Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 106

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

Chapter 106.
Blood That Does Not Fade (19)
It was no mere lump of wax. The moment it touched the putrid gas rising from the Swamp, the core ignited with a crimson blaze. Yet there was no heat radiating from it.
“There are countless paths to victory, but you know only one while I know many.”
Hector’s hand rose high. With a sharp whistle, the lump was hurled forth.
I glimpsed something brilliant and soaring. But it vanished in an instant. Only an orange fireball blazed in the heart of the Swamp. Moments later, it detonated with a thunderous roar.
Darkness consumed everything.
“Haa… haa…”
A thick green fog enveloped me. A noxious stench pierced my lungs—surely laced with poison.
“Farewell. I shall return later to air this place out…”
His voice grew distant, the words echoing hollowly. My legs buckled as if drunk, my knees trembling violently. I collapsed.
A question echoed in my mind. Why was I collapsing?
Had I not cast everything away to prevent this? Had I not surrendered everything without reserve—my blood, my tears—and yet something remained unconverted? What was still lacking?
What was insufficient?
‘Your blood.’
A buzzing noise crackled at the edge of my hearing, gradually transforming from the sound of swarming insects into an actual voice.
Shadows whispered. They gathered around me.
Daphnen leaned against the wall, legs stretched out limply. The putrid green water rippled at my feet, neither quite touching nor quite retreating.
As if I had stepped into scalding bathwater, my mind grew hazy and my vision numbed. My limbs stiffened.
While everything dulled, strange sensations alone awakened and seized control of my body. Every nerve bristled needle-sharp, so acute I could feel the water’s ripple against my shoe sole.
‘Your blood… your flesh that walked beside me.’
The voice grew louder.
‘You whom I have chosen cannot die.’
‘You cannot die.’
‘You cannot die.’
A metallic clang.
My right hand, which had released the sword, moved slowly toward my ear. I pressed it weakly against my head. But the voice did not cease—as if it dwelt within my mind itself.
‘Will you not choose a life that never dies again?’
‘Will you not choose?’
‘Will you not choose?’
I tried to move my lips and speak, but it was impossible.
‘Do you not wish to kill him? Do you not crave revenge upon him?’
‘Do you not crave revenge?’
‘Do you not crave revenge?’
A metallic taste touched my lips. I licked them.
“Your interference… is not… needed…”
‘Watch me. Watch as I kill him. When I slay him, you become mine. You shall live eternally, never dying, my servant forever.’
‘My servant forever.’
‘My servant forever.’
“I refuse… to…”
Daphnen tried to stand. But the moment he lifted his waist from the wall, he nearly toppled forward. He barely caught himself with both hands on the ground, then pushed his legs up like a wounded beast.
“No….”
Hector, who had stopped his teasing kicks, looked up in surprise. He had just circled the Town Hall and reached the Village Entrance when he spotted someone sitting atop a collapsed pillar.
It was Professor Jilebo.
“What’s with the shock?”
Hector’s mind reeled in confusion. Since Ekion had connected the two of them, they had never met or spoken directly before.
The red mass that Professor Jilebo had sent proved far more effective than he’d doubted. Seeing Daphnen collapse to the ground, Hector had assumed everything was finished.
So why had this man come here?
“Seems the matter was handled well.”
Professor Jilebo, noting that Hector stood alone, curved his lips into a bloodstained smile. His mind worked rapidly, and soon a new scheme took concrete form.
“….”
It had certainly gone well. Yet Hector retained enough pride that he could not rejoice in a victory won through cowardly tricks with another person.
Even if he thought he’d done well, he despised being seen in such a light.
“There was something I failed to convey. So I came here in person.”
“…What is it?”
His attempts to maintain his dignity proved futile. It was the same tired circumstances, the same predictable situation.
Jilebo silently chuckled with only his lips, then leaped down from where he’d been sitting.
“That thing I gave you. It’s certainly effective, but once it swallows a person, it doesn’t settle easily. Originally it reacts with water where corpses decay, so it’s sensitive to blood and flesh. You need to carve a rune at the door. That way it won’t escape outside and will calm down inside.”
“Why are you telling me this only now?”
“That’s why I rushed over.”
Professor Jilebo strode past Hector’s side. Then he stopped and turned back to speak.
“Won’t you come with me? We should finish what we started.”
“….”
Something didn’t quite add up, but he lacked grounds to refuse.
Above all, the sight of someone leisurely sitting atop a collapsed pillar hardly matched someone who had rushed over in haste.
Yet he had no choice but to follow. Only now did the reality of being in the same boat sink in.
It was simple for one party to destroy the other depending on what they decided. Even if not destruction, it was clear a permanent stain would remain for life.
When Hector reached the Town Hall entrance again, he hesitated. His heart felt uneasy. He spoke toward Professor Jilebo’s back ahead of him.
“Isn’t this far enough? Where exactly should the rune be written?”
“Come up a bit more.”
Professor Jilebo’s eyes went to the door shattered by Hector’s kicks earlier. A faint mist emanated from within.
He was pleased. He turned with a smile. In his hand was a lump similar to what Hector had held before, but far smaller in size.
Everything would end well. Both of them would die, and he would survive to achieve his long-held desire. Even if the Moon Queen, who weighs the burden of sin and renders judgment, looked down upon him, he would not fear. He had endured discrimination for far too long.
“Come up quickly and help me!”
It was the moment Hector, unable to shake his lingering unease, climbed the third step.
Crash!
Something burst through the half-destroyed door with tremendous force, shattering it to pieces. Professor Jilebo, who stood before the door, and even Hector were thrown back by the impact, tumbling down the stairs.
Both men, forgetting their pain, hastily raised their heads, their faces frozen in horror.
“Th, that’s… what… is….”
It was not something one should witness in broad daylight with a sound mind.
The black mist transformed into a pitch-dark mass. As flashes of light rippled outward, its outline became distinct. It towered well above human height, its wings folded high and tight against its body to conceal itself.
But then the wings unfurled.
A veil that blotted out the sky itself. My mind went numb. The entire world around me vanished. In the illusion of sudden nightfall, the talons lining the wing edges gleamed with a pale, sickly light.
A single beat of those wings, and I was already at the bottom of the stairs. Eyes burning like molten fire blazed with a ferocity that paralyzed the living.
But the true terror came when it opened its mouth.
… … … …!
I clapped my hands over my ears. No sound reached them, yet a vibration that felt like my eardrums would burst continued relentlessly, making even my covered hands tremble violently.
Yet if I didn’t, it felt as though my brains would burst from my ear canals. The pressure inside my body mounted, and my blood felt as though it were boiling.
“S… t… op….”
Jilebo uttered an incomprehensible moan and began crawling across the ground. Sharp stone fragments jutting from the broken pavement tore at his knees and pierced his palms, yet he showed no sign of feeling it. His vision had already gone dark. He didn’t even realize he was crawling toward the monster.
Whoosh!
Because he had been lower on the stairs, Hector was thrown farther and retained some semblance of consciousness. He saw everything that happened with perfect clarity.
Two needle-sharp talons embedded in the creature’s wing joints shot out like arrows on strings. One of them pierced straight through Jilebo’s back, passed through his entire body, and drove into the pavement below, shattering the stone. Jilebo’s crawling form went rigid.
Blood gushed from every opening—eyes, ears, nose. But the greatest torrent poured onto the pavement. Through the cracks in the stone, which had split like dried veins, crimson rivulets flowed. A new spring had erupted from the ruins.
The other talon flew lower, straight at his face.
Splat!
Just before that, something registered in my ears too. But the approaching end came faster.
The skull burst like a firecracker, scattering white and red fragments in all directions. What remained on the ground was no longer a human corpse.
“Ah….”
Hector trembled. Everything that could tremble—even his soul—shook.
Only one thought consumed his mind: the worst. He had no capacity left to comprehend what had gone wrong, where it had begun, or what came next.
The death he had imagined when he resolved to kill the Young Boy was nothing like what he now witnessed.
But now he understood. Death was never clean, never something that left one’s hands unstained.
That butcher’s flesh-paste was death, and so too was the Young Boy he had left behind in that place….
From Hector’s trembling lips came a name he had not spoken since childhood.
“Moon Queen….”

