There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 30

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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 30.
Nothing surprised me anymore.
I’d grown curious enough to poke at every architectural feature scattered throughout Nox, wondering how many hidden passages might exist and what secrets would spill out with the next prod.
Who knew what might swing open with a soft whoosh each time I jabbed at something, revealing another piece of Nox’s mystery.
“What are you doing? I said follow me.”
“Yes, yes. Coming!”
Behind the bookshelf stretched a long corridor.
The moment I stepped into it, I understood.
‘This is where the real Nest begins.’
Everything I’d walked through until now must have been a kind of disguise.
Even that demon’s absurdly comfortable couch.
The low-lit Mana Lamps cast a cozy warmth over the hallway, and the space breathed with the simple comfort of lived-in things.
Coats and robes of unknown owners hung on the walls, and an umbrella stand sat in one corner.
A dresser bearing fingerprints, a mirror balanced on top.
It was nothing like the disguise space—expensive but preserved in unchanging sterility, as if no one actually used it.
“You’ve had your blood registered, right? Well, of course—otherwise you wouldn’t have made it through today either.”
Gisela Roth tugged off her boots and traded them for comfortable shoes, answering her own question.
“Blood Registration—don’t tell me that’s the dragon head?”
“It’s rather hideous, I’ll admit.”
She chuckled and nodded, then pointed to a door at the end of the corridor.
“There’s a smaller one here too.”
“A smaller one isn’t any less grotesque, though, is it.”
True to Gisela Roth’s word, a miniature version of the hideous dragon sculpture served as the handle.
Those gleaming golden eyes had the infuriating quality of Killian Nox’s gaze—the kind that made you want to stab right through them.
“Do you want to open it?”
“So I just twist the dragon’s neck?”
I mimed turning a normal handle, rounding my hand in a rotating motion, and Gisela Roth burst into laughter again.
“Hah! No, just stick any finger in its mouth!”
“So I’m stabbing the dragon’s throat.”
I rather liked that.
I nodded readily and stepped toward the door.
Up close, the dragon was even uglier.
I nearly inserted my index finger into its gaping maw before second thoughts stayed my hand.
What if it bit?
I settled on my left pinky—a finger I could spare without significant loss to daily function.
Then I thrust it in, imagining I was jabbing Killian Nox’s uvula.
The small satisfaction lasted only a moment.
Clank!
A heavy metallic sound, and the door swung wide open of its own accord.
“It didn’t bite.”
“If you bled every time you passed through, you’d have no fingers left. The one guarding the Reception Room didn’t bite you today either, did it?”
“Now that you mention it, you’re right. So both of them are just disguises meant to intimidate?”
“Hardly. I don’t know exactly how they work myself. I’ve heard Mana Engineering is involved. Anyway, only the Commander knows the method—only those with registered blood can open the doors.”
“What happens to people without Blood Registration?”
“Who knows.”
Gisela Roth tilted her head, saying she’d never encountered an intruder herself.
“Either way, they probably don’t die pleasantly. The rest we can discuss inside.”
***
The ‘real Nest’ was remarkably bright.
Large windows dotted the space, and the exposed ceiling—lacking its usual cover—was partly replaced with glass, allowing outside light to pour all the way through.
‘How did they hide this?’
The main building was definitely five stories.
Yet there was a hidden floor, and not only that—multiple well-lit glass windows openly punctured the ceiling.
They’d clearly concealed it from outside view, but I couldn’t fathom the mechanism.
‘The interior just looks like an ordinary office.’
Twelve large desks spaced across the expansive room, each topped with scattered documents—it resembled a typical workspace.
The clutter gave it a disheveled quality, but it was fitting for a place called ‘the Nest.’
The air was thick with the smell of aged paper yet warm with sunlight—a haven for crows, one that was all the more comfortable for being inaccessible to the casual intruder.
I stepped inside.
“I’m back!”
Gisela Roth announced this loudly, and from what I’d thought was an empty space came a small reply.
“Welcome back…”
The young man’s voice carried no energy whatsoever.
“What? Noah, where are you?”
“I’m over here…”
A blanket on a desk in the farthest corner—where sunlight never reached—rustled.
I’d thought it was just a pile of unused clothes and bedding, but someone was apparently underneath.
The first thing to emerge from beneath the thick blanket was a pale hand, scattered with fine scars.
Raised to indicate his location, the hand drooped with the same listlessness as his voice.
Seeing the hand flutter weakly like a wind-tossed flag, Gisela Roth’s brow furrowed.
I followed quietly behind her as she strode toward him.
“Noah Benton, you’re supposed to sleep in your quarters, not here. Or use the sleep room.”
“I can’t… once I lie down, I can’t get back up…”
The mound of blanket shifted once more before Noah Benton’s face finally emerged.
Olive-dark hair fell across a pale face, faint freckles scattered across his nose.
His light brown eyes, fine-lined for a man’s face, matched his delicate features well—but they were dull, like the eyes of old fish.
The deep shadows beneath them made him the very picture of an exhausted worker ant.
“Didn’t you say you’d finish your Camouflage Duty this evening? So what are you doing here?”
“That’s exactly what I’m wondering too. Could you ask Konrad about it for me…?”
“Konrad?”
At Gisela Roth’s question, Noah Benton—still draped across the desk—pointed vaguely with his finger like he was stabbing at empty air.
Following the direction of his finger, I turned and spotted a long sofa beneath the best-lit window, with a man sleeping on it.
A book spread across his chest served as a sunshade, hiding his face, but judging by his motionless body and the steady rise and fall of his chest, he was clearly asleep.
Worn boots hung over the sofa’s armrest, and broad, muscular shoulders spilled out beyond the seat, hinting at his sturdy frame.
“Why is he doing that? Wait—did he fob his report off on you?”
“Did you see Konrad actually writing his report himself?”
“Oh, for—! That lazy son of—!”
Gisela Roth stormed toward the window with heavy footfalls and kicked the sofa, shouting.
“Hey! Wake up!”
“Mm.”
Konrad merely shifted a few times and turned to face the backrest, waving a dismissive hand.
The gesture clearly meant leave me alone.
“Ugh, this hothead!”
After kicking at the sofa’s legs a few more times in frustration, Gisela Roth turned her attention to scolding Noah Benton.
“I told you not to indulge all his nonsense!”
“But he said he was so exhausted from the long mission… so tired…”
“And he exploits that soft heart of yours because he knows it!”
“I can’t go on Field Missions anyway, so this is the only way I can help.”
Noah Benton laughed weakly while rubbing his tired eyes, and Gisela Roth thumped her chest in exasperation.
“Here you are, shuttling between the Medical Ward and the Nest, exhausting yourself…”
It was intriguing.
Noah Benton clearly had some reason he couldn’t undertake Field Missions directly.
As I studied him with mounting curiosity, he stirred from the desk and our eyes met.
“Oh? Who—?”
Had he not even noticed someone else’s presence besides Gisela Roth?
His ability to sense others certainly seemed lacking.
While Noah Benton floundered in confusion, Gisela Roth returned to my side and tousled my hair as she spoke.
“This is the recruit I’m mentoring. Introduce yourselves—this is Runelk Ains, and that’s Noah Benton.”
“A recruit!”
Noah Benton jumped from his chair, hands flying to cover his mouth.
“Does that mean I’m finally getting out of being the youngest?!”

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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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