Reborn as the Hero's Daughter

Chapter 221: Trial Run

Afterward, Aste received his payment from Maxwell and quickly disappeared somewhere. Since he paid in my stead I had to repay it some time, but that could be easily solved by paying a visit to my secret base.

Having obtained new gauntlets, I had a delighted expression on my face, my hands itching for the action. Frankly put, I really wanted to put their ability to test right away. Maxwell, on the other hand, was looking extremely weary.

“You sure look carefree. And here I am depressed.” “Huh, why? I got my weapon, so my power should go up. There’s nothing wrong with it, is there?” “I do not mean that. I am talking about Maria and Cortina.” “Oh…”

If those two press Maxwell for answers, even he would not be able to get away. Cortina had Maria as a reinforcement this time, so my identity was just waiting to get busted at this rate.

“This is a tough one, huh?” “I feel like no excuses will work next time. Why not just come out with it already?” “Like I can do that so late in the game! I’d be super awkward!”

There’s no way I can reveal it myself. But I couldn’t find a good excuse to deceive them, either.

I couldn’t erase the feeling that all doors were closed on me.

“Should I transform again and redirect them that way?” “Doing that more than once would instead invite more danger. Do you believe that Cortina will be deceived over and over?” “…Yeah, not happening.”

Currently, Cortina was under the impression that this imaginary person, Haumea, was Reid. If she learned that she was fake, then her aim would shift to the one that visited Maxwell’s mansion most frequently—in other words, me.

“This sucks. Feels like we are completely helpless.” “It would be a stupid plan to make any moves now. I will try to distract them with the pursuit of Klein and Mateus, since they are the focus now.” “Can you even get juicy information required for that to work?” “I suppose not.”

Mateus pulled back, which meant Klein Stolla Serwa wasn’t in this town anymore. Since he left the city already, there was no knowing where he could have gone from there. If he had connections to someone that could use Teleportation magic, he could be anywhere now. Pursuing someone like that would be close to impossible even for Maxwell.

“Until I get it, I will somehow distract them by doing work separately. Cortina and others have their hands full of investigating the Stolla domain, right?” “Yeah. There’s also the matter of Donovan too.” “But there was also the matter of that assassin from the southern City-State union of Qaum. There is a need to investigate that too, right?” “Ah, so you’re gonna tell them you’d investigate that yourself?” “Yes, after all, either matter requires prompt action from us. There is a high possibility that we would lose our target if we stall the matter for too long. As such, Maria and I, who are able to use the Teleportation magic, have to share that work.” “I see. I suppose that works as an excuse. Still, pursuing that assassin can be quite dangerous, you know? Although not quite on my level from my previous life, that Mateus is still extremely dangerous.” “Singing praises to yourself, eh? In that case, perhaps I will take Gadius too.”

I suppose there should be no problems with a specialist in protection like Gadius with him. Still, Elves and Dwarves were generally on bad terms, but these two got along surprisingly well.

Well, they were comrades who have looked death in the eyes many a time, so it was probably natural.

“If the enemy has people like that on their side, I kinda wanna tag along as a guard…” “The present you? You can’t even leave the town so easily, can you?” “Ugh, yeah, I even have some self-restraints put on the hunting too.”

Since Cloud got rolled up in such an incident just outside of the city, we had to be wary of the surroundings for some time. Thus, the kingdom was more vigilant now and also requested low-level Adventurers to put self-restraint on their activities.

As an after-effect of that, our hunts also fell under such self-restraints. Cloud’s food situation required him to hunt, but it couldn’t be helped now. To deal with that immediate problem, we were using illegal channels to distribute our own shares as preserved foods.

“Oh well. Please deal with that somehow, old man.” “Good grief, acting like it is none of your concern…” “I feel bad about it, okay? I’ll give you something to make up for it later.” “You shall not fool me with some cheap meat!” “Can’t you just let yourself be fooled? I’m still a kid!” “You are only a kid when it suits your needs.”

Maxwell drew near to smack me on my head. I dodged his hand and made my way out of his mansion.

Late at night. I started feeling like I was becoming quite a nocturnal person.

I used my Stealth Gift to its utmost and left the city, entering the forest. This was to test my new ability and the performance of the new equipment. I was quite fond of my new weapon, but that didn’t mean I would be an expert at using it from the get-go.

Every good weapon needed getting used to first.

“That said, I just want to test it right away, but…”

First I decided to start by testing the muscle fiber manipulation that I discovered during the fight with Mateus.

I jumped, accelerated, and decelerated, leaping around in the forest to my heart’s content. My speed was far faster compared to being strengthened with threads.

However…

“This… Is no good. The burden is too much.”

Unlike the Enchant magic, it didn’t strengthen my stamina along with it. My body couldn’t keep up with my movement ability and started screeching in a short time.

“I did well enduring it during the fight with Mateus.”

If I had exceeded my limit while fighting, he could’ve easily cut me down. Then, I suddenly remembered the spell that was carved on my gauntlets.

Aste said there was Enchant installed on it. In that case, wouldn’t it also be able to raise my stamina? Thinking that, I quickly let my magic power flow through it.

Receiving my magic power, the spell activated on its own and covered my body. I then used my thread manipulation on top of it and did the same actions as before. Albeit only by a bit, the burden seemed to have lessened.

The reason I was still feeling some burden was probably that my manipulation ability was exceeding the strength of the Enchant spell. Still, if it was this much, I could last for about ten minutes. The build-in magic could only last for three minutes, so any longer would be pointless.

“Next would be to check the threads themselves. We worked so hard to get them… Hmm?”

Then, I suddenly noticed a rustling in the grass. Any violent animals were being periodically exterminated by Adventurers around these parts, so it shouldn’t have been any dangerous animal.

As if to betray my expectations… A giant silhouette showed itself from the grass.