WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 100

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Reunion (1)

A few days after meeting Ignet Crescentia, Airen Farreira's group set out for Mayos Kingdom, one of the Western Five Kingdoms.

Kubharu drove the carriage himself, and thanks to that, they made good time.

It wasn't because of Airen's injury.

The roads were in decent shape, for one. And Airen wanted to keep up the mental imagery training he'd picked up in Derinku, for another.

"....."

Inside the carriage, Airen Farreira sat with his eyes closed.

The jolting under him and the awkward posture didn't matter.

Sure, meditating cross-legged somewhere quiet would have been better, but his concentration wasn't so fragile that a bumpy ride could break it.

Soon, a massive lump of iron rose up in his mind.

'Interesting.'

Back when he'd been among the blacksmiths, the iron stake had looked like a great, crude pillar. A rough, blunt mass of metal that refused to bend no matter how much it should have obeyed the will of the mind that housed it.

Now, the base of it looked different.

There were handprints pressed into the metal, as if some giant made of fire had gripped it with all its strength.

The change that had happened right before his sparring match with Ignet was still holding.

"Whew."

Airen took a slow breath and refocused.

Something else surfaced in his mind. A flame.

Much bigger than it had been when he'd first taken Kubharu's advice.

But still far smaller and dimmer than the one he'd summoned facing Ignet.

That stung a little, but there was nothing to be done about it.

The mind wasn't a constant thing. It never held steady.

He should be grateful it had grown even this much.

Nodding, he willed the flame over to wrap around the body of the iron stake and locked his focus there.

Fwoosh!

From here on, it was a matter of endurance.

Push his concentration to its absolute limit so the heat didn't fade, and hold it there. Keep going without rest until the whole stake glowed the color of a sunset.

He'd somehow managed that much, at least. The bigger flame made the difference.

In the old days, his focus would have run dry before the metal even got hot.

But this wasn't the end. What actually mattered came after.

Airen ground his molars without realizing it and called up a new image.

The tightly bundled resolve in his mind slowly took shape, reborn as a hammer.

The will of a young swordsman, meant to refine the vast, unyielding will of the man in the dream.

After a brief pause, Airen brought it down hard.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The ringing of metal echoed steadily through his mind.

Nothing changed. Not the faintest sign that the shape was giving way.

That was just how it went.

Blacksmiths swung their hammers thousands, tens of thousands of times to get the shape they wanted.

Airen shook off his doubts and kept striking the iron stake, over and over.

Sweat rolled down from his forehead, tracing the line of his jaw before dripping off.

By the time that long, short morning had run its course, Kubharu stopped the carriage and opened the door.

"Airen, Lulu! Time to eat... hm. Still deep in your imagery training, I see."

"Ah, is it already that time?"

Airen opened his eyes, surfacing from meditation, and answered.

Sweat soaked not just his face but his whole body. Kubharu looked him over and said,

"You really throw yourself into it. Any progress?"

"Not yet. But I figure it'll come if I keep at it."

"That it will, that it will."

Kubharu smiled and nodded.

Honestly, he'd been a little worried.

Meeting Ignet had clearly lit a fire in Airen's heart, which was a good thing, but Kubharu had seen plenty of people fail to control that kind of blaze and end up ruining themselves.

Looking at Airen now, though, that worry seemed unnecessary.

'Impressive. Calm as anything, and at such a young age.'

Keeping hold of yourself mattered just as much as burning with passion or competitive fire.

Push too hard out of impatience and greed, throw yourself into the flame along with everything else, and suffering and torment were unavoidable.

But Airen showed none of that.

He held onto himself like someone who'd spent decades walking a monk's path.

'Maybe it's thanks to that iron stake he started out with.'

Kubharu watched Airen wipe the sweat away with a towel.

He still couldn't figure it out. Why did this young man carry such a heavy weight of metal energy in his heart?

Well. He'll tell me when the time comes, Kubharu supposed.

With that thought, he turned his attention toward the seat beside Airen.

"Lulu."

"....."

"Lulu, Lulu!"

"I don't think she's waking up no matter how much you call."

"...Hm."

Lulu had her eyes closed too, quiet just like Airen.

Her posture was strange, though.

She sat leaning back like a person would, front paws gathered against her lower belly, looking for all the world like someone meditating.

Kubharu asked,

"Do all Sorcerers train like this?"

"No. It's different for everyone... I guess this posture just works best for Lulu."

"I see. Looks like it's just the two of us for lunch."

They left Lulu in the carriage and got started on lunch. It didn't take long.

Airen dumped the ingredients into the pot, Kubharu gestured, and water, fire, and firewood all sprang into place, finishing the prep in no time.

Bubble, bubble.

A little while later, the stew was ready.

It tasted good for something thrown together so fast, and that seemed to be entirely thanks to whatever sauce Kubharu had added at the end.

"What did you even put in this?"

"Trade secret."

Airen looked at Kubharu.

Kubharu looked right back.

The two of them stared at each other for a while, then both cracked a grin and got down to eating.

The quiet was different from when Lulu was around.

But the stillness didn't feel uncomfortable.

The time they'd spent together, the experiences they'd shared, the words they'd traded, all of it had worn away any awkwardness between them.

That peaceful mood didn't last long, though.

Airen finished eating quickly and summoned his Greatsword.

"Hyup!"

Whoosh!

