WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 117

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Illia Lindsay (1)

The day after the wholesome farewell gathering, one where not even a drop of beer could be found, Airen's group left Partisan early in the morning.

Zet Frost, Glen the butler, and Hall Master Hyram saw them off as they climbed into the carriage.

"Bye! Next time, count me in too!"

"A shame I couldn't join for the drinking session. I'll visit again next time."

"I learned a lot."

"Me too! Really!"

"I'll visit again. Take care of yourselves."

After exchanging cheerful final greetings, the three swordsmen, the cat, and the orc vanished in a cloud of dust.

Zet Frost watched them for a long while, until they shrank to a single point and disappeared.

"Good juniors, those ones."

"...Yeah."

Truly good juniors.

Zet nodded and answered Hyram's words.

At first he'd thought of them as nothing but a nuisance, but at some point he'd caught himself getting absorbed in their growth, their passion.

If anything, in the end, he was the one who'd learned something.

What he hadn't managed to grasp across dozens of sparring sessions over the last five years, he'd realized in the span of a single short month.

'Feels like I broke through some kind of wall.'

"Guess it's time I picked up my own sword training again, after all this while."

Zet Frost muttered that and turned on his heel.

Watching him, both Glen the butler and Hall Master Hyram wore satisfied expressions.

It felt good, seeing a hidden dragon that had crouched dormant for so long finally stir awake.

Hyram looked one last time in the direction Airen's group had gone, and thought to himself.

'Illia Lindsay... a genius spoken of as the greatest talent in history, comparable even to Ignet.'

Her brilliance shone so fiercely that most people found it a burden just to stand near her.

But those three would hold their ground.

No, they'd go further than holding their ground. They'd use her as fuel for their own growth.

'I hope they keep their promise to visit again.'

Not just Hyram's thought, but one shared by all three swordsmen.

* * *

Clip clop, clip clop.

The carriage moved along the well-paved road.

Faster than usual, carrying the excitement and anticipation of the three swordsmen riding inside.

Of the three, the one feeling the hottest emotion was Airen Farreira.

Eyes closed, he thought quietly of his friend, Illia Lindsay.

'The first person who ever approached me, when I was completely alone.'

Back then, Airen had truly been an isolated existence.

Terrible scores on the physical ability test, on top of that the rumor of being the lazy lord, had been enough for every child at Krono to treat him like he didn't exist.

Even Judith and Brett Lloyd had been like that at first.

But Illia alone had reached out to him without prejudice, had guided him.

She'd been the first bond he'd made outside his family.

'Come to think of it, a big part of why I ever found the will to set out across the continent was thanks to Illia.'

He still remembered it.

After the Final Evaluation ended, when he'd brought up Ignet, the last thing she'd said to him.

'Don't give me a dazed answer like that. Don't relax either. Try... try harder. Or I'll widen the gap between us in an instant.'

She'd spoken of Ignet, the one regarded as the greatest genius in history.

And declared her own enormous ambition, to become someone who could stand against her without flinching.

The rivalry she'd shown him right after had been a huge spark for a boy who'd believed himself to be nothing.

That was how it was.

He hadn't realized it at the time, but Illia Lindsay had been like a benefactor to him, the one who'd helped him feel the drive to improve, the will to compete.

'That Illia Lindsay, I'm going to see her now.'

His chest was already fluttering.

Even driving the carriage hard, it would take nearly twenty days to cover the distance, but the feeling of wanting to see her was hard to contain.

His heart pounded just as hard as it had the moment he'd unexpectedly run into Judith and Brett Lloyd.

While he sat there, caught up in that unfamiliar feeling, sifting through old memories of Illia, it happened.

"Hey."

"....."

"Hey, hey."

"....."

"Hey, hey, hey."

"Ugh, what!"

At the sound of Brett's voice calling Judith over and over, both Airen and Lulu, who'd been continuing her Sorcery training, opened their eyes.

Brett glanced at each of them once, then turned his usual expressionless face back toward Judith.

And asked.

"Bothering you?"

"What? Wh, what are you... no it's not!"

"It's bothering you. Denying it before you even hear what I meant, that says it all."

"....."

