Her eyes burned with resolve.
If that’s true, thought the principal, then I guess this will have to do.
“Juuust kidding. I’m super-afraid of dying. ♪”
Lily stuck out her tongue.
She was at her dorm’s incinerator and cheerfully talking to herself. She tossed her personal effects into the furnace one after another, slowly but surely eliminating any trace that she had ever been enrolled there. As she watched the smoke rise over the mountain on which the academy was situated, she let out a proud ahem.
“It’s basic deduction. If someone’s assembling an elite team to take on Impossible Missions, then it’s gonna be comprised of the best of the best. And that actually makes it safer than a regular old team. I’ve got it made! Man, I guess there’s no point hiding talent as magnificent as mine. Heh, looks like game really does recognize game.”
It was a well-known fact among the other students, but Lily’s personality was really quite something.
Unconcerned by the principal’s fears, she continued disposing of her things with nothing on her mind but glee at her provisional graduation.
I’m gonna be on an elite team!
Plus, the pay is awesome!
Just thinking about it had Lily downright ecstatic. “Whoo-hoo! Good-bye forever, childhood!” she cried as she tossed her old notebooks and test sheets into the fire. She had lived in the same dorm room for the past eight years, so there was quite a bit to get rid of.
Just as she was preparing to empty the last of her garbage can, a sheet of paper inside caught her eye.
“Considering how much potential she shows and how low our current student count is, we’ve decided to pass her.”
It was a report card, stuffed away in the very bottom of the bin.
She ripped it up without a word and tossed it into the incinerator.
All in all, there were ten forms that essentially said the same thing, and she did the same for each of them.
She had so much potential. That was the word they kept using to describe her. She was blessed with natural talents, and that was what had allowed her to remain at the academy for as long as she had. But when exactly were those talents supposed to bloom?
How many years of mediocrity would she have to suffer?
How many times would she have to endure the disdain of others?
“Screw that. I’m gonna do this.” Lily was determined to burn away all the anguish the academy had put her through. “This lily’s gonna join that elite team and come into full bloom there. See you never, alma mater!”
After cleaning out her dorm room, she immediately left. Sadly, she didn’t have time to say good-bye to her classmates. When they saw her empty room, they would no doubt all come to the same conclusion. Ah, they’d say, looks like the numbskull finally flunked out.
Lily boarded an unfamiliar bus, then transferred to an overnight train.
The next day, she arrived in a port city—the third largest metropolis in the Din Republic. Between its proximity to the capital and its harbor serving as a gateway to the rest of the world, the city was bustling and prosperous. When Lily got off the train, she couldn’t help but let out a sigh of amazement at the tightly packed lines of brickwork buildings.
She then set off down the road, sidestepping newsies and flower sellers as she headed to the specified establishment.
Her destination was a two-story building sandwiched between a watch store and a paint shop that sat on a road packed with white-collar workers coming and going. The sign outside read GARMOUTH SEMINARY, and there was a man smoking inside at what looked to be the front desk. Lily summoned her courage, then went in. “I’m the wonderful new transfer student,” she declared.
The man gave her a short look, then gestured farther inside with his thumb. “In the back.”
Ooh, this totally feels like spy stuff, Lily silently cooed.
On paper, Lily’s cover was that she was a student at a fictitious seminary school. She’d even been sent a uniform and all the proper ID.
The room the receptionist had directed her to was a storeroom filled with piles of wooden crates. Upon sliding them aside, she discovered a stairway leading to an underground passage. The passage didn’t have much in the way of light, but after following it for a short while, she reached an aboveground clearing.
And in the center, there was a massive manor.
In fact, the word manor hardly even seemed adequate. It was practically a palace, like the kind that nobles lived in.
Lily stared at it with her mouth agape.
How had she failed to notice something so ginormous? The answer to that lay in the city’s buildings. They were so compressed that they were essentially ramparts completely blocking the manor from view. There were probably people who’d lived in the city their whole lives who didn’t even realize it existed.
So this is where the Lamplight members are… Lily swallowed. Well, for an elite team that takes on Impossible Missions, their base definitely looks the part.
Who knew what sorts of geniuses she would find inside?
Lily would be lying if she said she wasn’t a bit scared, but more than anything, she hoped they were just as outstanding as she expected them to be. After all, she was counting on them to help awaken whatever talents she had hidden inside her.
She tried to suppress her heart’s rapid thumping as she opened the manor’s front door.
“Code name Flower Garden, at your service!”
As she did, she gave a bold, decidedly un-spy-like introduction.
Now, come on out, elites! Let’s see what we’re working with!
She looked inside, her eyes gleaming with nervousness and hope.
“Huh…?”
Then she cocked her head to the side.
In the foyer, there were six girls about the same age as her.
Laden with bags and suitcases, the young women turned to look at the new guest. It appeared they had just arrived as well, and all were wearing uniforms identical to the one Lily had been given.
One of the gaggle, a girl with short white hair, gave her a glare.
“Hey. You.”
She had a commanding presence and keen, confident eyes. Her gaze was so pointed it felt like a knife. Between that and her lean, toned figure, she was really quite intimidating.
“What were your grades like?”
“Uh…does anyone know where all the Lamplight members are?”
“Answer the question. And no bullshit.”
Whoa, what’s with this sudden interrogation? Am I being tested?
Under the weight of the girl’s menacing gaze, Lily reflexively blurted out the truth. “W-well, to be honest, I was pretty close to failing my—”
The rest of her answer was cut off by the ominous tolling of a clock filling the foyer.
There was a grandfather clock installed right in front of them, loud enough to reverberate through the whole manor.
When Lily looked, she discovered that it was six o’clock—the time she’d been instructed to arrive.
“Magnificent.”
The seven girls looked up as one.
None of them had noticed when, but a suited figure had appeared atop the central staircase in the middle of the foyer.
At first glance, the person’s fair complexion and shoulder-length hair suggested a woman, but upon further inspection of the slender frame devoid of any excess fat, it was just barely possible to identify the figure as a man—and a beautiful man at that.
However, the girls quickly realized that such beauty was the result of a systematic removal of anything wasteful or unnecessary, and there was something unsettling both about that fact and his expressionless, almost frozen-looking face. That said, as long as he did something about his hair, he’d be able to seamlessly disappear into any crowd in the city.
For some reason, though, his suit was stained a dark red. As if he’d just finished murdering someone.
“Welcome to Heat Haze Palace. I’m Klaus, the boss here at Lamplight.”
Apparently, that was the name of this building.
The man continued his explanation from atop the stairs. “I’m glad to see you all made it. Myself and the seven of you make up the full ranks of Lamplight, and together, our job is to take on an Impossible Mission.”
“Say what?” Lily replied.
“The mission begins in one month. Until then, I had planned to thoroughly train you, but…I imagine you’re all tired from your journeys. We’ll leave the training for tomorrow, and you can take today to get to know one another.”
Klaus twirled around and headed back into the manor.
In his wake, he left a dumbfounded silence.
Sorry, what did he just say?
Was Lamplight really just one guy and a bunch of young girls?
Did they really have only one month until the Impossible Mission?