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Somehow Lyell and I ended up having to battle.

Not with real swords of course, but the training ones with dulled blades. But even so, we could easily break bones with them with our strength.

“Hey, so why do we have to fight again? Didn’t I say I considered you a real father?”
“I don’t know either. But I’ve never been bright. But even I understood that I couldn’t keep it as is… that I wouldn’t be able to accept this.”
“What—”
“If you can defeat me, then you’re definitely Reid. But if you lose, then—”
“Then I’m not?”

I asked, but he shook his head in denial.

“No, that’s not it. Seeing your thread handling, it would be hard to deny that you’re Reid. This mock battle might be pointless, but even so… Agh, I don’t understand it myself!”

Lyell answered with wrinkles appearing on his forehead as he swung the training sword.

He was most likely just going along with the torrent of unexplainable emotions.

He wanted to fight with me to convince himself. It was quite like him, being the muscle brain that he was.

“Well, I do understand that you’re all confused. If I can help with it, I will do whatever I can, so don’t be reserved and tell me straight.”
“As if we were ever reserved with—”

Cortina’s words stopped midway. Because she saw me at the end.

The one standing there was a young girl, clearly different from the past me. It was the daughter of her friend whom she cared for eight years.

I suppose the gap in perception made her lose her words.

“I’m sure you have a lot you want to tell me now. I bet I’d have flipped and did who knows what in your positions.”
“Then… No, never mind. I do see why you chose to hide. But I can’t accept it emotionally.”
“Yeah, I can understand that too.”

I made them go through a lot of pain. And I am doing the same now.

I had to pay for that eventually. I didn’t know what form it would take, though.

At the very least, I doubt it would be the brute-force approach like Lyell’s.

But I felt like they would demand something troublesome.

“Are you done?”

Lyell asked while I was talking with Maria.

His eyes were unusually serious, and they weren’t eyes seeing a mock battle, but a real one.

They expressed how serious he was about this.

“Yeah, I am.”

I took one of the training swords in hand while scattering some more behind me.

Honestly, I felt bad to say this, but I didn’t think I could win against Lyell in a sword fight.

Just as I took a stance with the sword, Lyell rushed at me like a demon.

The air trembled so much that I couldn’t even hear his fighting cry properly.

I immediately strengthened my body with thread manipulation and blocked his attack.

Lyell’s strength was part of the reason, but I had overused this ability today. It put a lot of strain on my body, and the moment I stopped his blow, I felt a screeching sound not just from the sword but from inside my arm as well.

Lyell seemed shocked that I managed to stop his attack and stopped for a moment. But before I managed to make use of that opening, he let out a kick at my stomach.

I quickly used my left gauntlet to block it and jumped back at the same time to release the impact.

I landed on my knee, but I couldn’t raise my left arm anymore.

This was due to the burden after continuous use, but Lyell’s kick was what made it go over the limit.

Seeing that I couldn’t move my arm, Lyell went for a follow-up attack.

But I still had my right arm left. I warded off his overhead slash with my right hand, while using just my Gift to release threads from the left hand.

The threads didn’t go for Lyell, but behind me. Towards the scattered swords.

They coiled around their hilts, and five swords attacked Lyell like arrows.

“What the?!”

This was the same strategy that I used against the Tentacle Devil in the Evil Dragon’s den back when I was making gifts for Fina.

That took him by complete surprise. I was convinced of that and did it, but Lyell repelled them with just his reflexes.

He instantly adopted the most ideal battle tactic. This is why turning him into an enemy was trouble.

“But five of them aren’t enough!”
“It’s not over just yet!”

I still held a sword in my right hand. Lyell didn’t know anything about my physical strengthening, either.

Since he saw me fight earlier, he did know that I was strengthening my body, but he shouldn’t know how strong it really was.

My full-strength attack managed to break his defenses and stop his advance.

If I couldn’t push him back now, I’d have been suppressed and lost on the spot.

“Seeeehhhh!”
“Guh?!”

Since I pushed myself to force him back, my right arm felt to be in quite a dire state.

I couldn’t keep fighting for too long.

Judging so, I decided to end it in one go.

I headed for a ramming attack, aiming to slam my shoulders into his solar plexus. Though I was light, even he would stop breathing if he took an attack using my full weight to the pit of his stomach.

Not wanting that, he shifted half a step and took the blow with his flank.

Having missed the center of his body, my ramming attack made me rotate, and both of us spun around as we exchanged positions.

But that was where the swords I threw earlier lay too.

I once again threw them at Lyell, but the four swords were easily handled by him.

As expected, he could handle the move he had seen once.

“This is the end!”
“Ngh!”

But that greatly broke his posture. And then, I slammed the sword in my right hand on him.

It was normally an undodgeable strike, but Lyell dodged even that. He avoided it by not opposing his broken posture and instead rolling on the ground.

But as he fell, he hit my right wrist and succeeded in making me drop the sword.

Lyell was on the ground still holding his sword.

I was standing, but without a weapon.

Situationally, Lyell had the advantage. He was also convinced of that.

I had no means of counterattacking now that I had lost my weapon. He judged so but still remained vigilant as he slowly got up.

I used my Gift and forcibly raised my left arm towards his head.

And then, a single sword came falling down. I could control the threads I was touching. That meant I could control five threads with one hand.

And earlier, I threw five swords at him. I pulled back four of them.

The remaining one I hid among the scattered swords as it got repelled and then flung into the sky.

And that sword had come down with this timing.

“W-What?!”

Lyell exclaimed in shock. I caught the falling sword, and slammed it into his head.

Though I was manipulating my body internally, my tendons were so damaged they didn’t move.

That attack could barely deal any damage to Lyell.

But even so, a sword strike to the head was a fatal injury.

“That’s it. Lyell, you lost.”

Seeing that, Gadius declared the winner.

Lyell also had to accept his defeat after getting hit in the head, so he lowered his sword as told.

“I lost, huh? To think that Nicole… Even if Reid, to think that frail Nicole…would…”

Lyell looked up at the sky, tears falling from his eyes.

“Dammit, I should be happy to have found you. I should be angry that you were Nicole all along. I don’t know which emotion I should choose.”
“Sorry…”
“I am your father, right?”
“Yeah, without a doubt.”
“You’re still Nicole, right?”
“Yeah. I have always been since I was born.”
“Then, it’s fine. You’re my daughter. Even if you’re Reid.”
“…Thank you.”

I gently hugged Lyell’s head as he fell to his knees.

He hugged my body back unsparingly.

I doubted that Lyell had reached a resolution in his heart. But even so, I felt that he accepted me.

Perhaps the earlier mock battle was worth it just for that fact.