Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 257

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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 27.
Not All Children Are Angels (27)
I was dragged along without understanding what was happening and led down to the riverbank across from where we’d been. The place Maximian took me to was the home of little Masne, whom he’d mentioned earlier.
As always, Maximian didn’t head straight for the house. Instead, he circled around toward a storage shed set slightly apart. After confirming no one was nearby, he quietly cracked open the shed door, slipped inside, and emerged clutching something.
“Come on, let’s eat over there.”
What Maximian had retrieved was reddish and hard—a peculiar sort of food. I felt a slight revulsion as I asked.
“What is this?”
“Dried beef. It’s delicious.”
Reassured by the mention of beef, I took a bite. It was tough and chewy, but pleasantly salty and quite tasty. We sat facing each other in the Grassland and quickly devoured three pieces of dried beef. Had the chef at Jade Ring Castle witnessed this scene, he might have felt deeply wronged. How many days had he agonized over what to prepare for the young master with such finicky tastes? Yet here was that very same fastidious young master, devouring salty, spicy, rock-hard beef and even sucking his fingers clean, asking for more. But Maximian shook his head.
That picky young master of mine had finished every scrap of the salty, spicy, hard beef and was sucking his fingers, wanting more, but Maximian refused.
“This is the limit I can take without getting caught. If I bring more, Masne’s mother will notice and disapprove.”
This was the secret to how Maximian and his siblings, living without a guardian, managed to get by—petty pilfering here and there. The villagers, struggling with their own meager circumstances, didn’t openly help them, but within reasonable limits, they turned a blind eye to these children’s survival tactics.
Not everyone was generous, but being excessively stingy toward pitiful children would invite the village’s censure. Of course, Maximian and his siblings well understood that the most ideal method was to take small amounts so skillfully that no one could tell anything had been touched.
But soon my throat became terribly parched. The beef we’d eaten was far too salty to consume on an empty stomach.
“I’m thirsty. Want to go drink from the river?”
Maximian shook his head and pointed in another direction.
“Figured you’d say that. Come on. I’ve got something better.”
It seemed Maximian had a destination in mind from the start. Without hesitation, he walked along the riverbank, passed through the Grassland where my home was visible in the distance, climbed a gentle Hill and descended the other side. My throat was parched, but I decided to follow along and hurried after him.
Soon we arrived at a Monastery built at the Mountainside. The people of Kotzboldt were unusually devout, and this Monastery served as their place of worship. We passed beneath the red-tiled roofs arranged on either side and circled around the colonnade Gallery Corridor that stretched across the front. When we rounded behind the Monastery’s main hall, an herb garden came into view.
“Brother Aint Monk!”
At Maximian’s call, one of the monks tending the herb garden turned around. He brightened and brushed the soil from his clothes, stepping out of the garden. Maximian grinned at him.
“I’m thirsty.”
The monk glanced at me briefly.
“Him too?”
I tilted my head, wondering if we’d come all this way just to find water. The aged Aint Monk chuckled like a child and gestured for us to follow. He disappeared into a round Tower standing to one side of the Monastery and returned with two cups.
“Here, drink up.”
Parched as I was, I didn’t even taste it before gulping down several mouthfuls—then nearly spat it back out. It was bitter, sour, and left my throat stinging with an odd sensation. Yet when I looked at Maximian, he’d already finished his entire cup.
Maximian smacked his lips and laughed loudly when he saw me holding the half-empty cup.
“What, can’t drink it? Does it taste strange?”
“What is this? It’s not water.”
“It tastes wonderful once you get used to it. It only tastes bad the first time.”
“This tastes good?”
“Of course. Here, give it to me.”
Maximian drank the rest of what I’d left and pestered the monk for more, but the monk shook his head and firmly said, “No more than this. I promised the Elder,” and refused.
“Well, can’t be helped then. Shall we go?”
As we retraced our steps back, something felt strange. The scenery around us seemed different, or perhaps I myself had changed….
“Hey, Maximian.”
“What?”
“That tree over there—why is it moving? It’s all wiggly like a snake.”
“Oh, that?”
Maximian chuckled as though it were nothing and replied.
“It’s always been that way. It’s the signature feature of this Monastery Order.”
“Then what about those… dirt mounds sticking out? The path seemed level when we arrived, so why is it like this?”
“The ground undulates? Well, that’s another characteristic of this path. How should I put it—think of it as a farewell dance wishing you well.”
“This is a strange Monastery Order.”
“Yes, it is. By any chance, red roofs aren’t floating through the air, are they?”
“Hmm… not exactly, but they keep connecting to each other.”
“Oh, is that so? That’s a new phenomenon.”
Just then, Joshua suddenly grabbed Maximian’s arm and cried out.
“Watch out!”
Maximian nearly stumbled forward but barely regained his balance, asking irritably.
“What now?”
