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

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

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

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

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

The incident in question took place shortly after Lamplight’s founding, just four days after Klaus instructed the girls to defeat him.

At first, the girls underestimated their assignment and thought it would be a piece of cake, but as time wore on, the sheer difficulty of the task before them finally began sinking in. Klaus didn’t just call himself the World’s Strongest, he had the skills to back up the claim, too. It didn’t take the girls long to realize just how real his talents were.

By day four, the raw gulf between his abilities and theirs was really starting to get them down.

They began doubting their entire training regimen and losing what little self-confidence they’d managed to retain.

Furthermore, some of them still didn’t fully trust Klaus yet—and thus, the stage was set.

Ten minutes after the attack…

“…Damn, I can’t believe he was able to dodge the chili bomb.”

“MUST BE NICE FOR HIM, HUH?!”

The girls were back in the main hall holding a post-mortem.

To make a long story short, their attack failed.

When the explosive pouch Lily was unwittingly carrying went off, it had filled the entire room with a special tear-inducing powder. The idea was to have it blind Lily and the target alike…but the target had reacted quickly enough to escape out the window. By the time the begoggled girls got to the storage room, the target had had enough time to come back with goggles of his own. It only took him a few seconds to completely wipe the floor with them.

In the end, Lily’s sacrifice ended up being in vain after all.

Tears and mucus streamed down her face as she confronted Sybilla. “You’re a monster! A thug! How can you not feel guilty about turning your own teammate into a bomb?!”

“I mean, I am sorry, but, like…,” Sybilla replied as she held Lily away from her throat. “This was our best shot, y’know? Our shitty acting’s never gonna fool him. If you’d known about the bomb ahead of time, he’d have seen through it even quicker.”

“Y-you’re not wrong, but still…”

“And plus, in a real battle, using stooges like that is fair game.”

It wasn’t cowardly. It was simply their trade.

There were no precepts that spies had to follow, nor did they have a code of chivalry. Seduction, assassination, disguises, blackmail, kidnapping, infiltration, and wiretapping were all on the table. For the girls, all that mattered was that they completed their mission.

In a sense, the conditions they trained under were about as close to actual fieldwork as you could get.

“I shoulda paid more attention to the staging, huh?” Sybilla said. She looked up at the ceiling and began muttering to herself. “What we need is the element of surprise. We could have Lily fistfight the target on a dried-up riverbed, then set off the bomb right as they go for a conciliatory handshake… Or we could have Lily confess her love to the target, then set off the bomb the moment they exchange a kiss… We could send Lily out in the dead of winter to look for a lost puppy, then set off the bomb when the target hugs her to warm up her frozen shoulders…”

“Why’s it always me getting blown up?” Lily retorted.

“C’mon, there’s no need to get mad. Here, to show you how sorry I am, I’ll even take over your cooking shift tonight.”

“And you’ll give me an extra-big portion?”

“Sure. I’ve got tons more chili powder I need to use up.”

“…You’re not sorry at all, are you?”

The argument started with just Sybilla and Lily, but the rest of the team quickly got dragged into it as well. After figuring out the spots where their last plan went wrong, they got to work putting together their next one.

That was what the girls did. They started with proposals, worked them into plans, carried out recon, put their plans into motion, screwed up, held postmortems, and started the whole process over again. The hope was that by doing so over and over, they would gradually end up honing their skills.

As the rest of the team started getting excited about their next scheme, Sybilla let out a frustrated murmur under her breath. “Damn, and I thought it was a pretty good idea…” However, none of the others heard her.

As the day wound to a close, Sybilla headed back to her room and lay sprawled out on her bed.

The strength drained from her body as she stared vacantly up at the ceiling.

“I’m wiped. Again…”

Each of the girls had a bedroom all to herself. The manor had rooms enough to spare, so the girls all lived and trained there together.

The bed was soft and fluffy, and Sybilla’s body sank readily into it. If she let her guard down, she’d be asleep before she knew it. It reminded her once again of how luxurious her new life was, but that in turn reminded her of what she was going to have to do to earn it, and it made her head feel heavy.

There was just one reason why Sybilla had gone to lengths as extreme as sacrificing her teammate to carry out her attack, and that reason was the Impossible Mission. That was the term for the type of mission that Lamplight had to look forward to, and having to undertake it was the price they were going to have to pay for their lavish manor lifestyle.

Impossible Missions were incredibly difficult. Their success rate was in the single digits, and 90 percent of agents who went on one didn’t come back alive. Sybilla didn’t know what specifically their mission was going to entail, but the fact it awaited them was why they were devoting every moment of free time they had to training. They were battling around the clock, day and night.

For all their efforts, though, all they’d been met with was a string of failures. Even with all of them working together, they couldn’t defeat a single lone spy.

That was why she was so anxious. Their deadline was only four weeks away, but she didn’t feel like she’d learned a thing.

“Are all elite spies seriously that strong…?”

They had been forced to acknowledge a cruel fact time and again over the course of their training: their target, Klaus, was a bona fide monster.

