Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 255

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 25.
Not All Children Are Angels (25)
Fortunately, today I seemed able to bring a pouch of goat’s milk to my younger siblings. I felt reasonably content. Having always played the role of the youngest, being called “elder brother” by someone and helping my younger siblings felt surprisingly pleasant.
But as always, the moment I stepped into Maximian’s home, the fantasy shattered.
“Oh, you’re here, brother? Brother, look here. Richard managed to get a whole bunch of dried fruit. He borrowed it from some kindhearted traveler, he says.”
What “borrowed” meant in this context was something only the pastoral deity that the villagers believed in or disbelieved depending on that year’s weather could possibly know. I handed the pouch of goat’s milk to my younger sibling.
“Hey, let’s share this.”
Among the brothers in this household, transactions were the foundation of everything.
“Ilma, sister! You brought ginger bread earlier, didn’t you? Maximian brought goat’s milk. Should we eat now?”
This household ate whenever they pleased.
“Perfect timing. Rudolf’s out anyway. I’ll have an extra piece of bread.”
If someone was missing from a meal, they didn’t wait for them or save them anything—they simply ate everything without them. There was no malice in it; it had always been this way, so the person who missed out would just think, “Oh, bad luck,” and that was the end of it.
Yet these weren’t siblings without affection. They helped each other thoroughly when it mattered. Having observed them for some time, I concluded that these brothers weren’t selfish so much as simply possessing this particular temperament. Moreover, they were kind enough to include Joshua, a stranger, at their meal simply because Maximian had brought him—sometimes their generosity was quite genuine.
Maximian said he’d known my Grandfather since around four or five years old. Back then, Maximian’s parents lived with the children. But his mother passed away shortly after giving birth to Richard, the fourth child, and there was no stepmother afterward—yet somehow there was a fifth child, Anton. Richard and Anton’s birthdays weren’t even far apart.
“That’s strange, isn’t it? How did that happen?”
This topic wasn’t particularly taboo in this household.
“Nothing strange about it. Our father, burning with humanitarian passion, picked him up in Keltika. What was he supposed to do—leave a crying newborn there?”
Of course, it wasn’t the father who raised that infant to five years old—it was Maximian. Already poor, the father had increased the household’s burden by bringing home another mouth to feed, then left for Keltika shortly after and never returned. Rumors said he was a Republican Party member who took an important position there, but whether he simply never came back or died early at the hands of the royal army, there was no way to know.
After the father disappeared, my Grandfather paid considerable attention to Maximian and his younger siblings. He seemed particularly fond of Maximian. He’d apparently bought Maximian new glasses three times.
These stories came from the younger siblings, not Maximian himself, and though it sounded peculiar, they said that my Grandfather, over sixty years old, and Maximian, not yet ten, were like friends!
Indeed, Maximian had many outstanding qualities. Eloquent sophistry pouring forth like a torrent, creative curses laden with extraordinary metaphors, cunning, quick wit, and more. Moreover, Maximian told me that he and my Grandfather weren’t merely friends but “drinking buddies,” which astonished me greatly.
“Drinking? How could you possibly drink that? You’re about my age, aren’t you?”
“Well, you certainly couldn’t drink it, but I don’t think that has any direct bearing on what I drink.”
I shook my head in disbelief, though inwardly I thought that with him, it might actually be true.
In the meantime, Maximian had heard roughly why I’d ended up here. At first, Maximian tilted his head and spoke.
“Your parents are in Keltika? Then why did you come to your grandfather?”
“He told me to spend the summer here as a vacation.”
I revived my old self for the first time in a while and said only that much.
“But why is that old man wandering around somewhere else, not even knowing you were coming?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Then Maximian snapped his fingers as if he’d figured it out.
“Hey! From what I can see, your parents abandoned you! They were racking their brains trying to find a way to get rid of you, so they made up an excuse about your grandfather and sent you off. That’s why you can’t contact each other, right? When you go back later, those people will have all run away. Either the house will be empty, or different people will already be living there. When the old man comes back later, he’ll be shocked to see you. Once he realizes he’s been saddled with a burden, he’ll probably be furious and jump up and down.”
I listened with a smile, but at the end my face grew slightly pale.
“I don’t think that’s what happened.”
“Anyone but a clueless little thing like you would think exactly that way.”
“That’s not true!”
When I grew irritable, Maximian shrugged and backed off.
“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to. But I’m speaking from experience. Parents are a breed you can’t really trust. They only think of themselves and don’t give a damn about their children.”
My parents were certainly not like that. But then why had they sent me to this place where my Grandfather wasn’t even present?
No—the person who brought me here and left me behind was my Grandfather’s secretary, not my father or mother. But it was clear that my Grandfather had been gone from this place for a long time, and there was no way to explain why I’d been left here alone.
Did my parents not know about this? Were they deceived by Grandfather? Did we miss each other due to a scheduling error? If that were the case, Grandfather should have come by now if I waited.
But I had already waited ten days.
