Aw it's kind of sad a lot of subtleties got skipped because there are a lot of them and the novel is pretty packed. In the novel, Reiji dodge the orb question by answering "I don't have skill orb in me" because he technically have skill orb but he took them out for precaution. And he was a lot less composed inside, like he felt he accidentally just dodge a bullet.
I guess the manga works because he said "I don't have a single skill orb", which is true cause he have multiple of them. God, I highly recommend the novel.