WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 121

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Illia Lindsay (5)

Before he started his own story, Airen Farreira warned Illia it would be a long one.

Not just because of everything that had happened over the past five and a half years, but because he wanted to start from the very first time he'd dreamed of the man.

Illia Lindsay.

A friend precious to him, someone he'd wanted to see just as badly as Brett Lloyd and Judith.

He wanted her, of all people, to hear everything.

Not just an excuse for failing to keep his promise, but the truth of who Airen Farreira really was.

"So, how did the man they called the lazy lord decide to pick up a sword..."

And so Airen's story began, long, and longer still.

It wasn't that he lacked things to say. He'd never claim to have a smooth way with words, but he wasn't so hopeless that he'd ramble through a story he'd told several times before.

Even so, the story stretched on and on, because Illia Lindsay was listening with such complete absorption.

"Something like that happened..."

Her eyes went round when she heard about the dream.

"What awful people. How could anyone do something so petty?"

She grew genuinely angry hearing about the Gairon lord.

"I'm glad. I don't know if I should even say that, given how much you went through... but still, I'm glad."

She let out a sigh of relief when he described how the bad situations had finally resolved.

She was, in every sense, sharing in every single moment of Airen Farreira's life with real feeling.

Watching Illia Lindsay like that, Airen found himself laying out every detail without even meaning to.

And somewhere in the middle of it, he realized something all over again.

That from the start, he'd never really been the one giving Illia support. He'd always been the one receiving it.

'I wasn't in any position to be worrying about her.'

Airen's expression brightened bit by bit.

He was relieved. His worry had been nothing but needless fretting.

The Illia Lindsay in front of him now was exactly the Illia Lindsay he remembered.

That same bright smile he'd seen right after the Final Evaluation was spread across her face again, right here, right now.

Airen grew even more excited and kept talking, and she listened all the way through with the same serious attention.

The faint sense of unease didn't come until after the story had ended completely.

"Airen? About those other two territories that were in league with Gairon..."

"You mean House Lester and House Russell?"

"Right. Wouldn't it have been better to crush them completely, while you were at it?"

"Huh?"

"People who've spat filth once never learn their lesson unless you finish the job. You should make it so they can't even think about running their mouths again... so they can't even open them."

"..."

"Ah, well, I suppose with how strong you are now, they wouldn't even dare meet your eyes, let alone talk. I can tell just by looking at you. Airen, you've gotten incredibly strong, haven't you?"

"...Well, nowhere near you, though. I heard you became a Sword Master. Actually, I saw your match today too."

Airen paused a beat before answering with a smile.

Illia's tone had come out sharper than he'd expected, which startled him a little, but given how deeply she'd just been listening to his own story, it wasn't hard to understand.

Besides...

"Really? You saw it? Darn, I wanted to be the one to tell you first!"

"It would've been hard not to know, coming here. Everyone everywhere was talking about nothing but you..."

"Oh, right, speaking of which, how much do you actually know about me, Airen?"

"Hm?"

"You were shut away in the Otherworldly Realm for five years and just came out. You barely know anything about me, do you? Want me to tell you? I've got plenty I want to tell you too, you know, just as much as you had for me."

The moment Illia Lindsay said she wanted to share her own story this time, Airen had no choice but to set aside the unease he'd felt a moment ago.

The friend who'd listened to his story more intently than anyone.

Now looking back at him with eyes that seemed unable to hold back from talking about herself.

Faced with her far more open display of emotion than before, Airen could only smile and nod.

"Sure. I'm curious. I've heard bits and pieces, but hearing it straight from you has to be better, right?"

"Obviously. Even the parts you already know, pretend you don't and just listen. Got it?"

"Alright."

He nodded again. Seeing this, Illia smiled brightly and began laying out everything that had happened since the fencing hall.

She talked about fourteen-year-old Illia Lindsay.

She talked about fifteen-year-old Illia Lindsay.

Past sixteen, past seventeen, all the way to the eighteen-year-old sitting here now.

Her story ran even longer than his had, ending at the point where she became the youngest Sword Master on record, and Airen took in every last word of it without missing a thing.

...And then an uncomfortable silence settled over the room.

"...Airen?"

Illia Lindsay called his name, her voice edged with confusion.

It made sense that she would. His expression, which had been subtly shifting partway through her story, had by now hardened into something anyone could see plainly.

Not his usual blank look.

Worry. Regret.

Airen Farreira finally opened his mouth, his eyes carrying every shade of that tangled feeling.

"Illia."

"...Yeah?"

"When did you become champion of the Proof Land?"

"...October seventeenth. Two months ago. Why?"

"Then you'll be staying here until April. Right?"

"What's this all of a sudden?"

Illia's voice sharpened.

It was because of Airen. Not because he was forcing a change of subject, exactly, but because what he'd just said was so precisely accurate it felt like he'd looked straight into her head.

At that moment, Airen's two hands, resting on the table, reached out and took hold of hers.

She flinched, but didn't pull away.

She was too focused on whatever he'd say next, the way he was staring straight through her.

Then, he spoke.

"Quit now, while you still can."

"..."

"Chasing after Ignet won't change anything."

"..."

An uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable silence fell.

And the expression on Illia Lindsay's face after hearing those words was even more uncomfortable than the silence itself.

Bringing up Ignet, out of nowhere?

Why?

No, how?

Caught in a spiral of questions chasing their own tails, she gasped and pulled her hand free.

