Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 253

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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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Episode 23.
Not Every Child Is an Angel (23)
Joshua turned around. Suddenly, I felt inclined to speak gently.
“Yeah, I’m hungry.”
“I don’t have anything to give you right now… but would you be willing to follow me?”
As Maximian headed toward the courtyard entrance, Joshua followed a few steps and asked.
“What do you have?”
“I don’t have anything, but I’m thinking of grabbing some leftover bread once Peria and her family leave.”
Joshua suddenly stopped.
“That’s stealing.”
“Stealing? Call it whatever you like.”
Maximian stood at the entrance and turned back. Joshua remained where he was, not following.
“You don’t like it because it feels like stealing? Then forget it. I’m just going to fill my own belly.”
That evening and through the next morning, Joshua ate nothing.
He couldn’t bring himself to venture down to the village and beg with shameless audacity. He managed to endure until evening, but when he woke the next day, his head was spinning. It wasn’t hunger so much as a desperate craving for food. His stomach felt hollow, yet his mind kept conjuring images of devouring everything in sight, eating and eating until he collapsed from exhaustion.
By midday, even that sensation faded. Without energy, he sprawled across the bed and couldn’t bring himself to rise. Genius or not, his very capacity for thought had ground to a halt.
When the warehouse crossed his mind once more, Joshua hesitated for about half an hour before dragging himself up and heading toward it. He descended the stairs and began rummaging through empty boxes and containers one by one. He exhausted what little strength remained, but the search yielded nothing. When the attempt failed, Joshua simply collapsed onto the floor.
“Are you done now?”
As I turned around, something flew past me.
Caught off guard, Joshua nearly missed it, but managed to catch it by folding his arms. It was an appetizing cornbread.
“Look at you, acting like you’re dying after starving for just a day and a half.”
As if to say he could eat it or not as he pleased, Maximian abruptly stood and left. Joshua sat there dumbly, trying to think of something, but everything felt tedious. He simply bit into the bread.
The bread tasted remarkably good.
“It’s quite delicious.”
When Joshua, who had followed me out of the warehouse, said this, Maximian wore an expression of exasperation.
“Did you think stolen food would taste different?”
“…”
Joshua abandoned any further objections about theft and devoured the entire piece of bread. Afterward, his throat felt parched. He looked around and spotted a bucket of water he hadn’t seen before, which he drank down in one gulp.
“Worth living now?”
Maximian tossed out the remark mockingly and sauntered into the house. His gait was so natural it seemed as though he were entering his own home. Joshua found himself with no other thought but to follow.
Maximian went to the kitchen and pressed a protruding brick in one corner—the very spot Joshua had searched yesterday without ever thinking to touch. A section of the wall suddenly creaked open.
“Huh?”
In the small box-sized hollow space lay a leather pouch. Maximian retrieved it, opened it, and shook it with apparent disappointment.
“Just a few coins. When did the old man become this poor?”
Strictly speaking, Maximian had broken into someone else’s home and opened their safe, but he acted so naturally about it that Joshua didn’t even sense anything was amiss.
“Do you need money?”
“I need money so I can feed you even a ‘quite delicious’ scrap of bread.”
“Um… huh?”
Maximian left again, completely indifferent to how his words were received. As Joshua followed him out, his mood grew increasingly strange. Being treated like a helpless infant who couldn’t do anything without care.
“Why should you be the one providing bread for me?”
“Do you see that river over there?”
Ignoring Joshua’s protest, Maximian pointed beyond the southern meadow. Following his gaze, I could make out a white, shimmering ribbon near the horizon.
“There should be some fish there. It’ll do for dinner.”
“You’re telling me to catch fish?”
“Why? Can’t you do that?”
Maximian looked across at Joshua’s face, then wore that same pitying expression again.
“You can’t do anything at all. I don’t know how you plan to survive and wait for the old man to return when you’re this stupid. Even if I give you hints, you need to know how to use them.”
Joshua’s face flushed crimson.
“Stupid? Did you just call me stupid?”
“Well, are you smart then?”
Maximian paced back and forth across the yard, as if trying to think of something else. But Joshua couldn’t easily adapt to hearing the word “stupid” for the first time in his life.
“I’ve never heard anyone call me stupid before.”
“You’re surrounded by people with no eye for judging others, it seems.”
“Just because I can’t catch fish doesn’t make me stupid.”
“Tch, hopeless case. You look like you’re about to starve, and you’re worried about just fish? If you want to prove you’re smart, catch some fish with your own strength and bring them back. Then I’ll acknowledge it. Otherwise, I’m calling you ‘the stupid brat.'”
