Spy Classroom - Volume SS1 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4

Grete’s Case

“Ah, there’s a thought,” Klaus said.

Grete looked up at him as she walked by his side. She was tall for a girl, but Klaus was taller still, and she always ended up tilting her gaze upward whenever they talked.

As she gazed at him, she could feel her face growing hot.

The only time his handsome eyes looked that relaxed were when he felt well and truly at ease.

“You should stop by that meat pie shop next time you get a chance.”

Klaus was pointing at a small store tucked away in a little corner of their port city. Its hours of operations were over at the moment, and there was a CLOSED sign hanging in the door.

“…If it’s earned your endorsement, Boss, then I think I will.” Grete smiled. “Their pies must be really special.”

“That they are. I don’t know anyone who makes a better meat pie than them. They were so tasty I actually tried to replicate them once, but I couldn’t get it just so.”

“Oh my! I hardly believe it. To think that there’s a dish that not even you can re-create…”

“The version I made was exceedingly close to the real deal, but it still wasn’t quite the same,” Klaus replied. “The generations of love they’ve passed along and poured into their pies simply can’t be replicated in a day.”

The shop’s sign listed the year it was founded, and the date was over a century prior. It clearly had quite a history. They must have been passing down their recipe and improving on it for ages. Even just the look of the wood the shop was constructed from was enough to get a feel for how long its history was.

“Love passed along…,” Grete murmured quietly, then looked back at Klaus. “In other words, you’re saying that you want me to accept the love you’re passing along to me, Boss…?”

“I am not.”

“That certainly sounded like a proposal to me…”

“See, now you’re just ignoring what I said altogether. And don’t call me ‘Boss.’” Klaus shook his head and resumed walking. “It’s a recommendation, nothing more. I have a lot of memories of eating there with Inferno.”

“Inferno…”

“It was a reward for a mission well done. Lukas loved the place. He and I would always end up fighting over the last slice, and my mentor would get mad at us.”

Inferno was the spy team Klaus used to belong to. He had loved them like a family, but now, they were gone. The “Lukas” he mentioned must have been one of the other members.

“I guess I’ll never be able to enjoy their pies like that again.”

Grete stared blankly at Klaus’s back. There was a loneliness to his gait as he walked on.

In the end, it was nothing more than a trifling conversation they shared while walking back from the grocery store.

However, Grete remembered each and every word they exchanged that day.

Lamplight had completed their Impossible Mission.

Thanks to the girls’ efforts and Klaus’s scheme, they successfully retrieved the Abyss Doll bioweapon. Partway through, they found their path blocked by “Torchlight” Guido—Klaus’s mentor and a traitor to the Din Republic—but thanks to how much the girls had grown, they were able to defeat him.

Although Lamplight disbanded after their mission, the girls soon fought to reassemble the team. They decided that instead of returning to their academies, they would instead help investigate Serpent, the masterminds behind Guido’s betrayal, and thereby take their next steps into the world of espionage.

Before they headed out on their next mission, though, Klaus gave them a ten-day vacation to congratulate them for completing the Impossible Mission.

It was during that vacation that the meat pie shop incident took place.

“All right, I’m heading out. Make sure you spend these ten days resting up. And while I hope I don’t need to tell you this, do at least try to exercise some restraint.”

With that, Klaus picked up his suitcase and opened the front door.

The eight girls saw him off from the foyer.

Based on the size of his suitcase, he wasn’t planning on coming back for a while. According to the itinerary he’d shared with them, his destination was the neighboring Lylat Kingdom. He looked pretty overpacked for a one-man sightseeing trip—almost as though he intended to spend his entire ten-day vacation completing espionage missions—but the girls assumed that surely, not even someone as free-spirited as Klaus would head off on a bunch of missions without bringing them along.

“He’s really gone, huh?”

After Klaus disappeared from view, Lily was the first one to comment.

“Looked like he was in a hurry, too. Bet he’s got a packed schedule.”

The follow-up comment came from her partner in crime, Sybilla.

The two of them closed the front door and sighed.

Lily let out an embarrassed laugh. “Feels kind of weird, doesn’t it? We’ve been together with Teach for basically the last two months straight.”

“Yeah, we’ve been through a lot together.” Sybilla nodded. “I thought he was just a weirdo at first, but now, I actually respect the guy.”

“Ten days without him, huh… Makes me feel kinda lonely.”

“For sure. I almost can’t wait for him to get back.”

“But all that aside—”

“Yeah, that aside—”

Lily and Sybilla locked the door, then turned to their other six teammates.

““IT’S VACATION TIIIIIIIME!””

““““““Woo-hoooooooo!””””””

A huge chorus of cheers and applause rose up.

Sara clapped, and Annette set off party poppers. The girls all threw up their hands, leaped up and down, and, in the end—for reasons unknown—starting tossing Erna into the air in celebration as they shared in their joy.

Sybilla held her fist up high. “Hell yeah, finally! This is what I’ve been waiting for!”

The fact of the matter was the girls hadn’t had a single proper day off during their entire tenure there. They had spent their first month training ceaselessly, and from there, they’d headed straight into a deadly two-week-long infiltration mission.

One could hardly blame them for being excited.

“Starting tomorrow, I intend to travel my heart out!” “Yeah, I might try to get some light shopping done.” “I’m gonna go on an adventure with Erna and Sara, yo!” “Wait, Sara, you never told me Annette was coming, too!” “Come on, it’ll be more fun with all three of us.”

All of them began announcing their plans for the break, and there were few things in life louder than eight teenage girls all talking at once.

Lily charged up the stairs, then shouted when she got to the top, “All right, everyone, listen up!”

The others went quiet and looked at her.

“Each of us can spend these ten days however we want, but tonight, we should all have a party together. With no Teach and no training to do, the night is ours!”

“Woo!” the others all cheered.

“I can’t hear you! Is that really all the excitement you’ve got?!”

“Wooooo!” the others shouted.

“You can do better than that!”

“WOOOOOOOOO!” the others screamed.

“C’mon, I said LOUDER—”

“Oh, just get on with it,” Sybilla shot back.

Lily cleared her throat. “First things first, we need to get us some grub. I say we head to the meat pie shop. You know, the one Grete told us about. Remember how good they were last time?”

Grete nodded. “…It did come with the boss’s recommendation, after all. I think that would be the perfect place for a feast.” There was a hint of sadness in her expression at Klaus’s absence, but other than that, she too was glad to be getting some time off.

When Lily brought up the subject of meat pies, the response from the others was a resounding, “No objections here!”

With the matter settled, the team wasted no time in heading out.

Eight excited smiles decorated their faces.

This was their first vacation since having completed their mission, and Klaus’s absence only served to make it feel even more special. They’d gotten a lot closer with him over the course of the mission, but there was still something thrilling about their boss being gone. Like any group of young women their age, the idea of a girls’ night out with no adult supervision was too good to say no to.

“…Should we get anything aside from the meat pies?” Grete asked.

“I want to get a cake, too!” Erna said excitedly.

“What about some you-know-what?” Lily suggested.

“Ah yes,” Thea said. “The special grape juice.”

“I’ll grab some out of the cellar,” Monika said.

“Ooh, I’m curious. What’re you all talking about, yo?” Annette asked.

“Nothin’ you need to worry about,” Sybilla replied. “You’re a little young still.”

“But aren’t you all underage, too?” Sara pointed out.

It was hard to blame them for being in high spirits.

Klaus’s order—to exercise some restraint—was long since forgotten.

When the meat pie shop came into view, Lily couldn’t contain herself any longer. She took off at a run.

The others laughed in bemusement and followed along after her.

It made for a beautiful scene.

The spy girls had deepened their bonds and survived a deadly mission together, and now they were hitting the town like a band of happy, innocent kids. They’d worked hard to earn that breather, and they were making sure to enjoy it to its fullest.

They jockeyed for the lead as they charged toward the meat pie shop—

TEMPORARILY CLOSED

—and, without sparing so much as a glance at the sign, crashed headlong into the door.

Having a procession of girls slam into his door one after another was no ordinary event, and the shopkeeper rushed out in a hurry. He was a friendly-looking old man, and though at first he regarded the girls with confusion as they cowered on the ground and clutched their noses, he soon realized that the TEMPORARILY CLOSED sign was to blame and began profusely apologizing.

“Nah, it’s totally our own fault…,” Lily said, massaging her reddened nose. “But I gotta ask, why the closure?”

“I’ve been running into some trouble lately.” The shopkeeper bowed apologetically. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking about closing up shop for good.”

““““What?””””

Lily’s eyes went wide, and she wasn’t the only one. Why would the store have to close when the business was thriving? However, the shopkeeper didn’t seem to want to talk about it. He merely gave them an evasive smile.

“Hm, smells like garbage.” In the end, it was Monika who picked up the scent. She shot a pointed look at the portulaca planters out in front of the shop. “Someone must have dumped a bunch of it all over the place this morning. So you’re getting harassed?”

The shopkeeper flinched. “I-it’s that obvious?”

Monika raised an eyebrow arrogantly. “To me, yeah. Y’know, maybe we ran into you like this for a reason. Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

The man sighed. “Telling you won’t change a thing,” he muttered. “But I suppose it might help you understand why I don’t have a choice. It’s Mannheim Inc. that’s behind it.”

“Mannheim? The food company?”

The shopkeeper nodded solemnly.

The girls all recognized the name. Mannheim Inc. was a major corporation that owned a series of restaurants and retail stores scattered around the nation’s capital that sold meat-based home-style cooking. They were particularly famous for their fried chicken takeout and their restaurants’ stew.

Lily began singing the jingle from their radio commercial. “Ma-Ma-Mannheim’s, Fried-Fried Chicken! ♪” It was obnoxious, so everyone chose to ignore her.

The shopkeeper slumped his shoulders. “The other day, the company president came to me in person and asked me to sell him my meat pie recipe.”

“Oh yeah? Well hey, lucky you,” Monika replied.

“I assure you, it was anything but. He offered me next to nothing, and what’s more, he even demanded that I never sell meat pies out of my shop again. Naturally, I turned him down, but then—”

“That’s when the harassment started,” Monika said, finishing the shopkeeper’s sentence for him.

According to the shopkeeper, they weren’t just dumping garbage in front of the store. His main supplier stopped selling him flour and the local electronics shop started refusing to service his oven. He had to imagine that Mannheim was putting the squeeze on them somehow.

“And besides, I’m getting too old for this. Especially with how my back has been lately…” He gave his head a feeble shake. “I don’t have anyone to hand down the store to, so maybe it’d be better if I just sold the recipe and put the old girl out to pasture for—”

“But, sir…”

This time, it was Grete who cut him off.

“…This shop is a long-standing local institution. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who find joy in the pies you make. And we all count ourselves among them.”

“It’s been passed down for generations, that it has.” The shopkeeper let out a deep sigh. “But there’s some things you just can’t fight. The sentiment alone is enough, miss, it really is.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that as much as anything. With a sad look on his face, he turned and went back inside.

All the girls could do was watch him go.

The girls made their trek back with heavy feet.

The smiles from earlier had been replaced with dismal, glum expressions. All their merriment had vanished without a trace. The meat pies they’d been so looking forward to were unavailable for purchase, and at that point, they couldn’t bring themselves to settle for anything else.

“The fun party mood got spoiled, yo,” Annette muttered bluntly, and Erna agreed.

“Yeah.”

Sara gave them a pair of consoling pats on the head.

“………All.” Up at the front of the group, Lily began stretching, her expression still grim. She took deep breaths and pulled each of her arms as far as it would go.

Beside her, Sybilla was doing the same. “Righty,” she said as she stretched her fingers one by one and popped her joints.

