WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 25

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New Change (1)

It was a baffling thing to say.

Everyone thought so. Judith was no exception.

If anything, it was precisely because she'd spent the most time close to Airen Farreira that she could say it with such certainty.

There was nothing Brett Lloyd stood to gain from him.

'Brett... he's an insufferable little jerk, but I can't exactly say his swordsmanship is nothing.'

If an A-Class trainee and a B-Class trainee sparred, the A-Class trainee won most of the time.

That didn't mean the former was ahead of the latter in every single respect, though.

Say there were ten categories to measure. Even if the A-Class trainee held the advantage in eight or nine of them, the B-Class trainee usually had at least one or two things going for them.

But Brett and Airen were different.

'Ten out of ten. A hundred out of a hundred. Every single one goes to Brett Lloyd.'

Not that Airen had nothing to his name.

His Vertical Strike, delivered from a still stance, hadn't fallen short even next to the top-ranked trainees.

The sword he'd shown right before his duel with Brett, especially, was still burned into Judith's memory, it had been that impressive.

But that was it. That was all there was.

Whatever had been special lasted only that one moment. After that, nothing Airen did carried the same weight.

Which was exactly why she was so curious.

What in the world had that insufferable blue-haired noble seen in him, to make an offer like that to Airen Farreira?

Of course, she couldn't just ask him outright. She disliked Brett Lloyd enough that she didn't even want to trade words with him.

Standing there dumbfounded in Judith's place, the lazy lord asked the question himself.

"Well, it's good for me, but... are you sure about this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... you're way better than me. There's nothing you're lacking. If this is supposed to help both of us, I'd need to have at least one thing I'm better at than you..."

Airen trailed off. But it was enough to get the point across, and the trainees eavesdropping nearby all nodded at once.

He wasn't wrong.

If you knew your own place, turning down an offer like this was the right call. Even Judith found herself nodding along inwardly.

But Brett Lloyd, the one who'd made the offer, didn't nod along at all.

He frowned and said, "Airen Farreira. Let me give you a piece of advice."

"What?"

"Stop talking yourself down."

"Talking myself down...?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. Carry some pride as a noble. Speak with confidence. Act with confidence."

Brett's eyes burned hot.

There was no small amount of frustration in them, and a touch of anger besides.

Airen couldn't for the life of him understand why the boy in front of him was acting like this.

But the truth was, understanding wasn't easy for the Lloyd bloodline either, when it came to Airen.

"You were born with House Farreira's blood. Noble blood. Born with the right to lead others from above. And you came to Krono Fencing Hall and worked harder than anyone else, and you proved it through the Mid-Term Evaluation. That you have the ability to carry a noble's duties and responsibilities. That you have a spine that doesn't bend."

"..."

"If you'd just gotten lucky enough to be born with noble blood and nothing else... if you'd kept living up to the rumors, doing nothing for ten years, enjoying the privileges while shirking every duty, being lazy through and through, fine. Live without confidence. Bow your head to everyone, commoner and slave alike, if you want. But."

Brett paused for a moment, then finished with a sharper edge in his voice.

"From where I'm standing, you've shown behavior and ability more than fitting for a noble house. So show some pride that matches it. The way I do."

"..."

Airen Farreira couldn't find an answer for a long moment.

He couldn't help it.

He'd spent his whole life scorned as 'the lazy lord.'

The boy knew it. Nobles from other houses, the people of the territory, even the servants of his own house, all of them had talked behind his back more than once.

And he'd never argued back, because deep down he'd believed he deserved that treatment, that he really was as pathetic as they said.

To someone like that, Brett's arrogant, blunt praise, blunt enough to feel honest, struck something deep.

"Ah, yes, yes. Let's cut the noble-on-noble ass-kissing session short, shall we."

Of course, not everyone felt something from Brett's words.

Judith, the commoner, for one. She made a face like she was about to throw up, looked straight at Brett, and said, "Quit changing the subject. So what is it?"

"What's what?"

"You're saying all this because you think Airen's got something over you. So what is it. Let me in on it too."

"You're an idiot. You've been stuck to him this whole time and you still don't know?"

"What? You little..."

"W-wait! Judith!"

Airen Farreira held back the red-haired girl, who looked about ready to lunge at him.

Thankfully, she didn't go any further.

Instead she glared at the blue-haired noble brat with a look that could kill. Brett just snorted.

But he didn't hold his tongue completely.

Turning back to face Airen, he said with a serious look, "Focus."

"...Focus?"

"That's right. Focus."

Whoosh.

Brett Lloyd raised the wooden sword in his hand and settled into a stance.

Every trainee's eyes locked onto him at once, and the sight of it, honestly, suited him well.

A noble, through and through, Judith thought, and her frown deepened.

Whatever she thought, Brett swung his sword. A clean Vertical Strike.

He kept moving without a wasted motion, and kept talking as he did.

"There's something I've been chewing on since the Mid-Term Evaluation ended."

Whoosh!

"Airen and I put in about the same number of hours, as far as I can tell. So why? Why was there such a gap in results?"

Whoosh!

"Honestly, I couldn't wrap my head around it. Sure, that stubborn bastard worked a little harder than me, but when you actually count the hours, it's not much of a difference. That's what bugged me."

A few of the trainees listening nodded along.

They'd wondered the same thing.

Airen Farreira might be the hardest worker around, but time was still limited. Nobody could put in thirty or fifty hours of effort in a single day, past the twenty-four-hour limit everyone else lived under.

So now that everyone else's effort had leveled up to match, it was easy to think his once-unmatched work ethic had lost some of its shine.

