WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 148

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Airen Farreira's Sword (5)

"....."

Emma Garcia, the bodyguard who'd just heard Airen Farreira's words, stared at him for a long moment.

He was a strange person.

He'd been strange from the very first time he showed up at the estate.

He'd called her lady, someone who never let anyone get close, a "friend," without a shred of hesitation.

But what came after was even more absurd. He'd left, then given an interview openly declaring he was gunning for her lady's championship title.

'I still don't understand what goes on in that head of his.'

Even Illia Lindsay's reactions made no sense to her.

Watching Airen set foot in the Land of Proof and steadily climb toward higher stages, her lady had been under tremendous stress.

By the time the championship match was scheduled, she'd barely slept a full night, gripped by anxiety and something close to obsession.

And yet after her loss, the way she'd looked...

'Was so much better than I expected. So much better.'

Like she'd finally set down something she'd been carrying in her heart for a long, long time.

That it was thanks to the young man standing in front of her needed no explanation at all.

"...Understood. I'll pass that along."

"Thank you."

Emma Garcia spoke with her usual blunt manner, and Airen answered, still smiling.

The bodyguard watched his back as he turned and walked away without hesitation, watched him for a long while.

He'd said they were old classmates from Krono Fencing Hall.

What kind of relationship had this young man built with her lady there?

She shook her head at the thought.

Not her place to pry. Her job was to deliver this letter to her lady.

And to pass along Airen Farreira's message.

Glancing once at the envelope, Emma Garcia turned and stepped through the door.

"My lady?"

"Who was that?"

"Huh? Ah! Right. That was..."

"Is that a letter? Is it for me?"

"...Yes. It is. Airen Farreira said he wanted to see you, my lady, but as you instructed, I sent him away today."

"....."

"Should I go bring him back?"

"No. I told you. I want to be alone for a while."

Saying that, Illia Lindsay closed the distance between them quickly.

Then she snatched the letter right out of her hands.

Emma Garcia watched her mistress in silence.

Her mistress looked back at her and spoke.

"What?"

"Is it possible that..."

"Possible that what?"

"...Never mind."

"What is it."

"It's really nothing. I must have mistaken something."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

Emma said it with her usual blunt expression.

Illia Lindsay looked at her for a moment, then turned away and spoke.

"You don't need to come to my room until I call for you."

"Yes, my lady."

Emma Garcia bowed politely even though her mistress wasn't looking.

But despite her composed movements, her mind was somewhat scattered.

'Could it be that she was waiting for Airen Farreira to come, this whole time?'

Normally her lady rarely showed her face anywhere except her own room and the training hall.

Thinking back on it, the way she'd appeared the instant the door opened, as if she'd been waiting, had genuinely been strange.

But that wasn't the important part.

The face her lady had just shown.

The same cold expression as always, not so different from her own...

'But her eyes. Her eyes felt so much softer than before.'

Walking through the courtyard, Emma Garcia looked down at her own hand.

That impossibly thick envelope.

She had no idea what kind of change it might stir in her lady's heart...

'But I suppose it's fine to hope a little.'

Ten months since setting foot in Aienmarc.

On a face that had held nothing but a stiff expression the whole time, something bright and warm had finally begun to bloom.

* * *

'Will this be okay?'

Back in his own room after returning from Illia Lindsay's estate, Airen Farreira thought that.

He'd grown up plenty since his days as a probationary trainee at Krono, but his writing hadn't kept pace.

Made sense. All he'd ever done was eat and swing a sword. His penmanship was probably still terrible.

Which was exactly why he'd tried to pour as much sincerity into it as he could.

What he'd been thinking, what feelings had driven his actions, what he hoped she wouldn't misunderstand, what he wanted to do going forward...

He'd written all of it down, without holding back, exactly as it came to him.

The letter had ended up absurdly long because of that, but he figured that beat writing too little and failing to get his meaning across.

'I hope I can see her again in a few days.'

He wasn't worried.

The expression she'd shown after the duel ended.

Still stiff, in a way, but he could tell it was completely different from before.

He smiled faintly, then let his face settle back into a more serious look.

Slowly, he reached a hand out into empty air.

Hmmmmm!

The Sorcery Greatsword took shape in response.

Looking at the blade, sleeker and sharper than it used to be, Airen murmured quietly to himself.

"Must be because of the dream, huh."

Probably.

He hadn't had time to think about it during the fight with Illia, but once everything was over and he'd returned to John Drew's estate, thoughts of the man in the dream had grown stronger and stronger.

He couldn't stop wondering what the man had been trying to say, and even while laughing and talking through the celebration party, the thought "I want to go to sleep already" had never quite left him.

But...

'It was the same dream as always.'

Airen clicked his tongue.

Then, without even changing out of his clothes, he flopped down onto the bed.

He was going to sleep now.

A nap of all things, something he hadn't taken since he was fifteen, but this was an exception.

Not to escape anything. To actively go looking for an answer, Airen closed his eyes.

Maybe it was a past life of his.

Or maybe it was some kind of Sorcery that had wandered into his life by chance.

Maybe it was both.

Didn't matter either way. He wanted to know, finally.

Murmuring that to himself inwardly, he willed himself fiercely toward the man in the dream.

His longing for the man was so intense that he found himself wondering, "Is it even possible to fall asleep like this?"

But then.

"...!"

No sooner had that worry crossed his mind than the scenery changed.

A familiar sky.

A familiar fence.

A familiar yard.

A place he'd experienced over and over, both in dreams and in the Otherworldly Realm.

And standing at the center of it, a man who now wore the unmistakable form of an old man.