“All righty,” Lily repeated, to which Sybilla murmured, “Ayup.”

Then, they gave their answers in almost-perfect unison.

“Time to crush Mannheim Inc.”

“Mannheim’s gotta go.”

They grinned fearlessly and exchanged a fist bump—

“Noooo no no no! Hold on there, now, hold on.”

—but one of the other girls hurried up and grabbed them by the shoulders.

Namely, Thea. She tried her utmost to rein in Lily and Sybilla’s enthusiasm. “I certainly understand how you feel, but what specifically do you intend on doing?”

“Poison their president.” “Beat their president black ’n’ blue.”

“That’s so crude!” Thea shrieked. She squeezed her temples and let out a sigh heavy with exasperation. “In case you’ve forgotten…these are civilians we’re talking about. What are you going to do if the police come after you?”

“Hey, they’re the ones doin’ all the criminal shit…,” Sybilla grumbled.

“You don’t have any proof of that. This is a major corporation we’re talking about. Its president will have wealth and power in spades, and I find it hard to imagine that someone like that would do their own dirty work in a simple shakedown.” Thea bristled. “Look, I’m plenty mad as well. But punishing the president won’t make up for all the damage he’s caused. Even if we solve the immediate problem, there’s no guarantee that the owner will even have the motivation left to keep running the shop…”

““Rgh…””

Lily and Sybilla bit their lips and clenched their fists. They could remember just how pained the shopkeeper’s expression had been.

The other girls hung their heads as well.

They’d only eaten the shop’s meat pies once, but the mouth-watering flavor had left a deep impression on them. Their chests tightened in pain at the thought of having someone swoop in and steal that away. And there were probably tons of other people in the city who were experiencing that exact same feeling of loss.

“…I disagree,” Grete declared. “I believe this is a problem we have the power to solve.”

The others all turned and looked at her.

“You have a plan, Grete?” Lily asked, sounding a little surprised.

“I do. But for it to work,” she said with a smile, “I’m going to need everybody’s help.”

The girls exchanged a series of glances, then nodded.

Not a single one of them was opposed.

Technically, Monika let out a sarcastic, “Klaus did tell us to exercise some restraint,” but nobody paid her comment a second thought.

“Then it’s decided.” Lily clapped her hands together. “Let’s do this thing! Down with Mannheim!”

“““““““Yeah!”””””””

The team exchanged a round of fist bumps.

Their time off without Klaus was just beginning—and now, so too was their grand operation.

Before the next day even rolled around, the girls began digging up every scrap of information they could on Mannheim Inc.

Reports began pouring into Heat Haze Palace’s main hall one after another. Gathering intel was what spies did best, and compared to stealing information about a foreign research laboratory, getting a glimpse inside a mere food company was child’s play.

Grete stood on alert in the main hall and wove her plan together.

I can’t let a shop so full of the boss’s memories get crushed like that…

Her heart was brimming with her earnest-to-a-fault infatuation.

She refused to let Klaus lose something he loved while he was off on vacation.

The first one to gather her intel was Thea.

She returned to the manor wearing a flashy dress. She looked like a high-end cabaret hostess, and her outfit left quite a bit of her chest exposed. Thea was the only member of the team who would’ve ever dared wear something so alluring.

“From what I hear, Mannheim Inc. recently had a new president take over, and the new guy is an idiot. He ruined their earnings in no time at all, and everyone in the company hates him.”

Grete nodded. “…And because nobody in the company will give him the time of day, he’s looking for something that can turn his situation around all at once. That explains why he wants to get his hands on the recipe from a popular local eatery.”

“Exactly. His rash behavior was what started this whole mess. I’ll be sure to ask for more specifics tonight.”

“What happens tonight?”

“Tonight, I have a date with their director of general affairs. He intends to show me a ravishing good time—in more ways than one.”

Thea winked and smiled charmingly as she left the main hall.

The next person to return was Sybilla.

In contrast to Thea, she was dressed in a formal suit. She returned to the main hall in her stockings, with her out-of-character high heels slung over her shoulder.

“I nicked an employee ID card.” She triumphantly tossed a female employee’s card onto the table. “Then, I posed as her and chatted up their clients. Apparently, this new dumbass president made some seedy friends as a kid. They’re probably the ones doin’ the actual harassment.”

“Do these friends have connections to organized crime…?”

“Looks like it, yeah. Someone even said they were carryin’ guns around. That’s why no one can stand up to ’em.”

“…We’ll have to avoid letting the situation get out of hand, then.”

No matter how they chose to handle things, they needed to make sure the shopkeeper didn’t suffer any more on their account.

Grete quietly nodded as she made her decision.

The intel kept on coming in, and before long, the plan was complete.

Grete gathered her teammates in the main hall and posed a question to them. “…Out of all of us, who would you say comes across as the most gullible?”

““““““Lily.””””””

“Excuse me?!”

Thus, Lily was chosen as the key player in their operation.

Two days later, the Mannheim Inc. president fell for Grete’s bait.

Lily casually sipped her tea in an apartment on the capital’s outskirts.

The room was run-down and barely furnished, with the only furniture to speak of being the bed and the table. There was a carpet on the floor, but it was practically in tatters from all its worm-eaten holes. Everything about the environment was dismal, and the air throughout the room was musty and dank.

Lily’s thoroughly pilled sweater served to complete the look.

“Oh, poor Lillian…,” she said as she gazed out the window. “You loved your grandfather’s meat pies ever so much, and you learned the recipe so you could take over the shop someday. But alas, you could never give up on your dream of becoming an actress. To pie, or to act? The debate raged within you, but eventually, you left home and worked hard to try to make a name for yourself. But your acting career never took off, and now, you find yourself living in poverty. Oh-oh-oh, Lillian, your tale brings me to tears.”

