There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 78

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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 78.
Let them say what they like—that I’m some powerful man’s prospective son-in-law, or a merchant heir hiding his true identity.
I don’t care that absurd rumors circulate about who I am.
At least no one was spreading the story that I was some executive’s hidden lover—I was grateful for that much.
All the talk stemmed from the private room Decan Gold had secured for me through his donation, but keeping that space to myself was a necessity for survival, not a luxury.
What troubled me most wasn’t the rumors themselves.
It was the eyes of the people who came with them.
How was I supposed to conduct surveillance like this?
“This is driving me mad, seriously.”
I let out an exasperated sigh and ran my hand through my hair, yet even this unremarkable gesture drew fresh whispers.
“Did you see that?”
“Yeah, the shirt cuff!”
“That looks like the seal of that famous clothing shop!”
“Right, right—Madam Rosenthal’s seal!”
This shirt had something besides Nox’s seal stitched into it?
“That can’t be… but it is?”
A beige rose, no bigger than a fingernail, was embroidered along the lower edge of my sleeve.
‘They saw that from way over there?’
A chill ran down my spine.
At the same moment, vertigo seized me.
Someone had noticed something about myself that I hadn’t even known about myself.
Right now it was just the name of a clothing shop, but later it could mean something else entirely.
If I kept watching someone closely, or kept asking questions about a particular person—
If those small things accumulated one by one, my target would begin to guard against me.
‘Then I’d have to say goodbye to finding the spy.’
And to this world as well.
Killian Nox would never let me live if I failed to complete the task of finding a spy.
“Ugh.”
“Come on, sighing over your meal like that—you’ll sigh away your luck!”
“Don’t say anything to Rookie, Zander. He’s just agitated because of all these ridiculous rumors going around.”
As Zander Mork rebuked me, Hanno came to my defense.
Good kid.
“Ridiculous rumors? Oh, those.”
Zander Mork grinned and leaned in close, lowering his voice to ask.
“So is it true you’re secretly seeing someone important?”
…Yeah, that sounds about right.
This kind of sensational gossip usually surfaced first, but I’d only heard stories about being some nobleman’s son, which struck me as odd.
Maybe it had just never reached my ears.
Having achieved a state of enlightenment, I merely laughed hollowly, and Hanno, alarmed on my behalf, tried to stop Zander Mork instead.
“Come on, enough!”
“Why do you keep calling out? He’s not saying anything, so why are you getting all flustered?”
“Because he can’t say anything! A-a lover, really… you don’t actually believe that, do you?”
“Would I be asking if I believed it?”
Zander Mork chuckled and turned to me with a grin.
“Hey, Rookie. You know I grew up in the night streets, right?”
“Yes, you mentioned it before.”
Among the trainees around me, if anyone had the most distinctive background, it was Zander Mork.
He was born in an old red-light district in Rautern, the capital of the Bernheim Empire, raised by those working the trade, and he didn’t know who his parents were.
That was why he called all those who raised him mother and father.
But what did that have to do with my rumors?
“I’ve spent all twenty-six years of my life watching someone’s mistresses, so I can tell you don’t have the desperation for that kind of work.”
“Desperation?”
“How do I put it… that feeling of having already finished your life’s purpose, so now you don’t care as long as you can live comfortably. Someone like that wouldn’t need to play secret lover. It’s… messy in several ways.”
Zander Mork wore a bitter smile, bitter as cooling coffee, and shrugged before slipping back into his usual demeanor and adding playfully.
“For what it’s worth, I’m betting you’re foreign royalty on an undercover mission to experience commoners’ lives.”
Now we were down to actual wagers.
This was the harm of locking vigorous youths away and training them constantly.
Their eyes lighting up over trivial gossip, gambling rings opening up.
I shoved the rest of my food into my mouth and stood up from the table.
Hanno’s eyes went wide as he asked.
“Heading back to the dormitory?”
“Yeah. Much longer here and my face might develop holes from their stares.”
“Fair enough. It’s Independent Training Time now anyway, so get some rest.”
I nodded vaguely, returned my tray, and slipped out of the Dining Hall.
The curious gazes that had clung to me so persistently vanished the moment I stepped into the empty corridor.
“Does he read people that well?”
Zander Mork’s words from the Dining Hall pricked my conscience.
He was right—I really was living with little attachment to anything.
To have seen through me like that.
I scratched my head and deliberately chose paths where few people walked, heading toward my destination.
When Hanno asked if I was heading back to the dormitory, I’d nodded, but that wasn’t where I was actually going.
I was headed to the Library, located on the first floor of the Lecture Building.
I could reach it faster by crossing the Training Grounds, but that would draw more unwanted attention.
I didn’t need to be trailed by curious eyes while heading out to observe a suspect.
‘Will Julia Zimmel be there again today?’
Every morning after class ended, during the free time given to us, Julia Zimmel headed to the Library.
Occasionally classmates would ask to study together, but each time she refused firmly.
She said she couldn’t concentrate with someone beside her.
‘A spy needs time alone.’
In a training facility where dozens lived communally, study was the perfect excuse to secure time for covert movement.
Julia Zimmel, studying alone in the Library every day after lunch.
At some point, no one wondered where she was during those hours anymore.
Obviously she was in the Library studying.
But was she really?
After putting Julia Zimmel on my suspect list, I visited the Library every day.
And I confirmed whether she was actually there.
Julia Zimmel truly was studying in the Library.
Except for two occasions.
I thought perhaps she’d stepped away momentarily, so I waited a considerable length of time, but Julia Zimmel never appeared.
“Julia, did you have trouble concentrating yesterday?”
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah. Those guys were making a racket in the Library, remember?”
“Ah, right. It was a bit distracting, but I managed. I’m the kind who doesn’t hear much around me once I’m focused.”
A lie.
The Library had been silent as a tomb that day.
If she’d truly had other business, one word would have sufficed: ‘I didn’t go to the Library yesterday.’
Instead, she chose to lie.
Why?
Where had she gone that she couldn’t tell a classmate about?
I found myself staring at the Library entrance, visible far down the hallway, lost in thought.
If Julia Zimmel wasn’t in there today, I would search the entire training facility.
That was when it happened.
“Runelk Eins.”
Someone called my name.
“Over here, over here.”
The voice wasn’t coming from inside the building—it was from outside.
I glanced around the corridor, then peered out the window just in case, and found an ordinary-looking man smiling at me.
Whether he’d been lying in the Garden connected to the first floor of the Lecture Building, a few fallen leaves were clinging to his brown hair.
“Bertolt Kraus?”
“Wow, you know my name?”
The third suspect, Bertolt Kraus, the heir to the Kraus Merchant Company, wore an easy, disarming smile as he looked up at me.

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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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