WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Ode of the Brave ◈
Chapter 46
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Step. Step...
Someone carefully stepped through the pitch-black interior of a building with not a single lantern or candle lit.
The silence was as heavy as the thick darkness, making every sound seem even louder.
Marie looked down both sides of the corridor. There was nothing but blackness, like a dead space. There was no one to guide her. In fact, there was no one at all.
Still, she could clearly hear faint breathing from somewhere. She walked toward it.
Step. Step...
When she reached a door, the breathing came from beyond it. It sounded like several people sleeping, not just one. But was it all right to open the door? Should she knock?
Marie could not bring herself to break that silence, thick as ice. So she could only stand there.
She leaned against the wall, set down her luggage, and lowered her head. For the first time, she began to feel a little exhausted.
After some time, someone opened a door from another room and came out wearing pajamas. A single candle glowed faintly on a plate in the student's hand.
Marie quickly raised her head.
“Um, excuse me...”
It was the first person she had met since arriving at the girls’ dormitory, and just as Marie was about to ask for help, the girl holding the candle looked at her silently and simply walked away. What?
Marie blinked in bewilderment. Soon afterward, she heard water trickling from what seemed to be the bathroom, and the girl in pajamas emerged again.
This time, the girl did not even glance at Marie. There was not a trace of curiosity toward a stranger.
Click.
The door closed again, and silence settled over the corridor. Marie could clearly feel it. This place did not welcome her. Helplessness weighed down on her chest.
And so, she spent the night in the hallway.
Morning eventually came. Marie was crouched against the wall, half asleep, when a door suddenly flew open in front of her.
Girls in stained aprons poured out, followed almost at once by students from the other rooms. Marie flinched and stood up. Her legs were stiff.
But the girls in aprons only stole glances at her. Not one of them spoke.
They busied themselves with chores, fetching water, gathering laundry, sweeping and scrubbing the floors. They looked just like maids.
Squeak, squeak. The sound of pumping water. Swish, swish. The sound of laundry being washed. Fires being lit, pots set down to boil water, and hurried footsteps everywhere.
The girls’ dormitory filled with the sounds of daily life, making last night’s heavy silence feel like a lie. Yet Marie was completely isolated in the middle of it.
She could only stand in the corridor and watch the girls rush about. Even when she spoke to them, they ignored her as though they had not heard.
It was only around midmorning that the noise began to die down and some students finally woke, tossing and turning in their beds.
One girl stretched deeply, then came out of her room with a sleepy look, scratching her stomach.
She saw Marie and said, “Are you new? There should be an empty spot in that room over there.”
Then, with a huge yawn, she dragged her half-worn shoes toward the bathroom.
Marie understood instinctively that she could only enter a room after receiving that girl’s permission.
Though she could not see it, she could clearly feel that the students here were not equal. There was a hierarchy here, different from the outside world.
Marie dragged her tired body into the room the girl had pointed out. Four students were still asleep, while the other beds were neatly made without a wrinkle.
Each bed had a small drawer beside it for personal belongings. One bed had nothing around it at all. That seemed to be the empty spot.
Marie unpacked there, put her clothes in the drawer, and propped Ricky, the famed sword, against the wall.
Outside the window, she could see the Academy courtyard, where boys were washing at the well with their shirts off.
There were pump-fed water pipes now, so they did not need to wash in the courtyard. But some students did not want to wait.
Marie cautiously sat on the bed and looked around the room. Around then, the attendant-like students who had been rushing about since morning entered carrying trays.
The trays held freshly picked raspberries, plums, roasted sweet potatoes, cheese, ham, and other food. They brought them to the students still asleep and quietly woke them.
“Lea, Lea. I brought breakfast.”
“Kaylee, I brought your meal.”
“Mmm... Thank you.”
The girls sat up sluggishly, but the girl named Kaylee refused to wake. The attendant students could have shaken her awake, but they did not touch her. They only continued speaking quietly.
“Kaylee, I brought your meal. Kaylee.”