He was leagues ahead of them in every metric, from his athletic abilities to his quick thinking on his feet to the accuracy of his hunches. He turned the tables on them when they all rushed him down with knives at the ready, he saw through every booby trap they laid, and he didn’t bat an eye at their seduction attempts. There was no denying that Klaus’s skills were in a league of their own.

The problem was, what if their upcoming mission required them to go up against someone with skills on par with Klaus’s? They’d get annihilated, that was what.

Thinking about that possibility, and about the fact that it was getting closer every moment, sent a chill down Sybilla’s spine. She reached for the framed picture on her nightstand.

It was an unremarkable photograph of the ocean—but hidden behind it was the picture she really wanted to see. She disassembled the frame, pulled out the photo, and felt a flood of warmth fill her heart.

A few words spilled from her lips. “Your big sister’s doin’ her best…”

Nobody was supposed to have heard—but someone spoke up from behind her. “Whoa! I never knew you could sound so sisterly!”

“The hell?!” Sybilla leaped violently from her bed and looked in the direction the voice came from.

Lily froze midway through opening the door. “Ah, sorry. I knocked, but you didn’t say anything,” she mumbled by way of an excuse.

“Yeah, I was pretty out of it.”

Sybilla wanted to kick herself for being so careless. It wasn’t like anything bad would come of Lily seeing her, but it was embarrassing all the same.

She flopped back down on her bed.

Lily closed the door behind her, then jogged over to the bed and picked up the photo.

The picture was of three children, one of whom was a younger Sybilla. They were standing in front of a white building with big smiles on their faces.

“Is this your little brother and little sister?”

“Yeah,” Sybilla said from atop the bed. “We got it taken back when I was at the orphanage.”

“Oh, huh,” Lily replied casually as she took another look at the photo. Her mouth curled into a small grin. Sybilla assumed she was thinking about how much cuter her siblings were compared to her.

“This photo’s pretty old, isn’t it? You’re so teensy!”

“………I don’t get back there much these days.”

“Do they know you’re a spy?”

“Nah. When I left, I told ’em I was joining a detective agency out in the sticks.”

Spies generally didn’t tell their families about their jobs. If their families accidentally let any information slip, they could end up in serious danger before they could blink.

“I guess the rules are the rules,” Lily said sadly.

“Yup. Still, I think they figured somethin’ was up. Back when we split, we made a promise that once I got rich, we’d get back together and live happily ever after.”

“Aww, that’s nice.”

“’Course I’ve accomplished exactly jack and shit since then.”

Sybilla had been overeager to a fault during her academy days, and it had earned her a lot of pushback from her peers and instructors. Her poor teamwork during her practical exams meant her abilities plateaued, and to make matters worse, she caused so many other problems that before she knew it, she was on the verge of expulsion.

She had all the motivation in the world to want to get stronger, but that was precisely what made her failures sting so harshly.

“Honestly, I’m worried as hell.” Sybilla couldn’t believe how pathetic she sounded. “If things go on like this, we’re boned. The thing is, I dunno what I can do. It doesn’t feel like I’m gettin’ any stronger, so it’s like, what’s this training even good for? Hell, I don’t even know how much I believe in our teacher yet…”

She realized that she was saying too much.

Glancing over to the side, she discovered that Lily’s eyes were moist. Lily dabbed at them with a handkerchief. “Sybilla, you’re such a good kid…”

“Wh-what?”

“I had you pegged all wrong, and I’m super sorry. All this time, I thought you were just a rude, uncivilized orangutan.”

“You wanna walk that comment back, or am I gonna have to make you?”

“But now, I realize that you’re a really kind orangutan.”

“Yeah, see, that’s not the part I wanted you to take back!”

Despite Sybilla’s angry outburst, Lily was operating on a frequency all her own.

“It’s okay. You are getting stronger—we all are!” She smiled radiantly and took Sybilla by the hand. Her eyes were gleaming. “With how crazy strong Teach is, we’ve gotta be learning a bunch by fighting him so much. And we’re just gonna keep getting better and better. Then, we’re gonna complete that Impossible Mission and get a gigantic bonus!”

Sybilla found herself a little overwhelmed by the infectious enthusiasm. “I—I guess so…”

“And as step number one, we’re gonna give Teach what-for.” Lily released Sybilla’s hand and proudly threw out her ample chest. “Heh-heh-heh. And it just so happens that your magnificent leader Lily’s come up with a plan to do just that! Plus, the plan even comes with a free boxed lunch!”

“Sorry, a what?”

“Y’know, for moral support. After all, you’re gonna be the star of the show this time!”

That was probably what she’d come to tell Sybilla in the first place.

Lily’s voice rang with a touch too much confidence as she explained their next plan of attack.

The following morning, Sybilla quietly snuck out of Heat Haze Palace.

The manor sat in a port city in a small nation called the Din Republic. The port was the nation’s gateway to the rest of the world, and its presence had grown the city into the third most prosperous locale in the country. Between the traders gathering there to sell their imported goods and the throngs of immigrants who worked on the docks, the city was a melting pot of people of every socioeconomic status imaginable.

The girls’ cover story for living there was that they were students at a local seminary school.

Sybilla strode down the bustling holiday streets dressed as your average stylish schoolgirl.

“Annette’s wiretap worked like a charm.”

