Spy Classroom - Volume SS3 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Pharma’s Case

Morning came.

Guided by the sunlight streaming through the curtains, Sara sat up. After giving her arms a big stretch, she hopped out of bed. Her puppy Johnny was still bundled up in the blanket from when he’d nuzzled up into her bed the night prior.

The Sara in question was “Meadow” Sara, a girl with big round eyes like a woodland creature’s and brown, permed hair.

Sara stripped out of her pajamas and changed into the school uniform she used to camouflage herself. She tied her ribbon into a long, tight knot, then completed her outfit by donning her trademark newsboy cap before stepping out of her room.

She was just about to stop by the bathroom to wash her face when she spotted a silver-haired girl with a charming face and a large bosom—namely, “Flower Garden” Lily.

“Good morning, Miss Lily.”

“Hey there, Sara.”

Lily returned Sara’s greeting with an exuberant smile.

At that point, Sara realized how strange this was. Lily loved to sleep in, so it was odd to see her up and about at seven in the morning.

“Heh. You’re up early today.”

Sara let out a small chuckle, to which Lily replied with a boisterous laugh. “You bet your butt I am! We’re on holiday! Who wants to waste a day off by snoozing it away?!”

They were, in fact, on holiday.

Every time they completed a big mission, they got the next two weeks off. For people who bumped shoulders with peril as often as they did, it was essential they get their proper R & R. If they didn’t rest their bodies and build up their energy, their morale was sure to suffer.

At the moment, the girls had just finished up a mission in the Far East nation of Longchon.

“You know, you’re right. It’s so nice to have some time off.”

Sara shared Lily’s good cheer.

Naturally, the girls were each free to spend their holidays however they wanted. Everything from going on trips to reading books to enjoying the arts was on the table. Spies were paid handsomely, too, so they had ample funds to finance their activities with. They were going to spend the next two weeks painting the town red.

There they were, smack-dab in the middle of their wonderful vacation!

Or at least, they were supposed to be.

Sara grimaced. “Huh? I just got the weirdest pain in my head.”

Lily tilted her head. “Hmm? Yeah, it feels like I’ve got some wrong memories mixed up in the old noggin.”

The girls groaned at the static crackling through their brains.

The two of them had just woken up, and their heads weren’t operating at full capacity yet. They’d very nearly dredged up some unpleasant memories. It was almost as though Lamplight’s boss Klaus had told them something on the first day of the break that threatened to send their entire vacation into disarray.

They gave their heads a vigorous shake in unison.

“I-I’m sure we’re just imagining things,” Sara said. “Let’s make the most of our vacation.”

“You can say that again!” Lily agreed. “We’ve been freed from all of life’s shackles. That’s what vacations are all about!”

“Nothing scary is going to happen to us.”

“Of course not! There’s nothing but happiness as far as the eye can see!”

“And the first day of the break was completely uneventful!”

“Yep, nothing happened whatsoever!”

As they shared a conversation that wasn’t entirely truthful, they washed their faces and headed down to the dining room. They’d baked a bunch of delicious bread the previous evening. Warming it back up and shoving its buttery goodness in their faces would ensure their day of vacation bliss got off to the perfect start.

The girls opened the door to the dining room.

At the table, they saw a young man with mean eyes chowing down on the very bread they’d been looking forward to.

“Hmm. You just get up, Lamplight ladies? I thought I’d drop by.”

““THERE’S A CREATURE IN THE DINING ROOOOOOM!””

Sara and Lily’s shriek echoed through the building.

The world was awash in pain.

After the Great War, as the world entered an era of nations competing through espionage, the small Din Republic put together some spy teams of its own and dispatched agents across the world.

One of those teams was Lamplight, a group comprising a man and eight spy academy washouts. Under the leadership of their boss, Klaus, the girls trained and took on assignments so difficult they were referred to as “Impossible Missions.”

Then there was Avian, the team they met in the Far East. Avian was like Lamplight’s polar opposite. Its members had been pulled from the top scorers on the nationwide spy academy graduation exam. Out of three thousand students, they had been the best six. Everything about the team was elite.

The two teams had been drawn together as though by destiny, and after fighting over Klaus, they managed to reach an accord. Everyone had assumed once the two groups went their separate ways, it would be a while before they ran into each other again. However, Klaus had made an announcement on the very first day of Lamplight’s vacation.

“I want to train Avian.”

Avian had won the right to appoint Klaus as their boss, but they’d given it up on Lamplight’s behalf. Klaus had invited Avian to Heat Haze Palace in order to repay them for that.

The training Klaus offered them was thus: “Defeat me.”

The elites had been skeptical at first, but when they humored Klaus and took him on, he completely mopped the floor with them. The defeat clearly dealt a harsh blow to their pride, and they returned to Heat Haze Palace the next day only to get crushed again. From there, the cycle repeated. They kept coming back nearly every day in a way that could best be described as obsessive.

Avian had become a group of stalkers.

There was a period of one month between Lamplight’s return from Longchon and Avian’s departure to the Fend Commonwealth. It was a period of mingling between the two teams—a honeymoon of sorts—and that was how it all began.

The man eating their bread in the dining room was “Flock” Vindo.

Vindo had brown hair and sharp eyes. Out of over three thousand academy students, his brilliance had earned him the best grades of them all and, eventually, a position as Avian’s boss. His outstanding talent made him one of the most promising young spies of their generation.

At the moment, he was also the person who stopped by Lamplight’s base the most often and had earned himself a spot at the top of the stalker list.

Beside him, he was joined by “Glide” Qulle, a girl with jade-green hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a pair of glasses with round lenses and could rarely be found without the confident smile of an honors student. She’d been the fourth-best academy student.

“I’m sorry about all the hassle,” Qulle said with an apologetic bow.

Lily and Sara clutched at their heads as the memories they’d been desperately trying to repress came flooding back.

These were the intruders who’d come and destroyed their happy vacation. When Avian stopped by, they did so with no regard for the girls’ convenience or comfort.

Over time, the rest of the Lamplight girls trickled down into the dining room as well. When they saw Vindo and Qulle sitting there like they owned the place, they stared at them in cold dismay. “Yeesh, they’re here already?”

