As said earlier, people didn’t know that Irene Pareira passed Krono’s evaluations.
Because the Baron decided to keep it a secret.
He thought that his son would feel pressured if the news went outside the family.
In fact, even he didn’t believe in Irene.
Because a year is too short of a time for a person to change.
If even the father who loved his son very much couldn’t believe it, then what about the others?
So, the soldiers thought of Irene as lazy.
The image they saw of him before he headed to Krono Swordsmanship School was long forgotten.
He must have worked hard for a year, but in the end, a 16-year-old boy who came with the label of ‘failed to enter officially’ started to work right from dawn?
They couldn’t help but worry.
“How long does he plan to run?”
“I know. He has already run for over 10 minutes at that speed…”
It wasn’t unreasonable for a healthy person to run for a few minutes.
However, that was when one ran at an appropriate speed, if they sprinted, the situation was different.
Even soldiers with good physical strength and endurance would gasp for breath and become nauseous.
However, the soldiers saw that Irene Pareira had been maintaining that speed for over 10 minutes.
No.
A young one mumbled.
“He seems to be getting faster?”
“Y-yes.”
The soldiers began to panic.
They were a bit concerned before, but it was much more serious now.
If their young lord overworked himself right in front of them, who would be held responsible?
They would be questioned.
It was burdensome, so they had to restrain Irene.
Among the soldiers who looked at each other, one of the men gulped.
He approached the eldest son of the Pareira family with a nervous face, and Irene, who was running, luckily grasped their intention and stopped.
But…
“Uh?”
“What is it?”
“No… that…”
‘How is he fine?’
He really was.
Their young lord, who stopped, was calm in his breathing.
Although the breathing was faster than usual, Irene didn’t show a single drop of sweat and had stable breathing.
The man had to narrow his eyes to take a closer look.
It wasn’t unreasonable for the soldiers to panic, anyone who had mistaken this warm up as intense running would too.
Because of that, he was at a loss for words.
‘Uh-what should I say?’
Originally, he was worried and tried to stop their young lord, but there was no need for that now.
But that doesn’t mean he could say, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, you can get back to what you were doing!’
Fortunately, the embarrassing situation was immediately resolved.
Irene spoke as if he realized something.
“Ah, right, I was told that soldiers were going to have morning training today.”
“Ah? Yes, that’s right! Ugh, I, I didn’t mean to disturb the young…”
“It’s fine. I was about to stop running.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I’ll use that iron bar in the corner.”
Irene lied to him in good faith. In fact, the soldier cut off his training at a bad time, and now his body was itching for more.
It was fine. Running wasn’t the only thing he had to do. The boy headed for the iron bar and jumped lightly.
And he continued to workout with a relaxed expression.
“…”
“…”
The soldiers who watched that were in admiration.
As the gathering time drew near, the other soldiers who began to gather had similar expressions to those who had been watching Irene for a while.
“Wah, I’m sleepy.”
Zurkan, the head knight of the Pareira family, yawned as he headed to the training grounds.
He was supposed to conduct training at 6 am. He didn’t drink the previous night, but he didn’t feel particularly refreshed today.
‘Damn, it’s subjugation season. I’m excited.’
The six southern families of the Hale Kingdom form a coalition unit every spring to subdue monsters.
If they didn’t subdue the monsters regularly, the monsters in the mountains would start pouring into the cities.
As a result, there was a relatively large amount of work to do during this period. And one could see it in their surroundings.
It wasn’t just that.
The fame of the Pareira family was growing with each day.
The praise for the benevolent and capable Baron, the land which kept growing in wealth, and the young sorcerer Kirill Pareira.
That was certainly a good thing, but there was always a chance that people would become jealous of this estate.
Orn Zukran, who remembered the subtle checks done by the neighboring families, frowned.
‘I also need to work hard, so I don’t look lacking. If I make a mistake, the Baron might replace me with the newly recruited knights…’
“Tch.”
As he continued to think, he clicked his tongue.
Yesterday afternoon, he came to know about the return of the eldest son of the Pareira family, who had gone to the swordsmanship school.
Apparently, the biggest flaw of the Pareira was the young lord, so there was a high possibility that the future checks by the other families would be more tenacious.
Which meant that he had to handle the stress that comes from the new work.
As he thought about that, his bad mood turned worse.
“Eh, I can never understand that young lord. Does he know just how many people are concerned and working for his sake… uh?”
Orn Zukran, who entered the training ground, was startled.
Because the atmosphere was strange.
The current time was still 5:55 am. The gathering of all the attendees was natural, but the soldiers who should have been in line and waiting all had relaxed appearances.
It looked more like a gathering to watch something.
Curious, he went towards the soldiers. Getting close to them, he thought of screaming loudly in their ears.
“Ah, Knight Zukran!”
But it failed, and a young soldier recognized him.
