There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 8

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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 8.
A few minutes earlier.
“Information on Helena Morton has arrived.”
Dupon approached and informed him.
Killian looked up and checked the time.
It was soon the hour when Deacon was to bring one of Nox’s trading partners.
The man had requested several times to meet Killian directly, saying it could help with recent complications in dealings with the Kingdom of Crolyn.
Had it been the Killian of old, he would have called Dupon back an hour later.
“I’ll return in a moment—”
Dupon, noticing the prior appointment, hesitated as he began to withdraw.
Killian had extended his hand toward the report.
The Intelligence Division’s report, which had become Dupon’s responsibility as of yesterday, passed into Killian’s hands.
Knock, knock.
“Your Grace.”
It was around then that Deacon knocked on the office door.
Instead of Killian, absorbed in reading through the report on Helena Morton, Dupon granted them entry.
“Helena Morton is dead?”
Killian asked, his dark brows furrowed.
“Yes. They held her funeral in Wickes a week ago, it seems.”
This was news from a spy planted in Wickes.
After searching for Helena Morton for the past year, Wickes had finally caught and killed the one who had murdered the former count.
“A coffin was seen leaving the estate, and a new gravestone was erected in Wickes’s burial ground.”
“A gravestone?”
“Yes. With the name ‘Helena Wickes’ carved into it.”
“Holding a funeral for the traitor who murdered my boss, giving her the Wickes name, and erecting a gravestone. How amusing.”
Killian twisted his mouth as if laughing at something ridiculous.
“The new alpha of the wolf cubs.”
The new alpha of the wolf cubs.
It was a mockery of Wickes’s symbolic emblem being a red wolf.
“Helena Morton seems to want to mark territory for what’s hers.”
Killian’s eyes grew cold.
“However, there’s a high probability that Helena Morton’s death itself is false.”
“Naturally.”
Helena Morton was not the sort of woman to die so easily.
The funeral Edward held was a declaration of sorts.
That he would no longer pursue Helena Morton for the crime of killing Benedict Wickes.
So when the day comes that Edward Wickes searches for Helena, she will no longer be Helena Morton.
With the funeral held, Helena Morton was already a dead woman’s name.
‘Edward Wickes must be keeping Helena Morton somewhere only he knows….’
Killian’s body moved at that thought.
As he stepped back and turned, a figure came into his blurred vision with a leg raised high.
At the foot of that kick, aimed precisely at his chest, a blade the length of a finger gleamed with a sharp blue light.
Whoosh!
Dupon beside him unleashed his weapon—a Chain.
‘Too late.’
Killian’s gaze, in a swift judgment, fixed on the ankle of the Nox Merchant Leader flying toward him.
The insect had reeked of killing intent from the moment he appeared before the office door.
All that creature needed was a mouth to spill information.
An unnecessary leg would tear free from its body with ease.
Thud!
Had the assassin not been violently shoved by someone and thrown off balance.
“Ugh!”
A scream and the sharp crack of bone echoed through the office.
An organization member who had suddenly appeared struck the assassin’s jaw with his elbow, sending him reeling from his own attack.
The moment the Nox Merchant Leader’s eyes rolled back from a hard blow to his focused lower jaw, the member moved again with swift precision.
Snap!
The blade that protruded from the shoe was decisively snapped under a stomp, and Killian’s eyes narrowed at how small the figure appeared.
“Your Grace!”
“Master!”
It was then that Deacon and the knights nearby came running, their faces drained white.
“Argh! Let go!”
As Dupon’s Chain bound the assassin’s legs and the knights fastened Shackles, the murderer thrashed and shrieked.
But if the ambush had succeeded, that would be one thing.
With his limbs held fast like a pinned specimen, it was nothing but meaningless struggle.
“Killian! I’ll kill you! I must, I must!”
The Nox Merchant Leader’s eyes flooded with bloodshot veins, drool streaming from his mouth.
“You devil! You’ll burn in hell! You will—!”
Killian, his face expressionless, heard the curses and kicked the assassin’s head.
Crack—!
“Ugh….”
The Nox Merchant Leader’s eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness, his gaping mouth stuffed with a gag to prevent self-harm.
“Take him to the basement and keep a close watch.”
