Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 230

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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 230.
Side Story: The Young Guardian
I knew the crimson shadows spreading across the night sky were bonfires. There were several of them.
They blazed with vigor, scattering sparks, and around them, dark-haired young women in shabby dresses danced with such boldness that the townspeople blushed and turned away, calling out to the crowd.
From a carriage with one wall torn away, the Katuna puppet show featuring ‘Bella’ and ‘Ivan’ and a donkey would soon begin, and beside it, a man who looked like a shoemaker was undoubtedly stitching the puppets without rest.
The man would speak loudly to the puppets for the passing children to hear. Around him, little ones sat transfixed, gazing blankly at the puppets with broken necks as they laughed.
The man’s shrill voice mimicking the puppet’s speech echoed in my ears.
‘Hey, that little friend over there came to see you in a dress getting an egg dumped on your head, didn’t he?’ ‘Oh, how embarrassing! Please don’t laugh!’
The Nanny understood perfectly what the expression on the twelve-year-old young master’s face meant, but she deliberately played innocent and waited for him to whine.
Watching the young master try to act dignified when he was still at an age where he could whine without shame made her smile. He must have decided on his own that he was too old to watch puppet shows.
“Young Master Yefnen.”
“Hmm?”
She called his name deliberately and even smiled, but Yefnen tilted his head and kept staring at the dishes in the cupboard.
His small face, still covered in baby fat, was reflected in the glass, but he must have thought of himself as a fully grown boy. Yet when he sat on the kitchen’s round, tall chair, his feet didn’t even touch the floor.
“Young Master, won’t you go play?”
Finally, the words escaped the Nanny’s lips. Yefnen glanced at his younger brother nestled in the Nanny’s arms. Now that he thought about it, it had started after his brother was born. When the adorable little one came along, he had begun straightening his posture as if he were no longer a child himself.
But twelve years old was still a child. Yefnen hesitated before speaking.
“Boris would want to see the puppet show, wouldn’t he?”
“Of course, Young Master. He would surely want to see it.”
“It’s so entertaining, I really want to show it to him.”
“He’ll definitely be delighted.”
After all, he had never seen it once since birth. Isn’t the puppet show something all children love?
The two of them, having found common ground, set off cheerfully to the Meadow where the Wandering Troupe had arrived, but the ostensible guest of honor for watching the puppet show was fast asleep, oblivious to the world.
The Nanny had to return early. A spark from the bonfire had burned a hole right through one side of her skirt.
She couldn’t go around looking so embarrassed, so she said she had to leave. But the Nanny, who understood Yefnen’s heart well, assured him that a twelve-year-old brother could certainly take good care of his younger sibling, so it was fine for him to watch the puppet show and come back. Or rather, she said it was fine for him to show the puppet show to his brother and come back.
When Boris woke up, his eyes widened just as expected, and he looked around in all directions. Holding his younger brother’s hand, Yefnen felt a sense of accomplishment and joy. Of course, he was enjoying it himself as well.
The bustling commotion, the dancers in red dresses on stage with arms crossed and legs raised high, the jester juggling and winking, the peculiar monkey tipping its hat in greeting, the handsome young men performing hoop tricks—all of it was wonderful, but best of all was the puppet show.
Ivan, who abandoned his lover to marry a wealthy woman; Bella, who made poison to take revenge after being abandoned by Ivan; Dolph, who harbored unrequited love for Bella but accidentally drank the poison instead.
But what he thought was poison turned out to be a potion that turned people into donkeys, and Dolph the donkey crashed into Ivan’s wedding, ruining the entire celebration.
All the villagers came out to catch Dolph the donkey, and when Bella appeared before the tightly bound Dolph the donkey, she declared she would marry him, and amid everyone’s blessings, they held a ridiculous wedding ceremony. It was a bizarre story indeed.
Yet this puppet show was an old and beloved tale that anyone from around the Katuna Mountain Range adored. Yefnen himself had seen this puppet show more than three times.
When the donkey appeared and ruined Ivan’s wedding, the children would cheer and whistle with delight, and when Bella went through the process of marrying the donkey step by step, the adults mostly giggled and laughed.
This time was no exception. When Dolph the donkey overturned all the tables and flower baskets arranged in the puppet theater and sent the bride and groom flying into the audience, Yefnen unconsciously let go of Boris’s hand and clapped with excitement.
He remembered how the short Boris had been rising and falling on his tiptoes to see better, blocked by children wiggling their bottoms in front of him. The villagers came running out with shovels, washing mallets, nets, and even ladles and spatulas to catch Dolph the donkey, and after a chase scene, the donkey was finally caught and everyone caught their breath.
Suddenly, the realization struck him that his hand was empty.
“Huh?”
The hand that should have been holding his brother’s hand was empty. But he wasn’t holding anything. And his brother was nowhere to be seen. No matter how much he looked around, he couldn’t find him.
Startled, Yefnen forgot all about the puppet show and jumped up from his seat.
“Boris! Where are you!”
Children bouncing around, people pushing each other and laughing, his younger brother’s small form like a puppy was nowhere to be found in the crowd.
