Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble - Chapter 128

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 128

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How Much Would It Take (1)

How many times, how long, had he watched the man in the dream swing his sword.

Counting the hours, it was a length of time he couldn't dare imagine.

That was how he could tell.

The faint wrinkles gathering at the corners of the man's eyes.

The hair thinning bit by bit.

Along with several other small signs, they all said the same thing: the man in the dream was growing older, little by little.

'What does it mean? This time, what's...'

Airen Farreira woke from sleep and started turning the question over in his mind.

He couldn't help it.

Every time the dream had changed before, the change never stopped at the dream itself. It always rippled outward, into his own circumstances, into his own heart.

And on top of that...

'It wasn't just his age that changed.'

The look in the man's eyes.

Ever since the demonoid subjugation with the Six Southern Houses, the man had swung his sword in the dream carrying a cold, quiet rage. But now his eyes held something different.

More precisely, the hatred was still there, unchanged, but something else had layered on top of it. What exactly that was, even Airen, closer to the man than anyone, had no way of knowing.

"...Guess I know what I need to do, at least."

Airen murmured to himself, calm.

In the end, it was the same as always.

Until the change actually arrived, there was no way to know what it meant. So there was nothing to do but ignore it and keep at his own work.

That was how it had gone during the demonoid subjugation too.

Though there was one difference from back then.

At the time, he'd already been under the dream's influence, his body and mind dragged around not by his own will but by the man's.

But now...

'That won't happen again.'

Airen settled into a meditative posture and closed his eyes.

A blaze rose up in his mind, one that dwarfed anything he'd managed even when he met Ignet.

Heat fierce enough to swallow whole that heavy, massive iron stake.

This was his will now.

'If you're trying to help me, I'll take it, no complaints. But if you're trying to get in my way, dream or not, I'm done. I won't be dragged around anymore. By my own will, toward what I want...'

"I'm moving forward."

Airen whispered it quietly and kept up his mental training.

He laid the iron stake down, heated it with the massive blaze, then hammered away, clang, clang, working through the forging process to shape it into a sword.

And to his surprise, the work went faster than anything he'd managed before, faster than comparison would even allow.

Before, it had felt like wasted effort, pure and simple. Now, it felt like he might actually manage to forge a real sword.

After hammering for a long while, Airen picked the iron stake up in his mind.

Except it wasn't an iron stake anymore.

Crude, more like a training tool than a finished weapon, but it could rightfully be called a sword.

Airen focused his mind, gripped it, took a breath.

Whoosh!

He swung it hard and opened his eyes.

The greatsword he'd summoned was already there, stopped just short of touching the inn floor.

The moment the will rose, the action had followed.

'The whole process is faster than before. No comparison.'

It really was.

From closing his eyes, settling his mind, taking a breath, to drawing the sword, less than two seconds had passed.

Considering that the man's strike used to take him nearly a full minute of concentration to summon, this was real progress.

Of course, it still wasn't enough.

Against some random nobody, sure, but his goal was a Sword Master.

To land a hit on someone like that, he needed to get to the point where there was no preparation motion at all.

'...Still, it's not a bad situation. I've actually cut down the time by a good margin, and holding the power in check without releasing it has gotten a lot easier too.'

Airen nodded.

Before, once he'd drawn the power up, he couldn't help but release it right away. Now that had changed.

He could hold the power gathered in the sword for at least a few seconds while still moving.

Maybe that was something he could work into a new strategy.

With that thought, he picked up a piece of paper sitting on the table.

The letter of introduction the elf journalist Hints had written for him.

'Hope this person's actually useful.'

A way to fight a Sword Master.

Carry a blade that wouldn't break against an Aura Sword, and have a technique of his own sharp enough to catch a Master off guard.

But more important than any of that was not falling behind in swordsmanship itself.

Of course, the Airen of right now still had a long way to go.

Over the hundred-some days remaining, this was the part that most deserved his effort, and after hearing him worry about exactly that, Hints had introduced him to someone.

'John Drew, the top-tier instructor of Aienmarc.'

