WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 278: The Fifth Energy (3)
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"..."
"..."
Nine guests had gathered in the Farreira estate's reception room. It hadn't been planned. They had gathered by chance. Truly, by chance.
Every one of them was a formidable figure.
Ian, the Hall Master of Krono.
Kun, his eternal rival.
Just those two names alone were enough to leave anyone speechless.
But they weren't the end of it.
Joshua Lindsay, known as the finest swordsman of the Western Five Kingdoms, and Karakum, the Great Warrior said to have no equal among the entire orc race.
Then there were Illia Lindsay, judged to possess even greater potential than them, and Brett Lloyd, who led Krono's Golden Generation.
'Zet Frost falls a bit short compared to those before him, but he's still a powerhouse anywhere he goes. Airen was always impressive, but now he's truly become a giant.'
The spirit mage Kubharu wore a gentle smile as he took in the guests' faces.
He felt good.
He hadn't known Airen for as long as Illia and Brett had, but he too had known Airen for a long time.
A little embarrassing to admit, but he had also left no small mark on Airen.
Years ago, Airen had wandered through each day carrying a piece of iron within him, sturdy but impossible to control.
Yet now, he had become an entirely different person.
There was no trace of that old unease.
There was no sign of restlessness either, nor any indication that he was suffering under the weight of some grand new ambition.
Had he changed as a person?
Kubharu did not want to put it that way.
Airen still greeted him with the same kind eyes and warm smile as always.
'His capacity has grown. He's matured without losing his integrity... That would be a more fitting way to put it. Though I don't know if I'm even qualified to judge Airen like this.'
Finishing the thought, Kubharu smiled even more deeply and held out his hand.
Airen reached out and returned the handshake.
It was a simple greeting for two people meeting again after so long.
But it did not feel lacking. What passed between them ran far deeper than the gesture itself.
"Kubharu, it's been a while. I actually visited Durkali once riding a Griffin, but we must have missed each other."
"So I heard. Sorry for making you waste the trip. I should have sent a letter at least."
"It's fine. What matters is that we're face to face now. Great Warrior Karakum, it's been a while too."
"Mm."
Karakum gave a short nod.
He was not especially shy around strangers, but with so many formidable figures gathered, he could not relax as he did back among his own tribe.
The fight he had left unfinished did not help either, leaving a bitter aftertaste. The others felt much the same.
Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Kubharu pulled something out.
A bottle of liquor.
"A traditional drink from Durkali."
"..."
"How about a light drink, everyone?"
"I'm in favor."
"Hmm."
Brett Lloyd spoke up quickly, and Joshua Lindsay showed that he was not opposed either.
Nobody else seemed against it.
Kubharu nodded and set three more bottles on the table, while a sharp-eyed servant brought out glasses and ice.
And so, a somewhat early drinking party began.
"Really? That's what happened?"
"Yes. So at that point..."
"Hm. This is more tart than I expected. There's a bit of carbonation too..."
"You know your drinks?"
"Not enough to really claim it, but... I do enjoy them fairly often, my lord."
"Airen, by the way, where are Lulu and Kiril?"
"Ah, Lulu hasn't been around much lately. It seems like she's working on something of her own. Kiril went to see Lance."
"Ah, I see..."
"..."
"..."
As the conversation gradually began to flow and the awkwardness melted away, only Zet Frost and John Drew remained apart, maintaining an uncomfortable air.
No, that was not quite right for Zet Frost.
He had no close friends and was not the friendly sort by nature, but he loved drinking as much as Brett and Kubharu did.
Simply enjoying liquor from an unfamiliar region was enough for him to have a perfectly good time.
John Drew, though, could not say the same.
Was it because he was not much interested in drinking?
That was part of it, but the real problem was his own sense of inferiority.
'Do I even belong here?'
Including himself, there were ten people gathered in this guest room.
Eight of them had reached Master level.
Thinking about it, it made no sense at all.
Out of the roughly one hundred Masters known to exist across the whole continent, nearly a tenth of them were crammed into some backwater territory!
Sure, word had it that the number of Masters had recently grown past 150, but even accounting for that, the situation was absurd.
'I thought I was, I thought I was pretty decent myself...'
John Drew glanced across the table.
Kubharu's face came into view.
Like him, Kubharu was one of the only non-Masters there, someone whose name carried less weight than those gathered in the room.
But even Kubharu was different from John Drew.
He was the spiritual mentor of today's man of the hour, Airen Farreira.
And more than that, he was the son of the Great Warrior Karakum and the older brother of Tarakhan, chieftain of Durkali! He had been born into a bloodline that could not even be compared to John Drew's!
In the end, he alone had neither ability nor background. He alone was the sorry one there.
The ugly duckling among swans.
No, something even lesser than that. A frog among swans.
Swept up in a rising tide of sorrow, John Drew deeply regretted his decision to come all the way to the Farreira estate.
Just then.
Airen, who had been catching up with Kubharu, turned to him with a warm expression.
"Instructor John Drew. It's been a while."
"...Huh? Instructor?"
"Aren't you my instructor? The mind games and tactical thinking you taught me are still vivid in my head... Ah, I spoke too formally. Sorry, it's been so long that I got a little awkward. Ha ha."
"Ah, uh... Right, of course. Feel free to be more relaxed with me, like before, like before. Ha ha ha..."
John Drew laughed with a stiff expression.
