Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 166

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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 166.
The Call of the Sealed Land (12)
Daphnen knew, as did Zero, that if one struck an unexpected obstacle while levitating through the air at Isolet’s behest, there was a risk of suddenly plummeting to the ground.
Despoina, who had expended tremendous power in the recent evolution work, could not easily perform such delicate magic again. Considering this far, Daphnen’s thoughts turned to Isolet.
Her chant possessed the power to make him soar skyward again, even as he fell beneath the cliff. If he were to ask her….
Yet he shook his head inwardly once more. He could not bring Isolet into this perilously unstable place, where everything hung by a thread and could collapse at any moment.
Even accounting for his own responsibility and the lives of these two people, he could not overcome his feelings for her, and thus could not possibly speak those words aloud. He was a criminal, and worse still—selfish.
Then Daphnen remembered that he too had learned the chant.
Though imperfect, could he not attempt it?
If the prayer were sincere… had Isolet not always said that a heart’s deepest yearning was the greatest power of the chant?
“I… please wait just a moment.”
It was a moment when I grasped even at a thread of hope that seemed impossible. The chant, if wielded correctly, was a power that surpassed even magic itself.
And for the sake of atoning for my own wrongs, I wished to give my utmost for these two people.
Daphnen steadied his heart. He recalled one by one the words Isolet had taught him. What he had struggled to forget for so long, he now recited through hundreds of invocations.
‘With the power to pray ten thousand times over, let this moment be realized. Isolet, if you know my heart… I pray that you would pray for me in this moment.’
I was uncertain whether I was ready. Yet there was no other path but to begin.

One who called my name,
The hawk’s soul, eyes of blue,
I would go, I would reach—
Across the distant sea’s path I race.

I have arrived, I have come,
Yet shadow finds no place.

Where my eyes can reach,
Beyond that, blue headlands lie.

The wave that draws a long wake,
With new wings spread, I shall walk.

When I turn and return,
Water’s shadow gathers in eddies.

Thus you greet me,
As though all has flowed away, forgotten.

Blue eyes, distant and fading,
How could I not weep?

Where my eyes could reach
Beyond that, the blue headland

Waves drawing long furrows
I would walk upon the air with newfound wings

Choosing the necessary chant was not a matter of will, but of the heart. Daphnen’s heart leaned toward Isolet, and thus what emerged from his lips was the longing chant she had sung long ago.
The first place he had heard this chant was the Northern Seashore, one of the most beautiful places among the memories they shared.
And for the first time in his life, Daphnen’s chant bore fruit.
Both their bodies rose slowly into the air, swimming through it as though through water before settling gently where they wished.
“….”
Zero stood speechless throughout it all, his gaze fixed upon Daphnen.
As Daphnen finished the refrain of the chant, he glimpsed his own future through what Zero had once called the “third eye.”
Realizing that such an opportunity to wield the chant’s power would not come easily to him again, he accepted it with a feeling that was hollow and sorrowful, yet calm.

