WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 180

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Each Toward Their Own Path (3)

While Airen Farreira and the other three were deep in their training on the Five Elements Divine Technique, Lulu the cat Sorcerer wasn't exactly idle either.

'There's something here that could help Airen. I can feel it.'

Lulu stared at the necklace she'd picked out from Durkali's treasure vault, thinking that over.

Spirits, the Five Elements Divine Technique, none of that was really her strong suit.

But her instincts told her something.

If this ancient relic, one with no surviving records at all, could be put to proper use, it might lend real strength to Airen's future path.

And not just that. She had a feeling something good would come her way from it too.

Nodding to herself, Lulu let out a sharp cry and spun in place.

Fwaaash

Craaack...!

Along with a burst of light, her limbs stretched long and slender, horns and wings sprouting from her forehead and back.

She'd pulled off the transformation far more easily than during her encounter with Karakum, and Lulu looked satisfied with herself.

"Good! I really do feel stronger when I'm transformed!"

The Sorcerer studied her own appearance, now closer to human, and shook her head.

Then she glared hard at the necklace Airen had lent her.

She didn't know anything about what this necklace actually was. Not a single thing.

But that was fine.

Lulu had always considered herself one of the top ten Sorcerers on the continent.

Her fighting skill might fall short by comparison, but if a cat had wished hard enough to actually learn human speech, just how enormous must that longing have been?

And now, with the power of her mind strengthened even further by the transformation, she was certain that simply focusing her gaze like this would let information about the necklace flow naturally into her.

"There was a time I thought that, sure..."

But it didn't work out that way.

A week passed, then a month, right up until Judith and Brett, who she'd grown fond of, left Durkali's fortress.

Lulu had failed to uncover the necklace's secret.

It was a disappointment, but there was nothing to be done.

In her transformed state, Lulu possessed the intuition to see straight through to the essence of a thing just by looking at it, but the necklace hid itself away like a locked vault, refusing to give up its information so easily.

Of course, the black cat didn't give up.

Clenching her front paws, she flew off with eyes full of determination. She sought out Gorha, the spirit mage she wasn't even particularly close with, and asked him a favor.

"Teach me some Spirit Magic."

"...Hm?"

"You don't have to teach me yourself. I'm just curious about the concepts and knowledge behind spirits, the Five Elements, all of that. Could you just introduce me to a spirit mage who's good at explaining things?"

"..."

"I'll give you this in return."

"You, are you trying to buy me with money right now..."

Rumble rumble rumble

"..."

Snatch

"As it happens, I know just the fellow."

Gorha snatched up the coin from Lulu's paw and nodded readily, and that was how Lulu got the chance to learn about the spirits and the Five Elements the Durkali tribe took such pride in, along with knowledge that ran even deeper than that.

The five spirits made up of earth, metal, water, wood, and fire.

Theories that predated even those, the Four Symbols and the Three Powers, Yin and Yang, and even the Primordial Chaos said to have existed since the dawn of time.

Lulu worked steadily through the way the orcs viewed the world, and within a mere two months, she'd become far more learned about spirits and the underlying knowledge than any wandering quack orc on the continent could ever claim to be.

She'd even surpassed Kubharu, and considering he was stronger in practice than in theory, that was no small feat.

"Good thing I didn't learn this from him."

"Ha! So does that make me a spirit mage now too?"

"Not quite. A spirit mage who can't handle spirits? That doesn't make sense."

"Fair enough."

Nodding along easily, Lulu turned her focus back to the necklace.

She thought she understood, just a little. That the power held inside it was something even more fundamental than the five spirits.

Of course, that was as far as her grasp went for now.

Which was why it didn't bother her much when Kubharu spoke up and broke her concentration.

"Where's Airen? Still with Father and Tarakhan?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Same as always."

"Hm. I see."

Kubharu nodded.

Learning fortune-telling from Gurgar had eaten up so much of his time lately that even visiting the fortress once a week had become a stretch.

Family mattered, and Airen mattered too, but building memories with a master who might vanish at any moment mattered more.

That didn't mean he'd lost interest in Airen, of course.

Thinking back on the mental training Airen had begun two months earlier, Kubharu murmured quietly to himself.

"It won't be easy."

Airen wasn't training in the Five Elements Divine Technique these days. Nor was he polishing his swordsmanship.

What he was focused on now was history.

He was spending his time facing the countless events, situations, and problems that had unfolded within the Durkali tribe, mulling over and studying how he himself would have handled each one.

In other words, he was taking the questions he'd first wrestled with at Alhad Den and pushing them further, more deeply, with far more intent.

'Well, if he can get advice from Father and Tarakhan, there's no better setup for it.'

When a leader faced a situation where every choice led somewhere difficult, what judgment should they make?

Obviously, there was no single right answer.

Even the towering figures recorded in history weren't universally praised by later generations.

Someone might call a ruler an iron-willed statesman while someone else called that same person a bloodless tyrant, and someone hailed as a paragon of virtue might be cursed elsewhere as a spineless hypocrite.

But...

'Enduring that pressure and burden while still leading your people forward, that's exactly what it means to be a leader.'

Seen that way, Kubharu couldn't think of better teachers for Airen than Karakum and Tarakhan.

Even though the path Airen walked wasn't the path of a king, it wasn't so different in that it demanded he keep making difficult, weighty choices without end.

Experiencing countless events from history secondhand.

Weighing the opinions of an old leader and a young one, building up his own convictions, his own standards, his own perspective piece by piece.

So that when a hard situation eventually came for him, he'd be able to make the best possible call.

