There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 12

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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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Episode 12.
The Office, now that Runelk Ains had departed.
Killian filled a Crystal Glass to the brim with Spirits.
Glug.
As the transparent amber liquid filled the glass, a man emerged from the shadows.
“Sir.”
It was Dupont, who had been concealing himself in the Secret Space adjacent to the Office.
Killian answered his subordinate’s call by raising one eyebrow slightly.
“Why did you issue such a command, sir?”
Dupont, who had watched the entire scene from behind a device that perfectly masked his presence, was bewildered.
During the Lunar Eclipse, his master indulged in all manner of eccentricities.
Dupont, who had always handled the aftermath, was already accustomed to such contingencies.
There was the time Killian had stormed the Imperial Palace and held a sword to the throat of the puppet emperor.
It was because someone had tried to entangle him with a princess of some kingdom.
Once, he had personally delivered the head of a marquis who, not knowing his place, had persistently interfered with Nox’s enterprises.
After having the marquis’s family, gathered for breakfast, open a gift box to discover the severed head, Killian had designated the marquis’s second son—regarded as the least capable among his children—as successor, and walked out of the marquis’s front gates satisfied.
Yet not once had such eccentricity ever been directed inward, toward Nox itself.
“If Runelk Ains is a man who would harm Nox, I will dispose of him myself, sir.”
“He is not a man who would cause harm.”
“Then why—”
“The reason?”
Killian answered, swallowing the Spirits as readily as water.
“You must have heard. To test his usefulness.”
“But he—”
Dupont’s gaze turned toward the spot where Runelk Ains had collapsed.
“He will die. This was never a mission designed for success from the start, was it?”
“You think that fool doesn’t know that?”
Killian recalled the eyes that had blazed a vivid blue with fury at his command to retrieve Nox’s Darkest Secret, and a corner of his mouth lifted.
“Clean out the Underground Prison, Dupont.”
The amusement had worn thin.
At the casual way he discarded the worn-out toy, Dupont hurriedly lowered his head to hide his expression.
‘Already… it’s over?’
He had thought it would last several more days.
Though Killian was fully aware of Dupont’s shaken presence, he merely sank deeper into the chair by the window.
His golden eyes, watching the expanse of the Nox Mansion bathed in unusually bright moonlight, gradually grew calm and still.
***
Cold water that had been hastily splashed ran down his black hair in droplets.
After leaving Killian’s Office, I returned to my own quarters rather than the Infirmary, locking the door behind me.
Then I entered the bathroom, locked that door too, and only when I removed my Necklace did I feel like I could breathe.
“Killian, you bastard.”
No curse or epithet in the world could ease my fury.
I scrubbed my lips clean of the blood he had forced me to consume, looking at myself in the mirror.
When I make my escape, whenever that comes, I’m driving a blade through that bastard’s ribs.
I gritted my teeth on that vow, but then a heavy sigh burst out of me.
“Damn it all.”
What was I going to do?
“Now, wherever you are, I can sense you. Even if it were across the sea, on the Western Continent itself. As long as your breath persists, you cannot escape from me.”
Dragon’s Servant.
I never dreamed that Killian’s Blood carried such an effect.
Unlike him, I didn’t possess a Lie Detection Ability, but I could tell.
His words were true.
The moment his blood—which had gleamed with that strange golden radiance beneath the moonlight—passed down my throat, it had already healed every wound on my body.
So it was no wonder that such an unheard-of tracking function existed.
“The damned thing works far too well.”
I stared at my nape in the mirror—smooth and unmarked—and cursed again.
Even the lingering aftereffects of the Varga Poison had vanished as if washed away.
The state of my body, thrumming with vivid vitality, only made my mood fouler.
Splash!
I hurled cold water at the innocent mirror in frustration, but nothing changed.
My face only twisted further in the cascade of water flowing down the glass.
It was the price of carelessness.
The price of thinking myself safe, now that I had infiltrated Nox.
That delusion was what put a noose around my neck with Killian.
