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Lyell seemed to have managed to calm down his emotions after that battle with me.

But Cortina and Maria still remained. I doubted it would be as easy as it was with Maxwell, Gadius, and Lyell with these two.

Maria was my mother who had given birth to me, while Cortina had feelings for me since the past life.

“Uhh, umm…”
“…Don’t say anything now. Just show me your arms, Nicole.”
“Huh?”
“We have an emergency now so I’m saying to postpone this for later. Besides, you can’t move your left arm, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”

As Maria said, my left arm didn’t budge past the elbow, and my right arm and wrist also couldn’t move from numbness.

Seeing how the dull pain still lingered, the damage probably reached the bone.

“Good grief, you really don’t know how to hold back, Lyell. What if she had a lasting injury?”
“Uh, I mean, look, she’s Reid… and I was confused so…”
“Stop making excuses! Even if it’s Reid on the inside, she’s still a girl.”
“Ugh, sorry.”
“Uh, getting called a girl there makes me feel really complex about this…”

I’ve spent fifteen years as a girl, and even had periods. I could even birth children if I felt like it, so declaring that I was a man felt quite empty now.

But was I hoping for too much for my past comrades to see me as a man, I wonder?

“Come on, show me your hand. Oh right, you can’t move it. Just stay still then.”
“Okaay….”
“Stop with the lazy response!”

Right as she spoke, the dull pain faded from my arms. At the same time, my left arm and right wrist also regained their movement.

Maria was probably acting tough in her own way now. But I felt thankful that she was dealing with me as usual.

She really was a fine woman, no wonder Lyell fell for her.

But even knowing all that, I was still feeling gloomy. That was because of Cortina, who was sunk into silence next to Maria.

She woke up from her temporary shock and was currently glaring at me with wrinkles on her forehead.

I did understand her feelings of course. From her point of view, I did something terrible.

But I still believed it was unavoidable. If I fell in the same situation again, I doubt I’d be able to come out even then.

“Nicole… no, Reid.”
“Y-Yesh?!”

She suddenly addressed me in a cold voice, and I flinched and straightened up in response.

I stood at attention and faced her head-on. But I still couldn’t meet her gaze like a sore loser.

Seeing me face her yet avoiding her gaze while sweating buckets, Cortina gave a deep sigh.

“Sigh, I suppose I can see why you couldn’t come out, given how you’re trembling now… Plus, I can’t get angry at you even if I wanted when you act like that. I mean, I really am angry at you, Reid. I’d love to take blunt weapons in both hands and beat the living daylights out of you. But I can’t hit your face now.”
“I-I wish to offer my sincere apology…”
“Suddenly turning polite when you have no way of escape, that’s Nicole’s habit, isn’t it?”
“No, I think I’ve had this habit since the past life.”
“Did you? But well, thinking about it now, you two had a lot of common features. Like always getting reckless, being clumsy and messing up at the last moment, being popular yet failing to realize it, and so on. I wonder why I didn’t notice it.”
“Was I really popular in my past life?”

After reincarnating as a girl, I heard how people spoke of Reid. Their evaluation was by no means bad.

Rather, you could even call it good. I only realized that I was evaluated highly in a different sense from Lyell only after being reborn.

“Looks like you’re the only one who didn’t notice it, but yes. I was quite on the edge about it, though.”
“Uhh, sorry about that.”
“Enough about that. I didn’t forgive you though. More importantly, let’s talk about those Devils. Those are, without a doubt…”
“Yeah, Devils that Kufar summoned.”
“Wasn’t he sealed in the World Tree? Does this mean he managed to escape?”
“That’s how it seems. With everything said, Bahamut is like Whitey too. Maybe there was a hole in his surveillance network.”
“Oh, I can certainly see that being possible if it was that girl’s acquaintance.”

Even Cortina was saying that, so Whitey was facing some real trust issues.

Either way, if Kufar started secret maneuvers again, we couldn’t act carefree here.

According to Lyell, there was a large-scale raid here before we set out to Berith, so since he knew that Six Heroes were in this village, he would try to do something for sure.

“At any rate, we have to fortify the defenses even more. Gadius, can you stay here for a while?”
“Stollar is facing attacks as well. I cannot remain here for too long.”
“Stollar too?! Then this is quite a large-scale raid this time, huh?”
“Not just that, the Devils that attacked Stollar were also Twin-bladed Devils.”
“I knew that multiple appeared in Berith, but it’s hard to deal with them when there are so many.”

Six Hero-class people could deal with Twin-bladed Devils one on one, but a normal Adventurer couldn’t do anything.

“Either way, if they have numbers, then it’s not just this village that’s in danger.”
“We have to contact every place as soon as we can.”

Just as Lyell said that and stood up, a vigilance squad member came rushing to the mansion.

We sensed him and headed to the entrance.

There was a confused young soldier fallen on all fours and panting heavily. He seemed to have rushed here with all his strength.

“L-Lord Lyell! New…New Devils appeared to the north!”
“What?!”

Hearing another bad news, we once again rushed out of the mansion.