Prologue: Secret

That was the day it all started, he realized.

“You’ve got a special assignment. Starting tomorrow, you’re going to split off from the rest of the team and carry out a solo mission.”

On the day his mentor Guido gave him a special task to complete, Klaus left the Din Republic spy team Inferno and undertook a grueling mission. However, that had all been part of his mentor’s scheme. Guido had betrayed them for the mysterious Galgad Empire spy team Serpent, and his plan was to separate Klaus from the others before assassinating all of Inferno. When Klaus went to the Bumal Kingdom, he found a trap waiting for him there as well.

“What an idiot of a pupil I’ve raised. Look, when you finish your mission, I have a title for you to introduce yourself as.

“The Greatest Spy in the World.”

What had been going through Guido’s head when he said that? Klaus wondered. Given what kind of person Guido was, it could well have been a cruel bit of irony. Either that, or perhaps there was a hope behind those words that not even Guido fully understood. Would it be delusional to pray that it was the latter?

Klaus learned about Inferno’s downfall the day he returned from his special assignment. The news plunged him into the depths of despair, but even so, he knew he needed to act. A single glance at Guido’s brutally mangled corpse was enough for Klaus to tell it was a fake. Klaus knew Guido better than anyone, and he knew that if he wanted to fool his old mentor, it was going to take spies that Guido knew nothing about. To that end, Klaus recruited female academy washouts to build Lamplight.

Guido was summarily defeated. After sacrificing himself to save Klaus, Guido mentioned Serpent in his dying breath.

That marked the beginning of their mission to hunt down these other spies. Klaus began rounding up every spy that tried to infiltrate the Din Republic, and he took extra care interrogating the most skilled of their ranks. In doing so, he was able to find out about Purple Ant from a man named Corpse. Capturing Purple Ant yielded little in the way of actionable intelligence, but doing so offered a different sort of reward altogether: The girls of Lamplight grew and became the best teammates Klaus could ever ask for.

Their battle against Serpent continued from there. When their sister team Avian was taken out, they left behind information about Serpent in their dying moments. Klaus and the girls took that and rushed to the Fend Commonwealth to take out the Serpent members lurking there. After that, Lamplight managed to track down some confidential documents in the hideout of an Inferno member that Serpent had killed.

That document was about the Nostalgia Project, a secret plan concocted by leaders from the world’s largest nations to prepare for a projected second world war.

Seeing that made Klaus realize they’d uncovered one of the world’s great mysteries. It was why his mentor had betrayed them, why he’d lost Inferno, why Avian had been killed, and why Serpent had been born.

Two years after Lamplight’s founding, he was finally a hair’s breadth from the truth.

That was what brought him to Darton, the capital of the Galgad Empire.

Klaus could never get used to the smell that hit him when he stepped onto the Galgad Empire train platform. When he breathed in the air, it tasted of rust.

It had been a while since he’d last visited Darton. He hadn’t been since the bioweapon retrieval mission, and nearly two whole years had passed since then.

Galgad had once lived in splendor and had colonies across the world. Klaus’s homeland of Din had nothing resembling the tall spires that defined the Darton skyline, so they never failed to impress. With all the hustle and bustle in its capital, one would never have guessed that the country was in the middle of a protracted recession. Come to think of it, Klaus supposed that their economic situation had been improving over the last few years. Galgad may have lost the war, but there was no denying that it was still one of the mightiest nations in the world.

Galgad intelligence would be on the lookout for Klaus, so he’d worn a disguise. By putting in fillings, wearing glasses, and donning a beard, he’d completely altered his appearance. Even people who knew him personally wouldn’t notice him walking by.

At present, he was operating alone.

He hadn’t brought a single one of his Lamplight subordinates with him. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even seen them in nearly a year. All their communication had been written, and not once had he met them in person.

“For the next year, Lamplight will be parting ways.”

Klaus had made an announcement at the end of their vacation in Marnioce, and true to his word, he’d split Lamplight into two-person cells. Right now, they were carrying out their missions at the sites he’d assigned them.

Everything they were doing, they were doing to uncover the full details of the Nostalgia Project.

Klaus could still remember their final meeting like it had been yesterday.

Right before Lamplight dispersed, Klaus summoned the girls to the Heat Haze Palace’s main hall just like always.

“The Nostalgia Project began in the Lylat Kingdom, and our job is to learn everything we can about it.”

As far as they knew, it was the Lylat prime minister who’d proposed the project in the first place. The Fend Commonwealth and United States of Mouzaia were another two major countries that were involved. Lamplight needed to conduct its investigation somewhere among the three, and the project’s birthplace in the Lylat Kingdom seemed like the best option. Mouzaia’s counterintelligence agency ran a tight ship, and the Fend Commonwealth was in such disarray at the moment that it would be difficult to pin down who was and wasn’t involved in the project. Between that and the circumstances Klaus would explain later, it was clear that Lylat was the correct choice.

The girls stared at Klaus intently as he explained the specifics of their operation.

“We’re going to be putting two plans into motion simultaneously.”

He held up two fingers, then immediately lowered one of them.

“The first will be the frontal attack. We’re going to target people close to key Lylat movers and shakers—the prime minister, the king—and try to learn about the project that way.”

That was straight out of the standard spy playbook.

All they needed to do was get close to the prime minister’s aides and secretaries and get them talking. They could bargain with them, blackmail them, whatever got the job done. Sometimes, gathering intelligence was simply that easy. Breaking into official residences and wiretapping them was an option as well.

If stealing state secrets was always that straightforward, though, then their jobs would have been a cakewalk.

“Honestly, I expect us to run into trouble. Nike reigns over the country with an iron fist. There’s a reason they call her the Invincible Tactician God. The moment we move in, she’ll take steps to block us. That’s why the first plan is just a decoy and the next one is where we’re really putting our money.”

They wanted to avoid directly fighting Nike if at all possible. It would be better to choose a plan with higher odds of success, even if it meant taking a more meandering path to get there.

“That’s where plan two comes in—the plan to cause a revolution in the Lylat Kingdom in order to neutralize Nike.”

Upon hearing that, the eight girls all gasped.

However, Klaus knew that plan was their best option.

Uprooting a nation’s entire government was the ultimate move a spy could make. At the end of the day, Nike was nothing more than a public servant. By changing the people she answered to, even she could be rendered powerless.

“I—I have a pair of questions, if I might.”

A dark-haired girl with an elegant figure—“Dreamspeaker” Thea—raised her hand with a look of bewilderment on her face.

“First of all, I was hoping you could tell us more about Nike. I’ve certainly heard the name before, but what kind of person is she? How is it that even you would have trouble beating her in a fair fight?”

A couple of the other girls nodded. “She is pretty famous.” “I think I mighta heard about her at my orphanage? Though I always heard her name as Calico…” “Over in the States, they say she’s a soldier called Elm.”

From the sound of it, many of them were at least familiar with her.

“That all just goes to show you how notable she is. She’s an anomaly among anomalies, known even by children with no connection to espionage. Yet she exists all the same.”

In terms of name recognition, Nike probably surpassed even the legendary Hearth. That was in large part because Hearth had never sought out fame, but still.

“In the world of our trade, there are people called the Ending Spies.”

The girls looked at Klaus in confusion, so he continued his explanation.

“It’s a group of seven spies who brought the Great War to a close—Hearth, Torchlight, Cursemaster, Shadowseed, Banshee, Yatagarasu. And rounding out that list of seven monsters is Nike.”

It was only a small fraction of spies that called them that, but the fact that they were the best spies in the world was undeniable. Even with Hearth, Torchlight, and Shadowseed dead and Banshee retired, their legacy lived on.

“Even compared to the others, Nike has little in the way of weaknesses. She uses her massive notoriety to eloquently rally the people of Lylat behind her, she has countless connections in the international community, and she’s popular among her agents. And that’s not even getting into her devastating fighting skills. All that said, I could beat her—or at least, I’d like to think I can, but I don’t have hard evidence actually backing that up.”

That was why his superiors had ordered him in no uncertain terms to avoid fighting her. At the moment, “Bonfire” Klaus was an asset the Din Republic couldn’t afford to lose.

“Well, that answers my first question.” Thea nodded, then raised her voice. “But what’s this lunacy about starting a revolution?! Doesn’t that seem like a bit much just to investigate a single scheme? Surely there must be something we can do that won’t have so much collateral—”

“Depending on our findings, we may need to take steps to stop the project in its tracks,” Klaus replied, cutting her off.

Thea tilted her head. “What? But we don’t even know what the project is yet…”

“We can certainly make some assumptions. After all, what do you all think?” Klaus asked. “Think about the people who tried to stop it—‘Torchlight’ Guido, ‘Puppeteer’ Amelie, White Spider. Did they seem like stupid, petty villains?”

There was a lot they didn’t know about the Galgad’s spy team Serpent, but much of what White Spider had said and done implied that their goal was to obstruct the Nostalgia Project. The world’s major nations built systems that served the strong, and White Spider had made it his mission to oppose those rules. Repugnant as his methods may have been, the man had been fighting for a cause—a cause compelling enough to make Klaus’s mentor Guido turn traitor.

“I dunno, there’s a lot of murderous scumbags in that list,” grumbled “Ashes” Monika, a girl with an asymmetric cerulean hairdo.

“Still, even someone as patriotic as Amelie ended up siding with Serpent,” offered “Pandemonium” Sybilla, a white-haired girl whose stare was as sharp as a knife.

It went without saying that Klaus disavowed Serpent as a group. They had no compunctions about dragging innocent civilians into their schemes, and he and White Spider had been at odds to the very end.

However, that didn’t make him unwilling to listen to what they had to say.

“If nothing else, something about the project doesn’t sit right with me.”

It was little more than a hunch, but Klaus felt that the Din Republic’s future might rest on their ability to interfere with the Nostalgia Project. To do that, they were going to need to get involved with the people at the very heart of the Lylat Kingdom.

“Zero-point-three percent. That’s how much of the Lylat population is eligible to vote.”

“““Huh?”””

“It’s a privilege only afforded to those who pay large amounts of taxes, and the top payers get twofold voting rights. And even when people are elected to Parliament, only the king has the authority to submit new legislation. The king, the prime minister, and their cabinets hold all the real power. The king himself decides what the constitution says. All their publications are censored, and publishers can be forced to suspend operations on a moment’s notice. Gatherings of over twenty people are illegal, and political organizations need to be authorized to even exist. There’s an inheritance tax, but it only applies to the middle class. All the top police and judicial positions are hereditary. The aristocracy’s crimes go overlooked, and any commoners who try to resist them get arrested.”

With each new statement, the girls grew more aghast. They’d learned all that information before at their academies, but hearing it laid out again left them speechless. The Lylat Kingdom was over a century behind the times.

“Nothing good can come of a plan that originated in a country as corrupt as Lylat,” Klaus concluded.

“Wh-when you put it all like that, it makes me hope their government gets overthrown regardless of anything to do with the Nostalgia Project…” After hearing Klaus’s explanation, Thea grimaced. “How are the people not enraged? It almost sounds like a revolution is destined to happen without us having to lift a finger.”

“It’s not quite that simple. Lylat is afflicted with a very particular sickness.”

“……?”

“I’ll get to that later. The bottom line is, there’s a reason they call Lylat the land where revolutions die.”

Due to Klaus’s linguistic shortcomings, his explanation took a turn for the figurative. However, what had taken hold of the country was so pervasive and unsettling that there was really no other way to put it.

“Are there any other questions?”

“No, I believe that about covers it. It’s clear now that this mission will be much larger in scope than any of the ones that have come before it. It makes sense now why we’ll all need to split up.” At that point, Thea laid a hand atop her chest. “And something else is clear, too—the fact that this will be the perfect mission for me!”

“…Hm?”

“I’ll stir up the masses, and in doing so, I’ll become a national hero. I can’t imagine a task I’m better suited to.”

Thea’s voice rang with excitement, and she brushed back her dark hair and flashed an ecstatic smile as the other girls looked at her in exasperation.

Now Klaus understood why she’d been asking questions with such enthusiasm. Given her personality and skill set, the assessment she’d made was fair.

“I freed the United States of Mouzaia from its nightmare, and I’m the person who united the Fend Commonwealth underworld and became its leader. Why, I daresay we have this in the bag! With me at the heart of our operation, this mission will be a piece of—”

“Actually, it’s not you.”

“Huh?”

“This time, it’s Erna we’re centering our strategy around.”

The instant Klaus revealed that information, a cry of ““““Sorry, what?”””” rose from the girls.

“But WHY?!” Thea screeched, and even the person in question, Erna, cocked her head in bewilderment. “Yeep?”

In all their missions to date, Erna had been relegated to a supporting role. As the youngest members of the team, she and Annette were stationed in the rear guard as a matter of course. It simply wasn’t responsible to place them right in the thick of things.

This time around, though, the situation was such that Klaus had no choice but to station her on the front lines.

“There are a number of reasons why, but—”

Before Klaus could explain himself, though, Erna rose to her feet with a look of realization on her face. Right when he began wondering why, she trotted over to him, took his hands in hers, and squeezed them tight.

“…Yes?”

“You don’t have to say a thing, Teach.” Still holding his hands, she gave him a warm smile. “Thank you. For really seeing me.”

“So you understand, then?”

“Of course. We have a bond, Teach.”

“I see. Magnificent.”

Klaus could tell that she wanted him to, so he gave her head a gentle pat. It felt like stroking a down pillow. “Ahh…,” Erna sighed happily under his hand.

Over to the side, Monika looked unimpressed. “And? Why’d you get up and go over to him?” she asked, to which Sybilla explained, “You just want him to dote on you, right? You’re gonna be lonely when we’re all split up.”

Erna’s face went bright red as she scampered back to the sofa. “You don’t have to spell it out!”

Thea was still pouting a bit, but she let out a long sigh after Grete successfully talked her down.

They’d gotten off topic, and Klaus spoke up again. “Now, starting a revolution requires going through a very specific set of steps. However, I want you all to keep in mind that the revolution is nothing more than a means to an end. We have just one ultimate goal.”

The looks on the girls’ faces turned serious.

Klaus gave them a small nod.

“Our job is to uncover the world’s secrets—to learn about the Nostalgia Project that was responsible for Inferno’s and Avian’s downfalls.”

As soon as he mentioned Avian’s name, there was a shift in the girls’ expressions.

Now they had a sense of purpose driving them forward.

As he thought back to his meeting with the girls, Klaus took in another breath.

The Galgad capital reeked of rusted metal. It reminded him all over again of how far he was from the main operation in Lylat.

This mission was completely different from the ones that had come before. A mighty foe could bear down on the girls, and Klaus would be powerless to defend them.

In the days leading up to their separation, Klaus had put more care and intensity into the girls’ training than ever. The drills he’d done during his time in Inferno had been so grueling, he’d thrown up more than once, yet he steeled his heart and ran the girls through them all the same.

Now the girls were split into four teams. Although the danger they were in varied, all of their tasks were incredibly demanding, and all of them were essential. Lamplight was joined in single-minded determination to see their difficult mission through.

No, that’s not true.

As he was summing up his thoughts, a recollection flashed through his mind.

There is one person on the team whose objections I had to crush.

Just before they left for the mission, one girl had spoken up in opposition to Klaus’s plan.

It was rare for anyone on Lamplight to go against him so openly.

“I can’t agree to this!”

“Please, I need you to revise our strategy.”

Sweat had poured from her forehead as she made her red-faced plea. She’d summoned up all her determination in order to convey her concerns. And Klaus had dismissed them right to her face. He’d taken her earnest concerns and bulldozed straight past them without letting her get a word in edgewise.

We can’t afford to stop.

He felt badly for her, but his conviction held firm. He couldn’t change the mission based on the dissent of a single subordinate.

He took a step away from the train station.

The girls had to be right in the middle of their mission.

However, Klaus couldn’t rush to their side. His superiors had ordered him not to, but there was a far more important reason as well.

“I have a job of my own I need to do.”

He quietly set forth into the city of steeples.

His body burned with more exhilaration and excitement than ever before. He’d just taken a step closer to the world’s best-kept secrets.

The world was steeped in anxiety.

The Great War that ended twelve years ago had left deep marks in the Western-Central nations that took part in it. In the war’s wake, they signed peace treaties and started fostering international harmony so that there would never be a conflict that tragic again. Instead of funding their militaries, they began diverting their national budgets toward their intelligence agencies, and an era of espionage began.

The shadow war these spies fought was defined by blackmail, assassinations, fomenting revolutions, and backing antiestablishment organizations. Their efforts threw the world of politics into turmoil, but average citizens got to enjoy a period far more peaceful than during the Great War.

As the years marched on, though, hearts blossomed with unrest.

Was mankind really going to be able to avoid starting another world war? people wondered.

The battles between spies grew more extreme, and people with no direct link to them began feeling uneasy. The Bumal Kingdom, one of the nations that took part in the Great War, underwent a coup. The United States of Mouzaia, a major world superpower, had scores of people secretly assassinated during an international economic conference in its capital. Then, half a year later, the crown prince of the mighty Fend Commonwealth was assassinated as well, plunging the nation’s capital into chaos.

Even ordinary citizens could tell that something had changed. However, the spies didn’t slow down. They all wanted to be the first to know which way the winds were shifting, so they continued their covert operations undeterred.

Everything in life had its pros and cons.

On one hand, the corrupt governance of the Lylat aristocracy led to a massively stratified society.

On the other hand, it was impossible to deny the way the arts had flourished under their long reign. Aristocrats would become patrons, and the nation produced artists in great numbers. What’s more, talented artists gathered in Lylat from across the world, seeking the support of those aristocrats.

On one hand, things in the Lylat Kingdom descended into total war during the Great War, and their death toll was the greatest out of any of the participating countries.

On the other hand, the fact that they had little choice but to hire women to work in the arms factories led to a massive surge in gender equality, and the number of clothing lines and jewelry brands led by female designers skyrocketed.

Those societal banes and boons were what led people to call Lylat the nation of the arts.

Its capital, Pilca, in particular was like one giant piece of craftsmanship. You could simply walk down the street and see a signboard with an adorable strawberry logo, a signboard with a smiling pig, and a signboard depicting a ribbon pulled tight. Those signs might well have belonged to a shop that sold children’s shoes, a butcher shop, and a handicraft shop, but each and every store had an elaborately designed sign hanging from its eaves. Meanwhile, all the streets had colorful names like “Three Cats Running Lane” or “Avenue for Waking Dragons.” In the time it took a tourist to get just a few hundred feet down the road, they would undoubtably find over a dozen things to stop and stare at. The buildings featured gorgeous stonework that gleamed white in the sunlight, and noblewomen carrying wicker baskets could often be seen walking the cobble streets toward the shopping district of Passage.

It was in a tucked-away nook of that city teeming with culture that a girl was writhing around on the ground.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!”

At the back of an alleyway, there was an abandoned three-story building that was slated for demolition. Inside, the blond girl punched the wooden board lying on the floor.

“I want to sleep in a real beeeeeeeeeed!”

That girl was “Fool” Erna.

Erna was a member of the Din Republic spy team Lamplight, and she’d spent a year undercover in Lylat on her boss Klaus’s orders. She’d cut her hair short, and with the height she’d gained in that time, she finally looked the part of the sixteen-year-old she was.

Now, though, she’d been reduced to a petulant child whining and wailing.

“I want to eat warm food! I want to take a shower! I want to change into clean clothes! I’ve had it up to here with these musty bedrooms full of rats and bugs!!”

The ash-pink-haired girl beside her—“Forgetter” Annette—cackled. Annette’s hair was even longer than it had been a year prior, making her seem more detached from reality than ever. She smirked. “Y’know, I like you better when you’re going ‘yeep’ all the time, yo!”

Erna’s face went red. “Yeep! Shut up!”

Even as she said it, though, she clamped her hands over her mouth in embarrassment over the fuss she was making. “I—I really have to stop doing that… Eep…,” she groaned quietly.

At the moment, Erna was trying to grow out of using her old verbal tics of “yeep” and “how unlucky…” However, she couldn’t help but backslide around Annette.

“Rgh, and I even had a warm bed until just recently.”

“But now we’re fugitives, yo.”

“We’ve definitely been expelled from school, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, those Genesis Army schmucks don’t mess around!”

Annette had been happily lazing around, but she suddenly headed to the window like she’d spotted something. The window was nothing more than a wooden frame, and she leaned out of it with telescope in hand.

“My smoke emitter just went off, yo! You know, the one I set up in the storage room we stayed in yesterday.”

Erna took the telescope from Annette and looked at the spot in the sky Annette was pointing at. White fumes were rising into the air about a quarter of a mile away.

Annette nodded, visibly impressed. “Looks like they didn’t fall for my misdirection.”

Erna fought back the urge to click her tongue. Fugitives or not, they couldn’t go without food and water forever. Every time they secured supplies, it meant having to interact with people.

Their pursuers were using eyewitness accounts to narrow down their search area.

“Let’s take stock of the situation.” After taking a deep breath, Erna turned to look at Annette, who was still staring out the window. “The immediate problem at hand is the fact that the Genesis Army is hunting for us.”

The Genesis Army—the group chasing them—was the Lylat Kingdom’s intelligence agency.

Erna and Annette were currently in a section of Pilca’s nineteenth arrondissement, home mostly to immigrants and laborers. The area had been badly damaged during the Great War, and even twelve years later, it had simply been left there with no meaningful repairs, leaving the destitute free to carve out a territory for themselves. It was a miserable place to live. When it rained, the whole area flooded with sewage.

Erna and Annette had found someone who looked to be in charge and paid them to let the two of them stay there in secret.

There was a big reason why that was necessary.

“We are killers, after all,” Annette said with a carefree laugh.

She was right—just a week ago, the two of them had been involved in a homicide.

Their original cover as ordinary exchange students at St. Katraz High School had been perfect. However, the charity work Erna had been doing for the local homeless drew the attention of a Genesis Army unit that tried to frisk her. She and Annette got into a fight with the counterintelligence agents and ultimately ended up taking their lives.

Killing people pained Erna on an ethical level, but she didn’t have time to let that bother her. The Genesis Army agents had murdered a number of innocent vagrants, and failing to kill them would have put Erna’s and Annette’s lives in jeopardy as well.

“Now that the smoke emitter went off, we know for sure they’re coming for us,” Erna said.

“Yeah, even though we got rid of everyone who knew about the killings.”

“They must have found us by going through the agents’ surveillance records.”

“Looks like we made the right call to stop trying to pass as students.”

The two of them had no choice but to abandon their residence, abandon their schoolgirl cover identities, and go into hiding with nothing but the intelligence they’d gathered as spies, their weapons, and a tiny amount of cash.

They’d been on the run like that for six days now.

“I know we need to keep as low a profile as possible right now—”

Erna held up a worryingly light coin purse.

“—but we’re running low on funds and supplies.”

“Them’s the breaks, yo!” Annette chirped. “Without my inventions, we never would’ve made it this far.”

Annette’s engineering skills had played a key role in making their escape possible. She was the one who’d made all their wire-based alarm systems, and she was the one who’d sneaked letters into the mail to arrange their hideouts. Excellent as Erna’s intuition was, she was far from omniscient.

Without money, though, they were done for.

“I poured basically all our money into our weapons, yo! And we’ve only got enough left for a single more fight!”

“Then there’s only one thing for us to do.”

After summing up the situation, they arrived at a painfully predictable conclusion.

“We need a proper hideout—and someone that can secure food and other necessities for us.”

What they were looking for was, in essence, a patron. Someone who was willing to shelter a pair of Din spies. People like that were essential for spies fighting lonely battles in foreign lands.

“We need to secure our own safety first. Worrying about the revolution can come after that.”

“Things are looking pretty bleak for us, yo!”

However, finding one was easier said than done.

Klaus had given them a list of Din Republic collaborators and countrymen, but there was no guarantee that going to one would be safe. The Genesis Army could very well be keeping tabs on any of them. Plus, it took time to vet people to see if they were trustworthy, and every second they waited was another second the Genesis Army had to catch up with them.

“The good news is, we do have plans to meet up with someone…”

Using an intermediary to pass along a letter, they’d managed to secretly arrange a meeting. However, it was yet to be seen whether or not he would truly prove to be on their side.

Sweat beaded on the palms of Erna’s hands, and as she wiped it off on her skirt, Annette gave her a teasing grin. “Don’t you worry, Erna.”

“Huh…?”

“If worse comes to worst—you’ve always got me.”

“……………………”

There was an icy horror lurking behind that unassumingly innocent smile.

Annette was implying that if it came down to it, she could threaten one of the city’s residents into compliance.

Ever since their mission in Fend a year prior, Annette had put less and less effort into hiding her brutal tendencies. She was the kind of person who could gouge out someone’s eyeball without even blinking.

Erna hadn’t been completely blind to Annette’s nature, but she still shuddered at the reminder.

In some ways, she’s more of a problem than the Genesis Army is.

She bit down on her tongue, taking care not to let Annette see her do it.

…I need to be really careful about how I handle her.

For her, that was one of the trickiest parts of their mission.

Annette was a wild card. She was fantastic at killing people, but overreliance on her talents was liable to make them new enemies. Her killing those Genesis Army agents last week was a prime example. Even though she’d done it to protect Erna, that was what had led to their current life on the lam.

Annette and Erna was a pairing that none of their previous missions had featured.

Now, though, there were no older teammates like Sara or Sybilla for Erna to rely on. She was the only one who could keep Annette in check.

“Don’t go doing anything unnecessary.”

Erna ignored Annette’s proposal and glanced at her pocket watch.

After taking a deep breath, she stood up.

“It’s time for the meeting. If we mess this up, we’ll be sleeping on the streets tonight.”

Pilca’s tenth arrondissement was home to an alley packed with pubs called brasseries that were popular with the masses. They were notable for their lack of interior dividing walls, making each one into a large hall where one could drink cheap beer. At similar establishments in arrondissements closer to the heart of the city, it was no rare sight to see scriptwriters, actors, and directors from major movie studios discussing new methods of visual expression, but the clientele in the tenth arrondissement didn’t give off quite so sophisticated an impression. Most of them were stonemasons, plumbers, and other municipal laborers. Many of the brasseries advertised raw oysters as their signature dish, a novelty that Erna found highly unusual.

She and Annette headed into one of the buildings.

The two of them looked too young to be going to a bar, and several of the adults shot them rude looks the moment they went inside. It was hardly the kind of place they were excited about going to while fugitives, but it was a risk they needed to take. If they’d invited their guest somewhere that spooked him enough not to show up, then all of this would have been for nothing.

Fortunately for them, their counterpart was already there at the meeting spot. He’d already started drinking.

“The best meals always start with an empty belly.”

In the back of the brasserie, an amiable young man hoisted up a tankard.

“I have to say, I wasn’t expecting to get invited out by a pair of schoolgirls.”

They knew from their investigation that he was twenty-six years old. The man looked like respectability personified. His hairline was parted straight down the middle and trimmed as cleanly as the grass on a sports pitch. Taken on the whole, though, he didn’t appear stuffy or formal in the least, and his necktie was fashionable.

That was Jean Mondonville, a fifth-year law student at Nicola University, the school with the most prestigious law department in the country.

As Erna recalled, that line about “the best meals” was a popular Lylat turn of phrase.

Jean’s table was already laden with shellfish, and when the girls sat down, he slid the plates their way. Annette’s eyes gleamed.

Erna tried to her best to hide how badly her stomach was rumbling as she faced Jean. “Thank you for accepting our invitation.”

“How could I not, when the envelope was emblazoned with the St. Katraz insignia?” He shot her an overly dramatic wink. “I could never turn down a request from a winsome young schoolgirl. Ah, how thrilling.”

“Um, this isn’t that kind of—”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. When the letter came tucked inside another package, I figured there was more to the story. Especially considering where you wanted to meet. I’m just glad this wasn’t all some scam.”

He waved his hand teasingly.

Jean might have come across as unserious, but he actually had a good head on his shoulders.

Erna ran through some quick introductions. After giving him their Lylat aliases and their fake backstory about being exchange students from Din, she got right to the main topic. “We heard you’re in charge of a student dormitory.” She gave him a small bow. “We need you to take us in. Please, lend us one of your unused rooms.”

“Ah, I see,” Jean said with a grin, before adding, “So what I’m hearing is, I haven’t just become irresistible to women.”

Nicola University had over a dozen dorms, most of which were managed solely by the students. The university placed a lot of emphasis on educational freedom, and it let the students in the dorms live more or less unchecked. Rumor had it that there were transient youths who lived there who may or may not have even been enrolled.

Jean was the manager of one of those dorms, and he lowered his voice. “…Can I ask why?”

“We’re being hunted by the Genesis Army. It all happened last week. I was helping out these homeless people when the Nilfa unit decided to question me.” Erna hung her head. “There were three men. They took me, and they…”

She trailed off, leaving Jean to fill in the rest. The Genesis Army agents had been dealt with before any real harm came to her, but Jean didn’t need to know that.

Jean’s brow formed a deep furrow. His imagination was running wild, just the way Erna had hoped it would. She was aware of how delicate she looked—like the kind of unfortunate girl just waiting to be victimized—and she’d spent the last year developing the skills to use that awareness as a weapon.

“When I resisted, they called me a foreign spy and tried to arrest me… Now I’m on the run.”

“Goodness me.” Jean let out a long exhale. “Oh, that is dreadful. Trust me, I know all about how evil the Nilfa unit can be. My heart aches for you.”

He buried his face in his hands and gave his head a grandiose shake.

Erna did an internal fist pump; Jean completely believed her. Communicating with others had once been a major weakness of hers, but now she’d developed robust people skills. She could thank her Lamplight teammates for breaking down her walls.

As a matter of fact, she’d learned every last skill a spy could possibly need. She’d honed every talent there was—even the art of seduction that had previously been her bane!

“If you take us in, I’ll be sure to thank you…”

She blushed and looked at Jean through her lashes to captivate his heart.

“I’m a little scared of men, but all I have to offer you is…m-my body, so if you want me to share your b-bed, I can—”

Jean cut her off as firmly as he could. “That really won’t be necessary.”

When she shot another look at his face, she saw him waving his hands with horror.

“…………”

“Seriously, I meant it when I said I was kidding earlier. I’m not going to mess around with a minor.”

“…………………”

“Also, that last half sounded like you were reading off a script. You don’t have to force yourself.”

“………………………………”

After being rejected so completely, Erna could do nothing but go silent.

Annette had been listening to the whole thing, and she clutched her sides in laughter. “That was the worst seduction I’ve ever seen, yo!”

“I know that, shut up! Yeep!”

Erna had no intention of actually selling her body, so if anything, getting turned down so quickly was a relief.

“I can tell how serious you are,” Jean said with a strained smile, but a grim look soon came over his face. “But I can’t just help you at the drop of a hat.”

“But…”

“Can you blame me? If I shelter you, the Genesis Army will lock me up, too.” Jean gave his head a sad shake. “And besides, why me? I’m just an ordinary student. Surely there must have been someone better you could turn to.”

“……………”

Jean’s objections were legitimate.

That said, it wasn’t as though the girls had chosen him at random. Erna decided to lay one of her cards on the table. “We know about your dad’s record.”

The moment she said it, Jean’s expression froze.

Erna went on to keep up the pressure. “Your father once worked at a print shop in the nineteenth arrondissement. His wife had passed away, and he lived with his two sons and his daughter. Four years ago, an activist friend of his asked him to secretly help print and distribute pamphlets that were critical of the government. Two years ago, he was arrested by the Genesis Army. At his trial, he was given jail time with no option for a suspended sentence. On top of that, all his assets were deemed anti-state funds and seized. It was unjust, and they were obviously trying to make an example of him. His two younger children got taken in by relatives and are living in the Bumal Kingdom.”

Jean’s eyes widened in disbelief. That was a secret that nobody was supposed to know.

“We know all about what happened. That’s why we thought you might be willing to give us a hand.”

For eight months, Erna had worked at a law office. During her time there, she’d made a note of anyone the defense records suggested might harbor resentment against the government and recorded that list on microfilm.

That was just one of the weapons she’d been honing over the past year. She might not have been able to master seduction, but her other talents had advanced by leaps and bounds.

Jean let out a long exhale. “Where in the world did you find that out? That’s some pretty personal information.”

“I just overheard it one day.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, you know. I swear, teenagers these days are terrifying.”

That was another common Lylat saying.

“Not even the papers picked up the story. They were too afraid of the monarchy.”

Not all acts of hostility and defiance against the administration got reported on. The whole reason Erna had chosen a law office to work in was to catch wind of incidents that didn’t make it into the news. Even so, there were probably hundreds of times more resistance efforts got quietly stamped out without ever making it to court.

“Well, I certainly understand why you came to me now.” Jean shook his head. “But you’ve got the wrong man. I can’t help you.”

He lifted his stein again.

“Huh?” Erna gasped as she watched Jean heartily chug down his beer.

“First off, my dad deserved what he got.” After Jean set his stein back on the table, the words came spilling out in a deluge. “I’ve got my problems with the administration, sure. But there were signs that my old man was working with a Galgad spy. He was willing to condone violence if it meant he got his revolution. It’s no wonder they locked him up.”

“How can you say that…?”

“When they arrested him, people from the Genesis Army and the Royal Guard came and questioned me and my siblings. We didn’t have anything to do with it, but they treated us like traitors anyway. I have to say, I didn’t much appreciate having to suffer for the choices he’d made.”

The memories were bitter ones, and Jean’s expression curled into a frown.

He wiped his mouth in annoyance. “Please, just go. I can’t save you, not when it means risking my own life.”

“……………”

Their negotiations had ended in failure.

Erna didn’t have anything up her sleeve that would make him change his mind at the moment. What’s more, staying in the pub wasn’t exactly an option. If they lingered too long, the Genesis Army was liable to find and arrest them.

As Erna pondered their predicament, Annette tugged at her sleeve from the next seat over.

“What’s the call, Erna?” She whispered in Erna’s ear. “Should I go ahead—and do one of his fingers?”

“Huh?” Erna said, at which Annette flashed her a toothy grin.

There was a gadget resembling a nutcracker poking out of Annette’s sleeve. It was a torture device. If Erna gave her the go-ahead, she would crush Jean’s finger, and he would be all too willing to lead them back to his dorm.

“Annette,” Erna replied quietly.

“Yeah?”

“I already told you. Don’t do anything unnecessary.”

“Aw…”

“Also, we need to leave in the next three minutes.”

“Then I’d better finish this quick, yo!”

Annette hurriedly began scarfing down the shellfish sitting in front of her. She hadn’t had anything warm to eat in ages, and she stabbed at the food with single-minded abandon.

Jean looked at her with a pained smile. Guilt flickered in the back of his eyes. He shook his head in regret.

“…I can’t afford to do anything careless.” After warily looking around, he leaned toward Erna and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Can you prove that you aren’t Genesis Army stooges?”

“Huh?”

“Fishing is one of their go-to moves. They dangle bait to root out people with anti-government sympathies. They use women in need, servants of aristocrats, you name it. And if you ever let slip that you want to overthrow the king, you get arrested on the spot.”

A fishing expedition was a type of intelligence maneuver. All you had to do was deploy an informant or someone easy to manipulate in an area where your enemies were, then wait for the other side to make contact with them. Jean was worried that it was his own loyalty that was being tested.

“Ever since Clement III took the throne two years ago, they’ve been cracking down on dissidents harder than ever. This is a man who loves fireworks so much, he filled the sky over the capital with them the night of his coronation, but he’s such a coward, he spends all his energy trying to stamp out insurrectionists. The last king’s draconian foreign policy was a mess, but this guy’s obsession with information control is a whole different kind of deranged. Word is, if Prime Minister Valéry tells him to jump, he asks how high.”

