There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 37

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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 37.
‘I need to get out of here.’
If I stayed any longer, I had no idea what these jealous idiots might do to me—a guy who didn’t even have a girlfriend to begin with.
“W-well, I’ll just head inside first! Thank you for your hard work, everyone!”
“Hey, Rookie!”
I grabbed the pocket hanging from the handle and bolted into the room.
“You little bastard, aren’t you going to open the door?!”
Even after I’d quickly locked it, the furious seniors hammered against the door so hard it looked like the hinges might snap clean off.
I pressed my back against the door and shouted.
“I’m sorry!”
I apologized for my life, even though I had no idea what I was actually apologizing for.
After how many times did I yell it?
The raging herd finally retreated, and peace returned at last.
“Jesus, I’m dying.”
I stumbled over and flopped face-down onto the bed.
This day had been way too long.
“Let me just refuel a bit and then wash up.”
Still lying down, I moved only my hand to open the pocket.
The contents were exactly what I expected: a Cookie.
“I’ve never seen this shape before.”
It was Elza, Rene, or Mina who usually brought me homemade snacks directly.
But sometimes they’d pass along something a friend of theirs had made instead.
Crunch.
The moment I bit into the square-shaped Cookie, sweetness bloomed across my tongue.
But there was a special flavor that followed.
“I’ve never tasted this before either.”
I could see something pressed into it—it looked like a particular kind of tea leaf had been mixed into the dough before baking.
It wasn’t bad.
After such a grueling day, eating something sweet felt like a reward.
I ended up devouring about five of them in no time—it really was my taste.
“I should wash up and get to sleep…….”
Maybe because I’d survived that near-death experience, the tension drained away.
My eyelids grew heavy in an instant.
I fought the drowsiness for a moment, blinking, before giving up entirely.
I’d just rest a little and then wash up.
That was when I surrendered to the seduction of sleep.
“Gah! Guh…….”
The sensation of suffocation jolted me awake.
“What the—”
Splash—!
Ice-cold water crashed over me.
I tried to jolt upright in panic, but my body wouldn’t obey.
I couldn’t find any strength in my limbs anywhere.
With my neck too weak to hold my head up, I let my chin drop—water flooded my vision, and through the blur I could make out my body bound tightly to a chair.
‘Where am I?’
The only thing I knew for certain was that this wasn’t my room anymore.
The only parts of me that were free were my toes, and each time I moved them I felt my boots scrape against a rough floor.
“Ha… ha…”
I couldn’t even control my breathing; humid air seeped in between my ragged gasps.
Though that might also have been because of all the water soaking my body.
‘Who is it?’
The second question I asked myself brought a name immediately to mind.
‘Is it Edward Wickes?’
Did he finally track me down?
Then am I in the Cromwell Kingdom?
How long was I unconscious?
Questions spiraled endlessly, each one spawning another I couldn’t answer.
“Ggh.”
I clenched my teeth and forced my eyes open, trying to gather any visual information at all, but even that failed.
My eyes didn’t need light even in the dead of night.
Yet my vision was dark as if shrouded, narrow and constantly wavering.
The floor seemed to rise and fall; my legs felt like they were melting like taffy.
“Damn… it.”
My hearing was broken too.
Even my own voice sounded like multiple people screaming underwater at once.
Not only were the muscles controlling my breathing completely paralyzed, but my sight and hearing too.
There was no guarantee the rest of my senses would remain intact.
‘Poison.’
Multiple kinds mixed together—a poison designed to render someone completely defenseless.
I had to regain my senses.
And the most effective way to stay rational in a situation like this was through pain.
I couldn’t even bash my head into a wall, so I had only one option.
I was trying to push my numb, dull tongue between my teeth to bite it when—
“Ggh!”
A powerful grip seized my hair and forced my head up.
The sudden flood of light stabbed at my eyes through the narrow slit of my vision.
Someone was right in front of me, but my scrambled senses couldn’t make out anything except the dark silhouette of their form.
“Trying to bite your tongue? Bad habit.”
The voice was low, like a massive pipe and a drum being struck at the same time.
“Who… who the hell are you?”
The figure didn’t answer my question properly.
They just laughed with a sound that didn’t seem human.
“Who sent you? What do you even want… ha… was it Ed……?”
I was about to speak Edward Wickes’ name—the most likely culprit—when
my neck gave out, my vision wavering, and I caught a glimpse of something over the kidnapper’s shoulder.
‘Iron bars?’
Blurred as it was, those were definitely thick metal bars.
Damp air and iron bars.
These sparse clues all pointed to one answer.
‘……The underground prison in Knox?’
***
Behind his black mask, Dimark Shuren frowned.
The new recruit undergoing the final trial was far too young.
He’d heard the kid was eighteen now, turning nineteen soon, and figured he’d at least be a solid man, but
his head was too small, and every time his scrawny neck wavered, Dimark felt like some low-grade thug picking on a child.
Uncomfortable with the feeling, Dimark Shuren loosened his grip on the hair he was holding without meaning to.
‘Oops.’
The head started to drop once the support vanished, so he had to catch it again.
The ‘Test Drug’ was a special truth serum designed to probe the mental fortitude of new recruits entering the Nest.
It relaxed the muscles, making the subject unable to control their own body, and scrambled the five senses, amplifying the confusion.
Simultaneously, it suppressed the rational regions of the brain, opening wide the doors to the unconscious.
A Raven who took the Test Drug entered a state like a deeply disturbing dream.
Unable to help but reveal every secret and desire they possessed.
‘But exactly how much of this stuff did they give him?’
He twitched the scarred side of his face and turned to his junior, Gisela Roth.
But the junior just shrugged helplessly and whispered back.
“I made sure there was just the right amount in one Cookie.”
“And this is what happened?”
“Maybe he’s just sensitive to drugs.”
The trial had to proceed.
It was the essential gate every candidate had to pass to be acknowledged as a Raven and become a true member of the Nest.
Under the influence of the truth serum, the examiner had to verify two things.
What kind of person this Raven candidate truly was, and above all, whether he could keep the Raven’s secrets.
So all Dimark Shuren could do for this absurdly young recruit was to finish the trial as quickly as possible and give him the Antidote.
‘If he passes the trial, that is.’
A Raven candidate who failed was disposed of.
They knew too much—the existence of Ravens, the location of the Nest—so he couldn’t leave behind an outsider who couldn’t keep secrets.
Dimark Shuren was quite impressed by the vicious determination the kid had shown, even trying to bite his own tongue to stay conscious.
He watched the boy still struggling against the drug’s effects and thought.
‘Hold on, kid.’
If you pass this trial, you’ll gain the strongest ally—someone whose back you can entrust yourself to in any situation.
“Let’s begin.”
Dimark Shuren adjusted his mask and announced the start of the trial.
***
In the darkest corner of the isolated cell prepared for the trial in the underground prison,
Noah Benton waited anxiously with the Antidote in hand.
“Ha… hah… huh…….”
Watching Rookie’s ragged gasps made his own chest tighten.
‘He looks like he’s suffering so much…….’
It wasn’t mere sympathy for someone undergoing a trial.
As a Raven and the Nest’s physician, Noah Benton had personally manufactured this Test Drug.

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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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