WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 139

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Alone, I Learned It (1)

Inside the empty training room, two men sat cross-legged in meditation.

Grayson meditated to master the mysterious energy Airen Farreira had passed on to him. Airen meditated to observe and understand the change that had newly awakened within him.

Left to naturally take up guard duty, the orc spirit mage Kubharu sat alone in the dim room, lost in thought.

'That flame... what was it?'

He had a rough idea of where the energy came from. It was probably a force that represented Airen's heart.

Youthful passion, burning conviction, things like that usually revealed themselves as flame among the five spirits' powers.

Back in his homeland, it wasn't uncommon for skilled warriors or spirit mages to breathe fire energy into children born lacking it.

But what Airen had shown was different.

It wasn't simple infusion of fire energy. It felt more like kindling the will to live itself.

Like handing a spark of hope to someone stranded who'd given up on everything.

Thinking of it, one figure surfaced in Kubharu's mind.

The one who had taught him astrology and spirit magic.

'I wonder how Master would react, meeting Airen.'

He couldn't guess. Neither Airen nor his master were ordinary people.

Mulling over what might happen if the two ever met, Kubharu let out a long sigh and turned his focus back to keeping watch.

Airen would be fine, but Grayson was still in a dangerous state for now. Kubharu's senses sharpened as he drew up his spirit energy.

"........."

Meanwhile, Airen Farreira was working through, one by one, the ways he'd changed.

The most obvious difference was that his aura had grown considerably in quantity.

Was it because the flame in his heart had grown bigger?

As the iron stake he couldn't wield reforged itself into an iron sword he could actually use, the man's stubbornly knotted will had unraveled, strand by strand.

Like a spool of thread coming loose, it converted into aura and spread evenly through Airen's whole body. There was no doubt about it. This was a genuine stroke of fortune.

But what pleased him even more was that his own flame had stirred a change in Grayson's heart.

'Maybe, if I use this power well... I might be able to bring Illia back around.'

Until now, Airen's thoughts had been fixed entirely on one question: how do I beat Illia Lindsay?

Since talking to her seemed impossible, he'd figured he would have to subdue her with the sword first and talk after, but he still had no confidence he could actually beat her, so he hadn't had room to think much past that point.

So even while pouring every bit of focus into raising his own skill, a corner of his mind had stayed anxious about what came after, about persuading Illia, about pulling her back onto her feet.

And now, finally, that worry felt like it had eased.

'At least... things seem to be turning out a lot better than I'd worried.'

A faint smile crossed Airen's face.

The problem was, he had no idea how this change had actually happened.

He'd worked hard all this time to grow the flame in his heart so he could handle the man's stubborn will, and he'd made some real progress doing it.

But he hadn't expected the moment he'd been hoping for to arrive so suddenly.

He'd figured, at the least, that the flame would only complete itself around the time he found his own new path, his own new sword, just as the Hall Master had told him.

But that wasn't where he stood now.

He still didn't know which way to go. He was still unsure how he should live.

He did feel like he had a firmer sense of his own convictions than before, but...

'No, that's not something to worry about right now.'

Airen shook his head hard.

Right. Nothing had actually been resolved yet.

Thanks to the man's will, he'd been able to purify Grayson's demonic aura. Thanks to the flame in his heart, he'd been able to bring life back into Grayson's eyes.

But Illia and Grayson were different. She was stronger. Far, far stronger.

'Either way, the fact remains, I still have to beat Illia with a sword.'

So then, what he needed to do hadn't changed either.

Back at square one, Airen Farreira surfaced from his meditation and rose to his feet.

"All done?"

"Yes, for now... honestly, I'm not even sure exactly what state I'm in. I've only worked out that I'm stronger than before."

"Good to hear. At least something came of it."

"Yeah. Oh, that sword..."

"Right. It's tainted with demonic aura. Seems like it's been affected by this."

Kubharu, wearing gloves wreathed in demon-warding spirit flame, picked up Grayson's sword.

