Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 191

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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 191.
Choose the Dawn (3)
Then I withdrew my finger from Rockmode’s hand and traced a straight path to the destination I desired—a direct line cutting across the Land of Mortals from Yuldruyi to Anomarad.
“This way is faster. So give me the same equipment.”
“…”
Now Rockmode had lost all words. The people around us, even Boris, stared down at the girl in stunned silence.
She appeared to be around twelve years old, with a small, delicate frame. Her skin was a warm brown, her cheeks flushed with color, and her transparent eyes, ringed with white lashes, resembled those of an exquisitely crafted doll. The absence of expression only heightened this resemblance.
And this girl was claiming she would traverse the Land of Mortals alone.
Unlike the advice Rockmode had offered Boris moments before, he offered the girl no words of caution. Even Boris could see that awakening her to the dangers of that path, to how utterly unrealistic such a plan was, would be utterly futile.
The girl showed no anxiety, no hesitation. She simply gazed up at her master with an expression that made crossing through the shortcut seem entirely natural and inevitable. She did not respond to any question until Rockmode raised both hands and began producing travel supplies.
The master gathered gold and silver coins, then spread his palms wide and shrugged his shoulders with an expression that seemed to say, “There’s no point in interfering further.”
“Is this the trend among children these days?”
The girl’s name was Nayatrey.
I had heard it, certainly, but the unfamiliar pronunciation had slipped from my mind almost immediately. Moreover, when I first met Nayatrey, I had been in no state to carefully remember passing strangers. My heart had been entirely consumed by an anxious, fragile reality that threatened to shatter at any moment.
Nayatrey had no family name. Just as it was on Moon Island, and just as it was among the people of Recordable and Lugran.
The people of Lugran at least appended their birthplace or family nicknames to their names, but Recordable had no such custom. In fact, there were scarcely even a handful of what could be called family clans there.
As a result, it felt natural for me to introduce myself by name alone. “Boris” was common enough that I had not bothered to change it even when competing in Silverscull.
And we were heading in the same direction.
It was not a path everyone took. Even now, throughout the Inn, there were more than a few people wondering whether these two, who had purchased so much equipment, would truly depart. Some were even wagering ten Tivors that they would return before afternoon tomorrow.
Yet sharing the same destination did not necessarily mean becoming traveling companions. The routes the two of us had each planned were subtly misaligned.
Following Rockmode’s advice, the old roads of Ganapoli seemed the best path for me. My destination was Arcadia, the former capital of Ganapoli. Of course, no one now knew where Arcadia lay, but such grand roads inevitably led to the capital.
Nayatrey, by contrast, intended to cross the Land of Mortals westward toward the eastern reaches of Anomarad. More precisely, near Trevizo.
Crossing the Land of Mortals itself was problematic enough, but that path was blocked by the Drakenz Mountain Range, the spine of the Continent. Those mountains protected Anomarad from the desertification creeping in from the Land of Mortals, but that also meant the way was barred.
Rockmode had pointed out this same issue, of course. But Nayatrey shut down his concern with a single phrase.
“I know the way.”
Nayatrey’s statement struck me as rather remarkable. Perhaps she had already ventured into the Land of Mortals, or perhaps she knew how to survive there. Given how extraordinary this girl was, such imaginings came naturally.
Because the people around us cast suspicious glances and herded us together as if we were one group, we somehow ended up sitting at the same table. My opening words were these.
“You’re reckless.”
Nayatrey, her eyes downcast, answered with surprising ease.
“It’s the same path as yours.”
I responded at once.
“I have a reason I must go there. But you have countless other options. If I were in your position, I would never choose such a path.”
Nayatrey fell silent for a moment, then spoke.
“The ways of the Myo Tribe belong only to the Myo Tribe.”
“The Myo Tribe?”
Nayatrey offered no further reply, and since I was not the type to deeply involve myself in others’ affairs, I soon fell silent as well. I had never heard of a tribe called the Myo Tribe. But ignorance was no great matter.
After finishing our meal, the two of us parted without farewell and climbed to our respective rooms.

