WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 42

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Sorcerer (3)

As mentioned before, almost no one knew that Airen Farreira had been given conditional acceptance into Krono Fencing Hall.

Baron Farreira had kept it a secret.

If there was a chance his son could still fail and word got out anyway, he thought, it might pile pressure onto the boy. So he'd said nothing.

Truthfully, the baron himself hadn't fully trusted Airen either.

A single year was far too short a time to change a person, or so he believed.

If even a father who loved his son dearly felt that way, what hope did anyone else have?

The soldiers were no different. In their minds, Airen was still the lazy lord.

Whatever they'd seen of him right before he left for Krono Fencing Hall had long since faded from memory.

Sure, the boy had probably worked hard for a year, but he'd still come back wearing the tag of "failed to gain formal admission." A sixteen-year-old pushing himself this hard before dawn?

Of course they worried.

"How long is he planning to keep running?"

"Beats me. Feels like he's already been at that pace for ten minutes straight..."

A healthy person running for a few minutes wasn't anything unusual.

But that only held true at a moderate pace. Sprinting flat out like this was a different story entirely.

Even soldiers with solid stamina would be gasping and near retching by now.

Yet as far as the soldiers had watched, Airen Farreira had held that same pace for over ten minutes.

No, more than that.

A sharp-eyed young soldier muttered,

"Is he actually speeding up?"

"Y-yeah, looks like it."

The soldiers started to panic.

What had been mild concern a moment ago turned into something much more serious.

If the young master pushed himself too far and collapsed while they stood there watching, who would take the blame for that?

Someone had to stop him.

Uncomfortable as it was, someone had to step in and rein the young lord in.

The soldiers exchanged glances, and finally the most senior among them swallowed hard.

He approached the Farreira heir with a tense expression, and Airen, still circling the training grounds, luckily caught the intent and slowed to a stop.

But then...

"Huh?"

"What's wrong?"

"No, it's just... that..."

Why does he look so fine?

It was true.

Standing still, the young master looked utterly composed.

His breathing was faster than usual, sure, but steady and even, and there wasn't a single drop of sweat on him.

You'd have to squint hard just to notice he'd been running at all.

Anyone glancing over might've mistaken it for stretching rather than a punishing sprint, so it was no wonder the veteran soldier looked so thrown off.

Which left him with nothing to say.

What do I do now?

He'd approached meaning to stop the young master out of concern, but that concern had just evaporated.

And he could hardly say, "Ah, never mind, carry on then!" either.

Thankfully, the awkward moment resolved itself.

Airen spoke as though something had just occurred to him.

"Oh right, you said the soldiers have their dawn training today."

"Ah, yes! That's right! Um, well, we weren't trying to get in your way, sir..."

"No, it's fine. I was about to stop running anyway."

"I-is that so?"

"Yeah. I'll just use that pull-up bar over there in the corner."

Airen told the small lie out of kindness. In truth, he'd been cut off at a rather awkward point, and his body still itched for more.

But that was fine. Running wasn't the only exercise there was. The boy walked to the bar and hopped up lightly.

He kept going, moving with easy confidence.

"..."

"..."

The soldiers watched, dumbstruck.

As the muster time drew closer and more soldiers gathered, each new arrival wore the same blank expression as they stared at the lazy lord.

* * *

"Ugh, I'm so sleepy."

Orlin Jukran, a knight of the Farreira territory, yawned wide as he headed toward the training grounds.

He was there to oversee the scheduled six o'clock dawn training. He hadn't been drinking, but he'd tossed and turned all night and felt anything but rested.

Damn it, subjugation season rolls around and suddenly everyone's cracking the whip.

Every spring, the Six Southern Houses of Southern Hale Kingdom formed a joint force to hunt down monsters.

Without regular culling, the monsters in the mountains would spill out onto the major roads.

That meant this time of year always brought a heavier workload. And a lot more eyes watching from the sidelines.

That wasn't all, either.

House Farreira's reputation kept climbing by the day.

Praise for the kind and capable Baron Farreira, a territory that kept growing wealthier, and a Sorcerer with a bright future ahead, Kiril Farreira.

All good things, sure, but a steep rise like that tended to draw jealous eyes from the neighbors.

Orlin Jukran scowled, thinking of the quiet pressure from the surrounding houses.

I need to tighten things up too, so we don't look weak. If I slip up, the baron's newly recruited knights might just take my place...

"Tch."

He clicked his tongue as his thoughts wandered on.

His mind had drifted to the eldest son, the one who'd been studying at the fencing hall, who'd returned yesterday afternoon.

Given that the lazy lord was the biggest blemish on House Farreira's name, the pressure from rivals going forward would likely get even more relentless and underhanded.

And he'd have to shoulder his share of the extra work and stress that came with it.

Following that line of thought only dragged his already sour mood further down.

"Ugh. That easygoing young master has no idea. No idea how much the people around him worry themselves sick over him, how much they have to..."

He trailed off with a startled sound as he stepped through the entrance to the training grounds.

"Huh?"

Something felt off.

It was 5:55 now. By this hour the soldiers should've all been assembled, standing sharp and waiting. Instead they looked scattered and loose.

Like a crowd gathered at a market to gawk at something.

Irritation flaring, he crept toward the soldiers, planning to bark a sudden shout right in their faces to scare them straight.

"Ah, Sir Jukran!"

But the plan failed. A young soldier spotted him first.

