It’s gotta be! Now, c’mon, let’s get this show on the road!”

Yet another disturbing plan was coming together, this time with Monika and Lily at the helm.

However, a third voice cut in to rain on their parade.

“If I may?” The black-haired girl—Thea—raised her hand. Her locks were long and lustrous, and her figure was alluringly curvaceous. “There’s something I think we really ought to discuss, but since nobody else is bringing it up, I suppose the task falls on me.”

“Hm?”

The team’s gazes all turned toward Thea, and she went on.

“We might need to start worrying about the state the manor is in.”

“““““““……………”””””””

Not a single one of the girls had a rebuttal to that.

By that point, their attacks on Klaus had been going on for about two weeks, and as one might be able to infer from Lily and Monika’s comments, a fair chunk of their plans involved structural damage to the manor. For them, knocking down doors and smashing in windows had become all but routine. If a tactic would be viable on an actual mission, they didn’t hesitate to use it against their instructor.

As a result, though, the once-beautiful Heat Haze Palace was starting to come apart at the seams. Several of its glass windows lay in shards, and it was impossible to count just how many spots there were where the girls had dented the walls or torn the wallpaper.

“To put my concern into perspective,” Thea went on, “Erna got crushed just last night.”

Lily’s eyes went wide. “But how?”

“She said that one of the doors we knocked off its hinges toppled over on her.”

Over in the corner of the main hall, Erna was holding an ice pack to her head. It was still swollen. “It really hurt, too…,” she added tearily.

“In any case, it’s starting to get in the way of our everyday activities. I think we should start fixing up some of the damage. In addition to taking shifts cleaning, I propose we take shifts doing repairs, too,” Thea said with an elegant smile.

It was a perfectly sensible suggestion—

“Yeah, no.”

—but Monika sounded completely incredulous.

“In case you forgot, we’re about to go on a death-defying mission. You want us to spend our time playing handyman?”

“Well, I certainly don’t think we can leave everything else by the wayside,” Thea replied.

“Right now, we need to spend every second we’ve got on training. We can deal with the maintenance stuff later.”

“…You can try to make it sound as clever as you like, but we both know you’re just trying to get out of having to do more chores.”

“Oh? You’re saying that in Slut World, laying out the facts counts as ‘trying to make it sound clever’?”

“Oh dear, was that an attempt at an insult?”

Thea and Monika glared daggers at each other. Their smiles were brimming with confidence even as the pair of them bristled with irritation. Nobody was quite sure if the way they were arguing was incredibly civil or as lowbrow as could be.

They were two of the most skilled members on Lamplight’s roster, but somehow or other, they seemed to constantly find ways to end up at odds.

“C’mon, we’re all friends here,” Lily said in an attempt to mediate, but the angry sparks flying between Thea and Monika only grew fiercer.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the others began chiming in with their opinions as well.

“She’s right, though; fixing this place up’ll take forever.” “Even so, I imagine the boss would prefer we tried to avoid letting the manor get too destroyed…” “Yo, who wants to repair it when we could do a full remodel!” “Someone please stop her. If she remodels this place, we’re all going to die.” “All right, everyone, take it down a notch. Your beautiful leader is getting a headache over here.”

Two weeks had passed since they all met, and over that span, the girls had gradually been growing more candid and less reserved with each other.

Even the taciturn Erna had started coming out of her shell and joining in, and the girls’ lively discussion filled the room.

However, one of them was conspicuously quiet.

“And here’s the thing, stuff gets patched up all the time.” Eventually, Monika smiled triumphantly. “Obviously, Klaus must be calling in specialized contractors. And that means it’s not our problem.”

Thea clearly hadn’t known that. She grumbled and bit down on her lip as she stared at Monika, but in the moment of truth, she couldn’t come up with a counterargument.

Monika was the victor.

Thus, it was decided that they would ignore the damaged areas, and the meeting was adjourned.

“What Big Sis Monika said doesn’t make sense,” Erna declared after the girls went their separate ways. “Things definitely keep getting repaired, but I’ve never seen a contractor anywhere around.”

Aside from the main residence where they all lived, Heat Haze Palace also had a small shed off to its side.

It had originally just been a vacant storehouse, but now, it had been transformed into an animal shed full of everything from a dog and some mice to a hawk and a pigeon. None of them were caged, and the fact that the hawk and the mice could coexist without so much as a partition was a testament to the hawk’s keen intellect—either that, or perhaps to the love they’d been shown by the girl rearing them.

Erna was standing outside the shed and speaking to the girl within.

“In my opinion, this can only be the work of a ghost. What do you think, Big Sis Sara?”

“That’s definitely a unique theory,” Sara replied with a bemused smile. Sara was a girl with wavy brown hair. She had a newsboy cap she always wore pulled down low, and her big round eyes evoked the image of a small woodland creature as they peeked out from beneath it. “But there’s no way it’s actually a ghost.”

At the moment, she was doling out her special feed to all the animals. The critters positively adored her, and they huddled around her so they could nuzzle her.

“But I saw it!” Erna insisted from a step’s length outside the shed. “I was walking near the hallway that connects to the shed last night, and this long shadow showed up out of nowhere, and I leaped away and banged my head against a nearby door, and the door collapsed on me.”

She was talking a good deal faster than normal.

You wouldn’t know it from the way she was acting at the moment, but Erna was an extremely shy person. In one-on-one situations, the only people she could carry a proper conversation with were Klaus and Sara.

As a result, Erna often ended up visiting the animal shed to find Sara.

When Sara found herself reminded of that fact, she gave Erna a big smile. “Ah. Is that why you’ve been sticking so close to me today, Miss Erna?”

“Hm?”

“Because you’re scared of the ghost?”

“______!” For a moment, Erna’s cheeks went bright red.

Sara burst into laughter. With how childish Erna looked and acted, it was hard to believe she was actually fourteen. “If you’re that scared, you’re free to come into the shed.”

