WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 75

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Krono Fencing Hall (7)

He stamped hard, and his body shot forward.

As the distance closed, Ian's face came into focus.

He was smiling.

An expression far too calm for a place where two swords were about to meet.

Of course, that didn't offend Airen Farreira.

His opponent was the strongest swordsman on the continent. Maybe the strongest person alive.

Whether a man who could beat him unconscious with his bare hands felt like taking it easy or not wasn't something Airen needed to worry about.

Let's go all out!

Airen's eyes burned. Not just his eyes.

The fire that had risen while facing Lance Patterson spread through his whole body, giving him strength like an erupting volcano.

He wasn't going to worry about his opponent.

He would attack in whatever way suited him best right now.

The decision made, he swung his greatsword with everything he had.

CLANG!

Blade met blade. A heavy shock traveled up his hands. It didn't hurt.

If anything, it was just what he needed to fuel his excitement.

Instead of meeting the recoil head on, Airen twisted his sword's path in the opposite direction.

The second strike followed, then the third.

Judith's swordsmanship showed itself again.

CLANG!

CLANG!

CLANG!

A relentless barrage from both sides.

The swordsmen watching had their mouths hanging open.

At a glance it looked like a wild flurry, but every one of those strikes turned his opponent's own force back against him.

Add Airen's monstrous strength on top of that, and the sound alone was enough to raise the hair on anyone's neck.

But the sharper eyes among the crowd weren't only watching Airen.

They were watching Hall Master Ian, taking every blow with room to spare.

Lance Patterson felt the same way.

He'd already backed off toward a corner of the training grounds, and he muttered under his breath, his expression serious.

"He's reading the sword's path before it comes..."

Lance Patterson was right.

The Hall Master had already anticipated every attack Airen Farreira threw at him.

His eyes, the movement of his muscles, the angle of his joints and blade, and countless other cues, all gathered and processed in an instant, close enough to foresight that it might as well have been reading the future.

Faster information meant faster thought. Faster thought meant room in the mind, and room in the mind meant steadiness in the body.

That was exactly what Ian looked like now.

Still smiling the whole time, he spoke.

"Too monotonous."

CLANG!

"Turning your opponent's force back on him is good. Adding speed and power from it is good too. But being this honest about it..."

CLANG!

"...is no different from gambling with your cards face up."

The Hall Master finished speaking and thrust his sword forward.

The blade arrived without warning, like a ghost. Startled, Airen stepped back.

His opponent's sword had simply been faster than his own.

But forcing himself from offense into defense left too many openings.

Ian closed the distance in a single long stride, knocked Airen's sword aside, and pressed in close.

His left hand slammed into Airen's stomach.

THUD!

CRACKLE CRACKLE!

"Guh...!"

"Very interesting. Is that Brett's swordsmanship you were about to use? Pretty well developed, too. I was actually planning to hit your arm with the flat of my blade."

"Hah, huh..."

"But the flow keeps breaking. Your shift from offense to defense is too clumsy. Different styles need to connect smoothly to mean anything. Real combat doesn't grade you separately on offense and defense."

Ian's teaching.

Airen Farreira couldn't answer right away.

Their exchange had lasted only a moment, but he was already gasping for breath.

If that last hit had been a fist instead of an open palm, he'd have gone down right there.

It wasn't unpleasant.

If anything, he was enjoying himself.

The first feeling like this he'd had since picking up a sword against another person.

But Airen still hadn't quite recognized what he was feeling.

He just focused on the opponent in front of him.

"...Let's go again."

Whoosh!

Airen, who'd been pushed back leaving a long skid mark, charged forward again. The tip of his sword traced a new path.

Judith's sword?

No.

Not Brett Lloyd's swordsmanship either.

But Lance Patterson, watching the match, felt that same sense of deja vu again.

The instant he realized the truth, a shout of disbelief tore out of him.

"No way! Even the Sky Sword!"

Judith's, Brett Lloyd's, and now even Illia Lindsay's swordsmanship, all absorbed and used!