Even after being severed by the attack of the man in the dream, that is, Airen, who disperses demonic aura, it still gave off an unpleasant energy.

The orc spirit mage sealed it carefully using all five of his powers, then stored it inside a leather pouch likewise infused with demon-warding energy.

"Ignet's words just came to mind, out of nowhere."

"Ah..."

Airen was thinking the same thing.

She'd said cursed objects and people turning into demonoids were both becoming more common lately, hadn't she?

It seemed true. Just counting the two of them, this made three times already. The Alhad Den, the twin swordsmen of Derinku, and now this.

'Something's clearly not sitting right.'

The creases in Kubharu's forehead deepened.

But the moment he put that worry into words, it felt like the anxiety would turn real. So he held his tongue.

Of course, he couldn't just let it go entirely. His gaze drifted toward Grayson, who had woken by now.

The blood that had once filled his eyes was gone without a trace.

But the dried blood still crusted at his mouth and around his eyes, which didn't make for a pleasant sight.

Not that this was remotely the moment to point that out.

Kubharu asked.

"About the sword you were using..."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about it either."

Grayson answered in a blunt voice, then let out a faint groan.

It wasn't a groan of pain. He seemed to have realized his tone had come out gruffer than he meant.

Maybe that was why the words that followed came out gentler than before. His speech shifted to something more formal too.

"...It's hard to believe, I know, but it's the truth. It was the night before my match against the champion. I was up late, tormented over how I couldn't seem to break through my opponent's Aura Sword no matter what I tried, and I finally fell asleep near dawn. When I woke up in the morning, there was a sword driven into the middle of my room."

"........."

"I should have been suspicious, should have kept my guard up. But the moment I laid eyes on that sword, all of that just melted away. Astonishingly sharp, sturdy enough to make you gasp... the instant I gripped it, I felt certain no one could ever take it from me. So I carried it into the match, and after that... you already know the rest."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room.

Airen, Kubharu, and Grayson, who had just spoken, all held their tongues with grim faces.

Their expressions were darker still than the darkened training room around them.

And so the eventful clash between Airen Farreira and Grayson came to its end.

* * *

The chaotic day passed, and a new one dawned.

In the time since, Grayson had done a great deal of soul-searching, a great deal of reflecting.

Like a confession, he'd laid out his circumstances to Airen and Kubharu, his frustration, his sense of loss.

Of course, he didn't believe that alone would wash his sins away.

"The cursed sword's influence surely played some part, but letting myself get half swayed by the devil's whisper... there's no excuse for that. It all comes down to my own weak will."

Grayson had only shared his story out of courtesy toward the men who'd saved him.

He had no intention of simply letting yesterday's events slide.

The middle aged duelist, having taken back the sealed sword from Kubharu, spoke with a complicated smile.

"Once I've finished what I need to do here, I plan to head to a temple on my own."

"........."

"There I'll confess my sins, ask forgiveness, and once I've judged through my devotions that every trace of the evil that took root in my heart has been washed clean... after that, I'll go on living as a duelist, just as you said I should."

To the eyes of a Sorcerer and a spirit mage, Grayson's heart was already spotless, as clean as it could possibly be.

There wasn't so much as a grain of demonic aura left in him.

But there was no talking him out of his resolve, so the two of them could only nod.

Of course, it wasn't quite time to part ways yet.

What Grayson called the "thing he needed to do" wasn't really his own business. It was closer to Airen's.

"Well then, shall we get started on that?"

"Let's."

Nodding with a bright expression, Airen summoned his Greatsword, and Grayson took up a stance with the longsword he'd newly acquired.

Soon, the two swordsmen swung their blades at each other.

Kkang!

Kang

Kagang!

Maybe it was because he'd set down the frustration, the burden, the anger that had been strangling him.

Grayson's swordsmanship felt lighter, brisker than before.

