Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble - Chapter 185

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 185

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Bewildered (2)

Sevion Brooks, Phalanke's greatest knight, stepped out to the training grounds late that evening and drew his sword.

He'd arrived in Lavath's territory that very morning, and with plenty of other things demanding his attention, he'd considered skipping a day of training. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Not after the young man he'd met that afternoon.

'I've never seen a young man look that deeply into himself before.'

Meditative training wasn't unusual by itself, of course. In the old days, swordsmen focused only on conditioning the body and refining their technique, but that had changed once the priests and paladins of the Holy Kingdom began exchanging knowledge with the orc tribes. These days even backwater training halls had more than a few students striking meditation poses without really understanding why.

But the blond young man had been different.

His breathing had stayed steady, his posture upright the whole time. And in that state, he'd turned his focus inward for a full two hours straight.

That alone wasn't something ordinary concentration could manage.

And it wasn't just his concentration that impressed.

'His awareness, his senses, both were excellent too.'

Simply observing himself without wavering would already have deserved praise. But there was more than that. The young man had kept some reserve of attention in play, using it to stay alert to his surroundings.

The proof was that he'd noticed Sevion's approach within twenty minutes, which was frankly unbelievable given how young he looked.

'What was I like at that age?'

Sevion Brooks let out a short laugh.

No need to even answer that. Both his focus and his awareness had been a mess back then.

Nothing close to the young man who'd kept his meditation sharp while honing his senses to a razor's edge at the same time.

Thinking about it made him want the kid, plain and simple.

Sevion himself had reached Expert rank in his late twenties. Which meant the young man he'd met that afternoon had already reached Expert too. That kind of talent was rare, even across the whole continent.

'No good. Not exactly the moral thing to do, but I need to sweet talk him during this dungeon expedition and pull him onto our side.'

Judging by what Perry Martinez had said, the kid wasn't from Lavath. Which meant he had to be from Calven.

They were probably raising him in secret and using this expedition, where so many strong fighters had gathered, to give him experience.

Of course, Sevion had no intention of letting that stand.

It was too much of a waste, no matter how he looked at it.

Leaving talent like that in a place like Calven, a minor state that couldn't scrape together more than three Experts total, wasn't just a personal loss. It was a loss for the whole continent.

'A vessel like that deserves at least Master rank to hold him.'

Yes. Exactly right.

Muttering to himself, Sevion Brooks burst into laughter again.

It sounded like he was polishing his own reputation a bit too much, but he figured this was the right call anyway. Skill mattered, sure, but teaching suited him even better. Having raised four Experts of his own, he thought he'd earned the right to be a little bold about it.

"Master Brooks, may I come in? I looked into what you asked."

"Mm! Come in."

His instructions had just been finished, conveniently enough.

He'd asked to learn the blond young man's background, and along with it, to gather personal details on Calven's expedition team.

The subordinate handed over a bundle of documents at Sevion Brooks's word, then left the room.

Alone again, he skimmed past the familiar names, scanning for the young man in question.

But before he could find him, Sevion stopped turning pages.

"...Illia Lindsay."

A name he'd never expected turned up among Calven's roster.

'What is going on here?'

He couldn't believe it. He couldn't make sense of it either.

Why would a Sword Master from the west, not even the central region, and the youngest Sword Master to shake the entire continent at that, be here of all places?

That confusion didn't last long, though. He remembered who the Holy Kingdom's representative from Abilius was, the one who hadn't arrived yet.

"Ignet Crescentia."

An incident from over ten years ago now, but one that had rocked the entire continent at the time.

Thinking of the bitter history between House Lindsay and the Black Knight Commander, the pieces finally clicked into place.

Why Illia had shown up here, of all places.

'This is a headache.'

Sevion Brooks frowned.

The young lady of House Lindsay joining Calven had probably been her own decision, made without permission. There was no way Joshua Lindsay, head of House Lindsay, would have allowed his daughter to get tangled up in something so politically complicated.

But what mattered now was that it had already happened, and he needed to carefully calculate how it might affect his own kingdom.

"Well, well. Being a Master doesn't stop you from being reckless, apparently. Too young."

To act on her own feelings first, even knowing it could become a diplomatic problem.

Had her defeat at the Proof Land affected her that deeply?

It seemed plausible.

Even he had been surprised hearing the news, so Illia Lindsay herself, the one who'd actually lived through it, must have felt the shock far more.

'If it were me, though, instead of coming to see Ignet out of spite, I would've felt my own shortcomings and gone into seclusion for training instead... wait.'

Sevion frowned as his thoughts got this far.

His train of thought, which had stayed fixed on Illia and Ignet, drifted somewhere else.

Specifically, toward the continent's rising star, the one who had defeated Illia at the Proof Land.

Calling to mind everything he'd heard through rumor, the young man's age, appearance, presence, all of it, he flipped rapidly through the documents.

Then he stopped on a particular page and let out a stunned, hollow laugh.

Airen Farreira.

Only now realizing the blond young man's identity, Sevion Brooks quietly closed his eyes and replayed the afternoon's events in his mind.

'...I could scream.'

He shook his head slowly.

Now he could see it clearly.

The arrogance he couldn't help but carry, simply because he was so much older than the young man.

Stripping that away and recalling the scene with an objective eye, Airen Farreira's true form emerged, more impressive by far than his first impression had suggested, clear as a painting.