Realizing that he’d said too much, Jean quickly added, “Though of course, I’m sure His Majesty has his reasons.”

The names he’d just mentioned were some of the key players in Lamplight’s current mission.

Clement III had taken the throne two years ago when the previous king, Benoit, stepped down after a nearly fifteen-year reign. The official explanation given was that Benoit’s health was on the decline, but rumor had it that his stringent foreign policy measures had turned Parliament against him, leading to the Royalist party getting ousted. However, it was impossible to know how much of that was true.

Still, even a royal abdication did nothing to affect the country’s totalitarian power structure. The prime minister was at the center of all the nation’s politics, and that position was still held by the same person as before.

That prime minister, Pierre Valéry, was the man who’d suggested the Nostalgia Project in the first place. He, as well as the nation’s de facto leader Nike, still maintained full control over Lylat’s governance.

Jean’s voice trembled. “I can’t just blindly trust you and throw my life away.”

As Annette continued blissfully gorging herself, Erna and Jean traded information. She tried asking him if there was anywhere else she could turn to, but she didn’t get much of a satisfying answer. In the end, all she managed to do was make a single request of him at the very end.

Right as she and Annette left the pub, it began drizzling. It wasn’t bad enough that they needed an umbrella, but the slender, misty droplets did still soak them.

By that point, Pilca was already lit by the faint glow of streetlamps.

Annette patted her belly in contentment. “I’m all full now, yo! I could use a nap right about now!”

“……………”

Erna couldn’t bring herself to respond.

There were a million things they needed to figure out, and they couldn’t afford to waste any time. There was no telling when the Genesis Army might find them if they kept loitering in the alley.

However, there was one topic that needed to be addressed posthaste.

“Look, Annette, just let me say this one thing.”

“Hmm? What’s up, yo?”

Annette was all smiles, and Erna gave it to her straight.

“What you did back there, trying to threaten civilians? I need you to stop.”

There it was, out in the open.

Leaving Annette to her own devices simply wasn’t an option. She wasn’t even trying to hide her bloodlust anymore, and her eagerness to spread her malice made her a liability.

Erna looked her right in the eyes as she went on. “You can’t go around killing people at random here. Hurting them more than necessary is off the table, too. Don’t even suggest those sorts of plans. Just behave yourself until I give you instructions.”

The grin vanished from Annette’s face.

She let out a small sigh, and her right eye was like an inky void. “You and I are supposed to be equals, yo.”

“I understand that.”

“And I’m out here protecting you. We did things your way, and now we don’t have anywhere to stay tonight.”

“I appreciate that, I do,” Erna said, without averting her gaze. “But I need you to do what I say.”

“………………”

When Erna repeated herself, Annette lapsed into an annoyed silence.

They couldn’t dawdle in front of the pub forever, so they set off. Erna walked down the road, and Annette started walking a step behind her, tromping loudly to make her displeasure known.

“I’ve spent this whole past year watching.”

They didn’t return to the hideout they’d used before, but rather headed down a different road altogether.

“I’ve seen this country. The way the people suffer under its monarchy.”

Erna decided to keep her explanation short. It would be faster just to show her.

Her nose twitched as she picked up the scent of stagnation. There was a hint of misfortune in the air that only she could smell, and she took a turn to the right.

Much like the nineteenth, the tenth arrondissement had a large immigrant population and was widely regarded as dirty and unsafe. It rained hard enough to flood the city every few decades, and the tenth arrondissement always took the brunt of the damage. The closer you got to the canals that ran through the heart of the arrondissement, the more condensed the gutter stink became.

As they walked alongside a small waterway, they spotted a man lying on the road. Not just one, in fact, but five or six of them, men and women alike, all staring up at the night sky with vacant eyes.

“They’re…on opium, huh?” Annette murmured.

“It’s a pretty common sight,” Erna replied succinctly.

That was the end result of a society built to favor the aristocracy.

Jobs in the police and the courts didn’t go to the best candidates but rather to those with family ties or strong connections. Any organization that lacked social mobility would invariably decay, and as the legal system fell apart, drugs were free to spread through the streets. As rumor had it, many nobles had ties to the underworld themselves.

As Erna and Annette continued down the path, they heard angry yelling.

There was a man surrounded by four youths.

The man was short and looked to be in his midforties, and the unkempt teens were spitting on him. “You’re from Galgad, aren’t you?” they roared.

“L-look, my family’s been doing business here for two generations—”

The youths threw the supposed Imperial citizen to the ground without even letting him finish explaining himself. The man crumpled to his hands and knees, and his assailants shouted, “Filthy fucking invader!” and “I’ll bet you were spying on us the whole time!” as they kicked him around like a ball.

It was sickening just to watch. There were plenty of people nearby, but none of them made any attempts to help. Instead, they just glared at the man in an opium-addled daze.

“…This is the land where revolutions die,” Erna mumbled. “And this is what they’ve been reduced to. Nobody believes they can actually change things, so drugs and hatred are the only outlets they have for their resentment. That’s why the state turns a blind eye to this sort of discrimination.”

She squeezed her fists tight.

“The people of Lylat are constantly suffering.”

The Imperial gave up any attempts at resisting and cowered on the ground like a turtle in its shell. The youths kicked his exposed sides and back in amusement.

Unable to bear it any longer, Erna stepped forward.

“There’s no reason to help him,” a cold voice called out to her from behind.

When she turned around, she saw Annette letting out a sleepy yawn.

“You seem kinda confused, yo.” Annette was unmoved by the deplorable scene. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing that happens to these people does. We’re Din Republic spies, not knights in shining armor. If we need to blackmail and kill people, we’re gonna do it, yo.”

“Annette…”

Annette gave her an icy look. “Lamplight didn’t come here to save the Lylat Kingdom, yo.”

Erna hadn’t been expecting her to make such a logical argument. Those were the sorts of things that usually went unsaid, but Annette had deemed it necessary to make them explicit.

However, Erna needed to reject that logic in no uncertain terms.

“You’re wrong.” Erna shook her head. “Right now, abandoning him to his fate would be the wrong move.”

“…Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Undeterred by Annette’s cautioning, Erna strode over to the youths. “Cut that out. Yeep!”

““““Huh””””? the four attackers said in confusion as they turned around in unison.

They looked surprised at first, but after staring at Erna in bewilderment for a bit, the blood suddenly drained from their faces.

“Eeek!!” “Run for it!”

The four of them looked pale as sheets as they sprinted away and vanished down the back of an alley.

Erna was shocked at how anticlimactic the confrontation had been.

Wow, I can’t believe I drove them off just by glaring at them.

She looked off in the direction they’d disappeared in.

Heh, I guess over this past year, I’ve finally started looking like a proper adult.

A surge of pride ran through her at the unexpected feeling of growth.

Come to think of it, she was sixteen now. And she’d grown even more than Annette had.

Perhaps she was as intimidating as a spy ought to be, and she could scare civilians off with nothing but her gaze—and perhaps nothing could be further from the truth.

“Bingo. B-I-N-G-O. Hook, line, and sinker.”

An ominous voice came from behind her.

She whirled around and found a slim man standing there. His monocle made him come off as pretentious, and he spun a pair of pistols around in his hands as he stared at her.

Beside him, he was accompanied by three lackeys. All of them were wearing full-length white coats.

“Erfin Klanert, the blond St. Katraz exchange student suspected of murder. The day after the incident, you disappeared.” The monocled man’s tone was casual, almost singsong. “Looks like you were a Galgad spy after all. Couldn’t bear to see one of your countrymen suffer, could you?”

Seeing him had been what inspired the youths’ flight, and the Galgad man Erna had just saved screamed upon noticing who was there.

“I’m with Genesis Army counterintelligence, captain of Nilfa division two. They call me Momus.”

The Genesis Army had been right on their heels. Erna couldn’t help but be impressed at how sharp their noses were.

The man flipped his pistols to their sides and laid his fingers on their triggers.

“Don’t bother trying to learn my name. Soon, you’ll wish you could forget it.”

A point-blank shot rang out from each side.

Erna hurriedly leaped to the right to dodge, but the bullets had never been intended to hit her. He was bluffing. Counterintelligence agents didn’t just kill spies. Their job was to capture them for interrogation.

Erna should have known that, yet she sacrificed her balance all the same.

Momus immediately closed the gap and pistol-whipped her.

Erna’s vision went so white, it was like an explosion had gone off right in front of her. His attack had landed, and hard. She was afraid she might pass out, but she quickly righted her stance and pulled a knife out from under her skirt.

“That’s a hit. H-I-T. Ah, and what a satisfying hit it was.”

Momus patted his pistols, once again having lapsed into song.

Erna wiped the blood off her cheek. Annette stood beside her, stony-faced, and shot a glare at the four white-coated agents surrounding them.

“……………”

Annette said nothing.

Was she still mad at Erna? Or was she simply annoyed that her warning had gone unheeded?

Either way, their first order of business was dealing with the situation in front of them. These were trained Genesis Army operatives they were dealing with, and the smart thing to do would be to flee rather than to fight them head-on. If nothing else, the way Momus moved made it clear that he was a fearsome combatant.

“If you try to run—”

It was like Momus had read Erna’s mind. The moment she wondered what he was going to say, he kicked the cowering Galgad man.

“Gahhh!”

“—I’ll cut this filthy Imperial’s ear off.”

The smile playing on Momus’s face made it clear he was reveling in the pain he was causing.

He seemed to be under the false impression that Erna and Annette were spying for the Galgad Empire. Even though they weren’t, though, Erna still wasn’t about to abandon an innocent bystander.

“…………………”

Seeing Momus’s shady smirk made the pieces fall into place.

Indignation burned through her body. “Is this always how you people operate?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m talking about fishing—the way you tormented that Galgad man who’d done nothing wrong, just to root out a few spies.”

Given what he said, and given the timing with which he’d appeared, this had to have been a setup. He was using the very technique Jean had mentioned.

The Genesis Army had been all too happy to lure those youths into attacking the man.

“You’re only just realizing that?” Momus said with a mocking laugh. “We do it all the time. Secret societies are a cancer on our nation, and it works just as well on them as it does on spies. Those bastards give us a real hard time when they go and get in bed with spies.”

Erna squeezed her fists tight; the Genesis Army’s methods were despicable.

Momus went on, not sounding ashamed in the least. “If you want to complain about atrocities, the Galgad Empire was the one that started all this.” There were notes of ridicule in his voice. “They were the first to use the abominable weapon that is poison gas, were they not? Theirs were the submarines that attacked anything that moved. We gave women jobs in our arms factories, and they were the ones who used that as an excuse to massacre civilians, men and women alike, by shelling our capital to the ground.”

Now he was going on about the Great War that had ended twelve years prior.

After invading the Din Republic, the Galgad Empire had used it as a stepping stone to surge into the Lylat Kingdom, bombarding its capital city Pilca and very nearly capturing it. Resentment for that still ran deep in Lylat.

“It’s all the vile Empire’s fault!”

Momus’s voice gradually grew in intensity.

“The opium flooding our streets, the repugnant state of our public health, our faltering economy, the way we’re falling behind the United States—those devils from the Empire are to blame for all of it!”

Erna took another look around the dank alleyway.

Despite the gunshots that had just rung out, nobody was so much as stirring. To the contrary, several of the dope addicts were quietly laughing at her. The rest were averting their eyes, determined not to get involved. This had become a regular occurrence for them.

It was a sight Erna had seen a lot over the past year. The wealth-obsessed aristocrats and capitalists composed the upper class, and the peasants were left to starve at their feet with no hope to cling to. It was hard to say in good conscience that the throngs of poor even had rights there.

“Did you ever think that your antiquated class structure might be the cause of your country’s problems?”

“That’s not even worth considering,” Momus snapped dismissively.

The Nilfa members she’d fought last week had been the same way. They’d spewed off hate-filled epithets about the Galgad Empire, praised the aristocracy, and held the peasantry in contempt. No matter how many hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of times Erna saw it, it never failed to fill her with rage.

“You’re completely right, Annette. We’re not under any obligation to save other countries.”

A maddening heat rose from the very depths of her being.

She lowered her voice so only the girl beside her could hear.

“But before anything else, I was born as a Din aristocrat.”

That was who Erna was.

The title had held little meaning since Din became a republic, but the fact remained that she came from a noble lineage. Losing her family in a fire was what had set her life on its current course.

“As someone with means, it’s my duty to serve the less fortunate. That’s something I was taught at a young age, and it’s part of who I am. Mom and Dad had no patience for aristocrats who act all smug because of the sacrifices of others.”

That was why seeing people do that filled Erna with such fury. Klaus had recognized those feelings, which was why he put her at the front and center of the mission.

“As my mom and dad’s daughter, I want to save people—it’s the way Teach showed me to leave my mark on the world.”

She’d been born into a noble family, and now she was its sole survivor.

Her goal was to live up to her parents’ ideals and prove that there was value in her having survived.

That was why Erna became a spy, and that was why her very soul screamed in revulsion at the way Lylat’s aristocracy had corrupted its society.

Klaus had given her an outlet for that frustration, and she could never thank him enough for that.

“Don’t you worry, Annette.”

“Hm?”

“I’ll always find opportunities for you to lash out—opportunities like right now.”

“………!”

When Erna voiced her decision aloud, Annette’s eyes went wide. “Ohhh!” she shouted a few seconds later. Completely failing to appreciate the gravity of the situation, she leaped up and down with an innocent smile on her face. “Now I get it! So that’s what you were after! I had you all wrong, yo!”

All of her annoyance from earlier was gone without a trace.

Momus and his agents grimaced in discomfort at the abrupt shift in her demeanor.

“It’s not like you to be so slow on the uptake,” Erna said with a sarcastic smile.

“I blame my full tummy, yo. I’m practically nodding off over here!”

“You really have to stop gorging yourself.”

“Hmph! But I have to eat lots! Otherwise, I’ll never grow big and tall!”

“What, are you mad that I’m outgrowing you?”

“Rrrgh… Just you wait, yo!”

Momus was none too pleased about their sudden bout of cheerful banter. “I’m not here to listen to the squawking of children…”

He adjusted his monocle and readied his twin pistols again.

Erna and Annette were faster on the draw.

“You have my permission,” Erna said softly. “Get ’em.”

The two of them were in perfect sync now, and with their conversation finished, they leaped in opposite directions. Annette went backward, Erna went forward.

As Annette retreated, a set of four model planes came flying out from under her skirt.

The pistol-wielding Nilfa quartet was taken aback, but they intuited that the planes were bombs of some kind. The planes very nearly closed the gap, but the agents shot them down.

It was a wise decision, and their aims were true. They even realized that the bombs might still be functional, and they made sure to cover their exposed faces and necks.

Everything about their response was flawless.

That was why it caught them by such surprise to see a blond girl charging at them alongside the planes.

“I’m code name Forgetter—and it’s time to put it all together, yo!”

“I’m code name Fool—and it’s time to kill with everything!”

Annette pulled out a folding umbrella to protect herself right as the bombs went off.

“………What?”

Momus and his men couldn’t even begin to process what they were seeing.

What kind of deranged person would go and blow up their own ally?

Cornered spies did occasionally resort to suicide bombings, but the Nilfa agents had never seen someone catch their teammate in an explosion. As a result, they had no idea how to react to it.

The following sequence of events made it all clear.

After a two-second delay, the four model planes exploded. Right before they went off, Erna grabbed at the Nilfa agents and threw them off-balance. The planes burst, sending shards of metal plunging into all four of them. And as the bombs detonated, Erna repositioned herself yet again.

Once all was said and done, Momus and his men finally understood.

Thanks to Erna’s attack, the four of them had taken the shock wave head-on.

Despite having been right next to them, though, Erna had emerged completely unscathed.

“…You dodged the explosion by using us as shields?”

“She’s got plenty of experience avoiding misfortune.”

Erna calmly looked down at Momus’s shrapnel-riddled frame.

Her heart burned with a firm conviction.

“Forgetter” Annette was a master sadist who excelled at underhanded sneak attacks.

Meanwhile, “Fool” Erna was a master masochist who excelled at both placing herself in harm’s way and avoiding injury.

With the two of them working together, the possibilities were endless.

The explosion had wounded the four Nilfa agents badly enough that they wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, and the girls took that opportunity to flee as fast as they could. There was no time for them to finish their opponents off. The fight had used up the last of their weapons aside from their knives, and they couldn’t afford to get surrounded by new foes who’d heard the explosions.

“You filthy scum!!” Momus grunted as he writhed on the ground. “If you think this means you’re home free, then think again… That trick won’t work again. Next time we find you, you’re dead!”

Erna wanted to laugh at what a sore loser he was being, but he wasn’t wrong. She and Annette were dead broke, and she had no illusions about being able to stay one step ahead of the Genesis Army the way they had been.

She stopped in her tracks and made an attempt to break her enemy’s spirit. “Fine by me. I doubt we’ll be seeing each other again.”

“What?”

“I already got what I wanted out of you.”

Having said her piece, she left.

The Nilfa agents doubtless had no idea what she was talking about, but the moment they attacked her, they’d played right into her hands.

“Playing it cool is nice and all,” Annette said, “but you know your skirt’s torn, right?”

“That’s because your bombs are too dang dangerous!”

“Here, I’ll sew it up for you! Ah, whatever would you do without me?”

“Q-quit tugging! Just get off me, okay?!”

“Heh! You got it, yo. ”

“It’s nice that you cheered up, but that’s kind of creepy in its own right…”

Perturbed as she was by the way Annette was linking their arms, Erna continued racing down the alley.

Annette had taken a long time to figure out what was going on. Maybe she really had been sleepy.

If she’d been paying attention to Erna and Jean’s conversation rather than gorging herself on food, she would have understood. She would have known why Erna had demanded that she stop attacking people at random, and she would have known why Erna had gone and helped a Galgad citizen when they hadn’t been in any position to do so. When they left the brasserie, Erna had asked Jean for a favor.

“I’d like you to tail us from a distance,” she’d asked him. “Then you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to trust us.”

If the Genesis Army specialized in fishing, then all Erna had to do was fall for the bait and make a show of besting them. After all, attracting misfortune was what “Fool” Erna did best. For her, having someone watch her get attacked fell squarely within her area of expertise.

The girls joined back up with Jean at a church near his university. It was still night, and the building was empty. They were worried about being followed, but fortunately, they didn’t appear to have been.

When they reunited, Jean seemed the slightest bit nervous. He stared at them to try to get a new read on them as he took a seat.

“I saw everything. It was just like you said.” His voice was a little high from unconcealed shock. “…How much do you know about me?”

“That you’re the manager of a university dorm, and that you probably hold a grudge against the government. At first, that was all I had to go off of.”

Back when they met at the brasserie, they hadn’t been sure of anything else. However, Erna had gone there with a hope. That hope had turned to certainty over the course of their conversation, which was why she’d taken the risk of revealing their information to him.

“But you weren’t exactly subtle about it.”

“…About what?”

“Even considering that stuff in your past, most people wouldn’t be so worried about Genesis Army fishing expeditions.”

It all but amounted to a confession—a confession that he was someone that Lylat intelligence would be interested in.

Giving them a clue that blatant had been his way of extending them a hand. They’d only just met, but Erna found that benevolence of his endearing.

“You even gave us instructions. When you said you couldn’t blindlytrust us, that was you telling us that you were willing to trust us if we gave you a reason.”

“…I’ve got a balancing act I have to maintain,” Jean said with a shrug and half a grin. “I need people on my side. But at the same time, I can’t accept people into the fold if I don’t trust them.”

“Well, we’ve demonstrated our strength now. We’ve put a lot of training into this.”

“Yeah, that was impressive. Just who are you two?”

“I’ll tell you on the way there. For now, you can just think of us as an anonymous pair of operatives.”

“Look, I’m going to choose to trust you. It’s clear that you’re at odds with the Genesis Army, and what’s more, I admire the way you chose to save that Galgad man.”

Jean stood up from his chair and spread his arms wide in a gesture of greeting.

“I can offer you shelter. It never hurts to have talented friends.”

With a big smile, he revealed his true identity.

“There’s a secret society called the Knights of Valor—and as its representative, allow me to extend you a warm welcome.”

Interlude: Meadow I

When “Meadow” Sara became a spy, it was because one thing simply led to another.

One day, a gunfight broke out at her family’s restaurant between the Military Intelligence Department and a Galgad spy. The Military Intelligence Department had done a sloppy job restraining the spy, who escaped from their hiding spot and fled to the restaurant that Sara’s parent’s ran, barricading themselves in and taking the customers hostage.

Sara was twelve, so fortunately she’d been at school at the time.

The first thing she saw of the incident was the aftermath, with the restaurant half-razed by explosives.

She’d always sort of assumed that she would inherit it someday, yet there it was, reduced to rubble. The government never told them what had really happened during the shootout, and the compensation it paid them was a paltry pittance. The locals loved the restaurant, but the village’s population was declining, and its earnings had started to slip even before the incident. The money to rebuild it simply wasn’t there.

Just like that, the family business was gone, and they had no way to support themselves.

Her parents would have no choice but to move the whole family to the city in search of work. Given the times they were in, though, there was no guarantee there would actually be jobs for them there. What’s more, they had a growing daughter to look after.

Every night, Sara watched in secret as her parents agonized over their bankbook.

“Damn, those bastards in Military Intelligence really shat the bed here. This is just embarrassing.”

It was at that time when a peculiar man arrived.

His swaying blond hair was parted down the middle, as was in vogue, and he had a boyishly friendly smile. He looked around the destroyed restaurant with an inquisitive sparkle in his eye.

“I’m sorry, can I help you? I’m afraid we’re closed…,” said Sara, who’d been sweeping up at the time.

“Don’t mind me, just looking around,” the man replied with a cordial laugh. Then he slowly looked Sara over from head to toe. There was something unsettling about his gaze, like he could see right through her.

“Wh-who are you?”

Sara tensed, and the man let out another laugh. “Hey, kid, did you know this restaurant has a guardian angel?”

“A what?”

“It’s true. You know how Military Intelligence was blasting this place full of bombs and bullets like a bunch of morons? Well, the person who ended up getting the drop on the dumbass spy barricading themselves in here—”

He paused for dramatic effect.

“—was actually a particularly valorous hawk.”

“Yeah, so I hear.”

Despite herself, Sara couldn’t help but chuckle.

She’d recently taken in a hawk she found by the side of the road that had been injured by some sort of wild animal. The hawk had taken a liking to her, and it could often be seen flying near the restaurant. Unbeknownst to Sara, that hawk had put on quite an impressive display.

“I heard the story when I was cleaning up the Military Intelligence Department’s mess, and I thought it was just great. If I found a hawk that brave, I’d offer him a spot on Inferno with the rest of—”

“This is the little guy you’re talking about, right?”

Sara whistled, and the hawk immediately came swooping down. After nimbly flying through one of the restaurant’s shattered windows, he alighted right next to Sara.

That kind of thing always came naturally to her.

The blond man’s eyes gleamed as he let out an impressed hum. “Damn, you’ve tamed him good. That must’ve taken some mad skills.”

“Oh, I don’t know about skills. I think he just likes me.”

“Well, ain’t that something.”

“It’s always been like this for me. Animals just have a way of helping me out.”

Hearing people compliment her pets always ended up loosening Sara’s tongue.

Once she was done telling him everything, the man smirked. “You might just be a diamond in the rough.”

“Huh?”

“Truth is, I’m a scout.”

“A scout?”

“That’s right. When I find talented personnel, I’ve got the right to give them referrals—to become spies.”

Sara blinked when the topic of spies came up.

The immediate image that sprang to mind was the demolished restaurant. The government had never properly explained what happened, but she knew that people were saying that spies had been involved. It all sounded rather violent.

The self-proclaimed scout went on. “If you’re hard up for cash…why not join an academy?”

Huh? she thought. At no point had she ever mentioned her family’s financial situation to him.

She stared at him in confusion, and he continued. “It’s not a bad deal. The government will take care of your living expenses, and if you want me to pay your parents a scouting fee, I can make that happen, too. I can just borrow some money from my boss.”

“N-no, wait, hold on! I could never—!”

“You could, though.”

Sara frantically tried to deny it, but the man was having none of that.

His voice rang firm with conviction.

“If there’s one thing I’m confident in, it’s my judgment. I’ve never lost a bet, and I’m not about to start now.”

There was an intensity about him that left zero room for debate.

As Sara found herself stunned into silence, the man went back to his friendly smile from before.

“Besides, what’s the harm in giving it a try? If it doesn’t work out, you can just put in your two or three years and quit.”

“Is it really all right to be so cavalier about it?”

“Just think of it as an all-expenses-paid trade school. They’ll teach you all sorts of handy skills there.”

“Oh, wow… Gosh…”

Sara found herself being swayed by the man’s targeted arguments.

If all she was doing was going to an academy, then she wouldn’t have to get involved with anything life-threatening. Plus, having her living expenses taken care of would stop her from being a burden on her parents. If the man paid them a scouting fee like he said he would, then it would make their lives easier, too. And the man himself would be getting what he wanted.

Things had been perfectly arranged for everyone to come out ahead.

It was all so convenient, she couldn’t bring herself to say no.

“If you do end up coming, I’ll pick out your code name myself.”

His voice rang with such confidence, she could feel her heart waver.

When “Meadow” Sara became a spy, it was because one thing simply led to another.

Or rather, to be more precise—it was because someone engineered things to lead to each other.

Now, though, it was a clear and unshakable goal that drove her to work as a Lamplight spy.

That very goal meant she had to speak up.

No matter how scared she was, no matter how outrageous she knew she was being, she couldn’t afford to hesitate. If she didn’t listen to her heart, it would mean there was no reason for her to continue being a spy.

As soon as their briefing for the Lylat mission ended, she headed straight to Klaus’s room. Despite her abrupt arrival, he didn’t seem put out. Rather, he looked at her in surprise.

She took a deep breath and held her head high.

“I can’t agree to this!” she declared. “Please, I need you to revise our strategy.”

It was a rare day when one of the girls asked Klaus to modify his plans. They cut in with questions, sure, but by and large, Lamplight followed his instructions to the letter. Despite his incomprehensible turns of phrase, his experience and talent had been enough to earn the girls’ unconditional trust.

As such, Sara’s actions were all but unprecedented.

Klaus blinked as he sat down in his chair. “What are you saying? Would you mind elaborating?”

“Like I told you before, I have a real goal for the first time in my life.” Sara went on, undaunted. “I’m going to be Lamplight’s guardian—someone who never lets any of her teammates die. I’ll work to protect the others until the day comes where they’re ready to retire. That’s the kind of spy I want to be.”

Lamplight’s guardian.

Sara had already told most of the team about it.

After spending so long rudderless, she’d finally found an objective—prioritizing her teammates’ lives over the success of their missions.

“I can’t agree to a plan that puts Miss Erna and Miss Annette in so much danger.”

The plan Klaus had put forward went against Sara’s beliefs.

Splitting up the team meant she would be in no position to help the others. Plus, even if she accepted that it was necessary for the sake of the mission, the way he’d arranged the duos carried far too much risk.

“I can appreciate why you built our strategy around Miss Erna. But in that case, you should have paired her up with Miss Monika or Miss Sybilla—someone who could protect her if anything went wrong.”

Klaus was taking a duo that had yet to fully mature and placing them on the mission’s front lines. Even just thinking about it made Sara shudder. What if something happened to them?

“We need to keep those two safe—that’s why I have to insist that you rework the plan.”

“……………………”

Klaus didn’t offer her an immediate reply. Rather, he stared directly at her. His face muscles didn’t so much as twitch, and his expression was scarily robotic.

Sara could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

She knew full well that she was completely out of line. Someone as inexperienced as her was in no position to be talking back to her boss like that. She was gushing so much sweat, she could feel her temperature dropping.

As she fought back her rising urge to flee, Klaus finally spoke. “Sara—”

Sara braced herself for a scolding and waited for him to go on.

“—color me impressed at how much you’ve grown. You’ve come a long way from the days when you couldn’t even bring yourself to voice an opinion to the others.”

“Huh…?”

What she got, however, was praise.

Klaus crossed his arms in satisfaction and nodded a few times. He seemed to be basking in his delight.

Sara found herself a little taken aback at the unexpected response.

“That’s something to be celebrated, Sara. You’re trying to take your first big step toward becoming a true spy. So as a fellow spy, I’m going to give you my answer straight out.”

“O-okay…”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Monika and Sybilla have different roles to play. There’s no arrangement better than the one we have.”

However, his reply was one of flat-out rejection.

After contemplating the matter as best he could, that was the conclusion he’d arrived at. He’d spent their entire vacation in Marnioce, from the very first day to day thirteen, agonizing over his decision. Weighing his subordinates’ safety against his duty.

“I…I know that I’m being selfish here.” Sara balled up her fists and took a half step forward. “But if you could at least let me go along with the two of them—”

“And what is it you think you’d be able to accomplish?”

Klaus’s voice had a sharp edge to it.

He was speaking not as her mentor but as a spy. Even if Annette and Erna did find themselves in peril, having someone of Sara’s skill there wouldn’t actually do anything to help.

“……………………………”

Sara was struck speechless, and Klaus slowly rose to his feet. “In light of your growth, perhaps some slightly harsher lessons would be apropos.”

“Huh?”

Klaus crossed in front of her. “I was always planning on eventually having you follow in her footsteps. And not just with cooking, either. As someone who plans to retire from espionage someday, these skills will be even more useful to you. If you can master just ten percent of them, that would be more than sufficient.”

He went and unlocked the cabinet in the corner.

As far as Sara knew, there was nothing on its shelves but statistical data and maps and such, but once Klaus was done fiddling with some sort of mechanism, a pleasant click rang out as something dropped from its top section.

“I have five records left of her performances.”

Klaus reached into the fallen paper bag and pulled out a set of what looked to be five record cases. The cases were all black, with nothing written on them.

“What are those?”

“‘Flamefanner’ Heide was a prodigy when it came to painting sound, light, smells, and even the air itself in her hues, and these are some of her works.”

Sara watched with bated breath as Klaus retrieved a record player from inside the cabinet. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what might be about to happen, but all he did was plug the player into the wall and set it up to play music.

“Your assignment is to endure for two minutes.”

“…What?”

“If you can do that, I’ll take your opinion into consideration.”

Sara was a bit bewildered, but she braced herself all the same. If those were his conditions, then she wasn’t going to back down.

Klaus dropped the needle on the spinning record.

“Listen well, ‘Meadow’ Sara—this is an important first step that you need to be able to take.”

The moment he did, Sara’s body split in two.

Chapter 2: Society

Before they left for the mission, Klaus had given them a rundown on underground secret societies.

“The land where revolutions die. That’s what they call it, but in truth, there are a number of groups operating in opposition to the government to this very day. These revolutionary groups are what we call underground secret societies.”

With the whole of Lamplight gathered in the main hall, Klaus explained what the situation in Lylat was like by rattling off a long list of the secret societies that had existed to date. If you included the ones that had already fallen apart, he came up with over fifty societies of varying sizes.

One of those was the Knights of Valor.

“In Lylat, people are banned from forming political organizations without express permission from the government. Their police and counterintelligence forces have stamped out too many groups to count. The ringleaders get imprisoned, and the organizations themselves get forced underground.”

Nowadays, such groups operated by masquerading as university, professional, or hobbyist groups.

Even with all those secret societies in play, though, there were no signs of any revolution materializing. That was yet another testament to the ferocity with which the royal administration and the Genesis Army clamped down on revolt. When they called Lylat the land where revolutions died, that was no exaggeration.

“Daughter Dearest” Grete delicately raised her hand. “…Then how should we go about causing a revolution?”

“We’ll need the three pillars of revolution—that is, support from three distinct groups in Lylat.”

Klaus raised three fingers.

“First—the masses. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that they’re the most important people of all. Our job is to make contact with secret societies and use them to stir up the righteous indignation that will provide the momentum to carry our revolution through. These are people who’ll be building barricades in the street and using small arms and even stones to seize government buildings. Unless we can harness the power of numbers, it’ll be difficult to even get our revolution off the ground.”

Several of the girls nodded. History held loads of examples of popular revolutions, and the people’s rage had been the trigger for all of them.

“Second—the Royal Guard. They’re a part of the army that works with the Genesis Army to keep the capital secure. They’re equipped with top-of-the-line weaponry, and they move in any time a rebellion starts. Suppressing the civilians we’ve riled up would be child’s play to them. They’ve put down more strikes and uprisings than I can count.”

A couple of the girls gulped in concern. Weapons were far more lethal nowadays than they had been in revolutions of eras past. Sure, their opponents probably wouldn’t go so far as to deploy tanks or fighter planes to stop a revolution, but they wouldn’t hesitate to break out machine guns and the like.

If the girls had to face the Royal Guard, then all the outrage they’d whipped up would be for nothing.

“And third—the aristocracy. Even if we do manage to oust the king, the revolution can only end if the people have a way to hold on to the new rights they acquired by force. Din has no interest in watching Lylat descend into anarchy. That might mean leaving Liberalist members of Parliament in charge, but there needs to be some sort of symbol that can bring the unrest to a close.”

He let out a long exhale.

They were spies for the Din Republic, and that meant that the final steps toward ending the revolution would be out of their hands. Whether Lylat transitioned to a republic or formed a new constitutional monarchy, someone would need to govern the nation, and it was important that whoever that might be was friendly to the Din Republic.

“The masses, the Royal Guard, and the aristocracy—if we can get those three groups on our side, we can make this revolution happen.”

Doing that would render Nike powerless, and they would be able to find out the true scope of the Nostalgia Project. It sounded simple when you put it like that, but the road ahead of them was sure to be long and treacherous. Their mission was to take three radically different groups and unite them under one banner. The scale of the task before them positively dwarfed all their missions to date.

As many of the girls shuddered, Grete nodded. “I believe I understand your plan, Boss.”

She was the wisest of them, and she quietly fixed her gaze on Klaus.

“The long and short of it is that we’re going to be splitting up into four groups.

“There’s the squad that will fight Nike directly and try to learn about the Nostalgia Project the old-fashioned way.

“Then, while that squad serves as a decoy, the other three will foment a revolution.

“One squad will be in charge of winning over as much of the populace as possible and inspiring them to revolt.

“Another squad will make contact with the Royal Guard and take steps to ensure that the revolution has their support.

“And the final squad will find aristocrats that endorse the revolution and are willing to help bring it to its conclusion and end the chaos.

“Do I have that all correct?”

“For convenience’s sake, we’ll call the groups the Nike squad, the Sedition squad, the Persuasion squad, and the Endgame squad. You’ll be operating in Lylat in groups of two.”

After that, Klaus went on to announce who would be in each squad. Some of the duos made perfect sense, while others gave the group cause for concern, but in the end, the girls accepted his assignments.

Once all was said and done, Lily sprang to her feet and summed it all up. “Then we know what we gotta do. Even when we’re apart, we’ll all still be doing our best.”

She was never one to miss an opportunity to flaunt her position as team leader, and she snorted triumphantly and looked around at the others.

“The next time we all meet up, it’ll be at the Palace of Fagmille after we make the revolution a reality.”

It was one of her characteristically thoughtless remarks, but even so, it became a shared understanding among the group.

We’ll meet again at the palace after the revolution is complete.

That thought had provided Erna with more comfort than she could count during their year of isolation. They might not have been able to see each other, but they were all striving for that same future.

Now it was time for her to do her job as part of the Sedition squad and lead the masses to revolt.

