Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 214

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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 214.
Choose the Dawn (26)
“My head? What are you talking about? Weren’t you suggesting I wager mine?”
Boris gathered the scattered dice from the table with casual composure.
“It seems you don’t understand. The moment I walked through that door, your head was already in my possession. If you win, you get to keep it. If I win, I’ll take it as my prize instead of the pot.”
Lucian’s eyes across the table widened in shock. The other two men’s faces twisted grotesquely.
They were about to shout when the Gang Leader suddenly raised his hand to silence them, then burst into laughter.
“Hahahaha… Bold little brat, aren’t you? In over twenty years of rolling dice, I’ve never met anyone who spouts such absurdities. Fine! I’ll accept your reckless challenge. But tell me—can you put your head on the line as well?”
Boris lifted his gaze and fixed the Gang Leader with a piercing stare.
“You’re bluffing. You know you’re not in that position. Why not trust in the skills you’ve honed over twenty years instead?”
Boris observed the Gang Leader’s words and already understood what these men were thinking.
They were wondering whether he had come alone or brought warriors with him. Since Boris held a sword, they couldn’t attack immediately. They were likely thinking that if they stalled for time and their reinforcements arrived, they could easily dispose of a mere boy like Boris.
But Boris wasn’t particularly afraid of such reinforcements. He had already assessed their capabilities from outside.
Only Lucian was unaware of the situation, and it seemed they hadn’t threatened him yet.
If they had intended to kidnap him from the start, they wouldn’t have been leisurely playing dice all this time. There was only one explanation that made sense: they wanted to keep deceiving Lucian.
Perhaps they feared the Kaltz Trading Company’s retaliation, so their plan was to load him with debt today, take everything they could, and then send him back with feigned courtesy.
In other words, Boris hadn’t drawn his sword and subdued them immediately solely because of Lucian. There was something he wanted to show him.
“Well… regardless, you have no chance of winning anyway. Come on, enough talk. Shall we continue where we left off with young master Lucian?”
The Gang Leader forced his voice higher, desperately trying to save face.
Boris looked at Lucian. Those round, innocent eyes stared at him with curiosity, oblivious to danger. He couldn’t decide whether to call it pathetic or naive.
“I don’t know complicated rules. Let’s keep it simple and decisive. Whoever rolls the highest number wins.”
With that, he set the dice he’d gathered down with a sharp tap in front of the Gang Leader. The Gang Leader picked them up and let out a peculiar laugh.
Moments later, as the dice were thrown, everyone’s eyes went wide. 6, 6, 6, 6, 6.
“Huh… Unbelievable.”
Lucian murmured. Since they had decided victory by the sum of the numbers, there couldn’t be a better roll than this. At best, it would be a tie.
As Boris picked up the dice and examined them, the Gang Leader spoke irritably.
“Well then, shall the bold young man take his turn?”
At those words, Boris raised his hand and slowly dropped the dice onto the table. One by one, the numbers appeared. The first was 6, the next was also 6… and all the rest were 6 as well.
“Huh…”
Everyone stared down at Boris’s dice with frozen expressions.
When a tie—something they had never imagined possible—occurred, the Gang Leader’s face went pale.
“How is this even possible? Both of us rolled all 6s?”
Lucian felt something strange and shrugged his shoulders. Boris glanced at Lucian, gathered the dice, and spoke.
“A tie, it seems. It’ll be hard to settle it this way. What about this instead?”
Boris threw the dice again. The dice fell one after another, each showing a single red dot. People’s eyes grew even wider.
Boris gathered the dice once more and this time threw them all at once, producing five 2s. Those watching had forgotten even to marvel.
“Shall I continue?”
As five 3s, then five 4s, then five 5s appeared in succession, the onlookers stood frozen as if they’d seen a ghost. There were limits to skill and luck alike. No gambler in the world could throw dice like this.
Finally, Boris effortlessly produced five 6s again and looked at the Gang Leader.
“If you think you can beat me, go ahead and throw.”
The Gang Leader swallowed hard, his voice trembling as he cried out.
“T-this can’t be right! Something’s wrong here! There must be some kind of trick!”
“If anyone used tricks first, it was you.”
The curt reply had barely finished when Boris suddenly kicked back his chair and rose. In the same motion, he drew a short blade and drove it down onto one of the dice on the table.
Crack!
A strange liquid seeped from the shattered die. Lucian stared down at it with wide eyes.
“But there are far more remarkable tricks in this world than simple deception.”
Before the bewildered men could respond, Boris sheathed the short blade and drew the sword at his hip.
In that moment, the Gang Leader remembered what Boris had wagered. He had accepted the bet with overconfidence, certain he could not lose.
“N-not that… that can’t be…”
“This settles Lucian’s debt. As promised, I’ll be taking my winnings.”
