Mission 27

With midterms finished, staff wheel the completed exams into Eden Academy's vault while grumbling that scores look poor this year. On the roof above, Loid has slipped onto campus fearing Anya failed, planning to pose as the physics teacher Mr. Viehmann and quietly improve her answers. He is not alone. A spy calling himself Daybreak, who proclaims himself Twilight's rival, is working his first real job on the same grounds and treats it with alarming carelessness.

Daybreak evades a guard patrol by dangling horizontally from a signpost, then smashes a window to unlock North Hall's door, prompting Loid to wonder whether the man is actually a burglar. Twilight covers the damage by planting a soccer ball nearby. Inside, a guard blocks the vault corridor, and Daybreak's teacher act collapses for lack of identification until Loid rescues him with a spare fake I.D. In that brief exchange Loid spots mission notes inked on the man's outstretched hand, self-sabotage so basic it leaves him stunned. Among the scribbles he recognizes two student registration numbers belonging to the Desmond brothers, and begins guessing at who hired him. At the vault door, Daybreak has miswritten the passcode, so he fakes a bathroom break and lets "Mr. Viehmann" open it, leaving Loid despairing that Operation Strix was built around a target whose enemies hire men like this.

Once inside, Daybreak clubs Loid to the floor, pries open the exam boxes, and rewrites Damian and Demetrius's answers into failing scores, then starts signing his own name to the tests for publicity. Loid springs up in outrage at the breach of tradecraft, then plays ignorant. After Daybreak rolls out, Loid restores both brothers' answers, noting that each is an exceptional student and that Demetrius missed only a single question. He then checks Anya's papers and reacts with surprise.

Five days later the rankings go up in the Quad. Damian takes 11th place plus a Stella Star for scoring 94 in History, one of the top two marks. Becky lands 46th. Anya sits at 213th of 228 students, yet having already read Loid's mind she knows she passed everything, and her open satisfaction baffles Damian's group. At home, Loid privately concedes her results are impressive by her own standard and just barely keep his mission alive, though he promises stricter study sessions ahead. Daybreak, meanwhile, takes a call informing him he has failed and been fired.

Daybreak debuts as Twilight's self-declared rival, hired to tank the Desmond brothers' midterm scores, and Loid reverses his sabotage to protect Operation Strix. Damian earns his first Stella Star with a top-two History result and an 11th place class ranking, Demetrius is shown to have missed just one question, and Anya scrapes through in 213th place without failing a single subject.

Mission 27 spans 25 pages in Volume 5, released May 18, 2020, within the Midterm Exams Arc and adapted in Episode 18. Loid alone graces the cover.

Demetrius makes his first partial visual appearance through Loid's imagination. Daybreak draws loose inspiration from Katsutoshi Imai of Hiroyuki Nishimori's Kyō Kara Ore Wa!!.