Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 254

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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 24.
Not All Children Are Angels (24)
“Ahem.”
Maximian suddenly cleared his throat.
“Do you want to lecture me? Did you forget the oath you swore earlier?”
“But this is….”
Maximian finished his fish and tossed the bones aside, then began speaking with a solemn expression.
“Listen here. In this world, there are people and there are fish. Fish live in the river, and people live on the riverbank. Both receive help from the river. Therefore, they are bound by a common fate. You could say they have a relationship of mutual aid. So people can eat fish. Fish can drink river water too.”
When Maximian paused, Joshua tilted his head and asked back.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You still don’t understand? Listen carefully again. If it’s natural for people to eat fish, who can stop them? Can one person prevent another person from eating the fish that someone else is eating? Of course not! Just because I finished my fish, can I snatch away the fish you’re eating? No! So no one can take away the fish I was eating either! Do you get it now?”
It was truly astounding logic. In other words, it made no sense whatsoever.
“I don’t think I quite understand what you’re….”
Maximian became irritable.
“I said you were stupid, and you really do have poor comprehension. Listen one more time! Fish are something everyone can eat. The number of fish is enormous. New ones appear every year, and those that went to the sea come back. No one can count all the fish. I took the fish that were in that net. Then new fish will come and fill that spot. Because no one can count the fish, there’s no difference between two fish. Whether I catch fish from the river and leave the fish in the net alone, or take the fish from the net and new fish go in there, the result is the same! That’s because, as I said at the very beginning, all fish are things people can eat. Fish and people have a relationship of mutual aid! People draw water from the river and give it to crops and drink it themselves. If people take all the water, fish can’t survive. So people have made a deal with the fish. That’s the way of life for the fish clan. Do you understand? So I have rights too. I’m a person too. I’m saying it again—the fish in the net and the fish in the river are all fish. That’s exactly the same as books in a drawer and books on a bed all being books in the house. So I….”
Instead of such an explanation, he might as well have just repeated “fish, fish, fish, fish, people, people, people, people” over and over. In fact, after a while, it started to sound exactly like that. Since he seemed ready to go on endlessly unless I agreed to some degree, Joshua chuckled and nodded his head.
“Yes, anyone can eat fish. I respect your opinion.”
That night, Joshua was no longer anxious even when alone.
He and Maximian promised to meet again tomorrow. The two of them decided to spend the rest of the summer “however they pleased” until Grandfather appeared. After all, wasn’t it nominally summer vacation? The plan alone felt refreshing.
It might have been strange. He had parted from his parents, come to an unfamiliar place, failed to meet the person he wanted to rely on, and spent two days nearly starving. Yet simply by gaining a friend his own age, his mood had improved so much.
The nickname “Demonic Joshua” was taboo in the House of Arnim, but hiding it proved largely futile. No one treated him like an ordinary child. Everyone was cautious, worried he might see them in an awkward light. In front of such people, I had begun to forget that I was a child, acting and thinking in ways unsuitable for my age.
I had lived that way without even realizing how suffocating it was, but looking back, it wasn’t because I enjoyed it. I thought I had to wear a strange facade and hide my true self, believing my true self was too frightening and terrible to let others discover. Yet it amounted to nothing more than this.
I recalled myself speaking to Father about schemes to topple the Republic. Even as I spoke that day, I constantly wondered how Father would view such a self, and I concluded that the only way to remain the child Father desired was through acting. But looking back again, I seemed to have been angry like a child that day. Perhaps I had spoken of such tremendous things not because I wanted to punish students like Timon who persistently hated and tormented me? Even with a Demonic’s power, my heart was that of a child, and my motivation was merely that?
Joshua normally observed himself with remarkable objectivity, but reaching such thoughts, he felt genuinely strange. In truth, it was difficult to accept. The image of myself I had held until now and the self I had just realized were so different they were hard to reconcile. They seemed like two oddly separated beings. Like a card that reveals an entirely different pattern when flipped over.
That child was a detached genius, and the self here was a foolish little one.
Perhaps because the psychological distance had widened as much as the physical distance, Joshua found himself under the illusion that the child who looked exactly like him at Jade Ring Castle was living just as he was. A shadow? A doll? Or perhaps a skin he had shed and left behind?
When he returned to Keltika, would he face that child directly and have to compete to see who the real self was? How would he prove it?
No…. Perhaps there was no need to prove it at all. That child could live as that child, and I could become happy as myself. If they couldn’t be joined together, then they could simply be divided.
