The Failed Swordmaster - Chapter 5
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 5 3. Please Respect My Privacy (1)
Chirp chirp chirp.
Morning had broken. The bird sounds coming from outside the window were quite noisy. Those who wanted to sleep in frowned and burrowed deeper into their blankets.
However, Lumian had no need for that. He hadn’t slept at all.
He had spent the entire night recalling yesterday’s events, feeling both joy and regret.
‘Yesterday was really great. My first physical contact since reincarnation?’
‘It was even better because she was pretty. Now that I think about it, she seems to have some advantages over the ladies from my previous life.’
‘It would have been better if I’d been a bit calmer. When I realized she was a noble and backed away, I should have said I’d give her a chance to make up for the rudeness and suggested we dine together…’
‘Why was I trembling so much? I wasn’t like that before.’
All the world’s troubles were in Lumian’s head.
He sighed and got up from the bed.
He was definitely different from before.
In the days when he had no expectations or motivation, he could maintain his composure no matter what women said or did in front of him, but now he trembled like an adolescent boy who had just awakened to sexuality at the slightest touch.
In fact, he wasn’t much different from an adolescent boy. For Lumian, who had become functional for the first time in 60 years, yesterday’s stimulation had been too intense. Currently, he had no resistance to women whatsoever.
‘It’s okay. Let’s not be hasty.’
Lumian roughly washed his face with the water in the room. Then he took off his shabby old clothes and changed into his knight cadet uniform.
After gathering his belongings, he finally checked if there was anything he was leaving behind before opening the door.
He came down to the first floor and glanced around the hall, but the female waitress was nowhere to be seen. Shaking off even his slight disappointment, he left the inn without hesitation.
The warm morning sunlight fell upon Lumian’s face.
It seemed as if it was blessing his future.
‘There’s plenty of time and plenty of opportunities. As I gradually gain experience, I’ll be able to do well.’
No one is good at something from the start.
Reaffirming the thoughts he’d had yesterday, he walked down the street with confident steps.
His destination was none other than Tarajan Royal Academy.
‘Since the semester starts tomorrow, I should go the day before.’
Tarajan Academy was a boarding school, and students could use the dormitories even during vacation.
So there had been no need to stay at the inn yesterday, but he remembered construction continuing until right before the semester, which was why he was only now heading to the dormitory.
“Hmm hmm, hmm~!”
Lumian hummed a tune.
Since the original body’s memories remained, adapting to the new environment was no problem at all. There wasn’t really much to do anyway. Buy textbooks for the new semester at the bookstore inside the Academy, then go to his room and unpack. After that, it would be free time.
So what should he do during that time?
‘Girl-watching, of course.’
Lumian smiled contentedly.
During his days as a eunuch knight, the most ideal romance he pursued was the love between a knight and a noble lady that bloomed in the capital.
It wasn’t just because he was a knight. This was the most typical romance story that everyone on the continent would commonly think of.
However, the youthful romance between young men and women at the Academy could also be called an equally interesting story. There was a reason why there were so many romance novels based on this theme.
Lumian also quite liked such stories.
One might ask why a 60-year-old veteran knight had such tastes, but what was wrong with that? His current self was a fresh-faced 15-year-old knight cadet.
“Hehe.”
His atmosphere changed slightly.
His sleepy-looking eyes became sly, and his clear smile turned sinister. As the Academy drew closer, his laughter became audible to those around him. Passersby stiffened their expressions and kept their distance.
Lumian paid them no mind.
And so he finally arrived at the Academy entrance.
After showing his identification to prove he was a knight cadet, he spoke his aspirations in a low voice.
“It wouldn’t do to graduate from the Academy without experiencing romance even once.”
Of course not. Nodding at his own words, Lumian hurriedly moved toward the bookstore. He planned to quickly handle the trivial matters and then go to the garden inside the Academy.
This was to watch girls as he had originally planned. Since not only knight cadets but also students from other departments frequently visited, it was the perfect place to broaden his knowledge of women and build up his tolerance.
‘Since the Academy is mostly filled with noble children, the girls must be pretty too.’
Unfortunately, the original owner’s memories were hazy on this part. But that was fine. In fact, it was even better in terms of building anticipation.
Lumian moved his body even faster, imagining the beauties who would be strolling through the garden.
Just then, someone who made him stop in his tracks came into view.
A boy around Lumian’s age. He was an impressive fellow with freckles on his face and a slightly cunning air about him.
Walking from the opposite direction, he belatedly spotted Lumian and showed a startled expression, likewise stopping in his tracks.
A sudden staring contest unfolded.
“…”
“…”
After about 10 seconds of silence, the two passed each other without saying a word.
But their subsequent reactions were different. Lumian went his way without looking back, while the freckled boy stared at Lumian’s retreating figure for a long time.
A murmur escaped his lips.
