The Real Nest
It no longer surprised me.
I was even seized by the urge to poke at every fixture across Knox, just to discover how many hidden passages might be lurking there. After all, you never knew when something would slide open with a soft whoosh and spill out another of the estate’s secrets.
“What are you doing? I told you to follow me.”
“Y-yes! I’m coming!”
Beyond the bookshelf stretched a long corridor.
The instant I stepped inside, I understood.
So this is where the real Nest begins.
Everything I had passed through before had been nothing more than a carefully crafted facade—including that devilishly comfortable couch.
Mana lamps glowed at a low, soothing brightness, giving the hallway a lived-in warmth. Coats and robes of uncertain ownership hung along the walls, and an umbrella stand sat to one side. There was even a well-worn dresser topped with a mirror.
It was utterly different from the disguised area, which always looked pristine and untouched no matter how luxurious it appeared.
“You got your blood registered, right? Well, of course you did. That’s how you walked in just fine today.”
Gisela Rot kicked off her boots and swapped them for comfortable slippers, answering her own question in that husky, rough voice.
“Blood registration? You don’t mean that dragon-head thing, do you?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty damn ugly.”
She gave a low chuckle, nodded, and pointed toward the door at the end of the corridor.
“It’s smaller, but we’ve got one here too.”
“…Smaller doesn’t make it any less hideous.”
Just as Gisela Rot had warned, a miniature version of the grotesque dragon statue served as the handle. Its gleaming golden eyes looked so much like Killian Knox’s that I immediately wanted to stab them.
“Want to open it yourself?”
“Do I just twist the dragon’s neck?”
I mimed turning a knob in a circle, and Gisela Rot burst out laughing again.
“Pfft! No, idiot. Just stick any finger into its mouth!”
“So I’m poking the dragon in the throat. Got it.”
That actually sounds kind of satisfying.
I nodded without hesitation and stepped up to the door. Up close, the dragon was even uglier. I almost slid my index finger into its gaping maw before thinking better of it.
…It might bite it clean off.
Instead I chose my left pinky—the one I could most afford to lose. Then, imagining I was jamming my finger into Killian Knox’s windpipe, I thrust it in hard.
The fleeting rush of satisfaction from venting my anger on an innocent statue lasted only a second.
Clunk!
A heavy metallic sound rang out, and the door swung open by itself.
“It doesn’t bite?”
“If it bit every single time someone came through, who the hell would have fingers left? The one guarding the reception room didn’t bite you today either, did it?”
“Now that you mention it… So both of them are just for show? To scare people?”
“As if. I don’t know the exact mechanics. I’ve heard it uses mana engineering. Anyway, only people whose blood the boss personally registered can open the doors.”
“And if someone isn’t registered?”
“Beats me.”
Gisela Rot tilted her head, admitting she had never actually seen an intruder.
“They probably don’t die a clean death, though. Let’s finish this conversation inside.”
The real Nest was shockingly bright.
Large windows dotted the walls, and sections of the exposed ceiling had been replaced with glass, allowing daylight to flood every corner. That was why.
How on earth did they hide this?
The main building was clearly only five stories tall. Yet not only was there a hidden extra floor, it even had multiple well-lit glass windows. They must have taken extreme measures to keep it invisible from outside, but I couldn’t begin to guess how.
The interior just looks like a normal office.
Twelve large desks were spaced generously throughout the wide room, covered in stacks of miscellaneous documents. At first glance it resembled any ordinary workspace. It was a little cluttered with random objects, but it perfectly suited the name Nest.
The air carried the dry scent of paper, the sunlight made it feel cozy, and—most importantly—no outsider could easily reach it. This was the Crows’ true sanctuary, warm and safe.
I stepped into that space.
“We’re back!”
Gisela Rot’s loud voice echoed, and from what I had assumed was an empty room came a faint reply.
“You’re back…”
The young man’s voice held zero energy.
“What the hell? Noah, where are you?”
“Over… here…”
In the deepest, darkest corner where no sunlight reached, a blanket on top of a desk twitched.
I had thought it was just a pile of spare clothes and bedding. Apparently a person was buried underneath.
The first thing to emerge from beneath the thick blanket was a pale hand riddled with small scars. The hand he raised to signal his location drooped as weakly as his voice.
When Gisela Rot saw it swaying like a flag in a dying breeze, her eyebrows drew together in a frown. I quietly followed as she strode toward him.
“Noah Benton, I told you to sleep in the dorms. Or at least use the sleeping room.”
“I can’t… Once I lie down, I won’t get back up…”
The blanket mound wiggled again before finally revealing the face of the man called Noah Benton.
His messy olive-colored hair framed a face as pale as his hand, with faint freckles dusting the bridge of his nose. His light brown eyes suited his delicate, almost pretty features, but they were dull—like the eyes of a fish that had been left out too long. The heavy shadows beneath them completed the picture of an utterly exhausted worker ant.
“Weren’t you happy that your disguise shift ended in the evenings this week? So why are you collapsed here?”
“Right… I’m curious too. Could you ask Senior Conrad about it for me…?”
“Conrad?”
Still slumped over his desk, Noah Benton pointed limply in one direction.
I turned and saw a long sofa placed beneath the brightest window. A man lay stretched across it with an open book covering his face like a sunshade. His body didn’t move at all, but his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. He was clearly asleep.
His worn boots dangled far over the armrest, and his broad, solid shoulders spilling past the seat hinted at an impressively powerful frame.
“Why is he lying there like that? Wait—don’t tell me he dumped the report on you?”
“Have you ever actually seen Senior Conrad write a report himself…?”
“Ugh, damn it! And he’s supposed to be the senior!”
Gisela Rot stomped over, kicking the sofa hard as she shouted.
“Hey! Wake up!”
“Mmm…”
The man called Conrad merely rolled over, burying his face deeper into the backrest and waving a lazy hand as if to say get lost.
“Good grief, this idiot!”
After kicking the sofa legs a few more times to vent her frustration, Gisela Rot turned her wrath on Noah Benton.
“I told you not to keep indulging him every time he throws a tantrum!”
“But… he said he was so, so tired after that long mission…”
“You know he’s just taking advantage of how soft you are, right?”
“Since I can’t go out on field missions, this is the only thing I can do to help.”
Noah Benton rubbed his exhausted eyes and gave a weak, sheepish laugh. Gisela Rot thumped her own chest in pure exasperation.
“Always running between the infirmary and the Nest, working yourself to death like this…”
It was interesting.
It seemed there was a specific reason Noah Benton couldn’t take on field missions himself. While I stared at him curiously, he finally managed to lift his limp body from the desk and our eyes met.
“Huh? Who…?”
Had he really not noticed another person was present the entire time?
His ability to sense presence definitely seemed poor.
While Noah Benton floundered in confusion, Gisela Rot returned to my side, roughly ruffling her short pink hair.
“This is the new recruit I’m supervising. Introduce yourselves. This is Runelk Ains. That’s Noah Benton.”
“A new recruit!”
Noah Benton shot upright from his chair, both hands flying to cover his mouth.
“Th-then… does this mean I can finally escape being the youngest?!”