Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 151

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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 151.
Two Blades, Four Names (35)
Though this was my Grandmother’s home, everyone felt the weight of their helplessness in the face of such grievous wounds, and they filed out without a word.
Isolet steadied herself for a moment, then grasped Boris’s hand. A soft song began to flow from her lips.

To places you could not reach,
the wind finds its way.
To sights you could not see,
the waters trace their course.

O human of blazing sun,
shaped by wind’s breath blown in,
O person of clay,
cradled by water’s flowing veins—

Await the wind that seeks distant eyes,
and let your soul flutter free.
Like waves searching for unseen shores,
let your drenched heart race on.

Boris understood that Isolet was breaking The Island’s sacred taboo. Such ancient traditions passed down from the Old Kingdom—like the Sacred Chant Tradition itself—were never meant to be wielded before those of the Continent.
Though the others had left and her voice was low, the chant could not possibly fail to reach beyond these walls.
The agony that had consumed his entire being gradually dulled, and a deep sleep crashed over him like a tide. There was no need to resist it.
As sleep claimed him, Boris gripped Isolet’s hand tightly—thinking this would be the last time he ever held it.
What dreams had he wandered through all night, even as his wounds festered and he could not wake? Boris knew.
He had desperately wanted to—yet in the end could only let go. He had shown tears to someone he could not keep. He had clung, refusing to send them away. He had cried out that no one else mattered. He had resolved to think only of that one person, confessed, declared it, and refused to release them. Yet all of it had been nothing but a dream.
Now, clutching the warm hand of someone he could never reach again, he slowly lost consciousness.
“….”
Isolet gazed silently down at the sleeping Boris. She watched as his grip weakened, and his hand slipped from hers.
She watched the eyes of that one person—the only one who could read the emotions hidden behind her expressionless face—close for the last time.
Still, not a single tear fell. Yet in this moment, Isolet had become the girl from the vision Boris had once glimpsed through Lunette’s dagger—her face sharp as a blade’s edge, her eyes shadowed with sorrow.
Loss had come again.
Were all the precious things that had found their way into her life destined only to be lost?
As Isolet stepped outside the house, she saw Hebetica and five or six others waiting.
A man with a foreign accent—not Hebetica—approached Isolet and spoke.
“A grave matter has arisen. Over a hundred barbarian mercenaries have made camp outside the village, and their demand is simple: you two must be handed over.”