But Brett Lloyd saw it differently.

"It wasn't strange at all. It was obvious. That guy never lost so much as a scrap of focus, from the start of a session to the end."

Whoosh!

"I did, though. Some days I couldn't manage a single satisfying stretch of focus in the whole day."

Whoosh!

"Some days because I was in a bad mood. Some days because it was too hot. Some days because I overdid it in class and ran out of strength, got exhausted. And some days, just because I was lazy."

Whoosh!

"I couldn't hold onto my focus. And I kept telling myself it was fine, because I'd put in the hours. Told myself that counted as enough effort."

Brett Lloyd's sword changed.

Got worse, to put it plainly. The precise line it had traced at first vanished, and the point of impact started wandering all over the place.

It looked exactly like someone forcing themselves to keep holding a sword while their focus had already slipped.

"It shouldn't have been that way."

With those words, Brett lowered his sword.

A suffocating silence settled over the training ground.

Nearly every trainee there had gone quiet, turning the moment inward on themselves.

Glancing around at them, House Lloyd's eldest son turned to House Farreira's eldest son and asked, "Anyway."

"..."

"How do you manage to hold onto that kind of focus all day long?"

"Um."

The instant the question left his mouth, a wave of eyes turned toward Airen. He wore a look of pure bewilderment.

There was only one reason he could keep working, only one reason he could hold onto that kind of deep focus. The dream. That was it. Nothing else.

But that wasn't something he could tell anyone, and even if he did, it wouldn't do Brett any good.

So the only answer available to him was the one he gave.

"I just... don't really know."

"...Well, figured you'd say something like that. Geniuses all say the same thing. 'I just do it,' 'I don't really know either,' that sort of thing."

"No, wait, me, a genius, what are you even..."

"You're a genius, alright. A genius of effort."

"..."

"Someone who puts in ten-plus hours of work every single day without ever letting their focus slip once, and you call that ordinary? That's ridiculous."

Brett let out a sigh and shook his head.

Then he took up his sword again.

This time it was nothing like what he'd shown a moment ago. Proper Krono swordsmanship.

Watching him, Airen Farreira realized that the motions Brett was demonstrating were exactly the parts he always struggled with.

"Your balance always slips right here. You should lower your center of gravity more and move from there."

"Your hand moves too fast at this point. You need to sync it with your feet and body and thrust all at once, or the motion goes off-line."

"No need to rush it."

"Huh? Oh... thanks. Really, thank you."

Brett ran through five separate motions in an instant, adding explanations simple enough to follow with each one.

Airen thanked him, watching.

But gratitude alone didn't sit easy with him.

"But I don't really have anything to teach you back..."

"Forget it. Call it an investment for later."

"An investment?"

"Right. However you're raising your focus, or that strange sword you showed off before, whatever it was, or anything else. Once your thinking's solid enough to explain it to me, pay me back then. Got it?"

"Yeah. I will. I promise."

Brett didn't wait to hear Airen's answer before turning on his heel.

He didn't head back to where the Brett family usually gathered.

Instead he walked toward Judith, who stood there scowling.

"I'd like to keep in contact with you too, going forward."

"Ha! With me? Are you kidding?"

"Not kidding."

"Look at this smug bastard, real smooth talker."

Judith sneered.

She disliked nobles. And she disliked someone like Brett, so desperate to flaunt his noble status, even more.

She had zero interest in keeping contact with someone like that, let alone sparring with him.

But then Brett came out with another surprising line.

"You have creativity."

"Huh?"

"Compared to me, stuck to my house's swordsmanship, you're a lot more free in how you react to situations, and you try more unpredictable things when you attack. That's something I'm lacking right now."

"What, why are you being weird again."

Judith's eyes wavered.

His tone was as stiff as ever, but whatever way you looked at it, Brett was praising her right now.

Considering how they'd treated each other like strangers before, worse than strangers, practically like sworn enemies, the current situation felt deeply uncomfortable.

But the blue-haired noble kept the same blank expression, as if none of it mattered to him at all.

"Of course, since I stand to gain something from this, I'd like to think you'll get something out of me in return too. So? How about we get along a little better from now on?"

"...Forget it, just get lost."

"Right. Figured you'd say that too, at least for now."

With that, Brett Lloyd turned and left.

The children who'd been watching turned back to their own business, and Judith trembled with irritation before kicking the ground.

Airen Farreira stood still, turning over what Brett had said.

"Ahem."

And the Fencing Hall Master, who'd been secretly watching the children, Brett included, left the main training ground with a pleased smile on his face.

* * *

"Whew."

Late that night, the lazy lord lay in bed and let out a breath.

Brett's words wouldn't leave his head.

'Focus... that's definitely worth thinking through.'

He couldn't put in more hours of effort. He was already wringing himself dry as it was.

He couldn't awaken talent he didn't have. If that were possible, the world would be overflowing with nothing but geniuses.

But raising his focus felt more within reach than either of those two.

If he could raise the density of his effort through that, sharpen its purity, he might reach results faster.

"Whew."

Airen let out another sigh.

It looked more possible than the other two, sure, but that didn't make it easy.

Even the focus he had now wasn't something he'd built up through his own skill. It was purely the dream's influence.

'How do I raise my focus?'

The boy's mind tangled itself up with one thought after another.

But that only lasted a moment before he drifted off to sleep.

Even with the daily healing magic he received, Airen was still keeping up with a schedule harder than that could fully offset.

Lying in a soft bed and mulling things over was never going to last long.

And a little while later.

"..."

The boy realized something.

The dream he'd had every single night, every day the same, had changed into something different.

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