WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 16

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Cheeky Little Brat

Kyle left the Sword Peak Hall completely worn out.

He would have liked to stay and play with Julius longer. But there had been far too much packed into this one day for willpower to carry him, and his five-year-old body had already hit its limit.

He blinked. His eyes felt heavy and gritty, and each blink seemed to add another weight to his eyelids. He yawned hugely and shook his head.

"Hey."

He made it through the corridor and into the Central Hall, where someone was waiting for him.

A girl with bright hair, less red than pink, really, and sharp green eyes. Julius's youngest daughter, Erika Alastor. His youngest aunt, barely thirteen years old, was staring him down with hard, intent eyes.

"Hello, Aunt Erika."

Kyle forced his drowsy eyes open and gave a small bow. Eight years wasn't a huge gap, but an aunt was an aunt. He greeted her with reasonable courtesy. Erika stood with her arms crossed and her posture deliberately crooked, and she ran her gaze up and down him with an expression that made her feelings perfectly clear.

"Where are you coming from?"
"The Sword Peak Hall."
"Do you think the Sword Peak Hall is somewhere a little kid like you can just walk in and out of as he pleases?"

He'd been wondering what angle she'd pick for a quarrel. There it was. Erika was working hard to project an intimidating air, but after standing in front of Julius's actual presence just moments ago, her attempt registered as something closer to a small puppy growling at his ankles.

"Grandfather was the one who took me."
"You-you pestered the Family Head until he agreed!"
"Grandfather enjoyed himself."
"How would you know whether he enjoyed it or not?"
"Because he laughed a lot while we were playing."

That stopped her. Erika's eyes flickered. Her mouth worked for a moment, searching, and then she clenched her fist and marched straight at him.

"You cheeky little, who taught you to talk back to your aunt like that?!"
"I wasn't talking back. You asked me something, so I answered."
"That is talking back!"
"Then should I just not answer when you ask me things?"

Kyle looked up at her with wide, round eyes. Erika's fist trembled. She couldn't find an immediate response, so she twisted her expression into something severe and snapped at him instead.

"You only answer when I tell you to answer. From now on. Understood?"
"..."
"Why aren't you answering!"
"Because you didn't tell me to."
"Right now you should!"
"Yes, Aunt Erika."

Huff. Erika tilted her head back toward the ceiling and took several steadying breaths.

"From now on, stop asking the Family Head to take you to the Sword Peak Hall. Understood? And not just the Sword Peak Hall, stop bothering the Family Head altogether."
"..."
"Answer me!"
"No."
"What-what? Did you just say no?"
"Yes."
"Why?!"
"Because I want to play with Grandfather, and Grandfather wants to play with me. He doesn't think of me as a bother."
"How would you know that?"
"Then how would you know otherwise?"

That cheerful little question was the last straw. Erika raised her clenched fist to give him a light knock on the head, but Kyle stepped lightly to the side and let it sail past.

"Why did you dodge!"
"Violence is wrong."
"That-that wasn't violence. It was discipline."
"Why is it Aunt Erika's place to discipline me?"
"Because I'm your aunt! You are incredibly rude. Always talking back, never listening."
"Does Aunt Erika think Grandfather finds me a bother?"
"Of course he does!"
"Then let's go ask him together."

Kyle smiled and grabbed her sleeve, tugging. Erika flinched back, planted her feet, and shook her head frantically.

"N-no."
"Why?"
"I can't go bothering the Family Head...!"
"But you don't actually know whether he'd find it bothersome or not. Maybe if you visited, he'd be happy to see you, too."
"That's not..."

He was exhausted and sleepy and had talked far too much. Kyle blinked his heavy eyelids a few more times, let out a long yawn, and sat down on the floor. Just like that. Erika stared at him.

"What-what are you doing?"
"I'm sleepy... I can't move anymore..."

A five-year-old body was just this inconvenient. No amount of willpower could solve that. Kyle looked up at her with half-closed eyes and murmured.

"Good night..."

He closed his eyes and surrendered to sleep, right there on the hall floor. One moment he'd been holding his own in an argument with perfectly articulate sentences, and the next he'd gone limp as a puppet with its strings cut. Erika stood over him, thoroughly thrown.

"What is wrong with this kid...?"

Presumptuous. Shameless. And the part she couldn't quite shake was that no five-year-old should be capable of holding that kind of conversation. Even Erika's youngest nephew hadn't spoken like that at this age. Erika herself hadn't spoken like that at five.

"..."

