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After receiving Cloud’s approval, I turned back to head to the academy. Even if it was earlier than normal, it was still a long way to go from the church.

I had to hurry or I’d be late. Well, everyone knew how weak my body was, so being a little late wouldn’t really raise many questions.

“Now that I think about it, Nicole was so amazing there, wasn’t she?”
“Huh?”

However, Michelle’s words made me stop in place.

She was smiling brightly as always. However, the words that just left her mouth made me flinch.

“I mean, she didn’t fall behind even against five adult opponents, and used that wire to slash at the charging opponents.”
“I was unconscious so I see any of that…”
“Ah, right.”

That conversation made me start sweating bullets. I have never fought with threads in the presence of the girls before this. I used them with Cloud as an exception, but he thought I wasn’t using them when forming the party so I could lower my level to match the girls.

They didn’t even know that something like strengthening oneself with threads was even possible. As such, they never realized that I was doing it.

At most, I’ve used the threads as a means of movement in front of the girls, but I didn’t have a good excuse to dodge it this time.

I used the thread instead of a sword to attack and block, displaying that I was a master at using it in battle.

“It looked like she was Lord Reid himself.”
“Y-Yeah… Uhh…”

Michelle wasn’t trying to question anything. Still, the two were my important friends, and people I was planning to form a party with after graduation and set out on a journey. So I started to wonder whether hiding my abilities from them wasn’t only making things harder for me.

Michelle was too young before, so she might have accidentally let it slip, but wouldn’t it be fine to tell her now?

I didn’t have to tell her that I was Reid. I could just let her know that I held the Gift of Thread Manipulation, couldn’t I?

“Uh… I never told you but…”
“Yes?”
“Actually, I hold another Gift too.”
“Huh, so you have two of them!?”

Michelle knew that I had the Interference Magic Gift. My learning speed itself was fast, but because my power output and control had problems before, my progress wasn’t as fast as expected of a Gift holder.

But Dr. Tricia’s medicine took care of that now, so I was making steady progress with it. I was already stepping into the middle-ranked interference magic, so the other students viewed me a bit like a genius.

I say a bit because of the nature of my magic. The interference system was quite wide-spread, and given that it couldn’t anything too grand, it wasn’t exactly popular.

But even so, it was another story if you had another Gift along with it.

“Remember, I did say back when we discovered your Gift of Marksmanship, right? I thought it would be a bother if people found out I had two Gifts so I kept quiet.”
“But you were only three at that time. You could already see that far from such a young age?”
“Y-Yeah. Besides, thread manipulation is a pretty plain ability…”
“That’s not the case at all. You managed to beat up the enemy alone with those threads back then!”
“Y-You think so?”

Michelle replied with her usual innocent smile. She was never the type to think hard about things. Even now, she was merely saying what was on her mind.

So, as long as I explained it to her until she was convinced and asked her to keep it to herself, she would never reveal it to anyone given her sincere personality.

“But look, it would be troublesome if people find out I have two Gifts, so keep it a secret, okay?”
“I see… Okay, got it!”
“Still, so you had two Gifts, huh, Nicole? As expected of the Heroes’ daughter.”
“A-Ahaha…”

Actually, I had three, but this was a secret. My third Gift was probably only known by a few in this world. If a word got out that I had three Gifts, it could cause a commotion that wouldn’t fall short of Lyell and the rest.

“I see. So the reason why you were sometimes using threads to hop around was that Gift, huh?”
“Of course, I never slacked on training, you know? Those moves were all thanks to it.”
“I see… Now that I think about it, you sure are doing your best, huh, Nicole. I’m not gonna lose.”
“Right, right. There are countless cases where a Gift holder lost to an ordinary person. You can’t get carried away.”
“Ugh, are you saying that because of what I did this time?”
“Of course.”

The current incident happened completely due to their overconfidence. If something went slightly differently, they would both be dead now. I had to warn them properly.

Well, Maria did her scolding right after it happened, so I was sure they engraved it to their hearts, but kids tended to forget things as quickly as they tended to grow.

I had to keep reminding them every now and then so they would engrave it into their heads.

“That goes for you too, Michelle.”
“Ugh, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You aren’t taking this lightly, are you?”

I put a hand on my waist and tried to glare at her as sharply as I could. Of course, there was no bloodlust put into it, so it had no real pressure.

But for Michelle, who cherished friendship above all, being scolded by a friend held a big significance. And as expected, she answered in acknowledgment after hanging her head.

“I got it, I will be careful from now on.”
“As long as you understand. But I’ll keep nagging you about this so be prepared.”
“Eeeh!?”
“If I don’t say it over and over, you’ll forget about it when it counts the most. I’m serious.”
“Huh, really?”
“Yeah.”

This was something Maria and Cortina always scolded me about in my previous life. In the end, my bad habit of rushing headfirst into danger never went away until my death.

That bad habit was starting to bud even in Cloud now. My actions had brought nothing but sadness for Cortina, so I didn’t want Cloud to repeat the same mistake.

Thus, I decided to be as annoying about it as I could.