Vindo ignored them and continued eating bread. He must have arrived in the wee hours of the morning.

“Man, you don’t have a lot going on, do you, Vindo?”

When Lily gave him a pitying look, Vindo glowered back at her. “I have plenty of things on my plate. I’m just here to train with Klaus, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been coming every day since that first defeat.”

“I managed to rack up another two losses just this morning.”

“Already?”

“I had some calories I had to work off. By the way, I grabbed some stuff from your kitchen. Thanks for the food.”

“YOU ATE MY BREAKFAST?!”

Vindo was a bit of a glutton, and he often used up ingredients from the kitchen without asking permission, brazenly finishing things off without even trying to hide his thievery.

The bread the girls had baked last night was almost entirely gone.

Qulle gave them another bow. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him.”

Naturally, the girls had just one thing to say to that.

““““““““Get outta here, Avian!! Go home!!””””””””

By that point, it was starting to become their catchphrase. They’d even hung a NO AVIANS ALLOWED sign on the entrance, not that the Avian members paid it any heed.

Vindo was perfectly unperturbed by the girls’ chants. “By the way, we’ve got another piece of business today.”

“Huh?”

“You explain it, Pharma.”

Without letting the girls get a word in edgewise, he gestured to his side with his chin.

Now that he mentioned it, they realized there was another person in the dining room. She was stooped over, practically hiding in Vindo’s and Qulle’s shadows as she held her walnut bread in both hands and nibbled away at it.

The woman had a mature aura about her. She was probably a bit older than any of the Lamplight girls. Her long, messy hair looked completely unkempt, and her plump figure had just the right amount of flab. Between that and the drowsy look in her eyes, she gave off an air of sloth.

“Oh, hi. I’m here, too.”

She gave them a smile and a wave.

“I’m Pharmaaa. Lotta new faces, huh?”

The woman was one of Avian’s members, “Feather” Pharma—the fifth-best academy student. Avian had been keeping her existence a secret during the Longchon mission, so she’d barely interacted with Lamplight at all. Everything about her was shrouded in mystery. They knew she’d fought Monika, but they didn’t even know what her specialty was.

As Lily and the others stared at her, Pharma gave her arms a big stretch.

“Now, uhhh,” she drawled, “I’m eating some tasty bread at the moment, so can I do that laaater?”

““““Leave our bread alone!””””

“Awwww?” she whined as the girls snatched the bread away from her in a rage. “Give that baaack! I’ve been buying too many pretty jewels lately, so I’m super broke. I had to go without breakfast today.”

Despite Pharma’s forlorn plea, the fact of the matter was that the bread had been stolen from the girls to begin with. They weren’t about to let her play the victim card.

Beside her, Qulle let out a sigh upon realizing the conversation was getting nowhere.

“So the deal is, we want to borrow some people from Lamplight.” In the end, she gave up and just explained the situation herself. “We’re a little short on personnel for the mission we’re on. Would a couple of you mind tagging along with Pharma tonight?”

“Huh?”

Lamplight hadn’t seen that one coming. To think the day had come when the elites were asking them for a favor.

They half assumed that Avian was joking, but the look in Vindo’s eyes was dead serious. “We already hashed things out with Klaus,” he said. “There’s bonus pay for this, and Pharma will be doing most of the actual work. All you people will have to do is enjoy a meal in a nice restaurant. You up for it?”

“Yeah, what they said. Thanks in advaaance,” Pharma said, clasping her hands together and bowing. “There’s no one we can turn to here but Lamplight, see.”

Avian must have been under some serious pressure.

The Lamplight girls let out little gasps of shock. As previously mentioned, they were a band of washouts. Although they were working professionals in the world of espionage, many of them still carried inferiority complexes from their academy days. What’s more, Avian had gone out of their way back in Longchon to demonstrate just how much stronger they were.

The girls had to admit it felt nice to be relied on now.

“I—I mean, if you need our help that bad, then I guess we can pitch in.” A smile crept across Lily’s face. “The more funds to enjoy our holiday with, the better. And besides, we can’t leave our fellow spies in the lurch. What do you all say?”

The other girls were on board as well. Their replies of “Fuck it, I’m in,” and “Yeah, when you put it like that, how can we say no?” were tinged with delight and embarrassment, and their anger from before was gone and forgotten.

“Thanks so muuuch!”

Pharma rose to her feet in joy and shook each girl’s hand in turn. Personal space wasn’t her strong suit.

“Heh-heh, it’s time for Heavy-Duty Helper Lily to swoop in and save Avian’s bacon!” Lily thumped her chest. “We accept your request! Here at Lamplight, making the impossible possible is what we do best. Don’t you worry, Avian. You’re in good—”

“Oh, we don’t need you.”

After bluntly dismissing Lily, Pharma turned her gaze over to the three girls who’d been hiding behind their noisier comrades and watching things play out from the back.

One of them was “Fool” Erna, a girl with long blond hair and as adorable as a doll. Her innate fear of strangers was out in full force, and she was staring at Pharma and the other Avian members in fright.

The next was “Forgetter” Annette, a girl with messily-tied-up ash-pink hair and a large eye patch. She was observing the dining room intruders with keen interest.

Finally, there was “Meadow” Sara, who was standing in front of the other two as if to protect them.

“We’re counting on you three. Erna, Annette, and Sara.”

“““……………?”””

The three of them all cocked their heads in puzzlement.

The designated members were the youngest people on Lamplight’s roster. Erna and Annette were fourteen, and Sara was fifteen. They all had powerful secret abilities and were adept at setting up schemes from behind the scenes, but their mental fortitude left something to be desired, and it was often too dangerous to send them onto the front lines.

Why had Pharma chosen these three?

Lamplight had their concerns, but Pharma let out a sigh of genuine relief. “Oh, that’s suuuch a big help. You’re lifesavers.”

It was too late to back out now.

Pharma gave Erna and Annette instructions to go get changed. She’d already bought outfits for them specially for this mission.

As for Sara, her only instructions were to wear “something comfortable,” so she changed into the blouse and light-green skirt Thea had once picked out for her. She headed back to the main hall feeling more than a little embarrassed. Pharma was waiting for her there. “Ooh, looking cute, Sara,” she said with a smile.