Late the following afternoon, I left the Inn and went to buy the special equipment that Rockmode had told me about.
Not everyone heading into the Land of Mortals purchased such gear, but for someone planning a long journey like myself, it was indispensable—so there was no choice despite the steep price.
I paid six fifty-tibo gold coins and bought a beast they called a llama. With a body about the size of a small mule and covered entirely in fluffy white fur, it could be ridden, but it was primarily bred as a pack animal.
Especially in wastelands and highlands, it could endure for long stretches without water or feed, making it the ideal transport for an environment like the Land of Mortals.
Whether it was naturally docile or just this particular llama, I had no trouble leading it away by the reins despite seeing one for the first time.
The merchant who sold me the llama taught me how to secure several water skins across its back. As I headed toward the riverbank to fill the leather pouches, I encountered another familiar face.
The creature sat primly at the corner as if waiting for my arrival, cleaning its face with its front paws. It was the same as before—a fierce-looking beast with the powerful shoulders and foreleg of a small tiger.
As I approached, it rose and lifted its half-tail, slinking around the corner. I stopped in surprise, and the creature poked its head back around, staring at me intently—as if asking why I wasn’t following.
It was a cat.
So strikingly similar to the cat I’d met at the Rosenberg Gate that the passage of several years felt unreal. Though truthfully, the distance was too great for it to be the same cat.
Back then, struggling to cross the gate alone, I had followed the cat by chance and somehow encountered Nauplion again.
And now this cat was beckoning me to follow once more?
I smiled to myself—the first smile I’d worn since leaving the Island. Then I followed the cat with light steps. It wasn’t quite the childlike feeling of that time, but the memory brought a smile to my face.
After walking a bit further, I stopped. I’d caught myself defining that time as a “memory.”
I’d always thought the word “memory” carried the soft, worn tones of a wooden table or leather—something that brought warmth to those who recalled it.
But could it be that even those times, which had been matters of life and death, pain and silence, became merely memories as time passed?
By then, the cat had scaled a wall and leaped down beneath the eaves of a house, struggling to squeeze through a gap in the fence. The cat seemed to have grown larger, and it grunted and strained, unable to pass through the opening easily—almost comically so.
I’d reacted with fastidious sensitivity to the word “memory,” but it was only a mental resistance, not an actual emotion. Without realizing it, I let out another quiet laugh.
The impact of my difficult past had now seeped so deeply into my actions and thoughts that it seemed like an inborn nature. I no longer felt my cheeks burn or my chest grow cold merely from recalling those days as I once had. Pain, once transformed into a “memory,” remained fixed in place and no longer wielded its influence.
The past had made me who I am now. But only the experiences yet to come will shape who I become.
If I still felt the vivid pain of events from years ago as I had then, it would mean my heart had remained frozen in that time—and my growth had halted at that very point.
Yet the debt of gratitude in my heart, the responsibilities left unfulfilled, the faithfulness owed to love once given—these remained carved at the center of my being. The difference was simply that I’d learned to smile despite carrying them.
By the time I’d grown enough to think such thoughts, I would be sixteen come summer. At twelve, I had fled in despair and fear, looked back, and fallen again and again. Over four years, I had survived, and I’d learned to distinguish between memory and recollection.
The cat freed itself from the fence gap. In the end, it had simply shattered one wooden plank with its powerful shoulder.
Even then it was no ordinary creature, but if it truly was the same one, then it was a cat that had crossed the Land of Mortals—something humans couldn’t do. A mere fence couldn’t possibly stop such a beast.
As these thoughts came in succession, my mood grew lighter. The cat glanced back briefly and quickened its pace, breaking into a run.
I followed the cat, holding the llama’s reins. Before long, a wooden structure that looked like a stable appeared. Behind a pile of dried grass stacked on one side, I glimpsed the back of a pony-like creature.
The cat leaped into the hay pile. I waited for it to emerge when I heard a voice.
“You bought one too.”
Only then did I realize the beast standing behind the hay pile was the same kind of llama I’d purchased—except this one had brown fur.
Nayatrey sat atop a stack of boxes some distance away. I hesitated on what to say before answering.
“There was no other choice.”
But something seemed odd about Nayatrey. The way she sat comfortably on the boxes seemed like she was waiting for someone. Sure enough, Nayatrey jumped down from the stack and said:
“Now that you’re here, shall we go?”
The way she said it made it sound as though she’d been waiting for me, which puzzled me. Nayatrey took hold of the llama’s reins and walked a few steps before turning back to look at me—just as the cat had done.
We stared at each other for a long moment. I was the one who finally had to speak.
“Are you saying we should go together?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“No one can go to the Holy Land alone.”
Nayatrey seemed to think that explanation was sufficient, so she turned her body and began walking. It was in the direction that led to the old road of Ganapoli.
The word “sacred land” appeared to refer to the Land of Mortals, but I couldn’t fathom why it was called that, why she couldn’t go alone, whether she was truly asking me to accompany her for that reason, or whether it was even right for me to object to this journey at all. Everything was muddled.
Yet there was no point in standing still. After all, the path Nayatrey was taking was the same one Boris had intended to follow.
After walking a few steps, I realized the Cat had vanished somewhere again, just as before.

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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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