Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 264

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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 34.
Not All Children Are Angels (34)
11. The Ruby of Southern Island
For years I searched relentlessly, yet never found what I sought.
From the following year onward, I stopped coming to look.
Do seekers see only what they have resolved to find?
Not knowing that the sea where we first met still waits for me.
The blue deepened into crimson, then swallowed the western horizon. Two evening stars flickered at the edge of the skyline. A serene and magnificent evening, visible only in this place, had arrived.
“If someone wore a blue shirt with red trousers, they’d be the most gauche thing in the world.”
Joshua, lying on the hill with his arm as a pillow, murmured this thought aloud.
“But?”
“The sky doesn’t work that way.”
“I suppose not.”
As always, I couldn’t coax a clever answer from Maximian about a topic with nothing tangible to grasp.
The two boys, their heads touching as they lay with legs stretched toward each other, had grown considerably in the two years since. Joshua had shot up in height from age eleven onward. Yet whether due to his constitution or not, he remained lanky, while Maximian—who treated laziness as his life philosophy—actually had the more boyish build.
When Joshua suddenly sat up, a listless voice asked from below.
“Going to draw?”
“Well, I suppose.”
Joshua scratched his head before answering.
“It’s gotten too dark for that.”
No particular response came from the still-reclining Maximian. Joshua laughed silently. Moments like this, when Maximian fell quiet, were rare—and I’d come to recognize that he’d slipped into reverie far removed from the pragmatic thinking he usually championed.
Once, when Joshua had pestered me about what I was thinking, I’d snapped that it was merely “trivial musings.” After that, Joshua simply laughed to himself and never interrupted my thoughts again. Since the fellow’s greatest ambition was to become wealthy and idle away his life, there seemed no harm in occasionally indulging in less practical contemplation.
When we first met, Maximian had seemed like a nagging elder brother. But it turned out he was actually younger than Joshua—only by a year, though we’d both forgotten about it. Regardless of age, Maximian carried himself far more maturely.
Until Maximian turned another year older in June, Joshua would be two years his senior. Lately, Joshua had taken to teasing me about calling him “elder brother”—finding amusement in it. Of course, Maximian ignored him, spouted sophistry, and when things went awry, would flush red and grow irritable. Joshua knew well enough that hearing “elder brother” from this fellow’s lips was a hopeless wish, and his teasing served no purpose beyond the amusement itself.
“Grandfather is coming up.”
When Joshua, watching the base of the hill, spoke these words, Maximian—who had even removed his glasses to toss them onto the grassland and lay with his eyes closed—let out a deep sigh.
“I was hoping to get some sleep.”
Joshua, of course, knew Maximian wasn’t actually sleeping. What on earth was he thinking about? I should ask him again sometime.
“The old man isn’t coming up.”
Maximian, now wearing his glasses again, looked carefully at the base of the hill and spoke. Hispanie stood at the foot of the slope, gesturing with his hand to signal something to them.
“He seems to be calling us over?”
“He’s pointing that way… is he telling us to go to the riverbank?”
So saying, Joshua turned to look toward the riverbank.
“I can see a bonfire lit by the riverbank. It looks like we’re eating outside tonight.”
“That works out well. I was dreading the walk back to the house.”
“You find too many things bothersome.”
“Life is inherently bothersome. How convenient it would be if, like you, I didn’t need to see something twice.”
“You drag me around to solve your inconveniences, though.”
“True. You’re perfect as a substitute for a notepad.”
“I can serve as an abacus too. Come on, let’s go.”
After the meal, the three of them tossed dry branches into the dying campfire and exchanged complaints.
“Ugh, my jaw’s about to fall off. Old Man, surely you could do better than this.”
“I thought it was fine.”
“No, the mutton was too tough.”
“All mutton is like that.”
“No, only what Old Man made is.”
It was unusual—or rather, quite frequent—for Maximian to complain about food that Joshua, who possessed the absolute palate of Jade Ring Castle, ate without a word. But complaints were merely words; Maximian hadn’t left a single piece of meat on his plate. Hispanie spoke up.
“You, Mak, have a chronic habit of complaining after you’ve finished eating. If you said something earlier, I’d snatch your plate away entirely.”
