WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 149

──────

New Companions (1)

"Hold on. Just, hold on a second."

Airen Farreira, half risen from the bed, shook his head and swept his eyes across the room.

Objects lay scattered everywhere, as if a storm had blown through.

And in every corner of the room, cats. Cats and more cats, all staring at him.

'Wait, did I not wake up while this many of them piled in?'

He'd never been a heavy sleeper, not with the dream he had every night, but apparently he'd been dead to the world this time.

Airen shivered a little at the thought.

He turned to Lulu with an expression that said please tell me this isn't what I think it is, and asked.

"How long was I out, exactly?"

"Three full days, as of today."

"Three days?"

"Yep."

"Just three?"

"That's what I said."

"...Whew."

Airen let out a sigh of relief.

That dream had been nothing like the ones he had every night. Far more unusual.

Which was exactly why worry had been the first thing he felt the moment he woke.

He'd wondered if, without realizing it, he'd been pulled into the Otherworldly Realm again, the way it had happened back at the estate.

Wondered if far more time than he thought had slipped by.

But it had been needless worry.

Three days was plenty long on its own, sure, but it was nothing compared to losing whole years.

Lulu agreed with that line of thinking too.

"I was really worried too! I felt this huge surge of power, kind of like what I felt when you got pulled into the Otherworldly Realm."

"Really?"

"Yeah! The feeling was a little different, but still, it was so intense... I swear my heart nearly stopped!"

Meeeow!

Myaaaow!

The black cat spoke, and a dozen or so other cats chimed in right after her.

Airen shot her a look that clearly asked what are these guys doing here, and Lulu, as if suddenly remembering, clapped her paws together and explained.

"Oh, those are my friends. Four months is a long time, so I picked up a few."

"Friends?"

"Yeah. They tagged along because they were worried about me... I guess I should tell them to go now. Hey, everyone, it's okay now! You can head off! I'll bring you something tasty later!"

Myaaow

Miyaaaow

The cats nodded as if they understood and hopped out through the open window, one after another.

Startled, Airen rushed to the window. They were on the second floor, not the first, but thankfully, no disaster followed.

Wrapped in Lulu's Sorcery, the cats landed on the ground below in the relaxed posture of creatures sitting in invisible chairs.

Then they scampered off somewhere in a hurry.

"..."

"So, anything happen? Did the dream change again this time?"

"Oh, yeah."

Airen put on a serious expression and told Lulu about his dream.

There wasn't really much to explain, honestly.

Three whole days had passed, but the dream itself had only been a fight with the old man, start to finish.

Still...

'There was a feeling to it I can't really put into words.'

Especially at the end.

The old man, walking off into the distance, leaving behind the words that he was rooting for him.

His retreating back had felt, somehow, like the back of someone who would never return.

And that turned out to be exactly what happened.

By the time the worried looks on the faces of Kubharu and everyone else had faded into something more resigned, four days after that unusual dream,

Airen still hadn't had a single dream about the man.

That fact left him with a serious sense of unease, but unfortunately, there wasn't anything he could actually do about it.

How was he supposed to chase down a man who only ever appeared in dreams?

He didn't even know anything about him to begin with.

Just in case, he'd asked Brett, who knew his history, whether he had any guesses about who the man might be, but Brett didn't know either.

'I don't even know if he's someone from the past to start with...'

In the end, all Airen could do was set the mystery of the man aside for now and pour himself into the sword.

Hmmmm!

First and foremost was the Aura Sword.

The culmination of the six concepts of Aura control, the ultimate, strongest technique that defined a Sword Master.

Airen threw everything he had into making it completely his own.

He'd pulled it off without much trouble both on the day of the match and in his dream, sure, but not every Aura Sword was the same.

How quickly could he draw the aura out.

How stably could he sustain it.

How powerful, how massive an aura could he form.

He'd heard that differences in these things could separate two Sword Masters by a gap as wide as heaven and earth, so there was no room to slack off.