When she lowered her head, she heard Annette’s voice crackle innocently through her radio.

“Ten seconds to detonation, yo!!”

“…I’m sorry, what?”

“Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…!”

“Y-YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!”

Erna took off as fast as her legs would carry her.

She frantically fled from the bombs she’d set, and the blast rocked her ears right as she was leaping over the building’s outer fence. The shock wave pushed her over its edge, and she cleared the brick fence, careened forward, and slammed her jaw on the ground.

They were carrying out their bombing in broad daylight in a town some thirty miles southwest of the Lylat Kingdom capital.

The building was surrounded by a simple fence, and its wall had been blown to bits. Confused-looking men poured out from within as thick black smoke billowed into the air. Fortunately, nobody appeared to have gotten hurt.

Erna quickly vacated the area before the authorities showed up, racing down an alley toward her partner, who waited for her atop a minibike.

“You’re the WORRRRRST!” Erna barked. She barreled toward her teammate and didn’t so much as slow down before launching into a headbutt. “What kind of jerk only gives a ten-second warning before setting off the bomb?!”

“Less talking, more getting out of here, Erna!”

Annette grinned as she rubbed her nose. She didn’t look the least bit apologetic.

Erna wasn’t nearly finished telling her off, but she grabbed on to Annette’s back and got on the minibike anyway. A larger motorcycle would have made riding with two people easier, but then Annette wouldn’t have been able to steer properly. It was largely an issue of her height.

“The operation was a success, yo!” Annette cackled as she nimbly steered the bike. “That detention center wall is yesterday’s news! We successfully saved our comrades from lockup! Now, Deck and Blot will be able to make their escape!”

“…Are you sure it was smart to go in so loud?”

“Huh? What’s the problem with loud, yo?”

Annette looked back and flashed Erna a happy-go-lucky grin.

Unsure of how to respond to that, Erna settled for simply saying “Eyes on the road.”

“Next up, we gotta deliver some pamphlets out to the suburbs! I’ll set up a smoke emitter on the tracks to stop the train, so your job is to use that opening to hand them over to our colleague Sogno in the passenger car!”

“W-wait, we have another mission after this?!”

“Oh, the hits don’t stop coming! We’re gonna be stealing some certificates of employment from Djoucar West’s town hall this evening, and come nightfall, we’ve got a shipment of arms to pick up from our army buddy Egg Tart!”

Annette held tight to the handlebars as she rattled off their itinerary for the day.

The wind had swept Erna’s bangs into her face, and she brushed them back and let out a small sigh. “Is it just me, or do you seem way more excited than usual?!”

“Breaking stuff is my favorite, yo!” Annette chirped back.

The two of them had a long backlog of missions to get through—breaking collaborators out of detention facilities, transporting and distributing pamphlets, forging documents so people could misrepresent themselves, communicating with comrades in faraway locations, winning over new printmakers, fundraising from the upper class, transporting weapons—and the list just kept going on.

Everything they were doing, they were doing for the Knights of Valor.

“A lot of what we do at the Knights of Valor is spread propaganda.”

On the first day they met, Jean showed Erna and Annette to the university dorms.

Pilca’s southwestern fourteenth arrondissement was home to so many dormitories, people called it Campustown. Wealthy people the world over wanted their descendants educated in the beautiful nation of Lylat, and their contributions funded a thriving dormitory system full of international character.

The old-fashioned five-story stonework building Jean led them to certainly didn’t look the part of a secret society hideout. Only men were allowed to live there, and everything inside was messy and cluttered.

The Genesis Army would never even think to look for an underground resistance group there.

“Most of our members are students who go to one of the four universities in the fifth arrondissement. After so many cycles of getting found out and having to rebuild, we’ve got a lot of people outside the universities now, too. Professors, printmakers, cops, rail staff, government officials…you name it. Together, we print posters and pamphlets and distribute them throughout the country.”

Jean guided them into a bedroom on the first floor, then slid aside a rug sitting between the two bunk beds. Beneath it, there was a large hole with a ladder leading down into a space underground.

“One of our allies in the architecture department planned it out,” he explained proudly. “And it isn’t just the dorms that have escape routes and secret hideouts, either. The universities have all sorts of nooks that only we know about. I can’t reveal any of their locations to you just yet, mind you.”

When they went belowground, they discovered that the area down there was surprisingly spacious. It had two rooms, and its walls had been reinforced with pillars, so there was no danger of them collapsing. There was even decent ventilation, as the air didn’t taste stale.

In Erna’s eyes, this was the best hideout they could possibly have asked for.

“…How long can we stay here for?”

“I’d say a week should get you sorted,” Jean replied. “Not even the Genesis Army can keep up an investigation forever. If their search turns up empty, then surely they’ll assume you fled over the border, right?”

“We can’t afford to take that risk. We’ll need disguises and fresh IDs.”

“I can get those for you. Just remember that we’re activists, not philanthropists. Seven days’ free food and tools to help you escape is all you get.” He shot her a cheeky wink. “I’m sure we can find a way to put those fancy skills of yours to good use.”

The girls went on to dye their hair and got worked to the bone all across the Lylat Kingdom.

After seven days of hiding underground, they spent the next nine engaged in some vigorous sedition.

Once they’d completed all their work, both legal and otherwise, Erna and Annette returned to the university dorm.

Jean was all smiles when he came to meet them at the entrance. It was their first time seeing him in nine days.

“You have to break the shell to get the almond.”

He greeted them with yet another Lylat proverb as well as a round of applause. The saying probably meant something to the effect of “no pain, no gain.” Erna considered asking him about it, but she was so exhausted that she couldn’t even bring herself to speak.

“Such perfection! You blew past all of my wildest expectations! I can hardly believe you actually finished the whole list!” Jean grinned and spread his arms wide. “Really, it’s incredible. I was so sure you’d end up skipping at least one or two of the tasks.”

“We’re used to this kind of stuff.”

“Honestly, you two are better at this than I am. How embarrassing! Some representative I am, right?”

“Thanks for the kind words…”

All Erna wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep. When she started walking toward their hideout under the first floor, Jean stopped her. “Wrong way,” he said. “Today, we’re going up to the fifth floor.”

“Yeep?” Erna murmured as she took a good long look at him.

Up until then, Jean had only let them go to the first floor and the basement. The man still had secrets that he hadn’t shared with them.

Annette blinked in confusion, and the two of them followed him.

“By and large, the Knights of Valor operate in groups of four,” Jean explained as they went up the stairs. They could hear a number of voices coming from above. “It’s safer for everyone that way. Nobody interacts with the other groups, and the majority of our members have no idea what the others even look like. We refer to each other by code names, too. Not even I know everyone in the organization.”

“…Hmm, very thorough.”

“But things are a little different for us officers. After all, we eat and sleep under the same roof, and we would never betray each other.”

Right as Jean said that, they arrived on the fifth floor.

Everyone who lived there was a male university student, which did a lot to explain the clothes and candy wrappers strewn haphazardly across the floor. Erna was nothing if not cautious, though, and she spotted the peculiar strings of piano wire mixed in with the mess. It was a trap designed to alert the residents in case of intruders.

“I get it,” she said. “So, the fifth floor—”

“That’s right—it’s only open to the Knights of Valor leadership.”

There were over thirty young adults gathered there in the hallway. Despite being a male dorm, there were women there, too, as well as people in suits who looked to be university staff. When Erna and Annette came up, everyone there greeted them with warm smiles.

There was a table in the middle of the hallway decked out with wine bottles and cheese.

“Now, come on! Today’s your welcome party! What a fine day, to have such a dependable pair of ladies join us. Three cheers for the unprecedented geniuses who completed their full assignment with flying colors!”

On Jean’s signal, the whole group let out whoops of joy. They’d already been told about the hard work Erna and Annette had put in, and applause filled the air as the girls were ushered over and offered wine and nuts.

By the look of things, those tasks they’d completed had doubled as an initiation test.

Before the girls knew it, they were surrounded by students and being showered with praise.

“Did they really get all that done in just barely a week?”

“They did! They’re the ones who broke us out of lockup!”

“The girl with the eyepatch souped up our printing press, too.”

“To think that after fleeing to the Din Republic out of fear of the royal administration, they would return home as revolutionaries—oh, what a brilliant turn of events!!”

Erna and Annette had lied to Jean and the others about their backstory, and for good reason. Instead, they’d passed themselves off as Lylat natives who’d been born into the middle class, then had to flee abroad to live with relatives after their family drew the Genesis Army’s ire. According to their story, they’d sworn revenge, then mastered the art of espionage with Din’s Military Intelligence Department before returning to Lylat.

Being the center of attention was embarrassing, but it felt nice to be welcomed so warmly. Annette was already enthusiastically showing off her inventions.

“Check out these new radios I developed, yo!”

She stood atop the table, ill-mannered as always, and puffed up her chest with pride.

All around her, the students clapped with delight.

“The kid’s a genius!” “Wow! Where have you been all our lives?!” “It’s incredible, what with how short she is!” “And so young!” “Such talent packed into such a small frame!”

Her and Erna’s ages had played a big role in the reception they’d gotten. The leadership group was made up of university students, and the girls must have reminded them of little sisters or underclassmen.

Annette stuck out her tongue. “All right, everyone who just called me short is dead meat!”

““““WE’RE SORRYYYYY!!””””

Annette puffed her cheeks, and the student officers apologized profusely. After they were done abasing themselves, they started passing around the radios Annette had revamped with university equipment.

To Erna’s surprise, Annette was actually behaving herself for once.

After watching to make sure everything was going smoothly, Erna stepped away from the main festivities and walked over to Jean. “Does this mean we’re officers now, too?”

“Provisional officers, for sure,” Jean replied cheerfully as he bit into some cheese. “That gives you access to C-tier confidential information. What do you want to know?”

“Let me have a look at your full backlog of bulletins.”

Jean quickly went and fetched them from an underground storeroom. Their bulletin, a pamphlet some ten pages long, was called Honor. There had been dozens of issues to date, but many of them had gotten destroyed each time the society got exposed. Now they only had five of them left.

Inside, the bulletins detailed the royal administration’s many transgressions—things like using tax money for personal ends and hushing up incidents of aristocrats and royals injuring people. They talked about the people thrust into poverty by policy failures, bureaucrats spending money on frivolities over in the United States of Mouzaia, and the government having lawyers killed for calling them out on their constitutional violations.

Erna was impressed at how much information they’d collected, but something about the ink caught her attention as well.

“Were these machine-printed?”

“You’ve got a good eye there.” Jean smiled, pleased that she’d noticed. “We write out the drafts in our base below the dorm, then get them typeset in small chunks across a bunch of different factories before finally combining them at our print workshop.”

“Oh, wow. I know that a lot of secret societies have to print them by hand.”

“Ah, you’re talking about transcription via mimeograph. We used to have to do that in generations past, but thanks to my father’s connections, we were able to get machine printing off the ground.”

“What’s up with these traces on the paper?”

“You are a perceptive one. We put invisible ink on a small handful of our pamphlets to send specific instructions to people. We make the ink by mixing headache medicine with alcohol.”

“………………”

“What, is something wrong?”

“Not at all.” Erna realized that explaining herself would be a little rude, so she hesitated before doing so. “Honestly, I’m surprised.”

“About what?”

“You run a pretty tight ship here. I wasn’t expecting you all to be so competent.”

The Knights of Valor were operating much the way an intelligence team would. They had some of the classic student inexperience, sure, but their organizational structure, the way they protected personal information, and their traps were downright ingenious. The fact they’d made allies on the police force and in local politics spoke well of their ability to unify people.

Jean replied to Erna’s admiration with a quiet murmur. “We’re using the methods popularized by a legendary secret society—the LWS Troupe.”

Erna’s ears twitched at the unfamiliar name.

She looked at him in puzzlement. She’d never heard of that secret society before. “Who’s that?”

“Who can say?”

“What does that mean?”

“The whole group is shrouded in mystery. They definitely existed at one point, we know that much for sure, but as I understand it, they got dismantled. Nobody is quite sure what exactly it is they did.”

Jean raised his palms to show that he wasn’t hiding anything. He simply didn’t know.

“What makes them so legendary, then?” Erna asked.

“That’s part of the mystery, too. But word is they had a profound impact on Lylat’s secret societies. Everyone in one has heard of them. People say they were this awesome group that liked to make big, flashy moves.”

“…But you’re saying that nobody actually knows what those moves were?”

“It’s that very mystery that makes them so fascinating. It’s such a shame they’re not around anymore.”

Erna felt like she was being taken for a ride. If Klaus didn’t know about that society, then it must have been founded pretty recently.

In any case, Lylat’s secret societies had a long and robust history. Many groups rose up only to later die out. Perhaps that was why they’d had such a difficult time successfully bringing about a revolution.

She fixed a stern look at Jean. There was a question she absolutely needed to get answered.

“What’s the Knights of Valor’s ultimate objective?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Jean grinned in confusion before pointing at the officers across the room. “Nave, the law student drinking wine on the left over there—his uncle got locked up by the Genesis Army. Deck, the mechanical engineer you saved, is my right-hand man. His dad’s a Galgad citizen who got accused of espionage over nothing more than his nationality. The woman in front trying out the radio, Blot, had her parents’ farmland seized by the state. And Skirt, the university admin next to her, has a dad who got forced out of his job by the police force the minute he tried to go against the Royal Guard.”

What Jean was describing was the pain of being persecuted by the royal administration. The aristocrats and intelligence agents it protected had hurt them and their families. They might have looked like ordinary university students at a glance, but for them, this was personal. Jean’s own father had been arrested as well.

“Any officer here would give you the same answer in a heartbeat—we want to overthrow the whole regime.”

He spoke with conviction and not a hint of falsehood in his voice. His was a pure and honest sort of patriotism.

Then he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. “But we’re pretty far from getting there. Which I guess makes sense, when all we’re doing is handing out bulletins.”

“Yeah, it’ll take more than that.”

Even Jean recognized that petty propaganda wasn’t going to be enough to start a revolution. If distributing pamphlets was all it took to change society, then everyone would be doing it.

“The problem is, all we’re doing is exposing tiny acts of corruption. The hope is that someday, we can find a scandal big enough to cause an upsurge in anti-government sentiments and get all the secret societies to work together, but—”

“Don’t you worry,” Erna said with a nod.

“Huh?”

“That’s what I’m here for. You already know I’m more talented than anyone else here.”

Erna had no intention of just doing busywork forever.

For her, this was nothing more than the first step on the road to revolution. Now that she’d infiltrated the Knights of Valor, her job was to expand their activities, link up with other secret societies, and inspire the masses to rise up. Eventually, when the other Lamplight members had won over the Royal Guard and aristocracy, she would reunite with them and complete the revolution.

“Is there anything I can do? It won’t be someday. We’re going to make this revolution happen now.”

“…You know, you two might just be able to pull it off.” Despite her bullish assertions, Jean didn’t push back. He looked at her with zeal burning in his eyes. “There was an explosion in the Friedrich Industrial Zone. I’d like you to look into it for us.”

After the welcome party, Jean introduced Erna and Annette to a medical student from Nicola University.

Down in the underground base, the woman showed them a newspaper. “This is an article from two weeks ago.” It was a local paper with a low circulation. She pointed at a headline off to the side: Mysterious Explosion at Friedrich Industrial Zone Coal Mine.

The incident had taken place in a city right on the border between the Lylat Kingdom and the Galgad Empire. One evening, locals reported hearing a sudden echoey roar and seeing the sky briefly get lit up. Several people all said that it had come from the direction of the mines.

If that was all there was to the story, then it would have been a complete nonevent.

“Now, here’s the mayor’s response from the next day.”

The next thing she showed them was another article from the same paper the day after, Mayor Warns Against Misinformation, says “No Accidents Reported in Industrial Zone.” In it, the mayor in charge of the area denied that anything happened. The article stated in no uncertain terms that there were no reports of anything amiss from the mines or from local police, going on to say that all mines were operating smoothly and that not only had no explosion occurred, no explosion could possibly have occurred.

Erna couldn’t help but cock her head. “But why did they go out of their way to—?”

Jean’s lips curled into a contemptuous smirk. “They’re obviously hiding something.”

“Sure, but even so—”

“The industrial zone is under the direct supervision of the royal administration. They can’t let anything happen there that might tarnish their reputation. The government must’ve pressured them. At the end of the day, the mayor is just another civil servant who answers to the administration.”

Was that all it was, though? Something about the mayor’s response was weird. It was all a bit extreme for a run-of-the-mill cover-up.

“Have you tried reaching out to the reporter who wrote the original story?” Erna asked.

Jean gave her a disappointed shake of the head. “They’ve already been arrested. The charge was suspected espionage.”

That was even more suspicious still. If the mayor and royal government were willing to disappear a newspaper reporter, then they must really have wanted to sweep the explosion under the rug.

The woman fished out a parcel. “We have a lot of allies in the industrial zone. A friend of ours named Dice sneaked into the Bertram Mines and sent us this right before the explosion.”

She set it on a table and opened it up.

Inside, there was a slab of metal about the size of her palm.

“When it arrived, it was covered in something black and sooty.”

Erna picked the slab up. “Is this copper?” she concluded. It appeared to be a relief made from copper pounded with a hammer. It looked to have been modeled after a wing. When it caught the light, it gave off a faint glimmer. “What is this wonky little thing?”

“Actually, I made that,” Jean said, sounding a little bashful. “The wing is the Knights of Valor’s symbol. I gave it to him because he was a good friend going on a dangerous mission, but I wasn’t expecting him to send it back.”

“In other words, it’s some sort of message.”

“It has to be, yeah. In Friedrich, they inspect all the mail the workers try to send. He probably sent it this way to avoid drawing suspicion…but what’s the point, if I can’t figure out what he’s trying to say?”

Jean’s voice rang with regret.

“Now he’s disappeared. One of our other allies said they couldn’t find him anywhere.”

The missing man’s real name was Gilbert LeDuc. Gilbert was twenty-four years old. He was the older brother of a Nicola University student, he sympathized with the Knights of Valor’s ideals, and he’d infiltrated the Friedrich Industrial Zone in order to expose the government’s crimes. He and Jean had known each other since they were children, and they often had spirited debates about revolution.

That was who the metal—the stained copper wing—had come from.

“It’s definitely strange. Everything the government is doing over there smells fishy,” Erna said.

There was the mysterious explosion, the mayor’s denial, the imprisoned journalist, the missing man who’d infiltrated the industrial zone, and the Knights of Valor symbol he’d returned just before disappearing.

She gave a small nod. “It could definitely be worth looking into. Whatever’s happening might be really damaging to the administration.”

“Agreed. That area’s history is fraught. If we can prove that the government messed up, it could give the revolution a big boost of momentum. It’ll be dangerous, but you two might just be up to the task.” Jean proudly held up the bulletin he’d been showing Erna earlier. “If you find anything, we’ll do our part and spread the news across the country.”

“…All right. Let’s do this.”

The Knights of Valor were working toward almost the exact same goal that Klaus had tasked Erna and Annette with completing: riling up the masses. If they were able to denounce the government loudly enough, it might actually be enough to bring about a revolution.

Staying put wasn’t an option.

Their destination was the Friedrich Industrial Zone. Jean had called its history fraught, and for good reason—the area had another name it went by, too.

“Let’s go to the factory that birthed the Great War.”

Originally, the Friedrich Industrial Zone had been owned by the Galgad Empire.

The land had high-quality coal and iron deposits, and when the industrial revolution started, the government of what was then the Galgad Kingdom set about developing the land, building coking plants and ironworks, and turning it into the nation’s foremost center of heavy industry. When the kingdom later began aggressively expanding its territory and turning itself into an empire, that zone was where they built many of the weapons they needed to do so.

The Friedrich Industrial Zone fueled Galgad’s imperialism, and by extension, it birthed the Great War.

Lylat was naturally wary of the zone, and after the war’s end, they made a move that shocked the international community—they deployed troops to seize the land.

Their pretense was that Galgad had fallen behind on its reparation payments. Apparently, the previous ruler, King Benoit, had given the order himself.

Lylat’s actions earned them immediate criticism from the Fend Commonwealth and other countries that had been pushing for international harmony, but Lylat refused to back down. “We suffered more casualties in the war than anyone,” they protested. “Galgad’s refusal to make their payments promptly is unacceptable.”

After taking control of the Friedrich Industrial Zone, the royal administration moved its people in, then put them to work.

Due to its unique historical background, the industrial zone had a permanent military presence. The factories and mines had especially cumbersome procedures for entering and leaving, and the army inspected all goods that came in or went out. Firearms were a no-go, and any sort of radios were banned as well.

Fortunately, the Knights of Valor had some pull there.

Rumor had it that working conditions there were terrible, and the Knights of Valor had made some investigative inroads in an attempt to root out the truth. They had allies in several of the mines and factories, and though their friends couldn’t offer any large-scale assistance, there were a number of people who could help them with little things. As long as they used proper espionage techniques, it wouldn’t be difficult to sneak in most comms devices and tools.

In less than a week, Annette and Erna had an infiltration route all planned out with jobs at a mine and new identification papers for both of them. Everything was proceeding smoothly.

“I don’t wanna be a miner, yo!”

“Well, too! Dang! Bad!”

“There’s no way this doesn’t totally suck, yo! You can’t make me!”

“Quit your MOANING already! We don’t have a choice!”

“GAHHHHHHHHHH!!”

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”

“GRRRRRRRRRR!”

Annette clung to a pillar, and Erna had to drag her away by the legs to their mission site.

It took them half a day to get there from the Lylat capital via a series of trains. Their destination sat, well…Erna wasn’t sure how appropriate it was to describe it as right on the Galgad border. From an international perspective, it was actually Galgad territory under Lylat Kingdom occupation. After a baggage inspection on their way there, they transferred to a special bus at the train station to get to their final destination: the Bertram Mines, where the explosion was likely to have occurred.

“Whooooooooa! This place looks awesome, yo!”

When they arrived, Annette instantly stopped griping, and she hopped up and down in delight.

Before them stood a colossal red mine shaft headframe. It was a round pillar over a hundred feet tall that looked like the leg of a giant. The large winder at the top of the tower made a deep noise as it ran. It was designed for pulling up the coal that had been mined down below. Beneath the headframe, the mine extended nearly three thousand feet underground.

Most astonishing of all, though, was the fact that behind the red headframe were another two structures just like it. There must have been countless mines carved into the hillside.

“We’ve got twelve mines up and running right now. That one you just saw was the twelfth.”

A middle-aged woman in work clothes showed them the way.

She introduced herself as Erna and Annette’s manager.

“Everyone who works here lives in the worker housing.”

“And everyone here is from Lylat, right?” Erna asked.

“That’s right,” the woman replied. “We drove out everyone from Galgad who used to work here. Then we drafted up workers from across the country and brought them here. I’ve been here five years now.”

“Oh, wow…”

“And hey, it might not be the nicest place to work, but at least you won’t go hungry,” the woman said with a sad smirk. “You two will be doing laundry.”

She sucked on a cigarette as she led the two of them to a run-down building. The two of them had been living in student dorms until the day prior, but this was somehow shabbier. The plaster on the walls was riddled with cracks.

Next door, there was a small workshop filled with gigantic washing machines that looked like bathtubs.

“We’ve got eight thousand workers’ worth of clothes and sheets to get through, after all.”

Erna couldn’t help but let out a groaned “Yeep” at the sheer scale, and Annette’s face fell in renewed regret.

“Also, don’t go wandering anywhere but your assigned areas.”

“Huh?”

“The mine is divided into areas one through eight. It’s sliced up like a cake. That was area one we were just in, which is bigger than the others and in the middle. That’s so workers can pass through it to get where they’re going, and now we’re coming up on, let’s see…this is area three. Don’t go anywhere but the areas on your plate. That’s one of the rules here in the mines.”

Erna blinked at the odd restriction.

The nameplate she’d been given read “1-2-3-6,” and Annette’s said “1-3-7-8.” The manager was wearing one as well that read “1-4-7-8.”

Nobody had told them about that rule ahead of time, and Erna had no idea what to make of it.

“Also, there’s no chitchat allowed.”

After dropping the two of them off, the manager promptly left.

It was as though she wasn’t allowed to explain anything more, either.

It hardly came as a surprise, but mine work was a grueling affair.

For the next ten days straight, Erna and Annette labored without rest.

They had it far easier than the men actually going down into the pit, but their jobs were still far from a walk in the park. Every day, they needed to get through three thousand workers’ worth of laundry. After teaming up with other workers to collect the discarded work clothes from the barracks, they had to carry them over to the washhouse. The clothes got dramatically heavier after sucking up water, and the girls had to lug them over to the dryers and dry them before they could finally iron them. Then they had to bring them back over to the barracks. It was hard labor, and their workdays were over ten hours long. On their first day, they passed out in bed the instant they got back to the women’s barracks. They had nothing but respect for the other women who were doing that work day in and day out.

That said, they couldn’t forget they were there for a reason.

As Erna carted a massive load of freshly washed work clothes, she sketched out the Bertram Mines’ layout in her mind. The exact design must have been confidential, as her manager hadn’t given her any sort of map. It was a pretty big site—nearly a mile and a half from end to end. There were trees growing rampant everywhere there wasn’t a mine, so there weren’t any good sight lines.

She knew that an explosion had gone off somewhere, and she needed to start by pinning its location down. However, there were a number of obstacles in her way if she wanted to check out the accident site.

“Hey, you! What’re you doing here?”

The first was the Royal Guard. When she was walking around the mine one day, someone barked at her from behind.

Given the way Lylat was occupying Galgad territory, it would have been foolish of them not to station troops there. Soldiers roamed around in groups of two, patrolling the mines with rifles on their hips.

“You can’t be here with those numbers. Get back to your post.”

On hearing the sharp rebuke, Erna turned around and bowed low.

The second obstacle in her way was the way she was bound by her nameplate. It kept her from entering a full half of the areas. Without being able to move around freely, she had no way of completing her investigation. The borders between areas were demarcated by chain-link fences.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m new here, and I don’t know the way to the barracks.”

“…They’re that way,” the soldiers said, gesturing in annoyance with their chins at the correct route. “Don’t let it happen again.”

Their attitude was far from pleasant. As she gave them another bow, she stole a glance at their belongings.

There’s something off about the Royal Guard…

On each of their chests shone an impressive gold badge. Neither of them was wearing a numbered nameplate.

Erna had been about to go into area five, but she turned back. She didn’t know why, but something was telling her not to go anywhere near it.

Erna made sure to gather information as well.

She wanted to casually ask the other workers about the incident, and the best time to do that was during their one free hour in the evening. That was the only time they were allowed to have personal conversations.

Erna was staying in the women’s barracks in area two, and people there liked to play cards in the cafeteria during their free time. Due to how young she was, the others tended to dote on her.

“You know, I heard this weird rumor,” Erna commented while they were making small talk. “Was there some sort of accident about three weeks ago? Some of the others said they heard a giant boom… Honestly, I got a little spooked…”

The woman beside her froze mid-deal. “Dunno. Who can say? Sure sounds like none of my business.”

“Huh? But someone said—”

“Best keep your complaints to yourself. Times we’re in, we’re lucky just to have work.”

The other woman sitting at the table gave an uncomfortable shrug.

Then, to change the subject, they started saying some rather indecent things about the attractive male workers. Erna pretended to go along and talked up some random guy she knew nothing about.

Their nameplates said “1-2-3-4” and “1-2-3-8.”

On another day, she took advantage of her lunch break.

As she stood beside the loudly thrumming washing machine, she munched on her allotted sandwich and shot a smile at the worker—a girl about her age with gloomy eyes—eating in silence beside her.

“You have to wonder, how do they keep getting their clothes so dirty?” Erna said as affably as she could muster. “There’s even blood on the clothes sometimes. Is mining dangerous, do you think?”

“Dunno,” came the curt reply. “I’m sure they get scratches and stuff.”

“It must be rough down there. Like, what if there was some sort of accident, and—”

“Not my problem. Also, we’re not supposed to be chatting.”

After refusing to give Erna an inch to work with, the girl stood up and walked away.

Her nameplate said “1-3-4-6.”

Erna continued trying to discreetly gather information, but her efforts were for naught.

Whenever she tried casually dropping the question into unrelated conversations when nobody else was around, people clammed up and told her they didn’t know anything. She tried the same thing on a male worker who tried hitting on her, but the result was no different. Everyone always just bluntly cut her off before immediately talking about something else.

Right when she was thinking it might be better not to push her luck any more, she made friends with a woman.

The woman was pale and had long hair. Her arms were covered in scars, like she’d been in some sort of accident, and there was something lifeless about her eyes peeking out from her dangling bangs.

The two of them worked in the same washhouse, and the woman shot her a friendly greeting.

When Erna decided to go for one last try and hinted at the accident, the woman’s whole expression changed. “Um…I wouldn’t go saying things like that. Not around here.”

Her reply was quiet and reserved. That was different from all the answers Erna had gotten before, and her focus snapped into high gear.

“I have a daughter about your age. I just hate to think about anything happening to you…”

Realizing that she’d said too much, the woman let out a gasp and shot a wary look around. After making sure there was nobody else there, she let out a sigh of relief.

Erna looked intently at the woman. “What do you know?”

“…Who, me? Nothing.”

“Did someone order you to keep quiet?”

“No… Of course not…”

Her voice was trembling in fear.

Erna knew better than to push any further. “Right, of course not,” she said with a nod. “Thanks. And sorry about the weird questions… I’ll stop prying.”

It took everything she had to muster up a smile.

The woman’s nameplate said “1-4-6-8.”

It was finally time for the workers’ one day off a week.

It was the girls’ first break since they’d started working there. There was an annoying process you had to go through to leave the mine grounds, so the two of them decided to simply laze about on the grass in area one.

“I’M SO TIIIIIIIRED!!” Erna groaned at the top of her lungs.

It wasn’t just her arms that were worn out from having to carry massive loads of clothes day in and day out. She was emotionally drained from having to interact with so many people.

One would think that in the two years since Lamplight’s founding, Erna’s interpersonal skills would have advanced by leaps and bounds to the point where she could flawlessly carry a full-scale investigation—but one would be wrong, and every time she had to talk to someone new, she got so nervous, her heart practically beat out of her chest.

By the look of it, Annette was no less exhausted, and she wobbled as she lifted her arms in the air. “My arms are turning into jelly, yo!”

“I refuse to move one inch from this spot!”

“BLUHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“GRUHHHHHH!”

The sun’s warm rays shone down on the lawn as the two girls let out inane cries.

A couple passing soldiers shot them some dirty looks. After watching out of the corner of her eye to make sure they’d left, Erna turned to Annette. “…So, my investigation told me something,” she whispered.

Unfortunately, the two of them lived and worked in separate buildings. Their off day was their only chance to roam freely and exchange information.

“Everyone knows about the explosion.”

Annette’s search had turned up the same results. “Yeah, there was something fishy about the way their gazes kept darting around.”

The workers there were clearly hiding something, and there was little doubt in Erna’s mind that it was the Royal Guard that had ordered them to keep quiet.

Annette cackled. “Guess that wasn’t just any old explosion, huh?”

“You can say that again. But we need to stop asking questions and drawing attention to ourselves. There are two things we need to figure out now.”

Annette nodded in agreement.

“Where the explosion happened—”

“—and who we can get to testify about the specifics.”

If they could pin those two things down, it would give them a full picture of the government’s cover-up.

That said, they were going to have to find their witness outside of the Knights of Valor. Erna had successfully made contact with a Knights of Valor member—the coal miner who’d helped her and Annette get their jobs at the mine—while delivering lunch the day prior. The problem was, he didn’t know anything about the explosion.

“I was in the hospital that day, so I can’t tell you any of the specifics…,” he said, looking down apologetically.

When Erna followed up by asking, “What about the man who went missing, Dice? Have you heard anything?” he shook his head again. “Nothing. All I know is, people can’t get in touch with him. Honestly, this is my first time even hearing the guy’s name.”

Members of the group had different levels of passion about the revolution, and most of the group was happy just helping out a little on the side while they went about their normal lives. For the most part, Erna and Annette were on their own.

“The problem is, we’re super restricted in what areas we’re able to go…”

“Heh-heh-heh!”

When Erna gave voice to her frustration, Annette sprang to her feet and puffed up her chest.

“Don’t you worry, yo! I’ve got us all covered!”

“Yeep?”

“I made us fake nameplates! With these bad boys, we can go wherever we like!”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out some numbered plates—six whole sets of them. Annette went on to explain that she’d stolen them from other people and rewritten the numbers.

Erna couldn’t help but sit up in excitement. “Th-that’s incredible! Good going, Annette!”

“If you thought that murder was all I was good for, then think again, yo!”

It would been pretty disturbing if that was all she was good for, but Erna let out a heartfelt sigh of relief all the same. Annette had successfully followed Erna’s instructions and refrained from hurting anyone.

Erna took a look at the plates. “Hm,” she murmured. “This is some fantastic work you did…but you probably need to throw out these 1-3-5-7 plates.”

“Huh?”

“Workers aren’t allowed into area five. When I tried to go in, some soldiers shouted at me from behind.”

In other words, they didn’t bother checking her plate first.

“Ooh,” Annette cooed, audibly impressed. “Now that you mention it, I guess I’ve never seen a plate with a five on it.”

“…You’ve been memorizing the plates of everyone you see?”

“Sure have. My memory is top-notch, yo.”

She went ahead and recited every combination she’d seen to date. Of the ones she listed, several were new to Erna: “1-2-6-8,” “1-2-4-7,” “1-2-4-8,” “1-2-3-7,” “1-2-7-8,” “1-2-4-6,” “1-3-4-7,” “1-3-6-8,” and “1-3-4-8.”

The people who ran the mines were trying to cover up an accident, and they’d put a system in place to restrict where the workers went. As a result, though, reverse engineering it could give the girls a clue about where the accident took place.

As Erna arranged the numbers in her head, she realized that there was a commotion going on by the entrance. A bunch of women who had the day off were gathered, all gleefully screaming about something.

When Erna and Annette went over, one of the women called over to them. “Have you heard the great news?!”

Her voice was shrill with excitement.

“Nike’s on her way here to visit the mine!”

Erna tried and failed to stifle a gasp.

Nike, the supreme spy who safeguarded the Lylat Kingdom, was heading straight for them.

In Lylat, there was something parents said when their children were naughty.

“If you don’t behave, Nike will get you.” “Nike knows and hears everything.”

She was such a familiar figure here that she showed up in common reprimands. However, she wasn’t just a symbol of fear. There was a sort of reverence in the way they referenced her.

To them, she was almost like a god.

It was unthinkable for a spy to permeate society so deeply, yet here she was, getting her photo printed in the newspaper. She was an extraordinary woman in every sense of the word.

“How do we play this?” Annette asked her with a glance. Erna thought for a moment before arriving at her answer.

“I want to see her,” she proposed. “I’m curious why she chose to come here; plus, she’s the biggest obstacle to our mission’s success.”

Erna’s hair was a different color now, and besides, who would ever imagine that the people who attacked the Genesis Army would be there in the mines? All the girls were going to do was observe her from afar anyhow.

Annette didn’t offer any pushback.

They exchanged a nod, then joined the rest of the women and headed over to the entrance.

Beside the entrance, there was a highly modern control building made entirely out of glass. Nearly a hundred workers were gathered there, held back only by the soldiers. There were even some men there who must have skipped out on their jobs. It was the kind of turnout one would have expected to see for a movie star.

Erna and Annette hung out near the back of the group to avoid drawing attention. Then, right on cue, a cheer rose up from the crowd.