Sara wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.

Internally, she was conflicted. She was about to embark on a mission alongside one of the elites, sure, but that wasn’t the main thing setting off her nerves.

“Y-you, um…,” she said timidly.

“Hmm? What’s uuup?”

“You’re Projection, right? The one from the spy academy on the island.”

“Yeah, that’s meee,” Pharma confirmed. “I changed my code name.”

That was the thing—Sara and Pharma were from the same school.

The only time they had run into each other in Longchon was right at the end, so they’d never gotten a chance to talk, but Sara had definitely noticed. Sara had spent two years in that spy academy, and that whole time, Pharma had reigned over it as its finest student. She’d gone by Projection at the time, so she must have changed it to Feather when she’d joined Avian. It made sense, considering how all the Avian members had themed code names.

“I remember you too, Sara.”

It sounded like Sara wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

“You cried all the time. Out on the corner of the beach.”

“………”

Upon having the truth thrown in her face, Sara let out a small, choked gulp.

Lazy as Pharma was, her acting ability and marksmanship were outstanding. In comparison, Sara had sucked at everything the academy made her do. However, going back to her parents hadn’t been an option, so she’d spent every day sobbing her eyes out all on her own.

Apparently, that had stuck in Pharma’s memory.

“…Oh, I’m sorry. You probably didn’t want me bringing that up, huh?” Pharma seemed to have taken a hint, and she waved her hands frantically. “Anyways, I really appreciate you coming. It’s a huuuge help.”

“It’s nothing, Miss Pharma! You shouldn’t be thanking someone like—”

Sara skittered backward, her eyes wide.

Pharma had won the respect of everyone in her spy academy dorm, whereas Sara had been a friendless loner. If anyone who’d known them back then saw the way Pharma was bowing to her, the sight would have struck them speechless.

The two of them had lived in completely different worlds.

To Sara, Pharma was like a divine being from on high. Back at the academy, she’d been too nervous to even talk to her.

As she stood there feeling embarrassed, a pair of new faces joined them in the main hall.

“I’m all finished changing, yo!”

“I look even cooler than usual.”

It was Annette and Erna, fresh from putting on their new outfits.

There were some odd choices. The two of them liked to wear skirts they could store tools in, so it was unusual to see them in shorts. Their fair thighs were left exposed for the world to see. For their tops, they were both wearing the same shirt-and-suspender getup in different colors. Erna’s was yellow, whereas Annette’s was pink. It was the kind of outfit you often saw on city girls who paid attention to fashion trends.

“Oh, that looks perrrfect,” Pharma said with delight. “This should go swimmingly. I knew asking Lamplight was the right call.”

“They sure are cute.”

Sara smiled as well and patted Annette’s and Erna’s heads. The two of them let out bashful cries of “Hey!” and “Yeep!” as they gave her a pair of pleased grins.

Afterward, Sara asked a question that had been nagging at her mind. “S-so, um, Miss Pharma, what exactly is this mission?”

She knew she had to be ready for anything. What kind of mission could have someone as talented as Pharma coming to Lamplight for help? Vindo had said all they’d be doing was eating dinner, but Sara doubted it would be that simple.

“Whaaat? You really want to know?”

For some reason, Pharma didn’t just give her a straight answer.

Sara didn’t miss a beat. “Please, tell us,” she replied, to which Pharma answered, “It’s a mixer.”

“Huh?”

“The four of us are going to a mixer.”

Annette and Erna gave Pharma puzzled looks. They didn’t know what the word meant.

Sara did know what it meant, but that just served to deepen her confusion. Mixers were events for men and women to meet each other. Pharma must have recruited them to make the head count work out, but even so, why had she chosen the youngest-looking members?

Pharma gave them a big smile.

“Once we get there, we’ve got a pedo politician we’ll be wining and dining.”

On hearing that, Annette looked even more puzzled—

““WHAAAAAAAAAT?!””

—but Sara and Erna let out screams.

Pharma gave them the rundown.

A few days ago, the Military Intelligence Department had arrested a young man for suspected espionage. The boy had been getting huge amounts of funding from an unknown source and using it to engage in political activities. One of those activities had been acting in support of Arranq city council member Lido Jahn by threatening journalists into burying scandalous stories about him and spreading false rumors about his political opponents. And he hadn’t been acting alone, either.

Before the boy had had a chance to cough up info on his allies, though, he’d succumbed to the torture and died of emaciation. The Military Intelligence Department had screwed the pooch.

The question was, who exactly was that boy they’d detained? Had he been a foreign spy? Was Jahn himself complicit? The Foreign Intelligence Office knew leaving things to the military would get them nowhere, so they’d entrusted the mission to their up-and-coming spy team Avian.

“Now, from what we hear, Mr. Jahn is a big fan of young girls. If we bring some along for him to drink with, it’ll go a long way toward loosening his tongue,” Pharma explained cheerfully.

The situation made sense.

For the girls, though, having to go to a mixer was a high hurdle indeed.

“No way, I caaaaan’t! There’s no way I can handle going to a mixer!”

“I, uh…I don’t really get it, but I feel like this is going to be super scary! I’m no good at talking to strangers!”

Sara and Erna trembled as they arrived at the restaurant Pharma had led them to.

The restaurant was a quiet establishment that was divided up into individual rooms. Many of its patrons were there for business events or to have private conversations, so it had dim lighting that gave the whole place a rather adult air. When they glanced at the menu, they discovered just how pricey everything was. It was the kind of place the girls wouldn’t normally go near.

The men hadn’t arrived yet.

Sara took her seat with tension etched across her face.

She had made sure to at least explain what exactly a mixer was to Erna and Annette. Upon discovering they’d be sharing a meal with a bunch of unfamiliar men, the ever-shy Erna had looked like she might very well faint. Annette, on the other hand, was just as cheery as ever. “If I get a tasty meal out of it, I’m down for whatever, yo!”

Pharma had just stepped away to find Councillor Jahn, leaving the rest of them there on their own. Erna nervously grabbed at Sara’s blouse and whispered in her ear. “B-Big Sis Sara, wh-what do we do?”

