Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 206

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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 206.
Choose the Dawn (18)
“Not all problems have been resolved, but….”
With those words, Boris smiled toward the old man.
“I understand what you mean. I must take the helm of the rest of my life into my own hands. Whether I seek revenge, choose someone, or abandon them—all of it is my choice. I realize now that even if I cannot change the past, I might be able to live a better life from this moment forward.”
“Heh heh, after waiting so long, I never imagined I would become a life counselor to a child. Very well. I shall sharpen the Winter Sword anew for you. Take it and preserve it in whatever way you wish.”
“You’re…granting me permission?”
I never expected to hear such an answer, having declared I could not become a person without desires. The old man nodded and spoke.
“I summoned you here partly because the seal on the Winter Sword had been broken, but if that were all, I could have simply borrowed another’s hand to retrieve the blade. What I truly wished to see, however, was you—not the sword.”
The old man’s gray eyes, as he gazed upon Boris, gleamed with the light of melting snow.
“This is a blade that has corrupted countless heroes across countless worlds. Yet I could not fathom why you alone have maintained your righteous consciousness all this time. As you said, you possess no special power. I do not believe you surpass the heroes of old in any way. And yet, you possessed something they did not.”
The old man extended one hand, and the Winterer that rested in Boris’s grip rose into the air.
“Perhaps the answer lies in this narrow-mindedness: refusing even immortality itself—the greatest gift—simply because you do not wish to forget those no longer at your side. The wise men of this world would have sought to accomplish something extraordinary with both the immense power that immortality grants and the power of the Winterer. But you harbored no such ambitions. All you needed were a few people.”
The Winterer entered the Anvil Chamber and came to rest upon the bronze anvil. This time, blue flames rose up and enveloped the blade.
“I shall place my faith in that heart of yours. Even the most brilliant mortals who ever lived could not master this single blade—they became monsters instead. Yet you, holding a sword whose seal had been broken and whose serpentine nature laid bare, somehow preserved your own heart intact.”
And more than that, the sword had even saved Boris on several occasions….
“Earlier, you said that all the skills you gained came from the power of the Winter Sword, but that was not entirely true. The Winter Sword incited you at first, but through it, you obtained a new power. And by virtue of that power, you have grown stronger by leaps and bounds. You will soon come to understand this yourself.”
Boris was seized by doubt. A new power?
“That power will aid you and fight against the Winter Sword. Its purity is sacred because it has been honed and refined by countless hands over thousands of years, achieving its essence, and has nearly approached the realm of magic. That is why it is possible. A paradox, is it not? Had it not been for the Winter Sword, you would never have obtained such power so swiftly.”
Intuition whispered to him. Was the Blacksmith speaking of that swordsmanship now? The very technique he thought he had never learned?
“Now I shall sharpen the blade anew, but I will not place another seal upon it.”
The Winter Sword resting upon the anvil burned with such a brilliant blue that it pained the eyes to gaze upon it. Soon, without any striking of the hammer, the form of the blade began to change.
“As you know, the sword responds to your desires. No matter what seal I place, you, as the Master of the Winterer, will easily shatter it. So trust your heart, consider your wishes carefully, and live your brief life to the fullest.”
The familiar shape of the hilt emerged. The base of the blade took form, and the edge was refined.
“If you cannot maintain your desires, the sword will immediately break its seal and display infinite power before you. Do not even think that you could wield it after that. Even immortals find that difficult…. So preserve it in this form. Walk through the winter of mortality with a demon clutched in one hand.”
In that moment, Boris was drawn by instinct to kneel and express his gratitude to the immortal Blacksmith.
The great trust this man placed in him was not because Boris possessed any special power. Perhaps it was simply because there was no other choice.
Yet having found a way to master the sword and recovered the freedom of his heart in the process, it seemed he could now choose to fight without hesitation.
“However, there is one more choice you must make here. You still wish for your brother to rest in peace, do you not? His obsession with you dwells within the white armor—Snowguard. Because Snowguard possesses the power to enshrine a soul, the vengeful spirit has taken root there, granting it tremendous destructive force.”
Boris remembered the visions the spirits had shown him. He dreaded to imagine what might have transpired since then.
“However, Snowguard is merely an appendage of the Winterer. If I sever the connection between the white armor and the Winter Sword as I sharpen it anew, the armor will be destroyed, and the vengeful spirit will lose its vessel. Therefore, this is the only moment when it can be done. Your brother, now a vengeful spirit, possesses power enough to harm dozens in an instant, but if he loses the power of Snowguard, he will revert to an ordinary spirit. After that, he will enter eternal rest within a few years at most.”
The old man paused for a moment, then gazed intently at Boris’s face as he spoke.
“After that, the possibility of you reuniting with your dead brother will vanish forever. But if I leave things as they are, Snowguard will remain an object that resonates with the Winterer, and should you ever encounter it, the moment the two objects resonate with each other, you both will recognize one another. Are you willing to lose that possibility?”
“….”
Granting Yefnen rest, the desire to meet Yefnen again—both were equally desperate wishes.
Biting his lip, Boris answered after a moment with a sorrowful smile.
“A soul should rest rather than wander. More than my desire…that is the right choice.”
Though the pain of speaking those words cut deeply, Boris stated his decision clearly.
Everything was decided. The Winterer, returned to Boris’s hand, shone with noble brilliance and cold light. Beautiful in exactly the same way as the day he first received it from Yefnen’s hand.
Finally, Boris carefully asked the Blacksmith his name.
The old man shook his head and spoke.
“I have no name. Others simply call me the Winter Blacksmith.”
As the Winter Blacksmith gestured his hand toward the smooth ice wall, the ice parted just as it had when the Anvil Chamber appeared, opening a passage.
The passage stretched so far that its end was invisible. Boris bowed to the old man and entered.

