WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 2

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The Lazy Lord Takes Up the Sword (1)

The Farreira territory, located in the south of Hale Kingdom, was famous for trade. Bordering two neighboring kingdoms meant a constant flow of goods and people.

But something else was even more famous: the children of Baron Farreira.

A veteran guard who'd manned the gate for over five years laughed heartily.

"Ha, you mean Lady Kiril? Incredible, that girl. Absolutely incredible! Only eleven years old and already given the official title of Sorcerer."

"Wow, really? Did the royal family appoint her themselves?"

"That's right! You know how rare Sorcerers are, don't you?"

The rookie nodded, looking a little clueless at the senior guard's question.

"Oh, I know! I heard they're even harder to find than those great mages."

"Exactly! You can't even compare her to the mages piled up at the Mage Tower. And she's already awakened as a Sorcerer. The future of Farreira territory is basically a smooth road from here, wouldn't you say?"

The senior guard's face was full of pride as he talked about Baron Farreira's daughter, Kiril Farreira.

It couldn't be helped. He'd lived here his whole life, and he'd been loyal to the house his whole life.

Farreira's pride was, naturally, his own pride.

But that moment didn't last. A guard with a big nose, who'd been quietly listening until then, burst the bubble.

"Heh, so what if she is. No matter how amazing the young lady is, the eldest child is still the young lord."

"....."

"And that young lord won't even get out of bed. Smooth road, my foot. We should just be glad he hasn't been picked apart by the hyenas circling him yet..."

"Hey! Watch your mouth!"

The senior who'd been singing the young lady's praises glared, eyes blazing. But the big nosed soldier didn't stop grumbling, and soon a heated argument broke out.

"You little punk, the senior tells you to stop and you keep running your mouth..."

"Wait, I'm not lying, I'm just saying what's true, and I can't even say it? This rookie here just got transferred from somewhere else, he doesn't know anything, but he should at least know this much..."

"Why you little..."

The two guards, frozen in place, turned red then purple in the face.

The rookie stood between them, not knowing what to do, thinking to himself.

'No, I already knew that much too...'

That was true.

Eleven year old Sorcerer Kiril Farreira's fame was well earned, but there was someone even more famous.

The lazy young lord, Airen Farreira.

He was the real main character of this story.

Not in a good way, of course.

As the nickname suggested, mockery and scorn always trailed behind him.

He'd done nothing until he turned fifteen, sleeping all day, and plenty of people looked down on him for it.

'Last month the young lord from the neighboring territory openly humiliated him, and he didn't even talk back, did he...'

For a rookie who fancied himself sensitive to gossip, this much information was nothing.

He even had a rough idea of why Airen Farreira had become the lazy young lord in the first place.

Something about losing his mother in an accident when he was young... yeah, that was probably it.

'Well, I guess watching your mother die right in front of you as a kid would leave a pretty big scar... but still...'

He was in the middle of that thought when a high pitched voice, the kind that snapped a person's attention right into focus, came from behind.

"What do you think you're doing right now?"

"Hup!"

"Gah!"

The two soldiers, eyes bloodshot from arguing, froze solid.

When they managed to turn their heads, the people standing there were Kiril Farreira and her mother, the baron's second wife, Amel Farreira.

Their blue eyes fixed on the soldiers. All three scrambled over and bent at the waist in a stiff bow.

"We're sorry!"

"Who told you to make that kind of racket while on duty?"

"We're very sorry!"

"Why would you even do something you need to apologize for?"

"We won't do it again!"

"And that fixes what you already did wrong how, exactly?"

"That, um..."

Kiril Farreira, clearly no stranger to scolding soldiers, snapped at them with a sharp edge.

Amel calmed her with an even voice.

"That's enough, Kiril."

"But those two just..."

"That's enough. I'm sure they understand their mistake well by now. Isn't that right?"

"Y-yes! Of course!"

"Good. I don't know what you were discussing, but please focus on your duty instead of personal conversation."

Her smile was gentle, but there was steel underneath the words.

The senior guard, breaking into a cold sweat without meaning to, answered loudly once more, and the young lady and the baron's wife disappeared toward the garden.

The rookie, who'd watched the whole thing with his nerves stretched tight, swallowed hard and thought to himself.

