There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 28
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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 28.
Graf Müller’s current assignment was with the Information Department.
After spending a long time in the Action Division, he’d transferred to the Information Department when an opportunity arose.
That explained why Hartmann was so delighted to see him, and why he’d tidied up the Guard Post so thoroughly.
“How are you finding life in the Information Department, sir?”
“Hectic every day, I’ll tell you that much. I’m sorry about last time. Something urgent came up suddenly.”
“Oh, don’t say that! We’re all here in Knox Castle anyway! Whenever you can make it, that’s fine!”
He was referring to the time Graf Müller had planned to visit the Guard Post to hear my heroic tale, only to cancel abruptly.
I was relieved not to have to repeat the same story again, but several of the senior members who’d been looking forward to seeing Graf Müller after so long were visibly disappointed.
And the most deflated of them all was Hartmann.
“Please, sit here, sir! And tell us about the Information Department!”
“Well, there’s not much I can say outside of it.”
“Wow! Classified information—how cool!”
Hartmann had ambitions of his own.
He wanted to work in a more important department someday, not just the Action Division, so Graf Müller was someone who’d already achieved exactly that.
No wonder he was going out of his way to clean and desperate to make a good impression.
“I heard you got promoted recently!”
“Having a senior from the Action Division in the Information Department—it’s such a reassuring thing!”
Hartmann wasn’t the only one wagging his tail beside Graf Müller.
All the veteran Action Division members with some seniority had gathered around him.
“It was just luck this time. Even so, I’m still pretty far down the ladder.”
Watching the seniors launch into earnest conversation, I quietly asked Bono.
“The cleaning’s done, so… is it okay if I head out?”
“Why don’t you stay and listen some more? Ask him questions too if you’re curious.”
“I don’t really have anything to ask, honestly.”
I already knew everything worth knowing about Knox’s Information Department.
Besides, Gisela Roth had warned me to avoid drawing attention to myself.
It seemed best to stay clear of crowded gatherings.
“Fine then, go on.”
I bowed my head and stepped outside the Guard Post.
Once I settled by the campfire, the tension finally eased from my shoulders.
“Maybe I should rest my eyes for a bit.”
Following Gisela Roth’s advice to enjoy a last moment of peace, I’d charged up before work this morning, only to burn through all that energy cleaning the Guard Post.
The moment I leaned my head back against the tree trunk, sleep came crashing down like a wave.
Inside the Guard Post, cheerful voices continued to drift out unbroken.
Whether it was excitement over Graf Müller’s arrival or something else, everyone seemed louder than usual today.
‘Chatty old men,’ I thought.
It was my last conscious thought before sleep pulled me under.
If only I could have slept that deeply for hours.
The moment I stirred awake, I instinctively knew not much time had passed.
And I sensed someone approaching me.
Without opening my eyes, I tried to gauge who was drawing near.
‘Not one of the Action Division members.’
If any of the seniors had come, they would’ve been shouting from far away: “Hey, Little Hero! Wake up, you lazy bum!”
Not creeping up like this.
But the Sound-Muffling Technique and the Breath Control Technique were both clumsy and poorly executed.
I judged the threat level to be low and let myself wake naturally.
“Mmm… ah, my back… Is that you, Graf Müller, sir?”
So it was an unfamiliar presence after all—and when I opened my eyes, it was Graf Müller himself, the man who should still be receiving praise from his junior colleagues inside the Guard Post.
“Oh? Ha, did I wake you?”
Being caught napping during duty time by a senior officer was exactly the kind of situation that made a Junior Member like Runelk Eins’s heart sink.
“No, no! I was really just resting my eyes for a moment!”
As I scrambled to stand, Graf Müller settled onto a nearby log with a warm, friendly smile on his face.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Stay sitting. Night duty gets to everyone. Besides, I’m not in the Action Division anymore, so what does it matter?”
The wink he gave was the very picture of a magnanimous senior turning a blind eye to a junior’s mistake.
“Th-thank you so much, sir.”
“Sure thing. You’re Runelk Eins, right? The one they’re calling the Little Hero?”
“That’s… an exaggerated nickname. I really just lent a hand in catching the assassin. I feel embarrassed about it.”