Watching him slowly approach, Airen Farreira found himself taking two steps back without meaning to.

The old man's presence was simply too overwhelming.

'What is this?'

Airen's face twisted with confusion.

He still remembered it clearly. Right before he'd gone to settle things with Illia Lindsay, the old man in the dream had clearly been trying to say something to him.

But what was this attitude now?

The man was giving off a terrifying aura, as if he wanted to throw down with Airen right this instant.

Whoosh!

"Huh!"

The moment that thought crossed his mind, a greatsword appeared before Airen's eyes.

Not the sword he'd used before.

That old, crude blade was in the old man's hands. The one that had appeared in front of him now had a sleek, sharp look, as though it had drunk in a golden glow.

Airen stared blankly between his own sword, the old man's sword, and the old man himself, then nodded.

He murmured, as though he understood.

"Guess swordsmen really are all the same kind of people, no matter what..."

He snatched the greatsword floating in the air.

Airen Farreira gripped it and focused his mind.

Accumulation, Amplification, Hardening, Awakening, Concentration, Manifestation. All of it happened in an instant, and a golden aura surged up abruptly.

Much smaller in size than what Illia had shown him, but it was, without question, an Aura Sword.

"Alright."

Let's do this.

Once they'd had their conversation of blades, that quiet, taciturn man would finally open his heavy mouth too.

Thinking that, Airen settled into a combat stance, and from the old man's slowly approaching sword came a low hum, and a grayish white aura rose into being.

At a size that dwarfed his own beyond comparison!

Airen's eyes went wide, nearly tearing at the corners, the moment he saw it.

Kwaaaaang!

"Guh!"

An overwhelming impact!

His palm felt like it was tearing apart. No, it actually had torn.

Despite all the calluses built up from countless hours of training, blood streamed freely from his grip. Airen felt his senses snap into sharp focus.

He fell back a step, settled into a firmer stance, and the old man advanced with heavy, deliberate steps.

Then loosed another strike.

Kwaaang!

Kwaang!

Kwaaaaang!

"Kuh...!"

Strike after strike kept coming.

No mind games. No calculation.

No flashy variation at all.

Diagonal strike, horizontal strike, vertical strike.

Nothing but relentless, fundamentals-first attacks, and Airen couldn't properly block a single one of them.

'This won't work!'

Heavy sword against heavy sword.

In a clash between swordsmen contesting weight against weight, one side kept getting pushed back.

Which meant he kept losing ground, over and over.

Less space meant less room to maneuver, and losing the freedom to act.

Deciding he needed to break through with offense instead of defense, Airen threw every technique he'd ever learned into the fight.

He made full use of his Eyes That See Aura too.

But no matter what he tried, nothing could stop the man's advance.

A wall of steel, bearing down without a trace of feeling!

A wall so thick it seemed like nothing, no trick or clever maneuver, could ever break through it, growing larger and larger as if to swallow everything whole.

That was when, deep in Airen Farreira's heart, an ember began to rise.

Fwaaash!

Thinking back on it, so many embers had risen in his heart over the years.

When he'd chased after Illia's back.

When he'd listened to Kubharu's advice.

When he'd met Ignet. When he'd crossed swords with Judith and Brett again after so long apart.

Countless other moments, one after another, had thrown sparks into Airen's heart.

But there were two moments that had truly gathered all those scattered flames into one.

No, maybe it was really just one.

His feelings for his family.

And his feelings for Illia.

Both of them were the same, in the end. Feelings for people who mattered to him.

Fwaaaash!

A fierce flame rose in Airen's eyes.

He hadn't fully grasped his own heart, not yet. The old man's advance bore down too hard for that.

But even that faint understanding was enough. The scattered embers in his heart fused into one and took the shape of a massive sword.

Airen Farreira finally raised his blade.

And with a heart that no longer wavered, he stepped into the old man's onslaught.

Slash!

The man's sword, which had seemed like nothing could ever cut through it, split clean in two.

"....."

"....."

Silence stretched between them for a moment.

Airen Farreira and the man who'd become an old man simply looked at each other, quiet.

They'd never once spoken to each other before now, but Airen felt a strange, unaccountable warmth toward him.

Maybe it was because the cold anger that had always lingered around the man was gone now.

But.

"I'm rooting for you."

He never expected a man like that to offer him words so warm.

"...!"

Airen Farreira's face went blank.

Rooting for him? For what, exactly?

And before that, what kind of relationship did they even have, that the man had kept showing him all this training, all this time?

While he was still turning that over in his mind, something else surprising happened.

The man, who looked like he'd lived his whole life with nothing but a stern face, showed him a faint smile.

"Wait..."

Airen finally managed to speak and stepped toward him.

But once the smile had passed, the man turned and walked forward, unhurried.

Despite how leisurely his steps looked, Airen simply couldn't catch up to him, and the old man walked on and vanished.

The mysterious old man disappeared completely, without a trace.

The blond young man could only stand there, staring at the spot where he'd vanished, for a long, long while.

Hmmm...

Which meant he never noticed.

That the old man's broken sword had turned into fine particles and melted into his own blade.

And a moment later.

"...!"

Airen Farreira's eyes snapped open, and the first thing he saw was Lulu, the cat Sorcerer.

Then he spotted a dozen or so cats sitting in a circle around him, and he shot upright in shock.

"Aaaargh!"

Meow!

Meoooow!

Crash!

Bang, clatter, crash!

Cats of every color scattered in every direction, and objects went tumbling and toppling everywhere.

In the middle of the chaos, Lulu, still holding her ground, spoke with a worried look in her eyes.

"Airen, are you okay?"

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