There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 48
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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 48.
It was barely a whisper, his lips scarcely moving.
But at the same time, it was loud enough for me to hear clearly, sprawled as I was on the ground just in front of him.
“……Yes?”
My body stayed pressed to the dirt, but I lifted my head.
Killian Knox, perched atop his massive war-horse, seemed impossibly far away.
There was no way he hadn’t heard my reply, yet he said nothing.
His lips were sealed tight, those cold, golden eyes boring down at me with an eerie gleam.
Then, in the next moment, he kicked the horse’s flank and wheeled around, riding off into the distance.
“……What, what was that?”
Killian Knox rejoined the honor guard waiting for him and surged forward again.
Jake grabbed my shoulder as I stood gaping after them, hauling me to my feet.
“Good grief! You fool!”
Smack!
“Ow! Why are you hitting me?”
“Why are you asking? You nearly got yourself killed!”
“……I know.”
“You know, and you still pulled that stunt? I should’ve just left you there!”
I didn’t talk back, even as he rained blows across my back.
He was right, after all.
As a member of Knox, where the boss’s safety came before everything else, I’d made the worst possible choice.
The ideal outcome would have been leaving no one on the road at all. But once that failed, I should have stayed out of it and let things play out naturally.
Let Killian Knox step over Hanno Becker without hesitation.
Just then, the other Action Group members came thundering over.
Unsurprisingly, they were all fuming.
“Are you insane?!”
“What were you thinking?”
“Jake, don’t you know how to discipline your juniors?!”
Why were they coming down on Jake? It wasn’t his fault.
My chest tightened, but I kept my head down—I had blood on my hands.
“Another inch and our necks would’ve been on the block!”
“Fortunately, the boss saw fit to overlook it!”
“Damn idiot!”
“I apologize, everyone. I’ll make sure to give him a proper thrashing, I assure you,” Jake said, bowing in my stead.
After grumbling at him for a while longer, they finally dispersed.
The disturbance had settled, and they needed to resume Checkpoint Inspection.
“Phew.”
I sighed and brushed the dust from my filthy clothes when a large shadow fell across me.
It was Hanno Becker, his head bowed so low I could only see the top of it despite his considerable height.
“Thank you so much for saving me.”
He was still trembling, clearly shaken.
“I wouldn’t be alive right now without you…….”
“Well, just be more careful from now on.”
Lucky for me, I’d ended up saving Hanno Becker, but it wasn’t as if I’d done anything particularly noble.
I wasn’t about to preen over it, so I just nodded absently—until Jake stepped in with fire in his eyes.
“Don’t just say it with words; repay the debt properly! A Death Notice was about to reach your family before you even started Enrollment, and he’s the one who stopped it!”
“A, a Death Notice…….”
“He said you had a Gold Nugget in your pack! Why did you hesitate? Even if you’d lost the gold, it wouldn’t be worth more than your life——!”
“That’s enough, senior. Let’s get back to work. Everyone over there is glaring at us,” I said, pushing him along.
Jake snorted sharply—but he moved forward anyway.
He knew that drawing any more attention would make life in the Action Group unbearable.
“Next in line, please!”
We’d just resumed Checkpoint Inspection as if nothing had happened.
When a merchant who’d received an Inspection Clearance Certificate suddenly thrust something into my hands.
“This fell over there.”
It was a Doll, trampled beneath the honor guard’s hooves and worn nearly beyond recognition.
And on it, embroidered in a child’s clumsy hand, was the name “Hanno.”
The Doll’s owner had already shuffled into the Outer City with the wind completely knocked out of his sails.
“Damn it.”
I’m not living up to my strength, that’s for sure.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Jake, getting his nod of approval before I bolted after Hanno Becker.
I broke into a run, tracking down the toy’s owner.
“Hanno Becker!”
“Huh? You’re the one from before…….”
“This is yours.”
I handed him the soiled Doll.
“Take it with you.”
“Th, thank y…….”
Hanno Becker didn’t snatch it up right away. He just stared at the Doll with his name stitched into it.
“Thank you, sob……!”
Wait.
Is he crying right now?
I looked up, startled, and Hanno Becker was indeed crying!
Not just tears welling up in his eyes—but fat droplets streaming down his face!
“I thought I’d never find it…….”
It wasn’t often you saw a grown man, let alone one as large as Hanno Becker, weeping like this.
Passersby were stealing glances at him.
It was his very first day at the Enrollment Center. He’d nearly died. He’d barely escaped with his life.
And now, holding this toy his younger sister had given him, his emotions simply spilled over—tears he couldn’t stop.
I could have patted him on the shoulder, told him to keep his chin up.
“Good luck,” I said.
I shoved the Doll into his hands and turned away without a second look.
I can’t stand people who cry!
Better to just beat the snot out of some sleazebag and be done with it!
As I strode back toward Jake, who was struggling alone, my shoulder suddenly throbbed with sharp pain.
All this from just rolling around a bit? That’s pathetic.
I realized then how completely I’d let myself go soft.
“Looks like I need some serious training for a while.”
***
I was thinking I’d have to do bodyweight exercises alone in my quarters.
But luck had it—proper training came my way sooner than expected.
Though not in the form I’d anticipated.
“Train under another senior?” I asked, confused.
Gisela Roth nodded casually as she answered, all the while scribbling shorthand into a report with practiced speed.
Writing faster than the eye could follow.
“Can’t you see I’m swamped? Besides, when it comes to Hand-to-hand Combat, Konrad’s got the edge on me.”
“Konrad…….”
Wasn’t that the senior who’d had Noah Benton take his report while he sprawled across the sofa sleeping?
Leaving a perfectly capable supervisor for that guy seemed like madness.
Gisela must have read my expression, because she snorted in amusement.
“You can’t learn report-writing from him, sure—but the man’s a beast when it comes to Hand-to-hand Combat. Look, he’s coming now.”
A man with long hair—someone I hadn’t seen since the day I’d first entered the Nest—was pushing through the door into the office.
‘What do these people eat to get so massive?’
Hanno Becker, and now this man Konrad.
They were all a different breed altogether, breathing rarified air I hadn’t yet reached.
His face, which had been obscured by a book the last time, was actually quite handsome.
Below his long dark-blue hair, gathered into a single knot, lay dark eyes that were particularly striking.
The face beneath bore the casual familiarity of someone in his early thirties, maybe mid-thirties at most—someone speaking informally with Gisela Roth—and was adequately tanned.
His hands and arms bore old scars; his half-lidded, drowsy eyes were his most distinctive feature.
“Konrad, take this kid and go. I’m tired of listening to him chirp.”
“The report?”
His voice was low and deep, matching his broad physique.
“If you take Chirpy here for training instead, I’ll write it for you.”
“Are your eyes for decoration? What do you think this is?” he said, gesturing at the work before him.
“Ah.”
Konrad nodded vaguely and turned to me.
“Come on.”
He didn’t even wait—just turned and walked away with a lazy shuffle.
But toward the door to the Reception Room he’d just come from.
I thought the training would be outside, so I hurried after him—then Gisela called out from behind.
“Don’t slack off! Train properly or I’ll write your report lazily too!”
“Mm.”
Though he agreed readily enough, Konrad muttered under his breath.
“Love your comrades, love your country, they say. But she’s downright cold.”
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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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