“The animals are scary, too… Everything about them screams ‘danger.’” Erna refused to move from her spot outside. “The manor’s haunted, but the shed’s full of your animals… I’m trapped with nowhere to run.”

“I think you might be overselling it a little.”

“Caught between a ghost and a pet place…”

“That actually sounds kind of fun.”

It reminded Sara of a recently opened foreign amusement park she’d heard of.

All that said, there was a good reason why Erna was as afraid as she was—she had a proclivity for misfortune. Her psychiatrist said that there was nothing occult about it and that she was just subconsciously drawn to accidents and bad situations, but it was impossible to say how true that was.

“Don’t worry, my pets are all friendly,” Sara said with a kind smile. “Actually, would you like to borrow one? This little guy could be a guard dog for you and chase off any ghosts you find.”

Sara scooped up the puppy that was sitting by her feet. He was round and black, like a slab of dark chocolate.

“And he won’t bite me…?” Erna asked with upturned eyes.

“No, no. I’ve trained him well.”

“I dunno…”

“In all the time I’ve had him, he’s never bitten a single person. And he’s really warm when you curl up with him at night.”

Ultimately, Erna ended up going for Sara’s sales pitch.

She gulped, then took a single step into the shed. Her movements were timid and hesitant, but she reached for the puppy Sara was holding all the same.

At that point, the puppy sensed her presence. He began sniffing at the air.

Erna still looked pretty nervous. “Y-you’re sure he doesn’t bite…?”

“Totally. I taught him that it’s not okay to—”

Chomp.

The puppy took Erna’s hand—and bit down with gusto.

““…………………””

It happened so fast, the girls didn’t even have time to react.

A moment later, though, the pain starting sinking in. Erna’s arm quivered, and she bit her lip and shook her head side to side as tears slowly welled up in her eyes.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”

“I-I’m so sorryyyyyyyyyyy!”

Erna shrieked at the exact same time Sara’s shout rocked the shed.

The two of them continued screaming for five full minutes, until the rest of the team came to check up on them.

It was eleven at night, and as the rest of the girls were drifting off to sleep, Sara headed down the manor’s stairs.

Oh dear. I feel so bad about what I did to Miss Erna…

Her shoulders slumped as she thought back to what had happened.

The good news was that Erna’s hand hadn’t actually been injured. The puppy had only been play-biting. However, Sara was still ashamed that he’d done something so disgraceful, especially after how much she’d boasted about him not biting people. She was so sure she’d trained him better than that.

And on top of that, that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to apologize to Erna for.

I’m pretty sure the “ghost” she saw was actually—

When she reached the first floor, she let out a little sigh. Then, she noticed something.

There was a light coming from the kitchen.

She could also hear the sound of tableware clinking. Someone was there—but all the girls should have been asleep at this hour. The manor did have one other resident, but going for an unhealthy midnight snack seemed out of character for him.

And there was no way it was an actual ghost.

…I-is it a burglar, then?

Sara’s knees began shaking.

She wished she’d brought at least one of her pets with her.

Now that she knew about the burglar, though, she couldn’t just turn tail and run. She needed to at least get a good look at them before she went and called for help.

She inched her face up to the keyhole and peeked inside.

“Hm? Ah, Sara.”

As soon as she did, the person inside immediately noticed her presence.

She let out a little squeak, but as soon as she returned to her senses, she quickly realized who the voice belonged to.

“T-Teach?”

Sara went into the kitchen.

Inside, she found Klaus. He was a tall man, and partially due to his shoulder-length hair, he was beautiful enough it was easy to mistake him for a woman.

He was Lamplight’s boss, the girls’ teacher, and an elite agent who claimed to be the Greatest Spy in the World.

Despite the many ways in which he was her superior, though, he was currently holding a white dishcloth.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“It’s as you can see.”

“It looks like you’re just drying some dishes, though.”

“That’s because I am drying some dishes.”

As he spoke, Klaus continued swiftly retrieving the kitchen’s plates, washing them, and meticulously wiping them dry. The thing was, those were the plates the girls usually used. The girls had already given them a wash, but after Klaus was done with them, they were polished to a lustrous gleam.

Sara stared at him, awestruck. The way he worked was as fast as it was efficient.

Klaus stared at her in confusion. “What? Is it so odd to see me doing housework?”

“I-it’s just, we’re perfectly happy to clean our own plates.”

“This is part of my training. There are times when a spy has to pretend to be a chef or a maid, you see.” After explaining himself, his voice grew quieter. “…And besides, my old team made me do all their grunt work. It’s gotten to be part of my routine.”

When he said that last part, his expression seemed almost gloomy. However, the change was so subtle that Sara couldn’t be sure she hadn’t just imagined it.

In any case, it felt strange watching an elite spy doing chores like that. Intellectually, she understood that he ate, slept, washed, and went to the bathroom just like any other human, but it was hard for her to reconcile that knowledge with her image of him as the Greatest Spy in the World.

“People are multifaceted creatures.” Klaus seemed to have picked up on her bewilderment. He squinted at her. “And you’re no exception.”

“Huh…?”

“That toolbox you have. You’re the one who’s been coming out every night to fix up the manor, aren’t you?”

Sara gasped a little and hid the toolbox she’d been holding behind her back. She’d forgotten all about it.

He was right—she was the one who was behind the repairs.

Each night, she snuck out of her room to mend the doors and windows they’d broken during the day.

In all likelihood, the so-called ghost Erna saw was none other than Sara herself.

“Magnificent.” Klaus nodded in satisfaction. “The fact you saw a problem and chose to provide a service for your team is commendable. And not many people would have been altruistic enough to do so anonymously.”

After briefly praising her, he gave her a pointed look.

