Spy Classroom - Volume SS1 - Chapter Pr

Prologue

The Bridal Hearing

It all began as part of their usual training.

The Lamplight girls had returned from the bioweapon retrieval mission, and after taking a ten-day furlough, they got right to work preparing themselves for their next mission.

Their task was simple: to make Klaus say “I surrender” by any means possible.

Klaus was their team’s boss, and the girls trained by trying to defeat him. In terms of actual spy work, getting a target to cough up the information you were after was one of the most basic tasks there was. However, their opponent was the self-proclaimed World’s Strongest, and the girls had yet to successfully complete their objective even a single time.

We gotta beat Klaus, no matter what it takes!

They were united in their goal, and they worked around the clock to try to complete their training.

“The issue is the boss will be able to see through any of our usual tricks… We’ll need to find a method that will really trip him up.”

The analysis came from Grete, code name Daughter Dearest. She had red hair, a long, slender frame, and a sort of ephemeral fragility not unlike a glass sculpture.

“In other words, what we need to do…”

As the team’s strategist, she matter-of-factly handed down her verdict.

“…is submit a marriage registration for me and the boss.”

“Taking that last bit out of context, it makes it sound like you’ve finally lost it.”

The cool retort came from Erna, code name Fool. She was a petite blond girl who looked as sweet and adorable as a doll.

“Not at all, Erna,” Grete calmly replied. “This is a crucial part of the plan. Once I become his legal wife, I’ll be able to request copies of his health records from the hospital and even take out life insurance policies on him. It will open up all sorts of new angles for us to attack from.”

“Oh, I see. I shouldn’t have doubted you, Big Sis Grete. You really did come up with a perfect plan.”

“And the first thing I’m going to do is make reservations for our honeymoon.”

“I’m sensing some ulterior motives here!”

The two of them continued chatting, and eventually, they arrived at the residential affairs section of City Hall. With an uncommonly radiant smile, Grete presented the clerk with a marriage registration (forged), a letter of authorization (forged), and some ID papers (also forged).

The clerk smiled warmly as she took the documents. “Congratulations! I’m sure he’s a very lucky guy.” She hummed a little tune as she headed for the cabinets in the back.

“Huh, that’s odd…”

When she got there, though, the humming abruptly cut off. She walked back over to Grete and Erna with puzzlement on her face and cocked her head in confusion.

“I’m terribly sorry, but it would appear that Mr. Klaus is already married…”

““WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!””

Grete’s and Erna’s eyes practically bugged out of their heads.

The world was awash in pain.

The Great War’s end led to an era where the nations of the world began prioritizing their spy programs over their militaries. The Din Republic was one of the countries that suffered in the war, and they too established an intelligence agency and started sending their spies across the globe.

One of the spy teams that operated under their banner was called Lamplight. It was a peculiar group made up of a single boss and eight young female washouts, and whenever their allies were in need, Lamplight would rush from their base in Din to help.

The following incident happened during the team’s downtime.

It was right after they got back from the bioweapon retrieval mission, and shortly before the mission to track down Corpse would begin.

Grete and Erna quickly returned to their base and told the others about the shocking news.

“Teach is married? Whoa, I didn’t see that one coming!”

Lily’s eyes went wide. She was a silver-haired girl with a lovable appearance and a sizable chest. Her code name was Flower Garden, and she was, at least technically, the girls’ leader.

The other girls gathered in the gorgeous Heat Haze Palace’s main hall and gave voice to their bewilderment as well.

“I—I mean, hey, he is sort of around the right age.” “Still, what a shock…” “I always figured he was a perma-bachelor, yo.”

In their minds, they all thought of Klaus as sort of a lone wolf.

Apart from his old team, Inferno, there wasn’t a single person he seemed deeply attached to. As far as they could tell, he didn’t have any friends and wasn’t in any relationships. They got the impression that all he did aside from go on missions and train was sit in his room and paint.

