Everyone but Me Is a Spy - Chapter 44

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 44
Nina gasped and surveyed the room.
Even beneath the thick layer of dust, she couldn’t mistake what lay before her.
‘Why on earth are these things here……?’
Firearms hung densely along the walls, and across a broad table set before them lay Bombs and Knives scattered in chaotic heaps.
Long rings hung from the ceiling, draped with tattered garments and filthy cloth.
There were many objects, but all of them looked old and worn, and there was only a single storage cabinet worth mentioning.
“Cough, cough.”
The thick, acrid smell of dust tickled her nostrils and made her cough, but she couldn’t open the windows.
The edges of the blackout film-covered windows were sealed shut by welding.
‘She clearly never maintained this place. It doesn’t look like it’s been abandoned for just a year or two.’
Nina stepped into the dust-laden room and examined the storage cabinet first.
When she opened it, the hinges creaked with a sound like a ghost’s whimper, corroded from age.
‘Is everything inside papers? Documents? They look like reports. There are photographs attached too.’
The dust piled so thickly that she could barely see, and she dared not touch anything without gloves—it seemed likely to crumble into nothing the moment she did.
Nina shifted her gaze, lost in uncertainty.
What lay on the table was a Knife with missing teeth and rust creeping across its surface.
‘If these were treasured possessions, she wouldn’t have abandoned them like this. And if they were useless, she wouldn’t have kept them for so long.’
Everything in the room showed considerable wear and age.
Due to careless storage, all but a few Bombs had become unusable.
That was strange enough, but something else troubled her far more.
‘Why would Grandmother have had things like these? She was hardly the type for a servant’s life.’
With vast wealth and a marquessate, she must have lived comfortably her entire life, attended by servants.
Nina couldn’t fathom why such a woman would ever need servants’ necessities.
‘If these belonged to the staff of the Townhouse, they wouldn’t have been left to rot like this.’
Nina wiped her irritated nose with a handkerchief and examined the clothes hanging carelessly overhead.
From gowns that a large woman or an adult man might wear, to athletic wear and leotards in sizes fit for a small child.
None of them appeared to be the right size for Grandmother.
‘Wait. This isn’t clothing, is it? Some kind of tent material?’
Nina carefully grasped one corner of the ragged cloth and unfolded it.
Then an unexpected pattern emerged.
“……!”
A round shield with three arrows and two swords embedded in it.
This was the Dotchen Kingdom Flag—now absorbed and vanished into Kibeon.
The primary instigator of war and a war criminal nation. And now, a defeated one.
Startled, Nina released the cloth she’d been holding and took a step back.
‘……But Grandmother was from the Dotchen Kingdom, after all. It’s possible she might have kept the flag.’
Even as she thought this, she couldn’t reconcile why Grandmother would possess the Dotchen Kingdom Flag.
Having received a marquessate from the victorious Illite Kingdom, she couldn’t have been a supporter of the war criminal nation.
‘Seeing how the flag is cut at the bottom, as if hacked to shreds, maybe she actually despised it. Is that why she settled in Soltem?’
Lost in thought, Nina suddenly noticed the severed portion of the flag and recalled something.
‘It’s cut……?’

It was a passage from the will.
‘Things already cut…….’
The fact that she’d written “things” in plural suggested there was more than one.
Could one of them be this ragged flag?
Nina drew the Short Dagger she carried with her.
The way it fit snugly in her hand, like an old blade she’d used for years, gave her satisfaction.
Though it seemed strange to cut something that was already cut, it wasn’t dangerous, so there was no harm in trying.
Nina spun the Short Dagger deftly and then gripped the hilt with resolve.
‘It’s not like I’m damaging a perfectly good flag.’
She carefully unfolded the flag again and, from below, drew the Short Dagger upward across the already severed edge.
Whirr-
The Short Dagger suddenly glowed pale blue and vibrated faintly.
Nina startled and examined the blade closely.
‘Blue circuits inside the blade……!’
