WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 5

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Those Who Watch (2)

Griffins didn't exist in reality. They were creatures of legend.

A lion's body, an eagle's wings, hide as tough as steel. The kind of monster that belonged in a picture book, nothing more.

But the thing Kiril Farreira rode on unmistakably wore a griffin's shape.

Everyone in the training grounds who saw it, especially the rookie guard, couldn't hide their shock.

'So this is the power of Sorcerer Kiril Farreira.'

Bringing her own creation to life, breathing energy into it as though it truly lived.

That was an ability common sense simply couldn't explain. Naturally, no one could teach it, and no one could learn it.

She'd awakened that extraordinary power at the age of ten, and by eleven she'd already earned recognition from the royal palace itself. It was hard even to guess how far Kiril Farreira's reputation had spread.

"You."

"Gulp!"

Kiril hopped down from the griffin and pointed straight at one of them.

Small in stature, cute in the face, the girl tilted her chin up slightly as she jabbed her finger out.

Sunlight caught her swaying blonde hair, giving her a bright, almost adorable air.

But the rookie guard she'd singled out felt his heart drop straight to his stomach.

The pointing finger moved on, twice more.

"You, and you."

"Hup!"

"Y, yes! My lady!"

"Aren't you three supposed to be on duty? Why are you loitering around here?"

"Th, that is, we just finished our shift, properly, we just handed things over to the afternoon crew without any issues! We haven't done anything that could be a problem!"

"That's right! We didn't even chat during our shift!"

The two senior guards stammered out their excuses, voices shaking.

They weren't making anything up, they were telling the plain truth, and still their legs trembled and their hearts pounded.

There was no helping it.

Lady Kiril Farreira was the pride of the Farreira territory.

Just as an entire kingdom swelled with pride whenever a once-in-a-generation genius appeared, the guards too felt a certain pride whenever Kiril's fame grew.

But that was only true when viewed from a distance.

Up close, as a superior rather than a local celebrity, Kiril was frighteningly difficult for someone her age.

A sharp, high, irritable voice.

A face perpetually pinched with discontent.

And above all else.

"Oh? Are you talking back to me right now? Are you saying I'm wrong?"

"N, no! That's not it at all!"

"Sure it isn't. And what's this, then? Instead of training in this sacred training ground, you're standing around gossiping again? Veteran guards who should be setting an example, and this is what you do?"

"Th, that's..."

"And you! You've barely been hired and already picked up bad habits?"

"We're sorry! We're sorry!"

One complaint after another, one scolding after another.

That was the biggest reason the soldiers of the territory both respected and avoided Kiril.

Of course, she didn't pick fights just for the sake of it.

She was a little arrogant, gifted as she was at such a young age, but she was still Baron Farreira's daughter, and her character was good at heart.

But today her mood looked especially foul.

Just as she was about to keep bearing down on the three guards.

"Kiril."

"..."

"Huff, huff... what's going on?"

Airen Farreira approached, dragging trembling legs and a heavy sword, wiping away the sweat running down his face as he spoke to Kiril.

"..."

Kiril glared at the guards for a moment longer before turning her gaze toward her older brother.

Her mouth opened and closed, again and again, full of complaint she couldn't quite voice.

But she couldn't hold her tongue forever. That simply wasn't in her nature.

Kiril's expression twisted even fiercer as she snapped at him.

"Stop it. Right now."

"...Stop what."

"What do you think? This stupid thing you're doing. Stop it."

"..."

Airen looked at his sister without a word.

A sharp expression, a burning intensity.

It was hard to believe she was four years younger than him.

If this had been the old him, he probably would have nodded along and gone straight back to his room.

No, honestly, a clash like this never would have happened in the first place.

But things were different now.

He still wasn't satisfied.

The restlessness in his body hadn't gone away yet.

Airen turned back around and simply continued what he'd been doing.

"You, you...!"

Kiril's eyes blazed at that.

She trembled, as if she couldn't believe she'd just been ignored.

But that lasted only a moment before her voice cracked out across the training grounds like a spark catching fire.

"You think swordsmanship is that easy?"

"You slept your whole life away until now, and you think swinging a sword around all of a sudden is going to fix anything?"

"Look at yourself! It's pathetic! Do you even realize that rookie guard over there is doing way, way better than you?"

"Don't tell me, is this about what he said two weeks ago? Ha, if that's it, calling you stupid isn't even enough..."

"Kiril."

A clear, gentle voice cut through the tirade, one sharp enough to make everyone in the training grounds wince.

Strange, really. The voice wasn't loud at all, if anything it was quiet, and yet every pair of eyes snapped toward it at once.

Kiril clamped her mouth shut too, twisting her neck stiffly to look behind her.

Baron Farreira's second wife. Her own mother.