The entire village was in turmoil. In a small settlement of barely thirty households, the number of people capable of fighting—men and women combined—didn’t exceed fifty.
Moreover, their opponents were mercenaries seasoned in battle, barbarians whose very presence made any resistance seem like suicide.
Public opinion was sharply divided.
The rural folk of Lemme, half fishermen and half mountain dwellers, did not abandon their homeland easily. This was why small villages often endured for centuries, bound together with stubborn unity.
Such communities rarely welcomed outsiders, but once you became a friend, their loyalty ran deep—and they were renowned for their solidarity with one another.
To surrender a guest they had accepted to their enemies was not their way. Those who threatened the village would face retribution, regardless of the cost.
Yet this time, circumstances were different.
The enemies were powerful enough to destroy the entire village if they wished, and the guests they had accepted were closer to being Hebetica’s guests than guests of the village as a whole.
Initially, the villagers had helped Boris and Isolet because of the aid Nauplion had once provided, and because Boris had been present at that time.
Still, when Hebetica emphasized this point, those with strong local roots insisted that the two should be regarded as guests and protected.
Hoping to find room for negotiation, a few people climbed atop the wooden palisade surrounding the village and attempted to speak with them.
As expected, those leading the mercenaries were the same two who had attacked Boris and Isolet yesterday—Marinov and Tonda.
The villagers, unaware that Marinov and Tonda were anything but ordinary, were astounded at how these two had managed to gather so many mercenaries in a single night.
In any case, one thing was abundantly clear: there was no room for negotiation. Marinov swore that if Boris and Isolet were not handed over, she would destroy the entire village before nightfall and leave not a single child alive.
As proof, she dragged out one villager captured from the riverbank and beheaded him with an axe.
Then Marinov brandished the blood-stained axe and declared that three more prisoners remained; she would execute one every two hours until nightfall, each in a different manner. It was a threat—the sooner they surrendered, the better.
Thus public opinion turned sharply against Boris and Isolet.
“I’m doing what I can, but it’s not a simple matter. It’s frustrating—when did the people of Lemme become cowards who fear barbarian rabble?”
Hebetica too showed signs of anxiety. After a moment’s thought, she spoke abruptly.
“At this point, there’s no choice but to escape in secret. If we tell them you’ve fled, what could they possibly do to us? We haven’t fallen so far as to hand a sick child over to such cruel beasts.”
Isolet, summoned to Hebetica’s home, sat lost in thought. She understood that Hebetica was speaking this way deliberately to reassure her.
Unlike Boris, Isolet was a stranger to these villagers, meeting them for the first time. Yet they showed kindness despite their own lives being threatened—it was remarkable.
The islanders would readily endure far greater hardships for their own kind, but they turned a blind eye to the affairs of outsiders.
Isolet understood this well. She too had been born on the island and had inherited something of the islanders’ cruelty and chosen-people arrogance.
Yet at the same time, the ancestors of the islanders were the sorcerers of the Ancient Kingdom. Was not their stubbornness and self-righteousness born from their own nobility?
Was not the nobility of the chosen one synonymous with an arrogant pride that would not tolerate the sacrifice of the unchosen?
“No. We will face them ourselves.”
“Now, miss…”
Isolet shook her head.
“We cannot flee and abandon you, and even if we did, they would not withdraw peacefully. Mercenaries are paid when hired. It would be a waste not to use mercenaries already paid for—they will trample the village in retaliation whether we leave or not.”
Because Isolet’s words were true, Hebetica could not respond immediately.
“Though they are cruel, they seek to capture us, not kill us. We have no choice but to trust in that. Should they ever threaten us again, it will be entirely Boris’s and my responsibility to stand against them.”
“But Boris is in no condition—”
“I know. But his wounds, his losses, his death—these are his own burden to bear, are they not? I don’t believe Boris is a man who would not understand this. We will fight, and if our strength fails, we will fall. I will do all in my power to protect him with honor, and if I die, I will be avenged. I cannot accept the sacrifice of others. Nor could Boris.”
Complex emotions flickered in Hebetica’s eyes. She understood half of what Isolet said, and failed to understand the other half.
While she acknowledged Isolet’s warrior-like strength, she could not accept the composure that allowed her to regard even the life of a cherished person with objective clarity.
“Noble words. The sort of thing our father might have said when surrounded by the Gulon Tribe.”
A man crouched in the corner, Izak, spoke thus and suddenly rose to his feet.
The two women looked at him in surprise. They had not thought he was listening, and certainly had not expected him to interject.
“Hebe, you said opinion was divided? Then these Lemme folk understand something of honor after all. Good. But know this—the honor of Kamzak surpasses theirs. And you, female warrior, you are truly not of Lemme. Lemme folk cannot speak as you do. They don’t. But you can. You know the way of warriors. Do you carry the blood of the Original Race?”
Then he rose to his feet.
He stood half a head taller than the people of this village, his body honed by years of training—a living weapon incarnate.
Izak narrowed his small eyes and grinned, and moments later, Isolet wondered if he had just winked.
Izak strode briskly outside. Hebetica rushed after him, shouting.
“Brother! I told you not to go out in front of people!”
But it was already too late. Izak cut straight through the center of the village toward the palisade. The sudden appearance of the strange giant sent the villagers into a panic, screaming and scattering.
With Barbarian mercenaries encamped just beyond the village, nerves were already frayed, and when a new Barbarian casually emerged and walked through their midst, their alarm was hardly surprising.
Hebetica had tried to keep her half-brother confined indoors since his unexpected arrival, fearing that if his Barbarian nature were exposed, it would become troublesome—but now all her efforts were for naught.
“You’ve built a decent fence here.”
Isolet, following behind, saw that Izak was pulling on a pair of gloves.
For warrior’s gauntlets, the cuffs were unusually short, but the crude rivets studding the knuckles marked them unmistakably as weapons.
The next moment, he was scaling the palisade—or rather, it might be more accurate to say that with just a few handholds, his body catapulted upward. He moved with the grace of a cat and the raw power of a wolf.
Isolet paused briefly, then followed him up onto the palisade. Soon, villagers gathered beneath it, murmuring with curiosity about what the two of them intended to do.
Among them, Hebetica stood with a furrowed brow, tilting her head back to watch the pair.
Izak folded his arms and surveyed the surroundings. There was no need to look far. A hundred or so Barbarian mercenaries sat scattered in disarray.
He could also see the fierce woman in question leaning against a tree, and beside her, that familiar axe. They were that close.
Isolet heard Izak draw in a breath. For a moment, she wondered if he was panicking, when suddenly a voice like thunder shook the very air.
“You of the Original Race—do you not know me?”
It was a roar dozens of times louder than any ordinary human voice could produce. This was no mere projection of sound. It was an amplified cry infused with special power—like when Isolet enhanced her voice while chanting.
“Any who do not know me, step forward! Come and taste suffering greater than death itself, and gain enlightenment!”
As his voice spread once more, the villagers beneath the palisade covered their ears. Even so, their heads continued to ring.
But the Barbarian mercenaries began to spring to their feet.
A single name rippled outward—from the faintest whisper, like grasshoppers’ wings brushing together, it swelled into a dark cloud spreading across the camp.
One spoke, then dozens, and soon all were crying out, seized by primal terror.
“Sigonu!”
“Sigonu!”
“Sigonu is there!”
“Ohhhhh… Sigonu is there!”
The moment the name “Sigonu” reached the villagers inside the palisade, they too began to stir with unease.

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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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