Besides, reaching the rank of Master and then fixating only on the Aura Sword would be a foolish thing to do.

Sure, the Aura Sword was a magnificent thing.

Holding it was as good as holding a legendary weapon capable of cutting through anything and blocking any attack.

But no matter how excellent a weapon was, if the one wielding it was a seven-year-old kid, its power would be cut in half at best.

'In the end, nothing's really changed.'

Swordsmanship still mattered. Footwork still mattered.

The psychological warfare and calculation he'd learned from John Drew still mattered, and the six foundational concepts of Aura control mattered just as much as ever.

Which meant the right move was to keep doing everything he'd already been doing, steadily, and push it even further, while weaving the Aura Sword into all of it.

That was the conclusion Airen reached, and he threw himself into training as hard as someone who hadn't yet become champion.

Kubharu and John Drew watched him and shook their heads in disbelief, while Judith wore a frustrated expression and kept up an even more brutal training regimen than his.

Brett watched Judith do that without a word.

Another day passed, much like all the ones before it.

"Master John Drew. You have a visitor."

"Hm? A visitor?"

"Yes. Though, not for you, sir... the visitor is for Master Airen Farreira. Miss Illia Lindsay has come to call."

"...!"

A week had passed since Airen Farreira visited Illia Lindsay's residence.

At long last, she had come to him.

* * *

"Been well?"

"Yeah. You?"

"...More or less."

"I see."

"Mm."

"..."

"..."

The meeting between the two strongest swordsmen of the Proof Land turned out far more awkward than either had expected.

Airen felt it. So did Illia.

Neither could quite meet the other's eyes, and neither could take the lead in conversation, so the two of them just walked, and walked, through John Drew's sprawling garden.

Five minutes of that cruel, wasted silence passed.

Airen realized this couldn't go on.

He was the one who'd started the falling out, and he was the one who'd forced his way into asking for reconciliation.

And yet, despite all that, Illia was the one who'd come looking for him.

Which meant it was only right that he take the lead in whatever came next.

But unlike the moment he'd marched boldly up to her front door, he couldn't come up with a single decent thing to say now.

'Should I just say let's get along like before?'

'Should I just ask her straight out? Ask if something happened?'

'Bringing up her brother... might be a little much, right?'

'What am I even supposed to say first?'

His head was so tangled up it felt ready to burst.

Fortunately, before it got that far, Illia spoke first.

"...The gift."

"Huh?"

"You said if I wanted to know what it was, I'd have to come see for myself."

"Oh..."

Right.

She had a point. Things had gotten so awkward he'd completely forgotten.

Not that the gifts weren't ready, of course.

He'd packed them into his magic backpack ahead of time, so he could pull them out the moment she showed up, whenever that turned out to be.

The problem was, he had no idea whether she'd actually like any of it.

He'd only said it so boldly back then to get her to come out one way or another, but now that the moment had actually arrived, his heart pounded as hard as it had before the championship match.

'It's fine. I prepared a bunch of them just in case, remember.'

Airen nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out.

Illia watched him with eyes full of curiosity.

An uncomfortably heavy gaze, but there was no getting around showing her now.

Swallowing hard, Airen fumbled the gifts out one by one.

Illia's eyes lit up as she looked over the collection.

The first gift he pulled out was a bracelet, and the pattern engraved on it looked familiar to her.

"An Adonis flower."

"Oh, yeah. Actually... I wasn't sure what you'd like... and I figured the one I gave you before probably doesn't fit anymore, so, I mean, since you seemed to like it back then, I thought it'd be okay to give you a new one as a gift..."

"..."

"Also, giving you the exact same thing again felt kind of lazy, so I got some other things too."

Airen rambled on, explaining the rest of the gifts.

When he got to the blue sapphire necklace, he said he thought it would suit her, and added that he was sorry if she wasn't the type to like anything cumbersome.

When he got to the stuffed bear, he explained it played calming music, and that he'd had a friend of his make it specially.

A handful of smaller odds and ends followed after that, and Illia never even made it to the end of his explanation before she burst out laughing.