I weaved through the crowd, desperately searching. Whenever I spotted a small child, I’d rush forward to grab them, only to hesitate and release them, then dash onward. Where could they be? How could I have lost them in this sea of people? What if I couldn’t find them?
The puppet show had ended, and people began to disperse. Those in a hurry abandoned their leisure and left, causing the crowd to thin noticeably. Yet I still couldn’t find my younger brother.
After another half hour had passed, people flowed away like a receding tide, and even the campfires were dying down. In the Wandering Troupe’s encampment, only Yefnen remained, running about with breath caught in his throat.
“Hey, what are you looking for?”
A dancer with a worried expression called out to Yefnen, who was hurrying back and forth between tents and wagons. She sat warming a cup of wine by the fire, her dress hem hiked up as she massaged her legs.
“My younger brother…”
“You lost him?”
Yefnen couldn’t respond further, only breathing heavily as he nodded, his flushed face burning. Despite the heat radiating from his face, he felt cold. The dancer watching him suddenly asked:
“You were watching the puppet show, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Check the tents over there.”
“The tents?”
The dancer didn’t respond further, simply beginning to drink. Dozens of small tents had been pitched by the troupe members for camping, and lamps glowed in only a few of them. Darkness was already settling over everything.
Searching through the tents proved no easy task. At first, I called out cautiously, but many tents gave no response. Even when someone did answer, few were willing to let me enter and search. Sometimes I caught embarrassing glimpses when I forced my way in. Many tents stood empty, their occupants still away.
“Is anyone inside?”
…
Another tent with no answer. Yefnen raised his voice.
“Is anyone there? I have something I’d like to ask.”
Then something like a light flickered inside the dark tent. Unable to restrain himself any longer, Yefnen lifted the cloth covering the tent entrance.
“Come in.”
In the center of the dimly lit tent sat not a lamp but a brazier. The brazier must have been covered to prevent the fire from spreading, then uncovered. The tent’s owner, illuminated by the brazier’s glow, was a woman with sparse wrinkles and thick braids of hair coiled and hanging down. The weak light revealed only her face; nothing else was visible.
“I said come in.”
Yefnen hesitated, asking while still standing.
“I’m looking for my younger brother. He’s a four-year-old boy.”
Suddenly the woman began laughing in a strange, tittering way, which startled Yefnen.
“Come in when I tell you to. Don’t regret it.”
Yefnen felt an odd premonition as he stepped inside. It was the moment he released the cloth covering the entrance.
Suddenly everything brightened and expanded. The tent that had seemed barely large enough for three people to sit in was now a space where a dozen or more could stretch out and lie down comfortably.
Moreover, though the only light source remained the single brazier, I could now see every corner of the tent clearly. It was as if the tent itself were emitting a bronze-colored radiance.
“Sit down.”
Yefnen was about to ask what was happening when he spotted a child lying sideways on a pile of blankets beside the woman. Familiar hair spilled out, immediately catching his eye.
“My brother!”
As he rushed forward, the woman stretched out an unnaturally long arm, blocking his path.
“Don’t hurry. Haste leads to injury. Tee-hee-hee…”
“Give my brother back!”
“Wait, I said. There is peace in waiting. Perhaps nothing but peace, but in any case, nothing better exists.”
The woman stroked Boris’s hair with her other hand. Yefnen suddenly feared she might be the magician the Nanny sometimes spoke of—the one who steals children. Above all, the tent’s strange transformation unsettled him deeply.
“Sit down, I said.”
Yefnen took a deep breath, pressed his lips firmly together, and sat. The Nanny’s words came back to him one by one.
Magicians are powerful and capricious, so one never knows what they might do. But if you persuade them with clever words or defeat them with logic, they sometimes actually help you instead.
I recalled a tale of a young mother who had sternly remonstrated with a magician who had stolen her child—and he had returned the boy and even blessed him with a benevolent enchantment. That child grew to become a remarkable man who developed methods of barley cultivation and taught them to his people.
I wished the Nanny, who had met a magician, were here now, but I had no choice but to face this alone. I had to speak persuasively—I simply had to recover my brother. Yefnen steeled his resolve.
The woman who had been peering into Yefnen’s eyes suddenly spoke.
“You’re thinking something strange. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Why do magicians take children away?”
The woman looked down at Yefnen with an expression of bewilderment.
“How would I know?”
“Then what about you?”
Yefnen’s demeanor was utterly serious. He intended to prove that magicians were not necessarily compelled to abduct children.
“Me? Well, I….”
The woman chuckled softly to herself and stroked Boris’s hair again.
“I had a child long ago, you see. Like this one, with hair as black as night and a faint bluish shimmer to it. I truly loved that child. And he loved me too. He was good and beautiful, but then, well, then that child….”
“What happened to him?”
The woman, who had drawn her face close and was staring intently into Yefnen’s eyes, spoke.
“He grew up.”
“What?”
The woman sighed as though it were the saddest thing imaginable.
“He was no longer beautiful. Whiskers sprouted on his face, his voice became hoarse, his limbs turned thick as logs—can you imagine my disappointment? My precious child vanished, and in his place appeared some mountain demon….”
