WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 53

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Sword in Hand (2)

The other world Airen Farreira lived in was a recreation of the environment from his dreams.

But it wasn't identical. To be precise, it shifted little by little according to Airen Farreira's own will.

The same way the season had changed from spring to fall.

It was happening again now. Normally there should have been nothing but open plains beyond the fence, but a running course had appeared out of nowhere.

Airen ran along it with everything he had.

Normally, he wouldn't have.

Once, maybe. But in his current state, just stepping outside his room felt like a struggle, since he couldn't even trust himself anymore.

Still, there was a presence watching his back, and because of that, he couldn't help running the course until sweat soaked through his clothes.

Illia Lindsay.

"Don't lose your balance. Watch your ankles."

"Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth."

"Sand track's coming up. You'll need more balance from here."

The silver haired girl kept pace beside him, offering advice without pause.

He was bewildered. He had no idea what was happening.

But there wasn't time to stand around figuring it out.

Under Illia's lead, Airen Farreira moved his body for the first time in what felt like ages, sweating through the hours from before dawn until morning broke.

"Eat quick, then we move on to sword training."

Of course, that wasn't the end of it.

Illia Lindsay drove him with everything she had.

The moment he finished eating, she dragged him out to the yard and put a sword in his hand.

While he swung it as hard as he could, she kept a sharp eye on him.

Airen still hadn't fully come back to himself, but that gaze was frightening enough that he had no choice but to swing.

It wasn't a careful effort, not at first. His state of mind was too far gone to pour in his best right away.

Illia wasn't about to let that slide.

"Focus!"

"Your form's a mess. Concentrate!"

"You're completely hollow inside. You have to fill your heart first, or the movement won't come out right. Didn't Lulu teach you that?"

"Yeah, that's a little better than before."

Strict as a drill instructor.

It felt nothing like the Illia Lindsay he knew. Then again, the fact that she even knew about Lulu's existence was strange on its own.

But there was no room to dwell on it.

Every time his thoughts drifted, the silver haired girl caught it like she had eyes in the back of her head, and the startled lazy lord swung his sword all the harder.

Bit by bit, his dead heart began to stir back to life.

Compared to before, it was still nowhere close. But by the time lunch and dinner had passed and late night had settled in, the Airen standing there was a completely different person from the Airen of that morning.

At the very least, the gloom that had hung over his face all this time had lifted considerably.

"Well, see you next time."

Leaving him behind, Illia Lindsay vanished, as smoothly as if she'd never existed at all.

Watching her go, Airen Farreira muttered to himself, a beat too late.

"...She wasn't really Illia."

Of course not. Probably a being formed by Sorcery.

He nodded, planted his sword in the ground, and stepped back into the house. His sweat-soaked body turned clean in an instant.

Feeling refreshed, the lazy lord threw himself onto the bed without thinking.

Drowsiness crept in soon after.

In a good mood he hadn't felt yesterday, when he'd had to force himself toward sleep, Airen let out a small laugh.

It was only a brief dream, but it wasn't bad at all.

He fell into a deep sleep for the first time in a long while.

Then, the next day.

Another visitor came.

"What are you doing, you idiot! Get up already!"

"......"

"It's already past five, how long are you gonna sleep? You want to die?"

The girl with hair that shimmered like burning red, Judith.

At the sound of her fierce scolding, Airen bolted out to the yard, startled.

"You're here? A little late."

"Don't give me that dazed look. Think about your dignity as a noble."

Illia Lindsay appeared again in front of him.

And Brett Lloyd, holding the same confident bearing from before, not the gloomy look he'd worn when they parted last.

Looking at the two of them, Airen Farreira could only stare, blank-faced.

"Should we spar first? Or take some individual training time?"

"Airen hasn't even warmed up. Think before you talk."

"This uptight little prick's got something to say about everything. Want a hit?"

"Enough. We'll spar later, like Brett said. Airen? Come here."

At Illia's words, all three of them turned to look his way.

They looked dazzling. Like beings who lived in a world entirely different from his own.

That was why the lazy lord couldn't approach. He dropped his head slightly and was about to step back.

"......"

Their eyes were full of trust.

Certain that of course he'd come, three pairs of eyes shining with confidence. Feeling that, Airen bit his lip and stepped forward.

He couldn't betray their expectations. Not this.

A large sword had somehow already found its way into his hand.

"Told you, I can't stand it anymore. Real combat's the best training! Come at me!"

"If you can't stand it, fight me instead. Leave the kid alone, he just woke up."

"Oh? Fine, let's go!"

"Leave those two be. Want to train together, just us?"

"......Yeah."

Airen Farreira nodded and settled into stance.

Then swung.

Fwoosh!

Still lacking.

But far better than yesterday.

Seeing it, Illia Lindsay broke into a bright smile.

Judith and Brett Lloyd, still bickering, smiled too, as if they'd expected nothing less.

Their reaction weighed on Airen.

'...Still, I can't just not do this, not here.'

He swung the sword again.

Worse than the last one. He didn't like it. The faint confidence that had begun to bloom vanished in an instant.