Her composed expression returned, and she spoke.

"What are you talking about?"

"There's no point hiding it."

"Hiding what, exactly..."

"I."

Fwooosh!

A powerful energy poured out from Airen Farreira's body.

The weight carried in his words was nothing ordinary either.

Illia, who had unconsciously leaned back slightly, jerked forward in surprise.

Then she glared at Airen.

The two of them stared each other down without blinking, like something out of a staring contest.

Still locked in that pose, Airen spoke.

"I've never once forgotten that year at Krono Fencing Hall."

"..."

"If anything, I feel it even more deeply now, looking back on it, than I did while I was living it. How precious that time was. How precious the people I met there were. Among them, Judith and Brett, and... Illia, you're even more special than that."

Special enough that he remembered every single word of the conversation they'd had right after the Final Evaluation.

Having said this much, Airen Farreira gave a bitter smile.

It was true. Every word of it. He truly remembered every single thing he and Illia had talked about back then, without dropping a single word.

He remembered the worries and troubles she'd carried. He remembered the plans she'd made for after the fencing hall.

He remembered, clearly, the hollow, empty obsession she'd voiced, that she would shatter every one of Ignet's achievements for her brother's sake.

Of course, he hadn't worried about any of it back then.

That smile she'd shown him at the end.

The smile of someone who'd finally decided to carve out her own path, free from the eyes of others... that Illia Lindsay's smile had stayed lodged in Airen's mind with an impression just as powerful as the one Ignet had left on him in Derinku.

'But...'

Listening to her story, he'd realized something.

That her path over the past five and a half years had been one thoroughly consumed, entirely swallowed up, by "the eyes of others" and "Ignet."

"It's pointless."

Airen Farreira said it flatly.

Getting knighted faster than Ignet.

Conquering the Proof Land faster than Ignet.

Reaching the rank of Sword Master faster than Ignet, a full year and five months ahead of her, none of that made Illia Lindsay's life shine any brighter.

Ignet had held the Proof Land championship for five months. That didn't mean Illia needed to hold onto that title a single month longer than her.

Thirteen year old Illia Lindsay, of all people, had said exactly that once.

But the eighteen year old Illia Lindsay in front of him now was showing him a complete rejection of that past self.

"...It's not pointless."

The youngest Sword Master on record spoke after a long, quiet pause.

A shimmering, heat haze like energy rose from every part of her body. The silver Aura that symbolized House Lindsay.

A feat that even most Experts couldn't hope to imitate. The art of a Master alone.

"You're right. I never got free of other people's eyes. I was never free from their gossip either."

"But because I stayed so conscious of those worthless people, I worked, and worked, and worked, so they'd never be able to badmouth my brother, or House Lindsay, ever again."

"This is the result."

Buzzzzzz!

Illia Lindsay drew a dagger from her waist.

A silver radiance sharpened along the blade's edge.

Compared to what he'd seen from Hall Master Ian or from Ignet, it fell short, but it was, without question, an Aura Sword.

"I wasn't wrong. It was the old me who was wrong. This Aura Sword... it's telling me. That the path I've walked until now was the right one."

"..."

"Do you have anything to say?"

Illia asked, carrying a completely different feeling now than when they'd first started talking.

Airen didn't answer right away.

Deep, dark eyes.

Not the eyes of a Sorcerer peering into someone's heart, but the eyes of Airen Farreira, Illia Lindsay's friend, looking back at her.

Anger, obsession, fear, anguish, sorrow.

And every other kind of negative feeling besides.

He could see all of it, turned into a demon of flame, burning her alive.

Yes.

Faint compared to the bandit chief of Alhad Den or Charlot and Victor in Derinku, incomparably faint, but even so, Illia Lindsay right now was, little by little, stepping onto a path that wasn't right.

'I have to stop her!'

Airen agonized over it.

The will of the man, always quick to respond to demonic aura, tried to stir within him, but unlike usual, nothing happened this time.

Airen's own burning heart completely overpowered the man's energy.

Without even noticing that fact, he kept forming words in his mouth, only to swallow them back down, over and over.

Nothing came to him. No matter what he said, it felt like nothing could stop Illia now.

That was when it happened.

"...!"

An old memory suddenly flashed through Airen's mind.

Krono Fencing Hall, once again.

Judith's method, the one that had changed Brett Lloyd's heart when no words seemed able to. A single action that had worked better than a hundred words.

Remembering it, he finally answered Illia's question.

"So in the end, no matter what, you're planning to hold onto that championship. Until April?"

"That's right."

"No matter what I say to convince you?"

"...That's right."

"Then I know exactly what I need to do."

"What?"

"I'm going to pull you down from that champion's seat."

"...?"

Illia stared at Airen, her face blank.

An expression that said she couldn't quite process what he'd said.

Fair enough.

Who was talking about pulling who down from a champion's seat, exactly?

To that stunned look, Airen added more detail.

"I'm going to register as a duelist in the Proof Land, right now. I'll fight hard, train hard, climb the rankings hard..."

"..."

"And by the time you're set to defend your title in April, that's about a hundred and twenty days from today, I'll have climbed all the way to where you're standing. And I'll stop you there. That should knock some sense into you..."

"..."

"And you might actually take what I'm saying seriously."

Airen Farreira said it with more confidence in his face than he'd ever shown before.

Watching him, Illia Lindsay couldn't help but feel completely thrown.

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