Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 204

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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 204.
Choose the Dawn (16)
“Calling it evil or calamitous is merely the excuse of those who lacked the strength to wield the sword and fell to corruption. Even when it took the form of a white serpent, it never directly destroyed or corrupted the world itself. Yet those who beheld the serpent’s power and were seized by fear, awe, and greed borrowed its strength of their own volition. Then, when the end came, they blamed the white serpent for corrupting them, claimed the sword emanated malice. Such is their nature.”
The Blacksmith Elder pointed to the sword Boris held.
“Look here. I do not know the will of the white serpent, nor what it means for it to manifest across all worlds. Perhaps the very existence of such transcendent power, gathered in this grotesque form, is a flaw the Creator deliberately left upon the world to demonstrate absolute will. If so, then it would be fitting to call it a child—one executing the Creator’s own design.”
The sound of hammer and anvil faded. Boris regained full consciousness. The voices that had circled his ears vanished. He managed to sheathe the sword.
Yet what was revealed was a far more terrifying truth. Boris suddenly wondered if this dreadful Blacksmith Elder had been testing him all along. Had he been left to fall into delusion, drawn by the voices emanating from the sword, only to have it shattered at the final moment? Why would he do such a thing?
“Then, if the one who sealed such a dangerous white serpent in the form of a sword possessed such power… does that mean you have no other method to destroy or tame it?”
The old man bowed his head toward Boris’s face. His gleaming, piercing eyes scrutinized Boris like those of a judge.
“Do you know why I brought you here? Do you understand the elaborate arrangements required to see you directly? I am the Winterer—a sword refined in blade form, existing in that very shape for thousands of years. Yet in your hands, for the first time, it partially broke through the exterior of ‘sword’ and transformed into its current shape. That it resembles a white serpent, you cannot deny. What within you awakened the true nature of this blade, the dormant nature of the white serpent?”
Boris had always believed the sword changed because Morpheus resonated it with something from Ganapoli. But now he was being told it was because of Boris himself?
“So I wondered if perhaps you would become a terrible evil that would manifest the white serpent’s will upon the world. Yet seeing you directly, you are nothing but a fifteen-year-old child, are you not? What is it, then? What do you possess?”
Boris could only say this:
“I… do not know. I possess nothing. Truly… at least, I do not know.”
The old man clicked his tongue as if angered, then spoke coldly.
“What called to you moments ago was not the Winterer itself, but the malevolent spirits absorbed into that blade. Stripped of power and imprisoned, they are far more maddened than ghosts wandering free in the world, trembling with desire to kill and destroy all things. And you, standing right beside them, would be the finest prey, would you not?”
Boris looked down at the sheathed sword. A quiet shimmer of light rippled across the white tang exposed beyond the scabbard.
“They yearn only for you to become like them, to have your soul stolen away. Having been maddened for so long, they are cunning—they see through a young boy’s thoughts as easily as glass and weave words with subtle craft to lure you toward ruin. To be ensnared by such deception and attempt to destroy yourself… you are foolish beyond measure. What special quality you possess, I cannot fathom. Perhaps you are merely an empty vessel, and the white serpent schemes to dwell within you.”
“…”
Something felt strange. Of course, Boris did not believe he possessed any special power unknown even to himself. If such a thing existed, why had it not manifested earlier, precisely when it was desperately needed?
There had been times when he desperately needed strength. He believed that power which could not save him then would be useless to him in the future.
Despite his youth, Boris was not one to harbor hope in the unfamiliar. Like old men who believed they had experienced all there was to experience, he instinctively regarded the unfamiliar with suspicion and ultimately sought to deny it.
Though his body and mind were at an age of flourishing growth, he instinctively refused to believe in his own development or hope for a better future. For him, the worst was merely the worst—not a stepping stone for leaps forward, nor a preparatory phase.
“You are bound entirely to the past, so your future is void. It is the future that guides humanity, yet do you know what guides your present now?”
The Blacksmith Elder’s voice had grown noticeably softer than when they first met, but Boris, lost in thought, did not perceive it. When Boris did not answer, the old man asked again.
“After your brother’s matter is resolved, what will you live for?”
Boris asked in confusion.
“To save my brother… did you not say I must die?”
“That is one method, certainly. But I did not say it was the only one. In any case, answer me. Your master’s affairs have left your hands, the woman’s affairs have left your hands, and you yourself have changed—the threat to your survival has diminished. Once your brother’s suffering is resolved, what purpose will you live for?”
Boris looked up at the old man in surprise. He knew everything Boris had endured.
“Perhaps… I… would be content simply living quietly without creating new entanglements. I apologize for offering no better answer. I am a worthless being by nature, and I harbor no great expectations for my remaining life.”
“I see… so that is how it is.”
The old man lifted his head and sighed briefly before speaking.
“Your very state is excellent for resisting the Winterer’s power. I begin to understand. But is that all there is?”
The old man fell silent for a moment. The cave, as if responding to the Blacksmith Elder’s mood, became deathly quiet.
Surrounded by thick walls of ice, Boris felt a chill that pierced even his heart. Those he had loved grew distant, and in this empty cave, speaking words like “my remaining life holds no value,” he appeared to himself as a being of utter worthlessness.
