WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 24

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Nothing Has Changed (2)

"...?"

Illia Lindsay's face showed a flicker of confusion.

Airen hadn't approached her once since the Mid-Term Evaluation. That he'd suddenly shown up like this made no sense to her. And now, on top of that, he'd abruptly held out his hand.

'What is this? A bracelet? And...'

"A letter and a gift."

The boy's answer came a beat late.

His expression was no different from hers, blank as ever.

But it didn't carry the same cold edge that hers did.

If anything, it felt a little more human than his usual flat, dry look.

Illia didn't have the composure to think too carefully about that, though.

Hiding her bewilderment, she spoke in a chilly tone.

"A gift? And a letter? What's this about all of a sudden?"

"Well. Guess it is sudden."

"Explain. What were you thinking, giving me something like this?"

Illia genuinely couldn't understand it.

That he'd bring her a gift after hearing what she'd said to him, words that had all but severed things between them. And a letter, on top of that?

Her tone sharpened without her meaning it to.

But none of it seemed to touch Airen at all.

If anything, his voice came out calmer than it had when he'd first stood in front of her.

"I have a younger sister."

"What?"

The sudden, out-of-nowhere remark cracked Illia's blank expression.

What on earth was he talking about?

Whether she followed or not, Airen kept going.

"She's bad with people. Bad at showing how she feels, bad at telling anyone what she's thinking. We've had our share of fights over misunderstandings because of it, but the next morning, there'd always be a letter waiting by my pillow. Along with a gift."

Her own way of making up, he said, then looked into Illia Lindsay's eyes.

She looked back at him.

The conversation continued.

"You probably know I'm not great with words either. I never know where to start, can't organize my thoughts, it's just hard."

"..."

"But taking the time to write it out helps. I think I get now why my sister liked letters so much."

"You think this is going to make me help you again?"

Illia said.

Colder than before, sharper than before. She didn't fully understand why she reacted that way. The hostile air she'd let fall away rose back up around her.

Airen paid it no mind, of course.

He only smiled faintly, pressed the letter and the gift into her hand, and said this.

"That's fine too."

With those words, Airen Farreira turned and left, as if he truly wanted nothing in return.

Illia Lindsay stood frozen for a long while.

She looked down at the letter the boy had handed her, and at the bracelet with its flower-shaped ornament, then finally set her sword down on the weapons rack.

And started walking.

"What?"

"Lindsay? Is she really heading back to the dorms?"

"Already? Why?"

A few trainees resting due to poor condition spoke up, startled.

It made sense that they'd be surprised. Illia Lindsay had never once skipped her personal training.

She was every bit as relentless as Airen, known as the hardest worker at the fencing hall.

Naturally, Illia paid their words no mind.

No, she couldn't have, even if she'd wanted to. This time, the noise around her simply didn't reach her ears. She just walked, and went into her room.

Then she read the boy's letter.

Read it, and read it again.

'This is irritating.'

There wasn't much to it.

That he understood she might have been upset by what he'd done back then.

That he was sorry to say it, but even so, he didn't regret what happened.

That regardless of all that, he wanted to make things right between them.

Strangely enough, that simple content stirred up an anger she could barely stand.

'And this gift, too...'

Illia looked at the bracelet sitting on her desk.

A silver bracelet. Not flashy, but carrying a strange, faint energy that marked it as something precious. He'd probably contacted his family to get it.

None of that mattered, though.

What mattered was that the pattern engraved into the bracelet was an Adonis flower, and that it brought back a certain memory from her past.

"Hah."

A hot breath escaped her mouth.

She knew it was just a coincidence.

That a boy rumored to be a lazy lord couldn't possibly know anything about her personal history. That, to begin with, he wasn't cruel enough to do something like that on purpose.

Still, it irritated her. Unbearably so.

The girl stood in her room like that for a long, long time.

"..."

Tens of minutes passed. Hours passed.

Even after the fencing hall's most diligent trainee had stopped his training and drifted off to sleep, Illia Lindsay kept standing there.

And then, finally, she understood.

Where her anger had actually come from.

She murmured quietly to herself.

"It was me."

Airen Farreira was the same now as he'd been before.

His heart, his actions, the way he treated her, none of it had changed.

She was the one who'd changed.

She nodded to herself, and stayed awake through the rest of the night, lost in thought.

* * *

Dawn broke. No, that wasn't quite the right way to put it.

It was a little past four in the morning, and with autumn shortening the days after summer's end, the sky was still dark.

Even at that early hour, there were children in the main training ground.

More than twenty of them, in fact.

Higher stamina, the fencing hall's excellent recovery magic support, and a rivalry among the trainees that grew hotter by the day had all made it possible.

Airen Farreira was one of them, naturally. He was the kind of relentless case who'd kept up his dawn training even in the height of summer, when most of the other children had collapsed from exhaustion.

Now that things were far better than before, there wasn't a single reason to slack off.

Whoosh!

"Ugh, is it because it's morning? I've got no strength in my arms. You're not like that?"

"I'm fine."