'I better keep my guard up from now on.'

Neither the fierce young lady nor the gentle second wife seemed like anyone he wanted to cross.

* * *

At that same hour, Airen Farreira, the eldest son of House Farreira, lay in bed.

It wasn't unusual. Ever since he witnessed his mother's accident at the age of four, he'd rarely left his bed.

He slept in the mornings when everyone else rubbed the sleep from their eyes and got up. He slept through the afternoons when everyone else was hard at work.

The hours when other people slept?

Of course he slept then too. Even when sleep wouldn't come, he forced himself to try. At least while he slept, his heart ached a little less.

Aside from a few exceptions, the times he actually moved around were vanishingly rare.

But strangely, right now, Airen Farreira couldn't fall asleep.

"....."

It was strange.

Airen normally hardly dreamed at all. When he did, it was always the same feeling, floating in warm water, as if wrapped in his mother's arms, repeating over and over.

But the dream he'd had these past few days was something else entirely.

'Sword training, of all things...'

Cutting, swinging, thrusting.

The memory of a man holding a heavy steel sword, pushing through an unending ordeal without rest, played over and over the whole time he slept.

It didn't feel like watching someone else.

While he dreamed, Airen wasn't Airen. The boy became a middle aged man, and that man swung a sword.

Until his mouth tasted of copper, until his muscles screamed.

That was why Airen couldn't sleep.

He'd clung to his bed to escape from pain, and now even his dreams were wearing him down.

'What on earth is this? This dream.'

No matter how hard he turned it over in his head, he couldn't figure it out.

He had no idea who the man even was.

Part of it was that dreams left memory incomplete, but even setting that aside, there was still the problem.

How was he supposed to know who some man swinging a sword all day in an utterly ordinary yard even was?

"....."

But there was something even more important than that.

Airen Farreira, who'd been lying buried under his warm blanket, slowly sat up.

Then he started doing squats, over and over.

Once.

Twice.

Three times, four, five... ten.

His body, which had never exercised once in its life, was already gasping for breath.

It was more movement than he could have imagined attempting, under normal circumstances.

... and yet he couldn't stop.

An itch.

He could feel it in every corner of his body, in every single strand of muscle, twitching.

His body wanted to move. It wanted to wake up and stretch.

The pain he'd felt in the dream had faded, leaving only the satisfaction that came after training, and that feeling was what pushed Airen's body to keep moving.

"... huff, huff."

Once he finished the squats, Airen slowly steadied his breathing.

But the excitement wouldn't settle.

His heart, beating faster than usual, pounded hard through his whole body.

Even when he forced himself to lie back down, nothing changed.

The boy let out a sigh.

Then he called out toward the door.

"Is someone out there?"

His voice wasn't loud. His throat was hoarse from long disuse.

But the response came quickly. A neatly dressed servant quietly opened the door, stepped in, and bowed his head.

"Yes. Is there something you need, young lord?"

"Um..."

Airen hesitated.

He cleared his throat, coughed a little, and made a show of furrowing his brow as though wrestling with something.

Curiosity crept into the servant's eyes as he watched.

'What on earth is he trying to say?'

The eldest young lord's usual requests were nothing much. A cup of water, maybe, or some simple food.

Aside from those basic needs, there was barely any exchange between them at all.

For him to hesitate like this.

The servant watched Airen, harboring a quiet flicker of anticipation.

And the lazy young lord didn't disappoint, delivering a statement that landed like a thunderclap.

"I want to... swing a sword. That's what I'm thinking."

"....."

"I don't really know how it's done, so could you get whatever's needed ready for me?"

"Y-yes! Um, well, so..."

A wave of visible bewilderment crossed the servant's face.

He hadn't expected anything close to this.

To confirm he'd heard correctly, he asked the young lord again.

"Just to be sure, did you just say... that you'd like to train with a sword? So you're asking, that is, ordering, that I guide you to the training grounds and prepare a wooden sword and the like... is that correct?"

"... Yeah, that's right."

The thin, gaunt boy nodded as he spoke.

The servant answered a beat late again, and hurried out to attend to it, unable to hide his shock.

And a short while later.

The lazy young lord, Airen Farreira, set foot in the training grounds for the very first time in his life.

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