“However, I can’t say I’m pleased with the fact that you alone are having to sacrifice sleep. If the damage is too bad to ignore and it’s affecting your training, then it should be everyone’s job to help fix it.”

“I—I guess you’re right…”

“I’ll tell the others tomorrow. And I’m sorry for making you do all the repairs on your own.”

Sara vigorously waved her hands in disagreement.

She felt bad that he would apologize, especially after she just discovered that he was doing chores on his own as well. He had nothing to be sorry for.

And on top of that, he was laboring under a big misunderstanding…

“Um, actually!” She was hesitant to say anything, but her sense of duty eventually won out. “You don’t need to tell the others about what I’ve been doing.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“I’m fine doing the repairs on my own. I’d rather they all be able to get a good night’s rest…”

Klaus stopped wiping his current plate and looked at Sara with unconcealed confusion. He didn’t seem satisfied with her answer.

She decided to be blunt.

“—I—I realize I’m the weakest member on the team.”

“Hm?”

“I did attend my academy for the shortest time out of all of us, after all. I mean, even if we’d gone for the same amount of time, I still would have ended up less skilled, but the point is, I’m a total amateur…”

Unlike conventional schools, students at spy academies didn’t all enter at the same age.

Although Sara was fifteen, she had entered her academy just two years prior. So while Erna was only fourteen, the fact she’d joined her academy four years ago meant there was a pretty big gap between them.

“In a way, they’re all my seniors. That’s why I call them ‘miss,’” Sara explained. “I can never speak up during our meetings, and all I do is weigh them down…”

“…So you’re saying you wanted to help out in whatever little way you could?”

“Exactly,” Sara said. Bashful self-derision crossed her face. “Knowing your place lets you act accordingly—that’s what they taught me at the academy.”

Given how unskilled she was, this was the best course of action she could take.

The only reason she became a spy was so she could make a living after her parents’ restaurant closed down. The other girls were all full of dreams and aspirations, but Sara didn’t have anything nearly so lofty.

On top of that, her ineptitude had just recently caused one of her teammates to get hurt. Considering how worthless she was, lightening the others’ loads was the least she could do.

At that moment, that was all she had driving her.

“…What in the world were those academy teachers thinking?”

“Huh?”

For a moment, Sara thought she saw a flash of anger flit across Klaus’s face.

By the time she did a double take, though, his expression was as cool as could be. He went back to polishing the tableware, then took the pile of clean plates he’d assembled and began putting them away with movements even more deft than before.

“For now, just go to bed,” he instructed her. “I understand where you’re coming from.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

After his encouragement, Sara had no choice but to retire.

As she left, she stole a glance at Klaus’s face. However, she couldn’t figure out what he intended to do.

Klaus’s plans wouldn’t start becoming clear until the following morning.

“Miss Lily, you have to get up. We’re in charge of cooking breakfast, remember?”

Early the next morning, Sara tapped Lily’s shoulder as the latter snoozed away in her bed.

In order to maintain Heat Haze Palace’s secrecy, they couldn’t hire maids from outside. In addition to all the repairs and cleaning, the girls also took turns cooking for the group.

Today, it was Sara and Lily’s turn. However, Lily had decided to sleep in.

“…Urgh, cut it out. I didn’t steal your cookies.” Lily clutched at her sheets and let out a moan. Then, she rolled across the bed to get away from Sara.

“What are you dreaming about?”

“…I know I went to the cupboard…but I didn’t eat them… I just moved them a little…”

“To where?”

“Into my belly.”

“That sounds a lot like eating them!” Sara shouted. She gave Lily’s shoulder a firm shove.

Upon tumbling out of bed, Lily finally opened her eyes. “Gah! I had a horrible dream about getting framed for something I didn’t do,” she said rather untruthfully.

Sara didn’t even know where to start with her.

“Morning… Wait, huh?” Lily stared drowsily at Sara. “You already made breakfast?”

“Huh? No, we’re supposed to go make it together.”

“Then what’s that nice smell?”

As soon as Lily mentioned it, Sara noticed it, too.

She could smell the scents of citrus and olive oil wafting over from somewhere.

Someone must have gotten the cooking schedule wrong.

Lily’s eyes went wide. “Wait—I think I know what this is!”

She shoved her mattress aside, then—ignoring the fact that Sara was right in front of her—stripped out of her pajamas and changed into her seminary school uniform. She was moving with a rarely seen fervor. After getting dressed in the blink of an eye, she said, “Sara, to the kitchen!” and charged out of the room.

Sara had no idea what was going on, but she hurried along after her.

The sun had yet to finish rising, so the hallway was dark and hard to traverse. Between the broken doors left casually lying against the walls and the chunks of wood and plaster scattered across the sides of the floor, the journey was fraught with peril.

Perhaps the girls really should get around to fixing the manor up a bit.

As the thought crossed Sara’s mind—

“Hm?”

—the tasty smell grew stronger. Someone was making breakfast over in the kitchen.

Sara followed Lily as she rushed down the stairs, and when they got to the first floor, they ran into someone unexpected.

“Good morning, Sara and Lily. Would you mind going and waking up the others?”

It was Klaus. He was frying a fish in some butter.

The man usually ate breakfast separately from the girls, so it was unclear what he was doing cooking so publicly. Given how much food there was, he was making enough for the whole team.

“I thought it might be nice to treat you all every once in a while. So, that’s what I’m doing.”

Lily’s eyes went wide. “I knew it. It was Teach.”

Sara paused, confused. “…What brought this about?”

“Actually, would you two mind doing me a favor? I need someone to taste-test the dressing for me.”

Klaus handed them each a small dish.

Sara gawked at him. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Normally, Klaus only cooked enough for himself. That often led to Lily trying to snatch bites of his food, and he would invariably tell her off. Now, though, he was going out of his way to cook enough for everyone so he could treat the girls to a meal.

It might be a trap.

