Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble - Chapter 164

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 164

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Fortune-teller Gurgar (1)

"Whew, higher up than I expected. Why'd they have to put the grave in a place like this, making the caretakers suffer... you two doing all right?"

"We're fine."

"This much is nothing."

"Sorry for making you haul all this. Still, it was my master's dying wish, so I'd rather you didn't feel too burdened by it."

"Don't say that! How could we ever think that way..."

"That's right! Besides, Master Gurgar always looked out for us. We're grateful, honored even, that we can repay him like this, however small it is."

"I feel the same way."

"Heh... thank you for saying that. Really."

Kubharu listened to the laborers and nodded, a warm smile on his face.

He and the five other orcs with him were climbing a low mountain outside the fortress walls.

At its summit lay the grave of Kubharu's master, Gurgar.

If this had just been an ordinary visit to pay respects, there would've been no need to bring so many people. But there was other business to attend to today.

They were here to hold a jesa, the traditional ancestral rite passed down from the ancient primal tribes.

Of course, none of this had been Kubharu's own idea.

To begin with, he hadn't even known this kind of ritual had once existed.

And yet here he was, along with the other orcs, carrying the ritual table, food, and various other items up the mountain on their backs, all because this had been Gurgar's dying wish.

"Honestly, if he wanted to leave a will, he should've just left it plainly instead of wrapping it up in riddles..."

Kubharu kept grumbling as he climbed, and the laborers followed quietly behind him.

They finally reached the summit, took a short rest, and began preparing the rite.

"Please, rest a while!"

"Kubharu-nim, let us handle it!"

"As his disciple, I can't very well leave my master's rites entirely to you all. And after all my years wandering, I've grown plenty used to this sort of thing, so there's no need to worry."

"But..."

"Now, now!"

Kubharu brushed off the orcs trying to stop him and busily arranged the ritual vessels, stacking up the prepared food.

Since it wasn't work he was used to, it felt awkward, and more than a little tedious. Honestly, he didn't fully understand the point of it either.

Kubharu had always been the type to think that, whatever form it took, ritual after death held no real meaning.

'Not sure how any of this actually helps my master, anyway.'

But as time passed, that thinking began to shift.

It struck him, quite suddenly, that these rites weren't really for the dead at all. They were for the ones left behind.

"...I should have come sooner."

Kubharu murmured his quiet regret, and the laborers pretended not to hear, working diligently instead.

Thanks to their effort, the preparations finished right on schedule.

Then, in a solemn atmosphere, the rite for the departed Gurgar began.

Crackle.

Incense lit with a spirit of fire.

Glug, glug, glug.

Wine poured into the prepared vessel in three portions.

A bow.

Kubharu, as the officiant, bowed twice, then bowed twice more together with the rest of the orcs.

The ceremony continued smoothly from there, and when every step had finally been completed, Kubharu let out a long breath.

His eyes had gone damp without him quite noticing.

"...Well done, everyone. Let's eat."

"Yes."

"Yes, my lord."

The six orcs settled in front of the ritual food and quietly picked up their utensils.

There were plenty of dishes, but none of them looked particularly fancy. That had simply been Gurgar's taste.

Despite being the finest fortune-teller in all of Durkali, he'd lived a modest, simple life.

Kubharu grumbled.

"He could've eaten something nice once in a while. There's nothing worth eating here."

"Ha, ha, ha..."

The laborers answered with a laugh, but that was as far as the joke went.

They continued the meal in silence, the mood heavy.

Of course, food wasn't the only thing at the table. There was drink too.

Fortunately, this one at least suited Kubharu's taste well enough.

His master had been detached from most things in life, but when it came to drink, he'd been every bit as greedy as any other orc.

'Not that it was ever anything expensive, mind you...'

Kubharu stared down hard at the wine in his cup and shook his head.

No matter how long he glared at it, his master wasn't going to appear in there.

All that stared back was his own sorry reflection.

With a bitter smile, he tipped the cup back and drained it in one go, and with a satisfied grunt, he glanced sideways without really thinking about it.

Then he froze in shock.

Gurgar, looking about twenty years older than he remembered him last, was gazing back at him with a smile on his face.

"W, wha...!"

"Heh, careful, you'll choke, boy. Keep that up and you'll end up like me."

"No, wait, what is this, what's..."

Kubharu wasn't the only one reacting this way.

The other five orcs stared at Gurgar with equal shock in their eyes.

Or rather, at whatever it was that had taken Gurgar's shape.

Looking at that pale, half-real figure, everyone had the same thought.

'A spirit?'

"A spirit, that's right. Nice to be back in the land of the living after all this time. Come now, disciple, pour me a cup."

"Ah..."

Still wearing a dazed expression, Kubharu hurriedly poured the drink, and Gurgar took it and drank.

As if to prove he was truly a ghost, his body passed clean through various objects around him, and yet somehow he managed to grip the cup just fine.

With a satisfied grunt, Gurgar tipped the cup back, drained it, and asked.

"You brought plenty of drink, right?"

"...There are maybe ten more bottles."

"That won't be nearly enough."

"Th, then I'll go get more right now."

Watching the laborers spring up one after another, Gurgar said with a grin.

"Good. And while you're at it, why don't you go fetch those human friends too."

* * *

Airen's group and Gunt's group climbed toward the mountain summit outside the fortress in silence, moving at a brisk pace.

If they'd let themselves, they would have run the whole way up. That was how curious they were, how much this whole thing intrigued them.