“IT’S NIKEEEE!!” “Oh my gosh, it’s really her!” “Look this way, ma’am!”

The lady of the hour had just emerged from the building.

A woman tall enough to be a model strode out, flanked by a number of people in suits. When she saw the throng of workers, she said, “Oh?” and blinked in delighted surprise.

“Hot damn, if this isn’t a warm welcome. Guess I’m just that popular, huh?”

Erna’s eyes widened.

That’s her. That’s Nike…!!

Upon seeing her, the first thing that struck Erna was how gorgeous she was.

Even without her high heels, she was still easily five foot nine. Everything about her posture, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, was straight and rigid. However, there was an elegant curve to her hips and chest visible even through her dress shirt that made her resemble a goddess who’d stepped straight out of a medieval oil painting. The waves in her blond hair looked like they’d been etched by the most delicate of brushes, and the way her locks glistened put even the sun’s mighty rays to shame.

She was in her midthirties, and she was the most beautiful woman Erna had ever seen in her life. Lamplight had its share of attractive members like Thea and Lily, but Nike was on a whole different level.

Pleased, Nike laid a hand atop her ample bosom. “It sure feels great, being surrounded by such fine ladies and gentlemen. It makes all the work I do for this country feel worth it.”

Beside her, she was accompanied by a sullen young man. He seemed gloomy, and had a terrible case of bedhead. It looked like he was barely even awake, and it was impossible to tell where he was looking. His hands were tucked deep in his pockets. “Huh?” he said, like he’d only been half listening to what Nike was saying. “Oh. Yeah, uh-huh…”

Nike pinched the mopey man’s back, hard.

“Hyan!” he wailed.

“What am I always telling you, Thanatos? You have to speak up when you’re talking to me. This is what you get for being a naughty boy.”

“Unh! Aaahn!”

“Look, see how all the women are staring at you? You really need to clean up your act.”

Nike beamed and continued pinching Thanatos’s back, and his face went red as he let out yelps of ecstasy.

The workers had no idea what to make of the impromptu S&M show they were witnessing, and Nike played the whole thing off with an awkward laugh. She patted Thanatos’s back, then gave the assembled crowd a bright smile. “While I’m here, I’d like to say a few words.”

Her high heels clicked as she strode toward Erna and the other workers.

Several of the women let out excited squeals.

“It’s such an honor to meet all you lovely mine workers. My name is Nike, and I’m the spymaster at our kingdom’s intelligence agency, the Genesis Army.”

Nike gave the group a respectful bow, causing the workers up front to cry out in shock. For someone with the level of power she had, she came off as surprisingly humble.

After raising her head, she suddenly furrowed her brow in displeasure. She turned back and shot an order to her subordinate. “Thanatos.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I can’t see their faces very well. Be my stool.”

“………Yes, ma’am.”

With visible delight, he bent down in front of her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Nike leaped up onto Thanatos’s back. She got a full three feet of height with just the strength from her knees. And still wearing high heels, no less.

Once she was atop her lackey, she was finally satisfied. “Perfect. Now I can see the people in the back.”

Down below, Thanatos’s breathing grew tantalizingly ragged as Nike’s heels dug into his back.

What’s their deal?

Erna was shocked at how different they were from how she’d imagined them.

By the look of things, they were a bunch of weird fetishists. If nothing else, Thanatos definitely was.

But that’s not even the most surprising part…

The workers crowded around Nike’s feet.

“Whenever I tell my kids stories about your heroics, they hang on every word!”

“My family was in that building you saved from getting blown up last month!”

“My husband’s a soldier, and he says that the intelligence you gathered saved his life!”

One after another, they piled her with praise.

Erna had known about it ahead of time, but seeing it in person was enough to make her stomach turn.

To the Lylat Kingdom, Nike was a bona fide hero.

She was one of the main players who’d driven the Galgad Empire to defeat in the final stages of the war. Then she’d spent over a decade defending Lylat’s capital as the strongest spy in the nation. All that had made her so unfathomably popular, it was hard to believe she was even an intelligence agent.

After exchanging a round of handshakes, she spoke up in a clear, crisp voice.

“The reason I came here today was to conduct an inspection. The Galgad Empire is desperate to reclaim this land, and their spies are willing to resort to vile methods to do it.”

The moment she began talking, all the workers immediately went silent.

Nike’s voice gallantly echoed out.

“This site has become key to supporting the kingdom’s economy. If we want to fix the damage the Empire dealt to our beautiful country, we need to keep these mines up and running at all times. You people are the ones who make that possible, and for that, I can never thank you enough. Each and every one of you gives it your all! And in doing so, you save this nation!”

She held her head high and spoke with gravity and dignity.

“And I swear to you, I will make sure every piece of Imperial filth who dares threaten our peace sees the inside of a cell!”

The workers burst into thunderous applause.

Nike was a master orator. There was an unshakable confidence and passion behind each word. It was enough to make even her enemy Erna’s heart waver.

As the workers bombarded Nike with cheers of encouragement, she bashfully scratched her cheek. That easy-to-adore demeanor of hers was another big factor in her popularity.

Erna took care not to let it show on her face, but she was seething.

Because she knew. She knew who that enchantress really was—she was the devil who protected the corrupt administration. And she knew what Nike’s Genesis Army’s counterintelligence agents did to the people of Lylat. They brutally tortured anyone who defied them, and they dispatched the Royal Guard to crush dissidents.

Erna silently stared up through the crowd at Nike.

This isn’t right…

All she could think about was that alley that reeked of sewage. She thought of the innocent Galgad citizen getting beaten, and of the opium addicts who’d lost all hope.

If you really loved this country, you would stop overlooking the horrible things that are—

“Hey, kid. Who the fuck do you resent so much?”

Her and Nike’s gazes met.

The air froze. It felt as though everything around her had suddenly gone dark.

“…Wha…………………?”

Her first thought was that there was no way Nike could be talking to her.

Erna was all the way at the back of over a hundred workers. Even with Nike standing on Thanatos’s back, surely someone as short as Erna would just get buried in the throng. Besides, all Erna was doing was staring at her through the gaps in people’s shoulders from over thirty feet away.

However, Nike’s wide eyes were fixed squarely on her.

“’Cause you’re doing a horseshit job of hiding it.”

“______________!!”

Sweat began gushing from every pore on Erna’s body. She realized she’d messed up, but it was far too late.

She wanted to flee, but her trembling knees refused to even let her do that.

The other workers cocked their heads in puzzlement at the abrupt change in Nike’s demeanor. Erna couldn’t fathom how they were being so calm.

Out of the crowd of over a hundred, Nike’s bloodlust was directed at Erna and Erna alone.

Her hostility was intense enough to make a spy wither. Intense enough to make them give up on even fighting back.

By Erna’s side, Annette couldn’t move an inch, either. She was devoting all her effort toward staying small and unseen. It was the right call. If Nike attacked, there wasn’t a thing in the world Annette could do to help.

Erna was finished.

That single tiny mistake had ruined everything, and she knew it. She’d entered Nike’s field of view, and that alone was enough to spell the end of the spy known as Fool.

Right when she thought her heart might buckle under the raw weight of Nike’s gaze, that weight suddenly lifted.

“Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have gotten emotional,” Nike said, giving the confused workers a small bow to set their minds at ease. “The sad fact of the matter is…some of our citizens resent the government, and I know they hate me for serving the king. Our king is a wise man, but he’s only human. Unfortunately, it takes time to save everyone. Especially these days, when the wounds from the war still linger. I know that working in the mines can be backbreaking. I’m sure some of you are angry about that.”

She looked down to lament her own powerlessness, then quickly raised her head and smiled.

“But I’m going to do everything in my power to make it so someday, I can earn your approval.”

Her well-delivered speech got her the biggest round of applause yet.

Erna could tell that she was off the hook, if only just barely.

The workers were so moved by Nike’s exemplary attitude that some of them even shed tears. Nike looked out at them and nodded as she stepped off her underling’s back. “Let’s go, Thanatos. These good people have perked me right up.”

“…Yes, ma’am. I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m sorry, what was that? If you haven’t had your fill of being stepped on yet, why not go ask that girl to do it?”

“I don’t want that… You’re the only one for me, ma’am…”

“Heh, and that’s why you’re so turned on, right? Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty more scorn where that came from.”

“Huuunh!”

Nike dug her nails into her subordinate’s back as she and her entourage left.

Erna was at a complete loss for words as she watched them go.

It was time to flee—any other option was unthinkable.

She needed to run away!

She needed to run as fast as she could!

She needed to run, consequences be damned!

Erna did everything she could to buy herself time. As soon as she got back to the worker housing, she got some blood, pretended to cough it up, and attributed it to the bronchial illness she’d worked into her backstory. When the doctor came, she slipped them some cash to get herself transferred out of the barracks and over to the infirmary for rest and recuperation. Then, when night fell, she sneaked out the window.

After grabbing the go bag she’d stashed away, she raced across the mine at top speed. Her heart was beating out of her chest.

This is bad, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad…!!

She couldn’t afford to stay at the mine. Not after having drawn Nike’s attention.

In that single instant, it felt as though Nike had seen through everything. She hadn’t arrested Erna there and then, but she was probably passing Erna’s information along to the Royal Guard and having them conduct a background check on her that very moment.

Erna’s whole body was trembling uncontrollably. A primitive fear had seeped into her soul and rewritten her entire mind.

How is it even possible for someone to be that strong?!

She couldn’t stop sweating. Her heart was violently pounding.

Given the state she was in, she probably would have gotten ordered to take it easy even without the work she’d put into feigning illness.

Of all the enemies they’d faced to date, Nike was in a league of her own.

Lamplight was no stranger to battling spies. They’d fought “Torchlight” Guido—aka Blue Fly—White Spider, Purple Ant, Flock, and the finest agents the CIM had to offer. All of them had been world-class fighters.

However, this was something else entirely.

Nike had already left the Bertram Mines. Erna had heard the other workers talking about it. Yet she had to run anyway. She shivered at the thought that Nike could change her mind at any moment and come marching back in to capture her.

“Erna!”

As she raced down the path, Annette appeared in front of her.

Unable to stop in time, Erna crashed right into her. “Yeep!” she squeaked as she collapsed on top of her teammate.

Annette gently wrapped her arms around Erna. “You have to calm down.”

“Yeep…”

“Take some deep breaths. Just breathe in when I do, yo.”

Annette pressed Erna’s face against her flat chest and covered her mouth.

Erna’s arms went slack.

“Just in and out. In and out.”

There was an uncharacteristic softness to Annette’s voice.

Erna sucked in breaths in time with Annette’s.

“I’m right here with you, yo.”

Could those gentle words really be coming from Annette?

“Nike isn’t here anymore. You don’t have to panic.”

As Erna lay there in Annette’s arms, she could feel herself growing calmer. She hadn’t realized it, but she’d been hyperventilating.

After twenty or so seconds, her breathing returned to normal.

“It’s weird, having you be the voice of reason.”

She gave Annette a light push to separate them.

When she looked down, she found that Annette was flashing her a proud, toothy smirk. “When you’ve got me telling you to calm down, you know you’re in trouble, yo! C’mon, Erna!”

“…And it’s also weird how self-aware you are about it.”

Erna’s face went red when she realized what a fool she’d made of herself.

Annette must have also successfully sneaked out of the barracks, as she was carrying a bag as well. Knowing Annette, her escape plan had probably been even cleverer than Erna’s.

“My gut was screaming at me.” Erna realized that it sounded like she was making excuses, but she said it anyway. “It was telling me to stay away—that Nike was bad news.”

“No disagreements there, yo.”

“It was a miracle she overlooked me even once. That won’t happen again. We need to make ourselves scarce.” Erna stood up and wiped the dust off her skirt. “But now we know. Whatever happened here, it was a big deal.”

“For sure! It would’ve had to be, for the leader of the Genesis Army to visit the mines in person.”

“Before we leave,” Erna said, helping tug Annette to her feet, “we need to get some closure.”

The two of them ran hand in hand down the darkened path.

All the lights were off, but the moonlight was all they needed. They knew how to run at full speed, even in the dead of night.

“Where are we headed?” Annette asked.

“I have a pretty good guess of where the explosion was.”

“Ooh. You think it was in area five, then?”

“No, that’s a trap.”

“Hm?”

“My gut tells me that isn’t it, and besides, that’d be way too obvious. A place like that, in a mine that’s clearly hiding something? It stinks to high heaven.”

Erna had learned about the Genesis Army—and about how much they loved going fishing. Nike herself had alluded to the way Imperial spies were trying to influence the industrial zone, and Erna had little doubt that the mines were full of traps designed to capture anyone who sniffed around without a proper plan.

“Remember that first woman who showed us around? She’d been working here five years, but she had to think about it before telling us we were in area three. Either they change the numbers out constantly, or they only just set up the system recently.”

“Ah, I get it. We’re talking traps left, right, and center.”

“We can’t trust the numbers. The thing is, there’s actually another area people aren’t allowed to go.”

“…Huh?”

“There are sixteen different combinations on the nameplates, and of those, not a single one has both six and seven on it. There could be a huge gap between areas six and seven, and the workers would have no idea.”

The assigned nameplates and the way the mines had been carved into an eight-slice cake were designed to create a psychological blind spot. It was impossible to see through it without careful observation.

“Between area six and area seven, there’s another area—a kind of area zero.”

Between area five, which couldn’t have been more suspicious if it tried, and area zero, which had been cleverly hidden away, it went without saying that the latter was a better bet.

After entering area six, they climbed over the chain-link fence and headed to the next area over. According to Annette, they definitely weren’t in area seven.

After heading down a path overgrown with trees, they spotted an ominous gray structure.

The tower had a boiler room and compressor room for operating the winder at the top as well as a cleaning room for washing the extracted coal. On the side, it said “Mine Seven.”

There were no guards.

At the moment, the mine was out of use. The line they’d been told about there being twelve mines up and running had been a lie.

Annette got to work picking the lock on the headframe door.

“I got it open, yo.”

“Nice!”

They pulled out their flashlights and headed down into the mine shaft. Reading the documents lying around the control room told them that the mine went down eight levels. It was a thousand feet deep and extended outward for miles.

When they descended to the first sublevel, they found themselves in a large dome-shaped room. It was all bare stone, and it had that distinctive shade of coal mine black. The space was large enough to fit an entire house. It had high ceilings, and the walls were dotted with maintenance tunnels and support beams designed to keep the shaft from collapsing.

After shining their flashlights around, they noticed the gaping cave-in. The ground on the first sublevel had collapsed, leading to a pit from which no light could escape.

That hole hadn’t been on the control room blueprints.

“Oh geez, this is grim…”

As Erna found herself all but speechless, Annette spotted something. “Yo, the wall’s been gouged out.”

“Hm?”

“The surface got melted by extreme heat. Those are blast marks.”

Erna looked where Annette was pointing her flashlight. The sublevel wall had gashes in it from where some sort of explosion had gone off right next to it.

“…Is this where the explosion happened?” Erna asked.

“At least part of it, yeah. The explosion here wasn’t as big as the paper made it out to be.”

“Could it have been an accident, do you think?”

“You mean, like, flammable gas coming up from the ground and lighting on fire? Accidents like that happen all the time, but they never leave marks like that.”

“…………”

“But c’mon, I think you could’ve figured that out without asking me to explain.”

“…………………”

She was right.

Erna knew enough to tell the difference between an accidental explosion and one caused by gunpowder. A simple gas explosion wouldn’t have been enough to obliterate the entire sublevel like that.

There was only one way she could think of to explain what had happened there.

However, she didn’t have enough evidence to be certain yet. She pulled out a camera and began documenting the scene. Every unnatural crack in the wall she followed lent more and more credence to her theory.

Behind her, Annette let out a confused little grunt.

“…What is it?” Erna asked.

“My transceiver is going off…”

Sure enough, the device in Annette’s hand was blinking.

It was picking up some sort of signal. That was bizarre, considering that they were in the middle of an out-of-service mine shaft. Using the strength of the blinking to guide them, they tried to hunt down the source.

After a few minutes, they succeeded.

It was up on the ceiling. There was a lighting fixture suspended a good sixty feet off the ground, and lying unobtrusively atop it was a black apparatus.

Without Annette’s transceiver, they never would have found it.

The girls set about using the maintenance tunnels in the walls to retrieve the device.

“What is this?” Erna said, cocking her head as she grabbed hold of it. “I feel like I’ve seen it before—”

“There’s something written there, yo!” Annette cried.

Beside the lights that black object had been sitting on, there were some words scrawled on the wall.

KINGS CAN BE REPLACED

The words were bold and written in spray paint. They read like a call to action, and when Erna saw them, the suspicion she’d been nurturing transformed into a certainty.

Erna decided to make one more gamble.

She knew they needed to flee the Bertram Mines that very night, but if they were going to complete the mission the Knights of Valor had given them, then they needed someone to testify on their behalf.

This was the one chance they were going to get.

Knowing that, she doubled back to the barracks she’d been staying at.

Annette looked none too pleased about it, but she pressed her hands against the building’s wall all the same. Erna stripped off her shoes and used Annette’s shoulders as a stepping stone to jump to the second floor. “You’re gonna compress my spine, yo!” Annette complained, but Erna decided to save her apologies for later and reached for her target’s bedroom window.

After peeking in through a gap in the curtains, Erna waited for the woman to be alone before rapping on the glass. As soon as the window opened, she slipped inside.

“Wh-where in the world did you get off to?”

The person who’d opened it for her was a fair-skinned woman. She was the one who’d cautioned Erna when Erna had been going around asking questions. The woman was dressed in her nightgown, and her eyes went wide at Erna’s sudden arrival.

“Someone from the Royal Guard was looking for you. What did you—?”

Erna shushed her and raised an index finger to tell her to keep her voice down. If the Royal Guard was already on the hunt, then they couldn’t afford to make a commotion.

She drew her face in close and spoke in a hushed whisper. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What happened at the old seventh mine.”

The woman’s eyes went even wider.

Her reaction made Erna even more sure that she knew something.

“That wasn’t some accidental explosion,” Erna said, explaining what she’d just seen. “Those blast marks were from hand grenades.”

The Knights of Valor had assumed it was a mining accident, but that wasn’t it. The royal administration was trying to cover up something far more horrible.

“I thought about why that might’ve been. But I’ve got a pretty good guess. When you drum up workers and force them to work under horrible conditions—you get strikes. If they didn’t happen, they wouldn’t have put those systems in place to keep the workers from bonding with each other, and the soldiers wouldn’t have been so on edge.”

She couldn’t stop thinking about that message she’d seen underground. Kings can be replaced. The people weren’t happy with the current government, and that must have been one of the strike’s slogans.

There had been an anti-government demonstration there. She was sure of it. And knowing that let her explain the grenades, too.

“The Royal Guard suppressed the strike. That place was littered with blast marks and bullet holes. It isn’t hard to picture just how brutal that battle must have been! And in a mine, of all places! So of course it collapsed! And it crushed all the people on the second sublevel and below when it did!!”

It was an act so inhumane, it beggared belief.

“The royal administration massacred the Bertram miners.”

The government had slaughtered its own citizens. It was the greatest crime imaginable.

It was no wonder, then, that they’d gone to such lengths to cover it up. That was why they’d forced the rest of the Bertram Mine workers into silence and immediately snatched up the reporter who broke the story about the explosion. It also explained why there were soldiers stationed all around the mines, as well as why Nike had come to inspect the site in person.

If the truth ever came to light, the people of Lylat would be furious.

“Judging by your reaction…,” Erna said, observing the woman, “…I’d say I’m right.”

“That’s… I don’t—”

The woman’s already pale skin went even whiter. Her gaze darted around in discomfort, and she bit down on her lip to keep her emotions from showing on her face.

Erna clenched her fists. Her guesses had hit the mark.

All of her evidence had been circumstantial, so that play had been a big risk. With no time to conduct a thorough investigation, though, taking that gamble was the only option she’d had.

“You can’t,” the woman whispered in a panicked hush. “If you try to leak it to the outside, they’ll kill you. We’re under strict orders not to tell anyone—”

“And you’re just gonna do what the government tells you?” Erna glared daggers at her. “Even after that tragedy, people in the mines still love Nike…and it’s obvious why. It’s because they arrested everyone who doesn’t adore Nike and the king.”

“________”

“The fact that the Royal Guard is already coming after me is proof enough of that.”

Erna turned another bitter thought back to the way the workers had cheered for Nike. That warm, fuzzy scene had only been possible because of her complete and total control. Nike swiftly rooted out anyone who harbored hostile or rebellious emotions, and the Royal Guard locked them up. All that remained were the people completely devoted to the government.

“It’s hell here.” She immediately grabbed the woman’s hands and squeezed tight. “Come with us. You were the one who warned me. You knew it might turn the soldiers against you, but you tried to protect me anyway.”

“…Huh?”

“This place will destroy someone with a heart as kind as yours.”

The Knights of Valor needed that woman. If she was willing to testify about what had happened at the Bertram Mines, then Jean and the others could spread her message across the country. It would give their revolution a massive tailwind.

The pale woman’s expression contorted in discomfort.

Erna knew she was rushing things. She’d just dumped a lot on the woman and not given her a chance to process it.

She heard Annette calling from outside.

“I hear footsteps, yo! It’s the Royal Guard!”

The soldiers were hot on their trail. Once they realized that Erna wasn’t in the barracks or the infirmary, they’d broadened their search.

There was no time. It pained her to do so, but she was going to have to force the woman’s hand.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Erna said, looking her straight in the eyes. “Now, make your choice. You can escape with me. Or you can leave me here to die.”

Bad luck was fast approaching, and Erna surrendered herself to it. Embracing the role of an ill-fated girl beset by tragedy was the perfect way to throw people off-balance.

Perhaps it was cowardly of her, but that was simply the way the spy called Fool did things. She took advantage of her delicate looks and dragged other people into misfortune alongside her.

Erna was willing to use any tool at her disposal in order to advance Lamplight’s goals.

Eventually, the pale woman let out a defeated sigh. Resolve flared in her eyes. “Where are we going?”

Interlude: Meadow II

Sara was familiar with “Flamefanner” Heide, of course. Heide had been a member of the Din Republic’s legendary spy team Inferno. On top of that, she’d been Klaus’s de facto older sister.

On the other hand, though, that was all Sara knew about her. Finding out that she’d been a musician was news to her.

The sound that came from the record player was a noise designed to destroy people.

It wasn’t that it was particularly loud, yet it hit Sara so hard, she could have sworn her body had just split apart. There was something disquieting about the music that shook the very core of her being. Twenty seconds of it left her dripping blood from her nose and unable to stand. She’d spent that entire time fighting just to remain conscious. She assumed she was screaming, but she couldn’t hear anything anymore. Sweat poured from her skin as her body went numb. It felt like she was boiling or freezing, but she wasn’t sure which.

Right when she stopped being able to tell how much time had passed, Klaus turned off the recording. That was when she first realized that she’d fallen to her knees.

“Having an unshakable heart isn’t just a matter of willpower.” Klaus’s voice came softly from above. “The only ones who can conquer the fear in their hearts are people who’ve honed their talents and built up experience. And they can do it even when assailed by a wretched noise from a selfish musician that distorts their every instinct.”

Sara’s mind was so blank, his words went in one ear and out the other.

All she understood was that she’d failed his test. Klaus had made it painfully clear that someone with no talent or experience had no right opposing his plan.

It was a cruel sound designed to separate the weak from the strong.

Sara couldn’t stand back up, and Klaus offered her no assistance. Even if he had shown her such kindness, it would have made her embarrassed enough to want to disappear.

Klaus returned the record to its case and quietly exited the room. “Once the day comes when you can hear that song through, I’ll be happy to consider your opinion.”

He hadn’t laid a finger on her, yet she knew that she’d been defeated all the same.

“Heide’s music is a weapon for crushing people’s hearts. In a better world, she’d have been hauled off as a nuisance to the public.”

Monika grimaced as she brandished her knife.

The two of them were doing their daily combat training.

While they were sparring in the courtyard, they also chatted. Talking was part of the training as well. Sara was so out of breath that it hurt to speak, yet Monika was able to casually carry out a normal conversation without so much as panting.

Sara hadn’t known, but Monika had actually come face-to-face with Heide during her time at spy academy.

Their blunt practice knives clashed as they talked about Sara’s discussion with Klaus.

“That was a pretty dick move by him. You must’ve really hit a nerve, huh?”

“Y-yeah…I know…that was kind…of rude of me.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it. You spinning your wheels is nothing new. Klaus knows that.”

Sara hadn’t been aware that it was a bad habit of hers. Now that she thought about it, though, she was reminded of that time back in Longchon when she’d taken on a small-time Mafia member and gotten Monika to question if she’d ever heard of restraint.

As a renewed wave of shame washed over her, Monika went on. “Seriously, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it,” she said.

“Little by little, you’re getting stronger. One of these days, Klaus won’t know what hit him.”

Sara had lost count of how many times Monika’s encouragement had kept her from losing hope. And she was right—Sara’s skills had advanced dramatically since Lamplight was first founded. At first, a single time crossing knives with Monika had left her knees shaking, but now, she could withstand several bouts in a row. If Sara ever felt herself off-balance, she knew how to back off and straighten herself out before her opponent had a chance to capitalize.

She gripped her knife tightly with pride at her ability to hold her own against Monika. “You know, I really appreciate you saying—”

“Oh, hey. It’s evening, so I’m going to stop holding back.”

Not a moment later, Monika’s knife shifted trajectory.

Sara didn’t even realize it was a feint until she felt a blow land effortlessly on the back of her knife hand.

“Huh?”

Before the pain could even register, another shift took place.

Her body had risen off the ground. She had no idea when Monika had thrown her, but the sky above filled the whole of her vision. She landed hard on her back, without so much as managing to break her fall. Spittle flew from her mouth.

“Looks like that’ll do it for today’s practice,” Monika said matter-of-factly.

Sara sat in the large communal bath and massaged her body.

She was tired all the way down to her bones. Withstanding Heide’s performance had forced her to overwork some muscles she rarely ever used, and her arms and legs were sore and tingly. Her training with Monika had only served to exacerbate the matter.

She suspected that she would be aching tomorrow, so she made sure to massage herself more thoroughly than usual.

As she took a breather, another two girls came and joined her in the tub.

“That was some brilliant work today, Sybilla. You put my wildest expectations to shame.”

“Oh, bite me. Havin’ to match your timing was a goddamn nightmare.”

It was Thea and Sybilla.

Given how cheerful their banter was, the two of them had clearly had a productive day.

“That was a master class, the way you broke inside. Though I suppose it was only possible thanks to the way I distracted the guards.”

“Wait, you did what? Damn, I had no idea.”

“They couldn’t stop glancing at me! They’d couldn’t get enough of my T and A!”

“Huh? For real?”

“I mean, even men like that know better than to stare. Instead, they get all hot and bothered as they steal furtive peeks. They’re in a constant battle with their logical sides that tell them not to look.”

“Shit, that totally went over my head.”

“How did you match my timing, then?”

“I followed my gut.”

“That’s honestly kind of impressive. But next time, I’ll come up with some sort of signal to use…”

The two of them had been helping out with Klaus’s mission as part of their training.

Judging by their pleased expressions, they’d been successful. Sybilla was in high enough spirits to spray Thea with warm water from a showerhead, and for all of Thea’s purported indignance, she was smiling, too.

Sara watched the two of them with envy.

“Dreamspeaker” Thea had once won over reporters and the Mafia and built a secret society all but overnight.

Meanwhile, “Pandemonium” Sybilla had tangled with a member of the CIM’s leadership and successfully pulled the wool over his eyes.

The two of them had improved even more during their time in Fend.

Sara knew that was something to be celebrated. The two of them had privately put in the hours to avoid getting shown up by Grete and Monika. She ought to be happy for them.

For some reason, though, watching them filled her with feelings of melancholy.

She rose from the bath and practically fled to the changing room.

On her way out, she passed by Sybilla, who only then noticed she was there. “Oh, you’re done already?” Sybilla asked with a smile.

Sara managed to squeak out a “…Yeah,” but it was so feeble, it made her feel empty inside.

The moment someone started working toward a goal was the moment they first realized how far away it was.

That might have seemed obvious, but Sara was only just finding it out.

Just how far behind was she?

She wanted to be Lamplight’s guardian, but so what? Anyone could dream. All that meant was that she’d reached the starting line, nothing more.

Klaus was right. She’d only just taken her first step. She hadn’t actually accomplished anything yet.

Lily had told her as much to her face.

“I think that goal of yours to become Lamplight’s guardian is a pipe dream.”

“I mean, you’re not exactly the first person I’d turn to in a pinch.”

They were words she normally would never have uttered. Sara had gotten carried away, and Lily had splashed a bucket of cold water on her face.

Sara had had no rebuttal to that. It was plain to see that what Lily had said was true. Perhaps Lily herself had secretly been confronted with the same harsh truth—the truth that the more you chased your dreams, the more the gap between ideals and reality stung.

There was nothing Sara could do, and it crushed her.

Not even in her academy washout days had she ever felt so powerless.

Sara went and fetched the record from Klaus’s room.

Then she set up the headphones and personal record player she’d bought back in the United States of Mouzaia and got ready to confront the music on her own. Her headphones were a little staticky, but she doubted that would blunt the music’s effectiveness. This wasn’t quite what one would imagine spy training to look like, but it was a challenge she couldn’t afford to back down from.

Fresh out of the bath, she steadied her breathing and braced herself for another round with the mind-shattering noise.

She was desperate to become even just a little bit stronger than she was.

I know this is asking too much…

There was no way someone could completely transform themselves if they only put in a normal amount of effort. Sara knew that.

Yet even so, she couldn’t help but wish.

I want to be strong enough to protect everyone.

If the alternative was accepting a bleak reality, she chose to bet everything on her ideals. Better to be mocked as a doomed dreamer than to give up on her dream of keeping her Lamplight teammates safe.

Is this just me spinning my wheels?

The moment the music started, she felt that same shock of her body splitting apart. Pain shot through her head like she’d been struck by lightning. Dizziness, nausea, and fatigue all hit her at once, leaving her unable to even keep her eyes open. Any desire she had to hold out for a few more seconds got ripped up by the roots.

Right before she passed out, someone ripped the headphones off her.

When she looked up, she saw Annette and Erna anxiously looking down at her.

“Hey, Sis! Why’s your nose bleeding like that?!”

“You don’t look too good, Big Sis Sara…”

The two of them had come barging into her room.

“From out in the hallway, it sounded like you were in pain,” Erna explained worriedly, and Annette puffed up her cheeks in a pout. “You haven’t been spending time with me lately, yo. What gives?”

Sara hadn’t even been aware she was audible.

“Miss Annette, Miss Erna…”

The two of them gently patted her cheeks out of concern for her well-being.

Tears spilled from her eyes. The music had messed up her autonomic nervous system, and she couldn’t control her emotions. It was the most ordinary conversation in the world, yet it was forcing her tear ducts into overdrive.

For all her flaws, for all her weakness, the two of them still saw her as an older sister.

She wasn’t just spinning her wheels.

No one life was more important than another, but when she thought about who on Lamplight she wanted to protect, it was always those two who sprang to mind first.

“Someday” wasn’t good enough. “Eventually” wasn’t going to cut it.

The mission was only a few days away. The team was about to split up and plunge into danger, and if Sara wanted to protect them, she couldn’t afford to sit around waiting to get stronger.

Right now, Klaus’s praise and Monika’s encouragement weren’t going to save her.

All she had was that solitary wish.

I need to be strong enough to protect them…!

Chapter 3: Brainwashing

After fleeing the Bertram Mines in the dead of night, they took shelter at a house belonging to one of their Knights of Valor comrades, then hid in a truck bed two days later to return to the student dorms.

Jean and the other officers were quick to come greet them, and by the time the girls were done telling them about what they’d witnessed at the mine, about their photos of the blast site, and that they’d found someone to testify on their behalf, the Knights of Valor members were red with excitement.

“I don’t know how you two do it!!”

The whole floor echoed with praise and acclaim.

“If everything you said checks out, then this is a massive scoop! We could topple the whole government! This is the biggest story the Knights of Valor have ever broken!”

“We just got lucky,” Erna said modestly, but in truth, she was filled with pride.

They weren’t exactly full-fledged members yet, but it felt good to have contributed to the group.

“The one thing we weren’t able to do,” she said, “was figure out where Dice might have gone.”

“That’s a shame… Then does that mean he—?”

“The Royal Guard might have locked him up. He knew too much, so—no, wait…”

Erna thought about the timeline.

It was just before the explosion that Dice sent the relief.

“Actually,” she said, realizing. “He might have been part of the strike in the old seventh mine.”

“That’s definitely possible. He’s passionate about the cause, and he’s trying to build a better life for his mom and little brother. If there was some sort of uprising in the mines, he would have wanted to be there.”

“Oh…”

If that was true, then the Royal Guard had probably killed him.

Erna thought back to how that underground chamber had been full of blast marks and bullet holes. It was a testament to how brutal the battle there had been. When the workers fought back against the armed soldiers, they’d been doing so with their lives on the line.

She bit down on her lip as she imagined how frustrated they must have felt.

She was curious how the government was going to explain their fates on paper, but that was a question for another day. Right now, she needed some rest.

“You can ask Chloe for the details.” That was the pale woman Erna had brought with her from the mines. “But she’s exhausted right now, so you’ll need to wait.”

The woman, who’d revealed that her name was Chloe Perche, was tired from their sudden escape and lying sprawled out on the bunk underground.

“Will do,” Jean said with a nod, then smiled. “By the way, me and the other officers thought we’d throw a little party to celebrate what you’ve achieved. We’re all dying to hear more.”

Erna wanted to get some rest, but everyone was so excited that she couldn’t bring herself to turn their goodwill down.

Annette, marching to the beat of her own drum as always, chirped, “I wanna fiddle with the device we found in the mine, yo!” and devoted her full attention to tinkering with the machine, but she didn’t walk away, either.

Jean and the others broke out the wine and nuts and made a quick spread on the table.

“Feels like all you do here is throw parties,” Erna noted with a concerned smirk. “What kind of secret society even is this?”

“We party a lot less than you might think. We only started once you showed up.”

Jean hummed a little tune as he filled the wineglasses.

One of the officers from the dorm leaned in and whispered, “He’s not kidding. Ever since you two arrived, he’s been on cloud nine,” which earned a round of chuckles from the rest of the group.

Surrounded by the dozen or so college students, Erna took a glass of grape juice.

“One swallow does not a spring make,” Jean said cheerily after toasting. “And a single piece of information won’t lead us straight to our destination. I’m not so naive as to think the work you’ve done will be enough to cause a revolution overnight.”

“Right…”

“But even so, every success we build up brings that spring one step closer.”

Spring—that was to say, the revolution coming to fruition.

As a pleasant sort of exhaustion overtook her, Erna continued fending off their attempts to offer her alcohol.

After half an hour of partying, Erna and Annette relocated to a storeroom.

It was hard to sleep underground, so the girls had borrowed one of the Knights of Valor’s rooms. After making sure it had escape routes they could use if the Genesis Army or Royal Guard somehow showed up, the two of them collapsed in unison onto the simple bed made of a mattress laid atop wooden crates.

“I’m sick and tired of mine work, yo!”

“Yeep. I don’t want to do any more undercover ops, either…”

For once, the two of them were in agreement.

Annette buried her face in her pillow and kicked her legs back and forth as she let out a muffled scream. She’d been on the verge of bursting from stress. It was all too easy to imagine her flying into a rage and picking a fight with someone, so Erna was relieved they’d gotten out when they had.