Lily had laid out the plan for her.

“Tomorrow, Teach is going into town to pick up some confidential documents. If you can steal the envelope they’re in, he’ll surrender right then and there. We can win without even having to fight him.”

She had a point. It was a good plan.

Whenever you were delivering highly sensitive information, it was important to do the handoff directly. Even though they were within their own borders, there was no knowing where enemy spies might be lurking, and sending the intel via mail or by phone ran the risk of interception. Soon, Klaus was going to head somewhere in the city so he could receive it in person.

Now, if that intel were to get stolen…

Sybilla tracked Klaus’s suit with her gaze. The air of intimidation he usually carried himself with was gone like it had never been there. He walked through the city as just another young man in the crowd.

Klaus stepped into a paint store as unsuspiciously as could be. When he did, the owner brought him a can of paint from the back of the shop.

The owner’s gait is too spry for how heavy that can should be.

It was an amateurish mistake, but most of their covert domestic collaborators weren’t exactly much to write home about.

Whatever was in that can, it definitely wasn’t paint.

So that’s where the documents are hidden…

Klaus paid, then immediately stashed the paint can away in his bag.

Always the thorough one, that Klaus. If Sybilla wanted to make off with the documents, she was going to have to steal his entire bag.

After Klaus left, he headed down the main road with brisk, unfaltering steps. From time to time, he would find a spot where traffic was especially dense and cross the street by smoothly weaving his way between the cars.

It was taking everything Sybilla had just to keep up with him.

She continued assiduously tailing her mark and tried to figure out when the perfect moment to strike would be.

Once he made it back to the manor, he would waste no time in opening the paint can, reading its contents, and disposing of them. If she wanted to steal those documents, she was going to have to do it while he was still out in public.

An opportunity presented itself when they reached the park in the heart of the city.

“Excuse me…would you like some juice?”

A girl called out, but not to her—to Klaus.

Sybilla clenched her fists. Looks like it’s my lucky day.

Klaus hadn’t gone straight home.

Instead, he’d stopped by the city’s large public green, sat down leisurely on the grass, and retrieved a wrapped-up hunk of bread from his bag. By the look of it, he wanted to enjoy a peaceful meal surrounded by greenery.

Klaus seemed to constantly be on the move, and it was rare for Sybilla to ever see him take a load off like this. Perhaps this was a secret vice of his.

Right as he took the first bite, a young girl came up to him.

“It’s…orange juice. Um…freshly…squeezed,” she stammered out.

She looked like she was about eight, and her face was bright red. Given the dingy state of her pale, yellow dress, it wasn’t hard to figure out how impoverished she was.

Sybilla eavesdropped on their conversation from behind a nearby tree.

“………”

She couldn’t make out what Klaus had said, but it looked like he was taking the girl up on her offer. He took his wallet out of his bag and handed her some coins before stashing his wallet away again.

An innocent smile spread across the girl’s face like a flower coming into bloom. She pulled a glass that couldn’t possibly have been clean out of her pocket, then began filling it with juice from her canteen.

“Oop—” Sybilla heard an alarmed yelp.

The girl had just tipped her cup too far and splashed juice all over Klaus’s shoes.

“I-I’m so sorry…,” she said, squatting down by Klaus’s feet with tears in her eyes.

“………”

Klaus’s full attention was on the girl who’d just spilled juice on him. His bag was sitting behind him, and from the look of it, it was the last thing on his mind.

Sybilla was never going to get a better opening. What she had was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and if she was going to steal the bag, then now was the time to do it.

She slipped out from behind the tree, silently approached Klaus from behind, stealthily reached for his bag—

“Wha—” “Huh?”

—and felt her fingers meet someone else’s.

Sybilla’s hand and the juice girl’s hand smacked right into each other.

For a moment, it felt like time itself had stopped.

Sybilla froze up. Her gaze met the girl’s.

“Wait, you—”

The moment she opened her mouth to talk, though, she felt someone flick her in the forehead.

It was little more than a light tap, yet it threw her off-balance as though by magic and sent her sprawling on her rump.

It went without saying who she had to thank, of course.

A deep, heart-stirring voice sounded out.

“Magnificent.”

There was a beautiful man standing before her.

He was tall and skinny, and at first glance, it was easy to mistake him for a woman. Many of his lovely features were hidden behind his shoulder-length hair. It was Lamplight’s boss—Klaus.

“That was some excellent work back there.” He looked down at Sybilla with an expression of utmost pride. “You made sure to never stray too far or come too close when you were tailing me, and though your efforts ended in failure, your movements during the theft itself were nothing short of fantastic. You hid your presence completely and didn’t make a single sound. A captivating performance all around,” he said matter-of-factly as he offered his hand to Sybilla down in the grass.

Sybilla sighed and let him help her up. “…If you’re praising me for all that, it means you already knew I was tailing you.”

“Since the moment I left Heat Haze Palace, yes.”

“That’s the whole goddamn time!”

In the end, Klaus had seen through her from the start. No amount of compliments would be enough to wash that bad taste out of her mouth.

Klaus crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “Here, why don’t I tell you the trick to tailing someone?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“All you have to do is make like you’re doting on a butterfly as it flutters.”

