WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 1

──────

Prologue - A Villager's Diary

1.

A newcomer arrived in the village.

He wasn't the sort of person you'd warm to at first glance. Whatever he'd been through, there was a venom in his eyes, like he might do something rash at any moment.

Personally, I hoped the chief would turn him away, but the man was too kind hearted for that. He took the stranger in, same as he always did.

Well, I suppose that's the same reason I'm here, so.

I decided not to think about it anymore.

2.

Three days had passed since the man settled in the village.

He was remarkably quiet. Like he wasn't even there. He barely seemed to leave his house.

A few of the nosier villagers showed some curiosity, but I couldn't care less.

I just hoped these peaceful days would keep going.

3.

A week, well, ten days now since the man arrived.

Now I know what he does. The kids who peeked over his fence told everyone. Apparently he swings a sword every single day.

So there was a story behind him after all.

Still couldn't care less.

I decided to keep to my own business, whatever the kids chattered on about.

4.

Another month passed.

He was still swinging his sword in his yard.

Not that I've seen it myself. Just what I heard.

Still don't care.

5.

Another month passed.

Same as ever. The man swings his sword, the villagers gossip.

Some say he's honing his swordsmanship for revenge. Some say he's a fallen knight. Some say he used to be a famous mercenary.

Noisy. And I really couldn't care less.

But telling them to stop would be more trouble than it's worth, so I just did my own work.

Today's work was... taking a nap, I think.

6.

Tomorrow I should go see him swing his sword.

Half a year now he's kept up the training. Not a single day missed, rain or snow.

I've never cared much for other people's business, but I have to admit it now. Curiosity's gotten the better of me.

How fast is he?

How heavy are his strikes?

What kind of swordsmanship is worth all that effort?

I'll find out tomorrow.

7.

Disappointing. Deeply disappointing.

To villagers who don't know swords, he probably looks impressive. But I've worked in trade and seen plenty of swordsmen. I can tell.

He's not impressive. To be blunt, he was just ordinary.

I turned my back on the view over the fence and walked away, thinking.

There must be a story. Some heartbreaking, gut wrenching story.

But I don't think that effort is going to fix whatever it is.

A foolish man. And a pitiful one.

I really should stop paying attention now.

Think I'll have a drink before bed.

8.

A family moved into the village.

A retired mercenary, along with a son and a daughter.

The daughter's looks were something else.

When she smiled and greeted the villagers, I thought an angel had come down from the sky.

It's been a while. This feeling, it's been a real long while.

Even now, writing this diary late at night, my heart won't stop racing.

Tomorrow I'll find some way to talk to her. I have to. I've written it down now, so there's no putting it off.

Oh, and not that it matters, but.

The man swung his sword again today.

That makes three years now.

9.

Today's been a strange one, feeling wise.

I'm happier than I've ever been, that much is certain. Two years of courting finally bore fruit today.

Beside me now sleeps my lovely wife, Rema. Honestly, I'm happy enough to cry.

But.

Strangely enough.

Strangely enough, that man who has nothing to do with me at all kept creeping back into my head.

Five years is a long time.

Long enough that I went from a man crushed by broken dreams and drowning in cynicism, to someone who found the strength to fall in love, marry, and smile again.

Long enough that little snot nosed Jack Steward next door grew up and left the village to become a mercenary.

But he hasn't changed at all.

While the rest of us cycled through joy and sorrow dozens of times over, he just stood there in his yard, swinging, swinging, swinging again.

Picturing that man, still the same as the day he started, still keeping up his ordeal as though he'd only just made the vow yesterday, something rose in my throat and climbed from my nose to my eyes. I couldn't name it.

Strange, like I said. Everyone else's interest faded long ago, and here I am only now turning my eyes toward him.

But I've decided to accept it.

Starting tomorrow, I'll check every day how long his ordeal goes on.

10.

Day 5 years, 1 month, 12 days.

The man trained with his sword.

11.

Day 5 years, 2 months, 25 days.

The man trained with his sword.

12.