He couldn't believe it. The feelings he'd thought he'd gotten under control flared up again. His fists clenched hard enough to burst.

This time, even Ian couldn't help but look surprised.

His eyes went wide, and he thrust his sword out to meet the beating wings of the steel butterfly.

CLANG!

CLANG CLANG!

"Not bad."

The swordsmen watching sucked in sharp breaths.

Something close to praise had come from the mouth of the strongest swordsman on the continent. That alone was astonishing.

Even more so given the age of the one crossing swords with him.

But Airen's true strength was only just beginning to show.

Shhhk-

The steel butterfly kept its wings unbroken even against the raging wind.

And in the end, that great sword became a typhoon vast enough to swallow the storm itself, surging forward!

The swordsmanship that had severed the throat of the Dragon King four hundred years ago was being recreated here and now.

Of course, it fell short of the real thing.

The Sky Sword that House Lindsay's founder had once wielded had been powerful and overwhelming enough to dominate the sky itself.

Compared to that, Airen's blade was, in truth, nothing more than a firefly next to the sun.

But even a fragment of the Sky Sword's brilliance was enough to shock everyone watching.

Of course.

THUNK!

"That's certainly good, but I wouldn't say it's much better than what came before."

It wasn't enough to fluster Ian, the master of Krono.

Airen Farreira had swung with everything he had, and Ian had knocked it aside lightly with a single hand.

The onlookers let out the breath they'd been holding.

"Whoosh!"

"As expected... the strongest sword on the continent!"

"I think someone else is actually the strongest on the continent... but that was still incredible. I couldn't even properly follow what happened."

"No, wait, isn't that young man more impressive than the Hall Master right now?"

Everyone nodded at one man's remark.

He had a point.

Sure, Ian was clearly going easy on him, but this was a young man who had traded dozens of exchanges with Ian himself.

Even though he was now down on one knee, pale faced and gasping for breath, that was no reason to think less of what he'd shown.

If anything, the situation called for applause even if he collapsed right there.

But Ian didn't see it the same way.

Still with that same hungry look of anticipation in his eyes, he asked,

"That's not the end, is it?"

"Hah... urgh, kuhh... sorry, but, huff, that was everything I had..."

"You haven't shown me something yet, have you?"

"..."

Hearing the Hall Master's words, the swordsmen reacted with fresh disbelief.

Everything up to now had already been incredible, and there was still more?

It was hard to believe.

A few of them thought Ian's expectations had simply run too high after being impressed by more than he'd expected.

But.

He means that sword.

Lance Patterson knew.

He swallowed hard and thought back to that day.

Even now, closing his eyes brought the image back vividly.

The sight that had enraged so many of his peers, made them yearn, left them hollow, and set them on fire all at once.

The Hall Master was right.

He had to see it. Without seeing that sword, no one could claim to have seen the whole of Airen.

"Show it, Airen."

Lance Patterson murmured under his breath.

Lulu, who'd been watching the match at ease while gnawing on dried meat, stopped what she was doing and straightened up, her expression turning serious.

Sensing the mood between the two of them, the swordsmen's faces filled with anticipation too.

Everyone in the training grounds fixed their eyes on the blond young man.

And Airen Farreira, receiving all that attention.

"..."

Hesitated.

Maybe a month ago, he wouldn't have.

Back then, fresh out of the Otherworldly Realm and certain of his own sword, he would have shown that man's swordsmanship without a shred of doubt.

Whose technique it was didn't decide who owned the blade. What mattered was whose will drove it.

But right now, my mind is... anything but steady.

That memory still came back to him.

The strange version of himself he'd become when he faced the demonoid.

No, the uncomfortable sensation of swinging a sword as someone else entirely.

That "someone else" was probably the man from his dreams. The one who let cold rage show through a restrained expression.

That was what made Airen hesitate.

What made him reluctant to use that man's swordsmanship.

He thought there was nothing worse than using that technique without conviction and ending up even more unmoored than he already was.

At that moment, Hall Master Ian spoke quietly.

