WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 23

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Nothing Has Changed (1)

About twenty days had passed since the duel between Airen Farreira and Brett Lloyd.

The lingering heat of late summer still refused to let up.

Yet the hundred or so probationary trainees showed no sign of fatigue, pushing through days more grueling than ever before.

There were several reasons for this.

Escaping the endless grind of physical conditioning to finally learn swordsmanship mattered, of course. So did the class rankings, which had thrown fuel on a competitive fire that was already burning plenty hot.

But there was a far more fundamental reason behind the two above, and that reason was the sheer skill of the instructors.

"Your shoulders are tensing up when you transition between movements. Be conscious of it and fix it!"

"Your field of vision is too narrow!"

"Always think about the distance between you and your opponent. Good movement requires room to judge, and distance is what makes that possible."

"Hands and body, feet and steps! Good form comes when these overlap efficiently."

They weren't only talking about swordsmanship technique.

Ahmed and the other instructors were, in every sense, people specialized in the art of teaching others.

Drawing on years of experience, they had built a curriculum that stayed grounded in fundamentals while remaining genuinely effective, and they held to a flexible teaching philosophy that never let itself get chained down by rigid method.

Their sharp, wide-ranging attention stayed fixed on every trainee's movements at all times, and whenever correction or advice was needed, precise teaching, sharp as a blade, landed exactly where each individual needed it.

The instruction was so consistently on point that it made the trainees wonder if the instructors had simply been born teachers.

'The man who taught me back home was a fairly renowned knight too...'

'This is nothing like that.'

'So this is Krono Fencing Hall.'

If the instructors were veterans in the field of teaching, the probationary trainees could rightly be called veterans in the field of being taught.

It sounded like wordplay, but it was true.

Having received countless lessons from no small number of teachers, what else could they be called if not veterans?

And it was precisely because they were veterans that they could recognize it.

Meeting the instructors of Krono Fencing Hall was, without question, the single greatest stroke of fortune in their swordsmanship lives.

That was exactly why every one of them threw themselves into it without holding back.

During lessons, their eyes burned with focus as they tried to squeeze out every last drop of knowledge, and in the evenings, determined not to let the day's lesson slip away, they kept up brutal training with their peers, sometimes alone.

It looked as if someone had gathered the hundred hardest-working people on the entire continent.

But there was one figure who left every single one of them shaking their heads.

"That guy really doesn't quit, huh."

"...He's the most stubborn one here, no contest."

A few trainees let out sounds of admiration as they watched Airen Farreira swinging his sword in silence, off in a corner of the training grounds.

His effort wasn't something you could describe with words like impressive.

Strange didn't quite cover it either. If there was a word that came close, bizarre was probably the most fitting.

No flicker of emotion.

No change in behavior at all.

Like a puppet in a play whose story was already written, Airen Farreira carried out his set tasks day after day without the slightest trace of excitement.

The trainees watching him felt an inexplicable pressure settle over them.

'Still, there's no way he can pull off anything impressive at the Final Evaluation.'

'Maybe further down the road, but catching up to the rest of us in just a few months? Honestly, that's asking too much.'

Of course, that feeling was still faint.

No matter how inhuman he seemed, he was still a rookie.

The week with Rune Tarhall hadn't been some magic transformation. It had only ever been a test of the bare minimum qualifications.

The lazy young lord knew this himself, of course.

'Nothing has changed.'

Before he entered the fencing hall, right after he entered it, and even now. He was still the same. Still behind everyone else.

But not letting that fact break him, that too was the same as before. And that was exactly why Airen could still swing his sword today.

"Oh, you're starting to look like an actual swordsman now. Want your noona here to teach you a thing or two?"

"I'm fine for now. Just a moment..."

"Did you just turn me down? A C-Class kid, seriously? Judith here, upper ranks of A-Class, offers to personally teach you, and you're going to say no?"

"..."

"Huh? Huh? Hey, hey! Say something! I'm not trying to bother you, I'm actually trying to help, okay? Right now when you close the distance, your balance is a little..."

For four months straight Judith had ignored him and treated him like an enemy. Now she'd come asking to make peace, and beyond that, she showed up to pester him whenever she felt like it. Aside from that, nothing else had changed.

The boy set down his sword for a moment and looked off into the distance.

He saw a silver-haired girl swinging her sword with a cold expression on her face.

Watching her handle sword techniques on a level he couldn't even compare himself to, what Airen felt wasn't jealousy or envy.

"What, all of a sudden? Did me nagging next to you wear you out or something?"

"No. What you just said, could you explain that a bit more?"

Airen shook his head briefly and looked at Judith as he spoke.

Picking up his sword again, he looked no different from before.

And so another day passed at Krono Fencing Hall.

* * *

A month had passed since the Mid-Term Evaluation ended.

In that time, the distance between the probationary trainees had shrunk even further.

Small groups chatting during meals or in the personal time after lessons had become a common sight.

It was a completely different atmosphere from before, when the air had been thick with nothing but the suffocating tension of competition.

This was because the fencing hall's curriculum had shifted from physical conditioning to swordsmanship.

A sword was a type of weapon, and a weapon was a tool used in war or combat.

Which meant that swordsmanship, the method of handling a sword, inevitably required an opponent.