"Hyyup!"

Whoosh!

'...Impressive. Really impressive.'

Kubharu marveled inwardly, watching Airen throw himself right back into sword practice without wasting even a moment.

He already knew Airen was diligent, of course.

But seeing him move his body the instant a meal ended, after spending the whole morning drenched in sweat over mental imagery training, was enough to make anyone shake their head in disbelief.

'Not just steel-willed. Steel-bodied too.'

"Hm."

Kubharu watched Airen a while longer before closing his eyes.

Then he turned his focus to the five spirits surrounding the world.

He couldn't compare to Airen's blazing passion and iron resolve, but meeting Charlot, Victor, and Ignet had genuinely lit a fire under him too.

Lazy as he was, even he knew he ought to make an effort with a current like this pulling at him.

Nodding, he was just about to draw out the mysterious power of a spirit mage when,

"Feed me."

"....."

"What are you doing. Feed me. You said you'd make that special fish dish today."

Lulu, apparently awake from her meditation, broke his concentration.

Kubharu opened his eyes and looked at the black cat sprawled out in front of him.

Scratch, scratch.

She scratched her belly with a front paw, and something about it needled at his nerves, but Kubharu decided to go ahead and start cooking anyway.

He had promised her fish, after all.

The hands of Kubharu, third-rate fortune-teller, second-rate spirit mage, and first-rate travel guide, got to work.

* * *

Nearly a month passed. Full autumn had settled in, and people's clothes grew thicker morning and evening.

In that time, Airen's group had nearly reached Latiohn, one of the cities of their destination, Mayos Kingdom.

The second-oldest kingdom after Adan Kingdom.

Thinking about entering the city with the highest concentration of fencing halls in that kingdom filled Airen's chest with anticipation.

'There must be countless great swordsmen there.'

Before he'd set out across the continent, he'd carried a sword only for his family's sake.

But that wasn't true anymore.

His family remained irreplaceable, more important than anything else in the world, but the idea that they alone defined his life had faded long ago.

The change had come from all the things he'd been through, all the people he'd met along the way.

Which only made him look forward to this more.

Countless fencing halls with histories rivaling Krono Fencing Hall's own.

And the swordsmen, so many of them, who represented those halls.

What convictions, what ideas had they built up over the years?

What kind of sword did each of them carry in their heart?

He'd find out in a few days.

Settling his mind, Airen began his imagery training again.

Hummmm...

The iron stake, the flame, and the hammer slowly rose into view.

Unfortunately, the forging process showed no progress at all.

No matter how hard he hammered the glowing red metal, it showed no sign of changing shape.

Even so, he kept at his imagery training, partly out of his particular brand of patience, but also because of results showing up elsewhere.

His swordsmanship was improving by the day.

'How is this happening? Is it because I'm refining the man in the dream's sword into something that fits me?'

It was a plausible guess.

The swordsmanship Airen had mastered by now blended the techniques of Judith, Brett Lloyd, and Illia Lindsay with the man's own style, a combination powerful enough to startle even seasoned Experts.

But since the man's swordsmanship at its root was so simple and repetitive, a certain crudeness clung to it no matter what.

In a way, it wasn't so different from the iron stake in his heart.

And since he kept hammering at that stake, reshaping it bit by bit into something that fit his own hand, it made sense to Airen that his swordsmanship would keep fitting his hand better too.

Of course...

'That alone won't solve everything.'

What the imagery training gave him was, at most, potential.

It wasn't handing him raw ability so much as widening the wall, the limit, that had been holding him back until now.

Growing to fill that expanded limit would take another round of effort entirely.

That was fine.

He welcomed it, honestly.

Airen Farreira was wearing a confident smile, the first in a while, when,

"Let's stay here tonight."

"Sounds good."

"Sure thing."

They'd reached a city three days out from Latiohn in Mayos Kingdom.

The group settled in and quickly found lodging.

Dusk was already falling.

As always, Kubharu tracked down a decent inn in no time and got them a room at a fair price.

After ordering dinner too, he turned to Airen.

"I'll step out to the washroom for a moment."

"Me too."

"Just occurred to me, do cats use the same washrooms as humans?"

Whap!

"Ugh."

Lulu sprang up, smacked Kubharu on top of the head, and vanished.

The orc fortune-teller followed after her, face thoroughly scrunched up.

Airen found himself alone in an instant.

"....."

It wasn't particularly awkward. The two of them were free spirits enough that he ended up sitting alone at the table like this fairly often.

He thought about Latiohn's storied fencing halls, and about his own swordsmanship, while he waited for the food to arrive.

Crash!

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he heard a chair go over.

Airen turned his head, unbothered.

Back when he'd first set out on his travels, small commotions like this used to startle him. Now he knew better.

This kind of thing happened all the time at inns and taverns.

That said, he couldn't help being curious who was involved in the fight.

He rose from his seat and looked over at the woman jabbing a finger accusingly, and the bewildered men on the other side.

Then his expression froze.

A red-haired woman was spitting out words, practically foaming at the mouth.

Her face looked awfully familiar.

"...Judith?"

"Airen Farreira?"

Just then, a voice called out to him from behind.

Startled, Airen spun around.

And froze a second time.

A young man with an air of refined elegance, striking blue hair.

Brett Lloyd, grown taller than Airen could have imagined, stood there staring at him with a dazed expression.

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