However, all of Sara’s fears evaporated the moment she took her first lick of the dressing. The combination of the punchy, chili pepper–infused olive oil and the fresh orangey aroma was so good she could barely think straight.

“I’ll go wake the others up!” “Me too!”

The two of them rushed off, still holding their dishes, and went around rousing their sleeping teammates. None of the other girls fully bought it when Sara and Lily told them that Klaus was cooking a homemade breakfast for them, but one taste of the dressing was enough to shock them into belief. Before long, the whole team was gathered in the dining room.

It was a well-known fact among the girls that Klaus’s cooking skills were as good as a professional chef’s—perhaps better. By mastering the culinary arts, he had gotten to the point where his status as a first-rate chef could allow him to carry out infiltration missions just about anywhere.

It went without saying that the meal was a masterpiece.

There was a lettuce-and-mussel salad, a cod meunière, some toast, a squash potage, and even some custard pudding packed to the brim with egg for dessert. It was far too lavish a meal to have for breakfast, but it all tasted so good that they wolfed it down without a moment’s pause.

Klaus had gone to the market early that morning to pick out all the freshest ingredients.

“Bro, I’m so glad you’re my boss!” Annette said.

“I’ll follow you for the rest of my life!” Erna agreed.

Monika nodded. “If there’s gotta be someone better at cooking than me, it makes sense it’d be you.”

“This is really quite impressive, Teach. I would go out with you in a heartbeat if it meant getting to enjoy food like this every day,” Thea remarked.

They all cheered.

However, not even their barrage of compliments was enough to shake Klaus’s expression. “It’s a superior’s job to show his subordinates how much he appreciates them,” he said.

“The best part of all was the dressing,” Sara said with a sigh. “It was just perfect.”

“The dressing is fine as it is,” Klaus replied. His eyes narrowed. “But if you add pepper and red wine, then reduce it, it becomes a truly sublime steak sauce.”

All the girls, Sara included, let out expectant gasps.

“And it just so happens, I picked up some fresh beef tenderloin at the market today.”

““““““““WOOOOOOOOOOO!””””””””

A thunderous roar rose up, accompanied by a round of applause.

Not only was Klaus being uncharacteristically nice to them, but now he was preparing them the ultimate feast!

“I’m letting it breathe at the moment, but by tonight, it’ll be in the perfect state for cooking.”

Instead of actually paying attention to Klaus’s explanation, the girls began chanting.

“He’s the perfect boss!” “He’s the self-proclaimed World’s Strongest!” “His descriptions might suck, but he makes up for it with his talents!” they cheered. At first, their compliments were all over the place, but in the end, they all settled on chanting, “Teach! Teach! Teach!”

When it came to raw enthusiasm, the girls were in a league of their own.

“Teach! ♪ Teach! ♪ Teach! ♪” they yelled as they clapped their hands in unison.

“I didn’t realize you would all be so delighted.”

““““““““Teach! ♪ Teach! ♪ Teach! ♪””””””””

“I’m glad, too. I had to get up early, but it was all worth it.”

““““““““Teach! ♪ Teach! ♪ Teach! ♪””””””””

“But I have to ask—”

Klaus gave them an icy look.

“—who said you all were getting any of the steak?”

The chanting stopped right there and then.

““““““““……………Say what?””””””””

The girls’ expressions froze.

They’d been clapping enthusiastically, but that stopped, too, leaving the dining room as quiet as if time itself had ground to a halt. At first, they assumed he was kidding…but one look at his stern expression told them he wasn’t.

“U-um…” Lily was the first to recover. She raised her hand. “What happened to showing us your appreciation?”

“I made you breakfast, didn’t I?”

“But what about the tenderloin you bought?”

“That’s for my dinner.”

“Do you have anything you maybe want to say to us?”

“Get back to your training.”

At his curt reply, the same expression crossed every girl’s face.

Is this guy for real?!

The sound of their raised expectations crashing back down was almost audible. “Boo to wealth inequality!” “Down with the bourgeoisie!” “Long live communism!” At first, their jeers were all over the place, but in the end, they all settled on chanting, “Meat!”

They resumed their clapping as they shouted.

““““““““Meat! Meat! Meat!””””””””

“Oh, be quiet.”

He was mad.

The girls snapped their mouths shut.

“I fail to understand what you find so amusing about these bizarre chants,” Klaus quietly remarked. After a pause, he said, “…If you want the steak that badly, then why don’t we make a contest of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought we might try something different than our usual training routine. If you beat me, the steak is yours. But if you lose, a punishment awaits.”

Now, it was clear what he’d been plotting.

The free breakfast was his way of laying the groundwork for the challenge.

“I—I mean, it is an attractive offer, but…,” Sara said in a mild-mannered voice. She frowned. “…surely there’s no way that luring us in with food is going to—”

“I’m in!” “Me too!” “You’re on, Teach.” “Yeah, let’s do this.”

“—Never mind.”

Sara’s exasperated comments were quickly drowned out by the declarations of assent rising up one after another.

Klaus had them all by the stomachs. Now that they’d tried the sumptuous dressing, it was all too easy to envision what the steak would taste like. It would’ve taken critical thinking skills to turn Klaus’s challenge down, and those were in short supply at the moment.

“Magnificent.” Klaus rose from his seat. Everything was going exactly as he’d foreseen. “And don’t worry, I’m not a monster. Your side will have a substantial advantage.”

In the end, not a single person declined the sudden showdown.

The rules of the contest were as follows.

Klaus and the girls were going to race to see who could fix the doors, clean the large communal bathroom, sweep the halls, mend the windowpanes, and wash the windows the fastest. Each task would be split into its own round, and if the girls triumphed so much as a single time, the delicious steak would be theirs. Interfering with the other side through violence and the like was forbidden.

Looking at the rules, the contest was pretty slanted in the girls’ favor. After all, it was eight against one.

