There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 69

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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 69.
I’d assumed without question that I’d be given a private room.
After all, that’s how it’d been in the action squad, and in the temporary quarters at the Training Facility too!
But no private room—
Four people to one room, no less!
And with hot-blooded young men at that!
I could already smell sweat wafting through the air.
No, it was actually there.
Not quite a stale reek, but definitely a distinct sweaty odor that intensified with each step into the room.
Hanno Becker, apparently finding it just as unpleasant, threw open the window that had been sealed shut and shouted at the other two.
“Put some clothes on and keep them on! You’re dripping sweat all over the floor!”
“Hanno, you don’t look it, but you’re incredibly tidy. Right, Matthias?”
“You’re telling me. He’s worse than my sister with the nagging.”
The shorter one was Matthias Heller; the lanky one was Zander Mork.
That’s what I’d learned from the introductions we’d done over breakfast in the Dining Hall.
At least they weren’t complete strangers, so that was a relief—or was it?
“Why do you two insist on exercising shirtless?”
“Because clothes get soaked in sweat?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you’re the one washing them, Zander!”
“Too much hassle to take them to the laundry.”
Hanno Becker, who’d been bickering with Zander Mork, suddenly dragged me into it.
“Now that Runelk’s going to be sharing the room with us, we should all show a little consideration!”
“Oh, Runelk.”
“You’re here.”
The two of them, who’d gone back to their exercises while ignoring Hanno’s lecture, gave me a halfhearted wave.
“Runelk, why don’t you say something to those two?”
“I… just do as you see fit. I’m going to use the bathroom for a moment.”
Whether those kids went shirtless or not didn’t matter to me, as long as the smell didn’t get worse.
Besides, it looked like Hanno—frustrated with the floor—would end up cleaning it himself anyway.
I stepped into the small bathroom that four people had to share, locked the door behind me, and crouched down.
“This is a mess, honestly.”
***
The next day.
The first official training session was the Dawn Running Drill.
After circling the edge of the Training Ground thirty times and returning to the barracks, Hanno, Zander, and Matthias—who’d arrived first—were collapsed on the floor still gasping for breath.
“Huff… huff…”
“Dying… huff… feels like… groan.”
Matthias and Zander were bare-chested again.
Those two definitely had an allergy to shirts.
They were pale and gaunt as if they’d never seen sunlight before—probably from being in the library—and their bony frames were utterly unsettling to look at.
“Huff… Runelk, you doing okay?”
“Wasn’t all that hard.”
After giving a vague answer to Hanno Becker, who was lying there catching his breath, I hurried toward the bathroom.
Then Zander Mork frowned.
“What, you’re going to the bathroom again?”
“…It feels uncomfortable.”
“Get out quickly. Once I cool off, I need to wash too.”
I heard muffled comments about constipation behind me, but I locked the bathroom door first.
Then I turned on the water to make it seem like I was showering, pulled out the Mana Necklace I’d hidden inside my clothes, and rubbed the Mana Stone to stop its function.
Whoosh—
Long black hair spilled down in front of me as I crouched before the sink with my head bowed.
‘Damn it.’
Unable to speak, I could only mouth the curse in my original voice.
‘What do I do now?’
Sharing a room with four men?
No problem at all.
If only this necklace didn’t change my appearance.
‘These brief charging sessions have their limits.’
To replenish Mana, I had to stop the necklace’s function.
That meant I’d have to periodically return to my original form.
Until now, I’d had no trouble using this necklace.
In fact, I didn’t even know exactly how many days the necklace would function without recharging.
I could only guess vaguely by watching the Mana Stone’s color fade as my Mana reserves decreased.
‘Because I’d never had to worry about this before!’
I tore at my hair soundlessly, wanting to scream.
I’d worn this necklace constantly since I was ten, when I decided to avenge my family, but I’d never been in a situation where I lacked solitude or privacy.
Back in the pickpocket den, even though we’d slept tangled together with kids our own age in one room, everyone scattered across the city by morning.
Being alone meant I could operate without drawing attention and could pick pockets without hesitation.
Even after joining Wickes, it was the same.
Female operatives were so few that I naturally got a private room.
Out of habit, I always slept with the necklace’s function turned off, so I never suffered from Mana depletion.
‘And back then, my Mana consumption was far lower too!’
Now, having even changed my gender for a successful escape, I need to recharge far more frequently than when I was living as Helena of Wickes.
‘What do I do?’
Spy or not, at this rate my identity was going to be exposed.
That’s when it happened.
“Hey, Runelk. You got constipation or something?”
Matthias Heller’s voice came from beyond the locked door.
But when I didn’t answer, he knocked on the bathroom door with a thud.
“Just let me use the toilet for a sec, open the—”
Bang!
Unable to speak, I slammed the door with all the frustration I could muster.
“Oh, got it. Use the Dining Hall bathroom then. Go on, do your business, feel better.”
After confirming that Matthias’s muttering voice was fading away, I tore at my long hair again.
‘This won’t do.’
I needed to find a way to secure time alone.
***
‘Is this the reward for my diligent donations at the Temple?’
The goddess of fortune reached out to help me once more.
“There’s actually a way to get a private room?”
When I asked in surprise at this information I’d just learned while eating breakfast, my female peer Julia Zimmel, sitting across from me at the Dining Hall table, crunched into her dessert fruit and shrugged.
“Is it fair to call it a ‘way’?”
“No, seriously, explain it to me properly. I’m being sincere here, Julia.”
As I pleaded, Zander Mork, sitting next to me, chuckled.
“Yeah, this one’s got such bad constipation that a private room is a lifelong dream.”
“Zander! Ugh, you’re ruining my appetite!”
Henrietta Kluck, the youngest at nineteen, protested in disgust.
Then she lowered her eyebrows sympathetically and looked at me with concern.
“Runelk, if it’s really that bad, why don’t you go to the Medical Ward and get checked out?”
“No, constipation is—”
It was all because of the necklace.
I’d been holed up in the bathroom so often to recharge Mana that this ridiculous misunderstanding had taken root.
“Sigh. Help me out, Julia.”
“I can explain it fine, but calling it a ‘way’ makes it sound harder than it is—”
“Please.”
I didn’t want to be branded as the constipation case anymore.
“Ugh, fine. So you know trainees don’t automatically get four to a room, right?”
“…I didn’t?”
“What are we going to do with you.”
Julia Zimmel, who had the best entrance exam scores among our group and came from the liberal arts track, explained the housing assignment rules one by one.
Listening intently to every word, I learned about the Training Facility’s Donation System.
“So the rule is that men get four to a room and women get two, but if you donate, you can have a private room?”
“Right. It’s a system created by the current Training Facility director, Padilla Bondez. But that donation goes entirely to other trainees, so people like us from ordinary families have nothing to complain about.”
“Honestly, if I got assigned to a room with someone like Maximilian, I think I’d go mad.”
Henrietta Kluck shuddered at the very thought.
“So… if you have the money, that’s all it takes?”
I didn’t know how much the donation for a private room cost, but it was a matter of life and death for me.
My survival depended on it.
And as it happened, I had a wealthy acquaintance.
Someone who called me their “savior” and desperately wanted to repay a life debt—someone very, very rich.

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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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