WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 104

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Reunion (5)

Kora Murray, the treasured son of the Murray Merchant Company, hadn't been thinking much of anything at dinner.

He'd only wandered into some random inn out of boredom, and only struck up conversation because there happened to be a woman there who was exactly his type.

Even when she'd cut him down with a sharp look and sharper words, he hadn't minded much.

He had a soft spot for women with spirit, after all.

But everything changed after that.

Somehow he'd wound up making a bet, and inviting the woman's companions to his own villa. A sparring match had started, and a man and a woman had crossed swords.

Then something insane had unfolded right in front of his eyes.

'What in the world are these people...'

The man looked far more skilled than even Brian Burns, the notary he'd brought along.

It wasn't that Kora understood swordsmanship well enough to judge that.

Anyone who looked at the cracks the two monsters had carved into his training hall would have thought the same.

And now what?

They were saying the hall might take even more damage than this?

'What are they even trying to prove!'

He couldn't imagine it.

No, he didn't want to imagine it.

Shaking his head, Kora Murray raised his voice.

"Th, that's enough! Stop right there! I've seen more than enough to judge your skill, so please, just leave!"

"What do you mean by that..."

"I mean I acknowledge your skill, the skill of that woman there! Isn't that right, Sir Brian Burns?"

Kora asked in a rushed voice, looking to Brian Burns.

Caught off guard for a moment, Brian read the intent behind the question and nodded.

"That's right. I'd say both swordsmen have reached a level worthy of Silver Plate. No, Gold Plate."

"Th, then it's settled. The notary has confirmed it! You've proven your skill, and the matter is closed. So... so please, just go now! I won't say another word about the damage done to the hall up to this point, just please..."

"That won't do."

Brett Lloyd cut him off.

His tone was as flat as ever, but there was a heat buried somewhere inside it.

Stepping closer to Kora, he continued.

"I already told you. Whoever loses the bet does whatever the winner asks."

"Th, that's..."

"Don't worry. I won't ask for much. It wasn't that big a dispute to begin with. Let's settle it with you lending us this villa for a month. Training hall included."

"Hey! I did all the work here, why are you deciding this on your own!"

"This way we get to see Airen's sword right now, don't we."

The heat in Brett Lloyd's voice grew stronger.

His eyes seemed to burn with something close to fire.

Even Judith, standing right there, flinched at the sight.

"Th, that's right. Let's do that."

"Good. Airen! Everything's settled, so go ahead and show us without holding back!"

'This lunatic!'

Kora Murray's expression soured even further.

He'd thought the redhead's companion here was the sanest of the whole group. He'd been dead wrong.

This one was the craziest of them all.

His eyes carried that particular, terrifying gleam only a madman could produce.

A sudden chill ran through him, and he wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing them down.

Brett paid him no attention at all, his eyes fixed only on Airen. Judith, too, drifted back to his side, returning to the role of spectator.

Brian Burns, the Murray Merchant Company's servants, and even Kubharu and Lulu all turned their bright, eager eyes toward the training hall.

'A little pressure, this.'

Not that Airen had any intention of backing away.

He himself wanted to know how the man in the dream's technique had changed.

Taking a deep breath, he met Brett Lloyd's eyes, then Judith's, one after another.

Then he closed his eyes and focused his mind.

What happened next was astonishing.

Hmmmmmmm.

"...!"

He realized it the moment he began gathering his strength. Something had changed.

Calling up the technique had grown far easier than before.

It hadn't been like this originally.

Not during the Final Evaluation, not when he'd swung his sword at Laiyan Gairon, not even when he'd shown his power before the demonoid, the Hall Master, or the bandit chief. Every time, he'd needed a considerable stretch of time just to gather his concentration.

'But now...'

It felt like it would take less than half that.

Airen finished his preparations in an instant and snapped his eyes open.

'Controlling the power feels so much easier too!'

That was astonishing as well.

Right now, Airen had borrowed a fraction of the man in the dream's immense power, and in the past, holding onto that borrowed strength for even a moment had been almost impossible.

Maybe it was because the power was still something he hadn't fully digested, but before, he'd never been able to hold it, always forced to release it the instant he called it up.

Now, though, that wasn't the case. He could hold it just fine.

It weighed on him heavily, no question, but the fact that he had room to think other thoughts at all was proof enough that he had some margin to spare.

He really had grown.

Airen murmured that to himself and let a faint smile cross his face.

Ignet was still someone he got heated just thinking about, but meeting her had clearly worked out in his favor, in the end.

'Enough stray thoughts.'

Airen Farreira let out a short breath and raised his Greatsword high.

There was no hesitation. The focus that had briefly scattered came flooding back.

He could feel it all in fine detail now, every muscle and cell in his body, and the strange, mysterious force of Aura filling every part of him.

With that satisfying sensation running through him, he brought the sword down.

A moment later, a long gash carved itself into the center of the training hall.

Swiiiish.

The sound wasn't loud.

Like a knife slicing through a tender cut of steak, Airen's strike sank smoothly into the ground of the hall.

Maybe that was why the mark left behind wasn't nearly as wide as before, when it had looked like an earthquake had struck.

But even so.

"...!"

"...!"

Brett Lloyd and Judith reacted even more intensely to this than before.

Perfect concentration of power.

Watching Airen's swordsmanship pour force with precision into exactly the point it was aimed at, without a scrap of waste, the two of them couldn't help but gasp in shock and admiration at once.

Of course, the rest of the onlookers made far more of a scene than the two of them.

"This can't be!"

"The stone floor of the hall... it's split open!"

"How many meters is that... no, what is this even..."

"Ha, hahahaha..."