“Remember, this is still a training exercise. Make sure you take it seriously.”

As Klaus put it, the skills they would be honing were essential for setting up traps and casing infiltration sites.

The girls were raring to go, but the reason they were so fired up had nothing to do with any such practical considerations. When victory meant getting to eat top-shelf steak, they would have given it their all regardless of anything Klaus said.

Round one was repairing the broken doors.

Due to the various rampages of Klaus and the girls, several of the manor’s doors had been destroyed. The doorframes needed to be filled in with new wood, and they also needed to have their hinges replaced.

Conveniently for their purposes, there were two such doors right next to each other.

“The trick will be to use our numerical advantage.” Sara frowned. “But efficiently managing this many people at once is next to possible…”

Thea smiled confidently to assuage Sara’s worries. “Worry not. With me at the helm, I’ll have us working as a well-oiled machine.”

“Ooh,” Sara replied, feeling rather reassured. Thea’s voice had a mysterious magnetism to it. No matter how noisy and chaotic her surroundings, her words always seemed to find their way to their target.

“Even with so many people at my disposal, my orders will bring out the best in all of them. Not even Teach will stand a chance against us.”

“I—I should never have doubted you for a moment.”

“Now, as for the particulars of our strategy… Grete, are you ready?”

“Yes, I have our plan right here.”

Upon hearing her name, the redhead handed Thea a document. Barely any time had passed, yet she already had everything all written out. By the look of it, Grete and Thea had already decided to divvy up the work by having the former come up with a plan and having the latter carry it out.

Thea glanced over Grete’s notes, then smiled proudly. “Heh-heh. It’s time we showed him just what we’re made of.”

The girls followed their fearless commander over to the door, and Klaus did some stretches in front of the door beside theirs.

The grandfather clock in the main hall loudly chimed out the time.

That was the signal to begin.

“Sybilla, start off by measuring the sections we need to fix!” Thea’s voice felt like it was resonating right in their hearts. “Monika and Lily, you’re in charge of cutting the wood! It doesn’t need to be precise just yet. And while you’re doing that, Sara can prep the preservative and paint we’re going to use for the—”

“—All done.”

Klaus’s voice echoed out.

It reached the girls’ ears right as they’d just gotten started.

“What…?” Thea said, dumbfounded.

When Sara looked over, she was greeted by the beautifully mended door that had sprung up before Klaus as though by magic. The entire frame had been in pieces mere moments before, but now, all that damage was gone without a trace.

“But how…?” Thea gasped.

“Rather than using a bradawl, it’s faster to just jam a knife in and move it correctly.”

“You’ve already lost me…”

“Then, once you’ve accurately eyeballed your measurements, all that’s left is to move with the speed of a winter wind descending a mountain as you fit the broken frame, install the hinges, and apply your paint from top to bottom.”

“What do you mean, ‘accurately eyeballed your measurements’?!”

He’d buried all the important bits beneath abstract metaphors.

Sara was reminded yet again of what made Klaus unique.

So much of his genius comes from his superhuman intuition.

The majority of Klaus’s abilities didn’t require him to put any conscious thought toward them. Normal people couldn’t really explain the way they put on their shirt or buttoned a button, and Klaus was the same way with his techniques. Not only could he perform miraculous feats far beyond what any of the girls were capable of, but he’d picked them up on instinct alone.

As a result, his teaching abilities were horrifically bad, and the girls had been left with no choice but to participate in his absurd “defeat me” training. Even that was just further proof of how utterly abnormal the man was.

Evaluating Lamplight’s boss Klaus was simple—when it came to anything besides teaching, he was all-powerful.

Sara could do nothing but stare in shock. “He really is like some kind of monster…”

“It’s not fair…,” Thea mumbled pathetically as she slumped to her knees.

It was time for round two—cleaning the bath.

The manor had a large communal bath that the girls generally used, but although whoever’s turn it was to do chores occasionally cleaned it, it was starting to build up noticeable amounts of mold and limescale. For round two, they’d split the bath in half, and whoever finished cleaning their side first was the victor.

“So, about that disaster in round one,” Monika said with an irritated scoff. “The problem was, trying to have eight people all working at once was doomed from the get-go. It’s too many people, no matter how they’re led. All we did was trip over each other. What I want to know is, what the hell did you think was going to happen?”

Monika turned her gaze toward their key player from round one, Thea, who crouched down by the edge of the bath. “Unhhh, why does nothing ever wooooork…,” Thea groaned as she buried her face in her knees.

It didn’t take much to make Thea lose heart.

“Can you please get a damn spine?” Monika said.

“…I’ll be okay once I get four guys to hit on me.”

“That’s one slutty self-care routine you’ve got.”

“…I’d also be fine if a guy bought me a handbag. Or after three bouquets.”

“What is this, some sort of word problem?”

Erna quickly added it up. “So five bouquets and one flirting corresponds to about two handbags.”

“And two bouquets are pretty much the same as three guys hitting on her,” Lily added.

“…And there you have it,” Thea agreed.

“There I have what?!”

Despite Monika’s angry bellow, the point of the matter was, Thea was down for the count.

Sara rubbed Thea’s back and raised a question. “But how are we supposed to compete if we lower our headcount…? Especially now that we’ve got a dropout—”

“If anything, all we just did was shed some dead weight. We’re gonna center our efforts around our most athletic members.”

As Monika scoffed arrogantly, the white-haired girl spoke up. “In other words—you’re sayin’ it’s my time to shine?” Sybilla immediately got to work rotating her shoulders and stretching.

It was a sensible choice. When it came to physical prowess, Monika and Sybilla stood head and shoulders above the rest of Lamplight.

Monika nodded. “Also, we’re going to have one person running interference on Klaus.”

Sara’s eyes went wide. “But isn’t that against the rules?”

“Physical attacks are, sure.” Monika snapped her fingers. “Lily, you know what to do.”

