TSSAH 30

Chapter 30

Now I wasn’t even surprised anymore.

I was starting to get a stubborn urge to poke around every single landmark in Knox, just to see how many hidden passages there really were.

Who knows what might suddenly slide open with a *whoosh* and reveal another of Knox’s secrets if I kept prodding at things.

“What are you doing? I said follow me!”

“Yes, yes! Coming!”

Behind the bookshelf stretched a long corridor.

And the moment I stepped into it, I realized.

‘So this is where the real Nest begins.’

The space I’d been using until now must have been some kind of disguise.

Even that devilishly comfortable couch.

The corridor had a cozy atmosphere, with mana lamps set to low brightness, and it felt lived-in. Coats and robes—whose, I didn’t know—hung on the walls, and an umbrella stand sat in one corner. There was even a worn dresser with a mirror on top.

It was completely different from the decoy space, which always maintained the same pristine condition, so elegant that you wondered if anyone actually used it.

“You’ve registered your blood, right? Oh, of course you have. You got in fine today too.”

Gisela Loth answered her own question as she kicked off her boots and changed into comfortable shoes.

“If you mean blood registration—surely not that dragon head?”

“It is pretty hideous, isn’t it.”

She chuckled and nodded, then pointed to the door at the end of the corridor.

“There’s a smaller one here too.”

“…Just because it’s smaller doesn’t make it any less ugly.”

As Gisela Loth had said, a miniature version of that grotesque dragon statue was attached in place of a doorknob. Its golden, gleaming eyes reminded me of Killian Knox—it made me want to stab them out.

“Want to open it?”

“Do I just twist the dragon’s neck?”

As I mimicked turning a regular doorknob by curling my hand, Gisela Loth burst into laughter again.

“Pfft! No, just stick any finger into its mouth!”

“Stab the dragon’s throat, then.”

Now that I liked the sound of.

I nodded readily and approached the door.

Up close, the dragon was even uglier.

I was about to absentmindedly stick my index finger into its gaping maw, but then I changed my mind.

…What if it bit it off?

What I chose was my left pinky—something I could manage without even if I lost it.

Then, with the thought of jabbing Killian Knox’s uvula, I shoved it in deep.

The brief satisfaction of taking out my frustration on an innocent statue was short-lived.

*Click!*

A heavy metallic sound rang out, and the door swung wide open on its own.

“It doesn’t bite?”

“If it drew blood every time we came and went, we’d run out of fingers. The one guarding the reception room didn’t bite you today either, did it?”

“Now that you mention it, it didn’t. So are both of them just bluffs to scare people?”

“As if. I don’t know the exact mechanism either. I heard it uses mana engineering. Anyway, only people whose blood is registered through a method only the Captain knows can open the door.”

“What about someone who isn’t blood-registered?”

“Who knows.”

Gisela Loth tilted her head, saying she’d never encountered an intruder before.

“Anyway, they probably won’t die a pretty death. Let’s go inside and talk.”

—

***

—

The ‘real Nest’ was very bright.

Large windows were set into the walls everywhere, and part of the roof, with no ceiling underneath, was replaced with glass, allowing outside light to stream straight in.

‘How do they hide this?’

The main building was clearly a five-story structure.

Yet not only was there an extra hidden floor, but it also had several proper windows letting in sunlight.

They must have taken measures to make it completely invisible from the outside, but I couldn’t even begin to guess the principle behind it.

‘Inside, it just looks like an ordinary office.’

Twelve large desks spaced out across the spacious area, stacks of miscellaneous documents on top—at first glance, it resembled a typical workspace.

It was a bit cluttered with various items, but in any case, it was a place befitting the name ‘Nest.’

Filled with the scent of well-dried paper, warmed by good sunlight, and above all, inaccessible to just anyone—a cozy roost for the crows.

I stepped inside.

“I’m back!”

When Gisela Loth called out loudly, a small reply came from where I’d thought no one was there.

“Welcome back…”

There wasn’t a shred of energy in the young man’s voice.

“What, Noah, where are you?”

“I’m over here…”

The blanket on the desk in the farthest corner, where no sunlight reached, stirred.

I’d thought it was a pile of unused clothes and blankets, but apparently there was a person underneath.

The first thing to emerge from beneath the thick blanket was a pale hand covered in many small scars.

The hand, raised to announce his location, drooped as limply as his voice.

Catching sight of that hand fluttering weakly like a flag swaying in the wind, Gisela Loth’s brow furrowed.

I quietly followed behind her as she strode over.

“Noah Benton, you’re supposed to sleep back at the dorms. Or use the sleeping quarters.”

“I can’t… Once I lie down, I can’t get back up…”

The mound of blanket wriggled once more, and finally the face of the man called Noah Benton emerged.

His face, with dark olive hair spilling over it, was as pale as his hand, with faint freckles spreading across the bridge of his nose. His light brown eyes matched his delicate, slender features well, but they were as dull as old fish eyes.

On top of that, the shadows under his eyes were so deep that he was the very picture of a worn-out worker bee.

“Weren’t you happy that your cover duty ended in the evenings this week? So why are you here like this?”

“Beats me. I’d like to know that too. Could you ask Senior Konrad for me…?”

“Konrad?”

At Gisela Loth’s echo, Noah Benton, still slumped over his desk, pointed vaguely into the air with his finger toward one direction.

Following his finger, I turned my head and saw a long sofa placed beneath the sunniest window, with a man lying on it.

His face was hidden by an open book he was using as a sunshade, but his motionless body and the steady rise and fall of his chest suggested he was asleep. His feet, clad in worn boots, hung far over the armrest, and his solid, broad shoulders spilling out of the seat gave a sense of his imposing frame.

“Why is he over there like that? Wait, don’t tell me he dumped his report on you?”

“You saw Senior Konrad write it himself…?”

“Ugh, seriously! That so-called mentor!”

Gisela Loth stomped over to the window and kicked the sofa.

“Hey! Wake up!”

“Hmm.”

But the man called Konrad just stirred a few times, then turned over to bury his face in the backrest and waved his hand dismissively.

The gesture clearly meant “get lost.”

“Ugh, this jerk!”

After venting by kicking the sofa legs a few more times, Gisela Loth turned her scolding on Noah Benton this time.

“I told you not to give in to him when he throws his weight around!”

“No, but… he said he was just so, so exhausted after coming back from a long-term mission…”

“He knows you’re soft-hearted and uses it against you!”

“Since I can’t go out on field missions myself, this is the only way I can help.”

Noah Benton smiled sheepishly as he rubbed his tired eyes, and Gisela Loth thumped her chest in frustration.

“This poor kid, always going back and forth between the infirmary and the Nest…”

It was interesting.

It seemed Noah Benton had some reason he couldn’t participate in field missions himself.

As I stared at him curiously, Noah Benton finally managed to haul his sluggish body up from the desk and met my eyes.

“Huh? Who…?”

Had he not even realized there was someone other than Gisela Loth here the whole time?

He certainly seemed to have poor perception.

While Noah Benton was flustered, Gisela Loth came back to my side, ruffling her hair in frustration.

“He’s the newbie I’m mentoring. Introduce yourselves—this is Runelk Ains, and that’s Noah Benton.”

“Newbie!”

Noah Benton shot up from his chair and covered his mouth with both hands.

“Th-then does that mean I’m escaping being the youngest?!”