And the kid didn't seem the least bit worried about getting caught slacking. Face flushed with excitement, he ran up and said,

"Look at that, sir!"

"What are you on about?"

"The young master's training."

"What? The young master? At this hour?"

Orlin's surprised expression shifted into a nod of realization. "Ah!"

Come to think of it, the young lord had been swinging his sword hard for a full month before leaving for the fencing hall too.

Guess going to the fencing hall knocked some sense into him after all.

But that alone didn't explain why the soldiers were in such disarray. He didn't particularly want to understand it, either.

He headed toward the soldiers, already rehearsing how he'd chew them out.

"Well, now."

A few of them greeted him properly. The rest didn't even notice he'd arrived, still staring fixated at the young master.

Orlin felt his patience fraying.

What could possibly be so fascinating that they hadn't even noticed him walk up?

Curious despite himself, he turned to look.

A moment later, he found himself wearing the exact same blank expression as the soldiers, frozen in place.

"Hup, hup."

"Haa, haa."

Steady, even breathing.

Precise, powerful movements to match.

Airen Farreira was working the pull-up bar with easy composure. The motion resembled a standard pull-up.

But the difficulty was on an entirely different level.

The boy wasn't just pulling himself up to chin height. He went well past that, hauling his waist all the way above the bar.

And that wasn't even everything.

"How much do those plates weigh, anyway?"

"No idea. Wait, there's a matching one over in the corner. Want to try lifting it?"

A band was cinched around the boy's waist as he worked through the motion, a heavy plate hanging from it behind him.

One curious soldier picked up the matching plate with both hands.

He couldn't hold it for more than a second before setting it back down, staring at the pull-up bar with a look of shock.

The other soldiers reacted the same way.

"Good grief, he's got that heavy a weight strapped on, enough to make anyone stagger..."

"And he's still pulling off moves like that?"

"What happened to him in one year?"

"Wait, wasn't he rejected from the fencing hall?"

The soldiers, still staring blankly at Airen, drifted into a different topic.

How had the young master achieved something like that, and if he'd achieved that much, why had he still been rejected?

Of course, no answer was coming. None of them knew the truth.

They had no idea how far Krono Fencing Hall stood above an ordinary fencing hall.

No idea how exceptional and cutthroat this particular cohort had been, even by that fencing hall's already brutal standards.

No idea what kind of training the children had endured just to survive there, or what level of stamina and mental fortitude the survivors had built.

And finally, no idea where Airen Farreira had actually stood among that pool of overflowing talent.

The soldiers knew none of it.

Neither did Orlin Jukran.

"Sir Jukran!"

"Huh, what? What is it!"

A soldier called out to him. Orlin, who'd been staring blankly at the lazy lord himself, answered a beat too late.

"I don't really know much about this, sir, but isn't the young master's level pretty incredible right now? Why do you think he got rejected from the fencing hall?"

I don't know either, you idiot! What the hell even happened to him in one year?

He couldn't make sense of it any more than the soldier could.

He knew Krono Fencing Hall was famous, sure, but he'd never imagined they'd turn away someone with physical abilities like that.

Still, he had no intention of admitting that honestly.

He hated the idea of acknowledging the lazy lord he'd looked down on all this time, and he hated even more the idea of exposing his own ignorance.

He thought it over for a moment, then spoke.

"You idiot, you think Krono Fencing Hall just lets people in based on physical ability alone?"

"Ah, is that not how it works?"

"Of course not. What is a fencing hall, huh? It's a place you learn the sword. Sure, the young master's... changed quite a bit, I'll admit, but honestly, someone who's never picked up a sword in his life getting into a prestigious school like that? That's not easy."

"Ah, I guess that makes sense..."

"Right, the young master's never trained with a sword before..."

"Sir Jukran's got a point."

The soldiers nodded along.

A little smug now, Orlin kept talking.

"Besides, it might look impressive to you lot, but by knight standards, that's really nothing special."

"Whoa, is that so?"

"Then could you do something like that easily too, Sir Jukran?"

"Obviously. You think earning a knighthood is some easy feat?"

Jukran said it with a completely straight face.

It was technically true that he could do it. Even without the fire of his younger years, he was still a knight, after all.

Though it wouldn't be easy for him either, and it would genuinely wear him out.

Of course, there was no need to tell the soldiers that part. He decided to wrap up the small talk here and get training started.

But right then, Airen Farreira's movement changed.

"Whoa..."

"How is that even possible?"

"..."

"Sir Jukran! Sir Jukran, can you do that one easily too?"

Hanging from the bar, Airen brought his body level with the ground, then lifted his legs until the soles of his feet pointed skyward.

Then, like a pendulum, he swung side to side.

It was an insanely difficult movement, the kind of thing you couldn't even attempt without monstrous core strength.

Orlin watched for a moment, then exploded, shouting,

"You idiots! It's already six-ten! How long are you going to gawk! Fall in for training, now!"

* * *

"Then I'll take my leave, Father."

"Yes, good work."

Viscount Phil Gairon smiled as he watched his second son, just back from the Farreira territory.

Aren Gairon withdrew looking somewhat downcast, leaving only the viscount and Jack Steward in the room.

Phil Gairon, wearing his usual cynical expression, asked,

"Why's that kid making a face like he swallowed a bug? Something happen over at the baron's territory?"

"..."

"So there is something. Out with it, all of it."

"...Understood."

At that voice, sharp and cold as an old wildcat's, Jack Steward laid out everything he'd seen, heard, and felt, without holding anything back.

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