Daphnen opened his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he’d kept them shut. He had witnessed much, and considerable time had surely passed. He thought he’d seen darkness, the swamp, the burning Jineman Manor—but then….
There was nothing before his eyes.
The green mist that had clouded his mind and vision had partially lifted. Had he merely lost consciousness for a moment? If so, why was he still alive?
He lurched upright. In the same instant, he realized his body was responding to his commands once more.
A sword lay just beside him. He reached for it, then suddenly his hand flinched back.
Daphnen looked down at his hand in alarm. He hadn’t tried to stop himself, yet his hand had halted of its own accord.
Slowly, he brought his hand toward the sword again. But the moment his fingertips were about to touch the hilt, he saw it jerk back once more. His chest heaved violently, and a clear prohibition crystallized in his mind.
You must not take it.
Daphnen shook his head. Why would he leave the sword behind? Hector might be waiting outside, or something else might have happened. So why?
Still, you must not take it.
But….
You cannot.
In the end, Daphnen left the sword where it lay and skirted around the swamp toward the door.
The swamp churned slowly. It seemed as though a great cavity beneath it was releasing new water to the surface.
As he drew near the door—or rather, where the door had been—Daphnen stopped abruptly. Not only the door but the wall itself had been torn away. Something massive had passed through.
Moreover, mud clumps and water stains from the swamp were smeared everywhere. It was as if someone who had fallen into the swamp had dragged themselves out and fled.
He had seen something like this before, just once.
Daphnen shuddered and bolted outside. There, he beheld two things.
One was the Winterer, lying just to the left of the doorway. He had never left his sword in such a place.
The other was the figure standing at the foot of the stairs, indifferent even to the hateful light of the midday sun—the great adversary from memory itself.

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