WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 172

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Confirming the Past Life (2)

1.

No hazing here, so make yourself at home. Ask if there's something you don't know.

The village chief's words. A tone neither warm nor cold. I nodded along, well enough.

Given how I'd been treated these past three years, even this much felt like a mercy.

No one had shown any warmth to me, the demon's chosen target, not inside my land, not outside it either.

That was exactly why I meant to settle in a backwater like this.

"...Even people living out in a place like this shouldn't shun me."

A few children kept their distance, watching me from across the way. I paid them no mind.

I stepped into an abandoned house, set my things down without much ceremony, and picked up my sword right away. A greatsword.

Three years ago, its size alone would have been too much to lift. Not anymore.

Whoosh.

Whoosh, thwack!

I swung it, and swung it again, and swung it once more.

Until I could unleash a sword strike with more power behind it. Until I could cut down the demon of the south.

Until that day came, I wouldn't leave this place.

With that resolve settled in me, I kept swinging the sword.

2.

A month passed.

Nothing had changed. I kept swinging my sword, and the village stayed just as peaceful as ever.

The only difference was that the children who used to poke their heads over the fence, curious, had stopped showing up.

That my swordsmanship hadn't improved either was a bitter thing, but I was used to it by now.

I swung the sword from morning to night, without hope and without disappointment.

And so another day passed.

3.

Two months went by.

I kept swinging my sword. There wasn't much reason to go anywhere.

Thanks to the money I'd handed the village chief when I moved in, the things I needed for daily life kept arriving on schedule.

All I had left to do was swing the sword.

Whoosh!

A diagonal strike.

Whoosh!

A vertical strike.

Simple, repetitive movements, barely deserving to be called swordsmanship at all.

There was no helping it. The rumors had already spread everywhere. Swordsmen who didn't want to earn the demon's hatred refused to teach me anything.

It was fine.

No. Truthfully, it wasn't fine at all.

But it didn't matter either way. I'd become someone who couldn't go on living without swinging a sword anymore.

I breathed out the burning pain twisting through my body and brought the greatsword down again.

Whoosh!

With that swing, the illusion of the retainer who'd driven me from the castle was cut down.

4.

Three months passed.

I kept swinging my sword, and the village had stopped paying me any attention at all.

Except for a man who'd glanced my way a few days back, no one came near this place anymore.

That was fine. A relief, even.

Watching the dusk close in, I tightened my grip on the greatsword.

A while later, countless figures emerged from the darkness.

Every one of them wore a jester's mask.

They began pointing their fingers at me.

Filthy dog, doing the demon's bidding!

Selfish bastard! If you keep stirring things up, we're the ones who suffer for it!

The sword... I can't teach you. I'm sorry.

Get lost. Do you still think you're our lord? We want nothing to do with you!

Against the endless stream of them rising up before me, I swung my sword without hesitation.

Skulls split open, limbs flew, and still they wouldn't stop hurling their accusations.

The eyes behind the shattered masks were sickening to look at.

Too exhausted to even collapse, I kept my sword moving without pause, until morning finally came.

"Huff, huff, hah..."

I didn't know.

Whether this was the jester demon's doing, or an illusion born from my own hatred of him.

Either way, it was clear that I was losing my mind.

And yet I laughed. For the first time in a long while, I could laugh.

Rage at the villagers who'd abandoned me.

Grief at the swordsmen who'd turned their backs on me.

Hatred for the demon. Hatred for the world.

All of it became new fuel, and it kept me standing.

Whoosh!

Whoosh.

Whooosh!

I swung the sword. I swung it until I collapsed from exhaustion.

Without even noticing the passage of time, I carried that endless penance forward.

5.

Time passed. I didn't know how much. There was no way to know.

But something else mattered more than that. My swordsmanship had improved.

I still only knew the diagonal strike, the vertical strike, the horizontal strike, same as before, but the force behind them had changed.

Illusions that used to withstand three or four blows before falling now vanished with a single strike.

Satisfied, I kept swinging the sword.

Slash.

I cut down the retainer who'd driven me out.

Slice.

I severed the head of the woman who'd stood behind her husband, pointing her finger at me.

I cut through the hunter's body too, the one who never held me back, and the swordsman's waist too, the one who never taught me anything in the end. I cut them all down.

I never thought I could actually catch the jester. I'd known that from the very start.