“Why’re your lessons always so useless?!”

“Hmm. What if I told you to place the balls of your feet correctly?”

“What makes you think I’d be able to get anything from that?”

That was it, right there. That was the reason she and the others weren’t able to train normally.

The fact of the matter was Klaus was soul-crushingly bad at teaching.

There was no denying how talented of a spy he was. The girls didn’t have a great grasp on the full extent of his abilities yet, but he both called himself the World’s Strongest and had the skills to back that claim up. However, that was precisely where the problem lay.

His intuition was simply too far beyond the average person’s.

Most people would have difficulty explaining how exactly to put on a shirt or to button a button, and Klaus’s inability to teach spy techniques stemmed from the same source. He could certainly try, but in the end, all his explanations devolved into crude “just do it”s and “somehow or other”s.

As a result, Lamplight had been forced into their current regimen of mock battles.

“In any case, you’re on the right track. All you need to do now is be as fast as a thrust needle,” Klaus said to sum it all up.

“Again, this advice is just not helpful…”

Sybilla was a little bit fed up with Klaus. She wanted to click her tongue at him, but she suppressed the urge.

Is this guy really gonna be able to help me get stronger…?

It was pretty clear by now that their plan had failed.

They hadn’t just lost; they’d been utterly trounced. The target had known she was there the whole time, so there was no way she would have ever been able to get her hands on those documents.

Feels like my skills haven’t grown a single inch.

Lily had claimed that they were all getting stronger, but that was probably just wishful thinking. The tables were getting turned on them over and over in an endless loop, and Sybilla doubted they would ever break free.

She could feel the frustration building up within her like a fire scorching her insides.

However, there was something more pressing on her mind.

First things first, about that kid who was selling juice…

Sybilla looked down at the bewildered girl.

The kid appeared to have a habit of staring at the ground, and her body was so scrawny that she seemed ready to collapse with every breath. Sybilla and Klaus’s conversation had gone completely over her head, so she was just standing there in a daze.

“Hey, kid, are you—”

“A-ahhh!” the girl screamed.

It was clear how freaked out she was. She was clutching the hem of her dress like her life depended on it.

“C’mon, you don’t gotta be so scared…” It made Sybilla feel like she was being a bully. She reached out to pat the girl’s head.

“Eek!”

When she did, the girl shrieked and leaped at Klaus to get away from her hand.

The moment she did, there was a loud crunch as something got flattened. The girl had crushed Klaus’s bread underfoot. “Ah—” she squeaked hoarsely. Tears started dripping from her eyes.

“H-hey, no, c’mon…”

The girl paid no heed to Sybilla’s hurried plea and began crying in earnest. She curled up into a ball and wailed.

Klaus gave Sybilla a cold glance from his position beside her. “Look, you made her cry.”

“Wait, this is my fault?!”

“Don’t worry, your actions were kind. But they weren’t enough to make up for how scary your face is.”

“…Thanks, now I feel even shittier.”

Klaus gave a small nod, then stooped down on one knee.

“Do you like cats, young lady?” he asked. His voice usually had an almost mechanical emotionlessness to it, but now, it carried an undertone of kindness.

The girl looked up.

Sybilla was honestly a little surprised. She had no idea he even could sound like that.

Still down on one knee, Klaus inspected the hem of the girl’s dress. Upon closer inspection, it was terribly frayed. She had worn it out pretty thoroughly. In his other hand, he was holding a needle and thread.

The girl stared at Klaus’s fingers in rapt attention.

From there, it all happened in a flash as Klaus sewed up the threadbare dress at an incredible speed. His movements were smooth and flowing, and in the blink of an eye, he finished embroidering the dress’s hem with an adorable little cat.

“Wow!” the girl said. A smile spread across her face before their eyes.

Now adorned in her newly decorated dress, she flashed a toothy grin of delight. No more tears spilled from her eyes.

Sybilla was astounded at the feat Klaus had just pulled off. “Where’d you get the needle from?”

“I always carry some hidden in my sleeve. And I unraveled my handkerchief for the thread.”

He turned his suit’s cuffs toward Sybilla and slid a number of needles of varying lengths in and out of them.

As it turned out, Klaus could do a perfectly fine job explaining what he did.

“The trick to embroidery is to make like you’re doting on the entire world.”

He just couldn’t explain the methods or logic behind how he did it.

Sometimes, it was hard to tell if he was an idiot or a genius.

“Thanks for the save…”

At any rate, she knew she needed to thank him. If she’d been on her own, she wouldn’t have known how to pacify the crying child.

Sybilla took another look over at the girl. Her smile really was adorable, especially with her missing baby teeth. The sight gently stirred up Sybilla’s memories.

“I’m gonna walk the kid home,” she said.

“How civic-minded of you,” Klaus replied.

“…Yeah, she looks kinda like my sister.”

“Sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

“Nah, it’s nothing. I just said I’m not gonna leave some kid out on her own. Wouldn’t sit right with me.”

Klaus shot a quiet stare at the girl. Between his still eyes and his level expression, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Eventually, he nodded as though in satisfaction, though it was anyone’s guess as to why.

“…No, I suppose not. I’ll come along, too.”