“The stupid brat”—in Joshua’s short life so far, this was the first nickname quite like it. Now that I thought about it, Maximian was indeed about half a head taller than me.
The day was fading.
I tried hard to prove I wasn’t stupid, but failed once again. I searched through the house anew but couldn’t find a fishing hook, fishing line, or anything similar. I only uselessly memorized the locations of everything in the house. The only net I could find was the mesh bed Maximian had slept on before, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear it apart, thinking it belonged to Grandfather.
With no other choice, I went to the riverbank without a plan, but fish naturally didn’t jump out of the water saying “please catch me.” Besides, fish weren’t easy to spot. I spent half a day trying to sharpen a pointed stick using the edge of a rock to use as a spear, but with my weak reflexes—having never received a single day of sword training—success was impossible. I only wasted my strength for nothing.
At sunset, the riverbank was beautiful. The crimson water, fragrant as if flower petals had melted into it, carried a single fish lazily swishing its tail. Lying in the grassland, I gazed intently at the fish. Whether I was stupid or smart no longer seemed to matter, and I just wanted to sleep or sigh beneath the glow of the sunset.
“Hey, stupid brat! Any results?”
The way he said it, he’d already predicted my failure. Opening my eyes while lying down, I met Maximian’s gaze as he stood at my head looking down at me. He turned his head and quickly scanned the surroundings.
“What were you doing all day? Pathetic.”
Joshua suddenly burst into giggles. Maximian frowned.
“Has your mind gone strange now too?”
“No, it’s not that… hahahaha…”
I rolled across the grassland, laughing. Maximian watched with confusion, then seemed annoyed and started complaining.
“Hey! You damn brat, will you stop? It’s disgusting watching you act like a madman!”
“Wait, wait… hahahaha…”
Finally stopping my laughter, I sprang up from the grassland and brushed off my clothes. My face must have looked quite bright, because Maximian tilted his head in confusion. Then I stepped closer and spoke.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For teaching me that I’m stupid.”
I pulled out my ragged shirt hem from inside my pants and removed it. I unbuttoned my sleeves and rolled them up. Taking a handkerchief from my outer pocket, I folded it into a triangle and tied it around my head like a headscarf. Then I thrust my face toward Maximian and asked.
“How do I look?”
Maximian’s assessment was as cold as ever.
“Like an idiot.”
“That’ll do.”
My appearance wasn’t particularly strange. If anything, I looked like a little pirate.
“Now I’m ready to learn something. Teach me. I’ll learn anything.”
Maximian’s brow furrowed.
“You’ve gone two days without food and you’re not even hungry? Where is all this sudden energy coming from?”
“I’m actually starving. But you’re going to teach me how to find dinner soon, aren’t you?”
Maximian glanced sideways at Joshua, then up at the sky, before finally speaking.
“You really mean what you just said?”
“Of course.”
“You won’t suddenly object to my methods later?”
“Not at all.”
“Good. Then swear to me you won’t complain.”
So Joshua made the oath exactly as Maximian instructed—pressing his right hand against the dirt ground while wrapping his left arm around Maximian’s right arm in a circle.
“I swear not to complain and to learn the ways of survival. That’s all.”
Darkness descended upon the river. Joshua watched with fascinated eyes as Maximian deftly kindled a fire. Beside the flames lay two fish that Maximian had procured from somewhere in an instant.
The sight of him roasting the fish on a stick was equally captivating—the very stick Joshua had carved that afternoon. A savory aroma wafted through the air, piercing the senses. The riverbank lay cloaked in warm darkness.
“Here, eat.”
The stick Maximian handed me was so hot I nearly dropped it. But I quickly learned how to skillfully strip the flesh from the bones. After eating ravenously for a while, I asked what had been puzzling me.
“How did you catch the fish so quickly?”
Maximian spoke without lifting his head from his meal.
“You saw that bend in the river upstream earlier today, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a net set up there. I took these from it.”
As Joshua’s expression turned to one of shock, Maximian let out a quiet laugh.
“How else would I have gotten them so fast?”
A moment later, Joshua spoke with admiration.
“So you set the net up beforehand?”
“Are you joking? Not just anyone can set a net in a prime spot like that. There’s no way they’d give a place like that to a kid like me.”
“Then…”
Joshua stopped eating.
“Did you steal these from someone else?”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Month Books
The copyright to this book belongs to the author and 14 Month Books.
To reuse all or part of the contents of this book, written consent from both parties is required.

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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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