Lily raised her hand. “Aye, aye, Captain! If you need someone to make a nuisance of themselves, then I’m your gal!”

“…You look like you’re enjoying this a bit too much,” Sara remarked.

All she could do was sigh.

Thinking about it logically, though, she knew that Monika was making the correct call. It was practical, and it toed the line without going over.

Soon, the starting bell rang.

Sara picked up a brush, headed into the bath alongside Sybilla, and got to work attacking the limescale buildups. Considering how widespread they were, it was going to take some time to get rid of them all. Meanwhile, Monika and Sybilla practically slid across the floor as they cleaned everything in their wake. It was incredible how much faster they were than the rest of the team.

At this rate, they might actually win.

As Sara’s hopes soared, Lily headed over to Klaus to seal the deal.

“Heya there, Teach. By the way, do you have any friends? You totally don’t, do you. How about I hang out with you, then? All you gotta do is pay! That’s the deal of a lifetime for a loner like you! Gosh, I’m nice. What’s that, cat got your tongue? Are you pretending to be busy cleaning so you can cry on the inside?”

Even Sara, who was just listening from off to the side, was starting to get ticked off. When it came to being a royal pain in the ass, nobody did it better than Lily.

However, Klaus seemed unaffected. The sound of his brush strokes was as steady as could be.

“I have a question for you, Lily.” His voice boomed out, calm and collected. “Have you thought about what’ll happen if you beat me?”

“Huh?”

“You’ll get some steak, yes. But it’ll be split eight ways, and only one of those portions will go to you. Will that really be enough to satisfy you?”

“Hah, nice try. B-but if you think you can demoralize me that easily—”

“Did you ever consider the possibility that if you switched to my side…you could have all that steak to yourself?”

“……………”

Lily’s obnoxious yapping came to an abrupt stop.

Sara didn’t like where this was going.

It was pretty easy to guess what sorts of questions were running through Lily’s head.

Can I keep eight portions for myself? Which side is winning? Actually, is it even possible to beat Klaus? What choice will give me the surest chance of getting that steak?

“I’m sure you’re clever enough to make the right decision.”

It looked like Lily had made up her mind.

She grabbed a nearby showerhead and turned the faucet as far as it would go.

“Monika, Sybilla, look out! The shower turned on all on its ownnnnnnnn!”

And with that cry, she blasted the two of them with cold water.

That made two losses in a row.

Back in the main hall, Lily was bound head to toe in wire. Monika—who was still soaking wet—threw a jab right into her gut.

“You little shit! You little SHIT! How many times! Must you sabotage me! Before you’re satisfied? How many?!” Monika launched another punch between each interjection, and each time, Lily let out a pained groan.

Sara went over to try to stop Monika’s angry beatdown, but after Lily herself confidently shouted, “I’ll never give in to your torture!” Sara decided to leave the two of them to their devices.

Eventually, Klaus came over and told her, “By the way, Lily, I was lying earlier,” to which Lily let out a scream that sounded like she was dying.

“YOU TRAITOOOOOOOOR!”

Monika sank another punch into Lily’s stomach. “YOU DON’T GET TO USE THAT WORD!”

After that, the girls continued racking up losses.

First came round three—sweeping the halls.

Between Thea, who was still disheartened from her earlier defeat, Sybilla and Monika, who were changing out of their soaked clothes, and Lily, who was cowering over to the side and clutching her abdomen, their team had suffered an unusually large number of temporary dropouts. That meant it was time for the team’s smaller members to shine.

“We can’t leave everything up to the others anymore.”

“Yo, I’m kind of shocked at how useless they ended up being.”

Namely, Erna and Annette.

The two of them teamed up and got to work sweeping the hall. Not only did Erna nimbly manipulate her broom, but she also foresaw a sharp gust of wind right before it burst through the window and was able to use it to dump a huge pile of dust on Klaus’s side. However, when Annette shouted, “I’m coming to help, yo!” and unleased the deluxe vacuum cleaner she’d built, the sheer volume of dust Erna had displaced caused it to fly out of control.

Somehow or other, the vacuum cleaner ended up sucking in Erna and sealing their team’s defeat.

“If you hadn’t gotten in my way, we’d have won for sure,” Annette declared.

“That was clearly your fault!!” Erna yelped back.

Once the dust settled, the two of them both ended up blaming each other for the loss.

Then came round four—mending the windowpanes.

Monika was all finished changing now, and she carried out the task with outstanding speed and technique. However, she was so pissed off that she refused to accept any assistance from her teammates, and because she was obviously no match for Klaus one-on-one, they lost yet again.

In what seemed like no time at all, the girls found themselves up against the ropes.

The fifth and final round was upon them—washing the windows.

The smokescreen they used in one of their attacks had left all the manor’s windows blackened and filthy, and although they’d already wiped down the glass from the inside, the second-floor exteriors were still filthy. Back when the smokescreen got blown outside, it had left behind a fair amount of soot.

As such, the contest was to see who could clean more of the manor’s forty windows the fastest.

However, the girls didn’t exactly have an excess of morale.

They couldn’t see themselves winning. Klaus was just too strong, and they could already picture him crushing them at window-washing with his honed, superhuman skills just like he had in all the other rounds. The windows were up on the second floor, but they doubted that fact would so much as slow him down.

The girls’ expressions were the portraits of gloom as they looked up at the windows from the manor’s courtyard.

Among them stood Sara, who was feeling just as defeated as the rest of the team.

I can’t believe it. Even the others didn’t stand a chance…

She slumped her shoulders. Brains, brawn, unique special abilities…the girls were so much more skilled than she was, and not even they had prevailed.

I guess we’re doomed after all…

The only person whose spirits didn’t seem crushed was Lily.