She was really chewing the scenery, but she was also the only person in the room, so there was no one to make fun of her.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

“If you’re here for the rent, I don’t have it,” she replied as she headed over and opened it.

A friendly-looking and well-dressed man stood outside it. In addition to his fancy suit, he was adorned in all manners of necklaces and rings. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he was nouveau riche.

The man was none other than Mannheim Inc.’s new president, David.

“You must be Lillian,” he said, removing his expensive-looking hat.

“That’s, um…that’s me, yeah.”

“Please, there’s no need to be so nervous. Here’s my card.” He smiled gently and handed her his business card.

Lily’s eyes went wide. “Y-you’re the president of Mannheim Inc.? But…I don’t understand!”

“May I come in?”

“O-of course. Though I’m afraid there isn’t much to come in to…”

David strode right on in, then gave the room a quick once-over and chuckled. “You weren’t kidding. What a dump.”

“I know… I’m sorry.”

“I looked into you, you know. I hear you want to become an actress. It must be hard, getting turned down by every theatrical company you apply to.”

“Huh…? Who told you that?”

“Your little blond friend. She sounded so worried about you. Said you’d been having a rough go of it. Now, what you don’t seem to realize is that show business is all about who you know,” David warned her condescendingly.

He ran his gaze hungrily up and down her body.

“Your looks aren’t bad.” He smiled in satisfaction. “In fact, they’re pretty decent.”

“Th-thanks?”

“How about this: If you want, I can set you up with a troupe I know. I’ve got some pull with them.”

“Y-you’d really do that?”

“But in exchange—”

David’s voice went serious.

“—you have to teach me your grandfather’s meat pie recipe.”

“How do you—”

“This photo happened to find its way to me.”

David placed a photograph atop the table. It depicted Lily and the meat pie shop owner standing happily side by side.

“Th-that’s me and Gramps… Wh-where’d you get that?”

“My director of general affairs got it from one of his sources. I must say, you two look like quite the happy family.”

“………”

“He taught you the recipe, didn’t he? All you have to do is give it to me.”

“B-but Gramps told me never to tell it to anyone…”

Lily looked down anxiously and slumped into a chair. She rubbed her fingers together, as if she was thinking it over.

David’s voice went softer. “I know. I tried to get him to give me the recipe, but he wouldn’t budge. But that’s not important. You already cut ties with him, didn’t you?” He sounded almost like a father admonishing an ill-behaved daughter. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret. All you have to do is tell me the recipe.”

“…R-really?”

“I’ll pay you for your troubles, of course. How does a thousand dents sound? That should cover your rent for the next three months.”

“Y-you’d really give me all that money?”

David nodded and pulled out his wallet. “In fact, I’d be willing to pay you right here and now.”

“……” Lily’s face lit up for a moment. However, she quickly looked down again. “But…”

“Why even hesitate? Your dream will come true, and what’s more, you’ll even get paid. There’s no downside for you.”

David took another look at Lily’s body. A lewd grin spread across his face, and he lightly patted her bed. “On top of that, if you’re willing to become my lover as well, I’m prepared to offer another two hundred dents a month—”

“I’ll sock you, y’know.”

“What?”

Lily awkwardly cleared her throat. “…Cough, cough. S-sorry, I’ve been coming down with a bit of a cold.”

She covered her mouth with her hand to hide her face until she could get it under control. “I can’t keep this act up much longer,” she whispered, but it didn’t look like David heard her. There was something resembling a walkie-talkie inside her sleeve, but he didn’t seem to have noticed that, either.

Lily sipped her black tea and let out a light sigh. “To tell you the truth, it’s actually something else entirely that’s giving me second thoughts.”

“Oh?”

“Before you came over, there was someone else who wanted to buy the recipe first.”

“…Ah. So someone beat me to the punch, did they?” David licked his lips. “Would you mind telling me who?”

His brow furrowed. There was violence burning in his eyes—violence that said that depending on who it was, he might end up deciding to take them out of the picture.

Lily picked up the magazine lying on the table and opened it to the marked page. It was an article about a famous chef from the next country over. “This guy—John Dumont.”

“Wh—” David’s words got caught in his throat. “John Dumont?!”

There wasn’t a person in the culinary world who hadn’t heard of the chef John Dumont. He was the single most influential chef in the neighboring Lylat Kingdom. He was said to be one of the five best chefs in the world, and his innovative cooking had earned him fans the globe over.

“I-if you’re going to lie, at least make it believable.” It was obvious how flustered David was. “That’s one of best chefs in the world you’re talking about. His restaurant is booked up years in advance, and the man himself is a legend. Why would he so much as glance at a tiny little nation like—”

“He also said he would be stopping by soon.”

The doorbell rang.

Lily smiled. “Coming!” she said as she went to open the door.

An imposing-looking older gentleman was standing outside.

David went pale and snatched up the magazine. Upon comparing the picture in the article to the man outside the room, a look of pure shock crossed his face. All of his bravado from before was gone. “Y-you’re him. You’re…really John Dumont,” he said in a pathetic stammer.

The older gentleman calmly smiled.

And now, for a peek behind the curtain.

Obviously, the girls didn’t have enough pull to rope the real John Dumont into their scheme. In truth, it was actually their master of disguise—Grete. She’d used the photo in the magazine to perfectly impersonate the world-famous chef.

Plus, the girls had laid three other traps as well.

The first was information. Thea had masterfully manipulated the director of general affairs into getting some information to the president—the information that the meat pie shop’s owner had a granddaughter who’d inherited the recipe.

The second was the forged photo Monika put together. After taking a creepshot of the shopkeeper, she’d carefully stitched it together with a photo of Lily. At a glance, they look like a loving grandfather and granddaughter.

The third was Erna. Erna had a knack for attracting trouble and scoundrels. All she had to do was hang out around the meat pie shop a little, and it didn’t take long before a group of thugs surrounded her. She assumed they were David’s lackeys, so she showed them the photo and told them where the fake apartment was.