The power behind it fell short of yesterday, when demonic aura had wrapped around him, but reading the constantly shifting line of his strikes was tough even for Airen.

Even with the ability to observe aura, it still gave him trouble.

Of course, Airen wasn't the only one taken aback.

Grayson, in turn, felt genuine shock at the solidity of Airen's swordsmanship.

'Is this really the sword of someone in his early twenties?'

Slower than his own, less refined, and lacking in variation, plain to the point of feeling flat.

And yet the way he guarded his center with the broad flat of his blade and planted himself with heavy, deliberate positioning was powerful enough to cover for all of that and then some.

And however much he fell short compared to Grayson himself, in every other respect he was no worse than plenty of veteran Experts.

What struck Grayson most, though, was Airen's control over aura.

"You said you were worried about your aura control, so I watched closely to see just how lacking it was. But from what I can tell, it's not bad at all. Honestly, I was surprised, it has the same feel I've sensed off a few old, cunning veterans. That's not something a young man usually picks up so easily."

"Thank you. But it's still nowhere near yours, honestly. Especially... the movement of aura? The way you concentrate it? I can't really explain it right."

Airen answered with a sheepish smile.

But it was the truth. Compared to Grayson's smooth, swift handling of aura, his own was leagues behind.

Especially when it came to gathering aura inside the body into a single point.

That was where the gap showed most, the way Grayson concentrated aura precisely into the part of the body he needed, exactly when he needed it, a skill that bordered on the miraculous.

'That's an insanely difficult thing to do.'

It was like winning an arm wrestling match not just by using the forearm, but by somehow dragging the strength of the thigh muscles all the way up into the arm and putting it to work there.

That was how difficult it felt to Airen, and yet Grayson did it as naturally as breathing.

Airen carefully, slowly explained his impressions, and the middle aged duelist listened quietly before answering in a low voice.

"I understand well enough what you're curious about."

"Glad to hear it. Guess I got the idea across."

"But there's something strange here. Why explain it in such a roundabout way?"

"Sorry?"

"If you'd just asked me for the knack behind the second of the Aura Rungs, Advanced Trio, 'Concentration', you'd have understood right away. Why go around it like that..."

"The Aura Rungs, Advanced Trio?"

"...?"

"...?"

A silence fell, for a moment.

Airen and Grayson exchanged a look.

Each searching the other's eyes for confirmation of what they suspected, until Grayson, unable to hold back any longer, spoke first.

"Just in case, let me ask something."

"Sure."

"You... don't know the basic concept of aura? I mean, the Aura Rungs, Foundational Trio, and the Advanced Trio?"

"...If you explain the concept, I think I'd probably understand it, but... I've never actually studied any theory on it."

"I thought you came from Krono Fencing Hall..."

"Ah... for personal reasons, I learned physical conditioning and the basic swordsmanship there, but..."

"But?"

"The part about aura, that's, well..."

Airen paused for a moment.

He hadn't learned aura through any structured curriculum.

He'd simply picked it up naturally, swinging his sword in that mysterious space called the Otherworldly Realm, sparring against his three fellow trainees.

But there was no way to explain that to Grayson.

In the end, there was only one thing he could really say.

"...I sort of trained my way into it, however I could. Closer to learning it through actual combat, I guess."

"........."

"........."

"So you're saying."

"Yes."

"The way you handle aura right now, it wasn't built on top of theoretical knowledge with experience layered over it..."

"........."

"Am I right to take that as, you learned it purely by feel, on your own, with nobody teaching you?"

Airen fell silent.

But it was answer enough.

Silence settled again, far more uncomfortable than before.

Grayson stood there blankly for a long moment, then dug through his pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

He struck a match, lit it, and took a deep drag.

"Whew..."

Fwick!

He swung his sword hard.

He'd meant it to keep the smoke from drifting toward Airen, but somehow a lot of feeling had gone into that swing too.

Sensing that his inner demons might come calling again, he muttered to himself.

'I already knew this, but life really is absurd.'

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