“Well, who’da thought. Our very own Klaus, bound in holy matrimony.”

The cool-headed comment came from Monika, code name Glint. She had cerulean hair and a medium frame, but aside from her asymmetric hairdo, none of her features were particularly distinctive.

Unlike her perplexed teammates, her smile was as indomitable as they came.

“I don’t know how we missed that in our investigations, but either way, there’s just one thing to do.” She glanced around at the others. “You feel me?”

The rest of the team nodded in agreement.

“Yeah! We can go kidnap Teach’s wife and use her to blackmail him!”

“Oh, heavens no! We should start by forging evidence of him committing adultery.”

“I’m gonna go plant a bomb at his wife’s house, yo!”

“Have you people no morals?” As troubling suggestions began flying back and forth, a tall, handsome man with long hair cut in. He was standing by the girls’ table with a look of utmost exasperation on his face. He was Lamplight’s boss, the girls’ instructor, and, notably, the subject of the conversation they were having at that very moment.

“Teach! How long have you been there?!” Lily yelped.

“Quite a while,” Klaus replied. He shook his head in vague annoyance. “Before you go making trouble for no good reason, you should know that the marriage only exists on paper. It was for a mission, and it didn’t involve any of the sort of domestic life you’re picturing.”

Lily clapped her hands together. “Ohhh, I get it. It’s one of those sham marriage thingies.”

The rest of the girls nodded. It all made sense now.

It wasn’t uncommon for spies to have fake marriages. Pretending to be married could often be helpful during infiltration missions, and many high-society parties required their attendees to be accompanied by a spouse.

“Training or not, I’d appreciate it if you could avoid messing with my family register. I trust that settles the matter.”

With that, Klaus turned to leave.

The girls let out sighs of satisfaction. All their questions had been cleared up.

Sure enough, Klaus was as single as ever. Some of the girls felt unconscious pangs of relief—

“…Not quite. You still haven’t told us everything.”

—but Grete shot a pointed comment Klaus’s way.

He stopped in his tracks. “Have I not?”

“When I looked into your records…I discovered that the marriage was filed just two months ago, right after you put Lamplight together. And what’s more, your bride was only eighteen years old,” Grete said, laying out the facts one after another. “Boss, is the person you married—”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Klaus nodded. “You’ve deduced correctly—I’m married to someone on Lamplight.”

“““““““WHAAAAAAT?!”””””””

“Again, it’s only on paper. The member in question doesn’t want to make their identity public, so don’t pry.”

“I mean, you say that, but…” Lily pursed her lips discontentedly. “The whole reason we were looking into it at all was for our training…”

“Your industriousness is commendable, but moderation in all things. Even with your furlough over, we’re still coming off a major mission. Why not try to enjoy your youth a little? I can’t imagine you’ve had time for many age-appropriate activities over these past two months,” Klaus said with a gentle look on his face.

Again, the incident took place between the bioweapon retrieval mission and the mission to hunt down Corpse.

At the time, Klaus was still handling all the missions on his own and not letting the girls take part out of a fear that they would be out of their depths.

Lily went silent.

“Hrrmn…”

She crossed her arms and let out a quiet grunt as she visibly sank into thought. Then, she smiled.

“…Y’know what, Teach is right.” She turned calmly to the rest of the team. “Whoever it is clearly wants to keep it a secret, so let’s not try to figure out who the bride is.”

The others all smiled in agreement at Lily’s suggestion.

Klaus smiled as well at how obediently his pupils were listening to his instructions. “Magnificent.”

After Klaus left the main hall, Lily spoke up.

“All righty, let’s find us that bride!”

“I figured as much,” Thea—code name Dreamspeaker—replied in exasperation. She was a black-haired girl with ample curves who positively exuded charm and allure. “I must say, though, I’m a little surprised. Grete is one thing, but I wouldn’t have expected you to be so interested in who Teach’s bride is.”

“The thing is, I found this in the incinerator,” Lily replied as she fished out an envelope.