That something like that could never happen. That I couldn't possibly do what even the continent's heroes had failed to do.

And yet I laughed. I couldn't help myself, I was having too much fun.

Laughing, I swung my sword, and another jester shattered apart. My gaze drifted naturally toward the face behind the mask.

Who would it be this time.

The old man who only thought of his own family while he pointed his finger at me?

Or maybe the chief knight, the one who glared at me with such a cold expression?

The mask cracked and fell away. The face beneath it came into view, and for the first time since arriving in this village, I dropped my sword.

And for a long while afterward, I couldn't move at all.

Surprised?

Looks like it.

Hey, no need to look so shocked.

Another me, mocking the me who stood there stunned.

Listening to that voice, full of laughter, there was only one thing I could do.

Crack.

I picked up my sword again, and my attack shattered my own skull.

6.

Time passed.

No, years passed. I had no way of knowing how many. My mind wasn't in any state to keep count.

Endless jesters kept pouring out, and among them, more and more copies of myself kept appearing.

Just fighting them off was more than enough to keep me busy.

So today too, I swung my sword.

Whum!

Whooom!

Crack, crack, crack!

One swing shattered five or six jesters. Two swings brought down more than ten illusions.

And still there was no end to it. The jesters kept appearing, one after another.

There was no longer any boundary between day and night.

Dusk and shadow. Wherever there was darkness, illusions bloomed, mocking and jeering at me without end.

Unable to bear the fury boiling in me, I had no choice but to keep swinging my sword, without rest, without even the right to grow tired.

That was when it happened.

"Aren't you tired?"

A clear voice bloomed out of the endless malice pouring at me. My gaze turned toward it on reflex.

It wasn't a jester.

A young face, innocent eyes.

A child, bare faced, no mask, looked up at me, a single flower held in one small hand.

"Here. For you."

"........."

The child didn't stay long.

A woman came rushing over and snatched the little one's hand.

As if afraid to meet my eyes, she kept her gaze down, bowing again and again before hurrying off.

A door I hadn't even noticed opening slammed shut. I was alone again.

But strangely, I didn't feel lonely.

"........."

I stared for a long while toward where the child had disappeared, then slowly lowered my eyes to the flower.

Along with its fresh, sweet scent, the child's eyes rose up in my mind again.

Something about it felt familiar.

I thought hard, trying to recall where I'd felt this feeling before, and when nothing came to mind, I picked up my sword out of habit.

This was a first.

Picking up a sword without wanting to. It didn't suit a man who'd lived out of his mind for over ten years.

Of course, my body moved anyway, despite what my thoughts said. Before I knew it, I'd taken my stance, ready to face the illusions.

"........."

But the jesters didn't appear.

...For the first time in a very long while, I gave myself to the sword with a sound mind.

7.

Time passed.

Far longer than the time it had taken me to leave my land and settle in this village.

More than ten years, more than twenty, in a stretch of time I could no longer measure, I swung my sword without end.

I wasn't lonely.

The illusions, gone for the briefest moment, rose up again with the dusk as if nothing had happened, and now they kept up their mockery beside me, day or night, without pattern.

Shattered, cut down, and yet endlessly returning, the jester masks no longer stirred any feeling in me at all.

That was the truth of it.

I wasn't lonely because of the illusions sprouting up like weeds after rain.

Not because of the world's coldness pouring down on me.

Not because of the hatred for the world that I kept pouring back out, either.

I turned my gaze away from the jesters and closed my eyes gently.

Then, one by one, I recalled the things I'd forgotten for so long.

Whum!

The gentle faces of my parents, who'd passed from illness when I was young.

Whum!

The warm face of my wife, who'd wrapped me in love all those years.

Whooom!

My beloved son, born two years after our wedding, and the innocent light in his eyes.

Thinking of hearts like theirs, so much like the look in the eyes of the girl, grown now into a woman, who'd once handed me a flower, my mind, so long consumed by dark feeling, slowly began finding its way back.

"Hah."

I opened my eyes with a deep breath.

Nothing about the situation had changed.

Countless illusions, countless faces from the wreckage of my life, still raised their voices behind darkness and masks.

It was fine.

I drew in a deep breath. Then let it out.

Filling my lungs with the cool night air, I felt my chest and my mind clear.

I walked forward, slow and steady, into the darkness thick with mockery and jeers.