Airen glanced around, dreading that the three of them might have changed their expressions.

But they hadn't.

Their eyes still held nothing but trust, fixed on him.

'Why? Why do they believe in someone like me?'

Someone who can't do anything without help from other people?

The negative thought surfaced, but faded quickly. Illia made sure of that.

To avoid another scolding, the lazy lord swung his sword all the harder.

Two years and 120 days since entering the other world.

Airen Farreira rose from where he'd fallen and started moving forward again.

* * *

A great deal of time passed.

A year, maybe more.

Through it all, Airen swung his sword without fail. And he grew.

By now, he could manage ten thousand swings a day without much trouble.

And it wasn't hollow motion, not anymore. Every single movement carried his heart in it, fully.

That isn't to say there were no crises. There were plenty. Endless anxiety and self-loathing kept shaking his mind back and forth.

A fool who could do nothing alone.

A worthless wretch who needed someone else to help him along.

Someone bound to fail in the end.

Just as that doubt returned again, gnawing at something inside him, a memory surfaced.

Words from a note an orc fortune teller had once handed him in passing.

'You don't need to stand entirely alone to stand on your own.'

In that moment, Airen Farreira realized he'd been laboring under a serious misunderstanding all this time.

"Moving forward with someone else's help isn't wrong."

Hall Master Ian's words came back to him. Don't chase someone else's path with someone else's will. Walk your own path. Set your own will firmly.

That much was true. Before he'd heard that advice, he'd been walking the wrong path.

He'd spent his days empty, never learning how to think or act for himself, and he'd sworn firmly never to live that way again.

But that hadn't meant cutting off other people's help and walking a lonely road alone.

It meant the opposite.

Through the help and trust of others, he would grow stronger.

'Stay with someone who believes in you, who loves you. Then you can overcome any crisis at all.'

Lulu's forgotten words came back to him.

His father's forgotten love came back to him too.

His mother's warmth, and Kiril's guarded, awkward, but truest concern for him, one after another, surfaced in his mind.

"Get it now?"

"......"

And other bonds too.

Airen lifted his head toward the three of them standing before him.

And he understood.

Through the trust in their eyes, in those who believed in him, he would grow stronger.

He would keep growing.

"Guess our job here's done."

"Who knows, might get called back again sometime."

"Annoying... but I guess I'll come if I'm called."

"Don't be pathetic, just work hard. And don't go doubting yourself for no reason."

"Hang in there."

With those words, the three of them vanished.

Illia Lindsay, Judith, Brett Lloyd, all gone without a trace, leaving Airen Farreira alone in the quiet room.

But it didn't bother him.

The boy, no, the young man now, rose to his feet and strode out of the house with firm steps, drawing his sword.

Then he swung.

Wholehearted intent, poured into wholehearted action.

The eyes with which he trained his swordsmanship had changed completely from before.

* * *

A day passed, then a month, then a year.

No, more time than that passed. Through that long stretch, Airen Farreira kept steadily pushing forward.

It wasn't a smooth road, not by any measure. Crises kept coming, without end.

But now, he could endure them. Hardships too much to bear alone became things he could overcome, with others beside him.

Change came to his sword too. Before that, change came to the heart with which he faced the sword.

'All this time, I was treating action and heart as separate things.'

It had been foolish.

Hadn't Lulu told him? Body and mind weren't separate at all.

Just as wholehearted action, repeated enough, strengthened the heart, it was only natural that a wholehearted heart would in turn support the action.

The moment he understood that, Airen found himself grasping the true meaning hidden within each and every motion of his swordsmanship, far more deeply than before.

Fwoom!

Some people learn ten things from being taught one. Some fully master that single thing.

Others fail to properly grasp even that one thing, and there were plenty of those too. Fortunately, Airen wasn't among them.

His remarkable focus let him perfectly imitate whatever he saw and experienced.

But that had always been his ceiling.

Just like Illia Lindsay, just like Judith and Brett Lloyd, he'd never once managed to take away more than what he was taught.

And now, that ceiling was breaking apart.

Fwooosh!

He poured his whole heart into focusing on the motion.

He dug deep into each movement of a swordsmanship refined over long years, uncovering the meaning hidden beneath it.

And so he understood. He realized. Not blindly chasing the form, but expanding his thinking outward, broadening his direction, without ever breaking the true meaning at its core.

Action followed that kind of heart, and countless closed possibilities began to open up.

Fwooosh!

Fwoooosh!

Airen swung his sword. He swung it in a trance, lost to everything else.

His body moved along the endless path his heart kept carving out, and the sword followed. Days on end, without tiring. Without ever growing sick of it.

In the real world, he would have collapsed from exhaustion. But not here.

This was a world made of Sorcery.

A place of miracles, born to fulfill its creator's deepest wish.

Because of that, Airen could spend far, far longer in this radiant world of realization, and it led him to a plane entirely beyond where he'd once stood.

"Haah."

The lazy lord finally set down his sword.

No, not the lazy lord anymore. In Airen Farreira's eyes, a sharp, piercing light flashed.

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