Maximian, who had been observing Joshua’s changing expressions, eventually approached and patted his back—as if he were an older brother.
“Forget it. There’s no reason your parents have to be like our father. I take back what I said. So stop worrying about such things and think about what we’ll do tomorrow instead. Anyway, if we do something while we wait, that old man will come back eventually, right? This is his home—he won’t stay away forever.”
When Joshua’s mood showed no signs of improving, Maximian racked his brain and spoke again.
“Why don’t we go to the village for dinner tonight?”
Since arriving in Kotzboldt, the village itself was new to me, and the dining hall within it was even more so.
It resembled the gloomy taverns from old tales. There wasn’t a single child like Joshua and Maximian in the place. And when you added Maximian’s younger siblings crowding around the two boys and making a fuss, the scene became not merely strange but positively wrong.
Yet the people paid them no mind. The locals clearly knew Maximian and his siblings well. They seemed unbothered by whatever mischief those rascals might cause.
“Come on, let’s eat!”
It was quite different from what we ate at the Manor, but it was a feast in its own right. While Joshua gazed around in wonder, Maximian had arbitrarily ordered the dishes. Shortly after, Maximian tapped Joshua’s shoulder.
“Hey, if you keep standing there like an idiot, my siblings will steal every last potato from you.”
The main dish was a lamb stew, richly laden with tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and mushrooms, simmered until tender. Joshua, hesitant at first before this unfamiliar food, soon ate heartily. He quickly learned the knack of dipping round bread into goat’s milk and eating it. Once he grew accustomed to it, the meal became genuinely enjoyable.
“That was truly delicious. But Maximian, what money did you use to buy this food?”
Maximian stared at Joshua with a blank expression.
“Weren’t you standing right beside me when I took money from that old man’s house? You saw it clearly—why are you saying something different now?”
“What?”
At that moment, Maximian’s younger siblings chimed in beside Joshua with a chorus of “Thank you for the meal!” Maximian chuckled.
“Those kids know their roles too well.”
Nearly a month had passed since Joshua came to live in the countryside. Like wild beasts hunting each day for that day’s sustenance, the two children without food schemed daily about what they might do to get a meal—when they suddenly grasped a critical fact.
“We absolutely must eat meat today. Yesterday it was beans, the day before that beans again, and the day before that it was bean pods. At this rate, we’ll all turn into beans ourselves.”
With a grave expression, Maximian diagnosed the situation and proposed they play “fox hunting.” He assembled an expedition consisting of himself as the eldest, Joshua, and his second-youngest sibling Ilma. Ilma was the only girl among Maximian’s siblings—she ran exceptionally fast and, most crucially, could mimic a cat’s cry with startling accuracy. Maximian insisted that the cat imitation was absolutely vital.
The expedition waited for evening before setting out.
After walking for roughly half an hour, when the surroundings grew dark, they approached a large farm. Joshua, listening intently, heard the loud clucking of chickens nearby. Maximian halted the expedition at the corner of the backyard fence and spoke.
“Ilma, gather a few stones here and keep watch. If someone seems to be coming this way, make a gentle cat’s cry. If that person gets closer, throw one stone toward the grass over there. That should handle most situations. If someone seems to have noticed us, make an angry cat’s cry and throw several stones at once. That’s the signal. After that, you run away. Just wait at our usual meeting place.”
Joshua listened intently even though the instructions weren’t directed at him. Though he didn’t know what they were doing, it fascinated him immensely. Ilma, accustomed to such tasks, grinned and nodded.
“Alright, let’s get to work, Jo.”
Maximian enjoyed giving nicknames and had started calling Joshua “Jo” at some point. But since Joshua had no idea what they were about to do, he had no choice but to ask.
“What are we supposed to do?”
“Just follow me quietly. I’ll teach you from here on.”
The two crept inside the fence. The chickens had already entered their coop and fallen asleep. The coop door was closed, but on one side there was a hole large enough for a chicken to pass through—certainly not one meant for a person.
Maximian pushed my back.
“Go.”
“Go? What do you mean, what should I do?”
“You need to go get a chicken out.”
“Me?”
“Do you think I could fit through that hole?”
Maximian, despite being a malnourished child, was taller than Joshua and had a build befitting his age, making it difficult for him to enter the hole. But Joshua, appearing two years younger and gaunt to the point of frailty, was perfectly suited for the task.
Yet Joshua had never imagined he would be the one to go in. He had no idea what “fox hunting” even meant.
“I don’t want to. I won’t even be able to catch a chicken.”
“They’re asleep. It’s not difficult. Bring me one of the small ones you can easily lift.”
“But what if the chicken refuses?”
“Then persuade them by saying: you yourselves eat the meat and drink the milk of sheep that grew on grass from our Grandfather’s land, and you consume the feed your master provides—so how can you refuse?”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Books
The copyright to this book belongs to the author and 14 Months Books.
To reuse all or part of this book’s content, written consent from both parties is required.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————