Watching the miracle worked by a single sword, the onlookers kept up their commotion, and Kora Murray kept bursting into laughter like someone who'd lost his mind.

Lulu and Kubharu stayed perfectly calm as always, but with everyone else in such an uproar, the two of them being the only calm ones made for a strange sight in itself.

Amid all that chaos, Brett Lloyd drew his sword.

He walked toward Airen, step by step, and spoke quietly.

"Can't let this go. Fight me too."

"...Weren't you supposed to hear me out after this?"

"That was the plan. Changed my mind."

"..."

"Not happening?"

"No, it's fine."

Airen nodded as he spoke.

He'd burned through a fair amount of Aura, stamina, and mental focus unleashing that strike, but not so much that he couldn't move.

More than that, Brett Lloyd's burning eyes were the real problem.

Nothing he said would get through until that fire cooled down.

"What! Another match? Then me too, count me in too!"

"You already went. It's my turn now."

"No, why not just do it one on one on one? I'm joining."

Judith cut in right away. Brett's face twitched slightly, but he didn't argue.

Back when the three of them had still been trainees, five and a half years ago now, they used to cross swords like this all the time.

'It's been a while, really.'

The corner of Brett Lloyd's mouth lifted just slightly.

Airen smiled a little brighter than that, and Judith made no effort to hide her delight, grinning from ear to ear.

And so the three of them kept up their conversation of blades until night gave way to dawn.

A time that belonged to no one but the 27th Cohort of Krono trainees, and no one could interrupt it.

* * *

Their fierce sparring finally over, Airen Farreira, Judith, and Brett Lloyd washed up quickly and gathered in Kora Murray's villa to talk.

Being the son of a wealthy family, his rooms were spacious, and the table was fine, high quality work.

"Ooh... nice, this. Brett, does your family use stuff like this too?"

"We spend money where it's needed, sure, but we don't indulge in this kind of luxury."

"Yeah? If I had money, I'd spend it freely. Oh right, I'm rich now!"

"What are you talking about... gold?"

"Yeah. That cat gave it to me earlier."

Brett's eyes went wide as he checked out the three golden mice Judith pulled out.

They weren't fakes. Real gold. And fairly large pieces of it, too.

Giving something like that to a person she'd just met, Brett thought, made her a strange sort of person. No, strange sort of creature.

"By the way, your masters aren't here. Wouldn't it make more sense to talk together with them?"

"Ah, they said since the three of us hadn't met in a while, we probably needed some time to ourselves..."

"A kind of consideration, then. Not bad people... no, not a bad orc and cat."

Brett cleared his throat, a little bothered by his own slip of the tongue, then looked at Airen.

"All right, talk."

"Yeah! Hurry up and talk! What in the world happened to you? There's so much I want to ask, I can barely even figure out where to start."

"Ha ha..."

"Don't just laugh, hurry up and talk! I'm about to lose my mind from curiosity."

"All right."

Airen Farreira nodded.

If he'd been in Judith's position, he probably would have reacted the same way.

Every single thing that had happened to him still struck him as strange even now, so even as the one explaining, he found he understood a little of what it must feel like to be the one listening.

He closed his eyes.

There was so much to say that he needed a moment to gather his thoughts.

Thankfully, it didn't take long.

Just before Judith ran out of patience entirely, Airen opened his eyes quietly and began to tell his story.

"So... to start, I have to go back to before I even joined Krono Fencing Hall. The dreams I've been having, that's where it starts..."

Airen's story began a long time ago, from the very first time he'd dreamed of the man.

He wasn't telling it now to ask for advice, the way he had with Lulu and Hall Master Ian before.

He just wanted them to know.

He wanted these two people, so precious to him, to hear his story.

Brett Lloyd and Judith were confused at first.

They'd asked him to tell them about the last five and a half years, and instead he'd started from something far earlier than that.

But that confusion faded away bit by bit as he went on.

His actions changing because of the dreams of that man.

The way people looked at him changing because of the dreams of that man.

And because of all that, losing himself, then digging through deep worry and grinding effort to find himself again. And then running into new hardships, over and over.

Airen recounted all of it calmly, the process itself and everything he'd felt along the way, and the two of them found themselves drawn in completely.

"...And that's how I ended up here."

The story came to an end.

A quiet settled over the room for a moment.

Airen, who'd told it, and Brett and Judith, who'd listened, each sat with their own thoughts, holding their silence.

Judith was the first to break it.

She met Airen's eyes and spoke.

"You did well."

"...!"

The words were startlingly gentle for someone with her usual temperament, and the other two's eyes went wide.

Judith didn't seem to care. She kept talking.

"Honestly, at first I was kind of pissed off. I mean, come on. I always thought I was the toughest kid my age, and then I saw you at the fencing hall and it just didn't make sense. Like, how is this lunatic even real. But then I find out it wasn't even all your own willpower, that you had help from some guy in your dreams, and it kind of felt like I got scammed, you know? Anyway, that's how I felt. From what you're saying, that guy swings a sword all day, every day, his whole life, like some completely deranged person. How is anyone supposed to beat someone like that? I mean, maybe you'll manage it eventually, but that's a brutal opponent for a little kid to be up against. Anyway."

"..."

"But... thinking about it more, I realized the you sitting here right now is still fighting like hell to beat that deranged man. Even I'm sick of how impressive that is, and knowing you've kept at it, never giving up, against someone on that level... it just doesn't make sense to me either, in a different way."

Judith let out a short laugh and stood up from her seat.

Then she gave Airen's shoulder a couple of pats.

Sitting back down, she spoke again.

"You did good. Fighting that deranged man all this time."

Sincere comfort, and recognition, both at once.

Airen felt something hot well up inside his chest.

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