Day 5 years, 5 months, 3 days.

The heat was maddening. Even so, the man trained with his sword.

13.

A child was born. Mine and Rema's precious child. A daughter, my precious daughter.

Father in law, the village chief, everyone celebrated the new life. My wife and I received the villagers' congratulations with smiles on our faces.

And the man kept on training.

Day 6 years, 2 months, and 27 days.

14.

Day 9 years, 6 months, 16 days.

The man trained with his sword.

15.

The day marking a full 10 years.

The man trained with his sword.

16.

Oh, I forgot to check today.

Let's see... today marks 12 years and 3 months.

Well, it doesn't matter. He was probably training anyway. Same as yesterday. Honestly, I don't find myself as curious as I used to.

Like the sun rising in the morning and the moon rising at night, like spring following winter, I've been fixated this long on something so obvious.

Suddenly everything I've done up to now feels foolish.

Right, I should spend less time worrying about pointless things like that and more time on my daughter Laura and my wife Rema.

I'll stop, starting tomorrow.

For real this time.

...

...

That was the last entry in the villager's diary.

Twenty years passed after that.

* * *

A villager with a face full of wrinkles woke early one morning.

He was the chief of a village. Rema's husband, and also Laura's father.

In his younger days he'd been a bitter, ill tempered young man who saw the world through a jaded lens, but he wasn't like that anymore.

Everyone in the village loved him for the warm smile he greeted them with. Time had changed him.

'To think, that selfish young man I used to be would end up as the village chief, receiving greetings from everyone. Time really does work wonders.'

A smile touched his lips as he walked his morning rounds in the cool air.

The village chief moved along slowly.

He returned a hunter's greeting as the man headed out early for the hunt, heard the cloth merchant's snoring leak out through the walls, and made a mental note of a fence that needed mending.

Making his careful rounds through every corner of the village, the last place he headed toward was where the strangest resident of this village lived.

'... thirty five years today, was it.'

The house of the man who trained with his sword.

At first, he hadn't cared at all.

Later he grew curious, but not in a good way.

His mouth had worn the kind of sneer you'd give to a wasted effort.

A little further on, the feeling that came was pity.

And then sorrow.

But after five years, ten years, that changed too.

What he felt now was something so heavy, so vast, that the word awe fell short of it.

"....."

What on earth had that man been through?

What on earth drove him to such an ordeal? What on earth, what on earth.

Even those questions had faded long ago.

These days the village chief watched the man train once a month, as though receiving something sacred.

That was why he was walking there now.

But then.

A sight unlike anything usual caught his eye.

The village chief's eyes went wide and he broke into a run.

"Huff, huff, huff!"

The village chief was past sixty.

He wasn't sickly, but he was hardly in the kind of shape that let him sprint without consequence.

He hadn't run far before his breath was already caught in his throat.

Still, he didn't stop. He ran like his life depended on it.

Thanks to that, he managed to catch, for just a moment, the tail end of the last miracle that man ever wrought.

Hummmm-

The old man stood there, eyes wide open.

A massive sword held him upright.

And a haze of silvery gray light, fading by the moment, but still unmistakably present.

The village chief said nothing until that light disappeared completely.

"....."

The realm the old man had reached in his final moment.

How extraordinary it truly was.

How vast, how brilliant the sword of light he had forged had shone.

The village chief, arriving too late, never saw it. And even if he had, he likely wouldn't have understood. He wasn't a knight, after all.

But it didn't matter. What he'd already witnessed was enough.

All the effort the old man had piled up over the years.

All the suffering he'd endured.

A lifetime's worth of years.

That process was worth far more than whatever fruit it had finally borne.

The village chief looked down at the old man's body for a moment, then spoke through tears.

"I hope... you've gone somewhere good."

* * *

And after a very long stretch of time.

When the man who once swung his sword, and the village chief who once watched him, and the very village he'd lived in, had all become a past that no one remembered.

"... mmh."

Airen Farreira, the lazy lord and eldest son of House Farreira, became aware of his past life.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried