Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 100.
Blood That Does Not Fade (13)
With each word Endymion spoke, the feelings of that day became vividly alive once more. I could not bring myself to respond.
「Even if that memory belongs to you, you were merely a spectator within it—you could never have truly belonged there. And that memory itself was something you had nearly forgotten. I shattered the orb to show you that memory, but your living recollection did not vanish, nor did anything in your life fundamentally change. Yet the simple fact that you witnessed that nearly-forgotten memory anew means something has already transformed within you. You are alive. The living are always changing. The dead can never change again.」
I did not wish to concede, yet I could not deny the truth in Endymion’s words.
Were the feelings I harbored for Yefnen the same as those I carried years ago when we parted? Or the same as when we lived together?
I refused to acknowledge it. Yet the memories were gradually fading.
New memories were filling that space—such as the starlit night I witnessed yesterday.
「Let us speak of this no longer, Daphnen. I did not traverse the distance between worlds with such difficulty merely to discuss such matters. Just as you required the power of a special blade to cross the boundaries of space, my presence in your world is no simple feat to maintain.」
Only then did I regain some clarity.
“How did you… come here?”
「It is a melancholy truth, but none of my abilities proved useful in this endeavor. That I could cross the boundaries of space and exist here at all is entirely because of the memory orbs you left behind.」
I did not immediately understand.
“What do you mean?”
「Those orbs—the memory orbs—contain the threads of this world that you left behind. When I appeared just now, what were you thinking? One of the orbs left in the world of the dead resonated with your thoughts and opened the door for me.」

“I don’t remember what I was thinking.”

「Now that I am here, that detail matters little. Listen carefully: there exists a presence very near you that poses grave danger.」
The abruptness of his words caught Daphnen so off guard that he forgot even to be startled before responding.
“What? What are you saying?”
「Beware of a great maw of hatred that could swallow you whole. Yet no matter how you flee, it will eventually find you. Because you possess the blade. Even so, be cautious. Your time to die has not yet come, but the living can lose far more than their lives.」
I had momentarily forgotten. The instant Endymion spoke those words—”your time to die has not yet come”—the reality that he was already dead came rushing back.
A being already dead was speaking of death. Could there be any words more vivid, more true than these?
“You… is it a phantom’s privilege to foresee such things? If so, can you not help prevent such an occurrence?”
「Prevent what is destined to occur? I do not know when or how it will happen. I only sense that such an event hovers about your time. Moreover, I cannot promise I will be able to find you again in this manner.」
At this, I gazed upon Endymion with a faint sense of regret. Endymion, sensing my feeling, offered a faint smile.
「Perhaps, if there comes a moment when I am gazing into the memory orbs you left behind, and you simultaneously recall a thought connected to that memory, I may find my way back to you. Yet even then, I cannot so much as touch you.」
With that, Endymion rose from the wooden floor. I watched as his translucent garments trailed upward like wings.
As I withdrew my gaze and began to perceive the familiar objects around me once more, Endymion’s form appeared increasingly strange and distant.
“Already… you’re leaving? I…”
I had meant to say that I had not spoken much, nor asked nearly enough. Yet in that same moment, another thought occurred to me.
The two of us were certainly not yet friends. Was I not asking too much of him, demanding only that he play the role of benefactor?
Endymion spoke as though he had read my heart.
「Are you afraid I will not return? There is a way for you to summon me through your own strength.」

“What is that? What on earth is it?”
「Don’t you sometimes feel the shadow of the past when you encounter a situation for the first time? As if you’ve witnessed it before, heard of it before—don’t you sometimes sense that collision of memories?」
I had felt such things occasionally, but I’d always dismissed them as mere illusions.
What troubled Daphnen far more was the premonition that arrived unbidden and without warning. Not the past overlapping with the present, but the sensation of having already experienced a future that had yet to come.
Yet Daphnen spoke without elaborating on the complexity.
“You do have them.”
「Among the memory spheres sleeping within you are some very ancient ones. Even things from before you were born. When you suddenly feel them, it’s because something in reality has touched a memory from the past with great intensity. The memory spheres are trembling. If the reality you will face in the future strikes or pierces one of those memories with tremendous force, and that sphere shatters, and if I too possess that same sphere.」

Endymion slowly stepped backward, then paused with his back to the door.
「Then I will be able to find you in that moment.」
One step.
The Spirit Boy who had arrived of his own accord vanished behind the door.

“Your Excellency, I’ve arrived.”
The Low House, built in the sunny southern part of the Island, received few visitors.
Six Priests visited regularly twice a month, and they occasionally gathered here when something urgent arose. But aside from that, it was a place that saw scarcely a single visitor in a day.
Though it lay somewhat removed from the Unnamed Village, it wasn’t truly beyond its bounds. Yet people took the trouble to give this place a wide berth.
“Come in.”
Upon entering the house, there appeared a place to remove one’s shoes. Beyond that lay another door, layered within. The reply came from within.
Liriope removed her shoes and stepped inside.
In the depths of the long, narrow room sat a middle-aged man with streaks of grey at his crown. Rather than a chair, he sat on the floor upon a mat of beast hide.
Liriope called him by a different name entirely.
“Father!”
A smile bloomed across the man’s lined face. He slowly opened his arms.
“Come here, child.”
Liriope approached with quick, eager steps and threw herself into her father’s embrace.
Liriope knelt upon the mat while the man remained seated. Neither appeared particularly comfortable. Yet the father and daughter completed their embrace and drew back.
“Father, I came today because there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“I see. But you know you shouldn’t come so often, don’t you?”
“Yes, I wish I could graduate from Scoli soon. Then I could visit you whenever I missed you and stay as long as I wanted.”
The daughter showed affection and trust to her father, and he to her, yet they bore no resemblance whatsoever.
The luminous eyes and delicate lips the daughter possessed, her charming high ponytail—none of these could be found in the father’s appearance.
Instead, there was only a pale, ashen, elongated face, sagging cheeks, and dark eyes lost in thought.
“Don’t rush yourself. You are a precious child.”
A precious child. Belying the weight of those words, Liriope laughed lightly with a playful glance. Then she spoke.
“Father, if I’m truly a precious child as you say, then anything I truly, genuinely desire—I can have it in the end, can’t I?”
“Even the smallest desire can be fulfilled. What is it you wish for?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure right now, but I’m asking just in case. If I desired a certain person very, very much, would that person become mine?”
The father fell silent for a moment, brushing back his daughter’s high ponytail. With that gesture, he alternated lifting the corners of his mouth before speaking.
“From what I hear… that sounds like a question about marriage. Isn’t it?”
Liriope shook her head vigorously, as though rejecting something distasteful.
“It’s too early! I’m just asking, that’s all. I’m Father’s—no, His Excellency’s precious child, after all. I was simply curious about how far I’m allowed to do as I please. There are far too many things I cannot do now, but once I graduate from Scoli and undergo the purification ceremony at fifteen, no one but Father could stop me, could they?”
“Of course that may be true, but you must not disregard others’ wishes and force your way through. If you do that….”
“Then I could never become a Regent as respected as Father, could I?”
“….”
The playfulness had vanished from Liriope’s eyes. Regent Skyebola gazed down at his daughter quietly.
This small girl had pronounced the word ‘Regent’ with unwavering conviction.
To the Island’s people, the Regent was a fearsome figure who held secrets, an object of reverence—the one who determined the Island’s future in place of the vanished King, in ways the Island’s people could never fully comprehend.
It was common knowledge, yet not to be spoken of carelessly: the Regent’s child becomes the Regent…. Yet tradition decreed that no one could regard that child as special until they reached fifteen years of age.
A Regent was originally merely one who stood in for the King’s absence; one could not presume to declare that the King would never return in the next generation.
Now, after countless successions from Regent to Regent, it may have become nothing more than a hollow tradition. Yet it was still observed.
And Liriope was Regent Skyebola’s only child.
When she was young, Liriope had known little of such circumstances, and thus had no clear awareness of her position as the Regent’s daughter. For that reason, she had grown up innocently, mingling freely with other children.
But from last year onward, she had gradually come to recognize her own standing and begun to regard it seriously. What she had grasped first was not responsibility, but pride.
“Liri. Tell Father honestly—do you dislike Hector?”
Liriope shook her head.
“No. I don’t dislike him.”
“Then?”
“But you see, Hector and I have grown up together since childhood, and everyone has been saying for some time now that we would make a good match. That kind of conclusion everyone speaks of with one voice—isn’t it tedious and banal? Such a marriage is hackneyed, don’t you think?”
“My child….”
The girl, believing her father could not possibly understand her meaning, quickly shook her head and continued.
“I want to consider other possibilities. Thinking about such things makes me feel refreshed somehow. After that, I’ll decide whether to follow the hackneyed conclusion or not.”
Regent Skyebola fell silent for a moment, then spoke.
“If you intend to follow the ‘Old Regent’s Principle,’ then Father opposes it.”
Liriope flinched but said nothing further.
The ‘Old Regent’s Principle’ was a custom wherein the Regent, holding the most exalted position, would marry an Islander of the lowest station, thereby restoring balance to the entire Island. Yet it was a practice long since vanished.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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