He was grateful. Grateful enough to bring tears to his eyes that Airen would bother paying attention to someone as insignificant as him, tucked in among giants.
But he had no intention of getting the wrong idea.
'Can't let this go to my head and get carried away.'
John Drew called up a few memories from the past.
Mostly ones involving women.
Him cracking a joke, the other person laughing out of politeness, him missing that entirely and getting excited enough to pile on more nonsense, his voice rising, his words speeding up, and the woman's expression slowly curdling...
Not this time.
He needed to know his place.
If he let himself cross a line just because someone showed him kindness, if he pretended to be closer than he was.
If he did that...
"Come to think of it, I heard you've officially opened your own fencing hall this time."
"Huh?"
"Ah, is that not right?"
"No, it's right, but..."
John Drew froze, caught off guard.
It was not something he had hidden. He truly had felt his swordsmanship take a leap forward, and that conviction had settled in.
He had already secured a location too. In Aienmarc, it was already common knowledge.
But that was only true in the western part of the continent.
For word to have reached the Farreira estate, so far removed from there, it would take more than picking up a stray rumor. It would take real, deliberate interest.
'...Maybe Airen and I are closer than I thought?'
That thought began, little by little, to lift the self-esteem he had buried in a hole of his own making.
And it did not stop there.
The conversation with Airen kept going.
It was not merely small talk about how he had been doing. It drifted toward swordsmanship itself, specifically into the area John Drew had spent years delving into.
The others leaned in to listen too.
At the very moment the attention of actual Masters was about to shrink his confidence again, Airen spoke.
"Honestly, Mr. Drew, your thought process is much freer than mine."
"H-huh?"
"Even given the same crisis situation, you come up with a much wider range of solutions. Several are approaches I never would have considered..."
"..."
Airen Farreira understood and admired John Drew's philosophy of the sword with complete sincerity and no pretense.
Moved by that attitude, John Drew laid out his own thoughts with far more passion than before.
Illia Lindsay, Brett Lloyd, and Zet Frost joined the flow, offering their own ideas.
Watching them quietly, the Great Warrior Karakum gave a slow nod.
'Past Metal and Fire, into Water... and now edging into the energy of Earth as well.'
Conversation was not merely words passing back and forth. It was an exchange of thoughts, feelings, and the hearts each person carried.
And everything just described carried the nature of water.
Flowing, spreading, seeping in, and soaking through.
Which was exactly why too much of it caused problems.
'You become dyed by someone else's feelings and lose your own color, or you become soaked in someone else's emotions until even your own heart wears thin. Because it's heavy. Because it's confusing. And because of that fear, most people shut the door on real exchange.'
But Airen was not like that.
Surrounded by people so overwhelming that an ordinary person would struggle just to meet their eyes, he stood there, firmly holding his center.
He led the flow of conversation and, beyond that, pried open even hearts that had been closed shut.
Because he had built a solid foundation. Because he had developed a different kind of strength from Steel.
Watching this young hero embrace the feelings and convictions of everyone there with room to spare...
'...I don't think I need to step in and help with this one.'
Karakum grew certain that Airen would complete the energy of the Five Elements on his own, without any need for direct teaching.
Come to think of it, Karakum had already sensed that this was not his place to interfere.
Their roots might be the same, but the power Airen was cultivating now had grown fairly different from Durkali's own tradition.
So he would simply watch.
Watch it sprout.
Wearing a faint smile, Karakum took a drink along with the others.
"You're not drinking?"
"Not in the mood."
"Strange. I could understand it if you were cooped up somewhere, but turning down a drink on a rare outing like this..."
"You drink it, then."
"I prefer tea to liquor myself anyway. More importantly..."
Unlike Karakum, Ian and Kun did not feel much awe at Airen's growth.
They already knew better than anyone just how remarkable he was becoming. And it was not only Airen. Every young person there was growing at a pace beyond imagining.
Judith, even absent from the room, was no different.
That said, it was not as if they had no interest in Airen either.
Lowering his voice, Ian leaned in with a grin.
"Those two."
"Who?"
"Airen and Illia. You heard, didn't you? They're a couple."
"I heard. So what?"
"Isn't it amusing, though? A pair of twenty-somethings, together for well over half a year now, still acting all fresh-faced and shy like that."
"Nosy old man..."
Even as he said that, Kun quietly agreed with Ian's point.
With so many people around, Airen and Illia did not make much of a show of it.
But whenever their eyes met, something shifted in their expressions and gazes that neither could hide, enough to seem sweet even to an old man past one hundred.
Except...
"What's that supposed to be? It's like watching kids play house."
"Hm?"
"Well, isn't it? They're not children anymore. How long are they going to stay all shy and innocent like that?"
"Heh heh, you're being harsh. What do you expect them to do with everyone else in the room?"
"You can tell just from the mood. It's the same everywhere else too."
"Heh heh heh..."
Ian, at a loss for words, let out a laugh.
Honestly, he thought much the same. Even he doubted the two would do anything particularly bold when left alone.
But that was merely the opinion of two elders.
Quietly drinking, with his ears tuned to catch their whispered exchange, Brett shook his head without a word.
'They still don't get it.'
Letting out a deep sigh, he refilled his glass. Then he downed it in one go.
I miss you, Judith.
He muttered to himself, then sighed once more.
* * *
At that same hour.
The Holy Kingdom's subjugation force members, scattered across the land in pursuit of demons, all converged on the capital.
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