Oizis lay in a coma.
Days had passed since being moved to Morpheus’s House, yet he remained unconscious.
Unlike when Isolet or Daphnen had once failed to wake for days, Oizis breathed in fitful, fragile gasps that seemed ready to cease at any moment. Even Morpheus could not guarantee his recovery.
The strangest part was the cause. There were clear signs of fleeing from flames, and it appeared he had collapsed from suffocation, yet that alone could not account for the wounds covering his entire body.
As though he had battled spirits within the Library itself, he was covered in bruises and lacerations.
His face bore the worst of it—so severely beaten that anyone could see it had been one-sided. The small boy’s nose was crushed, his lips torn, his eyelids split, his cheekbones fractured and swollen—a sight almost unbearable to witness.
Morpheus had declared that if a person, not a spirit, had done such a thing, that wretch should be brought before the Island’s tribunal and executed.
Zero’s condition was, fortunately, not grave, yet Daphnen could not shake a peculiar unease.
From the moment Daphnen had entered the crumbling Library and found the two of them, Zero had been unnaturally composed, yet something about him had changed.
Though he tried to attribute it to the shock of seeing the Library—which he had cherished and tended his entire life—destroyed, he could not entirely suppress the suspicion that something more lay beneath.
The Library, still unrepaired, stood black and desolate amid the forest growing ever greener with advancing spring.
It leaned precariously against the remaining third of its outer walls. Some books seemed to remain inside, but no one dared venture to retrieve them, uncertain when the structure might collapse.
Someone had suggested simply demolishing it since it was now useless, but the Priesthood refused, and Daphnen had nearly struck that person across the face.
Most of the Island’s people had never set foot within the Library’s threshold in their lives, so it was perhaps natural they felt no loss, he told himself with difficulty.
It was afternoon on the fourth day. Daphnen climbed the hill where the fire had occurred.
The memory of returning with Zero from the secret Graveyard weighed upon him, deepening his melancholy. When he reached the spot from which the Library was visible, he found someone already there.
“You came too.”
It was Nauplion. He sat alone at the foot of the hill, gazing up at the Ruins. Daphnen settled beside him without a word.
“Do you come here every day?”
Daphnen merely nodded. Nauplion brushed away a bit of soot that had landed in his hair. It had been quite some time since the two of them had sat together outside like this.
Nauplion, who had never learned to speak with particular warmth, chewed on a blade of grass for a moment, spat it out, and asked quietly.
“You seem to feel some responsibility. Is it something you cannot tell me?”
He shook his head. His gaze fell upon the scattered ash-brown cinders dispersed across the nearby Grassland. One of them was a charred fragment of a book.
“Oizis was alone in the Library because we had promised to meet there. But I forgot.”
“Why did you forget?”
“I went to the Graveyard on The Island with Zero.”
I explained the Graveyard briefly. Nauplion seemed unaware of its existence.
I said nothing about the ghosts. I had no desire to persuade Nauplion about such matters now. I simply wanted to confess, to lay bare my own actions.
“So when you returned, the Library had caught fire? And Oizis was trapped inside?”
“I’m not certain whether the door was locked…”
As I answered, thinking of Zero’s retreating figure as he entered the Library, my throat tightened without warning, and I pressed my lips firmly shut. Nauplion appeared lost in thought.
“That’s strange indeed. If it wasn’t locked, why would it be? Zero always locks the Library when he leaves. How did Oizis get inside?”
“Oizis knew where the spare key was hidden. He mentioned knowing about it before.”
“That makes it even stranger. If he unlocked the door himself and accidentally started the fire, why didn’t he run outside? No one was stopping him, and the fire couldn’t have been that large from the beginning, could it?”
“If he had started the fire, he wouldn’t have fled alone. That child loved the Library as much as his own body.”
As I spoke, I recalled the mysterious wounds covering Oizis’s entire body. Nauplion pointed out the same thing at that moment.
“I’d rather say Oizis simply lacked the strength to escape. That child was already severely injured before the fire started. Anyone could see those weren’t burn wounds.”
Daphnen, lost in thought, finally spoke.
“If someone beat that child, it would have to be the students at Skoli. But I can’t fathom why they’d do it so brutally lately… Either way, did Oizis enter the Library alone after being injured and fall asleep inside?”
“Then who started the fire?”
While Daphnen’s words faltered, Nauplion retrieved something he had set aside in the grass and handed it to him.
Upon receiving it, I saw it was a bolt with a blackened lock attached—clearly something retrieved from the Library.
Daphnen’s brow furrowed immediately, his expression bewildered. Nauplion spoke.
“You understand, don’t you?”
“The lock is fastened? Did Oizis lock it again?”
“That doesn’t seem like a sound theory. The lock is on the outside of the door. The bar is what locks from inside.”
Daphnen hung his head low, then forced out words in a strangled voice.
“Then… someone locked the door from outside while that child was still inside?”
Nauplion answered calmly, yet with a chilling tone.
“And that person never came to the village to report the fire.”
Daphnen shot to his feet, his cheeks flushed with barely contained rage. Rather than restraining him, Nauplion spoke thus.
“Don’t act hastily. This wasn’t a careless mistake made on impulse. Someone deliberately beat that child, and whether the fire was part of the plan, I cannot say—but regardless, they concealed their crime and fled, now receiving protection from someone else. Moreover, it was more than one person. Don’t move recklessly until we have solid evidence.”
Daphnen looked down at Nauplion.
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because I saw that child’s wounds.”
Nauplion suddenly laughed with bitter self-mockery.
“When I was young, I too was ostracized by other children. Unlike Oizis, I would beat those bastards rather than be beaten by them. So I know better than anyone about the brutality boys inflict upon each other at that age.”
Nauplion brushed his cheek with one hand. As if recalling something, his brow tensed.
“Oizis’s face… those were cruel wounds. Not the kind that would result from children quarreling and striking each other in a fit of anger. A single peer wouldn’t have the strength to inflict such damage. If it was one person, it would have to be an adult. If they were children, there were certainly multiple attackers.”
Daphnen nodded. That assessment was correct.
“Was entering the Library their idea, or did Oizis flee there while being chased? If what you say is true, then Oizis was certainly the first to open the door. But that child was somehow stripped of the key and trapped inside, left to perish in the flames. Did they deliberately set the fire? That’s what troubles me most. If the fire wasn’t Oizis’s accident but someone else’s doing…”
Nauplion rose to his feet, speaking quietly.
“That person deserves execution.”
Those words carried far more chilling weight than when Morpheus had spoken them. Because Nauplion himself was the priest who would carry out that execution.

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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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