With the three traps combined, they had reeled David in hook, line, and sinker to meeting a John Dumont that couldn’t possibly have been there.

Grete smiled from within her gentlemanly disguise. However, she was no good at talking to men. To make up for that, Thea stood beside her in a neat blouse. “I’ll be interpreting for Mr. Dumont today. Ms. Lillian, I see you have other company?”

John Dumont was a foreigner. It made perfect sense for him to have an interpreter accompanying him.

Lily went ahead and introduced David.

When she did, Grete-disguised-as-John let out a loud yell. “______!”

Thea, her “interpreter,” nodded, then relayed the message. “He says it’s ‘preposterous.’ He’s quite indignant with you, Mr. Mannheim President.”

“…A-about what?”

David was still pretty thrown off at having suddenly found himself face-to-face with someone so influential.

Thea scoffed scornfully. “A thousand dents, for that meat pie recipe? It’s sad that the president of a food company would be so inept at judging value. Mr. Dumont is prepared to pay two hundred thousand dents for it.”

“T-two hundred thousand?”

“That’s how valuable it is. The magic of that recipe will captivate people the world over. Why else would I come to buy it in person?—says Mr. Dumont.” Thea turned her back on David to demonstrate that they had no interest in minor leaguers. “What do you say, Ms. Lillian? As soon as you give the go-ahead, we can get ready to transfer that payment. And our restaurant is patronized by famous actors from all across the world, so we might be able to set you up with some meetings, as well.”

Lily jumped for joy. “Sold!”

“Then it’s official.”

Lily and Grete-John exchanged a handshake.

David had been completely shut out, and Thea spoke once more to deliver the finishing blow. “Mr. Mannheim President, the recipe is ours. You would do well to leave Ms. Lillian and her grandfather alone from now on.”

“Rgh! If you think you can just waltz in here and do whatever you want…”

“If you want to make enemies of us, then be my guest. Just remember—if Mr. Dumont so much as utters the words, ‘Mannheim’s food is mediocre,’ your company will go under in a heartbeat.”

“………”

David smashed his fists against the table. A loud bang echoed through the room, and the table cracked.

However, it was nothing more than one final act of desperation.

He glared at the three of them with his face bright red, then rushed out of the room with an expression of deep shame.

That night, the girls threw a party in the Heat Haze Palace dining room.

“Ah, the sweet taste of success! ♪”

They clinked their glasses together to celebrate their victory.

The table was lined with all sorts of luxurious dishes. Their elation at having driven off the Mannheim president had revived all their excitement at being Klaus-free, and the girls cheerfully bragged to each other about their valorous efforts.

Sybilla happily dug into a hunk of meat, then flashed her pearly whites. “We nailed it. Now, the Mannheim president’s got no reason to go after the recipe anymore. There’s no way that guy’s got the stones to go head-to-head with John Dumont. He’s as good as gone.”

The next one to speak up was Lily, who was just as cheerful as Sybilla was. “Man, what a smart plan that was. We were able to settle everything without things getting violent a single time.”

“I mean, I still kinda wanna beat the shit outta the guy, but yeah.”

““Huzzah!”” the two of them cheered giddily as they clinked their glasses together once more.

For reference, it wasn’t every day that the girls managed to fool someone so successfully. Their daily training consisted of them racking up loss after loss against Klaus, and even during real missions, they always ended up leaving the trickiest bits to Klaus as well.

This time, though, they’d emerged victorious all on their own.

All of their spirits were soaring higher and higher with no end in sight—including Grete’s.

That ended up going pretty well…

She excused herself from the chaos and watched over her exultant teammates with a marked feeling of satisfaction.

“Just as I expected,” she murmured to herself over on the far end of the dining room.

I’m sure the boss will be satisfied, too.

Everything had gone according to her plan. Her sole regret was that the man she loved wasn’t there to witness it.

“So, what’s our star of the day doing all alone over here?” That was when Monika came over.

She tapped her bottle of mineral water against the edge of Grete’s chair. That was her way of saying, “cheers.”

“You did good today. I gotta say, things always seem to run smoother with you around.”

Grete gave her a light bow. “Thank you… That’s very nice of you to say.”

However, she noticed that something felt off.

It was rare for someone as snarky as Monika to ever give out a sincere compliment like that.

“You sure you aren’t going overboard, though?” The corner of Monika’s mouth curled upward. “Honestly, I’m surprised you were willing to go so far for this. It’s not every day you see that.”

Monika smirked as she plopped herself down in the seat beside Grete’s. So that was what she’d come to ask.

Grete answered honestly. “He said the pies reminded him of Inferno.”

“Who?”

“The boss. He told me that that shop was full of memories of Inferno for him. I didn’t want to let the shop go under while he was away…”

“I should’ve known it was about Klaus.” Monika laughed in amusement. “Pretty noble of you, doing all that to protect something the person you love cares about.”

“…Did I make a mistake, do you think?”

“Hey, don’t ask me. I don’t know the first thing about your relationship with Klaus.”

The fact that Grete was pining for Klaus was essentially common knowledge by that point. She was supposedly trying to keep it a secret, but she wasn’t doing a very good job.

The only person who hadn’t realized yet was Klaus—or at least, that was what Grete chose to believe.

“To be candid, I don’t think the boss and I are very good at communicating our feelings…”

“You don’t say.”

“That’s why I want to at least figure out how the boss feels and do whatever I can for him.”

During her conversations with Klaus, it often felt like they were on two different pages.

Klaus wasn’t great with words, and she herself had a habit of taking her emotions and running too far with them. Whenever that happened, things tended to get awkward for a moment, and Klaus would furrow his brow.

Grete couldn’t even begin to count the number of times he’d told her, “That’s not what I meant.”

It filled her with a deep sense of loneliness.

I want to properly understand his feelings.

Doing so was a deep-seated wish of hers.

That was why she was fighting to protect the meat pie shop that was full of Klaus’s memories.

