There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 77

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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 77.
In all my years, I never thought I’d reach enlightenment thanks to a young master like this.
Which meant I’d been shaken more than I realized, though I couldn’t say the feeling was unpleasant.
Actually, it felt rather good.
Whoosh! Wheeee—!
A laugh escaped me as I slipped past the staff’s tip hurtling at my face like an arrow.
“This bastard, laughing?”
He torments others without mercy, yet treasures his own feelings.
Fire flashed in Kaspa Ashbach’s eyes.
Then the staff’s movements changed.
Swish! Swish!
The Air-Splitting Sound grew sharper still, and now the staff’s rounded end no longer aimed at my face but rushed toward my neck—far harder to dodge.
Ashbach had begun drawing on something other than raw muscle.
Not quite at Maximilian’s level of proper Aura control, but he’d apparently reached the point of accumulating Mana in his body.
“How’s that? Starting to sweat now?”
As I heard the brute’s characteristic boast, I glanced sideways at Instructor Grau.
Whether or not he knew Ashbach was using Aura, he showed no sign of stepping in this time either.
‘All the better.’
Even if I left Ashbach in the same state as Hanno earlier, nobody would complain.
“Hey, you brute.”
I caught my breath for a moment, then taunted Ashbach, who was already thrusting his staff back and forth.
“This damn punk!”
Sure enough, he squeezed every last ounce of Mana from his body and aimed for my throat.
It was the opening I’d been waiting for.
Crack!
I swung the staff I’d been holding idle until now, striking his shaft down hard.
The blow sent his staff plunging deep into the Training Grounds floor at the full speed of his thrust.
Crack-boom!
“Ugh!”
The brute made an absurd sound and staggered, desperately trying to pull his staff free.
“Hahaha!”
“Kaspa, want me to get you a new one?”
Several people burst into loud laughter at his pathetic state, and Instructor Grau was among them.
But his laughing expression carried a different quality than before.
Now, at last, he looked the way a true instructor should—serious and genuine.
“Rotten temperament.”
Instructor Grau had known all along what Ashbach’s problem was.
But he’d had no intention of pointing it out and guiding the boy toward the easier, right path.
I tsked and approached the brute, who was still grunting in struggle.
“Hey, Ashbach. You’ve never properly learned Staff Technique, have you?”
“What?”
“You’ve been wielding that staff like a spear this whole time. That’s not how you do it.”
“What do you know, you—!”
Ashbach’s face, which had flushed from the crowd’s laughter, turned crimson.
“Want me to help you pull it out?”
“I don’t need your—”
“Hold the staff tight.”
I said so and swung the staff hard.
Thwack!
“Gahhh!”
The brute’s body flew up from the force of the thick shaft striking him squarely, and he crashed backward.
His weapon, which had been embedded in the ground, slipped free and rolled across the floor with him.
Though I had to admit, he’d been listening to instructions at least.
Ashbach sat dazed on the ground, looking around as if he couldn’t comprehend what had just happened to him.
Seeing that blank stare directed at me, I pointed out the flaw that Instructor Grau should have taught him about.
“A staff isn’t meant to be thrust. It’s meant to be swung.”
“You, you—you bastard!”
Finally understanding his predicament, the brute came charging with every foul insult in his arsenal.
His mouth was as filthy as his temperament.
But despite teaching him properly, the fool made no progress.
He kept wielding the staff like a spear.
‘Definitely not spy material.’
I’d wager Ashbach’s intelligence fell short even of a brick.
This idiot—a spy?
Griffin would never have sent such a simpleton as a spy candidate.
Not unless he wanted his neck cut by Killian Nox—you don’t pick someone so easily caught and ready to spill secrets under pressure.
Whoosh! Wheee, whoosh!
His Mana had run dry, so the Air-Splitting Sound grew ordinary.
It was still threatening enough, but if he kept thrusting the staff like a spear, it would only weaken his defense.
“Every thrust creates a moment when you have to stop.”
I tilted my head and slipped past his attack.
At the same time, I grabbed his staff—the one not yet recovered from the ground—and pulled hard.
“Because a staff has no blade. You can grab it.”
“Ack!”
Crash-thud!
He flipped forward hard onto the ground with the sound of bruises blooming across both knees.
His rear end faced me in a perfect position.
“Since you’ve learned it, let’s practice now.”
Whack!
The beating that began with that heavy strike continued for quite some time.
Whether he was down or standing, it mattered not.
The brute was getting struck like a training dummy, and I was enjoying myself.
Of course, unlike Instructor Grau or this fool, I wasn’t a sadist who delighted in others’ pain—so between blows, I offered useful advice.
“That said, you don’t always have to swing. Sometimes, you thrust. Like this.”
“Gack!”
The tip of my staff struck Ashbach’s solar plexus deep and true.
After coughing and even vomiting bile for a while, the brute raised his palms and screamed.
“S-stop! Stop now!”
So I gave him back his own words.
“Hmm, you don’t like it?”
Then I resumed the beating.
The lively barrage ended only when Kaspa Ashbach’s nose started bleeding.
A nosebleed from both nostrils, no less.
I confirmed the two streams flowing clearly, then spoke to Instructor Grau.
“I think Ashbach can distinguish between Staff Technique and Spear Technique now.”
“Khaha! Right, right. He’ll never forget that!”
Instructor Grau giggled for a long while before bellowing aloud.
“Today’s lesson ends here!”
Ah, refreshing.
***
D-80.
Removing Kaspa Ashbach from the spy candidate list had been satisfying, but the investigation afterward proved far less smooth.
I’d gained two more plausible candidates.
Both were trainees who had some connection to the brick, and during free time without training, their whereabouts were often unaccounted for.
I planned to follow them discreetly whenever I spotted an opportunity with no eyes watching.
Unless we were running a mass hunt operation with multiple colleagues, the investigation had to proceed covertly.
If the target realized they were being tracked before identification, they might panic and hide even deeper.
That was precisely the problem here.
“That’s Runelk Eines, right?”
A whisper reached my ears as I carried my food tray toward my table.
“I heard he uses the room next to Max’s?”
“He’s from the Action Squad! And he gets those expensive quarters?”
“I heard he’s actually a son from some ridiculously rich family, kept hidden!”
“I heard he’s a potential son-in-law picked by the Nox Vassal House?”
All wrong, you idiots.
I can’t be anyone’s son or son-in-law in the first place!
Rumors about me started spreading around the time of the Morning Run yesterday at dawn.
A few trainees kept glancing at me as I jogged lazily, murmuring to each other. I thought something was on my face.
I should’ve nipped it then.
What had begun as whispers among a few had transformed into all manner of wild rumors circulating freely.
“I’m going to burn holes in my own face with irritation.”
Even as I sat eating, their gossiping wouldn’t stop.
In fact, several trainees had turned their bodies toward me and were having an animated debate among themselves.
“The hypothesis that he’s the Great Merchant Guild heir seems most likely, doesn’t it?”
“No way! Why would a Guild heir come to the training grounds and suffer like this?”
“That’s the whole point! He needs to learn how the world works from the bottom up!”
“Oh, that makes sense?”
“It has to be that! The merchant heir in disguise!”

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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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