“I—I don’t know. It’s really too late for us to back out…”

As Erna’s elder, Sara wanted to be able to comfort her, but sadly, she lacked the bandwidth to do so.

She racked her brain to muster up some wishful thoughts. “B-but we don’t know for sure that he’s going to be dangerous. He is a city council member, after all… Maybe this really will just be a pleasant meal.”

“Y-you’re right! Maybe he’ll be nice and not talk to me at all!”

“Yeah. J-just because he’s a pedophile doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.”

“I choose to believe! I’m gonna make it home in one piece!”

As an aside, Sara had had to explain what a “pedophile” was to Erna, too. The guy they were dealing with was attracted to young girls.

As the two of them trembled with trepidation and Annette carefully examined the menu, the door to their room swung open. Standing beside Pharma was a man with a gentle look about him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Lido Jahn, a member of the local city council.”

““I-it’s mice to neet you, too…,”” Sara and Erna squeaked in reply, tripping over their words.

The man looked a lot younger than they’d been expecting. They’d been told he was thirty-eight, but he could easily have passed for a man in his twenties. He was wiry and didn’t come off as particularly memorable, but his kind smile made him seem likable in spite of that.

“Thank you so much for coming today. Please, don’t be shy; order as much as you want. It’s my treat.”

Jahn sat across from them and gave them a bow.

Nobody else followed him and Pharma in, so it looked like he was going to be the only man there. It was less of a drinking party for people to get to know each other and more of an event with him as the sole guest of honor.

Jahn then turned and bowed to Pharma, as well. “And thank you too, Pharma. To think you put this whole thing together… They remind me of my daughter. Spending time with girls their age truly sets my heart at ease.”

“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Pharma said.

Pharma’s cover story was that she was a university student hoping to get into politics. As far as the councillor knew, she’d gotten a part-time job at Jahn’s office, and she was throwing the party as her way of showing her appreciation to him.

Given how respectfully Jahn was bowing to a woman his junior, he couldn’t have been all that bad.

Sara and Erna conferred via whisper.

“H-he seems like a nice person…”

“Y-yeah. You’re right.”

Their initial impression of him was passable.

Annette looked up from the menu. “Yo, buddy, did you just say we remind you of your daughter?”

Sara’s heart skipped a beat at how pompous Annette sounded, but Jahn took it in stride. “So much so it’s shocking. Especially the two of you with the blond and pink hair.” He gave Erna and Annette a forlorn look. “When my wife left me eight years ago, she got sole custody and banned me from seeing my beloved baby girl. She was twelve at the time… I’m a bit ashamed to admit it, but I’ve taken to talking to young girls from time to time to help distract myself from the loneliness.”

Sara and Erna let out little gasps at the newfound revelation.

Much to their surprise, the motives behind the party were actually relatively benign. Hearing the phrases pedophile and wining and dining had made them assume it was going to be centered around fulfilling his perverse sexual fantasies, but the fact of the matter was, not every pedophile in the world was actually a bad person. Perhaps it had been rude of them to jump to conclusions and give him the cold shoulder because of mere labels.

Jahn scratched his head and laughed to lighten the mood. “Ha-ha, people do tend to get the wrong idea about me. I try to explain myself, but society doesn’t look too kindly on that kind of behavior.”

Sara and Erna took a good, long look at their own prejudices. Wanting to hear more, they asked him some questions. “So you mentioned a divorce…” “Wh-what happened there?”

“She found out about the prostitutes. I’d been hiring underage sex workers on the daily.”

““We were right the first tiiiiime!!””

All that said, there were still plenty of pedophiles who were bad people.

Later, they would discover Jahn had paid hush money to cover up his soliciting minors for sex on forty-three different occasions. He’d been born to a member of parliament, and he’d used their wealth to become a politician himself. He was the very portrait of a predator.

Not noticing the girls’ revulsion, Jahn turned to Pharma and smiled. “So what can you tell me about these girls?”

“I take it they’re to your liking, Councillor?”

“The part I’m most interested in is…how old are they?”

“All of them are eighteen.”

““No one’s actually going to buy that!”” Sara and Erna retorted internally.

Erna and Annette were fourteen, but both of them were short of stature and could easily be mistaken for twelve-year-olds. Sara admittedly seemed a bit older, but even then, she didn’t look a day over her actual age of fifteen.

“……………………………”

Jahn froze and gave Erna and Annette a dubious look. He blinked.

Then he nodded. “If anyone asks, that’s certainly what we’ll say.”

““This guy is a menaaaace!””

Sara and Erna shuddered all over again.

The man sitting across from them shouldn’t have been allowed to get near minors under any circumstances.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Erna turned to her seatmate. “Hey, Annette.”

“Huh?”

“That guy thinks you’re a little girl. He’s making fun of you.”

Erna’s plan was full scorched earth.

Sara and Erna were well aware Annette had a complex about her height. Whenever people commented on it, she always flew into a rage. She was liable to blow up the entire restaurant for them.

Sure enough, Annette gave Jahn a skeptical glare. “Yo, buddy, what do you take me for?”

“Someone who’s very mature for your age.”

“Yo, this guy’s all right!”

““He really isn’t!””

Thanks to his surprising answer, he managed to avoid inciting Annette’s wrath. Jahn was clearly experienced at handling younger girls—a fact that only deepened Sara and Erna’s disdain.

“Heh. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Councillor.”

Beside him, Pharma made no efforts to tell him off. Instead, she simply observed with a docile expression on her face and ordered a round of drinks for the table.

She had no intention of reining the man in.

Sara and Erna wanted desperately to go home, but they were well past the point of no return.

“All righty! Let’s all cut loose tonight, shall we?!” Jahn was having the time of his life. There wasn’t a drop of liquor in him yet, and his face was already flush. “This right here, this is what life is all about! And what’s more, my good friend even said he’d join us!”

“Your friend? There’s someone else coming?” Pharma asked.

“Indeed! My first true compatriot!”

That was news to Pharma, and she cocked her head in bewilderment.