The blue circuits she’d never noticed during all the time she’d carried it now glowed, announcing their presence.
Because the only thing visible had been the Mana Stone set into the hilt and the blue circuits were hidden, she’d thought it was an ordinary Short Dagger—but it turned out to be a Magical Artifact.
‘Come to think of it, Grandmother’s room also had a Protective Barrier installed using Magical Engineering.’
Nina gazed at the Short Dagger’s luminous blade, which thrummed with shallow vibrations, and began to recall the Magical Artifacts she had encountered since arriving here.
‘The key that Grandmother left at the bank was carved from Mana Stone, and the Opera Glasses and Residential Clockwork Dolls are all Magical Artifacts too. And now this Short Dagger on top of it.’
How many Magical Artifacts had Rikita Bonds stored in this Townhouse?
It wasn’t a grand estate with servants—it was an ordinary person’s home. Why would there be so many Magical Artifacts here?
Nina pondered the question for a long moment, and finally arrived at her own answer, breaking into a bright smile.
‘It must have been Grandmother’s refined hobby!’
For a woman of her grandmother’s wealth, possessing so many Magical Artifacts wasn’t extraordinary at all.
Wasn’t Joel, the sickly young master next door, pursuing the wonderful hobby of Magical Artifact development?
Just as Uncle Chayson played with explosives as a pastime, Grandmother must have had the hobby of collecting Magical Artifacts.
Why she’d let them gather dust in her home like this was another mystery.
‘She did love a good puzzle, being so enigmatic herself. Perhaps that’s why.’
Nina tucked the Short Dagger into her bodice and unfolded the Dotchen Kingdom Flag.
She was curious what effect the Magical Artifact would produce when activated.
Swish.
Tattered cloth brushed against her hands as dust billowed into the air.
Yet the letters that appeared on the fabric glowed blue and luminous.
‘My goodness. What is this?’
Where there had been nothing before she cut the damaged section with the Short Dagger, puzzling words now appeared.
Everything in this room is my shame and my debt.
My shame and my debt.
Nina’s gaze lingered on those words for a long while before moving to the next sentence.
Once you have gazed upon my shame alone, I ask that you burn this entire room.
A single spark will erase everything, and nothing will happen beyond these walls.
‘B-burn the room?!’
Nina started in shock and checked several times to ensure she was reading correctly.
Reading it again, the instruction to burn the entire room was unmistakable.
No such instruction appeared in the will, and none of the family had ever mentioned anything needing to be burned.
The layers of dust accumulated on the cloth suggested the letters had been inscribed long ago.
‘Did Grandmother write these words on the Dotchen Kingdom Flag the moment I was born?’
Nina felt somewhat confused. This room could only be opened with the Mana Stone Key, which Grandmother had left to her as part of her inheritance.
And these bewildering words could only be seen by someone who possessed that inherited key.
Once you have gazed upon my shame alone……
As Nina read that section carefully, she let out her plump lower lip in an expression of hesitation.
‘What does it mean? Is she asking me to keep this secret from the rest of the family? But why would she ask such a thing of me……?’
If it were an order from her mistress, she would have obeyed without question. But this was a family matter.
Even if it came from a grandmother she had never met, who had known of her existence yet left her in an orphanage.
Besides, she couldn’t fathom what made this room shameful.
If the utterly unprofessional storage method was the shame in question, that much she couldn’t deny.
‘Still, burning something I scarcely understand doesn’t seem like the right thing to do, does it?’
She couldn’t even guarantee that only this room would burn and nothing beyond its walls would be affected.
After much deliberation, Nina decided to leave the room as it was for now.
She would need to think carefully about whether the instruction to gaze “alone” meant she should tell the family or not.
‘I should explore the other rooms first and come back to examine this one more carefully later. Once I sweep away the dust, I might discover something else.’
As Nina turned to leave, she cast a lingering glance back at the tattered flag hanging limply.
‘Shame……. Debt…….’
The words circled strangely in her mind.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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