Sybilla hadn’t seen that one coming, but before she had a chance to ask Klaus why, he was already gently chatting with the girl.

Apparently, the juice peddler’s name was Finé.

Once you talked to her, it became clear that she was a cheerful young girl just like any other. She was afraid of Sybilla at first, but after Sybilla talked to her a bit and told her some jokes, Finé started smiling at her, too. By the time all was said and done, she was holding both their hands and walking down the main road looking as happy as could be.

In particular, she really seemed to take a shine to Sybilla. Finé bombarded her with question after question, and Sybilla deftly answered them all, smiling gently as she watched Finé’s gaze dart every which way.

“Well, would you look at that,” Klaus said admiringly. “It seems I didn’t need to butt in after all. The two of you are getting along like a house on fire.”

“Yeah, I’ve been practicin’ since I was a kid.” Sybilla used to have to look after her two younger siblings, so she was well versed in dealing with children. “You can head on back, if you want,” she offered. “I’ll make sure she gets home safe.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll see this through with you.”

“Y-your call…”

It was a little awkward, that was all.

The three of them were holding hands with Finé in the middle, and it was making Sybilla feel a bit self-conscious. The fact that she still had her reservations about Klaus was part of it, but something else was bothering her more.

We totally look like a couple…

She was pretty sure that back at the park, she had seen loads of parent-child trios that looked just like them. With the way Finé was sandwiched between them, did the people passing them on the street think that they were a family, too?

“If people see us as a family, that actually works in our favor,” Klaus told her over Finé’s head. “It’ll help us draw less attention.”

Apparently, he had figured her out.

Sybilla gave him a dubious glance. “You sure about that?”

“Go on, honey. Try calling me ‘sweetie.’”

“Okay, that one’s definitely a bridge too far…”

“This is part of your training, too.”

“………”

When he put it like that, it was hard to argue. There were times in a spy’s life when they needed to be prepared to pretend like they were married.

She could feel her face growing hotter as she parted her quivering lips. “…S-swee—”

“I was joking.”

“Oh, you’re so dead!” she bellowed, blushing up a storm.

Once her head cooled off, she realized that she was wearing her fake seminary uniform. There was no way anyone would have actually mistaken them for a couple.

Seriously, how’d I get stuck with this jackass as my boss?

Sybilla shot Klaus a scathing glare, which caused Finé to erupt into laughter. She might not have understood what they were talking about, but she still found their bickering endlessly amusing.

“Do you two not get along, miss?” she asked.

“Nope,” Sybilla replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I try to beat him up every day, and every day, he beats me up first. He’s merciless.”

“I’ve been plenty merciful. Lately, I’ve started only using one hand.”

Sybilla gave Klaus another glare. “Yeah, and that pisses me off even more…”

When she did, Finé gave Sybilla’s hand a little squeeze and smiled. “That’s just like at my house, then.”

“What?”

“My daddy always says that when you get mad at someone, it’s because of how much you love them.”

“In our case, I don’t think it’s anything nearly so heartwarming.” Sybilla paused for a moment. That made it sound a bit too harsh. “I mean, forget love, I barely know the first thing about this guy.”

“But then why’s your hand getting so warm, miss?”

“………”

That shut Sybilla up good.

It wasn’t like she seriously had feelings for Klaus or anything, it was just that all this talk about love and stuff was kind of embarrassing. Still, she could feel her face go redder by the moment.

“You’re a cheeky little rascal, you know that?!”

With a jokey grin, Sybilla let go of Finé’s hand and began ruffling up her hair. “Eek, that tickles!” Finé cried with delight as she tried to shake free.

“So, where exactly is it you live?” Sybilla asked. “The two of us’ll help you apologize to your folks for spilling the juice, but you gotta let us know where it is we’re goin’.”

“We’re almost there.”

Finé broke free from Sybilla’s hand, then took a turn off the main road and headed down a side alley. Sybilla and Klaus followed along after her.

Eventually, Finé stopped somewhere wholly unexpected—a dead end. And there didn’t appear to be any houses nearby, either.

“Miss White-Haired Lady, Mr. Stitching Guy…”

Finé’s voice was barely a whisper.

“…I’m sorry.”

Something moved in the shadows.

“Huh?” Sybilla said, dumbfounded.

All of a sudden, there was a giant standing before them. The man was well over six feet tall and covered in muscle. He was huge. Plus, he was nearly as broad as he was tall. It was like looking at a wall.

Sybilla started to react, but Klaus tapped her lightly on the arm.

A moment later, the man’s boulder-like fists sent the two of them crashing into a wall.

The man shoved burlap sacks over their heads to obscure their vision, then dragged them off. After cuffing their hands behind their backs, he shoved them into a car and drove off. Sybilla was still dizzy from the blow she’d suffered to the head, but lying on her side for a bit helped her collect herself. Based on the scents she picked up through the sack, they were heading away from the ocean.

When the car stopped and their captor forced them out, Sybilla noticed that the light from the sun was gone. They must have been indoors. Their captor pushed them against a wall, then kicked their legs to force them to sit.

She heard a deep male voice. “Don’t move. Just wait there.” It was probably the same guy who’d punched them. A pair of footsteps receded away.