Erna stared at the back of Annette’s dainty head and nuzzled in closer.

“But you know, Annette—”

She couldn’t stop herself from grinning.

“—the two of us are doing surprisingly well.”

She meant every word of it.

Erna had initially been worried about what would become of their duo, but they’d been completing tasks one after another. They’d infiltrated a secret society, been welcomed with open arms, and learned about a scandal that would fan the flames of revolution.

As Lamplight’s Sedition squad, they’d done exactly what had been asked of them, and they’d done it alone, without having to rely on any of the team’s older members.

On top of that, Erna had even assembled a list of people who had a bone to pick with the government during her time working at a law office. If she played her cards right, that list could massively expand the Knights of Valor’s power and reach.

Annette’s head snapped back up. “Are you kidding?! What do you mean, doing well?!”

“Yeep?”

“Pretty sure I’d count letting your guard down around that punk Nike as a blunder, yo!”

“O-okay, that one was my bad…”

“I don’t think you sound sorry enough!”

“YEEEEP! Don’t just jump at me like that!”

Annette grabbed Erna’s cheeks, and they began jostling and wrestling so hard, they tumbled straight off the bed.

The two of them lay sprawled on the floor and stared up at the storeroom ceiling.

“Hee-hee.”

“Heh-heh.”

All the tension drained from them, and they broke into smiles. They were filled with the satisfaction of a job well done.

After getting back onto the bed, they exchanged an excited conversation.

“I kind of wonder what the rest of the team is up to right now,” Erna mused.

“I doubt any of them are kicking as much butt as we are,” Annette replied.

“Well, that goes without saying.”

“Odds are, Lily’s already gotten herself arrested!”

“…It’s sad how easy that is to picture.”

“Maybe Sara’s gotten taller.”

“Big Sis Thea probably wears even fewer clothes.”

“Odds are, Monika is still just as freakishly skilled.”

“I bet Sybilla is totally jacked.”

“Grete’s probably super bummed about not being able to see Klaus.”

“…Now I really miss them.”

“Yeah. I get that, yo.”

When Erna thought about the teammates she hadn’t seen in a year, her chest ached a little. She was working so hard, and there was no one around to praise her. How surprised would they be, she wondered, if they saw how well she and Annette were doing?

However, she didn’t voice her complaints aloud. The next time they met up would be when the revolution was complete.

“Hey, Annette.” Erna looked over at her partner, who’d promptly curled up on the bed. “After we’ve rested a bit, do you want to go for a walk?”

Annette gave her a puzzled look.

Erna didn’t elaborate, instead choosing to lie down and pass out.

They knew that Jean was liable to scold them if he found out, so the girls made sure to sneak out of the dorm quietly.

In order to avoid any prying eyes, they went for their walk atop building rooftops. They went from a four-story hotel to a three-story building with a tailor. From there, they propelled themselves off a smokestack to the building next door that housed a plasterer and a tile supplier, then onward to another building with a brasserie and a photo studio.

Nobody was going to look up and spot them, not when the night sky was on the verge of raining.

The two of them strode atop Pilca’s gorgeous night skyline, aided at times by the use of Annette’s homemade grappling gun. They held tight to each other as they glided gently through the air.

It seemed like everything they passed, from the intricately designed fountains to the streetlights, was a work of art in its own right. There was even some sort of festival being held over on the main street, and they could hear the sound of trumpet music.

“I hear that today’s the second anniversary of the current king’s coronation, yo.”

“Ugh, it makes me sick just thinking about it.”

The main street ran straight up to the palace, and despite the late hour, it was thronging with people. Things could go poorly if they got too close, so the girls stopped at a building off to the side and took cover behind its large chimney.

They couldn’t see it from where they were, but there was a parade being held to celebrate Clement III. People who looked to be royals and aristocrats were dressed up in flashy outfits and waving from cars. The Royal Guard watched over them with eagle eyes, and there were doubtless Genesis Army members mixed in with the cops and soldiers patrolling the main street. They didn’t want a repeat of the tragedy from two years ago when the Fend Commonwealth’s crown prince got assassinated, so they’d prepared by locking up spies across the kingdom. Probably with a fair number of innocent civilians, too.

People strolled down the moonlit street decorated lavishly with flowers, confetti, and torches. Just feet away, homeless people couldn’t find enough food to get them through the day.

Erna and Annette sat shoulder to shoulder atop the roof and waited for the fireworks that the king was so fond of.

“…You know, I’ve been thinking,” Erna murmured as she looked down at the nightscape.

“Hm?”

“What we’re doing right now is way bigger than any of the missions Lamplight’s done before.”

“Yeah, that’s true. We’re trying to change a whole country, after all.”

“Right. And by doing that, we’ll end up helping all the people suffering there.”

The night wind blew back Erna’s bangs, and she smoothed them down.

“If we can pull this off…then I think I might finally be able to like myself.”

Erna had hated herself for so long.

Everyone else in her family had died, and her survivor’s guilt weighed heavily on her. She’d learned to protect herself by staging accidents. She hated how craven that was. Being unlucky garnered sympathy from others. When she learned that, she came to love misfortune. She was drawn to it subconsciously, and at times, other people got caught in the cross fire.

She nodded and gave voice to the secret desire she’d been harboring.

“So if we do, if we pull this off…I’m going to quit being a spy.”

“Hwuh?” Annette said, letting out an uncharacteristic gasp.

Erna hadn’t even told Klaus yet.

“I’m going to go along with Big Sis Sara’s dream. It’ll be sad leaving Lamplight, but I’m going to open a restaurant with her and lead a quiet life.”

Sara had already told them about her plans to retire. That had likely influenced Erna.

Erna had always preferred to spend her days peacefully. It was her feelings of obligation that kept her from choosing that kind of life. She felt compelled to do right by her family and by Avian.

Over the past year, though, the scope of the influence she wielded dawned on her, and she’d been struck by a realization. Maybe she really could revolutionize that corrupt nation and become the kind of person who could face her family with pride. Maybe she really could find out the full details of the Nostalgia Project that had driven Avian to ruin.

Once she did all that, then she was sure she could retire with her head held high.

“So, that’s why you’ve been so stupidly gung ho about all this!” Annette gave her a big smile, like everything made sense to her now. “Like, when you freaked out at the mines! That was hilarious, yo!”

“Oh, be quiet.”

Annette cocked her head. “But why tell me, though?”

By the look of it, she honestly didn’t know.

Erna found it funny how slow she was on the uptake, and she laughed. “Do you want to come with me?”

“………?”

“Look, I have to admit it. We make a good team. This mission’s made that clear.” She sucked in a breath of the cold night air. “With you, me, and Big Sis Sara, I bet there’s a pretty fun life waiting for us.”

During Lamplight’s early days, the two of them had fought constantly, leaving Erna unable to be honest with herself.

Now, though, she could lay her heart bare.

To her, Annette was a true friend. Erna had a habit of building walls, and Annette had taken those walls and smashed right through them.

“………”

However, Annette didn’t reply.

As the silence dragged on, Erna’s face grew hot.

“…C-come on, say something.”

“………………”

Annette’s eye was like an inky abyss fixed right on Erna. It was like her expression was completely devoid of humanity. The casual grin she always wore had vanished.

“I dunno if that’d work out, yo.”

Her voice was as transparent and empty as glass. There was no emotion there, only cold.

“Why not…?”

That wasn’t the answer Erna had expected, and her chest tightened.

She turned toward Annette and leaned forward. “We’re doing well, you and me. There’s nothing stopping you from leading an ordinary life. You’re having fun hanging out with the people from the Knights of Valor, aren’t you? I’m sure it would all be—”

“That was all just an act, yo.” When Erna extended her hand, Annette’s words all but slapped it away. “I don’t care one bit about those secret society people.”

“But…”

“I’ll say it again—nothing that happens to these people matters to me.”

Erna gasped, shocked that she hadn’t realized it.

Annette had looked like she’d been enjoying their work, and she’d been all smiles when the officers doted on her during the welcome party. Was all of that just for show?

Was Annette just engaging with her because it was necessary for the mission?

Was she just enjoying an opportunity to test out her inventions?

Erna wanted to ask if that was really true, but the words got caught in her throat.

Annette slowly rose to her feet, her skirt fluttering as she turned around. She was ready to go. She stepped away from Erna.

“I need you to understand something,” she muttered softly. “I’m just gonna keep getting wickeder and wickeder.”

Unable to grasp what she meant by that, Erna was helpless to do anything but watch her go.

That night, not a single firework went off.

Two days later, Jean assembled the Knights of Valor in a Nicola University lecture hall.

All told, there were over fifty youths there.

Gatherings of over twenty were forbidden by law, so they’d passed themselves off as a series of different seminar groups and borrowed the hall under the guise of holding a study event. No one who wasn’t affiliated with the Knights was allowed in.

It wasn’t just university students there, either. They’d even called in the officers who’d been working fervently from off campus. According to Jean, it had been two years since so many of their members had gathered under a single roof. Aside from the officers living in the dorm, they generally avoided assembling people in one place to prevent information from leaking.

When Erna found out just beforehand, she had concerns. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked, but Jean was insistent. “Chloe says that she really wants to tell everyone in person.”

Today was special. Erna was a little worried, but she couldn’t bring herself to spoil their good cheer.

“Today’s news is going to turn this nation on its head,” Jean had said excitedly.

Among the crowd, there were a number of bona fide masters of distributing pamphlets. They came in all sorts, from men who forged IDs and work papers at town halls, to policewomen who helped support their fellow comrades, to rail workers who spread pamphlets across the country via train.

When six PM rolled around, Jean spoke up as the pendulum clock rang out the time. “There’s a reason we gathered you all here so urgently, and that reason is this.” He had the confidence of a man who’d given speeches before. “We’ve gotten our hands on some information so big, it could overturn the whole government’s rule. Time is of the essence here. We’re going to quickly brief you now, then broadcast the news across the country as fast as we can.”

Oohs and aahs rose up from the members throughout the hall.

Erna and Annette were sitting in the back.

“Chloe, do you want to take it from here?”

On Jean’s urging, Chloe stepped up to the podium.

Her skin had been sickly pale back at the mines, but now that she’d calmed down, it was tinged with a faint hint of red. She was dressed in a beige blouse and spent half the time staring at the ground.

“My name is Chloe. I’ve worked in those mines for three years.” She gave a small bow before continuing, her words spilling out in a weak staccato. “Up until three years ago, I worked at a factory in the Muret region, but everyone at the factory got pressed into service, and they took us to the mines against our will…”

Erna hadn’t known that about her.

As she recalled, Chloe had mentioned having a daughter. The government must have stripped her from her home and from her family and transferred her to a mine cut off from the outside world simply because it suited their ends.

I feel bad for her.

The officers bit their lips out of sympathy for Chloe’s plight. All of them had doubtless been the victims of similar tragedies themselves.

But once the world knows the truth…

Chloe started off by talking about the situation in the mines, then got to the meat of the matter: the strike.

“Last month, there was a large strike at the Bertram Mines. Workers built barricades, holed themselves up in Mine Shaft Seven, and demanded improvements to their working conditions. Their negotiations with the government went poorly, and it didn’t take long before things descended into violence…”

That was the very same intel that Erna and Annette had gathered.

One of the women sitting at the front of the lecture hall cut in. “So wait, you’re saying that the explosion was actually—?”

“Part of the battle between the Royal Guard and the striking workers. We think they used hand grenades.”

The officers gasped.

Everyone understood just how big a deal that was. They were all on the edges of their seats. News like that could deal a huge blow to the administration.

Jean was practically buzzing. “Tell them the rest,” he said.

Chloe pursed her lips and gave him a solemn nod. “Rumors about the strike had been circulating among us workers for a while. Nobody knew exactly when it would be, they just said to be ready once things went down… I didn’t participate myself, but as I understand it, it started around noon. By evening, though, soldiers had descended on the mines in droves—”

She described the grisly scene in detail.

The air had echoed with gunshots and explosions. She and some of the other workers had hunkered down in the barracks, crouching on the ground with their knees in their arms. They heard a rumbling sound, like part of the mine had just collapsed. The battle ended in under an hour, and after it was over, many of the workers were never seen again.

The officers got more and more worked up as they listened, and even Erna in the back found herself empathizing with their rage.

Once Chloe had said her piece, Jean stepped forward. “And there you have it. We’ll get you a more detailed rundown later, and starting tomorrow, we need to spread the word far and wide. It’s time for Operation K. We’re releasing an emergency bulletin. Let’s get it to every corner of this country.”

His voice echoed exultantly through the lecture hall in celebration of the big step they were taking toward bringing about revolution.

“This is all-out war. We’re going to muster every ounce of strength we can, and—”

“But there’s one thing I need you all to understand.”

That was when Chloe cut him off.

“Spies from the Galgad Empire were behind the whole thing.”

The mood in the room changed.

She was speaking in a different voice from before, one that was sharp as a knife.

Nobody had seen that turn of events coming, and the hall went deathly quiet. The officers were frozen, and so was Jean. He didn’t understand what was happening. Neither did Erna.

Chloe’s abrupt shift in demeanor was one thing, but it was the things she was saying that truly made no sense.

“Day in and day out, those despicable Galgad spies threaten our livelihoods,” Chloe went on. “Their goal is to wipe out the biggest industrial zone in the Lylat Kingdom and force our manufacturing to a standstill. They’re constantly blowing up our local rail lines and setting fire to the offices of people who work at the mines. Us workers live in constant fear of Galgad spies.”

Her voice gradually grew, both in volume and intensity.

“Much to our shame, there are some people in the industrial zone who fall for their temptations and act out against the government. The striking workers were just the latest example of that. They let Galgad agents push them into resenting the administration, and they turned to heinous, extreme measures. They were goaded into hating and killing their own countrymen.”

Not once had she even shown such a gift for modulating her speech. There was a strength to her voice that carried it all the way to the back corners of the lecture hall. She’d obviously had some sort of vocal training. Each of her words was clearly enunciated, landing smoothly in people’s ears.

A nasty premonition welled up in Erna.

Chloe was intentionally trying to proselytize to the Knights of Valor.

“The Bertram Mines are under constant threat from the Empire’s agents. I came here so I could tell you that in person.”

“Hold your damn horses—”

Unable to take it any longer, Jean cut in.

Chloe gave him a serene look as he marched right up to her.

“What are you talking about?! This isn’t what you told us in the briefing at all!!”

“But it’s the truth.”

“And besides, it was the government who forced you to work there in the—”

“My old factory could have gone under at any moment. These days, it’s a blessing just having a job at all. I consider it an honor to be able to contribute to our nation’s development.”

Once again, she continued defending the royal administration.

A hint of exasperation began seeping into her face.

“Ask anyone who works at the Bertram Mines, and they would tell you the same thing.”

“……! That’s absurd, and you—!”

“If you think I’m wrong, then let me ask you this. What do you think caused that explosion that was so loud, it could be heard well outside the mines’ premises?”

“What? That was the Royal Guard using grenades against the—”

Chloe chuckled. “After deducing all that, how could you not notice? Why would they bring bombs to suppress something as simple as a strike? Why risk a cave-in? Rifles would have done the job just fine. What you should have realized was, something forced their hand. And that something…was the fact that the workers were armed with heavy weaponry.”

“……………”

“That’s certainly strange, isn’t it? The army keeps a close watch on the industrial zone. Normal workers could never have smuggled firearms in there. Not unless they had help from a trained spy, that is.”

Chloe’s series of logical leaps left Jean at a loss for words.

On seeing that, the officers exchanged glances with each other. “What’s going on?” They were starting to realize that the meeting had veered off script. Meanwhile, some people had their gazes fixed right on Chloe. Many of them wanted to at least hear her out.

That might have seemed like the logical thing to do, but letting that woman keep speaking was a poor decision.

After stunning Jean into silence, Chloe continued putting on the pressure. “But the inconsistencies don’t stop there. Seeing the ‘kings can be replaced’ slogan in the mine might lead one to think that the strike was politically motivated, but that doesn’t make sense, does it? All the miners were asking for were better working conditions. Why, then, get carried away and blame the king? And it’s the same with the people running the mine. If they wanted to stop the strike, why go to all the trouble of dividing the mines into eight wedges with fences and nameplates when they could have just improved the shabby barracks a bit?”

After delivering her speech in a single breath, she smiled.

“If you think about it logically, you’ll realize that Galgad spies were behind everything.”

Erna was flabbergasted.

What’s going on? What is she even talking about?

She didn’t understand what Chloe was hoping to achieve.

Sure, there were parts of Erna’s theory that required some leaps in logic. That was the whole reason she’d taken the risk of finding a witness. She wanted to hear from Chloe, an actual mine worker, about all the barbaric things the Lylat government did.

But she never showed even a single sign that she was going to do this—

Chloe’s rapid-fire arguments left Jean confused and bewildered.

The way Chloe’s lips curled into an amused smirk didn’t escape Erna’s notice.

Chloe turned to the officers gathered in the hall. “Just think back!” she loudly proclaimed. “Think back to the way the Galgad soldiers massacred our parents! Think back to the way they razed our gorgeous Pilca streets with cannon fire!”

Her pleas came from the heart.

It was like she was the heroine of some great tragedy.

“Remember the nights we spent cowering in fear as their bombers blackened the sky!”

Tears welled in her eyes, and her words hit the audience right in their hearts.

“Please, you mustn’t fall for the Galgad Empire’s propaganda!”

“ENOUGH OF THIS HORSESHIT!!”

Jean let out a roar and slammed his fist against the lecture hall’s wall.

He’d finally realized that Chloe was acting in bad faith. He ignored the blood trickling down his fist and shouted at her. “Quit peddling those cheap lies! The government crossed a—”

“So now that the facts don’t fit your narrative, you’re going to suppress them?” Chloe said with a mocking giggle. “Even when they’re coming from a witness that you yourself summoned?”

The confidence she carried herself with was a far cry from the picture she’d just painted of herself cowering in the mines.

Jean was at a complete loss for words, and he looked imploringly at Erna over in the back of the hall. “Is she telling the truth? Is this really the woman you brought back from the Bertram Mines—?”

“…That’s her, all right.”

Erna swiftly stood up to disavow Chloe.

She needed to regain control of the room quickly, or things could get ugly.

“That’s her, but—”

“You can’t turn your eyes from the truth!” Chloe cried out, robbing Erna of her chance to speak. “There are countless Imperial agents hiding in our borders as I speak, engaged in all manner of sabotage. They’re fabricating stories to make the government look bad and turning our people against each other.”

She sounded almost enraptured, and a small smile played at her lips.

“There’s only one person who can protect our country—and that person is Nike.”

“Did someone say my name?”

Everyone gasped at the sudden voice that came from the very rear of the lecture hall.

Someone had come in the back door. She’d sneaked in, undetected and unheard, while Chloe was distracting the whole audience.

The woman embodied beauty so perfectly, it was like she was from a whole different world. Her eyes flashed with elegance and dignity in equal measure, her hair gently fluttered like lace curtains, her full chest was brimming with maternal affection, and her legs were perfectly supple from calf to thigh.

It was the Lylat Kingdom’s hero and ruler—Nike, head of the Genesis Army.

The crisp sound of applause echoed through the hall. Clap, clap, clap.

After brazenly coming in from the back, Nike strode to the center of the room with a warm expression, like she was commending them on their brave efforts. She clapped her hands as she smiled at Chloe, and beside her, at Jean.

“That was some fine work, arriving at the truth like that.”

A lifeless gasp escaped Jean’s lips. “Nike…”

None of the officers in the hall moved an inch. All of them knew exactly what Nike looked like. Even if they hadn’t, the raw power she exuded would have made it easy enough to deduce who that gorgeous woman was.

Following after Nike, her assistant Thanatos gave a modest bow as he came into the hall as well. Just like before, there was something unsettling about him and how dull his eyes were.

The Knights of Valor members gawked in disbelief at the two intruders.

“Did Chloe call for you?” Jean was the first to collect himself, and he stomped toward the woman at the podium. “No one else would have leaked the meeting site. You people set this all up—”

“I’ve never met her in my life,” Nike said, waving him off with a toothy grin. “I knew about you kids from the get-go. I just figured you were harmless, so I never bothered doing anything about it.”

She was beautiful enough to transfix friend and foe alike, and that gentle voice of hers was all it took to neuter their malice. Erna was a girl, and even she found herself captivated by the allure of Nike’s smile.

Jean lapsed into a dumbfounded silence.

For Erna’s part, though, the logical part of her brain was screaming at her.

She’s bluffing.

There was no way Chloe and Nike actually had nothing to do with each other.

The timing was too perfect. It took serious training to deliver a speech the way Chloe just had.

Chloe Perche was a Genesis Army operative.

Jean had probably deduced the same thing, but he was too flustered to say a word. After Nike’s sudden appearance, and after the close-up look he’d gotten at her beauty, his gaze was darting every which way.

“What…? What do you want…?”

The words that eventually dribbled from his mouth were terribly feeble.

Nike sucked in a deep breath, then did something unthinkable.

“I’m sorry.”

She apologized.

She bowed low, leaving the back of her head completely defenseless and exposed. Then she did it again. She folded her body to demonstrate how sorry she was, first to Jean, then to the rest of the officers in the hall.

After leaving her head lowered for a full three seconds, she lifted her face and furrowed her brow in contrition.

“I’m afraid I’ve caused a massive misunderstanding. When I heard you had brought in a worker from the Bertram Mines, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to come clear the air.”

Once again, she was the picture of modesty.

Thanatos was standing beside her, and he frantically waved his hand. “M-ma’am, there’s nothing you need to apologize for—”

“Shut up,” Nike said as she kicked him with the tip of her heel.

“Hungh!”

Thanatos let out a cry of ecstasy and went quiet.

No matter the situation, their relationship remained unchanged.

The buffoonish, out-of-place exchange only served to worsen the confusion among the Knights of Valor. They stared in tense silence, like a field of whimpering scarecrows.

“…A misunderstanding?” Jean gave her a perturbed frown. “What misunderstanding? Care to elaborate?”

Over in the back, Erna bit her tongue.

You’re playing right into her hands!

She shot a pleading look at him, but Jean never glanced her way.

Everything about Nike’s performance had served to set the stage. Her unexpected arrival, the way she’d flaunted her beauty, her sudden apology, her silly exchange with her subordinate—everything.

Now she was in complete control of the conversation.

Erna wondered if it wouldn’t be best to just throw a spanner in the works.

However, any overt moves she made would draw Nike’s attention. She couldn’t lift a finger.

The enemy had fully seized the initiative, and all she could do was watch what they did with it.

“Everything that woman said was true. The Galgad Empire was behind the Bertram strike.” On Jean’s urging, Nike began casually explaining herself. “That’s why the government had to cover it up. ‘Galgad spies have carried out a number of successful acts of sabotage.’ If the truth got out, it would embolden the Empire and stoke our people’s fears. Suppressing the news was necessary for the good of the nation.”

That was pure sophistry, and Jean still had enough wits about him to see through it. “That’s bullshit…!” he roared, slamming the podium. “One of our comrades disappeared in the Bertram Mines. You people killed him! Just like you killed all the miners who—”

“You mean your friend Dice, the one whose real name is Gilbert?”

She said it with such nonchalance.

When Jean gasped in shock, she gave him a warm smile. “There’s nothing to worry about. Come on, you don’t really think the Royal Guard would kill our own citizens.”

Nike gestured to the doorway with her chin, and a new Genesis Army agent brought in a young man.

The man looked to be in his midtwenties, somewhere around Jean’s age, with short brown hair and just a hint of childlike innocence in his face. He was wearing a clean shirt, and he let out an apologetic mumble. “…Hey, Jean.”

Upon seeing the man’s features, Erna intuited who he was.

“Gilbert…,” Jean said, gasping.

It was him—the very Knights of Valor agent who’d gone missing in the Bertram Mines. There wasn’t a scratch anywhere on him, and his skin was downright glossy.

“…Everything Nike says is true.” Gilbert walked to the center of the hall and weakly addressed the crowd. “Nobody actually died at the mines. Galgad spies manipulated us into going on strike. That’s how I know. The only people the Royal Guard killed were Imperial operatives. All the workers are safe; they’ve just been holding us for questioning.”

He was trying his hardest to persuade them.

“We were all wrong. The Galgad Empire is the villain here, not the king.”

It didn’t make sense.

He was supposed to be an activist who hated the monarchy and was doing his best to bring about revolution.

Why, then, was he urging his allies to side with Nike?

Jean let out a hoarse rasp; he’d been through thick and thin with this man. “You can’t be serious…” The light faded from his eyes, leaving them empty and hollow. “Don’t give me that shit, man. My father—”

“Didn’t you say it yourself? Your dad was willing to support a violent revolution. The government couldn’t just sit by and let its people get hurt.” Gilbert laid a sympathetic hand on Jean’s shoulder. “Remember what I sent you? That stained wing? Our symbol?”

“Huh?”

“That might have been too roundabout, so let me put it clearly. Our secret society is what’s stained. I realized that just before the strike. We’re the ones in the wrong.”

“________”

Jean staggered, like his soul had just left his body. It was like he was having an anemia attack, and it took him a concerted effort to totter over to the wall and keep himself upright.

All Erna could do was stare as the Knights of Valor’s representative’s heart broke in two. Frustration rose within her. She needed to do something, but she couldn’t find the words to turn the situation around.

Meanwhile, the officers in the hall were faring no better. None of them spoke up, and they all lapsed into hushed whispers as they tried to sort the situation out.

A possibility was creeping into the backs of their minds. They tried to deny it, but it welled right back up.

What if we are the ones in the wrong?

As panic began taking hold of the officers, salvation came from an unexpected source.

“None of you did anything wrong.”

Nike, their supposed enemy, offered them a loving smile.

It was the expression of a holy mother, one who forgave all and caught those who fell. She laid a hand on her chest as though to emphasize her ample bosom and spoke in a voice that tickled at their ears. “If anything, I’m moved at what a fine job you’ve done. You found out the truth behind the explosion all on your own.”

Nike clutched at her sides like she couldn’t contain her emotion.

“The talent you have for gathering information is to be valued. And what youngster doesn’t have some complaints with their government? That’s nothing to be condemned. At the end of the day, it’s an expression of your pure, patriotic desire to make our nation the best it can be,” she said consolingly. “What I want to know is, would you be open to using those talents of yours to help hunt down Imperial spies?”

She gestured wildly, spreading her arms out wide and using her alluring figure to capture every pair of eyes in the room.

“The Genesis Army would like nothing more than to work together with you!”

The light of hope briefly flickered in the officers’ eyes. Shock flitted across their faces—maybe they weren’t about to get arrested.

Nike took delight in their reactions. “I’ll get down on my hands and knees if that helps convince you,” she said, raising her open palms to show her sincerity. “Come and work for me. All the crimes you’ve committed will be water under the bridge. What’s important is for us to come together and make our stand against the invaders from abroad!”

Nike had achieved full dominion over the lecture hall.

Not a single person so much as tried to cut her off. Perhaps it was the power of the space itself, but they all mulled over her words like students who’d come to audit a lecture she was giving.

However, the things she was saying were nonsensical drivel.

Is Nike even listening to herself?

Erna stared in blank shock.

Nike was trying to commandeer the entire secret society. She wanted to take the group that Jean and others had built up over generations and repurpose it for rooting out dissidents.

There’s no way they buy this. Does she have any idea just how much they hate the government?

Erna hadn’t forgotten the stories Jean told her during the welcome party. The Knights of Valor had welcomed Erna’s and Annette’s efforts to overthrow the government with open arms, and they’d showered the girls with praise when they returned from the Bertram Mines. Surely, Jean was going to reject Nike’s proposal on the spot.

Sure enough, Jean managed to regain his composure for the first time and let out a dismissive scoff. He knew full well that what Nike was proposing wasn’t collaboration; it was servitude. “If you think for one second we’re going to—”

Then the applause started.

The instant Jean opened his mouth, one of the men in the middle of the hall started clapping to cut him off. A few of the officers joined suit.

They were on board.

The officers in question stared adoringly at Nike, their lips quivering, overcome with emotion.

“What?” Shock overtook Jean’s expression. “Hey, Deck. What the hell do you think you’re—?”

Erna recognized that young man. She and Annette had rescued him from a detention center. When they reunited at the dorm, he’d shaken their hands in gratitude, with tears rolling down his cheeks. He was supposed to be Jean’s right-hand man, the person Jean trusted most out of all the officers.

“Nike’s right,” Dice said as he cheerfully applauded. “Me, I’ve been wondering the same for a while. I was like, maybe the reason our lives are so hard is because the Empire invaded us and tried to steal our land!”

That was the complete opposite of what he’d said in the past.

Was he working for the Genesis Army, too? Did Nike get to him during his time in lockup?

It was certainly a possibility, but Erna had no evidence to accuse him with.

Why? Why are they giving in so easily?

Now that one of the secret society’s leaders had turned traitor, a wave of others followed him as person after person rose to their feet and voiced their desire to change sides. “We should go along with Nike,” they said, and, “What Chloe said makes sense.”

The Knights of Valor were falling apart. One after another, its members were surrendering to the Genesis Army.

Amid that nightmarish spectacle, Nike was the only one smiling. “Quick decisions. You love to see it.”

“No… What are you all doing…?” Jean stammered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why? Do you even hear yourselves? Think about what the government’s done to us…”

Erna shared his sentiments exactly. These were people who’d spent long years working to undermine the royal administration they so detested. And she doubted they were pretending to go along with Nike so they could attack the Genesis Army from within, either. Tricks like that wouldn’t work against Lylat intelligence, and the Knights of Valor knew it.

By that point, nearly a full third of the people there were showering Nike with applause.

Erna was aghast at how quickly they’d changed their tunes.

“I figured this would happen, yo,” Annette snarled from beside her as she glared at the secret society members with a mixture of boredom and contempt.

“What are you talking about?”

“They didn’t change their minds. They never hated the government, just their lots in life. The only thing that changed was where that anger was directed.”

“There has to be more to it than—”

“How many times have I told you? This country’s people just aren’t worth saving, yo.” Annette rested her chin on her hands. “If they all cooperated, they could overthrow the government like it was nothing. Even the cops and army have a rank and file that’s made up of ordinary people. All they have to do is work together. There’s tons and tons of countries that have had revolutions by doing just that.”

“………”

“The bottom line is, the people of Lylat don’t have the balls to do the same.”

She looked over at the secret society members clapping and sucking up to Nike.

“After all, they’ve been brainwashed to think that Galgad’s to blame for all of their problems.”

“That’s not—!” Erna spluttered, but she couldn’t bring herself to deny it.

There had been clues all over the place.

There was the way those youths had been unabashedly discriminating against a Galgad citizen by that tenth arrondissement canal.

There was the way the Bertram miners had idolized Nike.

There was the way people had been watching the king’s celebratory parade with delight.

No matter how badly the government exploited them, most of Lylat’s citizens were loyal to it all the same.

Rather than so much as think about revolution, they praised the king and the aristocracy, they discriminated against people from the Galgad Empire, and they tried to curry favor with their Genesis Army overseers. They were cattle cheering for their own butchers. There was no other way to put it.

“Some of them manage to break the brainwashing, sure, but you just saw how when they get fed false truths, talked down by their allies, and threatened by the Genesis Army, they fall right back into their old programming.”

“But why…?”

“Klaus was right—this country has a sickness.”

Erna thought back to the info from their briefing and gasped.

Over in the middle of the lecture hall, there were still some people resisting Nike’s claims. “I don’t believe you!” they cried as they valiantly stood up to her. Over half the officers were unswayed by Nike’s honeyed words, and they rose to their feet and urged their hesitant comrades to do the same.

“Seems to me—”

Nike spoke up.

“—like anyone who disagrees might just be a Galgad spy.”

In an instant, her bloodlust filled the hall.

It was that same chilling pressure that Erna had experienced back at the Bertram Mines. She began sweating so badly, it was like her body had broken down.

All the students who’d been so defiant just moments ago immediately shrank back. If they obeyed Nike, they would live. If they opposed her, they would be arrested on the spot.

When faced with those two options, not a single person dared defy her. After all, most of the secret society’s members were just college kids with no formal training.

“Don’t you worry your little heads. I’m here now. And I’ve protected this country from those Imperial fiends this long, haven’t I?”

Eventually, Nike started walking.

There were footsteps audible from outside the window. The lecture hall was surrounded. Nike had come with numbers.

“Oh, my beloved citizens. Listen to me and me alone.”

Nike slowly lifted an arm. She waved her hand with the elegance of a conductor, then brought it to a stop in midair.

When she did, her index finger was extended—and pointing straight at Erna’s face.

“Based on our investigation, those girls are from the Galgad Empire.”

Oh no, Erna thought as she quickly turned to flee.

The students who’d sided with Nike were all fired up. “They’re Imperial spies!!” they bellowed. “They were trying to brainwash us! GET ’EM!!”

Running away was essentially admitting that Nike was right, but Erna doubted that the officers would listen to reason.

Then the lecture hall windows shattered as a swarm of agents surged inside. As the Knights of Valor recoiled from the broken glass, the agents began making their arrests.

Erna stepped up and leaped toward the middle of the hall. One of Annette’s homemade smoke bombs tumbled from her skirt and exploded. The ensuing cloud of white smoke billowed out and filled the entire room.

“Use the smoke to get out of here, everyone! We have the home field advantage!!”

All she could do now was help as many of her comrades flee as possible. More importantly, she needed to get away from Nike. If things went on like that, the Knights of Valor were going to go down for good.

The Knights of Valor had told her about their escape routes. If she could just get to the reference library on the south side of campus and knock over one of its bookcases, she could escape to the tunnels underground.

Erna raced through the smoke, then leaped out one of the very windows the Genesis Army had smashed its way in through.

When she landed in the quad outside, though, she found a man waiting for her with his fists raised.

“TRAITOOOOR!”

She bit her lip.

That wasn’t a Genesis Army agent. Erna’s attacker was one of her own Knights of Valor allies. It was the man who’d offered her juice instead of wine at her welcome party.

He’d known that she would go for the hidden passage, and he’d circled around to cut her off.

Erna found herself reminded of something Klaus had once taught her.

“Why don’t the masses revolt? It’s because the nation is afflicted by a powerful sickness.”

“The administration is of the aristocracy, by the aristocracy, and for the aristocracy, yet the people tacitly approve of the very hyper-stratified society that neglects them—and the reason for that is simple.”

“It’s because they don’t hate the government.”

“A small handful of intellectuals and activists might denounce the government, but their discontent never spreads far.”

“What they hate isn’t the monarchy, it’s the Galgad Empire.”

“They’ve been brainwashed to loathe Galgad. They’re taught that it’s the root of all evil. Everything from the radio to the newspapers to the rumors they hear on the street fills their ears with daily stories of Galgad’s barbarity.”

“That’s why the revolution never comes.”

That was the true sickness running rampant through the Lylat Kingdom.

No matter how badly their government oppressed them or how miserable their living conditions got, all the people’s rage got directed at the Galgad Empire. It was absurd to say that anyone who criticized the government was a Galgad plant, yet the argument seemed convincing nonetheless.

After all, it was an undeniable fact that the Galgad Empire had invaded the Lylat Kingdom.

“I’m sorry,” Erna mumbled as she struck her acquaintance with her elbow.

Fortunately, there were about ten people besides Erna who’d managed to escape the lecture hall as well. Those were the Knights of Valor members who Nike had failed to win over. Numbering among their ranks was Jean, his face the picture of anguish.