It really was mental training fit for a hero.

'In some ways, this is far harder than training the body. Especially for someone like Airen.'

Kubharu closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the man that was Airen Farreira.

The kindest person he'd ever met.

Someone who didn't just hold onto that kindness alone, but wanted to pass it on to as many people as possible.

Yes. Even knowing it was impossible, Airen dreamed of a world where everyone could be happy.

Of course, reality was cruel.

Now, when misfortune and hardship spread everywhere without any clean line between good and evil, right and wrong, it might honestly be harder to become a hero than back in the days when beating down demons was the top priority.

He wasn't pushing his body to the point of aching all over like before.

He wasn't swinging his sword until his heart felt ready to burst like before either.

But it was never easy. If anything, it was harder.

And knowing that, Airen still refused to look away, giving everything he had.

Watching him, Kubharu felt endless pride, but he couldn't shake his worry either.

'I just hope he doesn't end up carrying a weight too heavy for him to bear.'

He was in the middle of that thought when.

The door burst open. Kubharu and Lulu snapped their eyes open and turned. A familiar figure came into view.

Airen Farreira.

Approaching with the same gentle eyes as always, a young, almost too young hopeful hero.

No, that wasn't right.

Kubharu thought.

Could he still attach the word "hopeful" to the young man standing before him now?

"Lulu."

"Yeah."

Called by name, Lulu floated over and drifted in front of him. Her large eyes studied his face, his heart, his convictions.

A burning will radiated off him, strong enough that even a non-Sorcerer could have felt it.

"Remember what Ignet said to me? That next time we meet, she wouldn't be asking the steel inside me, she'd be asking Airen Farreira himself. And that if I still wanted to turn down her offer then, I'd need to have worked a lot harder."

"Yeah, I remember."

"What do you think, looking at me now?"

"..."

"Can I stand in front of her now without shrinking back?"

"Feels like you already know the answer without me saying it."

Lulu didn't bother answering.

Neither did Kubharu.

Watching the young hero who'd changed almost beyond recognition in just a few days, he spoke, his voice trembling slightly.

"So it's decided. Where you're headed next."

* * *

'What am I even doing right now?'

While Airen Farreira received guidance from Karakum and Tarakhan.

Illia Lindsay was continuing her own training in her own way.

She wasn't moving with the same conviction he had.

Her mind was so tangled that she couldn't stay grounded unless she was doing something, anything, and maybe because of that, she wasn't producing any real results in any area.

The Five Elements Divine Technique, where everyone else was showing progress, dragged along without much to show for it, and her swordsmanship, which had grown by leaps and bounds through last year, had come to a complete standstill.

With things like that, she couldn't even bring herself to think about finding her own path.

It was around the time that feeling had grown too large to bear that Illia finally opened the note Gurgar had handed her.

On the paper, in flowing handwriting, was a single short line.

'Return to the beginning.'

The words were as abstract as they came.

But Illia understood immediately.

It wasn't even limited to the beginning, strictly speaking.

Whether she sank into the past, focused on the present, or pressed forward into the future, one presence would always sit at the center of her heart.

'Ignet Crescentia.'

Illia, thinking of that name again after so long, crumpled Gurgar's note tightly in her fist.

She didn't want to accept it.

It wasn't some petty stubbornness about not wanting to take someone else's advice.

She was doing everything she could right now to break free of other people's eyes, to break free of the crowd's noise, to walk her own path.

'I don't need to be hung up on Ignet anymore.'

Illia nodded to herself.

That was right. It really was.

How deeply had her pointless obsession with that person wounded her, how badly had it burned her, filling her with that anxiety and compulsion?

Knowing all that, chasing after Ignet's shadow again made no sense. It really was foolish.

Having thought this far, Illia let out a short, wry laugh.

Now that she thought about it, it was a little absurd.

She'd told herself she wouldn't wander anymore, that she'd walk her own path without being shaken again, and yet here she was, still exactly the same.

Still letting other people's words sway her, still leaning on other people's advice. That wasn't right.

No matter how great the fortune-teller, letting your thinking swing back and forth at every word someone else said was exactly the kind of thing to avoid.

Once she'd sorted her thoughts that far, her heart finally felt lighter. Illia Lindsay smiled faintly and closed her eyes.

After a while, feeling the cool breeze against her skin, she opened her eyes again.

"..."

Airen Farreira, somehow carrying a different air about him now, stood there shining as he spoke.

"I'm planning to go see Ignet Crescentia."

"..."

"Going alone feels a little scary, though... would you come with me?"

It was a ridiculous thing to say.

She could tell the moment she looked at him. Airen was strong now. Strong enough to hold his own presence even in front of the formidable Ignet.

So much so that her own pathetically shrunken self couldn't even be compared to him. That was how brilliantly he shone.

And yet, strangely, it didn't feel bad at all.

Unlike Ignet, who'd approached like the sun and instantly burned away both her and her brother's confidence, the light he gave off carried... a warm heat instead.

Thanks to that.

Illia realized, finally, that she'd been making pathetic excuses for herself all this time.

'...I've been running away.'

She hadn't been trying to break free of her obsession.

She'd simply lacked the courage to face Ignet.

Terrified of crumbling under the fear that would come rushing back, she'd only been dodging and running in circles. Illia finally understood that now.

She clenched her jaw hard.

Her head had finally cleared.

Gurgar's note had long since been crumpled beyond use, but that was fine.

Illia Lindsay, fists clenched tight, smiled and spoke to her precious friend, Airen Farreira.

"Gladly."

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