Once the man was gone, Sybilla reached up with her legs to rip the sack off her head.

The building they were in was made of wood and had clearly seen better days. Unlike the plaster and wallpaper coverings most of the city’s buildings boasted, the lumber walls there were left raw and exposed. She and Klaus were down on the first floor, but thanks to the two-story ceiling, she had a decent view of the entire building. There were what appeared to be hammocks hanging all around, and the air was ripe with the distinctive smell of musty cloth.

The handcuffs are fixed around a pillar, huh?

She tried moving her wrists, but all she got for her troubles was a metallic rattling noise. She couldn’t undo her restraints.

Once she finished surveying their situation, she called over to Klaus. “Where are we?”

“Deep in the slums, I imagine.”

“I wonder what the hell was up with that golem-looking dude. Was he some friend of Finé’s?”

Klaus didn’t look shaken in the slightest. He began dispassionately laying out the facts. “This is a port city. Tourists and merchants have been stopping here for ages, and whenever you have a city like that, it’s easy for the social fabric to fray. One of the most acute issues is the philanderers. Once they’ve had their way with the local women, they head back to wherever it is they came from. When the women give birth, they often don’t have the means to raise the children, so they end up abandoning them.”

He gestured up at the second floor with his chin.

“And when they do, those children end up getting taken in by crime syndicates in the slums.”

“………” Sybilla gulped.

She could see the eyes.

Up on the second floor, there was a gaggle of children peeking down at them. At a glance, Sybilla counted about twenty. The hammocks must have been where they slept, and now, they were using the swaths of cloth as hiding spots as they tracked Sybilla and Klaus with their nervous gazes.

All of them were just like Finé. Their bodies were scrawny, and their clothes were tattered and worn out.

“………”

Sybilla unconsciously started grinding her teeth. She could feel a fire rising up inside her.

“Sounds like someone knows a whole damn lot about us.” The enormous “golem-looking dude” was back.

Now that she could really see him, he looked more like a towering wall than ever. He wore his muscle like a suit of armor, and each of his arms were thick as one of Sybilla’s thighs and threatening to burst out of his clothes. The light shone menacingly off his leather jacket as he strode up to them like he owned the place.

“We’re just your average Joes with an ear for rumors,” Klaus replied unconcernedly.

The man nodded. “That checks out. You didn’t have guns on you, so you’re no plainclothes cops. Just some idiots with more curiosity than sense, huh?”

Sybilla had wanted to blend in as much as possible, so she’d left all her weapons back at the manor. Apparently, Klaus had been thinking the same thing.

“…So, I take it you’re the leader of the gang of pickpockets that’s been making the rounds lately?” Klaus asked.

The question earned him a suspicious look from the man. “See, now you’re sounding like some sorta gumshoe.”

“Again, we’re just a pair of average Joes. I just happened to catch word about a certain garbage human who’s been making a living by forcing children to steal for him.”

“Hey, whoa, you make me sound like some sorta monster.” The man shrugged with apparently genuine offense. “All I’m doing is taking in kids who’ve got nowhere else to go. These guys don’t have parents to look out for ’em, and I’m here teaching them a trade, putting clothes on their backs, and keeping them fed. If you think about it, I’m basically a social worker.”

“And you really believe that.”

“Damn straight I do. There’re some real scumbags in this world, but I ain’t one of ’em. As soon as you promise to keep quiet about Finé’s pickpocketing, y’all can be on your merry way.”

So, that was why he’d kidnapped the two of them—to ensure their silence.

To sum it all up, Finé had been a thief all along. That juice she was selling was nothing more than a prop to let her get close to Klaus so she could steal the wallet out of his bag. Once she realized that Sybilla and Klaus were onto her, she and the man had exchanged a look, and she led the two of them into a secluded alley so he could attack them.

“………”

They’d been played.

The smart thing to do would be to just do what the man said and turn a blind eye to the whole thing. Any crime they accused him of would leave Finé and the other children homeless. If they could lead peaceful lives under the man’s protection, then perhaps that was for the best.

But first, there was one question that needed answering.

“…Finé cried.”

“Huh?” the man said, confused.

Sybilla looked up and shot him an indominable glare. “All I did was reach toward her, and she started bawlin’ like the world was gonna end.”

Sybilla had merely been trying to pat her head, yet she’d immediately recoiled.

It was like she was afraid she was about to get hit. Like the instinctive fear welling up inside her had been too much to bear.

A telltale sign of abuse.

Sybilla clenched her fists tight. “Every time you hit these kids, you tell ’em the same damn thing, don’t you? ‘I’m only getting mad ’cause of how much I love you,’ you say. You call that shit love!”

The man let out a low, strangled groan.

Sybilla looked up at the children hiding on the second floor. “Hey, Finé! What the hell’s your daddy been doin’ to you?”

Finé was the only one she’d directed the question at.

However, there wasn’t a child upstairs who didn’t react. Some of their faces froze as fear filled their minds, some of them curled into balls as their shoulders trembled, and others instinctively clutched at their heads—but all of them knew exactly what she was talking about.

Sybilla could even spot the big, blotchy bruises on some of their faces.

“Shaddap, you!” the enormous man roared. “Don’t go talkin’ shit about my teaching methods!” He charged at Sybilla, who was still bound, and raised his massive fist in a practiced motion.

Klaus hurled himself between them and took the punch in her place.

“Rgh…”

Sybilla thought she saw him blunt the blow by catching it on his shoulder, but still, Klaus grunted in pain.

“Are you okay…?” she blurted out.

If he really had taken that punch head-on, then he wasn’t walking away without at least a broken bone or two. That was no amateur’s punch. The man had rotated his leg and waist to send his full power down his arm and into his fist. It made for a deadly attack—one that clearly had some training behind it.

“You little brat. You’ve got a rebellious look in your eyes…”

Sybilla glared at him, and the man grinned.

“Hey, Snowflake. You grew up in the slums yourself, didn’t you?”

“………”

He’d seen right through her.

Sybilla went silent, and that was all the confirmation he needed.

“When you’ve put in the time that I have, you can tell these things.” He scoffed proudly. “I’ve broken in plenty of mouthy shits like you. With these two fists.”

He jabbed twice in the air. The blows were sharp, and Sybilla could hear the air whizzing by as he fired each one off.

The onlooking children yelped in fear.

“Let’s see how many punches you can take. Few dozen, at least. You can scream all you want, but it won’t do you any good. No one will hear.”

“………” Sybilla knew this world.

It was a world where little girls sobbed and cried, but nobody lent them an ear.

Sybilla had grown up in a different city, but it was all the same world. Up until when they went to the orphanage, she’d spent her entire youth trying to protect her siblings from a city drenched in violence and poverty.

“Oh dear, that has to be embarrassing.”

“She totally called you out.”

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

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

All the other girls stared straight at her.

Sara was actually being assertive.

The surprise in their eyes was plain.

Sara squeezed her hat tight and hung her head.

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

“I agree with everything you said.”

The first person to back her up was Erna.

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

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

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

“Teach?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Say, Teach—”

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

“—do you come here a lot?”

“…What makes you think that?”

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

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

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

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

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

“I guess they really are…”

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

That was what Klaus had been trying to tell her.

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

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

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

Klaus nodded. “Magnificent.”

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

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

He seemed to be quite taken with the dog.

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

“‘Except for that one time’?”

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

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

Chomp.

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

““………””

Klaus and Sara went silent.

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

“O-oh gosh, I’m so sor—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course…not.”

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

“No, no. It doesn’t hurt…one bit.”

“Those were some really unnatural pauses, Teach!”

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

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

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

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

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

Monika wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so she said nothing and patted Mattel’s head.

“I’m sorry, but would you mind repeating that…?”

After she finished her task and returned to her hotel, Grete stopped by again. When Monika gave her report, Grete stared at her and uttered the aforementioned words. It felt nice, being able to shock someone who was normally so composed.

“Like I just said,” Monika replied smugly, “I got photos of three Ravine members, drove them off, and made an ally out of an electrician who knows detailed specifics about the Endy Laboratory. Now, we hold all the cards.”

“………………………………………I see,” Grete said quietly with a pronounced nod.

Monika sat down on the bed and crossed her legs. “I told you I’d be fine solo, didn’t I?”

“You really are in a league of your own.” Grete gave her a small smile. There was a hint of chagrin in it. “You know, the boss once told me that finding you amongst the academy washouts was a stroke of good fortune. He said that you harbored a frighteningly magnificent amount of talent.”

“I… Heh, who knew our Klaus was such a flatterer?”

Hearing that shook her for a moment, but she quickly hid it behind a veil of snark. She and Klaus hadn’t interacted that much, but from the sound of it, he was looking out for her after all.

Her talents had driven her to despair on more than one occasion, and she’d cursed her underwhelming skills time and time again. If they were going to cause her such anguish, she wished she could’ve just been born average.

But as it turned out, there was someone who’d seen potential in her.

“…Might I trouble you to answer another question for me?” Grete asked. “The day before yesterday, you said you began holding back because you discovered your ceiling. That it was why you washed out at your academy.”

“Oh yeah? Is that what I said?”

“In that case, why exactly do you choose to stay with Lamplight?”

“………”

Monika paused before answering, but it wasn’t to hide how she really felt. The thing was she didn’t fully understand it herself. Why would someone as accustomed to giving up as her stick around on a team like Lamplight that willingly threw itself into danger?

She was fed up. She had no passion. Nothing drew her interest. Her heart had frozen over.

None of that should have changed, not to any meaningful degree. But there was no denying that during this last op—especially when she heard Mattel’s voice—she had felt a warmth in her chest.

What was it that was driving her?

Back there…were those her teammates’ voices that had flashed through her mind?

Monika crossed her arms. “I don’t have any big special reason, but if I had to pick…”

“Yes?”

“…I guess it’d be the friendly faces?”

“I think that’s a lovely answer.” Grete seemed strangely pleased, and she gave Monika another smile.

Then, the radio sitting in the room began buzzing. That was the sign that there was a crisis. Monika clicked her tongue. She had a pretty good idea of who might be calling.

