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That night I used my gift to sneak out of Cortina’s house.
Of course, it’s so I can practice with the piano wire I stole that afternoon.

The only way out of the city is through the gates or over the wall so this will just be an experiment conducted inside the city.

Namely, the lumberyard where the battle with the kidnappers took place.
The guards already concluded their investigation so it remains shut down.

Thanks to that there aren’t many people around here and many obstacles. It was the perfect place for some training.

That god said, my gift could become the strongest.
Up to now I’ve used my ability to manipulate the thread as it is.
However, it’s a far cry from the strongest. Perhaps there’s some way of using it that I haven’t considered yet.

And so, I thought about wrapping myself in thread.
I lack strength and stamina, but there’s no stamina lost in manipulating thread.
If I can manipulate my limbs with thread, I might be able to compensate for my lack of stamina.

So I came to this place to test out that idea.

“Well then, let’s…”

First, wrap my arm in thread, and grab hold of my katana.
With my own strength I can’t hold the katana in one hand. However, if I use the threads to manipulate myself, I can use the same muscle strength to achieve the same effect.
I thought I could use the threads to support my own strength and swing the sword one-handed.
If I lift the katana slowly at first, I can hold it one-handed.

“Oh, this is surprising…?”

I thought it felt light so I took a swing. You have to swing the sword, not just hold it up after all.
And like that, in a single swing… I tore my arm.

“Aaah!?”

The sleeves of my jacket are torn with blood flowing out in a helix pattern.
And it’s pouring out pretty violently.

“Fi- first…”

I cancelled my thread manipulation in a panic and tore off the piano wire from my arm.
The gash on my arm was pretty deep, so much so that wrapping it in cloth wouldn’t hamper the bleeding.

“This is bad. This… How do I…”

I can’t use healing magic, hiding this is impossible.
Finia will notice in the morning without a doubt.

“Ahh, the stronger the gift, the stronger the backlash, do take care.”
“Who’s there!”

I suddenly heard a carefree voice from behind me. But it sounded somehow familiar.
As I expected, standing there was the self-proclaimed god in white.
She appeared like a peerlessly beautiful girl, the same as always. However, she gave off a strange impression wearing a slightly unfashionable pair of glasses and a collar for a large dog.

“You…”
“Look, please hold out your hand. Normally intervening like this is bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Now see here, even if I look like this, I am a God. It’s not good to show myself to the public.”

She took my hand and gave it a light tap. And with that, my wound vanished.
Without chanting or creating a magic circle. No wait, did the magic circle shine for just a split second there? Even so, to form a magic circle in an instant like that would require incredible skill.

“Like a normal wound, you have to avoid overdoing it. Right now you’re very unstable.”
“Unstable?”
“Because for you who’s soul couldn’t use magic previously to suddenly be dropped into a body with magical power, of course there would be some growing pains.”
“…Why are you going so far to look after me?”
“Hm~ that’s a secret,” replied the god with a cutesy wink.
Despite looking like a little girl, that gesture was quite bewitching.

Putting that aside, using thread to improve your kinetic power isn’t the wrong idea, but isn’t that just thread still?
“Wha?”
“It’d be a problem to give out too many hints, so I’ll leave it at that.”

With a hard step, she leaped back and put some distance between us.

“Well then, take care from now on. Reid Albain.
“You know my last name?”
“Of course I do.”

Albain, that’s the last name I had before leaving my home country to exterminate the evil dragon.
Although I wasn’t a noble, I came from a wealthy family, but because I was born as a half-demon, I was abandoned at an orphanage.

After dropping my name correctly, the god took another leap back, and instantly disappeared into the shadows without a trace.
No, you could say the recovery of my arm is the only trace left of our encounter.

“You might as well have repaired my clothes while you were at it, Goddess…”

My jacket was completely shredded by the piano wire. What’s more, it’s soaked in bloodstains.
This won’t come out with a wash, I’ll have to throw it out.

That said, I don’t want to return home topless, so for now I tore off the sleeve and put it back on.
I had to look over what the goddess just said.
She said something about it not just being for thread, but I’m not sure I understand. However, she said it wasn’t wrong to use thread to assist my muscle movement, so it seems my train of thought is not far off.

If I use wool in place of piano wire and try to do the same thing.
This time, due to the wool being much softer than the wire my arm didn’t tear.

“I can actually swing the sword….”

However, on the second and third swing I could hear it start to tear and before long it completely snapped.
It seems that wool’s tensile strength isn’t enough to use it for muscular support.

“I see… 1 of Crimson, 1 of Ultramarine, 3 of Gold… Strengthen.”

After strengthening the wool with magic I gave swinging my sword another shot, twice, thrice… ten times. After over 20 practice swings the wool finally started to show signs of wear and tear.

“This isn’t good enough to go into battle with, but being able to swing my sword one-handed is a big step forward.”

Being able to do one-handed sword-strikes gives me freedom of movement with the other hand, that said, I have to use one hand to control the threads, so the end result is basically the same.

Next up, I wrapped some wool around my leg and started doing exercises.
My gift gives me free control of the thread I’m in contact with, which means with one hand I can use my fingers to control up to 5 threads simultaneously.
So by using my left hand to control my legs and my right hand I can exponentially increase my fighting capabilities.

I increased the amount of wool threads, strengthened both legs with wool and took a light step, and then my body leapt faster than I had imagined.

“Whooooaaa!?”

I failed to put on the brakes and plunged face-first into a stock of lumber.
With a loud crash, I slammed into the wood nose first and started seeing stars.

The next morning, I headed down to the dining room for breakfast.
I went down after washing my face and changing clothes, at which point Finia raised a shout in surprise after seeing me.

“Lady Nicole, what’s wrong with your nose?”

My nose was so swollen and red that you could call me Rudolf.
Seeing my face like that, both Cortina and Finia flashed me looks of amazement.

“I just took a little slip out of bed,” I replied with a glum expression and took a drink from the hot milk Finia brought me.