There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 50

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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 50.
The first day of the week, the start of the month.
The duties of Action Squad 13, the unit I belonged to, had changed.
To Night Outer City Patrol, no less.
Those days of lounging comfortably in the outpost were over.
When I heard the news after coming in to work today, I felt an uneasy guilt—as though I’d brought this on everyone.
All because I’d rushed in front of Killian Knox’s words trying to save Hanno Becker.
But once I learned it was merely a rotation through unpopular duties on a temporary basis, my mood actually improved.
If they were making me stand watch while the senior guys slept with their noses rattling, well, now they’d have to suffer the same hardship.
“Ugh, it’s freezing. I guess autumn’s really here now, Rookie.”
Jake, today’s patrol partner, shivered and spoke through chattering teeth.
“The leaves started falling a while ago, didn’t they?”
“Did they, now?”
Watching him stomp his feet with childish delight at the rustling sound made me sigh involuntarily.
Could I really manage working patrol with just this senior for the next three months?
Night patrol operated on the principle of Two-Person Squads.
But Jake, who’d been stomping along ahead of me, caught his foot on a slippery patch of fallen leaves and lurched badly.
“Whoa! I almost died!”
“A cracked head won’t kill you, but your shoulder’s going to ache even more.”
“What’s wrong with my shoulder?”
“You injured it. I twisted it wrong when we fought.”
“No, I didn’t! My shoulder’s fine!”
Was it really so shameful to be injured by a junior’s hand?
It happened to everyone sometimes.
I glanced at Jake, who was jumping around in denial.
“Look, I’m already paying for your medicine. Why are you being stubborn when you’re still wearing bandages—”
“Well, what about you!”
“What about me?”
“Why do you always come back injured from somewhere? I’ve been pretending not to notice, but maybe I should start asking questions, huh?”
Every wound that accumulated on my body was Conrad Eichner’s doing.
He found teaching me so entertaining that he threw me around relentlessly—I never got a day of peace.
But I could hardly confess that I was receiving training from a raven-masked senior of the Knight Order in the Underground Secret Training Ground.
“Ahem.”
A moment of silence fell between Jake and me.
We tacitly agreed to ignore the bandages wrapped around each other’s bodies.
Silence acknowledged by silence.
“…So we’re stuck doing night patrols for the next three months straight?”
“…Looks like it.”
We dropped the argument and started walking again.
“At least it’s better than doing this in the middle of winter.”
“Ugh, this neighborhood gets absolutely buried in snow.”
“Yeah, snow. Trash falling from the sky.”
Jake shot an accusatory glance at the still-clear sky above.
“Don’t tell me we have to clear snow during patrols in the dead of winter too?”
“Never know what might happen. If the roads are piled with snow, you can’t move fast enough.”
“That’s genuinely awful.”
“But didn’t you say you lived in Rovenheaven? Isn’t that up near the northern border? It must snow even more up there.”
To be precise, I’d lived in the Wickes Earldom, further north than Rovenheaven itself.
But back then, I hadn’t held the rank to clear snow.
‘True enough. Snow doesn’t just pile itself around the roads, does it?’
It was a fact I’d never grasped back when I only ever walked on streets kept immaculately clean.
Thinking of the Wickes Mansion, where snow would already be falling by now, I answered flatly.
“It just snows all day long, so nobody bothers. It just… accumulates.”
“Oh, I suppose that makes sense.”
Jake nodded, then hunched his neck against the rising wind and said, “It’s cold, so cold! Let’s do one quick circuit and head back to the Sector Outpost.”
Patrol squads covering the broad Outer City through the night were assigned to a Sector Outpost.
Two at a time would take turns going out on patrol, while the rest waited there.
It wasn’t the worst arrangement.
“Aren’t they just going to kick us back out anyway?”
“No, no way. We’re paired with Bono and Hubert this month, remember?”
Then the patrol would be bearable.
Unlike those shameless seniors who dumped all their work on us, those two were different.
Jake and I, united in the sole determination to finish fast and rest faster, broke into a half-run.
Our assigned sector tonight covered part of the Residential District and Commercial District where Knox personnel, hired hands, and their families lived.
Just as we entered the Commercial District, Jake threw up his hands in surrender.
“Huff, huff! I can’t run anymore!”
“All right, let’s slow down then.”
With my recent training, I’d built up considerable stamina.
This pace didn’t even wind me, but I pretended to struggle and matched Jake’s speed out of courtesy.
We’d just passed midnight, and the commercial district still had plenty of people drinking late.
“This feels more like a night stroll than an actual patrol.”
“For now, yeah. But it’ll get creepy in the early dawn, trust me.”
We were passing the brightly lit restaurant run by Yanik when Jake stopped.
“Hey, Rookie, hold up a second.”
“…You know you’re not supposed to drink while on patrol, right?”
“That’s not it, dammit! My stomach’s been cramping since we ran. Just wait a minute!”
Looking genuinely distressed and clutching his abdomen, Jake bolted into Yanik’s restaurant.
“This’ll take forever.”
I gave up on waiting in place and started a leisurely walk around the area, taking in the sights.
Most of the storefronts besides the drinking establishments were shuttered.
It was actually pleasant to peer through the dark windows at the interiors.
Realizing I’d wandered too far, I turned to head back toward Yanik’s.
Meow—
A faint cry came from the alleyway behind me.
“Oh, a real cat.”
It was a stray perched on top of a low wall, and it had called out to me.
“You’re not afraid of people, are you?”
The cat, well-fed and plump from scraps given by local merchants, didn’t flee at the sight of me—instead, it approached with obvious affection.
Meow—
“I don’t have anything to eat.”
I crouched down in front of the cat, which was now rubbing its head against my leg.
When I began gently stroking the small head, the creature purred contentedly.
“How can you be so reckless about strangers? What if I were a bad person?”
Tomorrow I’d try to bring it some chicken—if I could manage it.
I’d need to remember what it looked like.
“Let’s see… tabby with white socks, and a bent tail…”
Clang!
A faint metallic sound echoed from deeper in the alley.
It could have been another stray, but I instinctively scooped up the cat and tucked myself behind the wall.
Then I let the startled creature scamper off in the opposite direction and quietly peeked out.
‘I knew something felt off.’
A man emerged from the unlit alley, his form barely visible.
He walked too steadily to be drunk, yet his furtive glances around him were far too suspicious for a casual passerby.
‘A thief?’
But he didn’t seem to have stolen anything, nor did theft appear to be his aim.
A thief without a bag to carry goods in was unheard of.
“Damn… where the hell is it…”
He muttered anxiously as he glanced about, lost, then disappeared deeper into the alley.
‘Should I follow?’
The thought flickered through my mind, but I dismissed it.
I was neither a true member of Action Squad 13 nor a true raven.
Helena Morton, hiding in Knox to escape the Wickes Earldom.
That was the real me.
To keep that secret, my priority was to buy time and find a way to cut the leash Killian Knox had wound around me.
“Don’t let me see you again.”
I pushed off from the wall and headed back toward the main street.
When I arrived back at Yanik’s restaurant, I recalled what the suspicious man had been wearing.
His clothes seemed far too thin and flimsy for this weather—almost like sleepwear.
But the Knox Seal emblazoned on his chest had been unmistakable, even in the darkness.
No standard-issue uniform included sleepwear like that.
So if someone was wandering alone in clothes like that at this hour, lost in the Knox Residence, then he was likely—
“…A trainee?”

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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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