Amel Farreira.

The instant Kiril saw her, a flicker of dismay crossed her face.

"Kiril. Don't bother your brother, come here."

"..."

"Understand?"

"But..."

"Now."

Amel wore her usual warm smile as she looked at her daughter.

But beneath that warmth was a force impossible to resist. Even fierce little Kiril couldn't push back against it.

In the end, looking like a wild colt finally broken, she trudged over toward her mother.

"Well then, everyone, thank you for your hard work."

"...Yes!"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Airen, do your best too. Just don't push yourself too hard."

"...I will."

Everyone, Airen Farreira included, answered the lady's words.

Amel left them with that same familiar smile and walked off with Kiril.

Even after she'd gone, no one could quite get back to what they'd been doing.

They just stood there in silence, caught in a strange kind of air.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Through it all, only the eldest son kept swinging his sword in vertical strokes, as though nothing at all had happened.

* * *

It was evening, a bit too early to be called night.

Airen Farreira fell asleep early.

It wasn't sleep he'd forced on himself as an escape. He'd simply burned through every scrap of energy for the day and dropped off without any choice in the matter.

Unlike his usual light sleep, he was out so deep now that someone could have carried him off and he wouldn't have noticed.

That was when Kiril Farreira, checking carefully to make sure no one was watching, crept toward his room with a small bundle held against her chest.

"The young master is asleep."

A voice came from behind her.

Kiril flinched and spun around. Standing there was none other than Airen's personal attendant.

Her expression turned fierce, and her voice came out sharp as a blade.

"So?"

"It might be better to come back later."

"I have business here."

"Wouldn't it be enough to come once the young master wakes up?"

"Are you seriously talking back to me?"

A surge of pressure burst from Kiril's body.

It wasn't just something felt in her expression or her voice.

The mysterious power of a Sorcerer took physical shape and bore down on the attendant's entire body.

'What...'

A thick bead of sweat rolled down the attendant's forehead.

She was younger than his own daughter, and still he couldn't withstand that crushing weight.

He froze in place like a man turned to stone by a gorgon's gaze.

"Hmph. Not even worth the effort."

"..."

"Don't you dare even think about telling anyone about tonight. If you break that... you know what happens."

Tossing out that quiet but unmistakable threat, Kiril Farreira slipped into the young master's room.

The attendant watched her back disappear and couldn't manage a single word.

* * *

Early dawn.

The eyes of the lazy young lord, Airen Farreira, slowly opened.

Even accounting for the early bedtime, it hadn't been a long sleep. Shorter, even, than his usual hours, let alone the day before.

And yet his body felt refreshed. The muscle soreness that had greeted him every morning was noticeably lighter.

Airen puzzled over that for a moment before turning his head toward a soft melody drifting into his ears.

Then he let out a short laugh.

Ahhh, ahhhh.

A gentle voice, the kind that put a listener's mind at ease.

It wasn't a human voice. It came from a paper doll, crafted with intricate care.

A country farmer might have thought himself haunted by a ghost at a sight like that, but Airen didn't so much as blink.

He picked up the note left beside the paper doll.

[To. Big Brother

- I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I heard you weren't even eating properly and were pushing yourself too hard, and I got so worried... I guess it came out wrong when I said it. Mom scolded me for it too. I deserved it.

...(omitted)...

Anyway, I just don't want you pushing yourself too hard because of what that garbage guy said.

I'm leaving a doll here that should help you rest, so I hope it helps.

Sleep well.

PS. Don't tell Mom I came while you were sleeping. She told me not to go in. I wasn't trying to bother you or anything... she worries way too much.]

The handwriting was crooked and uneven, nothing like her neat appearance would suggest.

Airen Farreira read his little sister's letter and let out a soft laugh.

Truly, he was grateful to have such a sister.

A precious sister who'd handed him some of the very few smiles he'd known in a life that had always felt gray.

'Even though I've been such a pathetic brother...'

Wearing a bittersweet expression, Airen set the letter down.

Then he picked up another note lying beside it.

[If Kiril gives you any trouble, just tell me. Until then, I'll pretend I don't know. - Your loving mother -]

His mother cherished him no less fiercely than Kiril did.

Though she wasn't his birth mother, Amel had loved and cared for him his entire life.

Through warm smiles worth more than words, through embraces.

That was why. Airen's heart, which might have stayed closed forever, remained open at least to family.

And maybe it was the influence of that dream. Or maybe it was because his narrow field of view had widened after days of pushing his body hard.

That small, barely-open window in his heart felt like it might be opening a little wider still.

Knock knock.

"May I come in, young master?"

Caught up in his thoughts, he heard a voice outside the door.

Airen answered in a low voice, and the attendant brought in a light meal, just as he had the day before.

