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26: New Change (3)
It wasn’t just his eyes which changed.
An unusual air wafted from the boy’s body as he returned back to his place. The attention of the trainees, who were focusing on their training, went back to Irene.
It was strange.
Occasionally they would ridicule Irene, but basically, Irene was the inconspicuous type.
He was a little taller because he was older, and there was nothing that stood out about him other than his good appearance.
However, he currently had a strange aura that drew attention, so they couldn’t help but be interested.
Walk.
Irene didn’t care.
He raised his sword and closed his eyes.
Breathing so quietly that no one could even hear him.
Concentrating on the stillness, he opened his eyes and moved his sword.
Whoo!
“…”
“…”
And nothing happened.
Whoo!
Whooo!
Irene Pareira continued to swing the sword.
What he was doing was the movement he had learned in class. The sword that counter attacks followed by light footwork.
But that was it. The boy’s present appearance was no different from what he had shown before lying down on the bench.
“Nothing much.”
“Right. I thought he gained some kind of realization.”
“Would anything be possible at his level? Sword masters perfect something after they train for decades.”
“Yeah right! However, they say that at least one realization is needed to master something.”
One by one, the trainees looked away from Irene.
After chatting, they soon went back to their own training.
Irene didn’t care about them either.
He just repeated it, cut, swing, stab as usual.
An hour passed by.
The boy walked to the corner bench.
He laid down and closed his eyes.
Once again the children gathered at that.
“Is he sick?”
“What nonsense, you jerk.”
“No, he doesn’t look fine.”
Bratt Lloyd frowned at Judith’s harsh words.
“He doesn’t miss meals or sleep, and even if he swung a sword 24 hours a day he wouldn’t lay down mid-way through his training. That guy who is strong enough to overcome us in training laid on the bench twice in less than two hours. Do you think that is normal?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Shut up.”
“How dare this bastard talk like that to Lloyd…”
“Lalalallaalalal.”
As Bratt’s followers began to speak, Judith covered her ears, and she began to speak nonsense.
Of course, that didn’t mean that she didn’t share the same opinion as Bratt. She, too, felt that something was wrong with the way Irene was behaving.
Eventually, the red-haired girl, unable to stand the confusion, headed over to the bench. She was thinking of telling him to head over to the recovery room if he was sick. No, she actually did.
However, Irene’s answer was absurd.
“Ah, I’m fine. I was just training.”
“What? Training?”
“Huh. But it isn’t going well. I didn’t think that it would go well from the beginning, but I…”
Maybe she heard it wrong?
Where the heck was he even training?
She almost asked him out loud, but she couldn’t.
As Irene once again laid on the bench and closed his eyes.
In the end, Judith had no choice but to head back with more curiosity.
“Absurd.”
“What did he say?”
“He said to not worry because he’s training.”
“What?”
Even Bratt felt lost at what he heard from Judith.
Not just him, but all the trainees who heard Irene and Judith’s conversation seemed shocked.
Either way, Irene didn’t care.
Quietly, he only focused on his inner self.
It was really difficult to reproduce the same feeling of the man in his dream.
Are they from different worlds? No matter how similar the environment was, there were several obstacles to bringing the imagery he felt in the dreams to reality.
The misty feel in his head cleared up and made the image clearer.
It was as if the man engraved himself on Irene’s mind.
No, engrave wasn’t the right expression. Even if his concentration wavered for one moment, the image distorted and broke.
It was as if drawing a picture on water. Irene’s expression began to contort.
It wasn’t like it was the end.
“Hm…”
He tried to sharpen and sharpen his concentration just as if he was in the dream.
He forgot about the people around him, the wind blowing through his hair, and the smell of his surroundings which penetrated his nose.
By bringing together all his senses, he finally drew an image on the water.
However, the finished image shook back and forth the moment Irene got up from the bench and took a step.
It would have been nice if that was it, but by the time he went to swing the sword, his form was ruined, and he couldn’t even remember what he trained.
‘Another fail.’
To embrace the image on the water and move without disturbing the water.
Maintaining the feel of the man who managed to bring the sword to reality every day.
That was the most difficult part that Irene was feeling.
‘Let’s try once again.’
Irene didn’t give up. He wasn’t even disappointed.
He wasn’t frustrated despite the number of failures he had accumulated.
He knew that the history of such failures accumulates to create a tower of success.
He was no longer the boy crushed by fear and scared of trying.
Irene, who slapped his cheeks with his palms, walked back to the bench.
The trainees around him looked at him in shock.
‘There he goes again.’
‘Is something wrong with his head?’
‘What is he thinking…’
They couldn’t say it out loud. Because there was a chance that they would get ridiculed if the same situation as the midterm happened again.
They also didn’t want to deal with Judith’s rude personality, who would take Irene’s side.
But that wasn’t it.
From their eyes, they thought that Irene wasn’t training at all. It was as if he was trying to escape.
Yes, that was right.
The children, who were confused, felt that Irene had trouble with the sword and went back to his own lazy self.
Irene Pareira didn’t care.