Because, she thought, Airen was still exactly Airen.

'It doesn't matter what the gift even is.'

Whether it suited her taste or not.

How expensive it was, how rare.

None of that mattered.

What mattered was that the person who'd handed her all this was Airen Farreira, and no one else.

That he was someone who genuinely thought of her, worried about her, and rooted for her. That was what mattered most.

"Um... you don't like it?"

"No. I like it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I like all of it. So hand it over."

Illia Lindsay, arms full of enough gifts to fill an entire basket, sat down on a nearby bench.

One by one, she checked each item over as if stamping her approval on it, then tucked them away into the magic pouch she'd brought.

Airen watched her do this with a quiet sigh of relief, then slipped down onto the bench beside her.

A short while passed like that.

Illia, who'd been sitting there staring straight ahead for a good while, finally spoke, quietly.

"What should I do?"

"..."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do from here."

Her voice was calm. Flat.

Her face showed nothing, same as always.

But Airen could tell. He could tell how hollow her heart felt right now.

She kept talking.

"When I first heard what you told me, I was angry, and annoyed, and I didn't want to admit any of it... so I trained even harder, out of spite, kept pushing myself, kept swinging my sword, just so I wouldn't lose. But you already know, don't you? How meaningless all of that was. How hollow it was, listening only to what other people said, moving only the way other people's eyes wanted me to move..."

"..."

"But once I realized that, I just... stopped being able to think of anything at all. Couldn't do anything, either."

It was ironic, really.

To build a better version of herself, she'd needed to recognize how far off track she'd drifted.

Fortunately, that part had already been resolved, thanks to a precious friend named Airen.

But the moment she recognized how wrong her past had been, Illia lost the very drive that had carried her forward.

Even a wrong direction was still a direction, still a signpost pointing somewhere.

Now that it had vanished completely, Illia's heart had become something like a small boat adrift on an endless sea, lost and uneasy with nowhere to go.

"You told me that the old me used to shine."

"But I don't remember it. I don't remember what that felt like."

"What am I supposed to do? What am I even living for, going forward?"

Illia's words kept spilling out.

Her voice trembled slightly now, unlike before. And beneath it, a far more violent swell of emotion.

Her expression stayed the same as it had been from the start, but Airen could tell.

Like she was forcibly holding back a wave of feeling, her eyes carried the precarious look of tears ready to spill at any moment.

Fortunately.

He wasn't without something to say to her.

"I felt that way too."

"..."

"I told you before, back in that room. That getting here took a whole lot out of me."

"...Did you?"

"Yeah. I did. I'll tell you again."

Airen glanced at her once, then turned his gaze forward.

And as though letting the words drift off with the birds crossing the sky above, he laid out his story, slowly.

Thanks to Hall Master Ian, he'd worried for the first time about who he wanted to become.

Thanks to his Sorcery master Lulu, he'd finally picked up his own sword for the first time.

Thanks to his guide Kubharu, he hadn't collapsed under the next hardship that came his way. Instead, he'd found the courage to set out on a whole new journey.

And before all of that, there had been the memories he'd built with Judith, Brett Lloyd, and Illia Lindsay, memories that had settled into something solid within him.

"Maybe I'm a lot like you. I still don't really know what path I'm supposed to walk, so I'm wandering too. Might take me a lot longer to figure it out, honestly."

"..."

"But the reason I can still keep pushing forward is because there are people who believe in me... and I think that's probably true for you too."

Having said this much, Airen turned his head again and looked at Illia.

Illia looked back at him too. Deep in his blue eyes, she felt something honest reach straight into her heart.

"You believed in me back then. That's how I made it this far."

"..."

"Now it's my turn to believe in you. So..."

You too. No, together.

We can do this together.

The moment she heard those words, Illia Lindsay felt everything she'd been holding back finally break free.

No shaking shoulders, no loud sobs. Just tears, falling quietly.

Watching her, Airen Farreira gently reached out and took his friend's hand.

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