WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 10

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Krono's Failure Student (1)

The grand journey of Krono Fencing Hall, a year long in total.

Four days had passed since it began.

There was no repeat of the first day's hell march, the kind that tested the very limits of human endurance and pushed everyone until only one person remained standing.

But the standard curriculum was brutal in its own right.

Especially since for the first four months, picking up a sword was forbidden entirely. Only basic physical conditioning was allowed.

'There's no point picking up a sword without fundamentals, that just causes problems. Swordsmanship training starts after the Mid-Term Evaluation.'

The trainee candidates sighed heavily at the instructor's words, but there was nothing to be done about it.

From that announcement onward, the kids had to live days that resembled a soldier's life.

"Wake up! Get up!"

"Ughhh..."

"Already?"

"Haah..."

Wake up at 5 AM.

Assembly at 6, then two hours of training.

Meals and personal upkeep until 9:30, then training again.

Then afternoon training continued, and the day wrapped up with mental discipline and a liberal arts class.

This was the daily schedule at Krono Fencing Hall.

'Whew, once this is done, that's it for today.'

'I'm sick of this. Sick of it. Doing this for a whole year...'

'I'm exhausted. Maybe I'll just close my eyes for a bit.'

No small number of the kids, especially the ones in the back rows, started nodding off.

It couldn't be helped. After training that would wear out even a grown adult, sitting through a tedious theory lecture was asking a lot.

Especially for kids whose only thought was "I want to get stronger," this hour felt no different from nap time.

Of course, the instructor wasn't about to let that slide.

"Hey, you there! No sleeping!"

"You think this is break time? Krono Fencing Hall doesn't exist to raise fools who can only swing a weapon well!"

"To cultivate the virtues of a swordsman, training the mind matters just as much as training the body! Neglect the liberal arts classes and you won't like what comes of it!"

The instructor scolded them, rattling off words like humility, honor, protecting the weak.

It wasn't just an empty warning.

Krono Fencing Hall had long been an institution that put as much effort into shaping its trainees' proper values as it did into producing knights.

In fact, its graduates had achieved countless feats in the name of the continent's peace and stability, and that was part of why the fencing hall's reputation stood as high as it did today.

Most of the trainee candidates already knew this, and the ones who didn't picked up on the mood from how seriously the instructor spoke.

In the end, the kids had no choice but to keep body and mind tense right up until dinner.

"Well, at least the food's good."

"True. If even the food sucked, I swear..."

"Haah. Now I can finally rest."

7 PM.

Now the schedule was truly finished for the day.

From this point on, not even the tiger of an instructor or the sharp-eyed assistant instructors interfered.

As long as they didn't leave the fencing hall grounds, nobody cared what they did.

Not that there were kids reckless enough to cause real trouble.

Anyone with time for that would rather spend it lying down, resting a little more.

Most of the kids were about to head back to their dormitories when a familiar voice filled the dining hall.

"Ah! I forgot to mention something, so let me pass it along now."

"Yes!"

"All the training grounds, the indoor conditioning rooms, and every other training space are open at all times. Any trainee candidates who want to do self-directed training are free to use them whenever they like."

"......"

Instructor Karaka finished speaking with a kindly expression and left the dining hall.

The kids sat there blankly for a moment, then one by one burst into curses.

Some of the words that came out of their mouths were harsh enough that you wouldn't believe a child said them.

Of course, not everyone reacted that way.

Most of those who didn't were kids who'd scored well on the running evaluation, kids who had already planned to keep training at night regardless of what Karaka said.

Airen Farreira was one of them.

After finishing his meal and stepping outside, he let his food settle for a while before walking toward the conditioning room.

His expression was calm, carrying no trace of like or dislike, nothing at all.

* * *

An unfamiliar machine for training the lower body, the kind he'd never once seen back at the territory.

Standing in front of it, Airen Farreira recalled his rank from the physical ability test.

'Dead last.'

That was the truth.

He'd fought with everything he had, given the absolute 'best' his body could offer, and still the result hadn't changed.

He'd only managed to hold out a little longer than he otherwise would have.

If anything, it could be called a last, desperate struggle.

But the boy wasn't disappointed. He didn't fall into despair either.

It wasn't because the instructor's words, that the current ranking didn't determine the future outcome, had comforted him.

He simply already knew this was how it would go.

'I didn't come here to win against other people in the first place.'

Airen Farreira didn't dream of becoming a swordsman for glory's sake.

He didn't wish to become someone great. He had no intention whatsoever of surpassing someone who had walked this path for years.

He was only here to reflect on his own past, on all that time he'd spent doing nothing, and to move forward, even if just a little at a time.

That was the reason he stood in this place.

'Move forward.'

Once his thoughts settled, Airen climbed onto the machine and set his stance.

