Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 184

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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 184.
The Call of the Sealed Land (30)
In that moment, I realized the distance between myself and the islanders was as vast as that between two wild beasts of different packs.
I could not comprehend it. Even if I died and awakened anew, I could not comprehend it. Yet were the islanders not surprised by what Daphnen said rather than what the Regent had spoken?
Did they not appear more flustered by his direct retort than by the Regent’s near-coercive words?
The person beside me muttered as if urging me to listen.
“How dare anyone oppose the words of The Regent? How can one refuse his words while living in the land governed by his authority?”
The Regent himself frowned with his gaunt face and spoke.
“As a Pilgrim, your life exists solely under my authority. Stop spouting nonsense and learn to be more obedient. Has your guardian not taught you thus far?”
Daphnen, utterly exasperated, burst out loudly.
“Obedience? Then whether I consent or not is completely irrelevant!”
No one pointed out his rudeness. The islanders now felt that Daphnen was completely different from them. He was a continental—he came from the continent, that’s why—whispers rippled through like small waves.
They merely glanced nervously, wondering what result the Regent’s anger would produce. Though they had been surprised upon hearing Liriope’s declaration at first, they believed that once the Regent had commanded it, they could not help but accept it.
And the Regent answered with astonishing brevity.
“Of course.”
Then Despoina stepped forward urgently.
“Your Excellency, as a Priest of the Staff myself, I have never heard of such a precedent. Matters between young men and women should be resolved by the two of them, and your authority need not extend there. Both Liriope and Daphnen are still young. Would it not be better to give them more time to consider?”
Even Despoina could not openly tell the Regent that this was absurd.
Yet it was clear what she thought now. One could see it in her expression.
However, the Regent’s position was so firm that everyone found it unexpected.
“Liriope, recognized as my successor, holds authority second only to myself and the Priesthood. From ancient times, there existed what is called the ‘Ancient Regent’s Principle’—when the most noble chooses a spouse of lowly station for the community’s balance, they may do so freely. Daphnen is not of our blood but comes from the continent, and thus holds a station lower than any Pilgrim. Therefore, this union is righteous, and he has no right to refuse it.”
Was the Regent deliberately pushing harder because his mood had been soured by the title he had meant to give Liriope being switched?
Regardless of his true intent, since the Regent showed no sign of backing down, the priests broke into cold sweat.
Nauplion, bristling with indignation, attempted to speak several times, but Despoina and Morpheus barely managed to restrain him with all their might. Given Nauplion’s temperament, he would speak even more harshly than Daphnen, and nothing good could come of it.
And if that happened, what should remain a matter concerning one boy would spread to become an affair of the entire Island.
Daphnen’s words could be excused as the thoughtless actions of youth, and besides, Liriope would stop him, so the worst outcome would not come to pass. But Nauplion was a priest.
The islanders must never see a priest standing in opposition to the Regent.
The traditions of the Old Kingdom were already fading, making it difficult to preserve social order. If the conflict of the ruling class were exposed, it could shake the very foundation of the Island’s governance.
In a small society like the Island, when the authority that forms the basis of rule disappears, only great chaos and self-destruction follow.
For this reason, the confrontation between Ilios and the Regent, and its outcome, had been thoroughly hidden from the islanders.
Daphnen was experiencing firsthand what the Regent’s authority—which seemed to exist only in people’s words—truly was.
Gradually, my entire body grew cold. I tried to look at Isolet again. But she had vanished among the crowd.
Thus Daphnen looked directly at Liriope.
In a low voice, yet unable to conceal emotion, he spoke.
“What is all this?”
Liriope answered without hesitation, cutting him off.
“As you can see. I will have you, and you cannot refuse.”
“I refuse you. Have me? I belong only to myself. Stop this ridiculous farce now.”
“This is no theatrical nonsense. Accept reality. Whatever you say is nothing but a tantrum.”
Liriope was remarkably self-assured. Upon her small, cute face settled a violent arrogance befitting continental nobility.
Then he spoke again without hesitation.
“Why don’t you understand that you’d be happy with me? I want to tell you to refuse what should be refused. Does what I can offer seem trivial to you? It’s something others desire but cannot possess. Stop making me laugh. Who do you think I am? Do you still see me as a girl your age playing alongside you? I’ll say it again—you have no right to refuse. None whatsoever. As long as you remain on this Island, as long as you live as a Pilgrim.”
But Daphnen was someone who had witnessed true Nobility and experienced their displeasure firsthand. The more she tried to force him, the more his revulsion grew.
A cold, unforgiving self slowly returned.
