There’s Something Special About Her - Chapter 94

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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 94.
I became a trainee after catching a blockhead during the Action Unit’s Night Patrol.
All this hardship started right there.
Whenever my head throbbed with the effort of uncovering the spy’s identity, whenever I walked the secret passages even after training ended, I muttered the same refrain.
If I hadn’t been such a blockhead, I wouldn’t be suffering like this right now.
‘Why did I have to go there of all places?’
Then, suddenly, a different thought occurred to me.
‘Wait—why was I even there in the first place?’
That’s when I understood.
The blockhead falling in front of my eyes wasn’t where this whole mess began.
The sudden change in patrol routes came first.
Even my seniors in the Action Unit couldn’t figure out the reason, so they’d just shrugged it off with ‘Someone must’ve bribed the Security Forces to get an easier route.’ — some notification we didn’t fully understand.
Could that really have been a coincidence?
‘There’s no way it was.’
Squad 13 of the Action Unit, which I belonged to, had a reputation for cutting corners.
When we were assigned night watch duties, there were more people loafing around inside the Guard Post than outside on patrol—need I say more?
By contrast, Squad 7, who suddenly swapped patrol routes with us, worked with surprising efficiency for an Action Unit team.
Their chain of command was clear and well-maintained.
Squad 7 wasn’t called the Action Unit’s ace for nothing.
So whoever switched the assignments between Squad 13 and Squad 7 needed people willing to slack off in that particular area on that particular day.
People who would walk the designated route and kill time.
‘But of course, I had to be the one who strayed from the route.’
In the end, I dug my own grave.
Suddenly possessed by the idea that a tree I’d seen in a dream might be there, I ran off like some enchanted fool.
I hate to admit it, but Killian Nox was right—even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day.
Some truths deserve acknowledgment.
‘I caused this mess, so I have to clean it up myself.’
I stood before the high stone wall that encircled the Training Grounds and thought hard.
To examine the outer walls of Nox Castle, I first had to scale this brutish stone barrier that made the Training Grounds look like an ancient fortress.
It was wall after wall—mountain after mountain.
‘At least it’s not as high as I feared.’
The surface of the wall, made from roughly-dressed blocks of stone stacked upon one another, was rough and uneven.
That was fortunate for me.
‘Let’s do this.’
I crouched slightly, then sprang upward, using the momentum to plant my feet in the gaps between stones.
Tap, tap-tap, tap!
The key was not to stop.
Not giving gravity a chance to exert itself between one footfall and the next.
Both legs working together, passing momentum back and forth, amplifying that initial spring with each stride.
Whoosh!
In a single breath, I climbed the wall and cleared the coping in one bound.
When training new recruits, you always get those who stop at the top.
Whether they want to rest because it’s hard, or they’re giving in to that basic human urge to look down from a height—the reason doesn’t matter.
I made those kinds of people climb the wall until scaling it without stopping became second nature.
High ground lets you observe others, but it makes you equally visible.
Going through all the trouble of sneaking over the wall, only to stop on the coping—that was foolish.
If I were going to do that, I might as well have picked a lock and saved the effort. Why bother?
Whisp.
Remembering my days training those subordinates, I vaulted over the moat below the Training Grounds’ stone wall.
There was a faint sound of air displacement, but that was far better than before.
It was a moonless night, and there was plenty of shadow and terrain to hide in.
Running through the darkness for the first time in ages, I felt, paradoxically, a strange sense of freedom.
As I moved along the wall of the Training Grounds, a small wooden gate came into view.
‘A side gate.’
Unlike trainees, who were restricted from leaving for a hundred days, the Side Gate—positioned at a corner away from the main entrance—was used by instructors and employees whose access was relatively unrestricted.
After all, you couldn’t raise the drawbridge every time one or two people needed to pass through.
I approached the narrow bridge near the Side Gate.
“Hm.”
The spy would have passed through here too, so I wanted to check.
The grass beside the path was lying flat.
When I ran my hand over it, fresh green fluid came away on my fingers from the broken stalks.
‘They passed through not long ago.’
The trail, intermittent but still visible, led toward the outer walls of Nox Castle.
‘Got you, you bastard.’
If luck held, I might even catch the spy in the act today.
I moved quickly, following the trail.
With over forty days of this exhausting hide-and-seek behind me, my heart raced like a child who’d finally been chosen to seek.
Don’t hide so well.
I want to go home soon.
But as I followed the traces, the surroundings began to look familiar.
‘……They didn’t change the contact location?’
If I kept following this path, I’d reach the very clearing where I’d caught the blockhead.
And given the way the trail showed the grass was trampled in haste midway through, whoever this was, they weren’t taking their time.
Reusing the clearing where the blockhead was arrested as a contact point, combined with these frantic movements—
It suggested the spy had far less freedom of action than I’d initially assumed.
‘Let me get higher up.’
I climbed into a tree and moved from branch to branch like stepping stones.
And when I reached the clearing—
‘Damn it, where’d they go?’
The spy wasn’t there.
I strained my vision to scan the entire vicinity, but I couldn’t detect any sign of life.
I just hung from a solid branch, breathing hard.
Wrong turn?
Not this place?
Did I lose the trail?
All my certainty wavered under the weight of these doubts.
Until I spotted something lying at an angle beside the large stump in the center of the clearing—the very stump over which I’d tripped and fallen.
After quickly scanning the area once more, I dropped from the tree and grabbed it.
A Document Bundle wrapped in leather and oilpaper.
‘Information meant for the contact handler, it seems.’
I held the thick sheaf of papers, heavy in my palm, and paused to think.
Intercepting information before it leaked was definitely a victory.
But my mission wasn’t to stop information leaks.
My mission was to root out the spy remaining inside the Training Grounds.
That was Killian Nox’s order.
And there was another choice before me.
‘Should I catch the contact handler from the Security Forces and trace back to find the spy inside the Training Grounds?’
If our interrogation specialist worked their craft—through torture or persuasion—couldn’t we extract the truth?
But that option was also rejected.
Such methods wouldn’t prove my usefulness to Killian Nox.
‘I have to catch the spy with my own hands.’
With that thought, I gripped the bundle of papers tighter.
Crackle, crackle.
The sound of footsteps crunching through fallen leaves and grass approached from the distance.
‘They’ve come.’
I climbed back into the tree to hide and waited a moment before someone entered the clearing.
Without a lamp to light the way, their steps were slow and cautious.
‘It’s you.’
But my eyes, which revealed their true nature in this darkness, saw everything clearly.
The shield emblem stitched on their uniform—the Security Forces’ mark—and the contact handler’s face.
I watched as they continued to feel around the stump, then scowled when they found nothing, before I turned away.
‘Now it’s your turn.’
Once I found out who the spy in the Training Grounds was, I’d haul both of you in together.
Then Killian Nox would have no choice but to acknowledge my value.
***
When I safely returned to my room in the barracks, I changed clothes first.
Just in case anyone came in without warning.
Onyx had eaten all the peanuts and was buried in a pillow, but only its yellow eyes were open, fixed on me.
I gave the creature a curt nod and set the bundle down on the bed.
When I cut the leather cord, the documents inside spilled out with a rustle.
“So that’s how it is, huh?”

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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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