The fact that this guy was a friend of Jahn’s gave the girls little hope about his character. They tried praying for a reprieve, but Jahn ignored them and boisterously explained. “We hit it off at the pub yesterday. The man’s a fellow diehard! My sensors went off the moment I met him. He’s incredible! He’s the kind of guy who would take eight girls with nowhere else to go and invite them to come live in his manor with him—I’m sure of it. He didn’t say anything to that effect, but my gut never lies!”

At that point, they heard a pair of footsteps approaching their private room.

“Ah, he’s here!” Jahn nodded with delight and threw open the door.

“Allow me to introduce you. This is my compatriot—Klaus!”

The tall, long-haired man standing there was one they knew well.

““““………………………………””””

The girls were struck utterly speechless.

“Hey there, J,” Klaus said casually, to which Jahn replied, “Glad you could make it, K,” and offered him the seat next to his own. They’d only met the night prior, but the two of them were thick as thieves, and they clapped each other on the shoulder with joy.

The girls were flabbergasted.

Lamplight’s boss had joined the mixer as one of the pedophiles.

Eventually, everyone’s drinks arrived. There was beer with glasses for the two men, a Cassis Orange for Pharma, and grape juice for the younger three.

“Ch-cheers.”

“Hear, hear…”

Sara and Erna nodded to each other and, as a team, poured Jahn a glass of beer.

““Here you go, Mr. Jahn.””

Jahn stared at the glass they were offering him with glee and, after toasting, drained it in one hearty swig.

Thus began Sara and Erna’s first-ever mixer. And the very first thing they’d done in it…was poison their counterpart’s drink.

Five minutes into the meal, Jahn had to step out for a bit.

Soon after imbibing the laxative prepared by Lily the local poison expert, Jahn’s complexion had worsened, and he’d headed for the bathroom. He wouldn’t be back for at least fifteen minutes. Poison wasn’t a big part of Sara’s and Erna’s repertoires, but the lighting in the room was dim enough that even they could fool a layman.

Once they were down to just Klaus, Annette turned to him. “Yo, Bro, are you one of those ‘pedophiles,’ too?”

Klaus grimaced. “It wounds me that you would even ask that.” He took another sip of his beer. “I’m on a mission separate from Avian’s investigating a crime syndicate. There’s a woman loosely associated with them coming to this restaurant today, so I decided to befriend Councillor Jahn solely to provide myself with some cover here.”

“I think I just stumbled on something mighty interesting, yo.”

Klaus furrowed his brow. “Try to keep your amusement to a minimum, if you could. I had to stomach a lot of unpleasantness to ingratiate myself with that man.”

When the appetizers arrived, Annette wasted no time in attacking them, cackling to herself all the while.

Meanwhile, Sara was overcome with relief. “R-right, of course. I knew the boss would never go to a mixer for real.”

Sara knew Klaus was far too busy to go around skirt-chasing, but for a moment there, she’d been flummoxed all the same. She didn’t quite know how to describe the feeling she’d gotten in her heart.

She let out a long exhale.

“………”

When she sensed someone’s gaze, she turned to the side and found Pharma looking at her in surprise.

“Ohhh,” Pharma said. “So thaaat’s what’s going on, huh? Ah, the innocence of youth. It’s adorable.”

Sara wasn’t quite sure why, but Pharma’s lips were curled into a grin, and she was staring at Sara with rapt delight.

Across the table, Klaus continued giving his matter-of-fact explanation. “In any case, I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on him. I won’t let him lay a hand on you. You girls can just enjoy your meal in peace.”

That was heartening to hear.

Erna’s expression softened. “That’s a big relief,” she said happily. Meanwhile, Annette declared, “I’m gonna put in all the orders I want, yo,” and called over their server to pile more expensive-sounding dishes onto their tab.

Things were starting to feel like a regular old Lamplight dinner. As the mood in the room lightened, Sara managed to muster up a soft smile. “This is nice. If things go on like this, we might actually have a good—”

“I’m sorry, did you forget? This is a mixer, remember?”

Pharma interrupted the conversation and made her point with wide eyes.

“““Huh…?”””

Sara, Erna, and even Klaus all reacted with surprise.

This couldn’t be good.

Before they had a chance to say anything, though, the door swung open and Jahn returned with a broad smile on his face. “So sorry about that, everyone,” he said as he sat back down in his original seat looking none the worse for the wear. Not only had he made a full recovery, but he’d also done so in half the time they’d expected. The man’s stomach must have been made of steel.

“Are you feeling better now, Councillor?” Pharma said, playing up how worried she was about him as she pulled a small box out of her bag. “I was thinking it might be fun to have a little lottery. What do you thiiink? We’ll say whoever draws the 1 has to feed the person who draws the 2.”

“Ohhh, now that does sound like a good time! Brilliant idea, Pharma!” Jahn cried. He gave her an excited little round of applause.

In contrast, Sara and Erna glared at her with reproach. ““Is she for real right now?!””

Pharma was determined to see the event through.

After putting one slip in the box for each person present, she passed it to Jahn and had them all draw slips one by one. Once Jahn, Sara, Erna, and Annette had all taken a turn, Pharma gave the box another shake and offered it to Klaus. “Don’t be shyyy, Klaus.”

“………” Klaus made no effort to hide the displeasure on his face. “Did I just see you mess with the box?”

“I’m suuure you’re just imagining things.”

“From where I’m sitting, I only see one slip in there. What happened to the one you’re going to draw?”

“Huuuh? Look, you’re part of the group, so surely you’re going to draw a slip, right? Only a reaaal party pooper would go and spoil the fun now.”

“………”

Klaus went silent, but he did resign himself to drawing a slip. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had a duty as a spy to carry out his mission.

Once Pharma drew the final slip (although from where Sara was sitting, it looked like she pulled it out of her sleeve), everyone unfolded their papers.

Klaus had the 1, and Sara had the 2.

Pharma rose to her feet in glee.

“All righty! Klaus, why don’t you go ahead and feed Sara some of that salad?”

“Whaaaaat?!”

Sara’s face immediately went hot, and she let out a hysterical cry.

“Ooh, you lucky dog!” Jahn said in disappointment as he thumped Klaus on the shoulder. Erna and Annette squeezed their fists tight and cheered her on. “Big Sis Sara…” “I’m rooting for you, yo!”