In practice, after finishing dinner, the trainees often sparred with whoever they got along with, and the instructors encouraged it, provided teaching assistants were present to supervise.

Of course they did. Practical training mattered just as much as polishing one's form alone.

"Hey! Let's spar!"

"...Sure."

Even Airen Farreira, who had spent nearly the entire time since enrollment as something of a loner, had found himself a sparring partner in Judith, so it went without saying that the rest of the trainees had done the same.

But there was one exception.

Illia Lindsay was still training on her own.

That was because she was fundamentally different from the other children who had enrolled at the fencing hall.

"They say House Lindsay's swordsmanship is really something, huh?"

"Yeah. Supposedly it ranks among the top ten on the continent, same as Krono Fencing Hall."

"What? Then why bother coming all the way here?"

"Damn, I'm jealous. If only I'd been born into House Lindsay..."

First, her birth was different.

She had been born into a house that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the very best among renowned fencing halls and sword families, a house that would take offense at being called second to any of them.

She had spent her childhood in the best possible environment, receiving the finest support anyone could ask for, under the finest teachers anyone could ask for.

But her overwhelming skill hadn't come from the strength of her house alone.

"...Excellent. A flawless form, not a single fault to point to."

"Thank you, Instructor."

"..."

"...Unbelievable, that's just insane."

Talent so overwhelming it forced even A-Class trainees, even Instructor Ahmed himself, to acknowledge it.

That was the second point that set Illia Lindsay apart from the other trainees.

It didn't matter how great a genius someone claimed to be.

In front of the silver-haired girl, spoken of even within House Lindsay as a once-in-a-generation talent, they couldn't so much as hold their heads up, like fireflies standing before the sun.

But there was a difference greater than either of those two, and it was this: her goal was never to become a formal trainee of Krono Fencing Hall.

Of course, no one knew this. At least, none of the probationary trainees did.

But there was an atmosphere you could sense even without being told.

The other children felt no small amount of discomfort in Illia's attitude, and they felt a wall between them.

That discomfort soon turned into something closer to resentment.

No one showed her any warmth anymore.

Just as they had once flocked to Brett's inner circle, the trainees who had tried to bask in the glow of House Lindsay's name were now, five months into enrollment, more likely to be found badmouthing Illia instead.

"Off to secretly train again today?"

"Guess so. Can't let the lowly likes of us see her house's secret sword technique, right?"

"Then why did she even bother coming here in the first place?"

"Exactly. Wanted to feel superior or something?"

"Seriously, what an obnoxious girl."

"Tell me about it."

A few trainees spoke up after dinner, watching Illia Lindsay head toward one of the smaller training grounds instead of the main one like everyone else.

The silver-haired girl heard them. And not for the first time, either.

Her body and senses, both more developed than most, had let her pick up on the gossip surrounding her for a long while now.

She also knew that most of the ones badmouthing her now had come up to her acting friendly at first.

'Nothing worth getting angry over.'

She already knew.

That was just how people were.

Knowing nothing about her past, present, or future, they got their hopes up on their own, and disappointed themselves on their own.

There was no need to let something like that hurt her.

All she had to do was spend today with the same dedication as yesterday.

And in doing so, claim first place at the Final Evaluation, just as she had at the Mid-Term Evaluation.

That was all.

Once her thoughts settled, Illia Lindsay let out a slow breath. Then she picked up her wooden sword.

In the quiet of a small training ground, empty of trainees and even teaching assistants, House Lindsay's swordsmanship was about to unfold.

Rustle.

The sound of a foot stepping on a fallen leaf.

Illia's eyes narrowed slightly.

If there was one true thing among the things the gossiping children said, it was that she hated letting others watch her train.

If it had simply been a matter of finding space, that would be one thing, but the fencing hall had training grounds to spare, and she had no desire to swing a sword alongside another trainee.

So she let her presence flare outward. Toward whoever was walking her way.

Hmmmm.

It wasn't just a matter of mood.

Just as Instructor Ahmed had done back at the start of enrollment, Illia Lindsay was clearly radiating a presence forceful enough to compel the other party.

It wasn't at a level with any physical force behind it, but the fact that it could break someone's will at all was astonishing for a twelve-year-old.

But the one approaching didn't stop walking.

The silver-haired girl's brow furrowed.

Hmmmmm!

The pressure grew stronger. Not only that, it began to concentrate on one point, the trainee drawing closer.

This, too, was remarkable.

It was a feat of skill that would have drawn a look of admiration even from Ahmed, or Karaka, or even Ian, the fencing hall's master.

But even so, this time, too, it failed to stop him.

Watching the trainee draw closer and closer toward her without pause, Illia Lindsay finally let her presence fall away.

She'd known it, really. That this much wouldn't be enough to stop him.

The reason?

Asking that question was strange in itself.

Ask any of the hundred trainees here, and they would all give the same answer.

That breaking his will was next to impossible. That was the one consistent thing he'd shown everyone up to now.

"You need something?"

Illia Lindsay asked with her usual expression.

No, actually, it was a bit colder than usual, though the girl herself didn't realize it.

What the trainee, Airen Farreira, offered her first wasn't words.

He pulled something out of his pocket and held out his hand toward Illia.

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