Have I gotten closer to the boss’s heart this way? Even just a little?

She held her hand in front of her chest and clenched her fist.

“Huh,” Monika said. She sounded almost bored.

Then, her expression turned serious, and her tone got very cold very quickly.

“And you really think Klaus’ll be happy about this?”

“Huh…?”

The words tore into Grete’s heart.

As her eyes went wide, Monika gave her a chilly smile and went on. “Tell me, did Klaus ever actually ask you to save the pie shop? He gave us two instructions: ‘rest up,’ and ‘exercise restraint.’ The way I see it, you haven’t been doing either.”

“I……”

“Would Klaus really want us to use the skills he’s taught us on a single lowlife nobody?”

“……………”

Grete didn’t have an answer to that. Her body froze up.

The thought hadn’t even occurred to her until Monika pointed it out, but what if she was just one-sidedly imposing on him?

A moment later, Monika thumped her on the back. “I’m kidding. C’mon, chin up.”

“…Ah.”

“I’m just screwing with you. I can’t help but get jealous when I see someone else get so earnest about their love.”

After jovially explaining herself, Monika headed back and joined the others.

If Monika had been screwing with her, she’d done a damn good job of it. Grete indeed felt all screwed up. A dark shadow fell over her heart.

…Did I actually understand what the boss wanted?

A surge of unease ran through her, but it was interrupted by the phone ringing.

The rest of the girls dropped their conversations and headed over into the main hall.

Heat Haze Palace did technically have a telephone, but calls hardly ever came through. The only way to connect to it was by giving the operator a specific password after calling the number.

This time around, though, a certain someone had played a little trick.

Lily gulped and picked up the receiver. “Hello? Can I ask who’s calling?”

“It’s me. David.”

Hearing his voice come through gave the girls a proper shock.

Annette hooked the phone up to a speaker.

David’s gratingly familiar voice crackled through the main hall. “Sorry for ringing you up out of the blue like this, but I just had to talk to you.”

A certain someone had given him a special temporary number that connected directly to Heat Haze Palace.

“You’ve reached Lillian,” Lily replied, giving him her fake name. “Thank you for stopping by this afternoon.”

“You seriously told him you were called ‘Lillian’?” Sybilla belatedly quipped.

“I have to ask—did you sell the recipe yet?” David asked.

Lily glanced over, and Grete gave her a signal with her hands.

“Not yet,” Lily answered. “But I’m just about to sign the contract.”

“Could I ask you to wait on that?”

“I mean, you can ask, but…two hundred thousand dents is a lot of money…”

When she hesitated the same way she had that afternoon, David dropped the bombshell.

“I’ll give you two hundred and fifty. Please, sell it to us instead.”

Astonished looks crossed most of the girls’ faces. “Wait, what?”

Two hundred and fifty thousand dents was more than seven times what the average adult man made in a year.

“P-please hold for a second,” Lily yelped, then covered the receiver with her hand. “Grete, what’s going on…?”

Grete smiled as all her teammates’ gazes fell on her. “Just as I expected.”

This, too, was part of her scheme.

“From his perspective, it’s the logical decision to make. If he managed to get sole control of a recipe that received a glowing review from John Dumont, two hundred and fifty thousand dents would be nothing compared to what he stood to gain. The profits from such a dish would send his company into the stratosphere.”

That was why she’d instructed Thea to talk the meat pie recipe up so aggressively. By jacking up the recipe’s price, they could steal a huge amount of money from their enemy.

“If the pie shop owner is going to continue operating the store, he’ll need to be compensated for his damages. Once we sell David a fake recipe, we’ll have the money to make things right with the shopkeeper.”

The girls cheered in excitement at the tactic being proposed.

The harassment had sapped the meat pie shop’s owner of the will to continue running his business, but if the shop got a big cash injection, he might find his drive again.

That was the final step of Grete’s plan—scamming David out of a boatload of money.

Lily smiled in relief and turned back to the receiver. “Okay, I’ve made my decision. I’ll sell the recipe to you.”

“Well, all right, then. I appreciate it.”

“Let’s do the handoff tomorrow. I give you the recipe, you give me the money.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll get the two hundred and fifty thousand together and bring it over.”

Lily flashed a thumbs-up to the others, and they responded in kind. Their scam had worked, and they were all elated.

Right up until the next time their opponent spoke, that was.

“I just have one requirement—I need you to prepare the recipe in front of me so I can make sure it’s the exact same as the pies from the shop.”

The girls’ smiles froze on their faces.

Not even Grete had seen that turn of events coming. Something was off. She quickly shot Lily a hand sign.

“Hey, uh…,” Lily said, playing dumb. “You don’t, like, distrust me, do you?”

“I’m just taking precautions. If you know the recipe, it shouldn’t be a problem for you, right?”

“O-of cooourse not. But do you really need to verify it?”

“I wasn’t planning to, not at first. But a quarter of a million dents is a hell of a lot of money, and you were acting a little strange today.”

“S-strange how?”

“‘I’ll sock you’? Really? To a man who went out of his way to offer to buy your recipe?”

“Ah,” the girls all remarked.

Sure enough, that was the exact threat Lily had made when David asked her to contractually become his lover.

“In any case, I’m afraid I simply can’t give you the money until I have proof that the recipe is the real deal. I do apologize for acting so suspicious of you.”

“Wh-what? Nah, it’s all good.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’m looking forward to getting to eat an identical meat pie to the ones in the shop.”

“Of course. I mean, the recipe is real, so, uh, it’ll definitely turn out the same.”

After arranging a time for her meetup with David, Lily hung up the phone.

““““““““……………””””””””

A heavy silence descended on the room.

It took a good long while before they finished grasping the situation.

“So, lemme make sure I’ve got this straight,” Sybilla groaned. “We’re screwed, yeah? We don’t know the real recipe. There’s no way we’ll be able to make an identical pie.”