Boris’s blade pointed directly at the Gang Leader’s throat. The man could barely breathe as he stared down at the steel. In that brief moment when Boris had drawn and aimed, the Gang Leader realized that the speed, precision of movement, and stability of stance were far from those of an ordinary boy.
With such skill, he could have easily eliminated the three defenseless men from the start, yet for some reason, he had held back until now.
Boris’s blade swept horizontally. The tip left a thin line across the Gang Leader’s chin before coming to rest above Lucian’s head. Boris spoke.
“But your neck wouldn’t be worth anything to me. Instead, I’ll be taking my friend. You have no objections, I trust?”
“How did you do that? Huh? Can’t you teach me? I’m dying to know!”
Unaware that he had just escaped from the lair of men who might have kidnapped and imprisoned him, Lucian pestered Boris relentlessly to teach him the secret of how he had thrown the dice. He had been asking about it ever since they left the city.
“What would you do if you knew? Go back and try it out?”
Lucian had nothing to say, so he stuck out his tongue and scratched the back of his head.
“No… I’m not going back. Those guys deceived me. I don’t know how, but I know for certain it wasn’t just the dice. But honestly, I’m a hundred times more curious about your method! They took a lot of my money, sure, but compared to the chance to learn the secret technique you’ve been hiding, that’s nothing!”
“You didn’t get that chance. I won’t teach you.”
“Ugh… you really won’t teach me? Even if I die of curiosity?”
“Nobody dies from curiosity.”
“I might be the first if you keep refusing to teach me like this!”
Boris simply let Lucian persist with his absurd stubbornness. Only when the boy seemed to tire himself out did Boris finally speak.
“It was just a trick anyway. You know as well as I do that such things aren’t really possible, right? The reason I went to the trouble of showing you was to teach you that there are countless tricks in this world. The dice those men used that you didn’t notice—that was a trick. What I did was an even greater trick.”
Lucian’s eyes still gleamed with the desire to know the trick, but Boris’s expression was so resolute that he didn’t dare pester him further.
“Gambling is like a world of magic to ordinary people. Everyone who enters it leaves empty-handed. There’s no such thing as real skill in that world. Only luck and deception exist. Even luck—unless you can manipulate dice like I showed you just now—you’ll only lose in the end. I respect how you’re growing, but this time I felt you’d suffer greater harm before you could realize it yourself, so I interfered. Don’t try to learn such tricks. The more you know about them, the deeper you’ll fall.”
“Then how do you manage not to get caught up in gambling even though you know such methods?”
Only then did Boris’s expression soften slightly as he spoke.
“You know as well as I do. I can’t make bets.”
“Come on! That doesn’t make sense! You’re so good at it—why wouldn’t you bet? You’d win no matter what you wagered.”
“Lucian. Did you forget what I just said?”
“Hmm…”
While Lucian stammered, unable to find words, Boris looked ahead and continued.
Just before throwing the dice, Boris had mixed Endymion’s die into the pile. Therefore, the magical dice result he had displayed was an illusion created by a single enchanted die.
I still couldn’t produce illusions stronger than that, but it was the result of practice during my ten months in Gwale.
Endymion had been the boy king of Ganapoli, and his die was a precious artifact preserved across the ages. Using such a thing in a gambling den troubled me. If possible, I never wanted to use it for such purposes again.
Lucian continued to grumble and press the matter, but it was only curiosity about Boris’s dice technique—his lingering attachment to gambling seemed to have nearly vanished.
Lucian had always been quick to lose interest. Learning that the game he had been so passionate about contained deception, his enthusiasm evaporated at once. It was exactly the character Boris had observed in him all along.
He was reckless, yet decisive when it came to finishing things—a clean, uncomplicated nature. Perhaps it stemmed from a poor memory, or perhaps not. Either way, he would soon become absorbed in something else entirely.
It was a stark contrast to Boris. Boris never forgot the past. His cynical worldview, once formed, had remained unchanged ever since.
Caution had its merits, but Lucian possessed an innate gift that Boris had never been granted. To develop such a temperament required an environment where trusting others yielded positive results—a necessity. That very quality was like a sun that cast no shadow upon Lucian’s heart.
Lucian himself scarcely realized how abundantly blessed he was. He squandered money freely, but it was no different from a child in the Garden scattering flower petals as he played.
He did not comprehend that such wealth could be used to suppress others, to mock them, to torment them, or even to steal what they held dear. Rather, he derived no pleasure from such things. That was why losing streak after losing streak at the Gambling House felt to him like merely spending his allowance.
Like a small child on a beach who scattered the shells he had painstakingly collected and ran off in search of new amusement. Truly, he was a peculiar fellow.
“Wait, wait, Boris, I just thought of something interesting—want to hear it? It was about two weeks from now, I think—there’s a party in the middle of the night. Ah, I know you hate parties, but this one is different. It’s a gathering for children only! I received the invitation about ten days ago but completely forgot to send my reply. I need to go write it today. You absolutely must come with me. This one will be fun, I promise!”

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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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