"It's honestly weird. I've never even seen you nod off during the academics classes. Do you not sleep at night or something?"

"Not really, no."

Judith stood beside him, as always, as if it were only natural.

The trainees nearby watched the girl with envy, half asleep and yet swinging a sword with more force than any of her peers.

She'd achieved a standing among the top three in the fencing hall without any guidance from a prestigious house, and it was her sheer talent that made that possible, the very thing they envied so bitterly.

That envious gaze wasn't aimed only at the red-haired girl, though.

If anything, even more eyes were fixed on Airen Farreira standing next to her.

'I'm jealous. I wish I had a chance to spar with Judith too...'

'No, forget Judith, anyone from A-Class would do...'

'Damn it. I should've built connections with the top-tier kids too.'

That was right. Most of the trainees in the main training ground weren't envying Airen himself, but the friendship he'd built with Judith during the Mid-Term Evaluation.

As mentioned before, swordsmanship was a skill only completed with an opponent, and whether or not you had a good sparring partner mattered enormously to your training.

That was exactly why so many wandering swordsmen across the continent went looking for someone stronger than themselves, asking for sparring matches and lessons.

Seen in that light, it was quite the shame that Airen, who ranked dead last even in C-Class, let alone B-Class, had Judith all to himself.

Of course, despite thinking all that, none of the trainees actually considered approaching her.

The red-haired girl had an absolutely foul temper.

If it hadn't been for what happened during the Mid-Term Evaluation, there was no way Airen could have gotten close to Judith either.

So the children swallowed their disappointment and turned away from the pair.

But a moment later, their eyes were drawn right back to Airen Farreira.

Illia Lindsay, House Lindsay's prodigy, had suddenly walked over to him.

'What? All of a sudden?'

'Why's she in the main training ground? Did she come out here on purpose just to talk to Airen?'

'Weren't the two of them on bad terms?'

Illia Lindsay disliked showing her house's swordsmanship to others.

That was why her training always happened in one of the smaller, less-visited training grounds.

But now, for the first time, she'd set foot in the main training ground during her personal training hours, and on top of that, she was walking toward Airen Farreira, someone she'd seemed to have fallen out with. Naturally, curiosity spread through the crowd.

"Huh?"

"What's this?"

But what the silver-haired girl actually did turned out to be nothing much.

She walked close enough for the lazy lord to notice her, held his gaze for one or two seconds.

And that was it.

Afterward, she left the main training ground as if nothing had happened at all.

Judith, who'd been watching from the side, asked with a baffled look.

"What was that about?"

Airen didn't answer.

It wasn't that he didn't know the reason, unlike the other children.

He'd seen it. As Illia turned away, the bracelet he'd given her had been fastened around her left wrist.

'Good. That's a relief.'

There'd been no words exchanged. Her expression had stayed just as cold as ever.

But it was enough that she'd accepted his sincerity. A faint smile crossed Airen's lips.

"What? Did you just smile?"

"Did I?"

"Don't give me 'did I.' What's going on?"

"Nothing much."

"You two are seriously ridiculous. One of you comes over out of nowhere, glares at somebody, then just walks off, and the other one's over here grinning like an idiot about it. I don't even know what's going on in your heads."

Judith kept her eyes fixed on Airen the whole time she said this.

She was trying to read his expression, hoping to piece together what had happened between the two of them.

Asking outright felt oddly embarrassing, but letting it go without knowing was eating at her a little too.

But the boy's expression vanished as quickly as it had come, and stayed gone.

There was nothing more to get out of him.

Eventually giving up, the girl spat to one side and picked up her sword. It was turning into an irritatingly eventful morning.

Just then, though, another figure approached Airen Farreira.

Once again, the curious eyes of the trainees gathered. Judith's included.

She muttered to herself without meaning to.

"Brett?"

"Airen Farreira."

Brett Lloyd came to a stop in front of Airen and called out his name. This was different from what had happened with Illia.

Anyone could tell at a glance that he'd come with a purpose.

Watching the lazy lord hold the attention of the fencing hall's top-tier trainees, the ones nearby let their imaginations run wild.

'Is today some kind of special day?'

'Why's Brett here now, too? Is he challenging him to another duel? No, wait, maybe not a duel, a spar?'

'No way. That can't be it.'

Right. There was no way that could be it.

If the last duel had ended in something close to even, maybe, but Airen Farreira had suffered a defeat so lopsided it was almost pitiful.

Brett Lloyd, of all people, knew better than anyone that a month's time wouldn't have changed that outcome.

So then, what could it be?

What reason could he have had to come find Airen deliberately, at this early hour of the morning, and speak to him?

"What do you want?"

"Let's keep in touch going forward. Train together sometimes."

"...What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. Like what you've got going with Judith, let's stay in contact, help fill in each other's gaps. Sword-wise."

A top-tier trainee, making a surprise proposal to the lowest-ranked trainee in the hall.

The children in the main training ground stared at Brett Lloyd with eyes just as wide as when they'd heard about the duel challenge.

'Is he being serious?'

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