Marie wondered what they were doing. Her nanny used to wake her by throwing off her blankets.
As Kaylee showed no sign of waking, the student trying to rouse her seemed to be having a hard time.
“Kaylee. Kaylee. Kayl...”
“Ah, fuck! I heard you!”
Kaylee irritably threw off her blanket and sat up. The other girls flinched.
“Hey, do you think I’m deaf? Enough already. You’re not a mosquito, so why are you being this annoying?”
“...Sorry...”
Surprisingly, it was the attendant student who apologized. She gently set the tray on the table beside the bed.
“Hey, calm your temper. What did she do wrong?”
“Ah, that fucking bitch kept pestering me.”
“Honestly... Tsk, tsk.”
One of the girls who had woken late shook her head and clicked her tongue. It seemed like this was far from the first time.
As Marie watched everything unfold, the girls eating on their beds looked at her. Then they looked at the sword propped against the wall. Their gazes swept over her from head to toe, as though looking down on her.
They had to know she was a new student, yet none of them spoke to her.
After finishing their meal, the girls leisurely got out of bed and went to wash in the bathroom.
The attendant students had already warmed the water. After bathing, the girls returned to their room, dressed, and began grooming themselves before bronze mirrors.
They chatted endlessly, mostly about the city and boys. Who liked whom, who had confessed and been rejected, who was not all that appealing. Things like that.
Around noon, they ate another meal. Only in the afternoon did they finally go outside. The maid students ate the leftovers and cleaned up afterward.
Marie was tired and hungry, but she could not go to sleep while the sun was still up. So she got up and went outside.
As she walked around the Academy grounds, she saw a group of maid students gathered in the backyard behind the girls’ dormitory.
Strangely, Boribori was in the middle of them, fiddling with something.
“This, like this. Yeah. You tie it like this, okay?”
Boribori seemed to be teaching them how to make something by weaving together plant stems. The other girls watched with interest and chatted among themselves.
“Bori.”
Marie called out. Every student turned to look at her. The girls startled as though they had seen something they should not have, then hurriedly scattered.
“...”
“Huh? Marie. Did you sleep well? Are you settling in?”
“Huh? Yeah... I’m not sure yet. But Bori, what are you doing here?”
“Me? When I’m not with Ricky, I mostly hang out with girls. People already say I’m girly a lot. And I’m not very good at controlling my strength while sparring, so I’ve broken people’s bones a few times.”
“I don’t think liking flowers and grass makes you girly. You just like them.”
“Is that so? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Boribori simply smiled brightly. Seeing that smile made Marie’s bleak mood feel a little better.
“Where’s Ricky?”
“Keeping people in line.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know. He said he needed to straighten some people out. I’m not good at that sort of thing.”
“Oh, right. They said he’s at the top of the pecking order...”
“Being at the top doesn’t mean he has to do that, but Volka isn’t here, so I guess Ricky’s stepping in. And since he’s a noble, it’s probably better if Ricky does the hitting. One person almost died yesterday, but barely survived.”
Marie had heard enough about Volka while coming here with Ricart and Boribori to understand somewhat.
But why was it better for Ricky to do the hitting because he was a noble? That part made no sense.
“It’s better if Ricky does the hitting?”
“Huh? Ah, um, there are reasons.”
“You’re as bad at lying as I am. All right. I won’t ask anymore.”
“Thanks. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Then let’s go eat.”
Boribori got up and led Marie somewhere. He held a bundle of flowers, as though someone had given them as a gift.
“Wait here a moment. I’ll be right back.”
Boribori left Marie outside and slipped into the Inner Castle. Marie cautiously looked inside in case Ricky was there.
But the boys passing through the Inner Castle made her turn away. Every one of them looked back at Marie.
Then, a voice that instantly cleared her foggy mind after a sleepless night called out.
“Marie?”
Marie flinched and turned around. It was Ricart, walking through the corridor.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m waiting for Bori. We were going to eat together.”
“Really? I was just about to eat too. Come in. Let’s eat together.”