Klaus gave Pharma an icy look. Eventually, though, he defeatedly picked up a fork and stabbed it into the carpaccio salad that had just arrived at the table.

After lifting up a couple slices of lettuce—

“Say ‘aaah.’”

—he held the fork out to Sara.

“~~~~~~~~~~!!”

She could hear her heart pounding. Thinking about how red her face must have been only served to deepen her embarrassment.

Annette and Erna gave her looks of encouragement. Sara steeled her resolve, squeezed her eyes shut, and opened her mouth.

Klaus delicately put the lettuce in.

The instant the fork left her mouth, Sara grabbed her fresh glass of grape juice and chugged the whole thing down. Her body felt like it was burning up.

“Oh, she’s so pure.” Pharma let out a pleased laugh. “For our next game, what about having the winners do an indirect kiss with a straw?”

Klaus gave her a scathing look. “You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?”

The game continued for some time, but fortunately, the girls never ended up having to do anything genuinely uncomfortable. Pharma fed Jahn some food, Annette and Erna fed each other some bread, and the party went on harmlessly.

As a result, Annette was all smiles the whole way through. “I wanna get some more meat,” she crowed as she wolfed down every scrap of food that came her way. Even Erna got caught up in Annette’s gluttony and gobbled down the food with gusto. “This is so delicious!”

Jahn did grumble a bit about how the drawings never seemed to go his way, but Pharma did a skillful job of patching things up and keeping him on tenterhooks.

The one odd thing was how one in every two draws ended up with Sara and Klaus having to get touchy. First, she would have to put her arm around his body, then he would have to give her a lap pillow. The orders just kept on coming.

I—I feel like someone might be reading into something here!

Every time it happened, Pharma gave her a look of profound satisfaction. Sara’s face went bright red whenever she had to touch Klaus, and Pharma couldn’t get enough of it. She was clearly toying with her.

Still, a thought crossed Sara’s mind.

This is what makes her so incredible.

She’d seen Pharma’s power a number of times before. Back at the academy, Pharma had used it to its full effect.

Humans were creatures whose sentiment could be swayed by the smallest of things. A raised fist would inspire anxiety, while an open palm could inspire camaraderie. Merely by changing Klaus’s position, it was possible to make the person he was facing feel comfort or discomfort.

Pharma was a mentalist who specialized in manipulating people’s emotions. The tiniest of moves she made could allow her to control entire spaces.

“Hmm, my luck really has forsaken me tonight.” They were an hour into the meal, and Jahn was getting understandably frustrated. He gave Pharma a defeated look. “What do you say we call it here and move this party somewhere else? I booked a hotel room in advance. How about we part ways with ol’ K and—?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

Pharma took his proffered hand and swatted it away.

“I’m code name Feather—and I’d say it’s time to descend into depravity.”

The door to the room swung open.

Standing on the other side of it was a girl with long hair and puffy red eyes. Her lips were pursed tight, and she was fixing an intense stare on Jahn.

“What…?”

Jahn was overcome with shock. He didn’t understand what was happening, and the girls were in the same boat. However, Klaus nodded, as he was the one person who’d immediately picked up on what was going on.

“I figured as much.” He shot a glance over at Pharma. “That’s the woman I’m tailing. Our missions had more in common than it seemed.”

“That’s the long and short of it,” Pharma said with a smug look on her face.

Jahn’s gaze flitted between Pharma and the newcomer like he didn’t know what to make of things. He looked like a man who’d just had a bucket of cold water dumped onto his face.

“What’s going on? Who is that?”

“Well, that’s a heartless thing to say.” Pharma gave him a cold look. “She’s the daughter you abandoned.”

“She’s right, Daddy.”

There was a sadness in the young woman’s voice.

That was true—earlier in the conversation, Jahn had mentioned having a daughter. He’d lost touch with her eight years ago during his divorce. If she’d been twelve at the time, then that would make her twenty now. Pharma’s use of the word abandoned didn’t quite mesh with Jahn’s story, but in all likelihood, the truth lay with the former of the two.

Klaus quickly explained. “She’s Kacha Yudy, a low-level member of a nasty little criminal organization. They’ve been having her contact other spies, forge documents, and smuggle money and weapons for them. She’s been a handy disposable pawn for them.”

“Now, why would she go and do that?”

Jahn gave him a skeptical look. His curiosity was dispassionate, like it had nothing to do with him.

“To help you,” Pharma said with an edge to her voice. “Didn’t you ever find it odd? All those scandals getting hushed up, your rivals falling from grace… You’ve had more than your share of strokes of good fortune.”

“Ah…”

“All that was thanks to your daughter. She helped them commit all sorts of crimes because they told her she was helping you. She’s the very picture of devotion.” Her voice rang firm. “And all because you told everyone who would listen just how much you loved her!”

Seeing Jahn’s daughter Kacha and thinking about how fanatical her love was sent a pang through Sara’s heart.

She remembered the explanation Jahn gave for spending time with young girls: “They remind me of my daughter.” He himself had said that was how he explained his behavior. He’d been doing so for ages, and word must have gotten back to his genuine daughter Kacha. So she’d returned his love in kind. The no-contact order didn’t apply to her, but she’d obeyed it all the same and supported her father from afar.

Pharma sadly shook her head. “Do you see now, Kacha? Your father has no love for his daughter. He just uses that as an excuse to get his grabby hands all over minors. He’s scum, plain and simple.”

She wrapped Kacha’s shoulders into a soft embrace.

“No matter how hard you try, you’ll never make your daddy love you.”

In Kacha’s hand was a wiretap. She’d been listening to the entire mixer. That was the reason Pharma had thrown it in the first place.

Persuasion—that was one of the special skills “Feather” Pharma possessed. She could get anyone, no matter who they were, to open their hearts to her and spill their innermost secrets.

Kacha crumpled to the floor like her knees had given out under her and began crying. Pharma snuggled up to her and rubbed her back. Before long, Kacha would doubtless be clinging to Pharma and confessing all her misdeeds as Pharma consoled her.