"This isn't a place to look good in, Airen Farreira."

"...!"

"This is a place for a student who's come back to his master after a long while to show what he's made of. Just show me what's really there. So..."

Relax your shoulders.

Let go of the noise in your head. Take it easy.

The moment those words, carrying some strange weight, reached him, all the tangled things unsettling Airen's heart vanished.

The turmoil disappeared.

The obsession disappeared.

Along with them went the anxiety that had been gnawing at him without pause, and the self he'd kept curled up and shrunk down inside came back into view.

He stretched and stood tall.

It wasn't gone completely.

This calm was only temporary, a gift from his master's words.

But that was enough.

Airen Farreira, leaning on his sword to stand, steadied his breathing.

Then he quietly closed his eyes.

"What's that?"

"What's he doing all of a sudden?"

"What's he trying to show us? Is he concentrating or something?"

"But the distance is way too far..."

People murmured, watching the blond young man take his stance from far off.

Most of them looked baffled.

But Lance Patterson wasn't among them.

He waited for Airen's sword with his whole body trembling with excitement, and the Hall Master watched his opponent with equally serious eyes.

And Airen didn't disappoint either of them.

"Hoo."

When Airen Farreira opened his eyes again, a clear light filled them.

The confusion that had shaken him was gone now.

He wasn't the man scattering cold rage anymore.

He was an official trainee of Krono Fencing Hall's 27th cohort.

Recognizing that, he brought his sword down.

Shhhk!

Somehow Airen Farreira's blade reached all the way to the ground.

Naturally, it cut nothing.

It only sliced through empty air, uselessly.

The speed of the downward stroke was impressive, but that was all.

Even the ground didn't split apart this time, unlike five years ago.

A far more perfectly tuned force surged toward Hall Master Ian without a shred of waste.

In other words, this strike shouldn't have been enough to shock the swordsmen in the training grounds.

The force flying off the blade wasn't even visible as color to the eye, so it made sense.

But that wasn't what happened.

"Hm!"

Hall Master Ian, who'd been holding his sword loosely at his side, let out a sound.

It wasn't a lesson for his student. It wasn't an exclamation of pride at his student's growth either.

It was pure astonishment, the kind one swordsman gives another.

He swung his sword at terrifying speed.

FWOOOSH!

Something strange happened.

The sound of something colliding. But it wasn't the sound of blade meeting blade.

In fact, nothing seemed to have met the Hall Master's sword at all.

It happened too fast to follow clearly, but at the very least, it looked to everyone's eyes as though Ian and Airen had each swung their swords separately, unconnected.

But a moment later, a tremendous roar rang out from a point far away from the two of them.

KA-BOOOOOOM!

"...!"

"...!"

Everyone in the training grounds froze in shock.

Some wore blank, dazed expressions like their souls had left their bodies, and there were even people whose jaws hung open, drool running down unnoticed.

Even Lance Patterson, who'd been carrying no small amount of anticipation, lost his words.

He couldn't help it.

A sword mark of staggering length stretched out in the direction Ian had swung.

No one there was oblivious enough to miss what that meant.

Airen fired something off, and the Hall Master struck it down! And the result of that...

Was this.

An unreal sight, as if some giant out of myth had driven a sword into the ground and pulled it back out.

That was the evidence of the miracle Airen Farreira had caused.

And yet, that wasn't the only piece of evidence.

There was one more. Evidence of just how tremendous the strike he'd fired off truly was.

Hmmmmm...

The Hall Master's sword let out a strange resonance.

It had also grown longer. It wasn't Sorcery at work.

Ian was undeniably an extraordinary man, but his gift was in swordsmanship alone, not in mastering every other field besides.

And yet what bloomed from his blade was, in a way, a crystallization of mysterious power more sorcerous than Sorcery itself.

A brilliant white light, blazing and radiant, wrapped entirely around the blade.

Aura Sword.

Ian, having shown the strongest technique that only a Sword Master could wield, spoke.

"I wasn't planning to use this one..."

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