When the old man’s words resumed, Boris saw a flicker of fire’s essence brush through the ice.
“Those without hope cannot improve. Yet you have grown remarkably even in such a state, and your swordsmanship in particular has achieved results difficult to obtain even after decades of training. Do you not wonder why? Do you not see that there is but one reason you wield skills not yet fully learned as if you had already trained them extensively? The being that drives your growth is beyond doubt the Winterer.”
Though he had suspected it somewhat, it was still a devastating pronouncement. Did that mean all the effort he had made thus far amounted to nothing?
“Do you not think it remarkable coincidence that you encountered the monster that slew your brother once more? The Winterer naturally pierces through multiple worlds, so it is unsurprising that monsters from other worlds are drawn by its power. Yet that the very same monster appeared before you—that is for one reason alone: because you desired revenge. The Winterer, naturally indifferent, granted your wish! Whether you lived or died in that battle was irrelevant to the white serpent’s will!”
Boris trembled without answering, feeling cornered at the cliff’s edge.
If even the skills I had honed over the years relied upon the Winterer’s power, then I would inevitably walk the same path as those ruined heroes glimpsed in the illusion.
Then should I finally abandon my sword and turn back? I claimed I could even surrender my life—so what is it I cannot relinquish now?
And yet….
“Now that you understand, will you return the Winter Sword to me and leave?”
The old man asked as though he had peered directly into Boris’s heart.
Suddenly, the image of a crystalline spring appeared in my mind, and a single droplet falling into it. Ripples…. The spring was filled with ripples. As the ripples subsided, memories surfaced once more. All manner of recollections. The binding power of an oath I could not escape, though I yearned for silence.
“No. I cannot do that.”
It was as though a will not my own—a will I myself had not known I possessed—had answered. Even after speaking, Boris gazed up at the old man as though he did not comprehend his own words. The old man spoke.
“Give me your reason.”
“I have not yet tested the full extent of my potential. No end appears before my eyes.”
“Did I not say you would be defeated? How could a mere child bear a power so immense that even resolute heroes could not sustain it? The end is merely the ruin of another soul.”
Boris shook his head slowly. His answer grew steadier.
“That may be true, but it is only visible to your eyes, not to mine.”
Once more, from a distant place, the faint sound of a hammer rang out. Clang, clang, clang…. With that sound, the old man spoke.
“You too have witnessed it. The tragedy within the Winter Sword, how its masters succumbed to temptation, knelt before rage, and destroyed not only the world but themselves. Evil has many sources—some become wicked because they cannot endure their own weakness, others because they wish to wield the small power they possess. Yet such wickedness cannot compare to the evil achieved only by pure strength untouched by a single defeat, by ultimate power. Strength is inherently evil. It is evil because it is strong!”
With the Blacksmith’s voice, the heat of the anvil rose once more.
“Heroes who were strong enough to practice virtue never enjoyed peaceful twilight years because power, by its very nature, must inevitably clash with the world. Thus they fall, sometimes miserably, sometimes in solitude. But what if they do not fall? What if they face the world once more and emerge victorious? Then the greatest evil comes to rule that world!”
In that moment, the history of ruin that Boris had witnessed long ago within the ice cocoon flowed through his mind once more.
But this time, he saw the complete before and after—the inescapable consequences that befell those heroes.
A man who sought to rebuild human civilization upon the desolate ruins where civilization had vanished; a warrior who rose to honor tribes groaning under the tyranny of a foreign lord; a man who attempted to resurrect a beloved who died tragically by his own hand; a girl who discovered that the parents and siblings she loved deeply were in fact the enemies who had slaughtered her true family; a princess who fought to protect the verdant land facing extinction before monsters advancing upon the Capital; a man who could not close his eyes until he had punished the cruel enemy who murdered his wife and children….
“Do you think they all failed to understand that becoming a ‘human without desire’ was the answer?”
At the words ‘human without desire,’ Boris suddenly came to his senses and looked ahead.
That was the sole method the Regent King had revealed to him in the Land of Ghosts.
“Consider how many desires you possess. You said you wished to let your Elder Brother rest in peace, but if it were possible, wouldn’t you wish him to return and remain at your side? And those two you never met—if you could be reunited with them and find happiness, wouldn’t it suffice to simply kill all who stand in your way?”
Boris could not answer readily. He could not deny that such desires dwelt in the depths of his heart.
“You possess the power to undo all the misfortune you have suffered. Humans cannot see the future. They never perceive how actions they believe right in that moment will reshape what is to come! And yet, are those desires not yours? Can you deny them? A human without desire—that is impossible for the living. Strong power inevitably…. leads all beings of flesh and blood toward eternal death.”
Boris, drawn by a force beyond his understanding, spoke in rebuttal.
“Then should this sword be given to the dead? Spirits would suffice, would they not? Yet I have met ghosts, and I have even seen a great sorcerer who lived a thousand years because death passed him by. None of them wished to involve themselves in the world’s destruction. It is not a wrong judgment. This world belongs ultimately to the living. But if, as you say, the fate of all the living is the same, then the Winterer must either be destroyed by you or kept sealed away forever!”

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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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