She did, in fact, have it straight.

With David inspecting the recipe itself, their lie was about to be revealed for what it was. They had no way of making their opponent pay them that money. Completing the operation would require one final trump card, and they didn’t have one handy.

As the team sank into silence, Sara squeezed her fists tight. “W-we could swap them out. We can make a pie following the fake recipe, then secretly exchange it for a real one. I’ll create a diversion with my animals, and Miss Annette can—”

“Yup! If I tinker with the oven, we’ll be golden, yo!” the ash-pink-haired girl Annette said, finishing Sara’s thought. She smiled innocently and leaped up and down with a screwdriver in each hand.

“That’s part of a plan, but not a full one,” Thea calmly pointed out. “To do it, we would still need to procure an authentic pie. But the thing is, we can’t get the shopkeeper wrapped up in this. What we’re doing is well outside the bounds of the law, and that would make him an accessory to our crimes.”

““………””

Sara and Annette hung their heads in despondence.

Thea smiled to cheer them up. “Still, it’s a good idea. And I know a way we can make a meat pie that’s exceedingly close to the real deal.” She walked over to the phone. “We can get Teach to help. Grete, you once told me that he tried to replicate the pie, didn’t you? All we have to do is ask him for the recipe he used.”

Klaus was staying in the Lylat Kingdom, and he’d told them what hotel he was lodging at just in case. They would have to make an international call, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The call connected. “Hello there, Teach.” Thea smiled. “I had a question I was hoping you wouldn’t mind answering,” she said, then left out the part about the scam they were running. She successfully got the recipe from him.

However, her expression soon darkened.

Eventually, she said, “…Thanks so much for the help,” and lifelessly hung up the phone. She turned to her teammates and handed them the memo she’d taken. “This is what he told me.”

A: Ground shoulder roast, onion, carrot, apple, garlic, salt and pepper, red wine. Suitable amounts of each.

B: Bread flour, pastry flour, cornstarch, water, butter. Suitable amounts of each.

① Mix A. (Until it becomes the color of a single drop of blue paint spilled into the sun as it sets over Emai Lake.)

② Mix B. (Until it’s as soft as Erna’s cheeks after they’ve been pinched three times.)

③ Enclose A in B. (Be as smooth as the Lute Snow Fields in spring.)

④ Bake. (Once the sear marks become bubbly-crunchy, take it out. Bubbly-crunchiness is delicious.)

Good hunting.

““““““““……………””””””””

The recipe was downright despair-inducing.

They could just barely make out the ingredients, but the steps were as vague as vague could be, and there was really no way to describe the descriptions that came up every so often other than “baffling.”

Furthermore, Sybilla pointed out the biggest problem of all. “Why’s it say ‘suitable amounts of each’ for all the ingredients, dammit?!”

Without proper measurements, the recipe was just about useless.

They’d used up all their options. At this point, they had no choice but to flee.

“Look, guys!” Lily gave the others a deep bow. “I-I’m super sorry! All I did was screw up, and now we—”

“It’s not just your fault,” Monika interjected. She stretched her palm toward the ceiling and sighed. “We all got too carried away. Grete’s plan had a big gaping hole in it, and Grete didn’t even see it coming. Klaus might’ve, though. He told us to exercise restraint, and this is what we get for not listening to him. Am I wrong?”

She turned her gaze once more toward Grete, and all Grete could do was nod. “No, you’re right… About all of it…”

The possibility of the target growing suspicious was one that she should have foreseen.

The problem was, she let her greed get the better of her. If she’d sorted through the information more carefully, she could have calculated a sum that David would have been more comfortable parting with.

“…………………”

Grete squeezed her fists tight.

I was completely blind…

And after Klaus had even warned them that their excitement was making them sloppy, too.

I utterly failed to take the boss’s concerns to heart…

She’d hadn’t understood his feelings one bit, and she’d gotten the team into a huge mess.

Knowing that hurt more than she could bear.

“…Monika is absolutely right. This all happened because of my blunder—”

“So, you mind fixing it?” Monika picked the memo up off the table and handed it to Grete.

“What…?”

“And this time, make sure you really understand what Klaus is thinking.” Monika pointed to one of the passages. “‘Good hunting,’ he said. I’d say Klaus probably has some idea of what’s up.”

Grete stared at the sentence in shock.

Sure enough, the words of encouragement he’d chosen were a bit overdramatic if all they were doing was baking a meat pie.

“But…what is it you would have me do, then…?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want you to follow his recipe and make a meat pie just as good as the shop’s.” Monika gave Grete a light pat on the shoulder. “Only someone who loves Klaus like you do could ever decode this cryptogram of a recipe.”

“………”

Grete realized just how difficult the problem she was being tasked with was.

However, this was the only option they had.

There were a mere twelve hours left. That was all the time Grete had to do trial runs, refine her process, and eventually come up with a copy that could hold its own against the pies sold in the shop.

It was going to be an incredibly difficult challenge, but—

“I’ll help!”

Then, Sara spoke up.

“My parents ran a restaurant, and I used to help out all the time. I can do whatever prep work you need.”

With that, the rest of the girls got to work as well.

“I’ll pop out and grab those ingredients,” Sybilla offered before running off.

“I’ll mod the oven so it bakes things all bubbly-crunchy, yo,” Annette said as she whipped out a toolbox, and as she did, Lily puffed up her chest.

“If you need a taste-tester, then look no further.”

“I’m prepared to sacrifice my cheeks for the cause,” Erna declared, lamenting her misfortune.

Thea tried to console her. “I really don’t understand why he put you in the recipe…”

The unreserved assistance her teammates were offering her filled Grete’s chest with warmth. “Thank you so much, everyone…!”

“Hey, I like those meat pies, too,” Monika replied coolly.

“Down with Mannheim!” Lily cried, to which the others cheered, ““““Yeah!”””” again.

It was time for them to put their honed teamwork to use.