"Hey, Brett, what's going on?" Airen asked, curious.

Brett went, "Ah," and nodded before speaking.

"You probably got dragged straight into the Otherworldly Realm, so you might not have heard."

"Huh?"

"You remember what happened before, right? This one here running her mouth off at Illia Lindsay."

"Ah... yeah."

Airen nodded.

He'd been thoroughly absorbed in the man's sword back then, but there was no way he didn't know about that incident.

The rivalry between Illia and Judith and Brett had been hot enough gossip that even the instructors had taken notice.

But hadn't that whole business been resolved well enough, back when Illia left the fencing hall?

'Doesn't seem like something worth stressing over, almost six years later...'

That thought lasted only a moment.

As Brett's story went on, Airen's expression hardened.

The tragic news Illia Lindsay had faced the moment she returned home.

A sad, painful story, whether it was a disappearance or a death, still unresolved even now.

And along with the incident, the bitter, vicious rumors that had latched onto it.

It was the kind of thing that would break anyone's heart.

For Airen, who'd lost his entire childhood to his birth mother's death, it hit even harder.

"...Well, I'm not telling you this to call you a bastard or anything."

In the heavier mood that followed, Brett Lloyd cleared his throat and kept going.

"I get it, an unlucky thing like that happening makes you feel more weighed down than usual. But you don't need to spend all twenty days with a face like you're chewing on shit. I just wanted to say that."

"....."

"You and Illia got the Lindsay House Platinum Plate together, didn't you? Even I, carrier of the noble Lloyd bloodline, never got one. Thinking about it now, it pisses me off. How dare they skip me and give the plate to just you two?"

"Idiot, back then you were the one bawling your eyes out, throwing a fit about going home."

"I did not bawl my eyes out."

"Bullshit. I know for a fact you went home and cried your heart out, wailing like a baby. And it was only after your parents got fed up and kicked your ass that you dragged yourself back to the fencing hall."

"...Whatever. Here's the actual important part."

Brett Lloyd dropped his voice low.

He already had a habit of lowering his voice to seem dignified, noble and all that, so it came out sounding like it was echoing out of a cave.

Naturally, everyone's attention locked onto whatever came next, and Brett, wearing a serious expression, finally spoke.

"The reason we're going to see Illia Lindsay isn't just to catch up with an old classmate we're glad to see again... it's also about settling the score from five and a half years ago."

"...!"

Judith's eyes widened slightly before she bit down on her lower lip. Her expression turned frustrated in an instant, and she nodded.

Brett was right.

The reason she was going to meet Illia wasn't to hold hands warmly, hug it out, and chat away.

That would be nice too, sure, but the real point was crossing swords with her.

Paying back the defeat from the Final Evaluation.

"No need to worry about any of that. Illia's the Proof Land Champion. What happened with Sir Carl Lindsay is a tragedy, sure... but if she'd let herself get shaken by something like that and fallen apart, she never would have climbed to a position like that."

Brett's gaze drifted slightly upward.

Thinking of the one who'd handed him such a crushing sense of defeat, he clenched his fist hard.

She would have grown enormously.

Gotten monstrously strong.

Because she was a genius.

Because she was one of the two people who'd shown him what real talent actually looked like.

Even so.

"For now, we should just give it everything we've got and see what happens."

"...What do you mean, everything we've got! This time I'm not losing, no matter what!"

"No. Realistically speaking, winning's going to be tough. You have any idea what level a Proof Land Champion operates at?"

"Wait, this bastard's the one who said we're going to settle the score, and now he's talking all deflating like this... what's wrong with you?"

"I was just saying it in the sense of closing the old gap between us. Realistically, winning's going to be tough. She's the champion, after all."

"This unbelievable son of a..."

"Fighting again, tsk tsk tsk."

Watching Judith and Brett bicker again, Lulu shook her head.

Then sank back into meditation.

Airen let out a small chuckle too and turned his head.

The scenery outside the carriage slid slowly past, catching his eye.

Honestly, he felt a little worried.

He understood well enough how painful, how sorrowful it was to lose family, and how deeply Illia Lindsay had cherished her older brother Carl Lindsay.

Something she'd said long ago kept turning over in his mind, too.