She began chanting, “Meat! ♪ Meat! ♪ Meat! ♪” in an attempt to renew her teammates’ motivation. Nobody else joined in, but even so, she wrapped things up with a single extra-confident, “Meat!”

“Now, how do we wanna divvy up the labor?” she asked.

She hmmed contemplatively as she looked up at the windows to try to find a way to turn the situation around.

Her expression was as serious as could be, but at the same time…

“…That sounds kind of funny, coming from someone who just betrayed us,” Sara said.

“Th-that was one thing, this is another!” Lily replied, flapping her hands about as she tried to change the subject. “Bottom line is, I’m not giving up. Not until I get what I came for.”

For better or for worse, Lily’s mental fortitude was unshakable. Her sole motivation was steak, but still.

“Our bottleneck’s gonna be water,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?” Sara asked.

“Well, if you want to clean windows quickly, you need a bunch of water, either with or without soap. Once you drench the window to unstick the dirt, all you need to do then is run a wiper over it and you’re done.”

She was referring to a T-shaped tool designed for cleaning. They’d been invented a few years back, and their rubber blades were fantastic at removing huge amounts of grime in one fell swoop. The technical term for them was squeegees.

“The problem is, getting water up to the second floor is gonna be a hassle. We’ll have to use spray bottles and go a little bit at a time.”

Sara glanced over at Klaus, who had already finished his prep work.

There was a large spray bottle hanging from his waist. Apparently, he too had decided to base his tactics around using a spritzer for his water.

If only there was a way to drench a whole window at once.

Sara couldn’t get the thought out of her head.

The easiest way to do it would be to fill up a bucket and simply dump it all out on the window. Just as Lily pointed out, though, getting water up to the second-story windows that way would require a huge amount of work moving buckets back and forth. Transporting that much water would take so many people that they wouldn’t have enough personnel left washing the windows to beat Klaus.

But wait…

She had an idea.

There was a way she could get water to her teammates, even when they were up in the air. And it was a method only available to her.

As Sara was just about to finish collecting her thoughts, the starting bell rang.

Her teammates were still pessimistic about their odds, but they got ready to start cleaning.

“Everyone!” Sara yelled. “I need you to each head to a different window on the second floor!”

The others were perplexed for a moment, but they eventually started following Sara’s instructions. They hooked their fingers into the recesses in the wall and began swiftly climbing their way up to the second story.

Meanwhile, Sara dashed to the kitchen on the first floor and grabbed the item she was looking for.

A moment later, and her preparations were done.

“I’m code name Meadow—and it’s time to run circles around them.”

After amping herself up, she raised her hand high.

“Mr. Bernard! Mr. Aiden!”

As she shouted out the order, she released an intense-eyed hawk and a chubby pigeon. The two of them soared vigorously through the air with cans full of water clutched in their talons.

Fortunately, Thea picked up on what Sara was thinking. She shouted as concisely as possible. “Look alive!”

That was enough to get the rest of the girls on the same page. When the birds delivered their payloads to the girls, they dashed the cans’ contents against their windows with all their might. Once they had the windows thoroughly soaked, they took their water wipers and wiped them clean.

That let the girls finish far faster than ever would have been possible with a spritzer.

They tossed their empty cans to the ground and each moved to the next window.

“Mr. Johnny!”

As soon as Sara shouted, her puppy started dashing around and using the basket she’d plopped on his head to swiftly scoop up the discarded cans before bringing them back to Sara.

Her animals were moving like they were extensions of her own limbs. That was the power of Sara’s rearing skill—missions that would have been impossible for a human to complete suddenly became possible.

After refilling the empty cans with water, Sara handed them back to her birds and had them deliver them to her teammates. Then, she stepped out of the kitchen for a bit to take stock of the situation out in the courtyard.

From the look of it, the girls had a slight lead. Thanks to Monika and Sybilla taking full advantage of their explosive athletic abilities, the windows were getting done like nobody’s business.

Then, Sara looked over to see how their opponent was faring. Her eyes met Klaus’s as he hopped from one window to the next.

She felt like he was telling her something with his gaze.

“Not bad.”

She had seen through his plot, of course. Klaus had set this whole thing up so that she would get a chance to shine. She didn’t have flawless leadership abilities, unrivaled strength, or even an unbreakable will, but even so, there were things that only she could do.

By way of a reply, she put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. “I’m just getting started.”

In the end, the girls lost.

“My meeeeeat,” Lily sobbed in the dining room.

“Hey, it could’ve been worse. At least you got that sliver as a consolation prize,” Monika said consolingly.

The final round came right down to the wire, but once all was said and done, Klaus emerged the victor. Thanks to his superhuman athleticism, he was able to wipe down his last window just a second before the girls did.

As recognition for that photo finish at the end of the five rounds, Klaus awarded them a single steak. At twelve ounces, it made for a sizable act of benevolence, but after being split eight ways, even a steak that big didn’t go very far. Lily was glum at first, but as soon as she put her slice in her mouth, she cried, “Mmm, meat! ♪” and immediately cheered back up.

Incidentally, the punishment he gave them for losing was the task of repairing the rest of the manor’s damage. They were enjoying their dinner now, but it had taken a lot of hard work to get there.

Monika yawned. “All right, I think I’m going to turn in. I’m kinda wiped.”

She left the dishes for the others to deal with and headed for the door.

When she did, Sara stood up and called out to her. “Would it, um, be all right if I made a suggestion?” It was taking all her courage to be so loud. She could feel her face getting hot. “Are you sure we don’t need to start taking shifts repairing the building? I really think it would be a good idea.”

She glanced nervously around at the rest of her teammates. She normally wasn’t nearly so vocal, so her proposal had come as quite a surprise to the others. Their expressions were tinged with bewilderment.

Monika stopped and gave an uninterested shrug. “Like I said yesterday, I think it’s a bad call.” Her tone was downright derisive. “Do you seriously think we have time for that? With a life-or-death mission just two weeks away?”