“That’s exactly what makes it impressive—a young Action Division member lending a hand at all. And from what I hear, your role was bigger than you think.”
He glanced back toward the Guard Post, then leaned in with a playful conspiratorial tone.
“Don’t tell the guys in there, but I was actually the one collecting intelligence for that whole incident.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Ha, I was lucky. That’s how I got promoted.”
As he spoke, he tapped his chest with a finger, revealing the Silver Eye Badge of the Information Department and below it, two bars indicating the rank of Regular Member.
In terms of the Action Division, that was the same rank as Jake.
In other words, until recently, he’d held the same Junior Member rank as me.
‘So the Information Department didn’t credit his experience from the Action Division?’
A man who looked to be in his forties, starting as a Junior Member.
I found myself feeling that Graf Müller’s life in the Information Department must have been quite grueling.
“The guys call you ‘Little Hero,’ right? Can I call you that too?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Alright then, Little Hero. So you got summoned higher up the chain again recently, didn’t you?”
“…Excuse me?”
What was he talking about?
When I tilted my head in confusion, Graf Müller pressed on.
“The day you skipped duty. The guys said you’d gotten called up by someone important that day?”
“Ah, that day.”
He was referring to the day I’d confronted Killian Knox and been spirited away by Dupon Clansher to become one of the Ravens.
No one had said anything to me about missing the Guard Post, which struck me as odd—apparently they’d covered for me with some vague excuse about being summoned by higher-ups.
It was a rather flimsy cover story.
Then again, at that point Killian Knox had been planning to kill me, so he wouldn’t have bothered crafting a convincing lie.
“Yes, that’s right. I went to the Main Office.”
“Rough day, huh? Who summoned you?”
“Dupon Clansher, sir.”
There were several reasons why I named Dupon Clansher.
First, Killian Knox was too important a figure to casually mention actually meeting.
And that night, there might have been witnesses who saw me walking with Dupon Clansher before we entered the Secret Passage from the Duke’s Office.
But most importantly, he was the commander of the Ravens.
Even if Graf Müller tried to dig deeper, I had faith that Dupon Clansher could handle any fallout.
‘After all, he’s in the Information Department. Being cautious won’t hurt.’
While I thought that, internally I could only smile bitterly.
Everything I’d heard from the seniors about Graf Müller was flawless.
Sincere, good-natured, generous to his juniors—when he transferred to the Information Department, no one resented him. Quite the opposite.
Everyone had genuinely celebrated his promotion, or so they said.
And here I was, being wary of a senior I’d just met for the first time today. I didn’t like the feeling.
“Dupon Clansher, you say?”
Graf Müller’s eyes widened with surprise, the wrinkles at the corners deepening.
“You know Dupon Clansher?”
“Know him? Of course not. I was just summoned and brought to him.”
I quickly waved both hands in denial.
‘I should have given a different name!’
This morning, my handler had warned me to stay quiet and keep a low profile until the rumors about the Little Hero died down.
When she’d threatened “Break the rules, and you die,” it hadn’t bothered me much.
But now that I’d made this blunder, just thinking of Gisela Roth’s face sent shivers down my spine.
“You seem to know him better than I do, sir.”
“Me?”
“You kept calling him by his first name—’Dupon.’ I must have heard wrong.”
“Ha, did I?”
Graf Müller trailed off, looking rather flustered.
“Since I work at the Main Office now, I see his face constantly coming and going. I must have gotten too familiar without realizing it.”
“That makes sense.”
It made no sense whatsoever.
Dupon Clansher was directly beneath Killian Knox and held the highest rank among the officers—he was known as the First Star.
The idea of calling such a man by his given name?
‘Could this senior also be one of the Ravens?’
The thought flickered through my mind, but I dismissed it quickly.
I’d only met Gisela Roth so far, but I was confident that her fellow Ravens wouldn’t be as incompetent as Graf Müller was being.
‘So he’s trying to act like he’s acquainted with him.’
Just as my own skeptical unease was beginning to shift toward suspicion, Graf Müller delivered the decisive blow.
“So, what did you and Dupon talk about?”
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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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