WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 95

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Unexpected Guest (2)

The Charlot and Victor duo were famous throughout the mercenary world as people of character. There was practically no one who hadn't heard of them.

And that wasn't just a polite way of saying they had good manners or a friendly face.

Over nearly forty years, the good deeds they'd done, counting only the major ones, numbered more than ten fingers could hold.

They'd wiped out goblin tribes threatening poor southern territories.

They'd cleared monsters menacing small villages without asking for pay.

They'd even cleared a dungeon crawling with demonoids, just the two of them.

Along the way, they'd come close to losing their lives more times than could be counted.

They hadn't been born strong, after all.

But Charlot and Victor had overcome every hardship and survived, growing into two of the most respected powerhouses in the mercenary world.

Earning the admiration of countless younger swordsmen along the way.

'And they're... doing this?'

That was why Kubharu found the current situation so hard to believe.

Of course, he still didn't know their intentions.

Maybe they really did just want to talk.

Trading pleasantries, asking after each other's well being, then parting ways peacefully. That would have been far more plausible.

No.

There was no way that was it.

He didn't need Lulu's or Airen's instincts as Sorcerers to know that.

The expressions on Charlot and Victor's faces right now looked like they'd do anything if they didn't get what they wanted.

And what they wanted was...

'The Numbering Sword. I made a mistake.'

Kubharu blamed himself, though it was too late.

The fact that the Numbering Sword's completion had been delayed was known only to the small group that knew.

It only made sense that everyone else assumed Airen already had the sword in hand.

Bandits showing up was, in hindsight, only natural.

And this was the result of overlooking that.

He let out a long sigh and asked the two of them.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Let's talk up close first. You're too far away right now. Why do you keep backing off?"

"This distance seems about right to me."

"Ha, that stings. Weren't we drinking buddies back in Derinku?"

"We were. But we're in a hurry right now, so I'm afraid we don't have time to talk. Let's catch up some other time."

"No, we'd like to talk now."

"Exactly. We went to a lot of trouble for you two. A lot of trouble."

"What are you talking..." Kubharu's words cut off in a groan.

Airen Farreira's face went rigid. So did Lulu's.

Victor had pulled a human head out of his pack.

The wide, staring eyes belonged to someone who clearly never expected to die.

Randel Clancy.

The man famed as "One-Strike Randel" stared back at them, head severed clean from his body.

"We cleared out plenty of bandits like this one who were after you. Piles of them. And this is the thanks we get? So cold. Really, so cold."

Victor said it with a warm, good natured smile.

But his eyes weren't smiling. The chill in his gaze cut like a needle.

Lulu leapt down from Kubharu's shoulder, snapping in anger.

"So what! What do you want! Cut the nonsense and get to the point!"

"Ha, our cute little cat friend has quite the temper. But that suits us fine. We're in a hurry too. Dying to get this over with."

"Hand over the Numbering Sword."

"We don't have it! It's not even finished, so we don't have it either!"

Lulu answered.

Her voice had gone past anger into something closer to a shriek, and the sincerity dripping from every word would have made most people nod along.

Of course, it meant nothing to Charlot and Victor, drowning as they were in greed.

Charlot and Victor's smiles vanished.

The faces that had looked so hearty just moments before twisted into something grotesque.

Like dry marble statues with hellfire fitted where the eyes should be. Lulu shivered and took a step back.

So did Kubharu.

Only Airen Farreira held his ground in silence.

An unmistakable pressure was rolling off his body.

"Hm."

Victor's eyes flickered with interest at the sight.

But only for a moment.

His gaze went cold again, and he spoke low.

"Enough wordplay. Hand over the Numbering Sword, and Pablo's and Dwanson's swords too. You're probably hiding them with Sorcery, but it won't help."

"..."

"I won't lie and say I'll spare you. I'll kill you painlessly, one clean strike. But if you refuse to hand over the sword to the end, we'll all have a very tiring time of it."

"You two intend to ruin your lives over this? Coveting a sword that already has an owner, one of Vulcanus's blades no less. You'll be hunted across the entire continent, not just Derinku!"

"Thanks for the concern. But it's fine. We weren't the only ones after the sword. As you can see, Randel and plenty of others were after it too. You'll just be the unlucky victims caught in the crossfire, and the Numbering Sword will vanish without a trace."

"..."

"And no one's going to suspect us. Wasn't the reason we did all that good work, but... we've done quite a bit of it, haven't we."

'It's no use. There's nothing words can do here.'

Kubharu clenched his fists as he listened to Victor.

There was no way around it. They'd have to fight, no question.

But their odds weren't good.

Charlot and Victor were said to be able to take on a Sword Master together.

Which meant either one of them alone could overwhelm Airen, their strongest fighter.

Lulu, a Sorcerer, and Kubharu himself, a spirit mage, weren't without combat ability. But even so...

"I have a question."

Kubharu was still deep in his grim calculations when the words came.

Airen Farreira, who'd stayed silent this entire time, finally spoke.

Charlot gave a dry laugh at that.

He was about to tell Airen not to waste any more time when he caught sight of Airen's eyes and his expression froze.

"..."

That strange sensation he'd felt the first time they met at the tournament.

Something now easily surpassing it. A power he'd never encountered before.

Charlot, faintly unsettled, jerked his chin, telling Airen to go ahead. Victor deferred to his older brother's judgment.

In the tense stillness of the plain, Airen asked.

"The things you said back at that bar in Derinku, was all of it a lie?"

"..."

"Clearing goblins for the villages in the southern jungle. Fighting demonoids to the death for territories that couldn't properly pay you back. Was all of that just to manage your reputation?"

It was a somewhat frustrating question, one some might even call foolish depending on who was listening.