“Even if everything went your way, you wouldn’t find happiness. Not me, someone incapable of happiness—and from that moment on, neither would you. No, don’t worry. You can have whatever you desire, but not a living human being. Shall I teach you the only way you could ever have me?”
Daphnen raised his hand expressionlessly and snapped his finger sharply.
“Kill me, then keep my corpse.”
In that instant, Liriope struck Daphnen across the face.
The blow carried little force—merely a sound—so Daphnen’s head didn’t turn. Instead, it was Liriope’s face that flushed crimson. She lost control of herself, and words barely came out.
“How dare you say such things… You can’t find happiness with me? I know everything… Stop pretending to be noble. No matter how you speak, no matter how you claim ignorance of affection… you still, you still… want that woman, and I know it! The reason you can’t find happiness is because you can’t have her, isn’t it?”
Screams erupted from the crowd. The moment Liriope finished speaking, Daphnen’s hand lashed across her cheek. This blow carried far more force than before.
“Ahhh!”
Liriope’s head snapped to the side with such violence that she lost her balance and tumbled to the ground. Her lip had been bitten through, and blood trickled down her skin.
The crowd gasped in shock, and even the Regent was so startled that he nearly fell from his chair as he lurched to his feet.
To strike the Regent’s daughter before the Regent himself—no one had ever dared such an audacious act.
Of course, Liriope herself was the most shocked. Having lived her entire life without so much as a bruise from another’s hand, the impact of being struck across the face was all the more devastating.
But when she tried to raise her head and glare at Daphnen, she swallowed her words in surprise.
The young boy standing before her, backlit by sunlight, seemed like someone she had never truly seen before.
“… Keep your presumptuous thoughts and idle chatter for your father’s presence. You don’t know who I am. Of course, had you known, you wouldn’t have attempted something so pathetic.”
His tone was cold, and his gaze was utterly different from what she had known. This was not an attitude cultivated through practice, but an inborn cruelty laid bare in an instant.
Daphnen stepped back. Then he undid the cord that had bound his long hair for the ceremony and cast it to the ground. His dark blue hair fell loose.
“Everything is simple.”
Daphnen turned his gaze from Liriope to everyone present, and finally to the Regent. He spoke to him with finality.
“I have not yet undergone the Purification Ceremony, so I am not a Pilgrim. What obedience could be expected of one who is not a Pilgrim? It was an excessive expectation.”
Daphnen raised his left hand high and let the daffodil he had been holding fall to the ground as if in mockery. Then he turned and pushed through the crowd, departing.
A state neither sleep nor waking persisted for hours.
When I jolted awake with a sensation of suffocation, the surroundings had already darkened. I couldn’t remember how the time had passed. My mouth tasted bitter, and my throat was parched.
After rising to find water and drink, the events of the day gradually returned to my memory.
Rather than return to bed, I dragged a chair to the window and opened the shutters.
Night was returning with its familiar small sounds. When the breeze touched my face, I realized how intensely the heat had risen there.
Earlier today, after returning alone from the Town Hall, I had been consumed by confusion and distress, seeking refuge in sleep. For hours afterward, I was tormented by dreams and reveries drenched in sweat and tears.
Multiple choices had appeared before me, yet I could select none of them, and I could not remain without choosing either. Helplessly, the situation deteriorated. I could neither run forward nor turn back nor stand still.
Isolet.
I pronounced the name slowly. It was the first name my unconscious mind had summoned. She held the greatest of my sorrows in her hands.
I could not leave Isolet, nor could I be with her, so I had resolved to maintain the current state as it was—yet even that had become unbearably difficult, and now even that had become impossible.
Why had I become so enraged when Liriope referred to Isolet as ‘that woman’? When I heard the words ‘because you can’t have her,’ I had nearly lost all reason.
After returning from the Continent, my decision not to see Isolet was an act no different from piercing my own body and wounding myself.
I had barely suppressed the urge to go mad, refusing to speak her name, avoiding hearing stories of her, refraining from seeing her. By doing so, I had desperately believed that someday peace would come to my heart as well.
In a single phrase, she had reduced all my efforts to nothing, using the word ‘possess’ to reduce it to mere desire, dismissing it as identical to her own possessiveness—and in that moment, I had struck her with an impulse nearly murderous…
Because those words had pierced my most vulnerable place and cast it into murky depths, the sediment of emotion had not yet fully settled.
Daphnen’s desire to leave Isolet did not mean he would choose someone else in her stead. He had never even entertained such a notion.
He did not love easily, whoever the person might be, but conversely, his obsession with those to whom he had once given his heart was remarkably intense.
Just as Yefnen’s presence from childhood still dominated his life, Isolet’s shadow had gripped him—a boy who had learned to feel desire for the opposite sex.

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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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