At Dupon’s command, the knights lifted the Nox Merchant Leader like cargo and carried him out.
“Your Grace, are you all right?”
Killian did not answer.
He was staring intently at something.
“Your Grace?”
Confused, Dupon followed his gaze downward.
Next to where the assassin had fallen, a boy sat crouched.
Killian’s golden eyes were fixed squarely on that small figure.
A man-child sitting on the floor of the Duke’s office.
Rip—
A small tearing sound reached Dupon’s ear.
The boy, who appeared young but was clearly a member of Nox, was wrapping the area below his elbow tightly by tearing his clothes into strips.
“Oh…? Weren’t you the one from yesterday?”
Dupon belatedly recognized him, his eyes widening.
But the boy remained crouched, focused on binding his own arm.
“What in the world are you—”
Dupon frowned and approached the boy.
It seemed the boy had sustained an injury while subduing the assassin.
There was a cut on his forearm, slashed by the blade.
But something was wrong with the color of the wound.
“Poison?”
The flesh around the bleeding wound had already turned black with discoloration.
Alarmed, Dupon recalled where the emergency antidote might be kept and began to rise.
“Damn it. Too late—”
The boy murmured quietly and collapsed to his side.
***
Upon opening my eyes, I saw a white, high ceiling.
Where am I.
“Are you coming to?”
I lifted my head at the unfamiliar voice, quickly assessing the person before me.
Mid-thirties, platinum blonde, dark blue eyes, refined features.
Dressed neatly, but wearing the finest Eastern Rumanic silk from the Ruman domain and the star-emblazoned badge on the collar that only Nox Executives could wear.
‘Why is Deacon here?’
My last memory was sustaining a minor wound while subduing the Nox Merchant Leader and being poisoned—so this must be Nox’s Medical Ward.
As one of only seven Executives, Deacon has access everywhere save the Duke’s private chambers, so the Medical Ward isn’t off-limits for him….
“What are you doing?”
“I was waiting for you to wake up, Runelk.”
That’s the problem?
“Why would you wait for me, sir—”
“That is…”
As Deacon was about to answer, the sound of footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.
A very faint, light sound that ordinary people would not hear.
Though Deacon manages the merchant operations, he has the skill to be a Nox Executive, and he seemed to sense the approaching footsteps, turning to look at the door.
Click.
A young woman with hastily tied-up brown hair bowed slightly to Deacon, then approached and asked me.
“Runelk Ains?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
I tried to sit up in response, but Deacon, still pressing close, made it difficult.
“Um, Merchant Leader Gold. I need to sit up.”
“Ah, should I help you?”
“No, that’s not it. If you could just move back a bit, I’d appreciate it.”
“Oh, I see.”
Deacon finally grasped the situation and awkwardly pulled the corners of his mouth upward, sitting rigidly in the chair beside the bed.
I quickly sat up from the bed I’d been lying in and checked my body’s condition while pretending to straighten my clothes.
My black hair wasn’t visible, my chest was flat, and my clothes were intact—fortunately, the Artifact hadn’t deactivated.
Well.
If a low-ranking member had suddenly become a woman, I’d have woken up in the Torture Chamber, not the Medical Ward.
The doctor spoke to me, inwardly relieved.
“That was close, Ains.”
“Yes.”
“It was close?”
Of course it was.
I subdued a madman rushing to kill Killian, and got poisoned in the process.
Waking up before a doctor who repeated the same words, I grasped her true intention.
‘Ah, she wants acknowledgment.’
There are people like that sometimes.
The type who want recognition despite having done what they should.
I bowed my head toward the doctor.
“Thank you. I owe my life to you.”
“No, that’s not it!”
The woman patted her chest in frustration, then glared at the hapless Merchant Leader Gold.
“This person is Doctor Valesca Hainzel, the chief physician of this ward.”
I already knew.
The young prodigy physician known for possessing God’s Hands—Valesca Hainzel.
She is also Killian’s longtime friend and personal physician.
Her work is so meticulous that I never managed to extract even a shred of information through the Medical Ward.
“It’s an honor to meet you. Runelk Ains—”
“So, Ains. What’s the problem now?”
…Could she have undressed me while I was unconscious?
Cold sweat broke out at that unsettling thought.

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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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