With his life hanging by a thread, why did it matter? People might reasonably ask why he'd waste breath on something that would only irritate his opponents when he should have been looking for a way to survive.

But to Airen Farreira, it mattered a great deal.

He thought back to that day in Derinku.

Running into Charlot and Victor again, by chance.

Kubharu asking about their past good deeds, and the two of them explaining what happened back then, looking bashful but unmistakably proud. Lulu, swept up in it, clapping along.

They had looked, in that moment, truly happy.

Nothing like people who would ever do something like this.

So he wanted to know.

Why, exactly?

How could people so kind and so strong turn to something like this over a sword?

"You told those stories with such fulfillment in your faces. Explain to me why you're doing this now."

"..."

"If you don't give me a real answer, you won't get the Numbering Sword even if you kill me. Never."

Shwiiick.

Thunk!

Airen finished speaking, summoned his sword, and drove it into the ground.

Crude, but unmistakably solid, the greatsword seemed to speak for what was in his heart. Charlot and Victor exchanged a glance.

That kid was serious.

Charlot sensed it and nodded. A signal that he would answer.

He lowered his eyes for a moment, as if choosing his words, then lifted his head again.

And laid bare his thoughts without any dressing up at all.

"Because the Numbering Sword matters more than any of that."

"..."

"Why don't you say anything?"

"Is that... all?"

"That's right. That's everything. Why, were you expecting something else?"

Charlot asked back.

His eyes seemed to demand an answer, as if wondering what Airen could possibly have wanted to hear.

But Airen couldn't speak for a long moment.

He couldn't understand it.

He finally gathered himself and spoke.

"That's the whole reason? Just that?"

"Just that?"

"Yes. Just... just a single sword, and it was worth more to you than every principle you've lived by until now? Worth betraying everyone who's been saved by your own hands, letting them tremble with that betrayal?"

"The Numbering Sword isn't just a sword!"

Victor's voice cut into the exchange between Charlot and Airen.

Kubharu and Lulu clapped their hands over their ears. The volume carried a lot of energy behind it, but it was the emotion in his voice that scraped at them more than the sound itself.

He kept talking.

"Twenty years have passed since my brother and I hit the wall. Reaching Expert took even longer. Over thirty years. There's nothing we haven't tried to break through it, nothing we haven't thrown ourselves against. And still it hasn't given way. My brother and I are still trapped in that hell."

"..."

"And it's not just us. Countless swordsmen have struggled for decades, unable to clear that final gate to Master. Countless people have staked their entire lives, their very lives, on that one thing alone. You don't know the weight they carry, the pain we've endured... You're too young. Barely more than a child. You could never understand."

Shhhing!

Victor drew his sword. His eyes were bloodshot, and a menacing aura poured off his body.

Charlot was the same.

Both their faces had, somehow, stopped looking human.

Their eyes too.

A flame burned in them far hotter than anything Airen carried in himself.

He could tell. Their claim that they'd staked their lives on the sword wasn't a lie.

But that flame didn't stir any envy in Airen at all.

'Different.'

Airen thought of the people who mattered to him.

Illia, Brett, Judith, whom he'd rubbed shoulders with as far back as five years ago, and closer still, Lance Patterson and the other classmates he'd met just months ago.

The light they gave off was so much warmer, so much brighter than the flame burning in front of him now.

A healthy, beautiful fire that made the hearts of those watching burn hot too.

These two were different.

Devoured by desire and obsession, burning themselves up from the inside, they looked no different from a demonoid.

'It's not that I can't understand it.'

He thought back to the past once more.

Brett Lloyd after the Final Evaluation, the dark feelings he'd carried. If that gloom had been left to fester unresolved, layer on layer, it might have turned him into something like this. The thought crossed Airen's mind and passed just as quickly.

But that didn't grant them absolution.

Whoosh!

Fwooooosh!

Airen Farreira drew his sword.

The aura he'd been holding back until now surged out from his entire body.

Charlot and Victor's eyes went wide.

The pressure coming off their opponent was far stronger than they'd expected.

It couldn't have been otherwise.

The power Airen had borrowed now traced back to someone who'd endured far longer than either of them.

Someone lonelier.

Someone more isolated.

The will of a man who'd lived through something even more desperate, and never once fallen to ruin.

Hmmmmmm.

Listening to the quiet ring of the sword, Airen Farreira let go of the last thread he'd been holding onto.

There was no other way.

He didn't relish being swept up by the man in the dream again, but breaking through the crisis in front of him left no other choice.

Airen chose the lesser evil, not the worst one.

The aura of steel surged forward.

Solid as poured metal, yet weighted with an overwhelming heaviness, the pressure made Charlot and Victor's expressions tighten.

Airen, of course, and Kubharu and Lulu beside him, each drew up their own strength, bracing for the fight that was about to begin.

The tension of standing on a blade's edge.

What broke it, ironically, wasn't the clash of sword against sword.

Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap

"Wow! Wow!"

"..."

"Georgu, look at that! Did you see? It's even more amazing than before! Looks way tougher too!"

"...Would you quiet down."

The sudden sound of clapping, and the voices of a girl and a man.

Startled, Charlot and Victor turned their heads.

So did Airen's group.

Five pairs of eyes locked onto the same spot.

What met their gaze was a cute girl decked out in heavy makeup and a black dress, and a weary looking swordsman with ash gray hair.

And, stepping slowly out of a golden portal, a woman in a black uniform.

Kubharu's face twisted in shock the moment he recognized her.

"...!"

From orphan to top student of Krono Fencing Hall.

From top student of Krono Fencing Hall to captain of a mercenary band.

From mercenary captain, through honorary knighthood, to one of only three knight commander positions in the entire Holy Kingdom.

Ignet Crescentia.

She drew her blade, jet black hair streaming behind her.

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