The minute they tried to flee the area, two of Erna’s allies went flying.

“They call me Aion.”

There was a petite man in a suit standing in their way. The first things that jumped out about him were his thick crimson scarf and the skeleton tattoo on his right temple. He’d come bounding after Erna and the students from the lecture hall, and upon reaching them, he sent another two students flying with a dropkick.

He slid down his scarf and stuck his tongue out at Erna a little. “Don’t worry, missy. Nothing bad’s gonna happen to you.”

His voice was on the high end for a man, and his smirk was quite suggestive. There was something chilly lurking behind the gaze he fixed on Erna, and she found herself rooted to the spot.

Jean and four of the others turned tail. They’d given up on heading to the reference library and headed down a different path. However, Erna already sensed misfortune coming from their new direction.

“Don’t go that way!!”

She tried to call out, but she was too late.

When Jean’s group blindly raced across the quad, their bodies rose into the air like they’d just gone weightless. All of their legs were bound up with wire.

“The name’s Circe.”

Standing beside the wire was a woman with impossibly long hair. It reached all the way to her toes, winding around her face and body multiple times on its way down. Her hair even covered her mouth, making it hard to make out what she was saying. In her hand, she was holding a long, narrow needle.

“Would you be so kind as to stop this futile resistance? I, too, want to win Nike’s affection.”

The two of them were Nike’s subordinates. The man was a close-quarters combatant, and the woman specialized in traps.

Erna had beaten Genesis Army agents before, but these two were on a whole different level. The two of them positioned themselves to box Erna in from both sides.

As she mentally fumbled for a plan to escape her predicament, she heard a voice that further deepened her despair.

“Great going, Aion and Circe! Glad to see my little trainees doing well.”

There was no need for Erna to turn around.

Nike’s applause shook the air as she strode out of the lecture hall.

“It gave me a hell of a scare when that Black Mantis guy was killing my agents off left and right. But in the end, I guess it all worked out. You two are the newbie duo from Naval Intelligence, right?”

Behind her, Thanatos was obediently following along. “It’s all thanks to your passionate training, ma’am… Wait, why are you pinching me?”

“Oh, I was just wondering why it is that you’re the only one who never seems to improve. Got anything to say for yourself, Thanatos?”

“Unh…gh…”

“What, are you getting all hot and bothered in the middle of a mission? You know what we do to perverts around here.”

With no warning or windup, Nike gave Thanatos a swift kick in the rear. His body snapped off the ground and slammed into one of the quad’s bronze statues. He let out an aroused whimper as he crumpled, and Nike planted a foot firmly on his face.

“I’m always on the market for talented new recruits.” Her smile was downright sadistic. “I’d be more than happy to brainwash the lot of you.”

Erna felt goose bumps run across her skin.

When she inadvertently averted her eyes, her gaze met with Thanatos’s. Even with Nike trampling on his face, he made no effort to hide his elated smile. Drool dribbled from his lips, and his breathing grew ragged as his hips twitched. “Guhh… It’s so good…” His voice felt viscous in her ears. “Mistress Nike is going to dominate you… I’m so jealous…”

When his engorged crotch entered Erna’s field of view, she forced herself to stifle a shriek.

There would be no escape for her.

Before long, Erna and Annette got dragged back to the lecture hall alongside the Knights of Valor members. In the end, not a single person had successfully escaped.

Back in the hall, they joined the several dozen other Knights of Valor officers. The Genesis Army had gone and rounded up the ones staying at the dorm, too.

“I’m not going to handcuff you,” Nike said, her voice genial. “I’m trying to build relationships based on cooperation here, after all. Consider it a show of faith.”

A few of the members nodded happily, but the mood in the room remained icy. Erna wanted to call Nike out on her nonsense. The kind of psychological manipulation Nike used was simply more effective than any restraints.

As Erna hung her head, she heard the brisk sound of Nike’s footsteps approaching. Nike’s smile was no less broad than before, but she made no effort to hide the contempt burning in her eyes. “We met back at the mines, didn’t we?”

Erna was completely cornered.

She’d recolored her hair, but it hadn’t done her a lick of good.

“You must be the ones that brought Chloe along. You even dug up the truth about the strike. Impressive stuff.”

“………”

There was nothing Erna could say.

She got the feeling that if she so much as opened her mouth, Nike was going to read her like a book.

Undeterred by Erna’s silence, Nike went on in that same friendly tone. “And all that trouble the Nilfa unit ran into last month—I assume that was you, too.”

“________”

Erna had known it was only a matter of time before Nike figured that out, but she was still struck speechless at how quickly she’d made the connection. Erna had been hoping to pass herself off as just another secret society member, but apparently, that wasn’t to be.

Nike laid a hand on Erna’s shoulder. “You and I are gonna have a long conversation later,” she whispered.

Nike’s grip was so tight that Erna’s whole body shuddered, and she was afraid that her arm might snap off. Even as her expression contorted in pain, though, she did her best to return Nike’s glare. “Was it…all a trap…?”

“Hm?”

“Chloe Perche was a Genesis Army agent. Her job was to slip in among the coal miners and report back about anyone who came to investigate the strike.”

It was time to change tactics. If Nike knew who she was really was, then there was no benefit to keeping her mouth shut.

Erna’s new goal was to lure Nike into letting some information—any information—slip.

“That’s your go-to move—fishing expeditions.”

The fact that Erna had known that in advance made it sting that much worse.

That whole time, she’d been playing directly into Nike’s hands.

The mine itself had been one giant trap. Anyone like Jean who had beef with the government could have noticed that they were covering the Bertram Mines explosion up, and when they did, what choice would they have but to look into it?

Nike had left bait too juicy for any activist to resist.

“You wanted to lure secret society members out, so you intentionally—”

“Ugh, that’s itchy.”

All of a sudden, Nike began scratching herself.

A red line rose on the underside of her arm. The rest of her skin was as smooth as silk, but that one section alone was puffy and swollen.

Nike let out a masochistic sigh. “Do stop making such a nuisance of yourself, won’t you? When you get to be my age, taking care of your skin just gets harder and harder.”

“What?”

“I’m allergic to mites, you see. It’s not serious, so that information isn’t confidential or anything.”

Nike looked away from Erna and swept her gaze across the lecture hall to where the Knights of Valor members were.

The way she glared, it was like she was utterly repulsed by everything she saw.

“But no matter how much I crush them and crush them and crush them and crush them, there’s never any end to them.”

She dug her nails back into her arm.

For a brief moment, Erna had gotten a glimpse of the real Nike. She didn’t even think of Erna and the others as human. To her, anyone who belonged to a secret society that detested the government was nothing more than vermin.

Erna couldn’t abide such a perspective. She herself was one thing, but Jean and the Knights of Valor were Lylat citizens. How could Nike hold such contempt for the very people that a spy was supposed to be protecting?

“You and your Genesis Army teamed up with the Royal Guard to massacre those miners!!” After seeing those blast marks, Erna knew that was an indisputable fact. “You’re a monster. You don’t care one bit about defending this country! All you’re doing is killing the people who oppose you so you can protect your own power!”

“You got any proof of that?” Nike snapped. “If not, I’d appreciate it if you could keep your delusions to yourself.”

“I saw it with my own two eyes!” Erna yelled back. “With the state that mine was in, there’s no way—!”

“I already told you, that was the work of Galgad spies.”

The new rebuttal came from Chloe, behind her.

Chloe gave her a pitying frown and shook her head. “I’ve worked in those mines for three years, so I know what I’m talking about. There are more spies than I can count who’ve tried to rile the miners up. Once they armed the workers, the Royal Guard had no choice but to use firearms to suppress them.”

“I can back that up.”

That time, it was Gilbert who spoke up.

He sneered and resignedly gave his head a similar shake. “I was part of the Knights of Valor, and I agree with everything she said. All the workers who took part in the strike did it because they were manipulated by Galgad spies. And don’t worry, not a single one of the miners died.”

They’d shut down all of Erna’s arguments.

She shot a desperate look over at the officers. However, not a single person spoke up in her defense. They all just stared at the floor. The bravery she’d witnessed in their eyes when they worked together was nowhere to be seen.

They may have had big dreams, but at the end of the day, they were nothing more than a group of left-wing college students.

Erna could feel the strength draining from her legs.

Why had she bothered putting her hopes in them? Even with a secret society like that on her side, revolution was nothing more than a distant dream. She should just give up on everything and go home to the Republic. She must have been out of her mind to think that she could do anything for the starving in Lylat.

“Ha-ha-ha.”

Someone—one of the Genesis Army agents—broke out into laughter.

Erna had been shouting with all her might, and they were laughing at her.

“Heh-heh-heh.” “Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

Aion and Circe clutched their sides as they joined in the laughter as well.

“Ha-ha-ha.” “Ha-ha-ha!” “Hee-hee-hee!” “Ah-ha-ha-ha!” “Heh- heh-heh!”

Thanatos started laughing, too, as did Chloe and Gilbert. The Genesis Army’s mockery filled the entire hall.

Each and every one of their voices sent pain shooting through Erna like part of her had just been gouged out. She was ashamed of how conceitedly immature she’d been. She wanted to crawl into a hole.

There was no way for her to win. She’d once been an academy washout, and there was a reason for that.

As a bitter chill took hold of her heart, she felt something warm in her hand.

Annette had taken Erna’s trembling hands and squeezed them. “It’s gonna be okay, Erna.”

“Annette…”

Erna hadn’t even noticed her come over.

That innocent smile on Annette’s face was the most reassuring thing Erna had ever seen.

“I’ve got a plan for every contingency, even this one, yo!”

Erna had been curious about why Annette had been keeping her head down during the whole ordeal, but it sounded like she had something in mind.

Annette hadn’t trusted the Knights of Valor, not from the very start. She’d seen right through them.

“You’re a lifesaver, An—”

“I’m code name Forgetter—and it’s time to put it all together, yo!”

Annette spread her arms, and an explosion boomed out from behind them.

Screams echoed through the hall.

An ominous feeling welled up in Erna, and she turned around just in time to see a man collapse to the ground. A fountain of blood gushed from his abdomen. It was clear at a glance that the wound was fatal. The injured party was the former Knights of Valor member who’d attacked Erna and was the first one to betray the others. It was Deck.

However, Deck wasn’t the only one hurt. Several of the Genesis Army agents who’d been standing beside him were wounded, too. Erna could see them bleeding from their legs and shoulders.

A miniature bomb had just gone off—the kind strong enough to harm anyone nearby.

“Ooh.” Nike sounded impressed. “Blowing up your allies now, are we?”

Erna understood exactly what it was Annette had done.

There was only one opportunity she’d had to plant that bomb in advance.

“…You gave radios rigged with explosives to our allies?”

“All the officers here are my own personal bombs, yo!”

Annette admitted it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Back at the beginning of their time with the Knights of Valor, Annette had upgraded all the officers’ radios. That must have been when she loaded them full of blasting powder. Now Annette could use the remote in her hand to indiscriminately blow up their holders and anyone else in the vicinity.

There were fifty Knights of Valor officers there, and every last one of them had one of her special radios.

The Knights of Valor members screamed. One of those bombs going off could easily prove fatal for the owner, and all it took was one look at the way Deck was writhing in agony for them to realize Annette wasn’t messing around.

“If anyone tries to get rid of their radio—”

Annette knew what they were about to do, and she beat them to the punch.

“—I’m detonating theirs first, yo.”

She beamed happily and held her remote aloft.

Everyone in the hall shuddered at Annette’s declaration. The Knights of Valor trembled as the horror of what they had in their pockets slowly dawned on them, and the Genesis Army agents surrounding them scuttled back to the lecture hall’s walls.

“If you don’t let the two of us go, I’ll set off every bomb in the room.”

Annette’s demand sent yet another stir through the room.

In her eyes, there was no such thing as allies and enemies. There was only her and people who weren’t her. She had every intention of slaughtering the Knights of Valor and Genesis Army alike.

It was a profoundly effective way of getting out of their predicament, but—

No… This isn’t the way…

Despair took hold of Erna.

The girl standing beside her was a monster that defied comprehension. There was no way Erna could ever have controlled her. They’d been at a welcome party being thrown on their behalf, and Annette had been coming up with a way to turn their own allies into bombs.

“You’re one hell of a sicko,” Nike said with an impressed smile. “This is a nasty bind you’ve got me in. I might live through all those bombs going off, but most of my agents would eat it. And if I order them to leave the hall, that’d give you two an opportunity to escape.”

“This is me in peak form.” Annette held her remote up with pride. “I’m not scared of getting wickeder and wickeder anymore.”

When the mask was off, that was who she truly was.

There, in that moment, Erna had no idea how to process that revelation.

The one person who did welcome it was Nike, who combed back her hair and licked her lips. “Oh, I love it. That’s the kind of chutzpah I like my enemies to have.”

“Your compliments mean nothing to me, yo.”

“That’s why it’s such a shame you overlooked something. It’s a common mistake for people who think they’re the center of the universe to make.”

“Hm?”

“You forgot to read the room.”

Nike’s voice was little more than a whisper.

“So long as I survive, then nothing else that happens in this country matters.”

Her eyes told the whole story—that the lives of her agents and her countrymen meant nothing.

It was a deranged thing to believe, yet Nike’s subordinates didn’t so much as flinch. They just quietly kept up their guards and tacitly accepted Nike’s position as basic common sense.

“Oh yeah, now you’re talking,” Annette said with a smile. “That’s not the only trick I’ve got up my sleeve, you know. I’ve got a special one that’ll make you go splat.”

“Well, let’s see it, then. As the Genesis Army’s head honcho, I have the legal right to execute people without a trial. I think I can handle your worst.”

“Oh hey, I’ve got that, too! I use my own laws.”

“I like the cut of your jib, kid. What do you say we hit up a nude beach some time?”

“Who wants to see your old lady bits, yo?”

“Oh, you wound my delicate pride. I might just break down in tears.”

Nike’s bloodlust kept on surging, and Annette grinned at her, undaunted.

However, Erna could intuit the truth. Annette couldn’t win. Not even she could fight off a foe as inhuman as Nike.

“Now that we’ve taken this chance to hit it off—”

Nike extended a hand toward Thanatos to demand a weapon.

“—it’s time I carried out your sentence in accordance with the law.”

Erna squeezed Annette’s hand.

If Erna was going to die here, then she at least wanted it to be by Annette’s side. Erna had closed herself off from the other girl back in her initial days with Lamplight, yet Annette had embraced her from day one.

The more Erna held Annette’s hand, though, the fiercer her desire to live became.

“Save me…”

A cry spilled out from the back of her throat.

“Save me…Teach…”

The first name that sprang forth was her bedrock, the person she was certain could turn the situation around. However, she knew he wouldn’t come. The girls had sworn to carry out their current mission themselves.

The next name to come was someone incredibly precious to her.

It was someone who’d supported her and Annette like an actual older sister would. Someone with a smile full of love who always patted their heads.

“Save me…Big Sis Sara…”

A feather fluttered across her field of view.

A large, handsome, dark-brown feather.

Across from her, Nike shifted her gaze away from Erna and Annette.

Erna turned to look in the same direction.

There, standing on the shattered windowsill, was a girl, smiling. The large hawk who’d just flown under the lecture hall ceiling came and perched on her shoulder.

“Hey, Miss Erna. Hey, Miss Annette. I missed you two.”

She’d grown so much taller, she was barely recognizable. She’d done away with her trademark newsboy cap, bringing the contours of her roundish face into full view. She was wearing her hair in an asymmetrical style, perhaps to emulate her mentor, and her eyes that had resembled those of a small woodland creature now brimmed with a confidence befitting her age.

“Meadow” Sara beamed from atop the windowsill.

It was a reunion that had been over a year coming, and Erna felt a tear trickle down her cheek.

Interlude: Meadow III

When night fell, Sara visited her animal shed.

She cleaned the shed in the mornings, so the only thing for her to do at night was top off the food and water bowls. The reason she stopped by every day was simply to get some hands-on time with her pets.

There was Bernard, the hawk whose unsurpassed valor had ultimately earned him the code name of Insight. There was Aiden, the pigeon whose pudgy figure didn’t stop him from flapping his wings with all his might when he needed to. There was Johnny, the black dog who’d recently grown too big to fit under Sara’s hat anymore. And there were the mice, whose ranks fluctuated so often that none of the other girls could remember them all.

When Sara entered the shed, they all came and nuzzled up to her.

Thankful to be so loved, Sara took a moment to look in the proverbial mirror.

Say for the sake of argument that the average spy had a strength of about ten. If that was the case, then Sara’s strength had to be somewhere around fifty. That was nothing more than a rough estimate, of course, but while she might not have believed in herself, she had faith in Monika’s and Klaus’s abilities, and she had no reason to doubt their evaluations of her. She was, without a doubt, a bona fide prodigy.

The problem was, the strength of people like Heide, Klaus, and Monika was upward of ten thousand.

The gulf there was devastating, but its existence was impossible to deny.

“There are people who compliment me, sure—”

Her quiet murmur filled up the shed.

“—but not even they believe I could ever be better than the boss…”

There was nothing to be done about it, but even though she knew that, waves of frustration and chagrin assaulted her.

What could she do to protect her Lamplight teammates? Not eventually, but now?

As she let out a protracted sigh, she felt something ram into her chest.

“…Mr. Bernard?”

It was her hawk—her most trusted partner. He was flapping his wings around Sara’s belly like a bird possessed. Not just that, but he was hopping up and down as his wings smacked into her.

Then her pigeon, dog, and mice began body-slamming her as well.

“What’s gotten into you all? Come on, Mr. Johnny, Mr. Aiden, Mr. Kevin, and Mr. Colin, that tickles!”

The pigeon plopped itself down on her head, the dog clung to her chest and wagged his tail, and the mice gathered into a group and ran circles around her legs. It was rare for them to dote on her so aggressively.

It was right as Sara smiled and stifled a laugh that she noticed they were all trying to nudge her in the same direction. Her pets were working together and doing everything they could to guide her toward the door.

She cocked her head in puzzlement at their odd behavior. “Where is it you want me to go?”

The moon shone down on the girl and her parade of animals as they marched through the night in a line.

To any onlookers, they would have looked like they just stepped out of a children’s story, but they were fortunate enough not to run into anyone.

Bernard the hawk flew at the front of the procession, and he clearly had a route in mind. Behind him, Johnny the black dog sniffed around for threats while the mice swarmed around Sara’s legs and constantly urged her to go faster. Aiden the pigeon, for his part, didn’t budge from his seat atop Sara’s head.

For once, Sara’s pets were leading her rather than the other way around. The humor of the situation wasn’t lost on her as she continued down the path.

The procession headed away from their base smack-dab in the middle of a port city and toward the mountains. They were moving in the direction of Emai Lake, a popular tourist attraction, though the lake itself was too far away to actually get there on foot.

Buildings became scarcer and scarcer as the animals kept pushing Sara along.

Eventually, Bernard went and landed on the ground.

They’d arrived on an empty plot of land overgrown with weeds. It had probably once been a field, but it had fallen into disrepair from lack of use. There were no buildings on the land, just a wide, vacant space where the vegetation had completely taken over.

“……………It’s a meadow.”

The empty plot wasn’t nearly large enough to be a proper meadow, of course, but Sara intuited what her pets wanted her to see nonetheless. Something unique to her, something instinctual, told her that this was what Bernard had gotten the others together to show her.

They were reminding her of how she got her start as a spy. How she got the code name Meadow.

The man who’d recruited her—the handsome blond one who’d randomly shown up at her parents’ destroyed restaurant—explained the situation. “If you join up, I’ll even pick out a code name for you,” he’d said with a cheerful snap of his fingers.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Trust me, this is way better than letting the academy teachers stick you with one.”

She hadn’t even agreed to join a spy academy yet, but the man wasn’t about to let trivialities like that slow him down.

After crossing his arms and sinking into thought, the man gave her a smug grin. “Wildfire.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“…Nah, maybe that’s a bit much. Field? Prairie? Meadow, maybe. Something that’d burn real well.”

Sara knew the word’s dictionary definition, of course. A wildfire was a flame that burned out of control, like when a grassy plain caught fire.

One thing she didn’t know, though, is what the self-proclaimed scout’s obsession with fire-related words was. Perhaps that was just a schtick he had, but whatever the case, he nodded in satisfaction.

Another thing she didn’t know is what exactly he’d meant when he said “wildfire.”

“If you want a fire to really get burning, then a meadow’s the perfect place for it.”

“But what exactly does that—?”

“Flames don’t burn alone, you know. They hide living things, they nurture them, and when the time comes, those things rise up alongside the fire,” the man said softly. “Even if sometimes, those things are just a bunch of nameless weeds.”

He made no attempt to explain himself. “Someday, you’ll see what I mean,” was all he said before leaving.

After that, Sara never saw the man again. To this day, she still had no idea who he was.

Sara turned her thoughts back to the empty lot in front of her.

She knelt down and ran her hand across one of the weeds Johnny had been gnawing on to amuse himself. Weeds were often used as a metaphor for the untalented. There was no denying that they were elite plants that had survived and thrived in the harsh battle of natural selection, yet from the perspective of mighty humans, they might as well have no name at all.

When the scout’s words echoed back in Sara’s mind, she suddenly saw herself in them.

I was an academy washout… I had resigned myself to keeping my head down, understanding my place, and being just an ordinary old human.

Back at the academy when she was on the verge of flunking out, her instructors had snapped at her to know her place.

She’d spent countless hours weeping on the beach and lamenting her fate.

But then there were people who found and guided me.

Klaus had sensed the glimmer of potential in Sara and invited her to join Lamplight. And instead of just writing her off, the other girls had welcomed her as an equal.

At first, that was enough for me.

She could hardly believe how much she’d let Klaus spoil her.

There wasn’t a person in all the world blessed with better teammates than she was—that was something she could say with pride.

After all, I was just an amateur who hadn’t even made it to the starting line yet. If they hadn’t spent all that time praising and complimenting me, I would never have been able to take that first step.

Now, though, that was exactly what she’d done.

She’d become aware of how fortunate she was. She’d also come to recognize her own incredible talents, and she’d found a dream that those talents were grossly insufficient to attain.

That was why she had to—

Right when she saw the path that was available to her, she heard a chipper voice coming from behind her.

“What’re you doing out here, Sis?”

Sara turned around to find Annette grinning, with a bottle of milk in her hand.

Annette had just gotten out of the bath. She hadn’t even dried her hair properly, and it was visibly still a bit damp. She’d come all that way dressed in her pajamas.

“Miss Annette…”

She must have chased after Sara in such a hurry that she hadn’t had time to finish letting her hair dry.

“You haven’t been hanging out with me lately, so I stuck a tracker on you, yo!” Annette cackled, not sounding apologetic in the slightest.

Sara gave her a conflicted smile, and Annette leaned against her. Her hair still smelled of shampoo as it landed atop Sara’s arm.

“You know I’m getting wickeder and wickeder, right? It’s gonna be trouble for everyone if my owner doesn’t start training me properly!”

“This is the first I’m hearing about me being your owner, Miss Annette.”

“And if you’re willing to accept me being naughty—”

Annette’s voice was hushed.

“—then wouldn’t it be all right for you to be a little bit naughtier, too?”

Hearing that came as a shock to Sara.

Was that…advice? From Annette, of all people?

It was a surprise, to be sure, but not an unpleasant one. Annette saying that gave Sara’s idea the push it needed.

“That’s a funny coincidence.” She patted Annette’s head. “I was just thinking the exact same thing.”

Annette had repaid Sara’s kindness in the most unexpected of ways.

Perhaps she could serve as an example for Sara. Annette operated in a completely different way than Sara did. She followed her impulses wherever they took her, living her life to the fullest and not caring about the ways she was inconveniencing others.

Annette giggled and covered her mouth with delight. “You can just ignore ’em, you know?! Klaus, Monika, forget what they say! Freak geniuses like them can never see things from your perspective.”

She’d seen right to the heart of Sara’s woes. Sara was no good at keeping secrets from the others, so that didn’t come as much of a surprise.

Naughtiness—that was what Sara was lacking. And when it came to being bad, Annette was the best teacher there was.

“Let me give you a hand, yo. I can help you in your quest to become naughtier.”

Annette stuffed the empty milk bottle in her pocket and pulled out something else in its place.

It looked like a set of collars.

That was a Last Code—one of the unique spy tools that Annette had been making for each of her teammates.

Sara squeezed her lips tightly together and took the collars from her.

“I’m gonna become the best version of myself I can be. A version that the boss and Miss Monika could never dream of.”

When people set goals for themselves, their hearts often faltered from how distant those goals seemed. They ran into walls, and they writhed in frustration.

Now that Sara had found a reason to work as a spy, those were the kinds of hardships she was facing.

At the same time, though, it gave her an opportunity to reinvent herself.

Chapter 4: Human and Superhuman

Sara’s sudden arrival in the lecture hall earned her an annoyed scowl from Nike. “Looks like we’ve got us a party crasher,” Nike said as she let out a long sigh and gave Sara an icy look.

Nobody else had any idea what to make of the situation. The Genesis Army agents brandished their guns at the trespasser, and their wary reactions caused the Knights of Valor to gawk in confused fright.

Nike combed her hair back. “Who even are you?”

She’d stopped midway through reaching for her weapon to shoot a glance at Sara.

“I’ll have you know, I was in a good mood. I was about to get to watch a fun splatter flick about human bombs.”

Nike carried herself with the animus of someone with a fly buzzing around their face. There was no fear in her expression.

All at once, the emotion that had been swelling up in Erna receded.

Big Sis Sara…

She was happy that Sara had rushed to her aid, but Sara’s opponent was the head of the entire Genesis Army. This wasn’t the kind of situation that a single person could deal with. And that wasn’t even considering the fact that Nike was accompanied by a host of hand-picked Genesis Army operatives.

Still perched on the windowsill, Sara fixed her big eyes on Nike and her agents.

Nike had asked who she was, and Sara answered plainly.

“I’m the one person you’ve been desperately trying to find.”

Erna had no idea what she meant, and she wasn’t alone in that. The Knights of Valor members looked more confused than ever, and the Genesis Army just kept on quietly observing her.

After leaving an ample pause, Sara flashed Nike a taunting smile. “That should tell you everything you need to know, Nike.”

“You’re not making a lick of sense.”

Nike cocked her head to emphasize her confusion.

Sara had seen that reaction coming. She smiled. “At a glance, I would say that makes two of us.”

“What?”

“The Knights of Valor are so insignificant, they’re barely worth mentioning. Sure, they’ve been breaking the law and engaging in some petty sedition here and there, but they don’t pose any real threat to Lylat.”

Sara’s voice permeated every corner of the room.

The moment she’d captured the attention of everyone present, she went on.

“There’s no reason for the Genesis Army’s leader—the ruler of the Lylat Kingdom—to come deal with them herself.”

As soon as she said it, Erna realized just how right she was.

Nike’s arrival had been so world-shattering that the question never had a chance to cross Erna’s mind. Nike herself had mentioned the large number of spies that had infiltrated Lylat’s borders, and her former subordinate Momus had alluded to how busy they were crushing the nation’s many secret societies. Nike could have easily left a gaggle of college students like the Knights of Valor for her subordinates to deal with. If all they were doing was locking the students up, Nike’s presence was unnecessary. She could simply have had the relevant members brought to her after the fact if it was really that important for her to meet with them. Yet Nike had gone out of her way to come to the lecture hall herself.

Why was that? Why was she so worried about the Knights of Valor?

“Well, that’s a nasty thing to say.” Nike arched her shoulders to express her indignation. “I’ll have you know it’s a testament to how much I value them.”

“What, the incompetent secret society that folded like a wet noodle?”

Sara let out a dismissive scoff. There was a coldness to her expression that hadn’t been there a year prior.

The Knights of Valor bit their lips in chagrin, and Sara continued squaring off against Nike without so much as glancing their way. “No, you came here for something else—that much is easy enough to deduce.”

“Look, I don’t have time to stand here listening to the ravings of some lunatic.”

Nike waved her hand in annoyance.

As soon as she did, one of the Genesis Army agents dashed forward. He nimbly leaped from a desk and bounded toward Sara’s windowsill at full tilt.

His movements were swift. He was clearly a well-trained spy.

Erna could already envision Sara getting run through, and she very nearly screamed.

“You really thought I came alone?”

Sara didn’t flinch.

After firing off a quip at her incoming opponent, she drew her knife. “I’m code name Meadow—and it’s time to run circles around you.”

As the man braced himself for Sara’s attack, a swift blur of movement came leaping from another window.

The man reacted fast to the two-pronged assault. He held Sara’s frontal attack at bay with his knife, then fired his gun at the enemy behind him. However, his shots failed to find their mark.

The person who’d just leaped to Sara’s aid was no person at all—it was a white cat.

“Nice assist, Ms. Aurelia!”

After weaving between the bullets, the cat dug its claws into the man’s face. It was a dual attack—because right as the cat struck, Sara slammed her knife’s handle into the side of the man’s head.

The whole maneuver had been planned out perfectly. By making her opponent think they were under attack from a human, Sara was able to use her animals to launch deadly surprise attacks. It was a form of deception all her own—Rearing × Anthropomorphizing.

Sara had bested her foe, and in an overwhelming fashion. She tossed him onto a desk and stuck her gun in his mouth.

Nike frowned in disappointment. “Way to let your guard down, dumbass.”

Erna could hardly believe her eyes.

Is that really Big Sis Sara…?

The person she was looking at bore almost no resemblance to the timid, cowering girl from Erna’s memories. Not only had she matched Nike argument for argument, but surprise attack or not, she’d successfully warded off a first-rate spy.

“You want to keep going?”

Sara placed her finger on the trigger and laid on the pressure. Her cat, Aurelia, sat dignified and menacing atop the man’s head.

Sara had herself a hostage.

“Is shutting me up really so important that you’d sacrifice a highly trained agent just to do it?”

“……………………”

Nike went quiet. A hint of weariness slipped into the stony look of disinterest on her face.

Erna was in awe of the situation Sara had engineered.

Now Nike had no choice but to engage on Sara’s terms.

Nike might not have cared about her subordinates’ lives, but the costs associated with training an agent couldn’t be cheap. She was doubtless willing to cut them loose if the need presented itself, but all Sara was asking for was a conversation. If Nike refused, all it would do was legitimize Sara’s claims. Even if Nike made the attack herself, it would still leave Sara a few seconds to leave the people in the hall with some parting words. That was Nike’s weakness, and Sara was exploiting it to its fullest.

“I’ll say it again.” With Nike still silent, Sara gave her a taunting smile. “If you want to know who I am, just know that I’m the one person you’ve been desperately trying to find.”

“You’re off your rocker, kid. You seem very confused, and it’s making it awkward for everyone,” Nike replied with a heavy sigh. “But fine, say your piece. At least that’ll give me a chance to set things straight.”

Nike had agreed to the debate. In her view, it was better to refute Sara’s claims directly than to let her spread baseless “truths.”

Despite the way Sara had backed her into a corner, Nike’s confidence never wavered. “I’ll have you know that getting to have a conversation with me is a big honor,” she said, tossing a punch at Thanatos’s face for no good reason. “Even getting hit by me is a highly prized reward. But I guess you prefer your abuse verbal?”

“You know, I happen to be into training, myself.”

Sara drew a stun gun and knocked her hostage out. Then she made a ring with her thumb and index finger and stuck them in her mouth.

“This is Last Code: The High Plain of Heaven—a soaring world of flight.”

A sharp whistle echoed through the hall, and a menagerie of animals gathered around Sara.

There was the valiant hawk who’d been flying under the lecture hall’s ceiling. There was a plump pigeon. There was a black dog who’d grown too big to really be called a puppy anymore. There was a swarm of mice who came surging forward as a group. And there was a white-haired cat who eyed the mice with keen interest.

The Genesis Army agents gasped at the sheer volume of creatures she commanded.

Nike was more composed. “What, those collars?” was all she said.

Each of the pets at Sara’s command was wearing a small black device—a device Erna recognized.

“They’re recording devices,” Sara said proudly. Her hawk landed on the desk beside her, and she patted his neck. “With some help from these little guys, I can gather intel from anywhere from the tallest of buildings to the deepest of caves. If you think I’m just some random lunatic, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

The Last Codes were a set of spy tools that Annette had designed especially for her teammates. To Sara, she’d given a set of mechanically enhanced collars.

Nike shook her head in exasperation. “Well, that’s just not true. You could never build a bug small enough for an animal to carry. What would you do about the battery?”

“With tech from Vice-Admiral Grenier’s secret lab—I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Playing dumb is basically a confession. That’s where these were developed.”

During their vacation in Marnioce, Lamplight had been shown a laboratory whose owner had been carrying out experiments in secret in order to realize his dreams of staging a coup against the Lylat government. Nike had already crushed that coup and sent Grenier to the guillotine, but Annette remembered his laboratory well. It had been full of all sorts of gadgets, packed to the brim with cutting-edge technology.

Sara went on. “This can’t be your first time seeing them, though. From what I hear, a couple of them got left at the site of the Bertram Mines strike.”

The animals must have found a good opportunity to detach them.

With that, Erna became sure of something.

I thought that was one of Big Sis Sara’s gadgets.

She thought back to the device they’d found up near an inaccessible part of the ceiling. The Genesis Army had overlooked it, but that was hardly their fault, considering that it was designed specifically to respond to Annette’s radio.

Just like her and Annette, Sara had gone to the Bertram Mines as well. Her job was to win over the Royal Guard, and tracking their movements had taken her to the exact same mines as Erna.

But…

When Erna looked at the collars Sara was so proudly showing off, unrest gathered in her heart.

The High Plain of Heaven wasn’t nearly as mighty as Sara was making it out to be.

Nike was absolutely right that modern-day technology wasn’t capable of building a transceiver that simultaneously had high fidelity, a long battery life, a tiny size, and a long wireless range. In truth, The High Plain of Heaven was nothing more than a set of tape recorders small enough for Sara’s pets to carry. They gave off a small signal to help track them down, but that was all.

The only reason Sara had arrived with such perfect timing was because Annette had swapped out the battery, recorded their intel, and gotten it back to her. Sara was putting on an act, plain and simple.

When Erna realized Sara’s plan, she shuddered.

Just like Nike used lies to take control of the Knights of Valor, Big Sis Sara is fighting back with lies of her own.

Nike had fed them a false eyewitness, stirred up their hatred for the Galgad Empire, and showered the secret society with flattery in order to win them over. Now Sara was trying to bluff and fib her way into winning them back.

Erna’s chest tightened at what a harsh road Sara had in front of her. She was going to have to spin up a more compelling story than the lies Nike had come armed with.

“So, we’re back at the question of why the Genesis Army’s leader went out of her way to come here in person,” Sara said, addressing the lecture hall as a whole. “Let me start from the end. There was a different truth altogether hidden in the Bertram Mines’ strike. That’s what the Genesis Army has been trying so hard to cover up. That’s why they locked up a journalist who found out about the explosion, why they forced the mayor to refute the local reporting, and why they planted an agent among the miners to take anyone who noticed the cover-up and lead them down the garden path. It’s why Nike had to ultimately step into the ring herself to threaten and brainwash you.”

She laughed mockingly. The Genesis Army had done too thorough a job, and that had been their undoing.

Nike shot back with a scornful laugh of her own. “You’ve got some awful big ideas in that head of yours. What’s so weird about covering up a Galgad sabotage op so the people of Lylat can go about their lives with a little peace of mind?” She turned and looked at the captive Knights of Valor members. “And if we look at the results, I was able to find a secret society full of talented members as well as lure out the Galgad spies trying to infiltrate them. I’d say that’s not bad for a day’s work.”

