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.