Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 116

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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 116.
Blood That Won’t Fade (29)
Of course, I hadn’t written the rune myself. I had secretly stolen it from Father’s bookshelf. I knew it was an extraordinarily precious object.
I didn’t know how to interpret all the runes written there by connecting them together. However, I knew the method of use and its effects with absolute certainty.
I firmly attached the sealing wax I had brought beforehand to the back of the paper and placed it on the fourth stone. Then I finished descending the stairs.
Once I had secured enough distance, I recited the rune while sweating and simultaneously smirking.
Demo Lai Jusque Tan-Dier….

The paper inscribed with the rune began to burn. The radiance engulfed the entire round stone.
Soon the incantation was complete.
Whoooosh… Crash!
The magic that had clung to the stone vanished forever. The rune spell written on that paper possessed the power to dispel magic.
The sound of the stone that fell below the cliff echoed for a long time, reverberating through the surroundings.
Listening to it, I felt anew just how deep this ravine was, and I marveled at the perfection of the plan I had devised.
It was the method Isolet had proposed on the day I climbed to the top of the cliff. It was half play and half study. We had agreed that whenever Isolet felt like it, she would bring homework, and whenever Daphnen felt like it, he would go and complete the homework.
The Sacred Chant Tradition couldn’t be learned only from a teacher; it required time spent alone in meditation, drawing the song from within oneself. Therefore, climbing the cliff alone was also part of my training.
For several days, Daphnen had been extremely exhausted because the intensity of his lessons with Nauplion had increased considerably.
When he tried to protest a few times, Nauplion silenced him with the words “You’re going to Silverscull, aren’t you?” He was certainly frightening at times like this.
However, before going to Silverscull, Nauplion had become anxious to ensure that Daphnen could wield a real blade.
The softness of the wooden sword he had wielded throughout winter had dulled the edge that had been built in Daphnen’s heart considerably.
However, the moment he grasped a real blade again, especially Winterer, the killing intent would return, and all the effort thus far would be rendered meaningless.
To prevent such a possibility, Nauplion had been focusing on producing the same effect with a wooden sword as with a real blade.
However, even Nauplion eventually grew exhausted. After more than ten hours of continuous training on Scoli’s day off, both of them collapsed and slept for more than half a day.
Daphnen was the first to awaken. He glanced at the sleeping Nauplion and smiled faintly.
“So this is what they call the stamina of adolescence.”
Even talking to myself was amusing at times like this. After getting up and finishing a rough meal, Daphnen pondered what to do for a moment before concluding, “That’s right, I should go find the homework.”
As I tried to leave, I felt something grasp my ankle. For some reason, I sat back down in the chair, but my heart remained unsettled.
Something in the room kept beckoning to me. After placing my hand on my chest for a moment, I realized what it was. Winterer.
Where could it be.
The heart that had been striving to keep the taboo suddenly transformed into that of a breathless boy. I didn’t understand why this change was happening. Or rather, I hadn’t noticed the change itself.
I stood up and slowly turned around once before crouching down and feeling along the floor. The call grew stronger. I placed my hand beneath the bed.
There was nothing, but in the next moment, a handle grasped my hand. It was a lid attached to the floor.
Click.
It was a vertically elongated secret space. In truth, it had no lock to speak of and was far too conspicuous to be called a secret place.
Even so, there was something frightening about this call. I had never once reached in the wrong direction.
A blade lay beneath the lid.
“….”
I hesitated for a moment before grasping the blade. But it was only a moment.
My hand soon found and grasped the tattered cloth-covered hilt, and I drew it out.
It had been such a long time since I had seen Winterer. I drew a deep breath, but feeling no particular surge of energy in my heart, I rose from my seat.
I glanced around and spotted an overcoat. I wrapped the sword in it and stepped outside.
Even then, I detected nothing amiss in my own actions.
The evening breeze was refreshing. My steps felt unusually light. As I climbed, I caught sight of smoke rising from Isolet’s House’s chimney and smiled. I had simply eaten dinner a bit earlier than usual.
I ascended into the Grassland and headed straight for the entrance leading to the Cliff. Before long, I began climbing the magical stairs. No—I suddenly stopped.
A strange voice tickled at my ears. I shook my head several times trying to brush it away, then suddenly looked down at my hands.
“What?”
The moment I realized what I was holding, my mind went blank.
It felt like waking from a spell. Why had I brought this? How had I found it? Why had I felt no guilt whatsoever? What was I supposed to do now?
My heart pounded violently. I wanted to run back immediately, return the sword, and pretend nothing had happened.
But I had already come too far. Why had I come here again? Ah yes—I had come to fetch Isolet’s assignment.
I should just grab the assignment and hurry back.
