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I left the wild boar butchering to Michelle and Cloud, and had Letina check my injury.

Though I called it an injury, it was only on the level of a bruise, so I wasn’t bleeding or anything.

Still, to see the affected part, I had to expose my chest, so there was a need to avoid any public eyes… particularly Cloud’s.

“It is swelled a little, but I would not call it an injury.”
“I’ve been saying that it didn’t hurt.”
“You say that even when you are heavily injured, so I cannot trust your words.”
“That’s an awful thing to say to your friend.”

That said, there have been many cases where I said I was fine and fainted. It was natural that she would doubt me.

This time, I was able to easily escape the impact thanks to the revised leather armor that Aste made. If it was some roughly tailored armor, the shock would’ve gotten directly transmitted to my body and might have broken a rib or two.

While I was thinking of such things, Letina suddenly poked my breast.

“Oh, what is this scar?”
“That’s from Fina’s mischiefs. She tends to immediately go for my breasts.”

What Letina poked was the red mark near the tips of my small mounds. Fina’s mouth landed precisely on them every time, so I still had a red bruise left nearby.

“Could it be that she is mistaking you for her mother… No, that cannot be.”
“Hey! Where were you looking when you made that judgment, huh?”
“Do you really want me to say it out loud?”
“Hmph, not that you have any to show yourself. Mine are bigger than yours at least.”
“Now you’ve said it!”

Letina leaped at me, but the difference between our builds was too big. I caught her head and she started flailing around without ever reaching me.

That aside, I had something I needed to ask.

“Michelle, about that last attack.”
“Hmm? Ah, that? It just felt like ‘that’s the spot!’ and I shot it.”
“Oh, I see…”

I aimed to be a swordsman in my previous life, so I understood where Michelle was coming from. When you swing your sword, sometimes, in truly rare moments, the blade smoothly slides through the enemy’s vital part.

I experienced that sensation even after I moved on to using the threads. Rather, it started happening more frequently after I started using them. I have asked Lyell about that sensation before, but while he had also experienced something similar, he couldn’t explain what it really was.

I kept experiencing it even after I took on the assassin work. It was probably what it felt when you pierced someone’s vital part. So Michelle has learned to feel that same sensation thanks to her Gift.

In that case…

“Michelle, you may become much stronger from now on.”
“Huh, really?”
“Yes. Yeah. I’m not really familiar with the details myself though.”
“I see… Ah, hey! You shouldn’t be looking there!”
“Ouch! It was just an accident. It just entered my vision.”

While my hands were stopped during the conversation, Cloud managed to steal a glance. I had the front of my shirt pulled up, so a lot of things were exposed.

“Cloud, will burn.”
“At least speak in proper sentences!”
“They say you will become stronger if you are forged, you know?”
“Who the heck said such a thing? I’ll send them flying later. That’s a total lie, okay!”
“Incidentally, it was my dad.”
“No way I can beat him…”

Seeing Cloud fall on the ground in despair, I decided to hold off with physical punishment. I suppose it would be too pitiful if he really ends up unable to leave any descendants.

The meat and skin that we obtained from the boar summed up to 30 kilos. The internal organs were hard to process, so we had Letina use the Tunnel spell and safely bury them.

There were edible parts but they generally didn’t last very long, so it wasn’t worth bringing them along. We got a little over 7kg meat per person this time, so Cloud was pretty happy with his orphanage tribute.

“It would only be a little longer until we can no longer take such fresh ingredients home.”
“If the Marquis family issues a commission, they would hunt them for you, though.”
“It would be awkward to issue commissions for that silly reason. Besides, it feels tastier when you are the one who defeated it.”
“Still, you shouldn’t go hunt one alone, okay? And don’t make your servants do the unreasonable, either.”
“What do you take me for… I am not so inconsiderate.”
“The Letina I met at the start was quite inconsiderate, though?”
“T-That was when I was only a kid!”
“You’re still a kid, though.”

We wrapped the meat in the skin and carried it like that. However, with so much meat on our hands, the smell was bound to attract wild animals, so this marked the end of today’s hunt.

We were in a relaxed mood as we reached Raum.

“Besides, I have to enroll in the higher academy grades, so I cannot stay a child forever.”
“The higher grades of the Magic Academy… That would mean noble’s training, huh. I’d definitely not want any part of that.”
“Even I feel reluctant about it.”
“I don’t want to study any more. Combat experience is the best.”
“Michelle, I think you really should study more.”

She was an honest girl that accepted everything that they taught her without question. That in itself was a good thing, but it was hard to develop your thinking skill like that.

Considering what was to come, she really had to learn more things. Otherwise, she might get confused and not know what to do if she ever gets involved in trouble.

“You guys are going to Stolla domain after graduation, right?”
“Yes. There we will be staying in Gadius… Sir Gadius’ inn.”

I was really not used to referring to Gadius with an honorific.

Unlike Lyell, that old b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲ was quite ill-mannered. Or rather, he was awfully shy with strangers despite his appearance.

We did talk a lot during the journey after he got familiar with me, but at first, Cortina used to grumble that when Gadius and I were alone, the place got shrouded in dead silence and atmosphere.

Though it couldn’t be helped. Unlike Cortina who I had known from before, that was my first time meeting Gadius.

“I have not met them very often. How are they?”
“He is surprisingly kind. And good at taking care of people. He’s far kinder compared to Master Lyell.”

It seemed that Cloud had rated Gadius better than Lyell… Lyell’s hard on you because he’s vigilant of you, though.

Despite insisting countless times that it wasn’t like that, Lyell was still suspecting that Cloud was a bug that was sticking close to me, so there was no helping it.

“At any rate, there are still five months to go. Let’s just stay together as much as we can, okay?”
“Alright. We have to spend this little time we have together. Getting depressed about what would follow will do us no good.”
“Besides, we’ll come back from time to time. It’s not like we won’t be able to meet at all.”
“When that time comes, I’ll show you high-level spells that I will learn in the senior grade!”
“I’ll wait without setting any expectations.”

We passed Raum’s gate while messing about in a calm manner. The gate guard knew our faces, so he didn’t go out of his way to detain us.