There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 92

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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 92.
The next day.
I moved with deliberate purpose from the moment Dawn Running began.
‘So it’s Stalen’s turn this time.’
The Dawn Running that started every morning at six o’clock was conducted in rotation by Herta Winter, Otto Grau, and Gerhardt Stalen.
There were occasional days when Padilla Bondez appeared as well, though she participated in the run rather than supervising it.
It seemed she wanted to warm up with the trainees in the morning rather than do it alone and bore herself.
“Faster!”
Padilla Bondez, running hardest at the front of the line as always, shouted loudly and picked up the pace, and the trainees following behind her all wore the same grimaced expression.
Their faces betrayed the sentiment: ‘I feel like I’m dying already!’
Yet there were almost no stragglers falling out of the running formation.
That was both the strength and the terror of daily repetitive training.
In the early days after arrival, trainees had run at a much slower pace and most couldn’t even complete the course.
Like clothes soaked by drizzle, the trainees’ stamina had gradually risen to a high level.
‘Though not everyone, of course.’
Bertolt Kraus, barely avoiding falling behind at the rear of the running formation, was the perfect example.
“Blegh! Retch!”
The fool was continuously dry-heaving and staggering, and seeing his hideout companions in similar states made it clear they’d been drinking hard last night as well.
Running while nursing a hangover must have felt like dying.
By the time the run ended, Bertolt was sprawled across the Training Grounds floor, and he was still lying in the same spot when I returned after breakfast.
“Damn, this guy’s hopeless.”
When I went closer to check, Bertolt was sleeping soundly, oblivious to the world.
The riffraff who’d collapsed alongside him were nowhere to be seen.
They’d all gotten up one by one and headed back to their dormitories without sparing Bertolt a shred of consideration.
“Hey, Bertolt. Wake up.”
When I nudged his shin with my foot, he stretched and slowly opened his eyes.
“Huh? It’s not Runelk?”
“It’s almost time for the morning schedule to start.”
“Already? Such a pain, really.”
How did this idiot even pass the entrance exam in the first place?
“Bertolt, which instructor have you got backing you?”
The alcohol and unauthorized goods stacked in the Warehouse had far exceeded the limit that a single trainee like Felix Melcher could smuggle in alone.
But if there was a spy among the instructors, it would be entirely possible.
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“Which instructor is covering your back?”
I crouched down to meet him at eye level and asked.
I wanted to observe his reaction closely to such a sudden, direct question.
But Bertolt Kraus showed no suspicious signs whatsoever.
I detected no eye twitching or wavering of the pupils—the telltale signs people typically show when touched on a sensitive nerve.
Instead, he glanced around cautiously and then answered me in a hushed voice.
“Did you drink with us yesterday too? I can’t remember anything after the second bottle, so how would I even know?”
Judging by his complaining about his head still throbbing, it was one of two things.
Either Bertolt Kraus genuinely didn’t know about the instructor involved, or he was an expert in this field far surpassing me.
Since the latter was absolutely impossible, it meant Bertolt simply didn’t know of the instructor pulling strings behind Felix Melcher.
“If I’d drunk with you guys yesterday, would I be standing here this healthy right now?”
I stepped back smoothly, and the fool nodded with a chuckle.
“Right, I guess. We really went at it yesterday. But why don’t you come to the hideout these days? Last time you came, you just asked weird questions and left right away.”
He grumbled in a tone of hurt.
He was referring to that day when I’d gone intending to press him about ‘what I witnessed when I tailed Felix Melcher.’
“You wouldn’t tell me. What you saw that day.”
“Ah, that was just something that slipped out because I was drunk, I’m telling you? There’s absolutely nothing in it for you to know!”
“Just keeping your mouth sealed over nothing.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I was just mumbling to myself about something you wouldn’t benefit from knowing either. Got it—I’ll drop by soon.”
“Hah! Good, good. Come anytime, we’re always ‘there’!”
Bertolt said with a wink.
I felt a sudden headache coming on.
If what he said was just a drunk slip-up, I could always loosen his tongue with more drink.
With that thought, I nodded to Bertolt and turned toward the Lecture Hall Building.
“…Aren’t you the young master?”
Maximilian Degrave was glaring at me from a distance.
His expression wasn’t the usual sullenness—his eyes were practically blazing.
“What’s his problem now?”
I tilted my head curiously and took a step toward him.
I meant to ask him directly what was wrong.
“Huh?”
But the moment I approached, Maximilian abruptly spun around and disappeared into the Lecture Hall Building.
It seemed he had no intention of speaking to me.
“Then I’ll just follow him.”
The sulking young master wasn’t a priority when my mind was busy and cluttered with spy-hunting.
I let out a short laugh and headed for the lecture room where Kessler would be teaching.
***
A few days later, D-60.
‘Whatever the others might be, that one’s definitely not it.’
I shook my head firmly as I finished observing Otto Grau.
I could only do this because he couldn’t see me from where he was.
It was all thanks to the map the Raven seniors had provided.
According to what Gisela had said—that the secret passages were ‘meant to monitor the trainees’—most were concentrated in the Dormitory Building and Lecture Hall Building, but there was one set up in the Administration Building, the instructors’ domain as well.
The structure even allowed a clear view into the offices of the instructors, arranged sequentially on a single floor.
For someone like me, who now had to investigate the instructors rather than the trainees, this was information as precious as rain in a drought.
I wasted no time and immediately began my observations from within.
The first target was Otto Grau himself.
I’d put him first on my list because of his unpleasant nature, but he seemed most likely to be ruled out definitively.
Suspecting a man like him of being a spy was practically an insult to spies everywhere.
“Burrrp.”
Otto Grau’s crude belch carried clearly through the wall into the secret passage.
In the early days of surveillance, I might have frowned, but now I simply accepted it.
Instructor Grau was a man of unchecked appetite.
Aside from his scheduled classes, he spent the entire day eating, sleeping, and relieving himself.
He didn’t even have set training times.
He’d stuff himself with alcohol and food and sprawl out sleeping, then when the mood struck, grab whatever weapon he felt like and head out to sweat profusely before returning.
Even the duration and intensity of his training varied wildly.
He was genuinely a man who lived entirely by the moment, purely as he pleased.
‘If Otto Grau is a spy, I’m retiring from this life.’
Spies live with disciplined, almost compulsive restraint.
They might appear disheveled when necessary, but it’s nothing more than deliberate acting.
One careless slip made in a moment of clouded judgment could expose their identity and cost them their lives.
There was no spy in existence like Otto Grau—the very embodiment of negligence and sloth.
“Heh heh…”
Despite all the drinking he’d already done, Grau still seemed to think it wasn’t enough, producing another Liquor Bottle.
That was enough.
Any further observation would be wasted time.
After confirming one last time that the bottle had a green seal on its label, I exited the secret passage.
The exit, located beneath the stairs connecting the Administration Building and Dormitory Building, was hidden in a blind spot that wouldn’t be easily discovered unless one specifically searched for it.
‘Four suspects left now.’
I stepped into the First Floor Corridor where my dormitory was, hoping the other instructors would be ruled out just as quickly as Otto Grau.
“Runelk Eins, where exactly have you been?”
Maximilian Degrave was standing as if guarding my door.

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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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