Fortunately, the mountain wasn't especially tall.

Before long, both the orcs and the humans reached the site of Gurgar's grave.

"....."

And there they found master and disciple, chatting away and drinking together, loud and cheerful.

"Yo, you made it. Hm? Some folks I didn't invite came along too."

"Tell me about it. Gunt, what are you even doing here?"

"....."

Watching Kubharu and Gurgar respond with such shameless calm, Gunt found himself at a loss for words and simply stayed quiet.

This didn't feel like something alive.

But it was hard to call it dead either.

He understood, now, why the messenger hadn't been able to explain it properly. His expression hardened.

Kubharu's return alone had already been unwelcome enough, and now his master had come back from the dead too?

His head was starting to throb.

Just then, as if he'd read straight into Gunt's thoughts, Gurgar spoke with a smile.

"Hey there, Gunt."

"...Yes, Master Gurgar."

"I won't be staying long. Don't have the strength for it, even if I wanted to."

"....."

"I'm just here to catch up with my disciple after all this time, share a few drinks, thank the fine people who helped him find his courage, do a bit of fortune telling for them too, not that it's much of a repayment... and once I've wrapped up everything I need to do, I'll be on my way soon enough. So wipe that constipated look off your face."

"....."

"That goes for the rest of you too. It's been a long while since we last saw each other. Try smiling a little."

Gurgar's gaze drifted past Gunt, toward Airen's group behind him.

By then, Master Halifa, one of Durkali's ruling powers, had arrived along with his own entourage and moved to stand beside Gunt.

And that wasn't all.

From the opposite path emerged Gorha, the great spirit mage, along with his close associates, the faction that had backed Kubharu seventeen years ago.

Compared to Halifa, they held less sway, but their standing was still formidable.

With every one of these figures filling the clearing, the mood grew heavier by the second.

'...None of them feel like pushovers.'

Airen Farreira studied the gathered orcs, his expression tightening.

Halifa's presence was immense, every bit deserving of his reputation as the strongest warrior second only to Karakum.

His body looked so solid that not even a needle could find a way in, and just standing near him was enough to put anyone on edge.

Gorha, the so called great spirit mage, was no less formidable.

Spirit mages tended to be underrated in the human world, but as far as Airen could sense, this one felt stronger than most Sword Masters, let alone an Expert.

'I never imagined I'd get to meet Kubharu's master in the middle of all this chaos...'

No, honestly, he'd never even imagined getting the chance to meet him at all.

However remarkable a fortune teller the man had been, the greatest in all of orc history, Airen never could have pictured someone already dead appearing before them like this.

Still, a hopeful thought crept in.

If this orc was powerful enough to manifest in such a mysterious form, maybe, just maybe, he could actually interpret Airen's dream.

Maybe he could reveal the identity of the man in the dream, uncover what he truly intended!

Of course, that was only wishful thinking.

Nothing was certain yet.

And more pressing than that, right now, was figuring out how to even bring up such a request to Gurgar in the middle of this suffocating, tense atmosphere.

But as it turned out, that problem solved itself far more easily than expected.

Gurgar rose quietly from his seat, stepped to the center of the gathering, and swept his gaze once over the orcs standing in a ring around him.

Then, looking up at the sky, he began murmuring to himself.

"I spent my whole life trapped."

"....."

"As a child, trapped by common wisdom. Once I'd grown a little, trapped by tribal law. I thought becoming a man of standing would finally set me free, but it didn't. Trapped in suffocating politics, I sent away the one disciple I ever had, and lived out my days in loneliness. And then I died."

It was a lament.

A spirit lamenting aloud like this was something no one had ever heard of or seen, but there was no other way to describe it.

Gurgar poured out, as if he'd made up his mind to, all the words he'd bottled up and never spoken in life, and as he did, the iron mask Halifa wore, and Gorha's face too, subtly began to soften.

Before long, neither of them could quite meet Gurgar's eyes as he turned his gaze from the sky, both of them wearing bitter expressions.

Gurgar looked at them for a long moment.

Then, from the mouth of one who had nothing left in this world to fear, came a dismissal.

"Everyone who wasn't invited, please step aside."

"....."

"I know it breaks tribal law to read the fortunes of those outside Durkali. But I'm already a dead man. I'd rather the laws of the living stopped trying to bind me any longer."

"....."

"I'll promise you this much. Nothing that happens here today will bring harm to the tribe. If anything, it'll turn out to be a great blessing for Durkali, for orcs as a whole. So set aside your needless worry and let an old man have some peace."

Having said his piece, Gurgar waved a hand.

A modest tent appeared out of nowhere.

He stepped inside, and said.

"You there, young man."

"...Me?"

"Yes. Blue-haired young man. Come in."

"....."

Feeling a strange pull of charisma, Brett Lloyd followed Gurgar into the tent.

Despite it being nothing but thin cloth, the two of them gave off no sense of presence at all, as though they'd stepped into a space completely cut off from the world.

Watching this, Halifa let out a long breath and spoke.

"Let's go back."

"...We're leaving too."

Gorha said the same.

The two factions, who had arrived at nearly the same moment as if by agreement, left the clearing together in just the same way.

What remained were only the disciple, Kubharu, and his companions, Brett Lloyd, Judith, and Illia Lindsay.

"...I wonder what they're talking about in there."

"Who knows."

"....."

The three young people stared at the tent, faces full of curiosity.

Watching them, Kubharu wore a curious little smile.

* * *