The Land of Proof.

The place the old Illia had once set as her goal, but had said she no longer wanted to obsess over.

'...That can't be why she went there.'

Illia Lindsay, Carl Lindsay, Ignet Crescentia.

Airen thought of the three of them for a moment, then closed his eyes, just as Lulu had.

She would be fine.

She would have shaken off the old pain with grace. They'd be able to meet again with smiling faces.

Even he, weak and unworthy as he'd once been, had managed that.

Settling his thoughts, Airen began his mental imagery training.

* * *

Nineteen days after leaving Partisan, Airen's group safely arrived at Aienmarc, a city of Caliad Kingdom.

Fitting for a city famous for its arenas, an enormous number of swordsmen could be seen passing in and out of its gates.

Plenty of ordinary people too, of course, and plenty of merchants.

"Lots of people here look loaded."

"And plenty of beggars too, on the other hand..."

"Hoho. Can't really be helped. There's the Land of Proof, sure, but plenty of other arenas besides. Betting and gambling are bound to thrive here."

Judith nodded at Kubharu's well-informed explanation.

She'd seen people like that when she was younger, too.

Screaming their lungs out, then getting thrown out in nothing but their underwear.

'I think there were people with their hands crushed, too...'

Not that it was any of their business whether gamblers got their hands crushed or lost even their underwear and ended up bare naked.

They hadn't come here to gamble.

'We came here to fight!'

Of course, wanting to fight didn't mean they could just fight right away.

From what they'd heard on the way, registering a name at the Land of Proof alone took a fair bit of time.

So what could they actually do, right now?

Obviously...

"Guess we should go check out the champion's skill first?"

Everyone nodded at Judith's words.

There was no way they weren't curious.

The rumors of Illia Lindsay's greatness were something they could hear until their ears grew calluses just by listening around, but exactly how strong she actually was remained a mystery.

Of course, the champion didn't fight every single day...

"My fine sirs! First time in Aienmarc? Here to watch some dueling, perhaps? As it happens, the best match of the season is happening today at four in the afternoon. Care to catch it?"

"The best match, you say..."

"It's a match between Lady Illia Lindsay, the Proof Land Champion, and Sir Cedric Cooper, the King-tier, rank two duelist of the Land of Proof."

"...!"

"Just so you know, you won't find tickets anywhere else. They've been sold out for a long while now."

Watching the wizened old man grin, showing off his yellowed teeth, Brett looked at the group.

There was no reason to turn it down. He spoke to Judith.

"Pay up."

"Me? Why me?"

"You're loaded now. Stop mooching off everyone and actually spend something for once."

"...I'll just pay."

Airen cut between the two of them and handed over the money for the scalped tickets.

The price was steep, but not a burden for him.

It didn't seem like a scam, either.

That was Lulu's judgment, a sharp-eyed Sorcerer who'd looked things over carefully.

And so Airen's group secured the chance to watch Illia Lindsay's match without any trouble, and headed off to lunch with a slightly excited mood.

It was right around then that everyone's expressions turned grim.

"....."

"....."

Talk about Illia Lindsay drifted through the restaurant from every direction.

There was no avoiding hearing it.

Short of being deaf, there was nothing to be done about it.

When the finest swordsmen of Aienmarc were about to cross blades, how could anyone not hear people talking about it?

But the conversations people were excitedly trading held content far more shocking than Airen, Judith, and Brett had expected.

"....."

Even after finishing their meal, even while wandering the streets to kill time, even once they'd taken their seats in the fairly upscale section of the Land of Proof when the hour finally came.

The three swordsmen barely spoke.

With sharpened eyes, they watched the stage, trying to confirm whether what they'd heard was really true.

A little while passed like that, and then, when the match between Illia Lindsay and Cedric Cooper began.

They finally witnessed it.

The silver light drawn straight out of the sword of a genius swordsman so young that even the word young felt like an overstatement, at eighteen years old.

"...An Aura Sword."

Proof Land Champion.

A title glorious enough that even that description felt dimmed beside what they saw now.

Sword Master.

Watching Illia Lindsay standing on the stage, all three swordsmen could do nothing but let their expressions harden.

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