Pathetic bastard. If you're going to die, die alone, why drag innocent people into it?

The shout came from the old villager who used to glare at me with such contempt.

I passed him by without cutting him down.

Ridiculous man. Is it our fault your wife and son died? It's yours. If you hadn't been so spineless, you could've saved one of them.

Another version of my own voice, digging into my oldest wound.

Same as before. I walked past without swinging my sword.

At that, more illusions than I could count, far more than ever before, rose up to block my path.

Hatred and fury, fear and dread, the jesters' eyes poured down on me like arrows, each one striking home.

I ignored all of it and kept my footing steady.

With every step, I felt the poison I'd carried in my heart drain away. Freedom from an obsession I'd carried far too long.

.......

And so, at the very last of the last, I arrived at a hideous place, floors carpeted with human bone and flesh.

Someone stood at its center. A jester, once again.

But this time, I had no intention of walking past.

My voice, silent for so long, reached the creature's ears.

"Not the south. But I found you anyway."

How...!

The jester demon's voice, stained with confusion and rage.

I let out a short laugh. I could see, clear as day, the twisted expression behind that mask.

Once I'd let go of my malice and obsession toward the world, its mask and the darkness wrapped around it stopped working the way they should have.

Not a sight I'd wanted to look at for so long.

I swung my greatsword like lightning and split the jester demon's body in two.

And in that instant, the crystallized result of decades of training burst forth as a silver-grey light.

Hummmmmmmmm!

Kraaaaaaaagh!

A shriek loud enough to split my ears rang out.

Its counterattack fell apart into nothing, and its body, once seemingly hard as iron, took terrible damage.

The horrid face behind the shattered half of its mask twisted into something even more grotesque.

Eyes filled with something like the hatred I'd carried for the world, no, something even more vicious than that, poured down on me.

But the jester demon didn't dare come at me.

Instead, it fled, radiating a fear it couldn't hide, into the deeper darkness far away.

I nodded and stepped forward, the light refined to something like tempered steel in my hand, meaning to finish it off. Or rather, that was what I meant to do.

"........."

But I couldn't.

I'd thought I was at my very best. My sword wasn't brilliant, but it was flawless and strong, and my heart, too, had finally settled after so long adrift.

A confidence powerful enough to face down any great swordsman, any great demon, filled my chest.

But the body that was supposed to wield it, the flesh that carried it, couldn't keep up anymore.

My gaze drifted to the blade.

Looking at a face grown deeply lined without my noticing, I sank to my knees, filled with sorrow.

Thud!

Leaning on the greatsword driven into the ground, I glared into the darkness where the jester had vanished.

Not out of hatred for him.

Not out of grief for the world, either.

What had set me right, foolish as I'd been, what had dealt such heavy damage to the jester demon no one else had ever managed to touch, was.

'Not a sword forged from hatred and rage...'

The pure kindness held in the flower the girl had given me.

Regret at having realized that so late washed over my withering body.

"Huff, huff..."

I could feel my life fading.

Even breathing, even holding a thought together, grew difficult. It was a bitter thing.

Worthless as this body was, I wanted to pass on what I'd come to understand, to someone, anyone.

I hoped that because of it, no one else would ever have to become what I'd become.

Knowing it was impossible, I prayed anyway, like a stubborn child throwing a tantrum, that my wish might somehow reach the heavens.

'Even if it's a hollow wish...'

Even if it's just the ugly last thrashing of a dying old man, so be it.

If somehow, some way, this feeling, this dying will of mine, could reach someone.

If only it could...

...

...

...

"........."

Airen Farreira opened his eyes.

He wasn't the only one. Everyone else seemed to be waking from Gurgar's ritual too, staring blankly into the middle distance.

Judith sat with her head bowed, crying out loud.

Lulu, Brett Lloyd, Illia Lindsay, Kubharu.

Airen looked at his precious friends, then quietly rose and walked out of the tent.

Gorha the spirit mage, who hadn't yet left, and Karakum, the great warrior, both turned to look at him.

Then Karakum shot to his feet.

"........."

"........."

Airen and Karakum stared at each other without a word.

Watching them, Gorha's face went stiff with confusion.

Neither of them paid him any mind.

After a long moment of studying the other, Airen Farreira spoke.

"I'd like to ask you for a sparring match."

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