“...Can I go in?”
“Why not? We have classes in this building too. Come on.”
Ricart said it casually, but just as boys could not casually enter the girls’ dormitory, girls were not meant to enter the Inner Castle except for class. It was an unspoken rule.
Of course, if Ricart took someone in, nothing could stop them.
Still, eyes watched Marie from the windows of the girls’ dormitory. Unfortunately for them, they could not see Ricart inside the Inner Castle.
Just then, Boribori returned carrying an armful of food, so the three of them entered the Inner Castle together.
As Marie stepped inside, spirited shouts came from the hand-to-hand combat classroom.
“Pankration! Pankration!”
“Kill him!”
“Rip his head off!”
“Nice!”
Marie’s eyes widened, wondering what she was hearing. Ricart and Boribori, however, calmly went up to the second floor and entered an empty classroom.
They sat by the window and ate. Below the cliff where the Academy stood, they could see the wide-open fields. Perhaps because the building had once served as a fortress, the view was exceptionally broad.
A cool breeze came through the window. It was not harsh.
“Are you settling in?”
Ricart asked Marie.
“Hm? Ah, well, I need to adjust little by little.”
Marie had honestly felt something strange and uncomfortable in the girls’ dormitory, but she did not explain every detail. It would have felt like tattling.
And she definitely felt comfortable with Ricart and Boribori. The two of them were strange, mature, frightening at times, and yet innocent.
More than anything, she liked that they seemed to have no prejudices. They occasionally said the wrong thing, but they did not mean harm.
“It sounds like more new students need to arrive before classes can really begin. Want to go into the city tomorrow? There’s a friend I want to introduce you to. Their name is Molty. They used to be a student here, but now they’re a blacksmith’s assistant. They’re married too.”
“Really? Sure, let’s do that.”
Marriage at seventeen or eighteen was not that unusual, so Marie was not especially surprised.
In any case, Marie exchanged light conversation with Ricart and Boribori. It was late afternoon by the time she left the Inner Castle and returned to her dormitory.
But when she entered her room, the girls were rummaging through her drawer without permission. They had even drawn her sword from its sheath and were examining it however they pleased. They were the girls who had woken late that morning.
It was so absurd that Marie could not even get angry.
“Um...”
“Huh? You’re back? Hey, you have a lot of nice clothes.”
“This sword seems pretty good too. Did you sell your body to get it?”
Marie frowned at the blatant rudeness. But instead of reacting to those words, she spoke firmly.
“Excuse me, but I’d like you not to touch my things without permission.”
The girls snorted.
“You’re acting so high and mighty because you made some money selling your body? We were only looking because your clothes were pretty.”
“Will they wear out because we touched them? Will they? What, are you saying we’re dirty?”
“Are you trying to seduce Bori because he seems like an idiot?”
“We have our pride too. This is an Academy, not a brothel. Understand?”
Their words flew at Marie like sharp daggers. None of it was true. She was so confused that she did not know where to begin arguing back.
Marie’s heart pounded at something she had never experienced before. Still, she struggled to remain calm, though her breathing shook slightly.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m asking you not to touch my things. Especially my sword. Don’t touch it. It’s dangerous.”
“Like we’d touch it. It’s filthy.”
The girls carelessly threw Marie’s clothes onto the floor. Her drawer stood open, its contents completely disordered. They even roughly tossed her sword to the floor.
Clang!
Then they bumped Marie’s shoulder as they returned to their own places. They sat or lay together on a single bed and chattered away.
Marie silently lowered her head and looked at her belongings strewn across the floor. Then she remembered what Ricky had told her. You need to establish principles of your own.
Right. Establish principles. Give them a chance. Anyone could make a mistake.
Marie turned to the girls, who were still gossiping about her behind her back.
“Apologize.”
“What?”
“Is she crazy?”
Then Kaylee, the girl with the worst temper, turned serious.
“Hey.”
She rose and walked toward Marie. The other girls giggled.
“Want to say that again?”