Nike’s compliment earned her some happy blushes from some of the students. There was no denying that the lies from the woman who controlled the nation from on high had a certain seductive ring to them.

“But it wasn’t the work of a Galgad spy,” Sara said decisively. “Not a single one of you has offered any proof that it was. You’re just taking your flunky and having her shout, ‘it was a Galgad spy, it was a Galgad spy’ over and over.”

“Hey now, that’s no way to talk about our precious witness,” Nike said, raising her voice. “But all right, I get that you don’t trust me. And if you’re gonna insist that Chloe is one of my people, then you know what? That’s your prerogative. But what about dear ol’ Gilbert?”

Gilbert was standing awkwardly beside her, and she gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Surely you aren’t suggesting that one of the Knights of Valor’s own officers was a stooge all along, are you?”

“I imagine you threatened him by taking his family hostage. The other members mentioned how much he cares about them.”

“Heh, so anything that’s inconvenient for you just happens to be a lie? Now who’s spewing bullshit without any proof?”

“There’s the stained wing relief he sent back.”

Nike blinked.

Eventually, though, she remembered the previous conversation. “What, that?” she said. “He explained that himself. He did it to say that they were the ones in the wrong. It’s the society’s symbol, right? That’s why he dirtied it up before shipping it over. Doesn’t it bring a tear to your eye, the conviction it must have taken for him to say good-bye like that?”

“If that’s all it was, then there wouldn’t have been any need for him to be so cryptic about it.”

“The man can be cryptic if he wants. Maybe he was worried about his message not making it past the industrial zone’s inspectors.”

“Then there’s the way the sullied wing arrived before the explosion even happened. He sent it before he joined the strike and you all locked him up. That message doesn’t fit the timeline.” Sara held strong, not backing down a single step. “The Knights of Valor’s representative, Jean, is a big fan of Lylat proverbs—for instance, One swallow does not a spring make.”

Sara squeezed The High Plain of Heaven in her hand.

Annette must have recorded that conversation after swapping out the battery.

“That black, sooty wing is supposed to hint at a swallow’s feather.”

For the very first time, Nike twitched.

It was far too subtle to think she was shaken, but her shoulder shifted in what might have been admiration. It was the first time Sara had elicited any reaction but annoyance from her. Nike hadn’t picked up on that. She probably hadn’t even known about Gilbert sending the symbol until her arrival there in the lecture hall.

“Before he took part in the strike, he knew there was a chance he would be captured by the Genesis Army and forced to give false testimony on their behalf,” Sara concluded. “So he sent a message—a message telling them not to base any decisions on his testimony alone.”

A series of gasps rose from the Knights of Valor members.

Every pair of eyes in the room turned to Gilbert. Nike, too, turned an intense stare his way to suss out his true intentions.

Gilbert hung his head. “I, I’m not—,” he stammered in fright.

“You don’t have to say a thing,” Sara said, cutting him off. “We know she was blackmailing you. You can rest assured that the steps you took ended up saving the Knights of Valor.”

Gilbert averted his eyes in embarrassment.

Sara had him right where she wanted. Now it was impossible to see him as anything other than a helpless victim who was only defending the Genesis Army out of fear of what Nike would do. The more he stood up for them, the more it looked like Nike had threatened him.

“You’re really that determined to discredit my witnesses, are you?” Nike crossed her arms, provocatively pushing up her ample bosom. “Have it your way. So you’re saying that it wasn’t Imperial spies who were behind the strike?”

“That’s right.”

“Fair enough. But that leaves us with some problems, then, doesn’t it? Nobody is denying that the strike ended in a clash between the soldiers and the workers. The question is, how did a bunch of ordinary old miners get their hands on the firepower to warrant a military intervention in the first place?”

Erna had infiltrated the mines and witnessed the evidence firsthand. She’d seen the grisly blast marks, bullet holes, and effects of the cave-in in the old seventh mine. Then there was the roar loud enough for all the locals to hear and the way the whole sky had temporarily lit up. The Royal Guard might have been cruel, but not even they would have used firepower like that if the miners had been unarmed. They could have gotten the job done just fine with handguns and rifles.

“I’ll remind you that everything that goes into the industrial zone is heavily inspected.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” Sara replied. “I had a heck of a time sneaking in there.”

“Even if we say it wasn’t an Imperial spy who armed them, there had to have been someone with intelligence training involved. Is it really that weird to assume that whoever that was meant our nation harm?”

“There is another possibility, you know.”

“Like what?”

“Like an underground secret society. One of the many ‘intelligence operatives’ who happens to be a citizen of this very country.”

Sara took the opportunity to raise her voice.

“It was actually another secret society, one besides the Knights of Valor, who incited the strike.”

She went on, her voice still loud and sonorous. “There’s a group in this country that’s still fighting for revolution to this very day.”

Erna bit her lip and shot a look over at her Knights of Valor allies.

The girl who’d rushed in to save them had put her life on the line to challenge the leader of the Kingdom’s intelligence agency to a debate. She’d held fast in order to show them the truth. Erna hoped that Sara’s passion and determination had gotten through to them. She needed them to realize that Sara was trying to relight the fire in their hearts that had very nearly gone out.

“______________”

Erna bit down harder.

All they were was bewildered.

Sara had gone to such lengths to discredit the witnesses, yet the Knights of Valor members were doing nothing but staring in confusion at Sara and Nike. Even Jean was no different.

The truth Sara had guided them to lacked the oomph to inspire them.

“What a waste of time.” Nike slumped her shoulders in disappointment. “That’s your big gotcha, that Lylat has other secret societies? Everyone knows that.”

“……………”

“You really think that’s groundbreaking enough to explain me ‘going out of my way’ to come here? To explain me ‘going out of my way’ to restrict media coverage? To explain me ‘going out of my way’ to put together an elaborate, time-consuming set of traps?”

“What I think is that you’re panicking and trying to end the conversation early—”

“I’m ending it because I’m bored out of my mind. At the end of the day, you failed to present a single new truth. Now, let me repeat myself one last time,” Nike said, raising her index finger. “It’s true that this country has a lot of secret societies. But each and every one of them has been manipulated and encouraged by Galgad intelligence and fed propaganda to make them hate their own countrymen. They use their empty criticisms of the government as an excuse to commit crimes across the country and threaten the peace of good, upstanding citizens.”

Nike’s figure drew people in, and her confident voice kept them there.

She was taking assets that Sara simply didn’t have and leveraging them against the college students.

“Is it really that bizarre for me to put in the work? I’ve had it up to here with you mocking these fine people! If I can help save a bunch of bright, promising youngsters from Galgad brainwashing, I’ll spend as much time as it damn well takes!!”

When she continued, her voice had the melodic quality of a loving lullaby.

“Tonight was going to be a wonderful opportunity to reconcile with them, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to interfere.”

By playing with the stress in her voice, just like that, she had the Knights of Valor members right back under her thumb.

Nike’s lies were impossibly attractive. The students knew they weren’t true, yet they wanted to cling to them anyway. Nike was promising their safety and stroking their egos. Their lives might have been hard, but a little praise from a hero was enough to make them willing to put up with a lot.

That was how the people of Lylat always reduced themselves to slaves of the monarchy. The constant lies were protected by their hatred toward the Galgad Empire and further cemented by Nike’s power.

“You and the pink-haired girl were just chatting, right? She a friend of yours?” Nike said contemptuously as she pointed at Annette. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, acting all preachy when you’re in league with a monster who’d strap bombs to her own allies. What a crock.”

“………………………”

Her tone had shifted, and now it was like Sara was completely beneath her notice.

In the blink of an eye, Nike was back in the driver’s seat. The previously confused Knights of Valor members were starting to fall into line.

Nike’s strength was that she was able to control the room without so much as drawing a knife. She had no ability to peer into hearts like Thea could, yet that hadn’t stopped her from winning her audience over.

“You’re going to jail. Nobody’s interested in listening to what you have to say anymore.”

Nike strode toward Sara as though to say that their duel was decided.

Her gait was unhurried. She was confident that she could refute anything Sara said, and the raw force she emanated made it clear that hostages were of no concern to her.

Every tiny thing she did made it clear how fundamentally outmatched Sara was.

“That blackened, dirty wing relief had another meaning.”

Sara spoke up anyway.

Undaunted by her opponent’s approach, she glared at Nike with her head held high. “When you try to add that many meanings to a message, each one gets harder to notice. The relief was made of copper. And it was covered in a black, sooty powder. Copper and black powder, does that remind you of anything?”

She neither fled nor drew a bead with her gun. With words as her sole weapons, she raised her voice to the loudest it had been yet.

“That first newspaper article said there was an intense, echoey roar and a flash of light that lit up the sky—but why was that? Why, when all the blast marks were in a coal mine underground?”

It seemed as though Nike had sped up her pace a little.

Even so, Sara didn’t panic.

“That’s right. It was a flame test with gunpowder and metal that filled the whole sky—a firework. Oh hey, didn’t I hear that King Clement III is a huge fan of fireworks? The elections two years ago didn’t go very well for the previous king, and Clement III took the throne. On the night of his coronation, he filled the sky over downtown with fireworks.”

She continued.

“But wait, that’s strange. There was a festival just the other day for the two-year anniversary of his reign, and yet they didn’t set off a single firework. Huh? That’s funny. Maybe he doesn’t like fireworks after all.”

Sara stared down Nike, a bona fide superhuman, as she gave her speech.

“That means we have to go back to square one. It turns out, the king doesn’t like fireworks. Fireworks just happened to go off the day the new king took the throne, that’s all. And fireworks went off the day of the strike, too. Was that a coincidence? No, because there was one last clue in the mines linking the two things together.”

Her oratory skills were leagues weaker than Nike’s, yet she did everything in her power to lay her logic out anyway.

“There was that slogan at the scene of the strike—‘kings can be replaced.’”

As soon as Sara connected those dots, the whole picture came into view.

That message had been written knowing that the Genesis Army could very well overlook it and fail to erase it in the dark of the mine, but whoever eventually came to investigate the tragedy might find it instead. Those words were imbued with a prayer.

Nike’s shoulders quivered a little.

It was like she wanted to shut Sara’s mouth as soon as possible, but she knew that doing so would be tantamount to admitting that Sara was right. Those conflicting desires were causing her agony.

“And one last thing—this nation has a secret society called the LWS Troupe that’s become the stuff of legends.” A bead of sweat rolled down Sara’s forehead as she continued. “But the weird thing is, nobody knows what exactly they did. That information is tightly controlled. And the only group in the country that has the power to pull that off is the Genesis Army. You’ve done everything in your power to erase their history, and you’ve disappeared anyone you think could be linked to them. Just like you’re doing right now.”

That was probably just a lie Sara had cooked up.

But oh, what an enchanting lie it was.

“It’s a secret society that likes making flashy moves so much, they called themselves a troupe—and fireworks are their symbol.”

With that, Sara delivered the clincher.

“The LWS Troupe forced the king out of power two years ago, and they’re still operating to this day.”

Nike stopped in her tracks.

Now that had an effect. The Knights of Valor members’ eyes went wide. Even the Genesis Army operatives let out little gasps. The news had come as a shock to them, too.

“Looks like you didn’t even tell your own agents,” Sara said with a triumphant smile. “Makes sense, with how big of a state secret it is. A secret society got the better of the old king and forced him to abdicate the throne. ‘Kings can be replaced’ isn’t just a slogan, it’s the truth. And what’s more, it actually happened.”

“You’re delusional,” Nike snapped, but there was a hint of discomfort in her voice.

“It makes sense that you’d want to deny it. The fact that a secret society was able to shake the country to its core like that means that you and the administration lost, plain and simple! In order to cover it up, you had to kill anyone with any ties to the LWS Troupe. That’s why you set those traps at the Bertram Mines. You needed to capture anyone who noticed the link between fireworks and secret societies and got too close to the truth!”

“Those are the deranged ramblings of a—”

“Then go ahead and explain why you’re here! Offer a more logical explanation!”

“…………”

For the first time, Nike was at a loss for words.

It was becoming apparent that was her weakness.

Nike stood at the nation’s apex. She was more talented than any active-duty agent, she was beloved by the masses, and her combat and leadership skills were beyond compare. She was, in every sense, the perfect spy. Nobody could match her.

And because of that, everything she did looked like it had a deeper meaning.

“Don’t let her break you! Don’t let the administration trick you with their carefully constructed misinformation!!” Sara pleaded to the people in the hall. “We have the power to drag the king off his throne! We can do it with our own two hands!! There are people still fighting with everything they have to change this country! Don’t let your despair win!! We have to remember who the real enemy is!!”

It was true that compared to Nike’s, her speech was clumsy and inept.

However, the narrative she’d created and the way she poured her soul into her words was enough to bring some life back to the Knights of Valor.

“We have to keep resisting—and we can’t back down until the day our revolution is complete!!”

Sara held her fist aloft and spoke with confidence.

“I’m ‘Meadow’ Sara,the LWS Troupe’s current representative, and I’m here to set you free.”

That was the sentence that settled the battle once and for all.

In a sense, Sara’s identity had been the biggest question mark for the audience. Who even was that girl who’d rushed in out of nowhere to pick a fight with Nike? Sara had waited for their curiosity to swell to its peak to drop that particular bombshell.

The legendary secret society was still operating, and its representative had rushed to their aid to fight Nike on their behalf. It was so dramatic, it was like destiny was at work. It was the kind of reveal right out of a box office blockbuster, and it grabbed the Knights of Valor members’ hearts in a vise grip. Motivation like that was more than enough to rescue a group of activists from the depths of hopelessness.

Between Nike and Sara, there was no debate anymore about whose claims were more convincing. The students’ convictions may have wavered, but those were still people who’d been resisting the government for ages.

The fastest person to make her decision was Nike.

As Sara’s words were met with joy before her eyes, she waved her arm to signal to her agents. She was a big enough person to admit when she was beat. She accepted her mistake, lamented it, and swiftly shifted course.

For Nike, winning the Knights of Valor over had never been anything more than plan A. Now that she’d failed, she wasted no time in switching to plan B.

Plan B was the one that was guaranteed to work—the one that involved taking control by force.

As soon as Nike shot the order to her subordinates, Sara reacted as well.

She shouted instructions to the Knights of Valor members. “Run for it! I’ll hold them off!”

Several of Erna’s allies did as she said and started standing up, but the Genesis Army agents in the hall cut them off, firing shots by their feet and stopping them in their tracks.

From there, Nike’s agents split up into two groups. One team kept watch over the activists to make sure they didn’t go anywhere, and the other cut in to help apprehend Sara. Two of the people trying to capture her were Aion and Circe, the duo who’d demonstrated their outstanding skills during the first escape attempt.

Despite all that, Sara was as cool as a cucumber. She promptly deployed a smoke bomb. It was the same piece of Annette’s handiwork that Erna had used earlier, and it filled the entire lecture hall with white fumes.

Annette took that as her cue to call out. “All the radio bombs are going off in ten seconds, yo. And I’ll know if you try to ditch them, so don’t even think about it.”

There was ice in her voice as she threatened her former allies.

“But if you get out of my remote’s range, you just might survive.”

It was clear just from her tone that it was no idle threat.

The Knights of Valor members scattered like cockroaches, and the Genesis Army was slow to react. The activists had always had the numbers advantage, and in addition to being a target for arrest, each of them was simultaneously a walking bomb. If the Genesis Army wasn’t careful about how they detained them, the operatives themselves could get caught in the blast. However, the smoke screen kept them from using their guns; they didn’t want to risk friendly fire.

“Make sure to split up!!”

Erna did everything she could to urge the Knights of Valor to flee.

Unlike last time, they were done fighting among themselves. Sara’s speech had emboldened them all.

Annette was setting off firecrackers to add to the chaos, and Erna grabbed her by the hand and ran for it as well. They might not be able to save everyone, but this way, a good number of people would be able to escape.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going?”

That was when she was met with a wave of hostility that sapped all the heat from her body.

There was no question about it—that was Nike.

She’d finally made her move. She cleaved through the smoke and made a beeline to capture Erna. Her long, graceful arms reached straight for Erna’s throat.

There was nothing Erna could do.

What ultimately blocked Nike’s path wasn’t a human, but rather a black dog and a white cat. Sara’s pet Johnny and her new pet Aurelia slashed at Nike’s arms in unison.

Nike evaded them with ease, then sent the two animals flying with a single clean roundhouse kick. “Filthy fucking brutes,” she snarled, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

“Well, that’s not very nice!”

A pistol emerged from the smoke, followed immediately by a bullet.

The shot had been aimed at Nike’s head, and she narrowly dodged it with a twist of her neck. She shot a glare at Sara, the gun’s wielder. “How’d you deal with my agents so quickly?”

“You’re fighting me now!”

Sara positioned herself to obstruct Nike from getting to Erna and Annette. With a smile and a wave, she urged Erna to go on ahead before turning back to face their foe.

Her expression had been confident. She clearly had a plan.

Erna just said, “We’ll join back up later,” before dashing for the lecture hall’s exit. Still holding Annette’s hand in hers, she made sure not to let the opportunity Sara had given them slip by her.

This time, the Genesis Army’s pursuit was far less dogged. Sara must have already beaten most of them. If she hadn’t, there was no way she could have cut through the smoke screen and gotten to them like that.

It’s incredible how dependable Big Sis Sara has gotten…

Sara’s dramatic growth caused Erna’s heart to stir. To think that she would go from that timid and meek shell to being strong enough to trade blows with Nike!

Erna and Annette worked together to knock out one of the Genesis Army agents in passing. Luckily for them, his attention was elsewhere, and the girls were able to catch him by surprise. They mowed through him with ease.

Once they made it out the window, they were free from Nike’s clutches—for real this time.

When we meet up with Big Sis Sara later, I’m gonna give her the biggest hug ever.

She could picture that happy future in her mind’s eye.

Things were rough now, but she was brimming with hope. That was a testament to how touching the reunion had been.

Wanting to share her good cheer, she looked over at her partner, whose hand she was still holding.

Annette’s eyes were ice-cold. “________”

“…Annette?”

They were diligently putting one foot in front of the other, and their escape was all but guaranteed to succeed. However, there was no smile on Annette’s lips. Her face was that of an emotionless doll.

“…There’s no way Sara can ever win.”

In contrast to her blank expression, her voice quivered with an intense sorrow.

“A human like her can never beat a superhuman like Nike…”

Trepidation rose from the very depths of Erna’s being. She knew it was the wrong thing to do, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking back over her shoulder.

There, behind her, the lecture hall had become a brutal war zone. Right as Erna turned, a new figure came flying out the same window she had.

It was Sara, her body drenched in blood.

Despite the state she was in, Sara immediately rose to her feet to protect Erna and Annette from Nike’s assault.

For Sara, the whole thing happened in slow motion.

It was like watching her life flash before her eyes.

As soon as she squared off one-on-one against Nike, a man rushed in from behind her. He had a gloomy look about him, and as she recalled, his name was Thanatos. He fell to his knees in front of Nike and presented her with a mighty weapon. It was a sledgehammer. Its handle was over six feet long, and its head was weighty and cumbersome.

Sara had heard about that thing, but she hadn’t fully believed it until she saw it with her own eyes. That was why Nike was hailed as the strongest spy in the Lylat Kingdom—her martial skill was world-class, on par with “Torchlight” Guido’s.

She was a woman with no shortcomings. She had more than just the ability to win over an audience with her beauty and rhetorical skills and the tactical acumen to catch her foes in traps. If worse came to worst, she could always use her outrageous capacity for violence to turn any situation around.

Nike was holding back. She probably wasn’t even using a tenth of her strength when she attacked Sara, yet Sara was still completely unable to react, and before she knew it, she found that she’d been blasted all the way outside the lecture hall. Her left arm was shattered from where the hit had landed. Her right shoulder was dislocated, so she couldn’t move that arm, either. She could feel blood rolling down her back from where shards of glass had shredded her mid-flight.

It was hard to believe Nike was a fellow human being.

Sara summoned strength into her wobbly legs to stand, and she fixed her gaze on her foe.

“As far as spies go, you’re really nothing to write home about.” Nike hoisted her sledgehammer onto her shoulder and smiled, like she was making idle small talk. “As soon as those other two escaped, your knees started knocking together. That stunt you pulled where you and your animals took out one of the men who let his guard down was impressive, but everything else was smoke and mirrors.”

Sara smiled bitterly at the accusation. She’d been doing her absolute best, but her absolute best was no match for Nike. “That’s not very nice. That could’ve been real talent. You don’t know.”

She needed to at least pique Nike’s interest and hold her there for as long as possible. With that goal in mind, she strung her words together slowly and with purpose.

Nike thumped her sledgehammer up and down atop her shoulder. “You knew a lot about the Knights of Valor. Which is weird, considering that you haven’t shown up in any of my reports. That’s all thanks to that High Plain of Heaven of yours, right? I assume they’ve got the ability to record a couple minutes of audio.”

“………”

“So as long as you’ve got competent teammates, you can take their plans and ideas and use them as is.”

Nike sneered at her.

“All you’re working with is borrowed strength.”

Nike had already seen through her.

By using the recording function on The High Plain of Heaven, Sara was able to exchange information with teammates across long distances. The theory she’d just announced to the Knights of Valor had been hypothesized in its entirety by Grete. Meanwhile, Thea and Monika had coached her on how to sway a crowd and why it was useful to take out a single enemy, respectively. There had even been a trick to the way she’d taken out all those Genesis Army agents in the smoke screen, too.

As soon as she realized she’d been caught out, all the tension drained from her body. “You know what, you’re totally right. I really am just a normal old human.”

“You don’t say.”

“But if I was a prodigy, then I might have tried to defeat you.”

If she’d done that, it would have ended in total disaster.

Her going down would have left Erna and Annette no way to escape.

“If it means I can protect the younger ones, then I’m happy to just be ordinary.”

Nike’s shoulder twitched.

I never thought I had a quote like that in me, Sara thought in surprise, but I’m sure I have the others to thank for it. She smiled as she came to terms with the fact that her head was about to get bashed in.

Erna wanted desperately to rush to Sara’s side, but Annette was having none of it. She squeezed Erna’s hand tighter and dragged her forward.

On an intellectual level, Erna got it. Even if she did go back, she would never be able to beat Nike. Erna needed to take the hope Sara had entrusted her with and carry it onward. Turning around wouldn’t just put herself in danger, but Annette, too.

None of that stopped her from lamenting the course fate had taken.

“Big Sis Sara…”

Sara had been prepared for this outcome.

When Nike got serious, there was no escaping her. If there was, there wouldn’t have been any need for them to resort to a roundabout method like starting a revolution.

All of this was Erna’s fault.

If she hadn’t joined up with the Knights of Valor, Nike wouldn’t have zeroed in on them. If she’d been more careful at the mines, the Genesis Army wouldn’t have been able to track them to the university. If she had just made better choices, all of this could have been prevented.

She ran onward, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking back.

Off in the distance, she could see that Sara had already lost. She was collapsed on the ground with blood pouring from her head. One of the bronze statues from the quad was lying beside her. Even with how far away Erna was, it was still clear that Sara was losing a lot of blood.

Nike held her sledgehammer in annoyance as she looked down at Sara.

“This is awful… And just when we finally got reunited… It’s not fair…”

Tears welled in Erna’s eyes.

Sara lay face down in the pool of blood, unable to even move anymore.

“She came to save us… How did it come to this?”

When Erna’s gait slowed, Annette gave her a sharp tug.

Erna couldn’t bear to think anymore.

They rounded a corner of the university building and put some distance between themselves and the lecture hall. The Knights of Valor guided them to a shortcut, and they fled underground. Using Annette’s flashlight, they dashed through the foul-smelling sewers before emerging in an off-campus church that was sympathetic to the Knights of Valor’s cause.

Once they fled out into the night, they would be beyond the Genesis Army’s reach.

All told, about a quarter of the officers managed to escape the hall. Maybe a dozen or so. Jean was one of them. Given that every last one of them would have been assimilated if Sara hadn’t shown up, even that small number was still plenty impressive.

When they left the church, they spotted a bird flying their way.

“…Bernard…”

It was Sara’s most trusted companion, a valiant hawk who’d earned himself the code name Insight.

Bernard had escaped the university alone. He came over and landed by Erna. He was wearing a collar with a device strapped to it—one of the copies of Last Code: The High Plain of Heaven.

When Annette stooped down and pressed it, it began playing audio. “Miss Erna, Miss Annette? Can you hear me?”

“________”

The voice that came out was Sara’s.

Without even thinking about it, Erna lifted Bernard up and held him at face height.

“I’m recording this just outside of Nicola University. You’ve grown so much. Both of you have. There are so many things I want to tell you, but my charge won’t last forever, so I have to make this quick.”

Sara had taped the message in advance.

A knot formed in Erna’s chest—sure enough, Sara had come in knowing this was a possibility.

Right when Erna’s urge to apologize became overwhelming, the voice warmly went on.

“Don’t put everything on yourself.”

The year they’d spent apart had done nothing to dull the kindness in Sara’s voice.

“Let me guess, Miss Erna. Have you been thinking that because we’re all split up, you can’t afford to screw up?”

“………”

Hearing that gave Erna a shock.

The sound of Sara chuckling crackled out from the recorder.

“I’m hoping that you haven’t been, but I worry. You’ll take on too much, so you’ll try to keep Miss Annette on a short leash…and that’ll make Miss Annette lash out and go on a rampage on her own…”

It was like Sara had been right there with them. She’d completely nailed the way Erna and Annette had been working completely out of sync, even if they looked like they were on the same wavelength.

“It’s not true, you know. Even when we’re separated, we’re alwaysconnected. And when the two of you mess up, your teammates will have your backs.”

Sara’s voice always had a way of reaching the softest part of Erna’s heart.

“I know that together, the two of you will make the revolution a reality.”

That was the end of the recording.

As soon as it finished playing, Erna felt the waterworks come.

Just as Sara said, they were connected. They might have been separated by distance, but they were all joined in the common goal of starting a revolution. When one of them was in peril, the others could come to their aid.

Erna wasn’t alone.

It was such a simple fact, yet it was one she’d spent the past year overlooking. She’d gotten so flustered, she’d failed to actually listen to what Annette was saying, and she’d fallen right into Nike’s trap.

Now Sara’s words were gently and warmly correcting her mistake.

When Erna let out a wail and began sobbing, the Knights of Valor members anxiously rushed over to her. “We have to get moving,” they urged her.

The only one who didn’t was Jean, who stared at the hawk’s collar as realization dawned on him. “That voice… Was that the brown-haired girl from just now…?” He crouched next to Erna in confusion. “L-look, can we really trust her? Is the LWS Troupe really still—?”

“Will you quit it with the pathetic bellyaching?!”

Jean’s eyes went wide. “…I’m sorry?” he said as Erna grabbed him by the collar.

“That doesn’t even matter!” she growled at the man who’d proved himself all but useless. “That’s not what Big Sis Sara showed us! She showed us something else!”

Her throat trembled from the force of her cry.

“That it doesn’t matter if we’re not strong enough! All it takes is a little courage, and we can stand up to Nike!!”

Sara’s majestic figure had, without a doubt, been carved into their minds. She’d faced off against the Genesis Army all on her own, and everyone in that lecture hall had seen her bravery.

That would provide the tailwind the revolution needed—Erna had to believe it would.

“Get word to everyone who’s ever helped the Knights of Valor and tell them to destroy any evidence of what they did!” Once Erna started shouting, she didn’t stop. “If we don’t hurry, the ones who got captured are going to start talking! We can still save the society! Don’t let everything Big Sis Sara risked her life protecting go to waste!”

When Jean blinked at her in bewilderment, she felt a surge of fury rising in her.

If he had simply been more competent, then much of the situation could have been salvaged. The fault for bringing Chloe back from the mines might have lain with Erna, but letting her talk him into doing something as monumentally stupid as gathering the group’s entire leadership together was simply unacceptable.

Spurred on by her frustration, she let out another bellow. “I’m in charge of the group now! You aren’t cut out for the job!”

That was what she should have done from day one.

She should have used every power at her disposal to seize control. She’d simply lacked the conviction to do so.

From that night on, the Knights of Valor vastly scaled back their operations.

Most of their officers had been arrested by the Genesis Army, but with the help of their supporters, the ones who escaped managed to establish a new base of operations and had begun diligently building back up. Jean was still technically in charge, but for all intents and purposes, the group had become a subordinate arm of Lamplight that answered to Erna. The officers held Sara in particular regard, and they were all fiercely loyal to her.

Sara had accomplished a lot, but the price was correspondingly steep.

“Meadow” Sara had been captured.

Losing the teammate she idolized like an older sister made Erna feel like a hole had been punched through her chest. She knew what happened to captured spies. They got tortured, and ultimately, they got executed.

Lamplight’s first battle against Nike, their mightiest foe to date, had ended in defeat. They’d been completely and thoroughly bested.

“Wuh…”

What escaped Erna’s mouth was an empty, hollow wail.

“WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

For all her lamentations, though, the situation was unchanged.

Until the revolution was complete, there would be no end to Lamplight’s mission.

Interlude: Meadow IV

“What sort of headspace are you training in right now?”

Klaus immediately picked up on the way Sara’s emotions had shifted. She hadn’t been trying to hide it or anything, but it was still an impressive feat.

Sara was on cooking duty that day, and Klaus had walked in while she was in the kitchen. He’d caught her alone while her shiftmate Lily was out buying dessert.

It pained her a little to break the news to the man who’d put so much faith in her. “I gave up. I’m never going to be a first-rate spy.”

“…What are you talking about?”

There was a hint of confusion in his voice.

Sara would be lying if she said it didn’t hurt to hear that, but she had no regrets about the path she’d chosen. “I know it sounds a bit silly coming from me, but everyone on Lamplight has things they’re a bit scatterbrained about.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“So instead of honing my strengths, I’ve decided to be a spy who can shore up my teammates’ weaknesses. That way, I’ll be able to protect them better.”

Her goal wasn’t to be a hyper-specialized expert, but rather to be average, with no particular flaws. That was the conclusion she’d reached. From Lily’s clumsiness to Grete’s as-yet-dubious endurance to Erna’s lack of interpersonal skills, all the Lamplight girls had some clear gaps in their skill sets. Therein lay Sara’s new objective—to become someone who could fill in those holes.

If that meant giving up on going head-to-head with powerful foes, then that was fine by her. It wasn’t like she would have been able to beat them anyway. She could simply get her teammates to defeat them for her. It was her allies with the first-rate skills, not her.

In all the world, there wasn’t a single person as blessed with teammates as her.

So knowing that, Sara had chosen to put her trust in the others.

“That’s what I’m going to be. A bland, unrefined second-rate spy who keeps her allies safe.”

First things first, she was going to need to shore up her close-quarters and conversational abilities. Those were Erna’s and Annette’s big weaknesses. Sara didn’t need to become the best of the best. As long as she got stronger than those two, then she’d be able to use those skills to protect them.

When she explained her current goals, she couldn’t help but break into a smile.

“Was that a constructive choice, do you think?”

Klaus’s expression was stony.

Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t convinced.

“This isn’t what I had in mind when I played Heide’s music for you. I wasn’t trying to beat you down, get you to know your place, or give in. I think too highly of your talents for that.”

Sara was infinitely grateful to hear that from a spy of his caliber. He and Monika had spent so much time cheering her on, acknowledging her skills, and doing everything they could to help her grow. They thought of her as a prodigy, and their actions reflected that. Everything she was, she was thanks to them.

Yet in spite of all that, she had to refute them. And she needed to do it before their encouragement became a curse binding her in place.

Sara was going to live selfishly. She was going to go her own way, even if it meant going against their expectations.

After many trials and tribulations, she’d outgrown her mentors.

“For me, even being second-rate feels like an impossibly high bar to hit.”

Sara shared her honest thoughts.

“After all, my real dream is to eventually quit being a spy.”

It was a perilous line of work, and she wanted to get out of it as soon as she could. A slower life was much more her speed. She was going to save up her completion bonuses, visit lots of countries to expand her horizons, and someday, she was going to retire alongside her friends.

There was no need for her to shine.

She didn’t have to be the center of attention. If it meant keeping her teammates alive, she was willing to sink to whatever depths it took.

She wanted to be a wildfire—a meadow that let her allies’ lights grow into massive conflagrations.

During her time working for the man code named Bonfire, she’d finally grown to accept herself. Once she’d gotten her friends’ fires too big to stop, she was happy just burning out and disappearing.

Klaus’s eyes widened a smidge. “I really…”

“Hm?”

“No, it’s just…I failed to lead you, in every sense of the word. Back when you didn’t have a dream of your own, and back when you couldn’t close the gap between your dreams and reality, you ended up finding solutions all by yourself.”

It was rare to see him at such a loss for words.

Eventually, he gave his head a disappointed shake.

“It’s weird, though. Even so, I’m feeling a surge of pride.”

Sara could feel her face go bright red.

Those words alone made it all feel worth it.

Even if she quit, the time she spent with Lamplight wasn’t for nothing. A life one was forced into was completely different from one they’d grabbed hold of for themselves. The fact that she’d been able to weigh it against being a spy gave the future she’d chosen for herself an irreplaceable value.

There was something she’d decided it was better not to say, yet it spilled from her lips anyhow. “To tell you the truth…I actually found another dream recently.”

“What’s that?”

Right then, the oven made a satisfying noise. The vegetables she’d been roasting were finished. Sara put on her mitts and opened the oven door. A rush of hot air came out, accompanied by the delightful smell of melted cheese.

“When I quit being a spy and open up my restaurant—”

She pulled out her gratin and looked at Klaus. She’d taken a recipe he’d taught her and added her own twist to it.

“—I’m going to make you into my biggest fan, Boss.”

Klaus had given her so much.

This time, she wanted to be the one giving back to him.

“I’ll make it so good, you’ll want to come eat there every single day. It’ll be a restaurant you’ll keep visiting forever and ever for your whole life. That’s my big dream…”

As soon as she first pictured that idyllic future, she hadn’t been able to get it out of her head. The image of opening a restaurant with her Lamplight friends and having Klaus visit them every day had been stuck with her. She’d initially fantasized about working alongside him, but she’d decided that serving him food sounded even more appealing.

Sara was ready to put her life on the line fighting for that dream.

“What are you talking about?” Klaus said, looking baffled.

“I already am your fan. I’m your fan right now, at this very moment.”

At no point had he fallen back into his habit of calling things “magnificent.”

Perhaps his feelings were so great, that word wasn’t enough to contain them. When Sara realized that, she very nearly broke out into tears of heartfelt joy.

Epilogue: Meetup

“The other two gave us the slip, huh? Well, them’s the breaks.”

Nike shrugged in the Nicola University quadrangle.

The scattering Knights of Valor members had been captured one after another. This time, the Genesis Army made sure to handcuff them. The reason they hadn’t the first time around was because they were trying to build a cooperative relationship with them, but that appeared to have backfired.

The brown-haired girl showing up had made a proper mess of everything.

Nike looked down at the girl lying unconscious by a statue. Sara, she’d called herself.

She handed her sledgehammer back to her agent Thanatos.

“Ma’am… Just who is that brown-haired girl…?”

“That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it? Shame she bashed her own head in and knocked herself out.”

The girl had done it to preserve information, no doubt.

For all of Nike’s talents, not even she could torture someone who was unconscious. It would have taken some serious guts to pull that off. Sara hadn’t even given Nike an opening to stop her.