Apparently he was called the top-tier instructor because he ranked first even among the city's "star" instructors, and while Airen didn't know all the details, the man's teaching skill sounded genuinely impressive.

From what Hints told him, countless swordsmen who'd gone on to make names for themselves at the Proof Land owed it to this man.

'Purely as a teacher, his reputation outranks even Zet Frost.'

If he could've trained under Zet Frost, he'd have gone straight there, but there wasn't enough time left to make the trip.

Either way, as a swordsmanship master, John Drew's reputation held its own against the 101st-ranked swordsman.

Winning over someone that renowned as a teacher wouldn't be easy. But Airen had a plan.

"Lulu. Lulu?"

"Mmnn... what..."

Having finished getting ready to head out, he called to Lulu, asleep under the bed.

The black cat poked just her face out, blinking with a sleepy expression.

"I'm going to see that person I mentioned before. Would you come with me?"

"Uuugh... is that today? I trained Sorcery all day, I'm tired... but if it's Airen asking, fine..."

But I want to sleep on the way there, so put me in the backpack...

With that, the black cat Sorcerer drifted right back to sleep.

Watching her, Airen let out a short laugh.

He slipped his hands under her arms, lifted her up, and tucked her into the backpack.

Her body, stretched long and thin like cheese a moment ago, folded itself round and neat inside, and watching it happen made him think she really did seem more like liquid than a cat.

'Sleeps fine even like this. Actually, come to think of it, Lulu always sleeps fine.'

With that pointless thought, Airen left the inn.

Despite being the dead of winter, it wasn't especially cold.

The weather had eased up a little since yesterday.

Smiling under the midday sun, he set off.

Heading toward the man who would become his new master.

* * *

"Master Drew! Please, take me as your student!"

"Master Drew! Sir! Even a single lesson would mean everything, please..."

"I need to climb the rankings this time! Could I get just one sparring match with you?"

"Please...!"

The residence of Aienmarc's top-tier instructor, John Drew, sat in the eastern part of the city.

When Airen arrived, what surprised him wasn't the crowd of swordsmen camped out at the entrance.

Hints had already told him what to expect, and even without that, he could've guessed. Krono Fencing Hall and Zet Frost's estate had shown him the same thing already.

Swordsmen, as a breed, would get this desperate for anything that might raise their skill.

What actually surprised him was the sheer size of the mansion, far beyond anything he'd imagined.

'This is... about as big as Krono's old branch building, I think?'

Factoring in the difference in land value between here and there, the only conclusion was that John Drew was an absurdly wealthy man.

Which made sense.

Money.

That was the single most important key to earning John Drew's teaching.

"I have a letter of introduction from Reporter Hints."

"Ah, yes, I was told to expect you. This way, please."

Getting in to meet John Drew himself, at least, hadn't required money.

Airen made it inside safely thanks to Hints's connections, and the swordsmen outside broke into a chorus of curses and wailing at the sight of him getting through.

Airen glanced back, a bead of sweat rolling down, but the guide leading him paid it no mind at all.

Once inside the mansion, the guide led Airen toward a carriage.

"The parlor's quite a walk from here, so if you'd please get in."

"..."

And so began another journey, this one just to reach the top-tier instructor, John Drew.

It didn't take long, admittedly.

But the fact that he needed a carriage just to get around inside the mansion was shock enough on its own.

Even the scenery outside was something else. Not an ordinary garden, but something built to look like a whole ecosystem, with various animals wandering freely, which meant it needed a small army of caretakers and magical temperature control just to function.

While Airen was still processing that, the guide spoke up with a question.

"You're hoping to ask the master for lessons, I take it?"

"Ah, yes, that's right."

"I see... forgive me for saying so, but it might be difficult."

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong exactly... it's just that the master's quite content with his life these days."

The guide scratched his head and kept explaining.

How the master had built his reputation through years of teaching in his youth.

How that reputation had let him teach countless students, many of them the children of enormously wealthy families.

How, having produced results with every one of them, the master had become the richest man in Aienmarc, and no longer had to worry about money at all.