“No—a snare, rather.”
He had slipped a noose around my throat and intended to slowly strangle the life from me.
“Five days until the Day of Earth. Bring me Nox’s Darkest Secret.”
An impossible command—asking a junior member of the Action Squad, one without formal training, to uncover Nox’s Darkest Secret.
It was absurd.
A mission built on the premise of failure.
And if I didn’t succeed, he would kill me.
It was a death sentence.
“Hah.”
I suppressed the urge to flee the Nox Mansion immediately—whether to find Wickes or not—with a deep breath.
My red eyes in the mirror were burning crimson.
I slowly raised my hand and dragged my nails across my white nape.
In place of the invisible noose, only red nail marks remained.
“I won’t die like this.”
If there was a method to create a Dragon’s Servant, there had to be a way to sever that bond.
I had to carry out Killian’s mission while searching for a way to break free of his tracking.
Then I would escape, bold and unhurried.
And if I could punch a hole through that bastard’s side before then, all the better.
“Nox’s Darkest Secret.”
First, I had to extend my five remaining days of life.
Chapter 3.
I collapsed into bed and slept like the dead, waking to find the sun already setting beyond the western sky.
Assigned to the night shift starting this week, I had to report to the Guard Post.
“I didn’t know I could sleep that long.”
The realization that an entire day of my five allotted days had already slipped away sent a chill through me, but I shook my head and dismissed the thought.
There would be no time for proper sleep from now on—not while hunting down that cursed bastard’s secret.
Neither physically nor mentally.
So recovering what strength I could while I had the chance was fortunate after all.
“I don’t want to go to work.”
Even as I mumbled this glumly, my body—trained over a year of serving as Nox’s lowliest foot soldier—was already dutifully getting out of bed.
I’d been drenched in cold sweat from some nightmare while sleeping, so after bathing and retrieving my Necklace, I was already cutting it dangerously close to being late.
I stopped briefly at the Dining Hall to grab two pieces of bread, then headed straight for the Guard Post.
“If he’s going to dump shit assignments like this on me, he could at least spare me from Guard Post duty. Damn that Killian—”
As I trudged toward the Guard Post, sweetening my bread with curses directed at Killian, the wall came into sight quickly enough.
It was just as we neared the outer wall.
“Hey! Rook! What happened to you yesterday!”
Heavy footsteps thundered from behind, and Jake’s senior struck me hard across the back.
“Ow! That hurts, Jake!”
“You’re in pain? Good, you feel pain? You bastard! You waltzed off with some guest of the Master into the Main Building and never came back—do you know how worried sick I was!”
“How worried? Worried enough to come looking for me at the Main Building?”
I rubbed my stinging back as I asked, and Jake glanced away sheepishly.
“Ah, well, I was too scared to go poking around the Main Building, but—”
“There you go. So you weren’t that worried after all.”
“There are important people in the Main Building! You can’t just go nosing around there! Anyway, you went dark after heading to the Main Building yesterday, and on top of that, some madman apparently tried to assassinate our Master. My life expectancy probably dropped by ten years yesterday!”
“That rumor’s already spreading?”
Closed organizations always had the fastest rumor mills.
“Yeah. You see or hear anything while you were in the Main Building yesterday?”
Jake nudged my side with his elbow as we walked toward the Guard Post.
“Based on this senior’s twelve years of experience eating in the Nox barracks Dining Hall, that rumor about an assassin isn’t total bullshit, you know?”
“What makes you say that?”
“The Infirmary was apparently bustling around yesterday afternoon. So some guys started gossiping about whether the Master was hurt, but what do they know. If something had happened to the Master, the direct family quarters behind the Main Building would’ve been in an uproar. All the Infirmary doctors would’ve rushed over there. And this is something my friend Hans, who works in the Underground Prison, told me—”
Jake paused, glancing around to make sure we were alone, then lowered his voice.
“That guy doesn’t say much, but apparently the cleaners were going in and out of the Underground Prison frequently.”

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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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