The Crows' Unwritten Rules
The husky voice I had once thought pleasant hissed like scraping metal in my ear.
“That’s not it.”
“Oh?”
Gisela Rot pulled back as abruptly as she had approached.
“There’s an unwritten rule among the Crows. We don’t ask how someone became one.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you don’t want to talk about your own circumstances, you don’t pry into anyone else’s. Everyone who ends up a Crow—with their very existence and identity a secret—has their reasons. Still, I am a little curious about yours, Runelk Ains.”
Her eyes glittered again as she smiled.
“How a bottom-tier action squad member became a Crow. What the captain saw in you that made him personally take you by the hand and escort you all the way to the Crow’s Nest.”
“…He never took my hand.”
“Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll find out in time. Anyway, once your undercover shift ends, return straight to the Nest. Understood? If you’re late like today, I’ll kill you.”
“Was I late today?”
I was certain I had moved on schedule.
When I tilted my head, Gisela Rot frowned.
“Five whole minutes, to be exact.”
“That’s hardly—”
If she hated waiting, she should have picked a proper meeting spot.
She had told me to come to the zelkova tree, yet she had been the one standing in front of the plaque carved with one.
“Do you have any idea how many things can happen in five minutes? Is that your idea of punctuality?”
“I’ll be more careful next time. But the bell tower only rings once an hour, so…”
“What? You don’t have a pocket watch?”
Gisela Rot pulled a small watch from her pocket and waved it at me.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s expensive.”
With the advancement of mana engineering, pocket watches powered by tiny mana stone fragments had been invented. When they first appeared, only royalty and high-ranking nobles could afford them, but these days even commoners with decent earnings carried them without much trouble.
I once had one too.
Around the time I was fifteen, Edward gave it to me as a gift.
Of course, everything that boy ever gave me had been left behind at the Wickers that night.
“Oh my, how terrible.”
Gisela Rot put on an exaggerated look of pity.
“Is the action squad’s pay really that miserable? You can’t even afford a pocket watch?”
“It’s not like that. Well, the pay is tiny, sure, but I didn’t buy one because I had no reason to carry a watch. I already know my commute times by heart, and the work isn’t so hectic that I need to live minute by minute.”
“Is that so? Then you’d better get one. You don’t seem to like your new life as a Crow very much, but in this line of work it’s essential. Living minute by minute.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
A pocket watch. That expensive thing.
I had planned to use the bonus money as emergency escape funds.
I might have to cut back on the temple donations this month.
I let out a small sigh and added to Gisela Rot,
“It’s not that I hate becoming a Crow.”
“Then?”
“It’s just… completely unexpected, that’s all.”
I had thought I would spend my days chatting idly with the senior squad members to pass the time on duty, occasionally catching smugglers trying to sneak goods into the castle.
At least for a while, I had believed I could live that peacefully.
“In any case, if my attitude offended you, I apologize.”
“No, no.”
Gisela Rot waved a hand dismissively.
I watched her closely, wondering if another verbal trap was coming, but this time she seemed sincere.
“Most kids who first step foot in the Nest fall into one of two categories. Either they’re bursting with pride at becoming a Crow, all excited and thrilled, or they’re scared stiff and tense as a bowstring.”
She fell silent for a moment.
Her brown eyes, fixed on some spot on the Nest’s wall, seemed to drift through old memories.
“None of it lasts long, though.”
The mutter was so quiet I might have missed it, as faint as the look in her eyes.
Yet the next instant, the face she turned toward me had returned to its usual rough, carefree expression as if nothing had happened.
“But you might be different, Runelk Ains. I’ll be watching with interest.”
“All right, repeat what I taught you, in order.”
“First, once undercover duty ends, return to the Nest immediately.”
“Tsk. And after that?”
“…If I get caught wandering off somewhere else, I die.”
“Correct. Next.”
“Second, keep all time commitments strictly.”
Those first two were things Gisela Rot had added on her own.
The real rules began with the third.
“Third, do not draw unnecessary attention.”
“This one’s especially important for you, little hero.”
If it had been Senior Jake, I might have secretly tripped him from behind.
But I couldn’t pull something like that on Gisela Rot.
Besides, she wasn’t saying it to tease me this time, which made it sting even more.
“You’ve already attracted people’s eyes once. A lot of them still remember the nickname ‘little hero’—the one who protected His Grace the Duke from an assassin. So for the time being, stay quiet. Live quietly.”
“That’s what I want too.”
At my sullen reply she gave a short laugh and asked, “And the fourth?”
“Never speak of the Crows to anyone who does not belong to the Nest.”
Of the four rules, this was the most important.
Gisela Rot had stressed the fourth one the hardest and made me recite it over and over.
So I had expected her to do the same now.
Instead, after studying me with an odd look for a moment, she rolled off the couch and stood up.
“That’s enough. You can go.”
“Really?”
“Aren’t you on night duty?”
She was even taking my undercover hours into consideration?
Were the Crows actually a surprisingly reasonable organization?
But her next words made me realize I had let my guard down again.
“There won’t be any more relaxed days like this, so rest well while you still can.”
It was a deep hour past midnight.
The guard post on the outer wall of the Knox estate was brightly lit.
The small space that would normally have been filled with the snoring of seniors who had passed out was now bustling with preparations to receive guests.
The floor, usually covered in dirt and dust, had been swept. The sticky table—whose last cleaning time no one could remember—had been wiped down.
Of course, all the sweeping and wiping had fallen to me.
“Rookie! Wipe over here too!”
“Yes, sir!”
Senior Hartman, who had returned to his senses after losing money at the gambling table and taking his anger out on everyone around him, pointed at the door handle and grumbled.
“This guard post is in terrible shape.”
Who was it that ate and slept just fine every day in this terrible guard post?
Watching Senior Hartman wrinkle his nose at the well-worn door handle, I nearly snorted.
“Don’t half-ass it. Make it shine.”
“This is cast iron. I doubt it ever shone, even when the post was first built.”
“Look at this kid talking back! In my day, if a senior said he wanted wine during duty, we’d run and fetch even grape juice!”
Here we go again.
That endless “in my day” speech.
I was utterly sick of it.
The other seniors—who weren’t holding rags like me but were pretending to clean under Hartman’s nagging—shook their heads wearily.
It was Hartman’s habit to bring up old stories like a broken music box whenever he had the chance. Those who had listened to it for years longer than I had must be even more exhausted.
Even though no one answered him, Senior Hartman kept talking.
“When I was a rookie, Senior Graf—who’s coming today—got injured during patrol. I carried him on my back like lightning all the way to the infirmary…”
“Is it all right to lie to the kids like that?”
“Senior!”
Hartman’s face lit up like a puppy greeting its master.
Senior Graf, who had joined many years before even the current most senior Hartman, was practically a legend in the action squad.
So I had expected a burly, frightening man.
“Goodness, nothing here has changed at all.”
“Still cramped and shabby, right? It can’t even compare to the intelligence department where you work, Senior!”
The middle-aged man stepping into the guard post had a far more ordinary build and face than I had imagined.
The kind of person you could pass several times without him leaving any impression at all.