“That bastard really does seem different somehow…”
The freckled boy watched Lumian a bit longer before turning around with a puzzled expression.
It seemed he should tell his friends about this.
* * *
“Tch.”
Lumian, who had entered his room, threw his bag onto the bed.
Both Lumian Calard and Ryan Fromhart had quite neat personalities. So normally he would have organized his luggage first, but now the situation was different.
Lumian raised his hand to his chest.
He could feel his heart pounding strongly.
‘Fear is embedded in this body.’
The freckled boy he’d met on the way to the bookstore was someone he knew. More precisely, he was a classmate who had persistently bullied him.
One of the main culprits who had made Lumian’s already timid personality even darker.
The moment he saw him, cold sweat broke out on his body. He felt angry, and an even greater fear surged up, making his body tremble.
“This is somewhat problematic. Hmm.”
Muttering to himself, Lumian sat in a chair and fell into thought.
Until meeting the freckled boy, he hadn’t been thinking about the guys who had bullied the original owner at all.
It was natural. When he was busy thinking about girls, why would he recall those dark male bastards? And even if he had thought about them, he probably wouldn’t have worried much. Disciplining kids was no problem at all.
But it seemed it wasn’t something to think about so lightly.
The pain and pressure the original owner had felt was much more severe than he had thought. Memories of the past that belatedly surfaced made Lumian Calard suffer even more.
“Hmph.”
Ryan Fromhart’s soul blew it away with a single snort.
His spirit wasn’t weak enough to succumb to something like this. He scratched the back of his head with his hand and thought.
‘Even if I’m fine now, my body might freeze up again when I meet them.’
It had happened just a moment ago. To avoid showing weakness, he had tensed his neck, making his body unnatural.
His expression had also stiffened. He didn’t want to show such an unseemly display again.
‘If I show a frightened appearance, the girls might look down on me.’
Already being treated like a half-wit, he couldn’t afford to give an even worse impression.
Lumian jumped up from his seat. Then he sat on the floor. Quietly closing his eyes, he quickly used Jenas’s aura cultivation method.
Swoosh.
Whoosh.
He drew in mana through his breathing. The absorbed mana was transformed into solid-natured aura through Jenas’s characteristic stable method.
It felt as if heavy stones were filling his interior. Because of this, Jenas’s knights also called it the ‘Rock Cultivation Method.’
‘The weight makes it very stable.’
It felt like pushing forward against a rock.
Though the speed of flow through the body’s aura channels was slow, it moved large amounts of energy at once, so the speed of accumulating aura was definitely not slow.
However, Lumian wasn’t satisfied with just this.
He concentrated his mind. Then the rock-like energy, which had been flat at the bottom, gradually became round, round.
Rumble rumble rumble—
The energy, now perfectly processed into a spherical form, raced through the aura channels.
It felt like rolling down a slope and gaining momentum. The force was incredibly fierce. If he made even the slightest mistake, it seemed like it would deviate from its set path and smash the surrounding landscape.
It was insane. A normal person, or even a knight confident in aura manipulation, wouldn’t do such a crazy thing. The increasingly accelerating energy was like a disaster that could burst his body with even the slightest control error. The moment something went wrong, it would mean disability at minimum, death at maximum.
But conversely, it also meant there would be no problem at all as long as nothing went wrong.
Whoooosh-!
One cycle, two cycles, three cycles, ten cycles.
Lumian continued circulating his energy, building up his aura.
The energy absorbed through his breathing made the rock grow like a snowball. He wasn’t afraid. Rather, as if the pace was finally picking up, he circulated his energy even more boldly.
Twenty cycles, thirty cycles, fifty cycles.
And one hundred cycles.
Only then did Lumian stop his aura training and slowly open his eyes.
“Hmm, it’s already dawn. Was I doing this for more than half a day?”
The atmosphere emanating from him was on a completely different level than before.
Having become an entirely different person in just one day, he dusted off his bottom and stood up. Biting into a piece of bread he had thrown on the bed, he thought.
‘This should be enough to avoid embarrassing myself in front of women.’
If anyone dares to challenge me, I’ll graciously put them in their place like an adult.
Lumian nodded as he thought this.
* * *
While Lumian was absorbed in aura training meditation to shake off his fears.
The Freckled Boy was telling the Three Children what he had seen and heard.
“Hmm.”
“I’m telling you it’s true. It was definitely Lumian. From what I heard, he knocked down a muscular mercenary who must have been 1 meter 90 centimeters tall with his bare hands.”
“Hmm.”
“His whole atmosphere changed too. This morning when our eyes met, he just stared me down without flinching. Just last year, when I went near him, he couldn’t even lift his head…”
“Hey.”
“Huh?”
Smack.
“Ow!”
The Young Man who had been listening struck the freckled boy’s head with his palm.
He spoke with a pathetic expression.
“Where did you hear such nonsense and come here spouting ridiculous stories?”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————