WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 146

──────

Airen Farreira's Sword (3)

The third arena of the Proof Land, Glory Land, lit up entirely by a stream of golden light.

And right after, Airen Farreira's greatsword had been reborn into something new.

Everyone who saw it could only wear a stunned expression.

The ordinary spectators, the King-level duelists with sharper eyes than any of them, even Joseph and Karisa Floyd, who had reached the rank of Master, all wore the same look.

Even with all their experience, this was a strange sight none of them had ever encountered before.

'What in the world...'

'What just happened?'

'Did that golden light a moment ago seep into that sword?'

'The shape of the blade is completely different.'

It wasn't only the shape that had changed.

The atmosphere around it had changed too.

A strange energy poured out from Airen Farreira's sword, dragging every eye toward it whether they wanted to look or not.

While the crowd stood there looking half enchanted by it, the cat Sorcerer sitting quietly among them, Lulu, found herself thinking back.

'This reminds me of when we first met.'

Her first meeting with Airen Farreira hadn't been especially memorable.

Back then, Lulu had been searching for someone captivating enough to take on as a disciple, and at a glance, Airen had seemed as common as one of the hundreds, thousands of pebbles piled up in some ravine.

But after so many conversations with him.

After coming to understand his heart, bit by bit.

After his effort finally overcame the will of the man buried deep in his chest.

From that point on, Airen had become her one and only friend, and the most precious disciple in the world to her.

'It's a lot like back then. When he asked me to teach him Sorcery.'

Watching her wonderful disciple up on the stage, Lulu nodded.

There were plenty of similarities between now and six years ago, when he'd overcome the man in the dream through his burning devotion to his family.

But there was a difference too. Back then, Airen had struggled to shake the man in the dream off entirely.

That wasn't the case now. He'd overcome the man's will just the same, but instead of casting it out completely, he'd succeeded in taking it in.

And that was what stirred Lulu's curiosity.

'Of course, embracing the will of the man in the dream is possible because Airen's heart is that remarkable, but that alone can't explain it.'

Right. If the two were as fundamentally incompatible as water and oil, none of this should have been possible in the first place.

Which meant the man's will must share something in common with Airen's own heart, though from everything she'd seen so far, she still couldn't quite make sense of it. And that only deepened her curiosity.

Of course, this wasn't something she could figure out right this moment.

Nor was it something urgent right now.

Shaking off the thought, Lulu turned her focus back to the stage.

There, she saw Airen with his gaze pulled away from his opponent, Illia Lindsay, swinging his sword alone.

Whoosh!

A light downward cut.

Even from that simple motion alone, it was clear. This sword was entirely his own now.

No, it didn't even feel like a sword anymore.

It felt like he was moving a part of his own body.

Caught in that strange yet familiar sensation, Airen let out an unconscious laugh.

Then he began checking through his swordsmanship, piece by piece.

Fwooosh!

The Greatsword Technique, heavy yet never sluggish, claiming space in that distinctive way of his.

But that wasn't all.

The steel blade wasn't locked into one fixed form. It carried fire at times, water at others, moving through endless transformation.

A sudden sword dance.

But not one person in the crowd seemed puzzled or displeased by it.

The thought never even crossed their minds.

Before they knew it, they'd all shifted their focus away from the golden Sorcery Greatsword and onto the swordsman himself, Airen.

Even Illia Lindsay, his opponent, felt the same pull.

She'd sensed it vaguely before, but now, in this moment, it became certain.

The person in front of her had fully absorbed Judith's and Brett Lloyd's swordsmanship into his own.

But something even more astonishing followed.

"...!"

The Sky Sword.

The great swordsmanship created by Dion Lindsay, the founder of House Lindsay.

The moment Illia saw it unfold so naturally from Airen's blade, she felt as though a brilliant light were pouring out of him.

And that only lit an even greater fire in her heart.

Feeling a burning pain in every corner of her body, the champion raised her sword.

Her expression had twisted harder than it ever had before.

"..."

Sensing her energy, Airen Farreira, the challenger, dropped his sword dance and settled back into a fighting stance.

Not the Sky Sword. A stance built from his own interpretation of the Krono greatsword style and the man in the dream's swordsmanship, solid and weighty at once.

Of course, being a Greatsword Technique didn't mean it was only heavy.

Just as Illia's Sky Sword flowed elegantly without ever scattering into emptiness, Airen's sword too was weighty without ever growing sluggish.

If anything, it carried a sharpness that matched hers.

Illia Lindsay noticed that as well.

Which was exactly why the champion had no choice but to draw out even more strength and charge in.

Fwaat!

Kwaaang!

A charge, and a collision.

Then, a relentless storm of blades poured down!

Each strike carried enough force to shatter stone. Illia's attacks had grown noticeably stronger than before.

But strength alone didn't make them effective.

The precision unique to the Sky Sword, soaring loftily through the sky before slicing sharply at a demon's throat, had actually been far better at the start.

Which was why Airen felt a calm now unlike anything he'd felt before.

The challenger's defense, thickening bit by bit, was slowly eating away at the champion's space.

As time went on like that, even the crowd began to realize the flow of the fight had shifted.

Airen Farreira was pushing her back.

He was pushing back Illia Lindsay, the champion.

Against a Sword Master who'd reached the great realm every swordsman dreamed of, he had finally seized the advantage!

Just as that realization hit everyone with a jolt of shock, the champion swung her sword hard and used the recoil to put real distance between them.

Then she looked at the challenger with a burning gaze.

"Hah, huh, hah..."

"Whew, huh..."

Both the champion and the challenger were breathing hard.

But Illia Lindsay looked far more strained.