And it wasn't just the talking. Word was he'd won a spar against Lucia. Was that actually possible for a five-year-old? Erika exhaled slowly, crouched down, and picked him up with care.

"Annoying little thing..."

The back-talk was obnoxious, and she didn't like how he'd cozied up to the Family Head on his very first day, acting familiar and close, when even Erika found their father difficult to approach. All of that was true.

But if she set those things aside for a moment, her little nephew was almost disarmingly cute. Especially that hair, ruby-red and shining, and those golden eyes.

Colors she hadn't been born with. Colors she'd always quietly envied. The same colors as Arian-unni, whom Erika loved more than anyone.

'And I didn't even get to say a proper hello...'

Six years since Arian had married and left the Sword Tower. Erika had been only seven, and she'd sobbed into her pillow for nights on end after her favorite unni left. Her feelings about Kyle weren't just jealousy over their father's attention. They were tangled up with Arian, too.

"Mm..."

She still hadn't managed to have a real conversation with Arian today, even with the reunion. The atmosphere around the older brothers had been too charged for any of it.

Nothing to be done about that now. Erika hesitated, then shifted Kyle into a more comfortable hold and made her way to the Sword Tower's elevator. They'd be living together in this tower from here on out. Avoiding each other indefinitely wasn't realistic. She'd drop Kyle off and take the chance to say a proper hello, maybe actually talk for a while.

"Erika?"

Fourth floor of the Sword Tower. She knocked on the door of the Rose Mansion, newly settled into the open meadow, and both Ceryl the head servant and Arian came to answer. Erika hesitated, then gently lifted Kyle to show them.

"He, uh, he fell asleep all of a sudden."
"You carried him here?"

Arian smiled and gathered Kyle into her arms. Erika had wanted to say more, but standing in front of Arian like this, the words wouldn't come.

A knot of worry tightened somewhere in her chest. The attempted knock on the head. The scolding. All of it, the impudent little brat, stop talking back, everything she'd said and done to this small boy. If Arian found out eventually, she'd never hear the end of it.

"Why are you just standing there?"
"Huh? Oh..."
"Come inside! We barely talked earlier. Barkas-oppa was glaring so hard I couldn't get a word in."

That pulled a short laugh out of Erika before she could stop it.

"Come on! I'm happy to finally see my youngest sister. Did you miss me?"
"Did you miss me? You couldn't have, or you would have come back to Gladiheim sooner."
"That, okay, listen, I couldn't help that. If I'd come back with a newborn, Father and the brothers would have been absolutely unbearable. I wanted to raise my child in peace. Without the stress."

Arian sighed and grabbed Erika's wrist, pulling her forward.

"My youngest is very upset with her unni. Fair enough, fair enough. I was wrong. So come in and have some tea first."

Erika let herself be pulled inside, pretending she had no choice in it.

The next morning.

When Kyle opened his eyes, Erika was sitting beside the bed. She'd been waiting with her arms crossed for him to wake up, and the moment he did, she beat him to it.

"I'm sorry about yesterday."
"..."
"But you also did things that deserved to be scolded. The part where I tried to hit you, anyway. I'm sorry."
"Why are you in my room?"

Kyle blinked, still only halfway awake. Erika cleared her throat and shrugged.

"Unni told me to stay the night."

The purebloods on the fourth floor each had their own residences, and Erika was no different. She had a mansion just near the Rose Mansion, far too large for one person, shared with her household staff.

"Anyway, I was out of line yesterday. Understood?"
"..."
"Why aren't you answering, fine, answer. Answer me."
"I don't know what 'understood' means in this context."

Kyle gathered himself and answered plainly.

"If you're sorry, just be sorry. What does 'understood' have to do with it?"

Erika's mouth dropped open.

"You little..."
"I'm going to tell Mom. That Aunt Erika tried to hit me yesterday and yelled at me."
"I, when did I yell at you? That was just a little..."
"Then I'll tell her Aunt Erika disciplined me."

Kyle pushed himself upright and fixed her with a composed look. Erika swallowed the fierce urge to knock him on the head and made herself keep her hands still.

"I, am sorry, I was wrong, I won't, well, I will discipline you. Appropriately."

She bit off each word like it cost her something.

"So you, don't do things that deserve scolding."
"What did I do that deserved scolding?"
"Bothering the Family Head..."
"I'll ask Grandfather then. Whether he thinks I'm a bother, since Aunt Erika says he does."
"Don't ask him!"

It came out fast. How had she ended up begging? The advantage had slipped entirely into the hands of a five-year-old. Erika hesitated, then exhaled.