“That rock seemed to be rolling toward you… but wait, it’s fine now?”
“…Of course it’s fine.”
After leaving the Monastery Order, we walked through the pastureland stretching to the horizon for some time. Joshua kept rambling about how the world was spinning before his eyes, or how the dirt was attacking him, until he finally collapsed onto the Grassland. Maximian asked.
“How do you feel?”
“Good, I think.”
“Then that’s all that matters.”
We lay side by side, gazing at the sky. Flying insects scattered overhead. White-headed grasses twisted and tangled, tracing hyperbolas, arcs, and right angles. In the dark brown soil that smelled sweetly like sugar, things glimmered here and there—were they fragments of quartz, incompletely dried dew, or pieces of a dead beetle’s shell?
“Maximian.”
“Speak.”
“What I drank earlier… it was alcohol, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Did you figure it out now?”
“Is it okay to drink something like that?”
“It depends on what you think. To be honest, it’s hard to call it advisable.”
“Then why do you drink it?”
“Who knows. According to what your Grandfather says, it’s probably because ‘life is difficult.'”
After drinking, Maximian muttered in an unusually ordinary tone, unlike his usual self. Joshua found it curious how the sky spun in circles as he spoke.
“Why is life difficult?”
“Making a living is too hard.”
It was true that Maximian and his siblings’ lives were difficult, but Maximian had never spoken such words aloud before. Because he always carried himself with confidence, Joshua had assumed Maximian was enjoying this life as though playing alongside him.
“Would things become easier if we had more money?”
“I don’t know. Some things money solves, and some it doesn’t. What about you?”
“Me?”
“Is your life peaceful?”
The clouds began holding hands and dancing in a circle. I opened and closed my eyes repeatedly, but the dance only grew faster.
“I never really thought it was difficult…”
“Don’t lie. Well, maybe it’s not a lie. You might just not know.”
“What don’t I know?”
“Your sister who’s married—you feel burdened about her. It seems like you feel indebted to her.”
“Me?”
“And your parents have high expectations of you, right? They push you to excel at everything, surround you with tutors, burden you with endless studying—that sort of thing?”
Joshua shook his head vigorously, as if hearing something entirely unfamiliar.
“Not at all. My parents’ absolute hope is that I do nothing but play. Remember nothing, learn nothing. They seem to think that if I know too much, I might die young….”
Maximian suddenly sat bolt upright and adjusted his glasses. He looked displeased.
“No? You’re saying my deduction was wrong?”
By that point, Joshua felt the clouds spinning lazily overhead, and he could no longer keep his eyes open. Maximian was grumbling indignantly beside him, but Joshua was in no state to answer. He managed only these words.
“I think… I’m getting sleepy.”
Clouds that had never once spun across the sky drifted by, and a summer far too pleasant for two small children to bear flowed onward.
9. The Devil of the Windmill House
Don’t make me regret being your friend. Truly, I don’t want to regret it.
No, you’ll definitely regret it. Though you’ll still be my friend even after.
Maximian heard about the duel challenge only as evening was drawing near.
By then, Joshua’s head was throbbing with pain, and he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. A few sips of liquor—the first he’d ever drunk—had left his mind as cluttered as an unwashed wardrobe neglected for three years.
Maximian wasn’t in much better shape. He’d overextended himself showing off in front of Joshua. In any case, Maximian blamed the liquor itself, the place where it was made, and the Aint Monk who’d given it to him for their needless recklessness, but when Ilma told him about the fight, he chuckled and said:
“A fight? Those bastards are hilarious. I’ll go give them a few whacks with the windmill blades and be back.”
“How do you even remove windmill blades?”
“Well, first I flip the whole Windmill House on its side, then I step on it with my foot and tear them off one by one….”
“Brother! What are you saying? Why would you even go to the Windmill House? Why respond to something like that?”
“But what about the blades I’ve already torn off? Oh, so I’ve accidentally started a fight by removing windmill blades without meaning to. What am I to do about this? Alas, who was it that suggested tearing off the blades in the first place?”
Joshua, whose head ached but whose mind had cleared, spoke up.
“You.”
Ilma’s expression had already soured at the smell of liquor.
“Damn it, brother, could you please get your head on straight?”
“Do I seem out of my mind to you, beloved sister?”
The siblings bickered for a while, but in the end, the little drunkard’s stubbornness won out over his sister’s sharp tongue. Not that winning or losing mattered much. Ilma clicked her tongue, told him to do his best, and left to gather the quilts she’d hung outside to dry.
Maximian grinned and thrust his index finger into the air, then shouted.
“Let’s go, Jo!”
“…My head hurts even more now.”
Maximian’s reckless charge into the fight wasn’t driven by lingering drunkenness. As far as fighting went, Maximian was more or less the neighborhood bully. Without that, he wouldn’t have been able to survive this long raising his younger siblings the way he had.
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 contents, 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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