The composure that hadn't broken even after the young man noticed him approaching.

The breathing that went beyond mere regularity, controlled to the point it was almost unsettling.

Even the way he'd walked off, his balance, the depth in his settled gaze.

Not one part of it was something an Expert should have been capable of.

"...This is unpleasant."

Quietly opening his eyes, Phalanke's greatest knight, Sevion Brooks, murmured under his breath.

He felt flustered. A little irritated too, if he was honest. Even though it hadn't been intentional, he couldn't shake the feeling of having been deceived.

But there was another feeling, stronger than that one, rising in him.

'This is embarrassing.'

Yes. Right now his face had gone red enough that he couldn't control it.

Being a Master and still failing to properly gauge his opponent's strength was a considerable blow to his pride.

And even now, having identified the young man, he still didn't know. Didn't know just how high a level the young man had actually reached.

'Is he really a Sword Master?'

'That's probably true. Didn't I see it with my own eyes?'

'Then how far along is he? Freshly arrived at Sword Master rank?'

'Or does he already have more than that?'

After a moment's thought, Sevion Brooks closed his eyes again.

The political complications from Illia's participation?

Those had already flown right out of his mind. Before he was a high-ranking noble of Phalanke, he was, first and foremost, a knight and a swordsman.

Airen Farreira.

And Illia Lindsay.

His expression turned deeply serious as he tried to estimate the strength of the two genius swordsmen.

* * *

"Damn it, what is going on?"

Perry Martinez, Lavath's prized battle mage, had spent the whole day scowling after being blindsided by news that struck like lightning out of a clear night sky.

Calven, a side he'd assumed didn't even need watching, had brought along not one but two Sword Masters.

And one of the two was none other than the celebrated daughter of House Lindsay, holder of the honored title of youngest Sword Master in history.

Barely twenty years old, if that, but her influence on the continent was every bit as great as his own, maybe greater.

'Maybe House Lindsay, maybe Adan Kingdom itself, wants a spoonful of this dungeon too!'

No, Perry Martinez genuinely believed that.

He was convinced the bad blood between House Lindsay and Ignet was just an excuse, and that this was the real goal all along.

'Ha ha, you misunderstand. Illia Lindsay's participation is purely her own personal choice, and naturally, her rights are limited accordingly. She and Airen Farreira are joining the expedition strictly as mercenaries, and they will receive only the compensation agreed upon in advance. And that cost, of course, will be covered entirely by Calven.'

'But...'

'That's enough. Unless you're suggesting our Calven is pathetic enough to be pushed around by a single noble house, let's leave it there.'

Of course, there wasn't much he could do about it at this point.

Too little time remained before the expedition, and Calven's knight commander, Gregory Griffin, wasn't someone easily handled either.

By raw strength alone, the man was a relic who could retire any day without anyone batting an eye. But when it came to talk, he was sharper than Perry himself.

"Ugh. Nothing's going the way I planned."

In the end, all Lavath could do was keep a close watch to make sure Calven didn't pull anything worse, and push hard to shine during the dungeon expedition to demand a bigger share of the treasure. Those were the only two options left.

At least there was one saving grace, Lavath stood alone among the four nations in terms of magical strength.

'Nothing matters more than magic in a dungeon expedition.'

Unlike a swordsman, who could reliably show off his strength with just a sword in any situation, a mage needed all sorts of preparation.

A tedious, cumbersome process, and endless tools required besides.

But flip that around, and it meant that once all that inconvenient, bothersome prep work was finished, a mage's efficiency could double, even triple.

Which made mages the perfect force for an environment as unpredictable and ever-changing as a dungeon.

'Right. Still not bad at all.'

Perry Martinez nodded.

For this dungeon, he'd brought in a dungeon specialist from the eastern continent and had countless exploration tools crafted.

The situation was still fine.

Having talked himself into feeling better, he let out a breath and turned to head back. The night air had turned cold, so he figured he'd cut his walk short and return to his lodging.

But he couldn't do that.

Wooooom!

"....."

A powerful surge of mana, felt from a distance that was neither too close nor too far!

The instant he felt it, Perry Martinez used every scrap of magical strength he had and launched himself toward the source of the power.

Shwip.

Shwip shwip.

His form blinked in and out, again and again.

Erasing distances of one to twenty meters in an instant, his movement was the kind of sight that would astonish even a fellow mage.

Even the most skilled mages of the east couldn't cast spells this fast, one after another, without pause.

The ironic part was that even the great Perry Martinez, who could pull off something like that, had felt a surge of mana this dense somewhere within the territory, strong enough to genuinely surprise him.

'Who in the world is this?'

'Phalanke? Did that man Sevion go and hire a mage?'

'But how? A mage who can handle mana on this scale...'

'You'd need to be the head of one of Runtel Kingdom's three great houses to pull off something like this.'

Countless questions rose and faded, one after another. All the while, Perry kept casting spell after spell without rest.

The casting speed was punishing enough to leave a sweet, metallic taste in his mouth, but curiosity wouldn't let a mage like him stop.

He managed to reach the mysterious location before it was too late, and he was able to confirm just who had caused all this.

The problem was.

The being who had wielded that enormous surge of mana was far beyond anything he could have imagined.

"...A dragon?"

"Hm? Me?"

Hearing the middle aged mage's voice, the figure turned around.