"Don't... ask. Alright?"
"Is Aunt Erika scared of Grandfather?"
"I'm, I'm not scared. I respect him."

Her voice dropped to almost a mumble. Whatever anyone said about Alastor being the foremost martial house on the continent, Erika was only thirteen, and she was the family's youngest. The way she'd been carrying herself made it easy to read: this wasn't a girl who'd only been doted on. A lot of pressure had been coming down from above.

"Come with me to the Sword Peak Hall sometime."

Kyle had only met Julius the day before, but nothing about yesterday suggested his grandfather was the kind of rigid, overbearing figure who sealed himself off from everyone.

Julius's warmth was the kind extended only to those who'd earned it, of course. But he didn't seem like someone who'd be cold to his youngest daughter.

"The Sword Peak Hall isn't somewhere you can just walk into whenever you feel like it. None of my brothers or sisters go in freely. Not one of them."
"Grandfather gave me permission. I'll ask him next time whether I can bring Aunt Erika along."
"You, don't you dare say anything unnecessary to the Family Head, or I will discipline you ,!"

This little kid clearly didn't understand how great and distant the head of Alastor truly was. How heavy those doors were. How solemn the hall beyond them. Erika shot to her feet.

"You shouldn't be walking in and out freely either. I'll grant you the Family Head seems fond of you right now, but he's not someone with time to spare. And he will get bored of you quickly. Mark my words."
"I don't think so."
"Of course he will. You cheeky little brat."

Erika hadn't seen Kyle's talent with her own eyes yet. She'd only heard secondhand that he'd beaten Lucia in a spar.

So she was certain. True, no Alastor pureblood was born without talent.

The Family Head loved talented children, she'd grant him that. But what kind of talent could a five-year-old possibly have? One whose spirit root hadn't awakened yet, who hadn't properly learned a thing.

For now, Julius was giving up time he didn't have to play with a bold little grandson who'd caught his eye on their very first meeting. Understandable enough. But before long, he would pull back. The way he had from the other grandchildren. The way he had from Erika.

"I'm not saying this to be cruel. I'm saying it because I'm thinking of you. Don't expect too much from the Family Head, and don't bother him. Under..."

Bang.

The bedroom door swung open and Arian walked in, bright-faced and smiling.

"Kyle! You're up?"

Erika shut her mouth immediately. She'd gotten so swept up she'd forgotten where she was. She braced herself to be called out, but Arian didn't even glance at her. She just beamed at her son.

"Kyle, come downstairs quickly! Grandfather sent you a whole pile of gifts!"
"...Gifts?"

Erika's jaw came loose.

Kyle, by contrast, climbed out of bed with complete composure, as though none of this were particularly surprising.

"I'll brush my teeth first."

Erika stared at him. Her father, the Family Head, had sent gifts to a grandson he'd met exactly once. A pile of them. That alone was already beyond belief. But her five-year-old nephew wasn't even excited about it. He was going to brush his teeth.

He went ahead without caring one way or another about Erika's shock. A servant brought him a toothbrush and he brushed thoroughly, then washed his face.

In his previous life, rolling around with the mercenary band, mornings had rarely involved anything as orderly as brushing his teeth. Five years of being reborn into a proper noble household had apparently rewired him completely. Now if he didn't brush first thing upon waking, the day felt off, and there was no getting around it.

Clean and settled, Kyle took Arian's hand and went downstairs. Erika trailed after them in silence, still not quite back to herself, her mouth hanging slightly open.

On the first floor stood the black-uniformed knight from yesterday. A member of the Funeral Knights, the Family Head's personal guard and Gladiheim's finest. He set down the large box he'd been carrying and gave Kyle a small bow.

"The Family Head sends this as a gift for Young Master Kyle."
"Where is Grandfather right now?"
"The Family Head is in his morning meditation."
"Then I'll go thank him in person later."

The Funeral Knight offered a faint smile and nodded.

"I will let the Family Head know."

With everyone watching, Kyle walked up to the closed box.

'What did he send, I wonder.'

If the contents were satisfying enough, Kyle was even considering letting Julius hear the same soft, baby-rounded voice he'd only ever used with Arian.

수마 (睡魔), literally "sleep demon," is a Sino-Korean literary expression for the irresistible force of exhaustion that drags a person under, personified as a demon that seizes the body. It appears in classical Chinese literature and carried over into Korean usage as a poetic way of describing being overwhelmed by sleep. The image of Kyle formally "surrendering his body" to it while sitting in the middle of a corridor adds a layer of dry absurdity the original text plays for gentle comedy.

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