Even the assistants who looked at him didn’t hope for much, but he knew that he shouldn’t waste his energy on what the others thought.
The swordsmanship of the man in his dream.
The feelings that man felt.
And something beyond that.
For that, Irene had to lay on the bench.
No, it was that moment.
“Hmm…”
“…”
A blue-haired boy was observing him.
Bratt Lloyd.
Irene’s concentration was clouded by the blatant gaze he felt from a close distance.
As Irene asked.
“If there is…”
“That one.”
“Huh?”
“The thing that you say you’re practicing.”
Bratt pointed his finger at Irene.
It wasn’t an argument. His expression seemed too bright to consider it as arrogant.
As if Bratt realized something.
After a moment of silence, he spoke.
“You’re not sleeping, but it’s meditation practice!”
“… meditation practice?”
“Right! What the priests do to clear their minds and reflect on themselves. Right?”
Nope.
Irene just wanted his dream to be brought into reality, and while searching for a suitable position, he decided to close his eyes while lying down.
But that couldn’t be explained.
Frowning.
“Um, well… somewhat similar.”
“Yes. I have heard of it. Among some swordsmen, the practice is quite famous. I definitely remember it.”
Bratt’s words continued.
He heard that it was quite effective in enhancing concentration as it was a method of religion where mental power was important and that some famous swordsmen managed to attain enlightenment through meditation, and they entered the stage of being a Sword Master.
Irene’s head grew heavier at the excited voice.
However, there was nothing he could say, so he decided to keep silent.
“Nice. Then I’ll try it too.”
“…”
“But it was weird. Was that your meditation posture?”
“…. I just did it in a position that was comfortable for me.”
“That so? Well then, I’ll do it your way.”
“No, you don’t have to follow…”
“Shh. I’m trying to focus. You do what you’re doing.”
After speaking, Bratt went to the next bench and laid down. And after putting his hands on his stomach like Irene, he closed his eyes.
Bratt was sure that Irene’s recent achievements were all because of this.
His strength and concentration must have all come from meditation.
If so, then even he would get a meaningful change!
‘Nice! Let’s calm down.’
He didn’t know much about mediation.
However, he knew that it was important to put his mind at ease.
Bratt caught his breath. Then his heart, which was pounding fast, began to slow down.
‘This feels fine!’
The feeling didn’t seem bad.
For a while, Judith seemed to have distrubed his calm because of her boar-like behavior, but now he managed to find stability.
Bratt Lloyd tried to get rid of all the distracting thoughts.
A little calmer.
A little quieter.
A little mor…
“Sir Lloyd!”
Shock!
Bratt’s eyes flew open at the sudden whisper.
Looking to the side, he saw Lance Peterson squatting next to him.
Bratt asked.
“What?”
“Well… it looked like you… were sleeping.”
“…”
In a moment, Bratt turned his head to the clock.
Two hours had already passed.
Bratt decided to get up.
“Uhm. Not sleeping, I was just following Irene’s method of training.”
“…”
“Th-that. Meditation. Which is known to be done by priests is enjoyed by the knights…”
“Really? And do people actually snore while doing mediation?”
Judith asked as she passed by them.
Lance Paterson’s face turned red in helplessness.
And the other two trainees next to him were the same.
“…”
Bratt left the hall without another word.
His face was red in embarrassment, but Irene decided to pretend he didn’t know.
Irene continued to practice.
No success. Still maintaining a picture drawn on the water was a thing of the past.
The laughter from the trainees grew bigger. But he didn’t care.
Shockingly, Bratt still continued to practice mediation.
“The position is the problem. It’s the norm to do it cross-legged.”
“You idiot, it’s of no use! It’s just something he does, that’s all.”
“It isn’t too late for you to try.”
He didn’t care even when Judith cursed him.
Maybe if it was the past, he would have cursed her back, but he changed after hearing Ian’s advice.
He accepted the fact that he was arrogant. He realized that other people were also skilled, and there was always something he could learn.
He always felt reluctant to admit others’ way of doing things were right, which was why this attempt was more valuable for Bratt.
‘If I follow School Master’s teaching, the narrow thoughts in my head might disappear gradually.’
After thinking that, Bratt headed to the corner of the gym, and there he sat cross-legged like a priest and immersed himself in his own world.
The trainees ignored him too.
In their eyes, it was a simple way to waste their precious time.
But after a month passed, the situation changed.
“Trainee Irene Pareira. From today on you will be in class B.”
“Yes.”
Instructor Brandon Philips spoke.
No one complained. No one expressed surprise.
Everyone knew that at some point, Irene’s skills began to grow at a steep pace.
And that ‘some point’ wasn’t much different from when he started meditating.
And that wasn’t it.
Whik!
“I won.”
“Damn you, this is invalid! One more!”
“It isn’t invalid, but I’m more than happy to do it again.”
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Judith and Bratt were fighting over swordsmanship.
Gradually, a gap between the two began to form from the stage where they were equal.
There was no need to ask who was ahead.
Bratt’s face was full of confidence as he raised the sword.