“But doing repairs is training, too. Spies do other things besides just taking down targets.”

“…C’mon, we’ve already got our hands full with just the cooking and cleaning rotations.”

“But Miss Monika, that’s because you keep skipping out on them.”

Monika went silent. “……………”

Thea and Lily simultaneously burst into laughter.

“Oh dear, that has to be embarrassing.”

“She totally called you out.”

Monika grabbed the two of them by the collars. “You should just remember that if it weren’t for you two weighing me down, I would’ve won that contest,” she said, even though the day’s results were well past litigation. The three of them ended up squabbling and shouting at one another for a while, but once they’d had it out, Sara brought the matter to rest.

“Miss Monika, I have nothing but respect for your skills.” Her voice rang confident and proud. “But chores are chores, and we all need to split them up fairly.”

All the other girls stared straight at her.

Sara was actually being assertive.

The surprise in their eyes was plain.

Sara squeezed her hat tight and hung her head.

“…Or at least, that’s kind of what I think, b-but I know I might be stepping over the line here…”

“I agree with everything you said.”

The first person to back her up was Erna.

After that, the rest of the team gave Sara a round of applause. Now that the manor was all fixed up, they all felt so much more at home. All of them were picking up what Sara was putting down.

Monika frowned awkwardly, but eventually she too agreed with her usual airy nonchalance. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

That night, Sara ran into an unexpected visitor when she headed to the animal shed.

“Teach?”

It was Klaus. He was holding a gas-powered lantern and gently rubbing the hawk’s belly. A bucket full of raw meat sat at his feet. “I had some meat left over. Is it safe for them to eat?”

Apparently, he had brought over the steaks he ended up not making for the girls.

“Are you sure? I would love that for them, but from your perspective, they’re just animals…”

“You and your critters were today’s MVPs.”

Sara gladly accepted Klaus’s kind offer and doled out the meat to her pets. Her hawk only ever ate the special feed she made for him, but all the other animals were overjoyed at the rare treat they were receiving.

Now that Sara thought about it, perhaps Klaus had been planning on treating her pets all along. The fat content in tenderloin was low, making it a perfect cut to feed to animals.

Klaus watched peacefully as the animals nibbled away at the steak.

“Say, Teach—”

Upon seeing his expression in profile, a question crossed Sara’s mind.

“—do you come here a lot?”

“…What makes you think that?”

“They seem used to you, and there’s also what Miss Erna told me. She said she saw a ghost.”

Sara had initially assumed that it was her, but the part about the “long shadow” had been nagging at her. Obviously, even someone of Sara’s stature could still make a long shadow if the light hit her at just the right angle, but alternatively…

“What can I say? I like animals,” Klaus readily confessed.

“I’m kind of surprised.” Sara smiled. “When we first met, I expected you to be a much colder person.”

“It’s like I said yesterday—people are multifaceted.”

“I guess they really are…”

“Becoming more assertive will serve you well, Sara. I’m sure there are plenty of times when you feel like you’re one step behind the others, but just like today, there will be plenty more opportunities for your abilities and mindset to shine.”

That was what Klaus had been trying to tell her.

He had dressed it up as a training exercise, but in truth, he’d wanted to provide her with an opportunity for her to show off what she could do. He could have tried encouraging her with words, but the way he’d chosen would leave far more of an impression.

That was what had let her express herself so confidently back there.

Sara felt her heart thump in her chest. “Understood, sir.”

Klaus nodded. “Magnificent.”

Having completed his main objective for the visit, Klaus picked up a new piece of tenderloin. When he placed it in front of the puppy, the puppy began gleefully chewing on it.

“This little guy is particularly adorable,” Klaus murmured quietly.

He seemed to be quite taken with the dog.

“His name is Mr. Johnny. He used to be a big biter when he was a baby, but he’s gotten a lot more obedient lately, and he hasn’t bitten anyone since… Except for that one time.”

“‘Except for that one time’?”

“He may have nibbled Miss Erna’s hand a little.”

“That sounds like Erna, all right.” Klaus smiled and scritched the puppy’s chin. “In that case, I imagine I’ll be fine. When it comes to dealing with animals, I happen to be an expert at—”

Chomp.

The puppy took Klaus’s hand—and bit down with gusto.

““………””

Klaus and Sara went silent.

For a moment, Sara felt as though the entire world had just ground to a halt—but when she finally parsed what she’d witnessed, the blood drained from her face.

“O-oh gosh, I’m so sor—”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s just being friendly.”

She’d been expecting him to rebuke her, but Klaus was calm and composed. His face didn’t so much as twitch.

“B-but…even so, he’s not supposed to…”

All the while, the puppy continued gnawing on Klaus’s hand. Play bites or not, his teeth were sharp enough that he had to have broken the skin by now.

Klaus gave his reply as matter-of-factly as could be. “Do you really think I would get into a situation like this by mistake? We’re playing, that’s all.”

“I’m sure you’d never make a mistake like that, but…”

At the same time, the fact remained that he was getting bitten.

“Are you, um…putting on a brave face right now?” Sara asked nervously.

“Of course…not.”

“And you’re not fighting through the pain?”

“No, no. It doesn’t hurt…one bit.”

“Those were some really unnatural pauses, Teach!”

Sara knew how inappropriate it was, but she could feel laughter bubbling up from her chest all the same.

Once again, she’d gotten to see a whole new side of Klaus.

He was right. You couldn’t judge someone based on just a small part of who they were. Depending on the situation and the circumstances, they might well show you something completely different. Sometimes, even the Greatest Spy in the World got bit by a dog and tried desperately to play it cool.

And if that was the case, then surely someday, the moment would come when even an inexperienced spy like her who couldn’t rear a single dog properly would get to do great things.

As that tiny hope flickered in her heart, Sara rushed over to pull the puppy off her teacher.