It felt awkward since this was his first time using it, but he knew the method from watching others use it before him.

He took a deep breath and put strength into his legs. His body ached from a full day of training, but his mind alone stood firm as steel.

None of that inner state was visible to the others, though.

One of the trainee candidates in the conditioning room let out a snort and spoke up.

"Well, look at that, even the lazy lord's doing self-training now?"

"......"

Clear mockery.

And that wasn't the end of it.

The other kids who'd heard twisted their mouths into smirks. They glanced at each other, then, unable to hold it in any longer, burst into laughter as they spoke.

"Pfft, right? You think putting in effort now is gonna change anything?"

"Give me a break. If he wanted to try hard, he should've started earlier, why didn't he do a thing until he turned fifteen?"

"You should've seen him during the physical test, what a mess. Drooling and running like he was crossing the whole kingdom by himself, and still came in dead last."

"What kind of nerve does it take to enroll at Krono Fencing Hall after that?"

It wasn't subtle mockery. It was blatant criticism. Too harsh to be explained away as simply mocking him for finishing last on the test.

But it couldn't be helped.

The person who'd finished dead last on that test clearly had a body that showed no sign of any real effort.

On top of that, he was the oldest among all the trainees.

And he even carried the disgraceful nickname 'the lazy lord' back in Hale Kingdom, making him someone whose very enrollment at Krono Fencing Hall was hard to understand.

So the kids competed with each other to fling out the harshest words they could.

"Hoop!"

Airen wasn't flustered.

He'd been through this countless times before, back at the territory.

Of course, it wasn't as if none of it affected him. A body built up calluses from repeated blows, but wounds to the heart only bruised, they never really healed.

But the boy standing here now had somewhere to escape to. Moving his body.

Airen briefly gripped the sword pendant in his hand and focused his mind.

The moment he did, the noise around him lost all power to reach him.

Having found that refuge, he began working his lower body, pushing the heavy machine with both legs.

Like the man in his dreams swinging a sword.

Like he himself had swung a sword for the past month, firm and unwavering.

"Tch. Pretending not to hear even though he clearly can."

"Just ignore him. He's gonna drop out soon enough anyway."

Getting no reaction at all, the kids soon lost interest in Airen.

They turned back to their own training, wearing expressions that said they'd rather be anywhere else.

Strict as it was, it wasn't a hellish day like the first test had been, so the ordinary trainees all still had some energy left in them.

They'd only come out because they were mentally worn down, not because their bodies had given out.

The conditioning room settled back into quiet amid the heavy warmth.

But a moment later.

The silence broke, thanks to one trainee who had finished warming up and was starting real training.

"Whoa..."

"......"

The silver haired girl was going through the most basic of movements.

Back muscles, the foundation of swordsmanship. And barbell weight training to build them up. Nothing special about the form itself.

But the weight mattered.

More than double, no, more than triple the weight the other trainee candidates were using, heavy enough to make even a seasoned mercenary break a sweat.

'How is that even possible?'

'I thought she was a year younger than me...'

'Even if she's the genius of House Lindsay, does that really make sense?'

'What kind of body is that? Is she even human?'

Suppressed gasps.

And an even greater number of stares.

The emotion in those eyes was completely different from what Airen had received.

Shock, admiration, awe.

Not a trace of inferiority mixed in.

Set against a genius counted among the best on the continent, their own existence felt too small to even compare.

That was why they didn't see Illia Lindsay as a rival to 'compete' with. They accepted her as someone standing on an entirely different level.

The exact opposite reason from why they didn't see Airen Farreira as competition either.

Of course, not everyone felt that way.

"Tch."

"...Damn it."

Judith, the red haired girl who'd placed second overall on the physical ability test.

And Brett Lloyd, the high ranking noble who'd placed third right behind her.

These two were different from the other trainees.

Anger, envy, inferiority, a fighting spirit, and every other kind of hot, fierce emotion.

All of it fused together and set their whole bodies burning.

The two of them glared with eyes like flames growing hotter still, as if they wanted to swallow up the silver haired girl's shining presence and make it their own.

But Illia Lindsay's gaze never turned toward either of them.

As if she had no interest at all, she brushed off the attention surrounding her with total indifference and stayed focused only on her own work.

At that, the trainees clicked their tongues and went back to their own business.

Judith and Brett Lloyd, too, only scowled, neither of them approaching Illia to say a word.

Instead.

"Excuse me."

"......?"

"If you have a moment, could I talk to you?"

"...Hm?"

The silver haired girl, having finished her routine, was the one who spoke first.

The person she addressed was the boy who'd been focused entirely on his lower body training, paying no mind to whatever was happening around him. Airen Farreira.

"......"

"......!"

The top student and the last place student.

At this meeting between two people who seemed to have nothing in common, every trainee's attention, including that of the top ranked group, snapped toward them at once.

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