She picked up the radio and spoke before so much as hearing a word. “This is Glint. Radios can be intercepted, so don’t use them unless it’s an emergency.”

“This is Lily—I mean, Flower Garden! And it is an emergency! We need help! Mayday! Mayday!”

“I can tell you’re never going to get to the point, so just hand the radio off to someone else.”

“Yeah, you’ve got her there. This is Sybilla—I mean, Pandemonium.”

“Do you two have some sort of quota for screwups you’re trying to meet?!”

Aliases or not, they still shouldn’t be giving out their names. And she’d just reminded them that the radio calls might get intercepted, too.

“Seriously, we could really use some help. Flower Garden lost her gun, and we really gotta find it before it causes an inci—”

Monika turned off the radio and heaved a heavy sigh. What the hell were those two idiots even doing?

“Grete, I think that question you just asked me missed the point.”

“I’m beginning to see that…”

“My reasons aside, this team would be in a sorry state without me.”

With her rare moment of respite cut short, Monika began getting ready to head out.

If she ran into those two, they had better believe they were going to get hell from her.

How best to punish them? Monika mused with a smile as she leaped out the window into the moonless night.

If Lamplight’s emotional bedrock during the bioweapon retrieval mission was Lily, then its logistical bedrock was Monika. She was the team’s ace in every sense of the word, and her efforts were what allowed them to complete the Impossible Mission.

For all her incomparable skills, though, her heart was as cold as ice.

She’d discovered her ceiling. She was fed up. She had no passion. Nothing drew her attention.

“I’ll pass.”

“…Boo.”

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

While all that was happening, the rest of the girls were enjoying some meat pie of their own in the dining room.

They scrambled to shovel as much pie as they could into their gullets, thoroughly staining their mouths in the process. At the end of the day, the shop’s pie really was miles better than their reproduced version. There was just no competing with professionals.

After wiping her mouth with a napkin, Thea told the others about the story she’d read in the newspaper.

“In the end, David ended up getting ousted from Mannheim Inc. It would seem that the previous president is coming back to resume his duties.”

“I mean, that’s what happens when you misappropriate company funds and lose them to a scammer,” Monika commented. She popped a hunk of meat pie into her mouth with her bare hands, then licked the oil off her fingers. “I guess the Mannheim employees got their happy ending, too. They got an excuse to kick out that second-gen dumbass, and that’s worth two hundred and fifty thousand any day of the week.”

“Indeed. It was a lovely outcome for all involved,” Thea said with a nod. The others all agreed.

An atmosphere of harmony fell on them as they basked in the wonderful conclusion they’d brought about—with one exception. Lily’s head looked like it was about to vibrate right off.

“This isn’t good enough!” Steam spewed from her ears as she shouted.

“…What’s this, all of a sudden?” Thea raised an eyebrow. “This is the best outcome we could have hoped for. What’s there to be unsatisfied about?”

“The report.”

“The what?”

“We should report what happened to Teach. We need to let him know about our big win!”

“You realize that what we did was a crime, right?” Monika said, shutting her down cold. “If this is just because you want to brag to him, then I’d think again. All it’ll do is make him mad.”

Lily pouted sadly. “I feel bad for Grete. After all that work she did for Teach’s sake…”

“Ah,” the others said as the same realization dawned on them.

If they didn’t tell Klaus what they’d done, then he would never find out just how much Grete cared. It seemed a shame, especially after how dedicated she’d been.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” Monika replied. “I’m sure Klaus has an inkling of what’s up.”

At that very moment, Grete came down to the dining room. She speed-walked through to the kitchen, retrieved a knife and a fork, and headed back up to the second floor.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.

She was doubtless enjoying a nice dinner for two with Klaus.

“See?” Monika said smugly. “That’s probably him trying to be sincere.”

“You’re right,” Thea said with a smile. “Teach probably said something along the lines of, ‘I’m not that hungry, so why don’t we share?’”

That sounded like Klaus, all right.

“What a liar,” Sybilla replied without hesitation.

“What a liar,” Lily concurred.

“What a liar,” Sara agreed, unable to conceal her smile.

“I bet he was lying, yo.” Annette grinned.

“What a liar.” Erna nodded.

Over in the kitchen, there was a huge pile of ingredients he’d purchased to use that evening. Given that he’d just finished a mission, he was probably famished.

The girls exchanged glances with each other, then burst into laughter.

It was a shoddy lie, to be sure, but it was a lie he’d told for Grete’s sake.

“So, ummm,” Lily said, breaking out into a cold sweat, “i-in that case, do we, uh, wanna call a do-over, or, like—”

“It sounds like we have our winner.”

With that, Klaus appeared as though out of nowhere. He hadn’t shown up that morning, but he’d probably just been off on some sort of counterintelligence op. There was a little bit of blood on his sleeve, and it wasn’t his.

He nodded as though he’d inferred everything. “Who would have thought that Lily would end up winning? Splendid work. I actually have some prep work I need to get done for my next mission, so Lily, let’s go get that marriage registration filed posthaste.”

Klaus grabbed Lily by the arm and hauled her off.

The remaining girls watched them go in blank shock.

A moment later, a cry of “What the HEEEEEEELL?!” echoed through the air.