And the young one wasn’t even scared. He ran towards him with a shocked expression and said.
“Look over there, sir.”
“What are you talking about!”
“The young master is training.”
“What? This time?”
Orn Zukran, who was surprised, nodded, “Ah!”
Come to think of it, the young lord swung his sword every day for a month before he left.
‘Did some sense get knocked into him during school?’
But that alone couldn’t explain why the soldiers were so shocked. He couldn’t understand despite wanting to.
He turned towards the soldiers, thinking about how he had to discipline them.
“Huh.”
Some guys greeted him, and some didn’t even know as they kept gawking at the young lord.
Orn felt flustered.
What the hell was so strange that all the soldiers were captivated by the young lord?
He looked curiously.
And after a while, he had an expression similar to that of the soldiers.
“Haa, haaa.”
“Hmph! Hmph!”
Regular stable breathing.
Sophisticated and powerful movements followed.
Irene Pareira was doing an iron bar exercise leisurely. An exercise close to a chin-up.
But the difficulty level was higher.
The boy didn’t just pull his body up to his chin, he was going over it and raised himself till the waist.
But that wasn’t all.
“How much does that plate weigh?”
“Well, I don’t know…. Ah, there is a duplicate plate in the corner. Should I check?”
A band was attached to the waist of the boy, which had a heavy plate hanging from it.
A curious soldier went over and picked up the duplicate plate with both his hands.
However, after not being able to hold it for even a moment, he dropped it and looked at the iron bar with a shocked expression.
So did the other soldiers.
“Yah, it weighs so much that he is stumbling….”
“The young lord is working out with such a heavy thing?”
“Just what happened in a year?”
“No, did he fail the final evaluation?”
The topic of the soldiers who were watching Irene shifted.
How was their young lord this capable yet rejected from the school?
Of course, they couldn’t understand because they didn’t know.
They had no idea how great the Krono Swordsmanship School was compared to ordinary school.
How unique and fierce all the trainees in Krono were.
What kind of training the kids had to do to survive there, and what level of physical and mental strength they had to have.
Finally, what was Irene’s position among all those trainees?
The soldiers knew nothing.
The same was true for Orn Zukran.
“Sir Zukran!”
“Uh, uh? What!”
A soldier called for Zukran. He, who had been staring at Irene, replied belatedly.
“I’m asking since I don’t really know, but isn’t the young lord at a great level now? Why do you think that he was rejected?”
‘I don’t know either, you bastard! What the hell happened in just one year!’
Even he couldn’t understand.
He knew that Krono was a famous school, but he thought that there was no way they would fail someone with such physical abilities.
However, he didn’t want to be honest with the soldiers.
He didn’t even like the thought of acknowledging the young lord who neglected his duties so far. However, he couldn’t act arrogant in front of the young lord either.
After a moment of thinking, he spoke.
“You bastard, do you think that Krono is a place where you can enter with just physical ability?”
“Ah, is it not?”
“No. What is a swordsman? He has to learn swords. Of course, the young lord… looks different now, but honestly, it’s difficult for someone who never even held a sword to enter such a prestigious school.”
“Ah, I guess so…”
“Yes. And the young lord never trained the sword…”
“Sir Zukran is right.”
The other soldiers nodded their heads.
And Zukran, whose words were being accepted, continued to speak.
“Besides, it may look great to your eyes, but that level is nothing compared to a knight.”
“Huh, is that so?”
“Then, can Sir Zukran easily do that?”
“Of course. You think we knights get chosen just like that?”
Zukran spoke with a brazen face.
It was true that he could do it. Even if he didn’t have the passion he had during his youth, he was still a knight.
However, it wasn’t easy to do it, and it was true that he would be out of energy after doing that.
Of course, he didn’t have to tell the soldiers the entire truth. At that point, he decided to finish chattering and start training.
But then, Irene did something.
“Wuu… wah.”
“How is that even possible?”
“…”
“Sir Zukran! Can you easily do that too?”
With his hands still gripping the iron bar, Irene did a handstand.
And he swung his body from the left to the right, like a pendulum.
A truly crazy move. It’s a level that cannot be imitated unless one has immense core strength.
After watching that, Zukran yelled out in rage.
“You bastards! It’s already 6:10! How long will you talk! Get ready for training!”
“Then, I will leave, father.”
“Yes, you did well.”
Seeing his second son, who had come back from the Pareira estate, Viscount Phill Gairn smiled.
Aaron Gairn withdrew from the room with a slightly depressed face, leaving behind the Viscount and Jack Stewart.
Back to his usual cynical expression, Phill Gairn asked.
“Hey, why is his face like that? Did he have any problems in the Baron’s estate?”
“…”
“Why are you silent? Answer me!”
“… understood.”
With a calm voice, Jack Stewart began to confide everything he had seen, heard, and felt.
