There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 27

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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 27.
The husky voice I’d always found pleasant crackled with a metallic rasp near my ear.
“That’s not quite right.”
“No?”
Gisela Roth stepped back just as abruptly as she’d stepped forward.
“There’s an unwritten law among the Crows. We don’t ask how someone became a Crow.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I don’t want my circumstances revealed, so I don’t pry into others’ either. Everyone who becomes a Crow—whose very existence and identity are secrets—they all have their reasons, don’t they? But I’m curious about your story, Runelk Ains.”
She smiled again, her eyes alight.
“How did a mere foot soldier from the Action Squad become a Crow? What did the Captain see in you that he personally held your hand and brought you to the Nest?”
“……I don’t recall him holding my hand.”
“Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll find out soon enough. Anyway, when your undercover duty ends, you return to the Nest immediately—understand? Show up late like today and you’re dead?”
“Was I late today?”
I was certain I’d moved on schedule.
As I tilted my head, Gisela Roth’s brow furrowed.
“Exactly five minutes late.”
“That much is…….”
If she didn’t like waiting, she should have used a proper meeting spot!
She’d told me to come to the zelkova tree, but it was she who’d been standing before the bronze plaque engraved with one.
“Do you know how much can happen in five minutes, with such a broken sense of time?”
“I’ll be more careful going forward. However, the bell tower only rings once an hour, so…….”
“What? You don’t have a pocket watch?”
Gisela Roth pulled a small timepiece from her pocket and showed it to me as she asked.
“I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“They’re expensive.”
With the advancement of mana engineering, pocket watches using small mana stone fragments as their power source had been invented.
When they first appeared, only royalty and high-ranking nobles could afford them, but nowadays even commoners with decent incomes carried them without much fuss.
I once had a pocket watch myself.
Around fifteen, Edward had given it to me as a gift.
Of course, I’d left all the things he gave me behind in Wickes that night.
“My goodness.”
Gisela Roth made an exaggerated look of sympathy and asked.
“Is the Action Squad salary really that tight? Can’t even afford a pocket watch?”
“It’s not that. Well, granted the pay is pittance, but I didn’t buy one because there’s no real need to carry a timepiece. I’m used to my shift hours already, and honestly, my work isn’t so busy that I need to count minutes. It’s not like I’m that pressed for time.”
“That so? Then you should get one. You don’t seem too keen on your new life as a Crow, but it’s essential here. A life counted in minutes.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
A pocket watch—that expensive thing.
I was planning to use my monthly stipend as an emergency escape fund.
Maybe I’ll have to cut back on temple donations this month.
I sighed quietly and told Gisela Roth:
“I don’t dislike becoming a Crow.”
“Then what?”
“It’s just…… completely unexpected, that’s all.”
I figured I’d spend my shift time making small talk with senior officers from the Action Squad, occasionally catching smugglers trying to sneak contraband into the fortress.
At least I thought I could live at ease for the foreseeable future.
“In any case, if my attitude has displeased you, I apologize.”
“No, no.”
Gisela Roth waved a hand dismissively.
I observed her closely, wondering what word game she was playing this time, but at least this once she seemed sincere.
“Recruits who set foot in the Nest for the first time usually fall into one of two types. Either they’re thrilled and excited, bursting with pride at becoming a Crow, or they’re so nervous they’re trembling.”
She fell silent for a moment.
Her brown eyes, fixed on some point along the Nest’s wall, seemed to wander through old memories.
“Neither tends to last long, though.”
Her mumbled words were as faint as the light in her eyes, small enough to slip past if you weren’t listening carefully.
But in the next instant, her face turned back to me with its usual carefree expression, as if nothing had happened.
“But you might be different, Runelk Ains. I’m looking forward to it.”
***
“All right, now repeat what I taught you, in order.”
“First: when undercover duty ends, return to the Nest immediately.”
“Mm-hm, what comes next?”
“……Get caught straying elsewhere and you die.”
“Right. Continue.”
“Second: honor time commitments absolutely.”
These were things Gisela Roth had inserted at her own discretion.
The important part came third.
“Third: don’t draw unnecessary attention.”
“Especially important for you, little hero.”
If it had been Jake, he would’ve tripped me from behind on some pretext.
But I couldn’t even get that petty revenge on Gisela Roth.
Least of all because this time she wasn’t teasing me—she was being serious.
“You’ve already drawn people’s attention once. Plenty of folk still remember the ‘little hero’ who protected the Duke from assassins. So keep your head down for a while. Stay quiet.”
“That’s what I want too.”
At my sullen answer, she chuckled and asked, “What’s the fourth?”
“Never speak of the Crows to anyone outside the organization.”
Of the four rules, this was the most critical.
Gisela Roth had emphasized the fourth rule above all the others, making me repeat it several times over.
So I expected the same this time.
But after looking at me with an odd expression for a moment, she suddenly rose from the couch where she’d been sprawled and said:
“That’s enough. Get going.”
“Really?”
“You said you have the night shift, didn’t you?”
She was factoring in my undercover duty hours?
Was the Crows actually a surprisingly reasonable organization?
But I realized my mistake when Gisela Roth continued:
“There won’t be many days this leisurely ahead, so get some proper rest while you can.”
***
Past midnight, in the dead of night.
The guard post on the outer wall of Nox blazed with light.
The small space that normally echoed with senior officers’ snoring was bustling with preparations to receive a visitor.
The floor, caked with dirt and dust, had been swept clean, and the sticky table whose stains predated anyone’s memory had been wiped down.
Of course, all the sweeping and wiping fell to me.
“Rookie! Wipe this too!”
“Yes, sir!”
Hartman, having lost money at gambling and vented his frustrations everywhere before returning to normal, pointed at the door handle and grumbled.
“This guard post is in terrible shape.”
As if he hadn’t been eating and sleeping just fine in this supposedly terrible place every day.
Looking at the dirty door knob, I couldn’t help but smirk at Hartman’s attitude.
“Don’t just wipe it—really shine it.”
“Sir, it’s iron, so it probably never shined even when the post was first built.”
“Back talk! In my day, if a senior officer said he wanted wine during his shift, we’d bring him grape juice and call it good!”
Here we go again.
That “back in my day” routine.
It was utterly insufferable.
The other officers, who weren’t holding rags like I was but were half-heartedly tidying the post out of fear of Hartman’s nagging, all shook their heads in sympathy.
It was Hartman’s habit to dredge up old stories like a broken phonograph at every opportunity, so those who’d been hearing it longer than I had must have suffered even more.
Even though no one was responding, Hartman kept droning on.
“When I was a recruit, Graf—the senior officer visiting us today—he got injured during patrol once. I hoisted him onto my back and rushed him to the infirmary like lightning…….”
“Don’t you go lying to the rookies.”
“Senior!”
Hartman lit up like a puppy seeing its master.
Graf, a rank far above even Hartman, the longest-serving among us now, was something of a legend in the Action Squad.
I’d expected him to be rough and intimidating.
“Hm, nothing’s changed here at all.”
“Still cramped and rundown, yes! I hear the Information Division where you are now is completely different!”
The middle-aged man stepping into the guard post had a physique and appearance far more ordinary than I’d expected.
The sort of person you’d pass without remembering, even if you brushed shoulders with him several times.

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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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