Ordinary children might fall into panic at the mere thought of being permanently separated from their parents. But Joshua felt that even if everyone he had known before abandoned him, he could simply become someone new and live on. Not needing anyone’s approval, just becoming myself—that seemed to be enough.
Joshua flipped the card in his heart. And he spoke to himself.
From now on, this is the front side.
8. The Rotten Pasture’s Summer
We grew up together. Like a pair of shoes.
We ran across hills and riverbanks, swam through streams, and reached the river.
Thunder was a song, and rain was a dance.
Ah, will you ever feel that fierce performance again?
Do you still remember the song I sang for you?
Strong sheep march across a sea of grass.
Joshua, seeing sheep for the first time, buried his nose in the Grassland and watched the flock with bated breath. He saw the sheep that crossed before his eyes stop in a Pasture thick with quality grass and form new groups. The sheep with lowered heads looked like balls made of wool. Round, round, scattered here and there.
He heard Maximian speaking softly beside him.
“Now.”
Creeping low to the ground, the two of us approached the sheep. They paid us no mind, contentedly grazing. Maximian, having already marked his target with his eyes, slipped a pouch from his pocket and began milking the ewe with practiced stealth.
Joshua kept watch while Maximian handed over the pouch brimming with milk, which he then tied shut with a cord. Moments later, Joshua tapped Maximian’s arm sharply.
“The owner’s coming.”
“You little thieves!”
The shout reached Maximian’s ears as well. We clutched our pouches of milk to our chests and bolted down the hillside as if our lives depended on it.
“Ugh, the milk’s leaking.”
Maximian’s pouch hadn’t been tied properly—streams of milk sprayed from it. But there was no helping it. As the owner pursued us relentlessly, Maximian made a wide arc and dove back into the flock of sheep.
Baaaa!
With the large sheep milling about in confusion, the owner couldn’t easily spot two small children. As he hesitated and looked around, growing frustrated, he finally cursed and turned back. We then carefully crept down the opposite hillside. After that, we could walk at leisure.
“I’m thirsty.”
We opened one pouch and took turns drinking the milk. Joshua laughed as he watched milk splash onto Maximian’s spectacles, then asked:
“But is it really okay to do this?”
“Of course! You think someone would be petty over a bit of milk? This amount wouldn’t even make a single wedge of cheese. If we’d asked, we could’ve gotten it for free.”
“Then why didn’t you just ask?”
“Well, I could have, but you see, I was respecting the sheep’s free will, and this is what came of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you see how still that ewe was when I milked her? She’d already decided to give me her milk. She shared with me what she would’ve given her lamb. How grateful should I be? To refuse such kindness would be disrespectful as a human being. The owner probably went to ask the sheep right now whether it was done by mutual agreement. Since I certainly agreed, once the owner hears the sheep’s testimony, he’ll be satisfied.”
Weaving nonsensical arguments together seamlessly was Maximian’s specialty—and he did it with such pompous flair, gesturing dramatically through the air.
Joshua had grown accustomed to laughing and retorting in kind.
“But you started milking before you even asked the sheep. It wasn’t that she wanted to give it—she was coerced by you.”
“That’s seeing only half the picture. What does a sheep eat to produce milk? Grass, of course. And all the grassland around here belongs to your grandfather. As his grandson, shouldn’t that sheep be considerate enough to share her milk with you? If she refused, she’d have no manners whatsoever. We were truly fortunate to meet such a well-mannered sheep.”
His conclusion bore no resemblance to his opening argument, but it hardly mattered. Joshua conceded anyway.
“You’re right.”
Joshua had assumed Maximian’s home would naturally have parents, but his expectations were dashed. There was a house, but it was nothing more than a cramped, dilapidated old cottage, and inside were only younger siblings huddled together—no parents to rely on.
Maximian paid his siblings little mind. According to him, they managed everything themselves just fine. After spending a day or two with them, Joshua quickly understood what “managing just fine” meant. These children possessed methods identical to Maximian’s, sometimes even more ingenious, and despite having no one bringing in a single coin, they remarkably managed to avoid starvation.
Of course, when Maximian had food left over, he brought it to his siblings. But he was fundamentally not the type to squeeze out tears over pitiful younger siblings he needed to support. By Maximian’s nearly sophistic reasoning, his household was an “entirely self-reliant” community of him and his siblings.
Still, Joshua worried about Maximian spending most of his days with him rather than staying with his younger siblings. But Maximian shook his head firmly.
“My siblings are all more capable than you, so there’s nothing to worry about. If you ask me, you’re the real problem.”
Children of Ron – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Moon Books
The copyright to this book belongs to the author and 14 Moon Books.
To reuse all or part of this book’s content, 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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