Compared to the Impossible Mission they’d just completed, this challenge was going to be a walk in the park.

The next day, David arrived at the apartment the girls were illegally squatting in. He took a look at the gas oven they’d hastily installed, and triumphantly popped open his attaché case. Two hundred and fifty thousand dents sat inside in neatly stacked bills.

After making sure it was all there, Lily got to work baking her meat pie. She was the only Lamplight member present in the apartment, but the others were watching over her from their wiretap in the next apartment over.

The girls had fought valiantly to decode the recipe, but they had no intention of sharing their results with David. Instead, Lily used an inferior recipe to assemble her pie, then gave the signal as soon as she put it in the oven. The mouse Sara had stationed there rushed out, and while David was busy recoiling in disgust, Annette activated the mechanism she’d installed in the oven. With that, the fake pie David had watched Lily make got traded out for the girls’ deluxe version.

After patiently letting the pie bake for twenty minutes, Lily proudly handed it to David. “Dig in!”

David did just that. “Hmn!” he immediately grunted. “This is the shop’s pie, all right! I can tell by the flavor that this is the real thing!”

Lily clenched her fists, and the girls next door exchanged a round of high fives.

Decoding Klaus’s recipe had allowed them to successfully fool their enemy.

Now, for a brief aside.

It’s really not that important, but if you’re curious, this is how the minor kerfuffle that happened afterward went.

David polished off his meat pie. “This pie really is something,” he said.

Lily gave him a broad smile. “Well, I’ll be taking this now.” She reached out and took the attaché case—

“Oh, you’re not getting that money,” David declared.

He pulled a pistol from his pocket and leveled it at Lily’s forehead.

“What?”

“Obviously, I was lying. Now that I know the recipe, you’re useless to me. Drop the attaché case. And do us both a favor and don’t try to resist, okay? I have supporters who work in organized crime.”

His threats were clichéd, but that didn’t make them any less threatening.

With the gun still pressed to her forehead, Lily sighed. “…Man, this sucks.”

David sneered. “Well, at least you understand the position you’re—”

“Just for the record, I didn’t want to do this, okay? I didn’t want to get violent with a civvy. And plus, if it was going to come to this anyway, then there was no point to even making the pie at all…”

“What, you’re thinking of fighting back?” David scowled at her and placed his finger over the trigger. “Not a smart move, girlie. All I would have to do to kill you is move a single finger.”

“Ooh, bad news,” Lily told him. “You’re not gonna be moving anything anytime soon.”

“Wh—?”

Not a moment later, David crumpled to his knees.

He didn’t understand what was happening. His eyes went wide, silently begging for answers, but he could no longer open his mouth to ask. He collapsed onto the carpet and convulsed all over.

“I’m code name Flower Garden—and it’s time to bloom out of control.”

There was no way David could have noticed, but the room had just been filled to the brim with poison gas.

Lily picked up the attaché case and headed out.

Out in the apartment building’s hallway, Grete was waiting for her with a smile. “Just as I expected.”

Setting up the poison gas contingency had been Grete’s idea. She wasn’t going to let anything past her this time.

“When it comes to lying and cheating, we’re the best in the game ♪,” Lily replied with a smile.

The two of them exchanged a double-handed high five.

Ten days later…

Once Klaus finished his vacation—if you could call it that, given that he’d spent the entire time completing missions—he came back to Heat Haze Palace, and they all returned to their busy routines. The girls got back to their training, and Klaus continued carrying out missions on his own.

Most days, he came home well into the night, but today was unusual in that it was still evening when he got back.

As he sat in his room pondering what to have for dinner, a nostalgic aroma reached his nose.

There was a knock on his door.

After a pause, Grete popped her head in, then wheeled a cart into the room.

“Good work today.” She smiled. “I brought you dinner.”

When Klaus looked at the plate atop the cart, he found it topped with a meat pie he recognized well.

Ah, thought Klaus, so this is what smelled so familiar. Grete had brought him takeout from the shop he’d gone to with Inferno so many times.

“………”

Klaus watched her as she sliced up the pie. She looked oddly proud.

“You know, I’ve been hearing an odd rumor lately,” Klaus said. “And it’s about that very pie.”

“Oh? And what rumor might that be…?”

“Apparently, the president of Mannheim Inc. got scammed when he tried to buy the recipe. Someone posing as the shop owner’s granddaughter took him for a quarter of a million dents. He went to the police and tried to accuse the shop owner of fraud, but it turned out that the shop owner didn’t even have a granddaughter to begin with, so the president wasn’t able to prove a thing. Even the apartment the con artist claimed they were living in wasn’t actually rented out to anyone.”

“It sounds like this con artist really covered all their bases…”

“After all that went down, the meat pie shop happened to receive a lavish anonymous donation. Thanks to the money, the owner was able to hire an apprentice and begin renovating the shop. It looks like it’ll be with us for a while yet.”

“Oh, that’s lovely to hear.”

“Out of curiosity, did you know about all this?”

“…No, not at all.”

All Grete did was smile modestly. Klaus noticed a childishly playful glimmer in her eye.

However, he wasn’t nearly so boorish as to dig any deeper.

“Sorry for asking such an odd question,” he said, then changed the subject. “Also, I have another apology I need to make. The truth is, I’m not particularly hungry. There’s no way I’m going to be able to eat such a large meat pie.”

“Oh! …Is that so?” Grete’s expression clouded over with disappointment.

Klaus went on. “So how about this? What if we split it and each took half?”

“______”

“Go ahead, fetch yourself some utensils. In my opinion, this is a dish best enjoyed with others.”

Grete’s whole face lit up. “Of course!” she replied with a nod. “In that case, I have an idea. We wouldn’t want the pie getting cold, so what if we just shared this single fork and knife, got real close, and used them to feed each other in—”

“I’ll pass.”

“…Boo.”

Grete looked a little disappointed, but she quickly rushed off to grab another set of utensils.