"Well, he still loves money, mind you... it's more that nothing really moves him anymore. No ordinary sum's going to budge him. He's gotten into golf recently, too."

"Ah... the game where you hit the ball into the small hole?"

"That's the one. Anyway... I just wanted to warn you in advance, in case you end up disappointed."

The guide's expression was full of genuine concern.

Here was someone who'd managed to secure a letter of introduction from the notoriously hard-to-reach Hints.

He could guess just how desperate that kind of effort implied.

So he hoped the good-natured-looking young man in front of him would brace himself in advance.

But the response wasn't what he expected.

"That's fine."

"Sorry?"

"If he still cares about money at all, that should be enough. Ah, is that building over there the guest wing?"

"What? Ah, yes. That's right."

The young man took the news without a flicker of disappointment, without any sign of confusion at all.

If anything, it was the guide who ended up thrown off.

Even after seating his guest in the plush chair of the parlor and going to fetch the master, he still couldn't quite make sense of the young man's attitude.

Whatever the guide made of it, Airen Farreira waited for John Drew with perfect composure.

He took in the lavish interior of the parlor, imagined what kind of man he was about to meet.

About ten minutes passed.

At last, Aienmarc's top-tier instructor, John Drew, appeared.

"Well, well, quite the young fella. Figured you'd be older, coming with a letter from Hints."

"Good to meet you. I'm Airen Farreira. I've come to ask for your teaching, Master Drew."

"Ha! Good to meet you too, how about a hug, young man?"

"What? Ah, sure."

At the sight of John Drew spreading his arms and closing the distance, Airen found himself on his feet before he'd even decided to be, pulling the man into an embrace.

That wasn't the end of it, either.

John Drew held out a fist as if for a bump, and Airen matched it, only to find himself, before he quite knew what was happening, swept into a whole routine of elaborate handshake moves under the man's lead.

"Oh, you keep up better than I figured. The stiff ones just stand there looking at me like I've lost it. I like this. I like this a lot."

'...He's a lot more easygoing than I expected.'

Coming back to himself, Airen took a proper look at John Drew.

A man well past fifty, unremarkable in looks.

But the accessories on him were something else. A thick gold chain wrapped around his neck, rings on both hands, bracelets.

That wasn't all. Airen spotted a gold object wrapped around the man's left wrist and blurted out in surprise.

"Is that..."

"Ah, you noticed? A wristwatch. No shoddy magic in this one, pure craftsmanship straight from dwarven watchmakers, a real wristwatch! And get this, it's got a tourbillon mechanism built in, so no matter how much you swing your arm, gravity doesn't affect it at all..."

Once he realized his watch had been noticed, John Drew launched into an excited rundown of its value.

Watching him ramble on, Airen found Hints's earlier words surfacing in his mind again.

'John Drew isn't the type to be satisfied just because he already has money.'

'He only acts like money doesn't matter to him because he wants to squeeze even more out of people.'

'Will you be all right with that? I do know a few sword instructors who talk about money less than John Drew, if it comes to that...'

So the worry hadn't been for nothing.

Airen muttered to himself.

It seemed pretty clear now that no ordinary sum would be enough to move this man.

But that was fine.

He didn't have much money of his own, and he wasn't much of a talker either. But if that was the problem, why not just bring someone else along to handle it?

Having sorted out his thoughts, Airen Farreira spoke to John Drew.

"I'll be direct. I need your teaching, Master Drew."

"Hm?"

"I need to get strong, and fast. I'll pay whatever fee satisfies you, so please, take me on."

"Mm, I see. Your resolve's certainly something. But right now, I'm not the type to teach someone just for the money..."

That was the moment.

Just as John Drew was in the middle of a well-practiced lie meant to test the waters, the blond young man upended his backpack onto the table.

Out of it tumbled a black cat.

Startled, John Drew asked, "What in the..."

"Mrrph... Airen. We there already?"

"Yeah. Ah, sorry about this, Master Drew. I'm not much of a talker, so I brought someone along who can say what I mean better than I can."

"Mrgh... stretch, stretch, stretch!"