Jahn awkwardly listened to the whole thing play out.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you for doing all that, I suppose.” Despite the fact they were reuniting after eight years, Jahn barely sounded like he cared. He scratched his head and let out a strained laugh. “What an odd pickle this is.” From his perspective, she was just a stranger he’d cut ties with long ago. “Well, um… Kacha? When they lock you up, make sure you cooperate with the investigation. I say, aiding and abetting a criminal organization? That’s no way to behave.”

His shameless comments earned him a reply from Klaus. “You sound so carefree. It’s like you don’t even realize how doomed you are.”

“Huh?”

“The only things that have let you survive as a politician up until now have been your parents’ coattails and your abandoned daughter’s efforts. Now that she’s turned her back on you, it won’t be long before charges start getting filed against you.”

“………”

“It appears you didn’t have any direct contact with the criminals, but to be frank, I find you even more detestable than them. I have no sympathy to offer you.”

Jahn winced at Klaus’s words. Now it was all too easy for him to realize how ruined he was.

He shot a pleading look over at Pharma and Kacha, but neither of them was of any mind to help him. Everyone in the room was looking at him with venom in their eyes.

“Urgh…”

He hung his head and covered his face with his hands so he wouldn’t have to look reality in the face. His head twitched from side to side.

“______!”

Then an idea struck him, and he grabbed a knife off the table. Squeezing it tight, he leaped onto the table and lunged at Annette and Erna, who’d been looking on as spectators.

Perhaps he planned on taking them hostage, or perhaps he was simply lashing out. It was impossible to tell. Sara never gave him a chance to prove which it was.

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

The puppy hiding in her bag jumped out and sank its teeth into Jahn’s arm. With a cry of “Gah!” he fell over backward onto his rear.

“I won’t let you lay a finger on Miss Erna or Miss Annette.”

Sara positioned herself protectively in front of them and glared down at Jahn.

She may not have had any personal ties to him herself, but she found his lack of regard for others maddening.

“You need to apologize,” she shouted. “Apologize to all the people you’ve hurt!”

Despite that slight hiccup, the mission ended successfully.

Jahn had passed out, so they just left him there and exited the restaurant.

On their way out, Pharma and Klaus shared a hushed conversation.

“We stumbled on Kacha while we were digging into that boy’s contacts. Was she really…?”

“Yeah. They pegged her as a mark. To them, she made for a convenient tool.”

“We have to make them pay for this.”

“They were probably planning on blackmailing Councillor Jahn, as well. They want to get a foothold here in the city. I’ll get you a copy of the intel I’ve gathered. The mission’s likely going to fall to Avian.”

“Right. I’ll be sure to let Vindo know.”

The girls couldn’t follow any of the details, but they could tell how dead serious it was. By the sound of it, Avian still had work left to do. That much was clear; Pharma’s voice was much graver than usual.

However, none of that was any of the girls’ business.

Once they were outside, Pharma’s expression brightened up. “Thank you all so muuuch. I couldn’t have done it without you. I’ll see you tomorrow, ’kaaay?” she said with a smile and a wave.

“So you admit you’re coming to Heat Haze Palace again tomorrow,” the girls half laughed, half groaned as they parted ways with her.

Klaus had some other work he needed to finish up, so the three girls headed back alone. They were filled with the pleasant feeling of a job well done.

“I was a little taken aback at first.” Eventually, Erna got over her nerves and smiled. “But Big Sis Pharma was really cool back there. It’s no wonder she’s on Avian.”

“For sure.”

Not once had Pharma ever let the girls feel like they were in any real danger. The grip she’d had over Jahn’s emotions had let her keep him from getting anywhere near them. That moment there at the end had given Sara a fright, but she was confident even if she hadn’t done anything, Pharma would have stopped Jahn instead.

Pharma had been in complete control of the entire room.

Getting to go on a mission with her had been a really valuable experience.

As Sara thought about how she really needed to thank her for that, she called out to the girl walking ahead. “What about you, Miss Annette? How did you enjoy your first mixer?”

“Hmm?” Annette said as she turned around. There was a chicken bone jutting out of her mouth. For her, dinner wasn’t quite over yet. “I thought the food was great, yo.”

“I guess you really did spend the whole time eating, Miss Annette.”

Rather than pay any attention to Jahn, Annette had continued shoveling meat into her mouth from start to finish.

Annette grinned, her mouth glistening with grease. “You should’ve eaten more too, Sis.”

“I—I was too nervous to even think about the food.”

“What a shame, yo! It was super tasty,” Annette happily informed her.

“Now that you mention it,” Erna said from beside her, “I was surprised at how nuanced the flavors were. That place was really fancy.”

“Oh…”

“I took a look at the menu Annette was hoarding. All the prices had one or two more zeros than the restaurants I usually go to.”

“W-well, um, I guess it did seem pretty expensive.”

Sara had picked up on how high-end of an establishment it was. Erna was right about the prices on the menu, and the furnishings and decor had been swanky as well.

Had Pharma specifically picked a nice restaurant to put Jahn in a better mood, perhaps? It was possible, though the way things had played out, Jahn himself was the one who had ended up paying.

“I really do think it’s a shame, yo.”

Annette gave her a tauntingly mysterious smile.

“And after all that work Pharma put into setting it up for you.”

True to her word, Pharma came to Heat Haze Palace the next day as well.

Early in the morning, she barged her way past the LAMPLIGHT USE ONLY! sign outside the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of fruit juice from the fridge. Its label had PROPERTY OF LILY! scrawled over it in big letters, but after a “Hmm?” and the briefest of pauses, she peeled the label off and began loudly chugging the bottle’s contents.

Sara watched her do it from nearby, but it all happened too fast for her to say anything.

She stood there in blank shock for a bit when suddenly, her and Pharma’s gazes met.

“Oh, hiiii, Sara. Thanks again for yesterday.”

Pharma gave her a smile and wave with her stolen goods still in hand.

There were a million things Sara wanted to comment on, but she had one burning question she wanted answered.

“Why…?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you pick me to join the mission?”

In retrospect, Sara had been completely extraneous. Annette and Erna were the ones who looked like twelve-year-olds, and that was all Pharma had really needed. They were the only ones Jahn had expressed any real interest in, and seeing him go after the two people who looked like twelve-year-olds was what had set his daughter Kacha off.