The ice that had encased the passage gradually grew thinner, revealing damp earth beneath.
Reaching the end of the passage, Boris found something resembling a large handle. He twisted and pushed it, stepping outside.
Moments later, he realized he stood beneath sunlight so brilliant it seemed almost white.
Spiral bridges traced countless loops across the sky. Leaf ornaments adorning the heads of toppled columns caught his eye. This was Arcadia—the very place where he had first departed.
But which part of Arcadia was this?
None of the familiar buildings he had seen while walking with Epibiono were visible. There was no way to find where the Old Man’s Well had stood.
Boris turned to look at the door he had just exited. An old, dilapidated door lay buried within the ruins of a collapsed structure.
When he approached and touched it, he found it was merely an abandoned door leaning against the wall with its hinges fallen away. Boris lifted the door in bewilderment and let out a hollow laugh. It led nowhere—not back the way he came, not anywhere else. It was nothing but debris left among broken bricks and rubble.
Boris emerged from the ruins and stepped onto the main road. He thought that by following the road, he might eventually find the well again.
He did not expect Epibiono to be waiting, yet a sense of longing lingered in his heart. Would he truly never appear again?
It felt as though he had traveled for only a single night since parting with Epibiono. If time flowed the same way here, it seemed he had scarcely left Arcadia at all.
Though they had been together only briefly, I found myself missing his cheerful voice and his entertaining way of speaking.
“You’ve arrived.”
Boris looked up in surprise, then chuckled softly moments later.
Sitting on a branch of the spiral bridge that spun and touched the ground was a familiar girl with silver braided hair. From the way she dangled one leg through the broken railing while resting the other knee against it, she appeared to have been watching Boris for quite some time.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“For a while now.”
“Why didn’t you call out to me?”
Perhaps because the difficult journey had ended, Boris felt a warmth of reunion and spoke to her more familiarly than before.
Yet Nayatrey answered in a voice that had not changed at all.
“You seemed to be looking for Epibiono.”
Boris felt slightly taken aback. There were moments when Nayatrey seemed to read people’s hearts.
“I did find him, but… you were looking for me too. Where were you? I searched for you for quite a while in the places I went.”
Then, a strange beast slowly rose behind the spiral bridge where Nayatrey sat.
Just as Boris was about to warn her, Nayatrey extended her hand and stroked the creature’s neck. Looking more carefully, it was an animal that resembled a somewhat large cat—not particularly threatening.
Like a tiger cub, perhaps? Its fur gleamed golden in the sunlight.
“I found you too.”
Nayatrey lifted the leg she had been dangling and lightly leaped down from beneath the spiral bridge. Despite the height being three times her own, she did not hesitate. The tiger-cat creature followed, leaping after her and padding along behind Nayatrey with a leisurely gait.
“You’ve made a new friend.”
“Yes.”
“Shall we go then?”
Finding the Southeastern Square that Epibiono had mentioned was not difficult. It looked more like a well-maintained garden than a square. At its center stood a fountain, completely parched and cracked. Paths radiated outward from it like spokes.
Seeing the faded stones laid between the paths, I wondered if they had once been flower beds. Of course, not a single plant remained.
A pedestal of the same shape as the one seen in Clazyanya stood at the head of the square.
The two of them made their way into the square through a radial path. As they passed flower beds and approached the fountain, something remarkable unfolded.
The sound of water reached them first.
Whoooosh….
Perhaps it was the effect of walking across the scorching ground, but the sound of water seemed like music itself. Water was surging up from the fountain.
A central column twice the height of a man, with six lower streams spiraling upward around it. They stopped in their tracks. This was the first time they had seen anything move in this dead city besides the puppets.
That was not all. Within the fountain, multiple light sources of varying colors were scattered about. Slightly larger than fireflies, they shifted in turn to mysterious hues. They were colors difficult to describe—much like the cushions they had seen in the Hall of Spirits.
Looking into the fountain, dozens of small streams rose like flower stems. Water began to spray of its own accord into the flower beds that held no blossoms. Every bed filled with streams of brilliantly glowing water.
Unexpectedly, Nayatrey let out a soft exclamation.
“Ohhh….”
Though I didn’t know why it had suddenly come to life, it was a beautiful sight. Since Arcadia was a city in the desert, it was hot and arid. A fountain rising from such a place conveyed not merely wonder, but something almost sacred.
After gazing at the streams for a long while, Boris spoke.
“Does it only move when people come to find it?”
Nayatrey said.
“Magic from another world has clung to your body and mine, so things that move by magic respond to us.”
Whether her reasoning held merit or not, Boris did not bother to refute it. Yet as he listened, his thoughts turned to Epibiono. How he wished that he could have seen this sight. How joyful it would have made him to witness his beloved kingdom, even briefly, reclaim its former glory.

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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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