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According to the advice of the God of Destruction, we decided to head to the western port town for the training camp. The participants consisted of me, Michelle, Letina, Cloud, and Fina, led by Maxwell. Six of us in total.

Cortina seemed to want to come along too, but with Maria nearing childbirth, there was a need for a female helper, so she remained behind.

The three weeks before the long vacations we spent preparing for the camp, and soon that time had arrived. But just as the winter vacation was on our doorsteps, Cortina made us work on our homework.

Her condition for us to go to the training camp was to finish our homework beforehand.

She had a point, but it was honestly a pain in the a̲s̲s̲. The homework itself wasn’t hard, but the amount was. We were told to finish half a month’s worth of homework in three days, so it was very tough.

Letina and I did our homework at a great pain. Michelle was from the Adventurer Academy, which put emphasis on the practical side, so there wasn’t much homework for her, and she finished it quickly.

As for Cloud who didn’t go to school, he was having a fun chat with Finia.

“You little! Take this!”
“Ow! Why are you kicking me!”
“I can’t forgive you for ditching us while we suffer and enjoying tea with Finia.”
“How unreasonable can you be!? Save me, Lady Cortina!”

Cloud started protesting in tears as I kicked him under the table. Cortina responded to him with a warm smile.

“Cloud. If you lay your hands on Finia, I’ll ‘pluck’ it.”
“What exactly!?”
“What are you trying to make a maiden like me say? Also, I’ll ‘pluck’ if you touch Nicole and Letina too.”
“A maiden? At your ag-… No, nevermind. Wait, Michelle is fine?”

Cloud was about to slip up, but he seemed to have sensed the danger to his life and quickly changed the topic. Hearing that, Cortina looked a little unsure how to answer.

“Well, Michelle isn’t as problematic social position-wise… Still, if you’re ready to face Nicole’s wrath, give it a try I guess?”
“No thanks!”

As she said, putting his hands on either me, who was the daughter of the heroes, or Letina, who was the daughter of a marquis, would most certainly get him involved in trouble. Finia was also Lyell and Maria’s servant, so touching her could incur their wrath.

In that respect, while Michelle was under Lyell’s patronage, she was still just a huntsman’s daughter. She was the safest bet in that regard.

“Of course, I’m here to prevent that.”
“Stop bragging and do your homework.”
“Don’t get so cheeky!”
“Okay, leave it at that. Still, Cloud has a point. You haven’t progressed at all, Nicole.”
“Ugh, I’m trying.”

This training camp was all for the sake of the gift to give to my soon-to-be-born sister. If I thought about it like that, this much homework was no big deal. Compared to the fights against Mateus and Gideon, this much was… was…

“…A huge pain.”
“Nicole, you were weak to these repetitive practices?”
“No, I’m actually good at them, but I’m more suited for the active stuff.”

When it came to sword training or thread manipulation, that is, things focused on physical activity, I didn’t mind even if it was repetitive. However, when it came to single-mindedly decoding magic circle techniques and calculating magic quantities to guess the result, they were far too disconnected from my nature.

Actually, what if I use my threads to do several questions at once…!

“Not happening I guess, my mind would fall behind.”
“Really? Aren’t you always getting good marks?”
“Well, I am Maxwell’s student. And my sister is going to be born soon, so I have to get my act together.”
“It might be a brother, you know?”
“Agh, well…”

I didn’t know how the God of Destruction guessed the child’s gender, but Cortina and others had no way of knowing about that. Thus, I decided to just pretend it was my hope.

“I was just thinking a sister would be nice.”
“Oh? A brother would be very lively and cute too.”
“Cloud is enough for the lively role.”
“So you’re treating Cloud as a little brother, huh. Well, he’s got Lyell blocking the way, so his chances are slim anyway.”
“Cloud’s been interested in Michelle as of late, so you should focus on that.”
“Oh, really? I guess he’s worth teasing then.”
“Please don’t talk about scary things while I’m next to you…”

Cloud, being unable to read the mood, cut into our conversation. That’s why you’re not popular. Take an example from my past life. I was so good at reading the mood that I never intruded in people’s conversations.

No, well, that made people misunderstand it as a ‘do not approach aura’.

“Right, how about you take this opportunity and try learning some magic, Cloud?”
“Huh, me!?”
“Half-demons have high physical skills, but there are also many with good magical affinities. There are some rare exceptions, however. If you receive proper training, you should be able to use magic too.”
“But I don’t have money to attend the academy.”

The rare example that Cortina spoke of referred to the past me. I had low physical and magical abilities, but it was made up by the exceedingly high agility and dexterity, so I was a pretty unbalanced existence.

Cloud was saving money to become an independent Adventurer. That said, he didn’t have enough of it to attend the academy. In the first place, hunting small animals around the capital’s vicinity didn’t get a lot of money.

Of course, compared to kids our age, it was in another league, but the academy’s tuition fee was quite high. Cloud still seemed to have ways to go until then.

“You don’t have to attend the academy to learn magic. Like, you’re already studying under Lyell and Gadius, so why not just add Maxwell to the count?”
“Lord Maxwell?”
“Rejected!”

I instantly objected to Cortina’s suggestion. Maxwell was currently in charge of my magic training too. If Cloud got involved in that, he could hear things that he was not supposed to hear.

He didn’t even know basic spells, so Cortina should’ve been enough to teach him.

“Can’t you teach him yourself, Cortina? He doesn’t even know elementary magic yet, so Maxwell would be wasted on him, won’t he?”
“Mh… You have a point.”
“But under my supervision.”
“Huh, why?”
“Just because!”

Even if it was Cloud, he wasn’t allowed to stay alone with Cortina. I insisted on that while looking sulky.