In other words, there had been no reason for Sara to even be there. Why, Pharma hadn’t even prepared an outfit for her.

“…Ooh, you noticed?” Pharma tilted her head in embarrassment. “Yeah, you were a freebie. It didn’t have anything to do with the mission.”

“But why?”

“I remember back at the academy, back when you used to go cry at the far end of the beach.”

Sara groaned. Pharma had mentioned it before the mission, as well.

Those were hardly pleasant memories, and having them dredged back up caused her chest to grow tight. None of her skills had been up to snuff back then, and she’d spent her days getting yelled at by her instructors and sobbing her eyes out.

Pharma narrowed her eyes in chagrin. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to help.”

“………”

Sara’s eyes went wide.

Pharma looked down apologetically. “That’s why I wanted to treat you to a nice meeeal yesterday. But instead, I just made you nervous. I guess my plan backfired.”

“B-but why me…?”

“If anything, don’t you resent me? I noticed you crying, but I ignored it tiiime and time again. I would have had to, or there’s no way I could have known about how often it happened.”

How could Sara resent her for that? The training they had gone through at the spy academy was so harsh, it would have been bizarre if Pharma did have the bandwidth to look after someone else.

“But I’m a nobody, I just—”

“Don’t put yourself down like that.”

Pharma took a big step forward.

Sara was too surprised to move, and Pharma laid her hands on her shoulders before sliding her arms around her back and wrapping her in a gentle embrace.

“Congratulations. I think it’s wonderful that you became a full-fledged spy.”

“________”

Sara could feel the heat from Pharma’s body.

After a short while, Pharma stepped back and stuck out her tongue a little. “Tee-hee, that’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you. I’ve been sitting on that for a whiiile.”

Not a moment later, a scream rang out from the kitchen’s entrance.

When they turned and looked, they saw Lily looking absolutely aghast. “I was looking FORWARD to that juice!” she yelled. Her face was scarlet, and she grabbed a nearby broom. “I’ve had it up to here with you people! Go home, Avian!! Today’s the day I punish you for your sins and end your reign of terror!”

Lily gave the broom a few practice swings. Her grudges ran deep when food was involved.

“Ooh, this could be bad,” Pharma said with a laugh, then made a break for it. She leaped out the kitchen window and fled to the outdoors.

“Miss Pharma!” Sara hurriedly cried after her. “I-I’m really happy we got to go on a mission together!”

Pharma flashed her a toothy grin and nodded. “Then I guess our love’s mutual.”

Two years earlier…

The Din Republic had a number of spy academies dotted throughout the land, and one of those facilities was built on a lonely island in a distant sea. Its isolation made it easier to practice with heavy weaponry there, but the fact it was closed off and impossible to escape from put a lot of stress on the female spy trainees stationed there.

One of those trainees was Pharma. She went by the name Projection at the time, and her grades were stellar. Her older brother Holytree was an outstanding spy, and her talent was on par with his. Whenever the academy held an exam, Pharma was consistently the highest scorer.

Plenty of the other students wanted to share the benefits of her success, and she’d earned herself quite a following.

“You were incredible in that marksmanship drill today, Pharma!” “I bet you could already pass the graduation exam!”

Pharma was surrounded by five such girls, and she gave them a conflicted smile. “Hmm. I dunno, I’d like to keep taking it easy here at the acaaademy for a bit longer.”

As a note, she knew firsthand how dangerous standing out too much could be, and when she did take her graduation exam, she would pull her punches enough to only get fifth place. If she’d been trying her hardest, she would have been a contender for second or third. However, she’d crossed paths with some people she didn’t much care for, so she’d decided to prioritize crushing them over maximizing her own marks.

Pharma tuned out her groupies as she walked across the island.

Right when she was about to leave the training area and head back to the dorms, a voice reached her ear.

“Hmm… I hear someone crying.”

Her followers looked at her in confusion. “Huh?”

Pharma stepped off the path and headed for the sea. Her heart tightened in her chest at how sad the voice was.

When she arrived at the beach, the source of the crying came into view. It was a girl with brown hair. Her back quivered as she hugged a large hawk by the water’s edge. From within her embrace, the hawk gave her arm a consoling nuzzle with its head.

“Ah, it’s her,” one of Pharma’s hangers-on said.

The girl was a new student by the name of Meadow. She’d failed to disassemble and reassemble her gun in the allotted time during their training that morning, and the instructor had chewed her out for it.

“Should we say something to her, Pharma?”

“…………………”

Pharma didn’t give the suggestion an immediate reply.

She stared at the brown-haired girl until she knew she would never forget the image.

“Let’s nooot.” Pharma turned back and returned the way she’d come. “If she’s not cut out to be a spy, then it’s better she gets expelled sooner rather than later. If by some miracle she does become a spy, she’s juuust gonna get herself killed.”

The world was awash in pain. They all knew it. Everyone had things they were and weren’t suited for. Giving encouragement to the untalented was a great way to assuage one’s feelings of guilt, but it didn’t necessarily do the untalented themselves any good.

Pharma’s admirers cast their eyes downward in sorrow. They probably felt bad for Meadow, though from Pharma’s perspective, all of them were practically as incompetent as her.

“But you knooow,” Pharma said with a soft smile, “if someone does find some talent in her and helps her enter the world of espionage with her head held high, I’d like to get a chance to congratulate her. Ooh, it’d be nice to give her a warm welcome by treating her to a delicious meal.”

Even as she said it, she could already imagine what a lovely future that would be.

Someone failing at school was no guarantee they were unskilled. Perhaps someone would come along, discover her talent, and help her find some way to shine.

That might be an absurd thing to wish for, but there was no harm in hoping.

“I dunno, Pharma, you’re such a spendthrift.” One of the groupies grinned and poked fun at her. “Would you really be able to save up for that? Good food is expensive.”

It was an apt point, but Pharma wasn’t worried. “I’ll be fiiine.” Even if she was broke, there were plenty of options available. She gave her followers a determined smile. “If the time comes, I’ll just get someone else to foot the bill, see.”

Like a prophecy, that was precisely what happened just two years later.