For the time being, Nike ordered Thanatos to treat Sara’s wounds. She couldn’t have the girl dying on her.

As Thanatos stanched Sara’s bleeding, Nike took another look at her. Her face seemed so young. “What do you think, Thanatos?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I thought it’d be nice to get your take on things for a change.”

“Whaaat…? I’m not worthy…”

After hesitating for a bit, Thanatos shared his thoughts.

“…The part about being the LWS Troupe’s representative was a lie. If she was, it wouldn’t have been worth risking herself to save a bunch of measly students… And if she was a Galgad spy, she would have played things differently… Their methods are a lot cruder and more ruthless than hers… The blond girl’s papers did say she was an exchange student from the Din Republic…but there’s a good chance that was fake, so it doesn’t really tell us—HURGH!”

From out of nowhere, Nike kicked him in the flank. “I’m not asking you to spell out the obvious. What I want to know is, what’s beyond that?”

Thanatos had finished patching the girl up. Now it was her own vitality that would determine when she would next wake up.

“What are the brown-haired girl and her allies plotting for after the revolution’s end?”

“What do you mean?” Thanatos choked out as he clutched his side.

“I’m thinking their real target might just be the same as the LWS Troupe’s—they’re gunning for the Nostalgia Project.”

That obnoxious secret society had viewed revolution as a simple means to an end, too.

When Nike’s thoughts turned to the men she’d once been forced to fight, she licked her lips.

“People who are trying to attack the Nostalgia Project…” At long last, Thanatos was on the same page. “Then that means…they must be with Serpent…”

“Oh, I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. It could also be—”

When she trailed off, it was because a smile had overtaken her face.

She could feel her temperature rising. The heat was coming from her abdomen.

“…You seem excited, ma’am.”

“When you get to be my age, it’s not often your womb throbs like this.”

Nike laughed and opened her eyes as wide as they would go.

“It doesn’t matter who they are—for the sake of my unending first love, I can’t let them lay one goddamn finger on the project.”

Thanatos let out a heated pant. “Ah… Your heart really does still belong to—”

Nike punched him in the face. For some reason, what he’d been saying rubbed her the wrong way. She wanted him to get his kicks from her physical abuse, not from some strange fantasies.

As she stomped on Thanatos’s unconscious body, the rest of her people came trickling over. Unsurprisingly, the blond and pink-haired girls had given them the slip. The Knights of Valor were wholly irrelevant, but those two had proved themselves to be priority targets.

The Genesis Army agents waited for Nike to speak.

She hadn’t told them the truth about the LWS Troupe, but there was little point in trying to play it off now. She’d taken care not to surround herself with the kind of operatives dense enough for that sort of thing to fly.

Of her fifteen agents, she turned her gaze to two of them in particular. They were a man and a woman who’d gone above and beyond during that mission. Nike had poached those two up-and-comers from the navy.

“Aion. Circe. Could I ask you two for a favor?”

Over in a brasserie in the tenth arrondissement, “Pandemonium” Sybilla was at a bit of a loss.

Her partner, “Meadow” Sara, had gone radio silent on her. They’d been hitting up the Lylat Kingdom’s military bases and Royal Guard outposts across the world in search of supporters for their revolution when they discovered a huge Royal Guard contingent gathering at the Bertram Mines. Rumor had it that they’d even clashed with the workers.

In truth, the mines were a trap designed to lure out spies and secret societies. Sybilla and Sara fell for it hook, line, and sinker and headed straight there. The only reason they were able to gather intel without getting rounded up was thanks to Sara’s The High Plain of Heaven. She was the one who sent mice carrying recording devices into all the various Royal Guard offices. Many of the devices went missing, and only maybe one percent of the recordings they recovered were actually useful, but they sent out so many that eventually, they got results.

Midway through their investigation, though, Sara went off on her own.

From what Sybilla understood, Erna and Annette had arrived at the mines not long after she and Sara left. Then Annette used a discarded The High Plain of Heaven to pass along some information about their secret society. When Sara realized that Erna and Annette were in danger, she talked things over remotely with Grete before rushing to Erna’s and Annette’s sides.

Then, by the look of things, Nike had captured her.

Eh… If she did it to save Erna and Annette, then there’s not a damn thing I coulda done to stop her.

Sybilla let out a long exhale and smirked.

That makes it two of us behind bars… Shit’s startin’ to wear on us.

She paid her tab and stood up to leave.

The legal drinking age in Lylat was sixteen. Sybilla had already turned nineteen, so she had no problems going in and out of taverns. Nobody so much as questioned her. She’d grown her white hair out long, and between that and the way her face had toughened up over the past two years, everything about her seemed grown-up. She’d even lost her last bits of girlish flab and replaced them with muscles as lean, firm, and supple as any athlete’s. It was those very toned legs that carried her toward the exit.

After slapping her payment on the counter, she stretched her shoulders. “We’d probably best start meetin’ back up, huh?”

The night Sara was captured, a black dog stopped by Sybilla’s hotel.

Sara’s pet Johnny was a little banged up, but the sense of duty in his eyes was a testament to how much he’d grown from back when he was a puppy.

Sybilla followed him to a spot near Nicola University, where she collected a white cat and some mice, then followed him again to an apartment in the suburbs.

Inside, she found some of her Lamplight teammates hiding out and looking a bit older than the last time she’d seen them.

“Heya, Erna. Heya, Annette.”

“Big Sis Sybilla…”

Erna teared up immediately after opening the door. When Sybilla came inside, Erna clung to her with her shoulders trembling.

“It’s my fault…,” she choked through her sobs. “It’s all my fault… They took Big Sis Sara…”

“You didn’t do nothin’ wrong. Sara made her decision.”

Sybilla hugged Erna tight and patted her back.

Erna shook her head from within Sybilla’s arms. “But now Big Sis Sara is going to—”

She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

Spies and activists who got captured there were subjected to a firing squad. Either that, or they were beheaded by guillotine, a comparatively humane execution device that had been invented right there in Lylat. The odds that Sara would be spared and sent to work as a double agent were exceedingly low.

In the back of the room, Annette was expressionlessly fiddling with some sort of device. She was so focused that she hadn’t even noticed Sybilla come in. It was like she needed something to do with her hands to keep her mind off things.

Erna described everything that had gone down in the Nicola University lecture hall. She told Sybilla about how she’d gotten involved with a secret society called the Knights of Valor, about how she’d worked in the mines, and about how she got attacked by Nike and rescued by Sara.

Sybilla let go of her and took a step back. “Tell me, what was the last thing Sara said to you two?”

Erna sniffled. “She told…me and Annette…to work together and make the revolution a reality.”

“She’s such a mom.”

Sybilla smirked at how very Sara that advice was.

“Anyway, we don’t have time for mopin’.” She clapped Erna on the shoulder. “And besides, it’ll all be fine once the revolution succeeds. Everything’ll be hunky-dory.”

“Huh?”

“The Genesis Army ain’t gonna just bump off a source as valuable as her. They took her alive. All we gotta do is take over the government, and we’ll be able to set all their captured spies free.”

Revolutions had the power to completely transform the law of the land. There was plenty of historical precedent for activists and criminals getting released when the government got overthrown.

Erna shook her head. “But I don’t even know what to—”

“The LWS Troupe is real.”

Sara had found out about that classified bit of intelligence during their time in the Bertram Mines. There was a strong possibility that the secret society really had been behind the strike.

Erna’s eyes went wide. “They are…?”

Given her reaction, she must have thought Sara had made the whole thing up.

“The bit about Sara bein’ their representative was bullshit, sure. But it wasn’t all lies.”

Because of that, they had hope.

The LWS Troupe wasn’t just a group that had successfully forced a king off his throne and influenced scores of secret societies that came after them, they were still operating to that day. The double meaning in that Gilbert guy’s blackened wing had been true. The LWS Troupe was the mightiest secret society in the nation, and fireworks were their symbol.

Sybilla grinned in hopes of renewing Erna’s resolve. “What Sara did proved somethin’. The Genesis Army ain’t found the Troupe yet. And whatever it is they’re cookin’, it’s big enough they’ve even got Nike freaked out.”

The fact that Nike herself had gotten involved was a testament to just how important that secret society was. Nike was scared enough of them that after she found out they’d been operating in the Bertram Mines, she’d gone and set traps designed to catch anyone who went there.

The girls would be fools to overlook that. The LWS Troupe could very well give the revolution the momentum it needed.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us—we gotta track down the LWS Troupe before the Genesis Army does.”

Sara’s efforts had given them a direction.

She’d become a wildfire, and it was time for the flames she’d protected to turn into a roaring blaze. For when a meadow caught fire and its vegetation burned, there wasn’t a person alive who could stop the ensuing inferno.

Next Mission

The Twins’ Story II

Three years before Lamplight got to work in the Lylat Kingdom, a pair of twins were engaged in some machinations of their own.

The twins in question—the older brother “Soot” Lukas and the younger brother “Scapulimancer” Wille—were members of the Din Republic spy team Inferno, and armed with wiles and finesse, they were working toward the exact same goal as Lamplight. The Nostalgia Project had originated from key figures in the Lylat government, and the twins were determined to find out just what the project was about. A hunch told them it might end up spelling disaster for Inferno, and they weren’t just about to sit back and let that happen.

Their plan was to figure out what the Nostalgia Project was and crush it while causing as little fuss as possible.

Their main targets had been aristocrats, who they’d entrapped into giving them intel. Now, with their preparations complete, the twins began moving to overturn the nation in earnest.

There was a small house situated in the tenth arrondissement, and one day, as rain poured frigidly from the sky, the twins sat before a wood fire and gave a lecture to a young girl.

“There’s a group of seven people called the Ending Spies, see.

“There’s Hearth, Nike, Yatagarasu, Shadowseed, Banshee, Torchlight, and Cursemaster.

“The way people tell it, the seven of them played a big role in bringing the Great War to a close.”

The older brother, “Soot” Lukas, did most of the talking.

The two of them may have been identical, but there were a few subtle differences to the ways they carried themselves. The young man who laughed often and had a boyish innocence in his eyes was the older of the two. Conversely, the one whose meek smile belied the thoughtfulness in his gaze was the younger brother.

Lukas continued the lecture in an overly dramatic tone. “Hearth and Torchlight are teammates of ours. I’ll tell you about ’em later. Yatagarasu is this guy from the United States of Mouzaia’s intelligence organization, the JJJ. He’s basically the same age as the two of us, so it’s pretty damn impressive he made his way onto the list. He’s got a thing for little boys, though. Then there’s Shadowseed, who’s an old dude from the Bumal Kingdom’s Curse agency with a taste for human flesh. Aside from that, he’s surprisingly chill. Banshee, well… I’ve never actually met the guy. He wanders from one agency to the next. During the war, I think he was working for Mouzaia? And Cursemaster is with the CIM, over in the Fend Commonwealth. The guy wears all kinds of jangly stuff. Trust me, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about if you saw him.”

Every so often, he would smack his fountain pen against his notepad.

After rattling off the features of most of the seven, he gave his notepad the biggest thump yet for the finisher.

“But out of that whole list—Nike is the nastiest one of all.”

“I wish I didn’t believe it.”

The girl on the other end of the lecture scowled in displeasure.

The girl’s name was Suzie. She was a bright girl with blond hair.

The twins had met Suzie midway through the job. She’d been taken from her orphanage and sold to a corrupt aristocrat, and Lukas had saved her right before she got pawned off to someone truly depraved. Returning her to the orphanage wasn’t exactly an option, so the brothers had decided to hire her to help with their operation.

Now they were filling her in on the baseline level of knowledge she needed to be able to take part in their plan. Society hadn’t been kind to her, and she already held a grudge against the Lylat Kingdom.

“We don’t mean she’s nasty as in, like, a pervert or something,” Wille interjected with an awkward smile. “She just doesn’t have any weaknesses. No easy vulnerabilities to exploit.”

“Well, that’s a bit of a relief,” replied Suzie. “She does represent my nation, after all.”

“Trust me, that’s not a good thing.”

Suzie nodded. “Oh, sure—our king and prime minister are up to no good. You want to find out what they’re doing, but Nike would get in your way if you tried anything—I’m picking up what you’re putting down!”

She’d been as docile as a kitten when they initially took her in, but after a few days, she got over her nerves and started letting her brash, outspoken personality show. She bobbed her head as she eagerly listened to the twins’ lesson.

“Looks like our princess is a quick learner.”

Suzie puffed her chest up with pride at Lukas’s compliment.

Wille chimed in, too. “It’s teatime, Princess,” he said, offering her a scone.

As Suzie was the twins’ collaborator, they were doing everything in their power to make her feel welcome. At first, they’d just been doing it as part of their plan, but now, the way it made her visibly light up was as much a reason as anything.

“I have a question, Teach!” Suzie said, raising her hand. Her mouth was covered in scone crumbs. “You said that a revolution would be a good way to get Nike out of your way, right?”

“Yep.”

“But how are you supposed to make a revolution happen? Isn’t that impossible? The king and all the rich people and even Nike will all try to stop you.”

“We’d need to get three different groups on our side,” Lukas explained. “The masses, the Royal Guard, and the aristocracy. That’s the standard method. You rile the masses up and hold rallies and marches, you pull some strings so the Royal Guard doesn’t interfere, and you have bigwigs like aristocrats lay the groundwork to build a new government afterward.”

“That sounds like a popular revolution, all right!”

“But that also sounds like a pain, so we’re not gonna do that.”

When Lukas said that, all of Suzie’s excitement turned to confusion. “You’re not?”

Wille handled the explanation. He and his brother didn’t have time to do things the long way. They also had no duty of care to the Lylat Kingdom itself, so they were willing to make a bit of a mess if it meant neutralizing Nike faster.

Suzie was a bit peeved. “What’s the plan, then?” she asked.

“We’re gonna crush the country’s backbone with our very first move—we’re going after the Chamber of Deputies.”

Lukas gave her an ominous smirk.

The Chamber of Deputies was the lower house in Lylat’s Parliament, and unlike the upper house known as the Chamber of Peers, the Chamber of Deputies’ members were chosen by election.

All authority may have been concentrated around the king, but that didn’t mean Parliament was powerless. Only the king had the ability to issue legislation, the Chamber of Deputies still deliberated on those bills, and they had the right to request revisions. Convention restricted the king from fully disregarding what they had to say.

“Right now, the Chamber is split into a few parties of varying strength and positions.”

Wille jotted the basics down on his notepad.

ROYALISTS—hard conservatives who support rule via royal fiat, mostly nobles and clergy, 185 seats

RATIONALISTS—moderate conservatives who push for a stronger constitutional monarchy, mostly capitalists and disgraced nobles, 170 seats

LIBERALISTS—reformists who want democratic governance, mostly lawyers and legal scholars, 75 seats

“This is what the power balance looks like,” he said next.

355 seats (Royalists, Rationalists) vs. 75 seats (Liberalists)

The Royalists and Rationalists didn’t see eye to eye on all the details, but their beliefs were fundamentally compatible. Neither of them wanted radical reforms, and they were perfectly happy for the king’s reign to continue. As the mouthpiece of the masses, the Liberalists had some objections, but they lacked the power to actually do anything.

After she stared at the numbers, Suzie’s expression soured. “I don’t know what to say… Maybe there really is no hope for Lylat…”

“In a way, things were better back in its Imperial days,” Wille explained. “At least then, things flourished domestically. But when there was nothing more to conquer and empires starting turning on each other, the good times stopped rolling pretty quick. War reduced their land to rubble, and the colonies started going on strike after getting squeezed for every able body they had. It took everything the aristocrats had just to keep their own fortunes intact.”

“Turns out, getting invaded sucks.” Lukas chuckled.

The fact of the matter was, the Lylat Kingdom had been in a bad way ever since the Great War’s end. They’d suffered the most casualties out of any of the Allies, and their financial situation was in shambles. Over-drafting of soldiers from their colonies during the war had given rise to resistance movements, and many aristocrats had lost everything. A big part of the reason Lylat had seized Galgad’s industrial zone was in order to bolster their flagging economy.

However, it was the masses that suffered the brunt of the strain.

“The cabinet—the government’s beating heart—is packed full of Royalist deputies.” Wille snapped his notepad shut. “Now, what do you think we can do to beat the Royalists?”

Suzie covered her mouth as she sank into thought, then enthusiastically raised her hand. “Help out the Liberalists!”

“Incorrect, little princess.”

“Aww…”

Suzie slumped her shoulders, and Lukas laughed. “Look, you aren’t wrong, but if changing the government was that simple, our jobs would be a lot easier.” Suzie getting overexcited and the twins having to gently guide her in the right direction had become a pattern for them lately.

Lukas flicked Wille’s notebook with his finger.

“The right answer is, we give the Royalists all the support they could ever want.”

To beat the Royalists, they were going to help the Royalists.

It sounded like a contradiction, and Suzie cocked her head in bewilderment. “Huh?”

For the next two months, the twins worked their butts off for the Royalists.

They hadn’t been kidding when they said that their sights were fixed on the Chamber of Deputies, and they did everything in their power to support their chosen party. When some Rationalist deputies pushed back against the king’s proposed tax hikes, the twins dug into their backgrounds and blackmailed them into submission. For some of them, they leaked the information they gleaned directly to the Royalists. The Rationalist deputies, who’d been taking hefty bribes from the United States of Mouzaia, quickly changed their tune and stopped fighting back against the Royalists’ nastiness.

One time, the twins found out about a Rationalist who’d fallen for a foreign honey trap and used that information to force them into giving the Royalists their unconditional support. Another time, they laid a devious trap for a deputy who’d used their government connections to secure a monopoly on tobacco.

All throughout their machinations, they continued giving Suzie her lessons.

“In fairness, this is what we’ve been doing all along,” Lukas explained while he wrote up letters of complaint to the newspaper. “Taking disgraced aristocrats and capitalists—Rationalists and the electors—and hoisting them by their own petards. The whole reason I met you was because I was taking down that Marquis Watteau guy, remember?”

At the time, Lukas had been working at an illegal casino run by an aristocrat.

Wille nodded in agreement as he plugged away at his task as well. He was in the middle of writing love letters to Rationalist deputy secretaries. Each and every one was packed full of passion and sweet nothings. “This nation’s upper class is a real piece of work. They cover up everything from murders to rapes. It’s like a million scandals just waiting to happen.”

Suzie watched them seal up the mountain of envelopes and cocked her head. “But how do you know who did what?”

“As soon as I look at them, I just do,” Wille replied.

“Don’t try to make sense of it,” Lukas suggested. “My little brother’s a freak of nature, that’s all.”

The twins’ schedule was filled with guests they needed to entertain. They’d gotten a number of cops and judges to act as their informants, and they spent just about every night having conversations with them behind closed doors to gather gossip and blackmail material on the deputies. Whenever their coffers ran dry, they made trips abroad to illegal casinos and raked in the dough. Once the twins got through two or three meetings and had drunk themselves stupid, it was Suzie’s job to bring them water.

When she did, the lessons continued.

“…Huh?” she said. “You find out the dirt, but then you cover it up anyway?”

“That’s right…… Ah, thanks for the water…Princess…”

“But if you’re just going to cover it up, then what’s even the point?”

“We can sell the info to other members of the upper class… Take dirt on the Rationalists, give it to the Royalists…”

“Oh, I get it. Because the Royalists are the ones with strong ties to the judicial branch!”

“It’s not like they’d actually lock the Rationalists up, but it sure stops them from opposing the Royalists. That makes the Royalists more powerful, and it gets easier and easier for the king to push his bills through… Ugh, my head…”

They also devoted quite a bit of effort toward making new allies.

Unlike the secret societies that had to operate covertly, their position as Royalist backers let them operate completely out in the open. By getting cozy with bureaucrats, they were able to find out ahead of time what laws the king was trying to pass and what citizen groups opposed them, and that knowledge let them plan out their schemes in advance.

The twins used the mailbox of a company they’d bought to handle all the communications with their growing list of allies. After Suzie went and collected all the letters from the mailbox, the twins looked over them at their hideout.

“It feels like we’re just making things in Lylat worse,” Suzie remarked. “I don’t know if I like this…”

“Guilty as charged,” Wille replied.

“Just remember, it’s not our job to help this place out,” Lukas added.

“What? That’s horrible,” Suzie said. “Oh, but if things get too bad here, you’ll take me with you to Din, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” Wille replied. “We’d be happy to have you, Princess. Right, Lukas?”

“Yep. But I wouldn’t be too worried if I were you. We might end up saving this country anyway, you know?”

“What do you mean?” Suzie asked. “Come on, tell me already! What good does helping the Royalists do?”

“It’s gonna make the king eat himself alive.”

“………Hwuh?”

After two months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the major newspapers announced that a new law had been passed: the Great War Asset Compensation Act. It was a measure that would use money from the national treasury to cover damages suffered during the Galgad invasion. Anyone who lost land or property over a certain value would be made whole.

It was, in essence, to direct wealth transfer to capitalists and the aristocracy. The king had lost all propriety and was practically spitting in the masses’ faces.

“But why…?” When Suzie read the news in the morning paper, she began trembling right there in the hideout. When she first joined up with the twins, they’d instructed her to read the news every day. “How did a law like that even pass?! Do they have no respect for the suffering we’re going through—?”

“Heh, just like we drew it up.”

For all of Suzie’s shouting and hollering, beside her, Lukas smiled smugly. He skimmed the paper and scoffed.

Everything was going according to the twins’ plan.

“Lylat intelligence might be hot shit, but with how corrupt their king and his cabinet are, they don’t have what it takes to be our opponents.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“When the Royalists start getting out of control, the Rationalists will have no choice but to join up with the Liberalists.” Wille took out his notepad and started writing. “And that’ll shift the balance of power.”

Once again, he showed her what the situation in Parliament looked like.

BEFORE: 355 seats (Royalists, Rationalists) vs. 75 seats (Liberalists)

NOW: 185 seats (Royalists) vs. 245 seats (Rationalists, Liberalists)

The change was plain as day. The Rationalists had shifted sides, leaving the Royalists isolated. The number of seats controlled by each party hadn’t actually changed—none of the blackmail material had been used to force Rationalists to step down. Yet even so, there had been a dramatic change in the political landscape.

Now Suzie understood what the twins had been aiming for. “That’s why you helped out the Royalists… To force the Rationalists to act!”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but basically, yeah.”

The Royalists wanted to expand the monarchy’s influence, and the Rationalists wanted a monarchy that abided by the constitution. Both parties wanted to support the existing power structures, and the similarities in their beliefs had historically made them allies. With the Royalists going out of control, though, the Rationalists had little choice but to stand against them. They were happy to have a government that benefited the rich and powerful, but they drew the line at having the king and an even smaller elite receive further boons on top of that. However, the bill was a prime example of exactly that. For aristocrats who’d lost their fortunes after the war was over and capitalists who’d rebuilt quickly, there wasn’t enough to be gained.

Now the upper class was turning on itself, and the Royalists were getting the short end of the stick.

Suzie simply couldn’t believe it. People who harmed the government got locked up. That was how it worked in Lylat. “If this is so bad for the Royalists, then why didn’t Nike and the Genesis Army stop it?”

“Because they’re powerless to stop people from helping the king.”

Wille’s answer earned a gasp from Suzie.

The Genesis Army’s job was to crack down on spies and activists that opposed the royal administration. However, all Lukas and Wille had done was support the king. Even if Nike had found the twins out, there was no way the king and his cabinet would have let her arrest them. For all of Nike’s power, defying the king was still easier said than done.

Thanks to their unusual strategy, they’d completely boxed Nike out.

Just then, a carrier pigeon came flying to the hideout window. There was a letter strapped to its leg. The twins’ supporters only used those for passing along highly urgent information.

“Our tip just came in. It’s coming next week,” Lukas said with a smirk when he read the letter. “They’re holding a vote of no confidence against the cabinet.”

The twins had a number of allies in Parliament, too.

After soaking the letter in water to destroy it, Lukas went on. “The opposition’s got a majority now, so that’s hardly a surprise. We’re about to have us some parliamentary elections. Only problem is, I doubt the king’s gonna hold to the principles of fair and honest elections. We’re gonna have our work cut out for us.”

Now that the cabinet had a motion of no confidence looming over them, they were sure to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. Once they did that, there would be a new election. If the Royalists took a hard loss, it would herald a profound change for the nation.

“When you’ve got parties fighting over parliamentary seats, you’ve got an electoral game on your hands,” Lukas continued in delight. “And I don’t lose at games.”

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the invincible royal administration had come crumbling down. Things in the Chamber of Deputies had seemed all but hopeless, yet the political situation had shifted. And it had done so on the whims of a single man.

Lukas had told her about his title—the title of games master.

He was a spy who’d moved untold political organizations and special-interest groups to action. With unimaginable skill, he’d tied the Genesis Army’s hands and led the king to ruin, with the king himself being none the wiser.

It took Suzie a good long while to pick her jaw up off the floor. She could tell that the man before her was, quite literally, one of the best spies in the world.

For some reason, that knowledge made her chest ache.

“…You could probably win just fine without me,” she couldn’t help but mumble.

They might have been working together, but it felt like the distance between her and them was impossibly vast.

The twins cocked their heads in almost perfect unison.

“Huh? Of course we need you.”

“Yeah, what’re you talking about? We can’t have our princess going all mopey on us.”

They smiled warmly to show her how wrong she was.

“Every revolution has to have a spark. We might have you become a genuine princess, you know?”

“………?”

“And even aside from that, we’re gonna be bringing in more people at some point. You’re gonna be the relay station keeping everyone on the same page. Don’t go saying you’re not important. That’s ridiculous.”

Hearing the twins say that filled her heart with warmth.

She didn’t know everything there was to know about them. At first, she’d only been helping them in order to repay them for saving her and in the hopes that they could save her country from the despair it was drowning in.

Now, though—now, she loved them.

They cherished her and treated her like a teammate, and she was overjoyed whenever they looked at her.

“Say, isn’t it high time we got ourselves a team name?”

Lukas gave Wille’s suggestion a big nod. “The group’s about to get bigger, yeah. Why don’t you pick us out one, Princess?”

When the twins turned to Suzie, her cheeks went red.

She could hardly even think straight, and the proposal she blurted out was to take one letter from each of their names. She immediately realized that putting their personal information in the name defeated the whole purpose of a secret society, but the twins were immediately on board. “Sounds magnificent.” “That’s magnificent, all right.”

That was how Suzie ended up donating an “S” to their moniker.

“The LWS Troupe.”

And just like that, a mysterious secret society that would eventually force King Benoit to abdicate the throne was born.

The Inferno twins sowed many seeds.

Those seeds included “Meadow” Sara, the animal lover that Lukas once scouted.

Aside from her, though, three other seeds had begun sprouting as well.

There was the LWS Troupe, a secret society they founded that Nike regarded as a maximum-priority threat. There was a girl with overwhelming levels of talent that Wille once scouted himself. And there was their de facto little brother who they worried about more than anyone and treasured dearly.

In time, all of those seeds would have the power to shake the Lylat Kingdom to its core.

She lit the fireworks.

She did it to pray for the souls of those who’d risked their lives striking in the Bertram Mines. The ringleaders would be executed, no doubt, and everyone else involved would be punished so severely, the ensuing despair would keep them from ever defying the government again. Either that, or they would get threatened into following the Genesis Army’s orders.

However, she wasn’t going to let their resistance be in vain.

Someone would understand. They would see that a proud secret society still existed in Lylat to that day. It pained her not to be able to shout it from the rooftops. Instead, she set off fireworks. Surely, someone would know what they meant. They would dig up the truth that had been buried by time and discover that the king had been forcibly ousted.

“Fire is our symbol,” her group’s leader had once said, and the second-in-command had followed up. “Keep lighting fires. You do that, and our teammates will be sure to find you.”

It was the last thing they told her before they died.

The girl had dutifully followed their instructions.

The two of them had taught her how to make fireworks. She got the gunpowder from her comrades in the army, and she built delayed-launch mechanisms out of wristwatches. By the time the fireworks went off, the person who lit them would be long gone.

The girl finished her preparations and headed to a far corner of the Friedrich Industrial Zone to observe her handiwork. She sat down in the desolate cemetery and looked up at the night sky.

“Lukas… Wille…”

As she watched the fireworks explode in the sky, she let out the faintest of sighs.

“…How much longer am I going to need to wait?”

Two whole years had passed since the twins died, and the girl was still waiting.

A pigeon came and landed on the roof of a high-rise in Pilca’s first arrondissement.

The plump, familiar-looking bird had seen better days. His feathers hadn’t been groomed recently and looked downright filthy. He’d clearly been separated from his owner.

“Ashes” Monika removed the letter that had been strapped to his leg.

“Looks like Sara’s been captured.”

After reading the encrypted report, she set it ablaze and tossed it out into the darkened city. The paper burned away before it hit the ground, and the wind carried the ashes away. Nothing in the letter was news to her, but she sighed a little at the reminder of what had happened.

The woman beside her smiled. It was “Dreamspeaker” Thea. Thea picked up the pigeon in both hands and lovingly stroked his head. “And that’s got your blood all boiling, has it?”

“Hm?”

“You are her mentor, after all. Planning on going and getting vengeance on behalf of your student?”

“That’s not it.”

Monika took the pigeon from Thea and hurled him out into the darkness. The bird—which was to say, Aiden—flew off over Pilca and disappeared into the night sky.

“It’s just that the whole plan was for them to avoid Nike and set up the revolution quietly. If they’re gonna butt heads with her like that, it sort of defeats the whole point.”

Thea laughed in agreement. “Well, no plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“Eh, it is what it is. I guess it goes to show how hard revolutions are to pull off.”

Monika combed back her hair to defend it from the wind and smiled.

“So screw the revolution—I’m gonna go find out what the Nostalgia Project is the old-fashioned way.”

That plan that had never been meant as anything more than a distraction.

It would have been great if they could pull it off, but there was a reason Klaus had built their strategy around rendering Nike powerless via a revolution. The only reason he’d even assigned a team to attack her directly was so they could restrict her options.

However, Monika had little interest in his projections.

“Now who’s not following the plan?” Beside her, Thea smirked. “As I recall, our job was just to serve as decoys and roadblocks.”

“Yeah, I was always planning on ignoring that.”

“I love it. With the two of us working together, Nike won’t know what hit her.”

“Nah, you’d just get in the way. I’ll beat her to a pulp all on my own.”

“…Are you sure you’re not out for vengeance?”

The two of them glared at the Genesis Army headquarters sitting right in the heart of Pilca.

The Nike squad—the two members with the most dangerous task of all—was brimming with a quiet determination.

Klaus could feel his pulse quicken as he walked onward.

The city he was in was a good 250 miles away from the Lylat capital, Pilca. He was operating independently of the Lamplight girls, and he headed slowly toward his destination in the Galgad capital of Darton.

A mission he couldn’t skip had just fallen into his lap.

An audacious letter had been sent straight to the headquarters of Din intelligence.

“We surrender. Would you be so kind as to grant me a meeting with Bonfire?”

The message and the identity of its sender had come as a huge shock. Klaus had been informed immediately, and after a discussion with management, it was decided that he would accept the invitation.

The other party wanted to speak to him alone. Klaus hadn’t brought anyone with him.

His destination was a manor atop a hill. It was a stately building sequestered out in the suburbs away from the hustle and bustle of Darton proper. Although it had been kept in good condition, the design of its gate and other features spoke to its long history. It had been used several centuries ago to serve as an aristocrat’s holiday villa.

Once Klaus checked precisely what country’s style the design incorporated, he had a pretty good idea of who he was dealing with.

Nobody came out to greet him. There were no doormen or servants.

In all likelihood, nobody actually lived there.

There was a table set up in the villa’s sad garden next to its bone-dry fountain. It was flanked by a pair of garden chairs.

Sitting in one of the chairs was a man.

“Forgive me for calling you all the way out here.”

His voice sounded strained. He must have had some sort of procedure done on his throat.

What surprised Klaus most was how unexpectedly young his counterpart was.

The person waiting for him was a handsome boy in his late teens. He was definitely younger than Klaus. His features were understated, and there was something artificial and masklike about his face. Long bangs dangled over the rim of his glasses. He was wearing a high-quality brand-name jacket, and his perfect sitting posture gave a glimpse into the quality of his upbringing.

At first glance, he appeared feeble and unimposing. The moment their gazes met, though, Klaus was forced to revise that assessment.

Buried in his eyes was the conviction of a soul willing to walk the road of bloodshed. There was an intensity about him that made one instinctively want to look away.

“My position makes it difficult to move about freely. I am sorry about the inconvenience. I am grateful you came all this way, O pupil of Blue Fly.”

“Never call my mentor that again,” Klaus snapped as he sat down on the chair opposite the boy.

Klaus was on high alert, but he didn’t sense anyone else in the area but the two of them. The boy had come alone, and he’d done so despite knowing that it could very well get him killed.

“My apologies,” the boy corrected himself, then looked Klaus straight in the eye.

“As Serpent’s boss, I would very badly like to make a deal with you.”

Far away from the Lylat Kingdom, the two of them began their conversation.

Lamplight and Serpent were two spy teams that had fought to the death over the world’s secrets, and now their respective bosses were meeting face-to-face.

Afterword

I know the Volume 10 afterword isn’t the greatest place for it, but I hope you don’t mind if I take a moment to talk about my writing process for Volume 9.

Recently, I’ve been posting some one-page Spy Classroom comics I’ve made on Twitter.

Some people have wondered if this means I’m trying to become a mangaka or if it’s the hot new scheme that light novel authors are using to drive social media engagement, but the honest truth of it is, I’m literally just doing it for fun. My big hobby used to be writing novels, but now that that’s become my job, it isn’t relaxing the way it was for so much of my life. Drawing manga is what I found to replace it. It all started when I was retweeting Spy Classroom fan art and my competitive spirit flared up. I want to make Spy Classroom fan art, too! I thought. (Though in my case, I don’t know if it really counts as “fan” art.) Maybe it uses a different part of my brain, but I found that I can still draw manga even when I’m completely worn out from writing. My art’s still pretty garbage, but I hope you’ll bear with me and give me time to improve.

Anyhow, while I was working on Volume 9, there was something I noticed when I drew manga to wind down.

“…Dang, when I put Annette and Erna together, it’s like the scenes just write themselves.”

I wonder what it is about those two? There are loads of characters I enjoy pairing together, but when I’m trying to think of something to fill a single page with, there isn’t a single duo as easy to work with as them. It made me aware of their potential all over again. Even just having Erna screech “Yeep! Yeep!” is adorable.

That was how the tenth volume came together. And with the two of them working hard, a certain someone had to pull out all the stops—because Sara is their author-approved guardian, and this was her book. Wasn’t it moving, seeing the three of them all fighting together?

At this point, I have some people I’d like to thank. Tomari, let me echo my thoughts from the previous volume and thank you for accepting my absurd request to change how every major character looks. I look forward to every new design you complete. I’d also like to express my gratitude to the anime staff for all the positive motivation you give me. Everything from the animation to the voice acting to the music to the merch provides so much inspiration for my writing. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Also, another thank-you to all my followers who retweet my amateur manga posts and leave kind comments. I’m determined to improve even more so I can give you all something to enjoy between novel releases. Don’t worry, I promise not to get so carried away that it starts impacting my work.

As for the anime, it should be covering the Volume 3 content when this comes out. I’ll have to bring my A game so the novels don’t get overshadowed.

Next up will be Volume 11. I’m hoping to get it out pretty quickly, to ride the momentum from the anime. The team’s older members have all grown up, and more and more of them just might start showing up. Until then, that’s all from me.

Takemachi