She was gasping so violently it wouldn't have been strange for her to collapse right then.

Honestly, Illia herself knew she was at her limit.

But she couldn't stop.

Airen shining brighter than she'd ever seen him, and herself crumbling in the face of that light.

It reminded her of Ignet and her brother, and everything that had followed after.

Gripped by a sudden fear, she glanced toward the stands.

Countless eyes on her, and voices drifting up here and there.

The moment she felt it, Illia knew she could never give up on this match.

Even if it meant giving everything she had.

Fwoooosh!

An even more intense aura burst from Illia Lindsay's sword.

It was different from anything before.

The blade, once smooth as if carved by a master craftsman, turned rough and jagged, and its sacred silver light dimmed into something murkier.

But its size alone had grown incomparably massive. Massive enough to make both Sword Masters' eyes go wide.

But watching it, Airen Farreira wasn't focused on the Aura Sword. He was focused on his opponent's heart.

Watching his precious friend wring out everything she had, he thought,

'...Maybe this is for the best.'

She looked like she was in terrible pain.

She probably was.

Her face, twisted in anguish as she drew on every ounce of strength as if there were no tomorrow, was hard to watch.

But thanks to that, the dark energy lurking deep within her heart had finally surfaced.

That was why the color of her Aura Sword had turned murky.

If he could wipe all of that away completely...

Murmuring quietly to himself, Airen Farreira sank into his own sword, just as Illia had.

"Whew."

He'd tried thousands, tens of thousands of times to reach this point, and failed every single time.

What he was attempting now felt like adding one more stone to a mountain already piled high, a meaningless gesture.

No.

That wasn't it.

The final piece that would complete the stone tower.

The instant he became certain this moment would be exactly that, Airen Farreira's concentration reached its absolute peak.

Hmmmmmm...

Accumulation, reinforcement, hardening, blooming, concentration, manifestation.

The six elements that formed the foundation, and truly the entirety, of Aura control.

The moment he drove every one of them to their limit, Airen lifted his head and looked forward.

Illia Lindsay came charging in, her murky-lit Aura Sword leading the way.

He didn't back down either, swinging his greatsword with full force to meet her.

A Diagonal Strike, cutting from upper right to lower left.

The instant the mirrored stance met her identical strike, blade against blade.

Airen Farreira's blade flickered, flashing with golden light.

It lasted only an instant, but there was no mistaking it, an Aura Sword.

Unlike hers, a crystallization of pure, unclouded will, and it shattered her sword without mercy.

Crack!

Guh...!

The sword split cleanly in two, its pieces falling to the ground.

Then, coughing up blood, the champion stumbled back and finally collapsed, unable to stay standing any longer.

No, not the champion anymore.

The referee, who had been watching the duel in a daze, finally snapped back to attention and announced the result.

"Th, the winner! Airen! Airen Farreira!"

A beat later, a thunderous roar erupted.

"Waaaaaaaaah!"

"Airen Farreira! Airen Farreira! Airen Farreira!"

"The new champion!"

"Champion!"

"Champion!"

"Airen Farreiraaaaaa!"

"Waaah! Waaaaaaah!"

Airen Farreira's name chanted without end, mixed with wordless screams and, here and there, quiet sobs.

Facing the crowd, now a stadium consumed in pure frenzy, Airen didn't turn his head.

The person he was watching hadn't changed, not from before, not now.

Illia Lindsay.

Looking at his precious friend, slumped on the stage floor, he thought,

'...She'll be fine.'

Illia Lindsay's eyes, as she sat there broken, were utterly hollow. There was no helping that.

He was the one who'd stood in her way, but he understood better than anyone what state she was in right now.

Still, Airen felt confident.

Thanks to having taken in the will of the man whose spirit was steeped in demon-quelling force, he could sense no darkness left inside Illia at all.

The only problem was that every other kind of strength in her had run completely dry too.

Fortunately, that was something he could fix.

To help his precious friend back to her feet, he walked slowly forward.

"..."

Watching Airen Farreira approach like that, Illia Lindsay found herself, without meaning to, thinking back on the past.

Ignet Crescentia, who had come to her house with such confidence, defeated her brother with a dazzling display of swordsmanship, and vanished.

Watching her walk away, Illia had felt a burning rage, and a deep, bitter humiliation.

But now, looking back on it...

That hadn't been the only thing she'd felt back then.

Watching Airen shine so brilliantly before her now, she thought she finally understood.

Not a flame that endlessly drove her into pain, but something shining bright and beautiful like the sun, his light, her light...

"Illia."

Her thoughts went no further.

Airen had already closed the distance, and her friend reached a hand out toward her.

Maybe they weren't friends anymore.

She was probably a wreck right now.

Starting tomorrow, she'd be nothing but a loser, torn apart by the eyes and mockery of the masses.

Someone like that couldn't possibly take the hand of someone shining so brightly.

Of course, that was only her own thinking.

Grip.

"...?"

Airen stepped one pace closer and took hold of Illia's hand.

Then he pulled her up. She could feel real strength in that firm grip.

No, it wasn't just that.

A warmth she'd never felt before gently wrapped around her body.

"...!"

Before she knew it, Illia Lindsay was back on her feet, standing face to face with him.

Airen Farreira's face came into view.

With a far brighter smile than before.

Not the fierce heat of the sun, but the warm glow of a campfire, he faced her and said,

"It's a little awkward to say this right after we fought, but I'd like to make up now..."

"..."

Watching her friend's sheepish expression, Illia Lindsay had to fight with everything she had not to smile.

And at that very moment.

Somewhere quietly mixed into the crowd, a priest murmured to himself, his face utterly flat.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried