WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 150

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New Companions (2)

After the tears finally stopped and her feelings settled.

Illia talked things over with Airen at length, and in the end, she made her decision.

Instead of returning to her house, she'd continue training alongside her precious friend a little longer.

A journey to find a new version of herself, to find her own sword, to figure out what she truly wanted.

The thought that Airen would be there with her through all of it settled her heart far more than she'd expected coming here.

It felt like finding a rescue boat after drifting with nothing to hold onto.

But there was a problem. The others besides Airen.

Judith, Brett Lloyd, and the orc Kubharu and the cat Sorcerer Lulu.

The last two, honestly, weren't a concern.

Neither of them had much trouble with strangers to begin with, so a reasonable explanation would probably be enough to win them over.

'But Brett and Judith... that part worries me a little.'

Airen's expression turned hard.

He'd always been close with Illia, but the other two had never had much of a relationship with her, not even back in their trainee days.

If anything, they'd been closer to on bad terms.

Judith had patched things up with Illia before Illia left the fencing hall, sure, but that had been six years ago now.

And even though they'd crossed paths several times in Aienmarc, from what he knew, neither side had so much as acknowledged the other.

It had been Illia avoiding the conversation, every time.

Which meant their relationship now was, if anything, worse than strangers meeting for the first time.

"Will it be okay?"

Illia asked.

Her face rarely showed much, so it wasn't obvious, but Airen could tell she was fairly anxious.

He met her eyes and offered a faint smile.

"It'll be fine. They're good people, deep down. Sure, there's some misunderstanding between you, but... we fought back at the fencing hall too, and things worked out, right?"

"I guess so."

"It'll be okay. I'll be there too. If you apologize now and tell them honestly that you want to join us, they're not going to say no to that."

"Hmm..."

"I'll talk to them properly. Don't worry."

Airen answered with more confidence in his face than usual, and Illia nodded back at him.

Their long conversation finally over, the two of them headed for John Drew's estate.

Whether it was to give the old training classmates some space or not, only Judith and Brett Lloyd were in the room.

Then, something unexpected happened.

"No thanks."

"Huh?"

"I'm against it. You've been ignoring us this whole time, and now all of a sudden you want to join up. How exactly are we supposed to take that?"

Instead of Judith, who Airen had expected to object, it was Brett Lloyd who gave the colder reaction.

Airen was caught off guard, and Illia's face turned uneasy too.

But the most flustered of all was Judith.

'What's gotten into this bastard all of a sudden?'

Both of them had more or less expected something like this the moment Airen left to go meet Illia.

Brett had said he didn't much care either way, and Judith had said she wasn't exactly thrilled about it, that she had no intention of accepting Illia unless she bowed her head plenty low.

But hearing him suddenly slam the door shut with a flat "no" was baffling.

She opened her mouth.

"Hey, you..."

"Illia Lindsay."

But Judith's words were cut off immediately by Brett.

Normally she would have snapped right back at him, but his expression was far more serious than usual.

Instead of flaring up, she crossed her arms and decided to watch how things played out, and Airen and Illia waited with tense faces for what Brett would say next.

"Why do you want to join us?"

"I, I..."

"Well, I can guess, roughly. To move forward alongside people you can trust, encouraging each other, being encouraged in turn. To grow. Something like that, right?"

"That's..."

"Then let me ask something else. Who exactly do you consider 'someone you can trust'?"

"That's..."

"Probably just Airen Farreira. Just the one. Judith and I obviously aren't included."

"........."

"Am I wrong?"

Brett Lloyd kept cutting her off, rude as ever.

But Illia Lindsay couldn't get angry at him for it, couldn't offer any excuse either.

Because what he said was true.

"Can't even say I'm wrong. Well, that's only natural, I suppose. If you'd actually wanted to build real trust with us too, you wouldn't have called Airen out alone to talk. You'd have told all of us everything, the secret conversation you two had outside, your own circumstances, the reasons you've been ignoring us all this time, everything. Wouldn't you?"

"........."

"If that's too hard for you, then the right move isn't joining us. It's forming your own separate party with just Airen."

Cold words.

Silence settled over the room.

Airen and Illia, and even Judith, found themselves reading the mood carefully.

Brett's attitude was harsher than any of them had expected, harsh enough that it almost stirred sympathy for Illia, but the mood was too heavy for that.

In the end, the only person who could break this tension was the one who'd started it. Brett Lloyd himself.

He seemed to know it too, letting out a belated sigh before speaking again.

"Hah... though, knowing Airen, that's not really an option, is it. You want to keep us close and drag Illia along too. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"........."

Airen, catching Brett's look, hesitated, then gave a small nod.

Figures. Brett muttered quietly and turned to look at Illia.

His gaze seemed to ask if she had anything to say, but Illia only dropped her eyes and lowered her head.

And so, the conversation circled right back to where it started.

Judith, Airen, and Illia were all wondering how this gathering could possibly end, when Brett, wearing a serious expression, turned his gaze to the three of them.

Then, as though he'd made up his mind about something, he spoke quietly.

"Fine. We'll give an inch. If it's too hard for you to go first, we'll go first."

"......?"

"I mean we'll tell you our secrets first. Things you can't tell just anyone, things you can only share with people close to you. So it'll be easier for you to open up too."

'So this was his plan from the start.'

Judith, finally catching on to what Brett was up to, nodded to herself with a knowing look.

He'd meant to accept Illia from the beginning.

But too much distance had grown between them to just carry on like nothing happened, so he wanted to close that emotional gap before it caused real trouble down the line.

But then why "we" instead of "I"?

The question crossed Judith's mind out of nowhere.

Normally, when someone brought up something like this, wouldn't they offer up their own story first?

The answer came soon enough.

"This is something I've never told anyone... Judith believed in Santa until she was fourteen."

"......!"

"......?"

"Huh?"

"After she became an official trainee, she held back her cursing for months, talked all sweet and gentle, hoping Santa would bring her a present. Of course, the moment she found out Santa wasn't real, she let loose enough cursing to make up for..."

"You! You crazy bastard! If you're going to talk, talk about your own secret, why are you running your mouth about mine, you absolute..."

Crash!

Judith shot up so violently her chair toppled over, and grabbed Brett Lloyd by the collar.

Not just grabbed. She hauled him straight up into the air.

Feet dangling off the ground, Brett kept smiling, perfectly at ease even while suspended there.

Watching this, Airen and Illia burst into helpless laughter.

Santa Claus. The famous myth of an old man who delivers presents to good children around the world every December twenty-fifth.

But it was such a well-known story that most people learned the truth young, so hearing that Judith had believed it until fourteen was impossible not to laugh at.

Judith herself, of course, found none of it funny.

Her face flushed bright red, she slammed Brett back down and shouted.

"You'd better spill your own story too! If you try to skate through it, I really will kill you!"

"Got it. Don't worry."

"You too, Airen!"

"...Me too?"

"Yeah! Did you think you'd just get to sit there and listen to us?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Of course not! Obviously not. And Illia!"

"Y, yeah."

"You're not seriously planning to just sit there like before, not saying anything, head bowed down while everyone else shares their story, are you?"

"........."

"If you do, I swear, Sword Master or not, we're fighting until one of us drops."

"...I'll do it. I'll share my story too."

Feeling the terrifying force of Judith's presence, Illia nodded before she even realized it.

She'd felt it before too, back when she left the fencing hall. Judith had a way of radiating an absurd, overwhelming aura sometimes.

A predator's kind of presence, one that struck at some primal fear regardless of actual swordsmanship.

That it had all been triggered by "Santa Claus" was funny in its own right, but right now, in this moment, nothing about it felt funny at all.

Airen felt the same.

"Ahem. Guess I'll go first, then."

Only Brett Lloyd kept his composure, telling his own story smoothly.

Ignoring Judith's glare that said, 'Let's see what you've got to say for yourself,' completely, he launched into a story far longer than expected.

From way back before he even joined Krono Fencing Hall, through the memories they'd shared as trainee candidates.

And everything that came after, all the experiences he'd had since leaving the fencing hall.

Brett Lloyd laid out his entire life, holding nothing back, speaking with total honesty.

He showed the others a version of himself stripped bare, with nothing hidden at all.

"...My turn now."

Judith, next up, did the same.

Right before Brett's story began, she'd been worked up enough to smash the place apart, but that mood was gone now.

She told her own honest story, including her years in the slums, doing her best to lay it all out, then looked over at Airen.

Airen smiled and told, once again, the story the other three had each already heard once before, telling it with the same sincerity as ever.

And so, when the three of their stories had finally come to an end,

"........."

Illia Lindsay's eyes welled up with tears once more.

Through the six years since leaving Krono Fencing Hall, Illia had made her way alone through a dark, narrow passage.

The unsettling stares of the crowds around her, their vile words, and the darker, uglier imaginings that ran deeper still, along with the fear those imaginings bred, had gripped her around the clock.

But that wasn't the case anymore.

Having broken through that long stretch of darkness into the wide world beyond, she'd found the vastness of it brought more unease and uncertainty than the warmth of the light did.

And in that moment, three people had approached her with honest faces, without pretense, and that presence was more reassuring, more steadying, than anything else could have been.

"I..."

And so Illia Lindsay's story began.

Her words came slowly, broken up by the emotion welling inside her, but the other three listened with serious, attentive faces.

Six years since their days as trainee candidates at Krono Fencing Hall.

At last, the four of them had become true friends.

* * *

"Well, well. Mind if we join in now?"

"Hi! Nice to meet you! I'm the continent's greatest cat Sorcerer! Call me Lulu! I made that teddy bear you got too, you know! Hahaha!"

Just as all four of them, Illia Lindsay included, had finished sharing their stories,

the orc fortune-teller Kubharu and the cat Sorcerer Lulu appeared with bright expressions on their faces.

Despite meeting Illia for the first time, the two showed not the slightest awkwardness around her.

Neither of them raised the smallest objection to her joining.

"Are they always like this?"

"They're always like this."

Illia asked, and Airen nodded in answer.

More pressing than Illia's joining the group, actually, was the question of where to head next.

Kubharu and Lulu had no particular destination in mind, but the other four, Airen included, weren't so carefree.

This wasn't just a simple trip. It was training meant to help them grow as swordsmen.

That was the purpose of this party, so wherever they went next needed to serve that same purpose.

At that point, Kubharu offered up his own suggestion.

"How about we go meet my master?"

"Kubharu's master?"

"That's right. My master. Maybe..."

He paused for a moment, then continued in a serious tone.

"Airen, your dream... that mysterious man. We might be able to find something out about him."

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