“But every child must grow, mustn’t they?”
“Hmph. I will not accept such a cruel fate.”
The woman gazed down at the sleeping Boris.
“I simply obtain a new child instead.”
Yefnen’s face suddenly flushed crimson, and he cried out.
“That’s absurd! You must be satisfied with your own child! You cannot take my brother just because yours has grown!”
The woman smiled broadly.
“I know full well that this child has no mother. You have each other in your home. But I have no one. It’s only fair that I have one too. You don’t understand, but I am a good mother.”
Yefnen wondered how this woman had learned that the brothers were motherless, but given the perilous situation of whether she would take his brother, he did not wish to dwell on such matters.
“It’s absolutely impossible!”
“Do you think it’s good for your brother to grow up without a mother? When you were his age, you had one, didn’t you? But your brother does not. Have you considered how sorrowful that is? Try to imagine it from your brother’s perspective.”
The woman smiled with an eerie expression, then swept her hand through the air. The flames in the brazier suddenly flared up, scattering sparks all around. Among the golden embers that swirled, something dark seemed to move faintly for a moment before vanishing.
“But, but… if that were so, then Boris would lose his father and his elder brother. Boris wouldn’t want that either.”
“Would he not? Perhaps he would. Perhaps he might. But, but you see, this child….”
The woman swept her hand once more, and again golden embers and sparks erupted into the air. This time they lingered longer in the void. Yefnen’s eyes widened. The dark figure he had glimpsed before was a man—a man standing with his back turned. It seemed familiar somehow, yet he could not place it.
“This child not being at your side… is actually good for you as well. Kekeke… yes, quite good indeed.”
“What are you saying? I—I need Boris to be with me.”
“It would be better if he weren’t.”
“Don’t speak such nonsense!”
Yefnen sprang to his feet before the brazier. At that very moment, the ashes within the brazier also rose up, swirling to a height that reached his own, taking on a distinct form.
After a long moment, Yefnen realized that the shape was his home—the manor of House Jineman. Yet something was wrong with its appearance.
Part of the roof was shattered as though it had been torn away.
“What is this?”
The woman let out a sinister laugh.
“How would I know? Only you will understand. The brazier shows only what the one involved can see. Think carefully about what this means. And then think carefully about whether having your younger brother by your side is truly a blessing. This is no trivial matter.”
The golden ashes returned to the brazier as if alive. Yefnen trembled slightly with inexplicable unease. For some reason, words would not come easily to his lips.
“Now then, let us count again. This calculation is simple yet crucial. What blocks your path? What gnaws at your heels? What could it be? Should it be stopped? Should it be left alone? Hehehehe… But one thing is certain, you see. Your household, yes, House Jineman of Longord, that family of yours….”
Ashes swirled within the brazier, drawing countless patterns. The woman thrust her fingers deep into the ashes without the slightest sign of heat, and smiled faintly in that posture.
“Generation after generation, the younger brother grasps the elder’s ankle. Brings him down. Whether by intent or not.”
“….”
Yefnen could not answer. Doubt began to take root in the young boy’s heart. The woman’s words continued.
“It is the aura and current that pervades that household. Even I do not know why. So, Elder Brother who came searching for his younger brother, young Elder Brother who loves his younger brother and would give him anything—what does your future hold? How will your younger brother repay such devotion? With affection? Betrayal? Gratitude? Indifference?”
Yefnen’s lips trembled slightly.
“Are you… a prophet, ma’am?”
“I don’t know. I only speak what the brazier tells me. Children give me strength. I like children like you. Sweet child, what does your future hold? Will you become a mountain spirit? Or not? Will it end before you even become one? I like children who die young. I love child spirits most of all. They remain children forever. Kehehehe….”
The woman’s words were chaotic. She did not strike at the heart directly, but circled busily around it, revealing its location. There was a sense of understanding. What the woman was trying to say was….
“So you’re telling me to leave Boris with you? If I do that, then I….”
“Yes, yes.”
Finally, the ashes rose high once more. This time, he watched calmly. The ashes swirled, formed something, suddenly mingled together, and eventually took on a shape. By then, the light that had clung to the ashes had faded, leaving behind powder that was black or gray.
Dense trees, black branches, and pooled at the bottom… black water.
So endlessly deep and dark that it seemed to swallow the boy who gazed into it, and within that abyss, something flowed. Black… no, something red.
Boris opened his eyes. Still drowsy, but shaken too much to remain asleep. In the darkness around him, he called out to his elder brother with half-closed eyes.
“Elder Brother?”
A weary voice came from right ahead.
“Yes, Boris. You’re awake.”
Only then did Boris realize that the warm back he had been leaning against belonged to his elder brother. Boris murmured and asked.
“Elder Brother, are you carrying me?”
“Yes.”
“Is it hard?”
The young Elder Brother, still small and young to be carrying a four-year-old on a long journey, answered.
“Yes. But we’re almost there. Home is near. Can you see it over there?”
“Mm….”
It was too dark to see the house, but a familiar scent reached him. Was it home? Or perhaps the smell of grass, or the scent that came from Elder Brother.
Either way, it was a scent that brought endless comfort to his heart.

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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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