I hastily stepped onto the next stair. But there was no stair.
“…!”
Isolet, who had been eating dinner, suddenly dropped her spoon. Blood drained from her face in a cold rush. Her lips trembled violently.
She didn’t know what had happened. Yet a shock like being struck hard on the back of the head, and a sensation of falling from a great height, seized her body. It was as though she had startled awake from a dream.
The sensation vanished quickly.
Still, her heart, which had leaped so violently, would not settle and continued to pound erratically.
Isolet could bear it no longer and bolted upright. She retrieved the belt bearing two sword sheaths and fastened it firmly across her shoulders and arms.
Yet even after that, she didn’t know where to go.
Daphnen’s disappearance became known the following morning.
Though he had vanished once before, this was the first time the entire Island knew of it. Many were mobilized in the search, but no one was found. There was not even a trace.
The incident occurred during dinner hour when everyone was eating, and scarcely anyone was wandering about the village. Thus, no one had seen Daphnen ascending the Mountain.
Nauplion wanted to believe nothing of it, yet he had no choice but to convey the desperate news to Despoina—that Daphnen had disappeared with the Winterer. Even as Nauplion spoke these words, his lips trembled.
Now the situation was ripe for misunderstanding. The forbidden sword had been taken and the boy had vanished—didn’t that suggest he had succumbed to temptation, touched the blade, and been sucked into the Other World?
Only three Priests—Despoina, Nauplion, and Morpheus—could share such speculation. But soon a fourth was added.
Isolet wrenched open the Town Hall door and rushed forward to stand before the three. She tried to suppress her emotion, but her voice could not hide its trembling.
“That boy… Daphnen must have fallen from somewhere. It happened yesterday evening, I’m certain of it. This is no time to sit here deliberating. We must search below the Cliff, right now.”
Hector sat by the window with his eyes closed. He heard footsteps approaching from behind.
“Elder Brother!”
When there was no answer, he called again.
“Elder Brother! It’s me, Naya!”
Suddenly Hector spun around and rose. He seized Ekion by the collar. The startled Ekion let out a faint cry and staggered.
“What did you do to Daphnen? Tell me now—confess everything you’ve done!”
Nauplion was convinced by what Isolet had said. It was entirely foreseeable. Just as he had once done with Lanzumi, he himself had used the ability of ‘connection’ on Isolet to open a heart that had been closed by anger for so long.
Moreover, it was perhaps only natural that Isolet would sense Daphnen’s peril. They were teacher and student of the Sacred Chant.
The Sacred Chant possessed the power to link human minds. It was not impossible for them to become subtly connected and, at some moment, to sense an identity between them.
Yet despite this, he tasted a bitterness he could scarcely swallow.
“Let us search together.”
Even so, throughout one day and one night, no trace of the boy was found.
In a sense, it was absurd. If someone had fallen from a place worthy of being called a Cliff, how could they possibly be alive? There was no need to race against time to find a corpse.
Yet despite everything, a few refused to surrender hope.
When Isolet returned home as night fell, she pulled a chair before the table, sat, and placed her palms flat upon its surface. For a long time, she prayed.
The object of her prayer was not the Moon Queen. Her father, the Ilios Priest, had never believed in the Moon Queen, and neither did she.
Though she did not speak it aloud, the Moon Queen—true to her nature as a deity of primitive faith—was capricious without reason, and morally ambiguous in ways that troubled the conscience. There had to be some secret behind how the Moon Goddess Faith came to dominate The Island.
The ones to whom Isolet directed her prayers were the unnamed multitude of the dead whom the Ilios Priest had called the “Ancient Mages.”
They were those who had built and sustained the civilization of the Ancient Kingdom, who could command even their own souls, and who possessed a nobility approaching that of demigods.
Though they had been driven back by the Moon Queen, their spirits had not yet been extinguished.
Return. You must return.
There is work only you can do.
You must go to the Continent, and you must defeat them and claim victory.
For you, for your teacher,
and for my father.
Secrets she had never before spoken aloud pressed down upon Isolet’s chest all at once.
It was not the end. Not yet. The suppressed desires, the maddening impulse to be happy—all of it surged up at once, and her throat tightened.
Nauplion sat alone in the darkness, staring into the black void. After a moment, he muttered in a hollow voice.
“I will never take you as my adopted son. If I did, my hair would turn white before I even reached forty.”
As though poison had pooled in his heart, he remained seated. His entire body ached, and his eyes especially felt exhausted. Along with a severe headache came chills.
“I only wanted to see you reach thirty years old… Why must everything be so impossibly complicated?”
He wrapped his head in both hands. Then his hands slipped down to cover his eyes.
Through the gaps between his fingers, a voice emerged, tangled and broken.
“Even if you return… you will never be forgiven now, you bastard… You have crossed the line….”

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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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