There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 54

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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 54.
The sound of wind whistling through the forest on a silent night—something that should never be heard in such stillness.
I didn’t react, just stood there and turned my body around.
Whatever it was, I didn’t want any part of it.
“Psst! Psst!”
The sound kept repeating even as I walked away from the Clearing.
It grew harsher with each breath.
But I didn’t turn my head in that direction.
I can’t hear it.
I’m not hearing anything at all.
Just as I was about to slip free of the grassland—
“Hey! You! Over there!”
A heavily suppressed voice came from somewhere up in the trees.
Of course it had to be a tree right at the mouth of the trail.
‘What kind of fool would do this?’
I hadn’t expected the person hiding in the forest to actually call out loud, so I’d hesitated for a moment before moving again.
I was giving this numbskull one last chance.
But my judgment was premature.
If he’d known what an opportunity looked like, he wouldn’t be such an idiot.
“Hey! Yellow hair! Can’t you hear me?!”
“How could I not hear you?!”
He was shouting loud enough to wake the dead.
I answered in a hushed voice while shooting a look up into the branches.
But Buzz-cut seemed to think I hadn’t actually spotted his hiding place.
“How did you— Urgh!”
Thump.
He must have thrashed about in surprise; a cracking sound split the air before Buzz-cut came tumbling straight down.
But the silhouette rolling through the grass looked familiar.
This was definitely the same guy I’d seen wandering the back alleys of the Nox Commercial District in his sleepwear.
“You’re that guy from back then—”
“Ow! My ankle! My ankle! Ahhhhh!”
This was driving me crazy.
As Buzz-cut rolled around clutching his leg, several papers scattered from his clothes onto the ground.
I caught a glimpse: a map of the Nox Commercial District and what looked like an internal layout of the Training Grounds.
‘A spy, then.’
That realization wasn’t a pleasant one, and it left me even more baffled.
A spy screaming at the top of his lungs just because he’d fallen a short distance from a tree?
Spies who do real work—if a blade pierces their body mid-mission, they bite their tongue and counterattack rather than cry out.
It’s the only way to reduce witnesses and improve their odds of escaping cleanly.
In other words, Buzz-cut was a poorly trained amateur.
“Ugh!”
What kind of people send greenhorns like this into Nox?
Whoever was behind this couldn’t have had a functioning brain.
Or maybe they’d sent him here to die.
“Shut your mouth.”
I approached him quickly, hissing the words low.
If he’d just stay quiet now, he might actually survive.
Better than heading back to the Training Grounds—escaping over the Castle Walls would be—
“This is all your fault!”
“What?”
“If you’d just quietly taken the signal when I sent it the first time, I wouldn’t have fallen!”
“You’d be better off dead.”
Blaming everyone else with no rhyme or reason.
My resolve to let him live evaporated.
Buzz-cut lacked both skill and character; he’d probably never even understand that I was doing him a favor.
“You showed up way later than the agreed time anyway! And you said brown hair, but you’re not even—!”
“Rookie!”
Jake had followed after me, apparently.
The one silver lining was that my senior had terribly poor night vision.
“What were you thinking, running off like that by yourself?!”
“My apologies, sir.”
I answered smoothly and gave Buzz-cut a pointed look.
Get lost. Now.
“But I did hear something strange just now. You came this way because of it too, right?”
“Ah, well, about that—”
I’d used that as an excuse earlier.
“The sound was actually coming from over that way instead—”
I was making an excuse to lead Jake somewhere else when—
Scrape.
Buzz-cut pulled out a Dagger he’d hidden around his ankle.
It was small—barely the size of my palm—but depending on where it struck, it was definitely sharp enough to kill.
And Buzz-cut aimed it straight at Jake.
There was nothing to think about.
“You little bastard.”
Smack.
I kicked the Dagger out of his hand, sending it flying far away.
“Huh?”
To the sound of Jake’s bewildered voice, I spun around and brought my other leg up in a high kick.
I was going to put Buzz-cut—who’d half-risen to his feet for another strike at Jake—to sleep with a solid blow to the head.
But the bastard was faster than expected.
He rolled away from the kick and lunged to grab my airborne leg.
“R-Rookie!”
Jake shouted loudly and started running toward us.
“Action Squad on patrol! Failure to cooperate means you’re classified as an Intruder!”
“Action Squad?”
Buzz-cut’s eyes filled with betrayal as he glared at me.
He’d only just realized I wasn’t whoever he’d been waiting for.
“You tricked me!”
Buzz-cut tried to sweep my leg with his other foot.
‘Not bad.’
His reflexive speed wasn’t terrible.
When I slipped back to avoid the kick, he immediately pushed himself up and threw punches and elbows with decent force.
‘Is he a trainee after all?’
Whatever his talent as a spy might be, it was nonexistent.
But that was the extent of it.
The leg sweep, the strikes—all second-rate choices.
The best option for Buzz-cut would have been to get up and run immediately.
I unbuckled the sword from my waist and slammed him across the shoulder with the scabbard.
Whack.
“Ack!”
…This guy really has zero talent as a spy.
After the shoulder came the waist, then the hip.
I clobbered him in sequence, and soon Buzz-cut was standing upright on both feet again.
‘Go on. Get out of here.’
More Action Squad members were already rushing toward us in the distance.
“Over there!”
“An actual Intruder showed up?!”
The patrol unit had heard Jake’s shout.
Even for a fool like Buzz-cut, it was clear this was his last chance to escape.
“Hiss—!”
He hesitated for a moment, then turned and bolted.
That’s when Jake shouted at me.
“Rookie! Get him!”
“Yes, sir!”
I had my position to consider.
If I wanted to keep my place in the Action Squad, I couldn’t just stand there and let an Intruder slip through my fingers.
Especially not a spy who’d been trying to steal intel from inside the Training Grounds.
The key word was ‘just stand there.’
“Stop right there!”
I shouted loudly on purpose and chased after Buzz-cut.
Fortunately, the tall grass in the Clearing helped.
In terrain like this, it wouldn’t be unusual if an Intruder got away because I accidentally stumbled.
My plan was to chase like this, then trip and take the fall.
But Buzz-cut turned out to be even more of an idiot than I’d expected.
Not realizing I was trying to let him go out of pity for being so poorly trained and recklessly sent in, he swung the Dagger at me.
The same one I’d kicked away earlier.
Whine—! Slash.
My raised arm stung where the blade had caught it lightly.
But the heat rose straight to my head instead.
“If you’ve got time to attack, you should be running!”
Crunch.
Something solid suddenly caught my foot.
I’d only meant to pretend to stumble, not actually fall.
Tumble-crash.
“Ugh!”
“Gah!”
I fell at full speed and rolled along with Buzz-cut.
When I came to, I was pinning him flat on his back with my full weight, subduing him completely.
“Damn. Habit kicking in.”
It was the same as when Jake had taken an Arm Breaking from me at the Tavern last time.
My instinct to bear down harder and harder the more an opponent struggled had surfaced unbidden.

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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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