“I said apologize. Apologize for touching my things without permission, and for talking carelessly about my friend.”
Smack!
Before Marie had even finished speaking, Kaylee slapped her. Marie’s head snapped to the side.
But Marie did not cry or look startled. She slowly turned her head back. Her left cheek had turned red.
Her eyes were no longer their usual innocent-looking eyes. They were sharp like those of a hawk or eagle.
Marie whispered, “Apologize.”
Kaylee smiled cruelly and raised her hand to slap Marie again.
Or, she tried to.
Before she could, something flashed before her eyes, and Kaylee sprawled facedown on the floor.
Smack!
Thump.
Marie had slapped her first. Her movement had been as fast as lightning, and the blow was packed with mana. Kaylee lay twitching on the floor, unable to get up.
The giggling stopped at once, and the room became silent as a grave. Students from other rooms watched from outside, covering their mouths in shock.
Marie approached the remaining students.
“U-um...”
“I think I gave you plenty of chances.”
Then she drew back her hand and slapped one of them with a full swing. The impact was strong enough to nearly tear the flesh from the girl’s cheek.
Smack!
She could not even scream. The remaining students trembled in fear at how quickly it had happened. But Marie spared no one, slapping them all across the face. Every one of them went down from a single strike.
But it did not end there.
Marie slowly raised her long-booted foot and stomped down hard on a drawer.
Crunch!
The mana-laden kick shattered it in one blow, crushing and scattering the clothes and belongings inside.
Step. Step. Step...
Marie walked slowly and proudly, destroying every remaining drawer.
Bang! Crunch! Crash!
The watching students flinched with every sound of something breaking. Once Marie had destroyed all the drawers, she turned around and spoke in an icy voice.
“While I’m gone, put my belongings back in order yourselves. If you don’t, I’ll pull out your tongues and cut off your wrists. This is your last chance.”
It was good that she had established her own principles, but perhaps that was a little excessive. Still, there were times when an individual’s principles became everyone’s rules, if that individual had enough power.
Marie walked out without looking back. The students watching outside hurriedly moved aside to make way for her.
From yesterday until today, no one had even looked at Marie. Now it was the opposite. Every girl watched Marie, but Marie did not look at any of them.
Marie carried not an imitation, but the real dignity, charisma, and majesty of a noble. The students found themselves gripped by it without realizing.
When Marie returned after clearing her head outside, her belongings had been neatly restored to their original places.
Without Marie having to give any further orders, the students of the rank called Lady who had been in that room were practically expelled and moved elsewhere after the balance of power changed.
A storm had swept through, but Marie was calm. Without caring at all about the dormitory’s atmosphere, she went to sleep.
Then, the next morning, someone called for Marie from outside.
“Marie! Marie!”
It was just the time when the maid students would be waking up, but it was a boy’s voice.
It was rare for a boy to openly shout toward the girls’ dormitory, especially to call for someone. It took courage, and if it went badly, it could make him look ridiculous.
But everyone looked out the window and was shocked. It was Ricart, who had shown not the slightest interest in girls.
He was overwhelmingly first in the Academy’s pecking order, a genius boy swordsman, the leader of Beringen Academy’s Legendary Nine, and an object of awe and admiration. Yet that boy had cupped his hands around his mouth and was shouting.
“Don’t eat there! Come out! Let’s eat in the city!”
Marie smiled happily, leaned out the window, and shouted back.
“Okay! Wait a moment! I’ll be right out!”
Marie washed, fixed her hair as quickly as possible, dressed simply, and left the dormitory. Surprised gazes from the girls followed her every step.
Ricart, waiting outside with Boribori, saw Marie’s reddened left cheek and his eyes widened.
“Did something happen?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Um... Keeping people in line? Like you, Ricky?”
“...Huh?”
Ricart only knew the basics and had no idea how life among the girls worked, so he simply accepted it.
The three of them descended the cliffside stairs early in the morning and walked toward the city. The sun rose along the way, and the fields were bright.
It was spring.
Part 9: Keeping Them in Line. End.
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