From the bits of the address that had survived the fire, it appeared to be an invitation to a fancy party. The host was one of the nation’s most famous gourmands, and you had to bring your wife in order to attend. Klaus must have needed to infiltrate the party in order to conduct a counterintelligence op.

In other words…

“Whoever the bride is, they got to accompany Teach on the mission and eat a swanky meal!”

“Ever the glutton, aren’t you?” Thea massaged her temple and sighed. “Still, I am a little jealous they got to join in on a mission.”

The bride may have only been there to accompany Klaus, but the fact remained that she had gotten to do some actual fieldwork. Many of the team’s members hardly got taken on missions at all, and hands-on experience like that would have been invaluable for them. A discontented look spread across Thea’s face, and Erna and Monika shared the sentiment.

The bride got to act as Klaus’s lover, got to eat nice dinners, got to go on missions—the list of perks seemed to go on and on.

“So, does anyone wanna fess up?” Lily asked the others. “I promise we won’t be mad at you!”

However, nobody decided to speak up. The girls exchanged suspicious looks, eyeing everyone else in the room. One of them was the culprit, but the question was, who?

“…Welp, guess there’s no choice.”

An unspoken agreement was reached, and the girls all took their seats at the round table in the middle of the room. The chairs were spaced out in an even circle.

Lily planted her elbows on the table and crossed her hands. “All right, nobody’s leaving ’til we’ve settled this! The bridal hearing is now in session!”

Not a single one of them spoke up in dissent.

At the moment, their thoughts were as one.

We need to find out who Klaus married!

The thing was, something about this smelled fishy. Klaus had insisted that the marriage only existed on paper, but if that was really the case, then why hadn’t the bride simply identified themselves? Perhaps there was some real romance blossoming behind the scenes. Their curiosities were piqued!

Lily, who was acting as their provisional chairwoman, cleared her throat. “Why don’t we start by having everyone point at who they think the bride is?”

The girls all pointed their fingers across the table.

The results caused some yelps…

“What the hell? Why’re you all pointing at me?” Three votes went to the white-haired girl with a sharp look in her eyes and a body as toned as a wild animal’s—Sybilla, code name Pandemonium.

“B-but…me?” Another three went to the girl with curly brown hair and eyes as big and wide as a small woodland creature’s—Sara, code name Meadow.

Lily and Monika had each technically gotten a vote as well, but the group had already locked onto its targets.

Lily didn’t waste a beat. “Torture Officer, you’re up!”

“Yo, I’ve got just the invention for this!”

Annette, code name Forgetter, sprang up from her seat. Her ash-pink hair was messily tied up and accompanied by an eyepatch and a cherubic smile.

She left the main hall for a moment, and when she returned, she was pushing a large wheelchair.

“It’s my very own special-made electric chair!”

“The fuck kind of hearing is this?!” Sybilla quite reasonably cried.

It was not, in fact, any sort of proper hearing, and for that matter, the term bride only really referred to a woman immediately after she got married. In this scenario, the term wife or spouse would have been much more apropos, but the girls had a bad habit of getting caught up in the moment.

“Well, as I recall…,” Grete calmly noted, “…the two of you both shared some intimate moments with the boss right around the time the marriage registration was filed. Sybilla, you had the incident with the pickpocket, and Sara, you had those times just before and after the Manor Renovation Battle…”

Sybilla and Sara winced at the pointed callouts.

“Urk…”

“I—I mean, you’re not wrong, but…”

“We want answers! We want answers!” the rest of the team began chanting.

Once again, Lily didn’t waste a beat. “Torture Officer, you’re up!”

“As a special treat, I’ll go ahead and double the voltage,” Annette replied.

“All right, all right, I get it! I’ll talk, you happy now?!”

“Yeah, I don’t want to get the chair, either!”

Sybilla and Sara began desperately explaining themselves, with each of them recounting what had happened during the events in question.

With that, the girls’ discussion about Klaus’s bride got underway.