The lazy young lord shook his head.

"Doesn't the meal suit you, young master?"

The attendant asked, puzzled.

The eldest son might skip meals altogether, but he was never picky.

Yet the words that came out of his mouth this time caught the attendant completely off guard.

"Today, I'll eat with my family."

"..."

"Let me know when it's time. I'll be ready."

"...Y, yes! Then I'll inform the lord as well!"

The attendant managed to answer and slipped carefully out the door.

His steps grew quicker and quicker, until by the end he was practically running.

A smile bloomed across his face, one that hadn't been seen there in days.

'The young master... he's changed!'

It wasn't just about a shift in his sleep schedule.

It wasn't just about the days of sword training either.

It was something far more fundamental. A change in mindset.

Seeing that his young master's frozen heart had thawed even a little was reason enough for the attendant to feel nothing but joy.

Of course, the rest of the family felt exactly the same.

"...Take special care with the food today."

"Yes, my lord!"

Baron Harun Farreira gave the order in a heavy voice.

His face stayed stern, but there was no hiding the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Gruff in speech and rough in appearance as he was, he was in truth a man of considerable delicacy, and the change in a son who'd shut himself away in his room for so many long years couldn't help but delight him.

Amel felt the same, and there was no need to even mention his little sister Kiril.

"Big brother, eat this!"

"Sure."

"This too, this too, eat this too!"

Kiril Farreira, gripping her fork tightly, kept piling food onto Airen's plate. She'd popped clean up out of her chair, too short to reach otherwise.

Amel gently scolded her for it, and Airen just smiled to himself.

Then he spoke carefully.

"Thank you. Father, Mother, and Kiril."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"I always wanted to say thank you. Doing nothing but lying around while you all treated me like this... I could never bring myself to say it. I'm sorry, and I love you all."

Words no one had expected at all.

Which made the son's simple sentence all the more surprising, all the more welcome.

Hearing it, Amel greeted Airen with her warmest smile yet.

Kiril's eyes welled up and spilled over in fat tears, and even Baron Farreira's eyes reddened slightly.

Even feelings already known and understood land differently when spoken aloud versus left unsaid.

In this moment, the family understood something.

Airen Farreira, who had sat frozen in place for so long, was finally trying to stand up.

"...I love you too, son."

"I'm sorry for worrying you."

"No need to say that. Let's finish eating."

At the baron's stern words, the meal continued.

Not another word passed between them, only the clink of cutlery.

But the mood was good. Very good.

A meal shared by all four family members, the first in ten years. Laughter shared by all four family members, the first in ten years.

Ordinary as it was, that made it all the more precious, and all of them had waited so long for a moment like this.

After a while, Baron Harun Farreira's question broke the quiet.

"Son."

"Yes, Father."

"I've heard you've been throwing yourself into sword training lately. It's a good thing to train your body, even if it's a bit late, but word has been reaching me from all directions that you're pushing yourself too hard."

"..."

Airen stopped moving.

The baron tried to hide it, but the worry in his eyes was impossible to mask as he continued.

"There's a saying, too much is worse than too little. If you push yourself too hard from the start, you'll wear yourself out easily, or something might go wrong. I'll assign you a knight I trust, so why don't you take it easy until then?"

"I appreciate the offer. But I'm fine."

Everyone was startled by the eldest son's words.

The baron, Kiril, even Lady Amel with her famously steady composure.

Airen had never been this stubborn about anything before.

"I really am fine. I'm not pushing myself too hard at all, so there's no need to worry."

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried weight.

Because it wasn't a lie. He genuinely believed what he was saying.

'Compared to the training that man in my dream went through, this is nothing...'

Airen Farreira went on eating, and no one else brought the subject up again.

This was the first flash of confidence a boy who'd spent his whole life curled up in on himself had ever shown.

No one could bring themselves to force it down.

Even with worry churning inside them.

'Still... it has to be hard on him.'

'If he ever gets discouraged partway through, we need to give him the strength to stand back up.'

'My idiot brother, I can see right through you pushing yourself too hard, and you're still lying about it.'

The family didn't expect much from Airen.

They loved him, and they welcomed this change in him, but that was as far as it went.

It was hard to hope for more than that, given how little the eldest son had ever shown up to now, that much was simply true.

But one by one, the Farreira family's expectations turned out to be wrong.

Airen didn't give up partway through.

He didn't ease off the intensity of his training either.

If anything, he kept extending his hours further, worrying everyone around him all the more.

Kiril Farreira's nerves grew more frayed because of it. It was only natural that the soldiers started groaning about it too.

But ten days later, the wandering knight who visited the Farreira territory was different.

He was someone who could look past Airen Farreira's history and see only the man standing in front of him now.

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