“Mak” was Hispanie’s nickname for “Maximian,” shortened from the formal address. Similarly, Joshua was sometimes called “Jo” in the same manner. Under Hispanie’s influence, the two boys occasionally called each other that way as well.
“Instead, why don’t you become an excellent chef who relies on sharp criticism? People like me are the ones who’ve driven this world forward, after all.”
“That’s a fair point. I can’t change the world, but I think I could improve your violin skills. How can you give up so quickly?”
“No, that’s too much to ask. Leave world development and peace to the young people—it’s time for you to rest in an armchair now.”
“Why don’t you just say it’s time for me to get in a coffin?”
“I’ll personally take responsibility for the violin and put it in with you.”
The moment those words left his mouth, Maximian sprang to his feet and hid behind Joshua. Hispanie withdrew his hand, which had been about to strike his back, and shrugged his shoulders.
“There’s nothing to be done with such a shameless brat.”
He didn’t mean it. The two of them exchanged harsh words so readily that anything less than crude language wouldn’t even qualify as a joke.
“As you know, shameless brats can’t remember even when you’re good to them, right?”
“And here I am, raising sheep just to feed such a fellow.”
“Ah… well, the sheep in this village seem to only eat and jump around. Looking at their thighs, they’d even outrun horses.”
Pretending to glance around the darkening meadow, Maximian gradually returned to his seat. Joshua stirred the ashes with a long stick, coaxing the embers back to life, and smiled softly. He liked it here. Even the trivial bickering between the two people beside him was so comforting.
As the sun set, he no longer found himself thinking of the “glass doll” left behind at Jade Ring Castle. It had either merged with him or separated completely. Either way, who he was now felt quite acceptable.
Two years ago, when he flipped the card over, he hadn’t thought it would last this long. But now he didn’t miss the other side. That side had intricate, exquisite, artistically refined patterns, while this side had only crude brushstrokes drawn carelessly—but it didn’t matter.
Now he didn’t need to squint at the world. Joshua of Kotzboldt was somewhat peculiar but a foolish little boy—good at some things, clumsy at others. What of it?
He even felt that it wouldn’t matter if he never saw the other side again. After all, wasn’t there hardly anything in this world grand enough to require his abilities?
“That windmill Jo designed back then—I heard people in the area copied its appearance. They say a few similar ones have been built.”
Joshua understood why Hispanie deliberately called him “Jo.” Joshua was the grandson of Hispanie’s elder brother, but he shared no blood with Maximian. By ignoring such differences and treating them equally, Hispanie made his point.
“It looks rather odd, so it probably spoils the scenery a bit.”
Though he clearly knew better, when Maximian added his comment, Hispanie tapped the ground with the stick he was holding.
“They say only those who’ve threshed grain understand the difference. So it’s natural you don’t know what’s good about it.”
“Have you ever threshed grain, Old Man?”
Listening to the two of them bicker, Joshua suddenly wondered: What had Grandfather been like? Had he found work that required a Demonic’s abilities? If so, what had it been?
The shadows cast by the campfire made the wrinkles vivid, yet simultaneously erased traces of age and partially restored the old contours. Observing him as one might a work of art, various impressions came to mind: decisiveness, ferocity, scheming, cunning, humor, beauty, boldness, arrogance.
Above all, Hispanie’s face bore none of the regret or detachment common to the elderly. Even though Grandfather was so generous to them, that generosity itself didn’t seem to be truly his in essence.
Lines that once seemed drawn with a quill had deepened as if carved by a chisel, yet the sharpness hadn’t faded. Even now, sitting peacefully, he was extraordinary—he must have been far from ordinary in his youth. He couldn’t have been a simple pasture owner. Since he’d never detailed his past, I could only speculate, but it seemed he’d traveled the world and thrown himself into all manner of affairs.
Trying to imagine that figure, Joshua recalled the portrait hanging in the castle.
“Grandfather, about that portrait hanging in the castle.”
“A portrait?”
Hispanie tilted his head in confusion before speaking.
“I must have burned them all when I left home.”
“One portrait remains, it seems. It still hangs in Jade Ring Castle—a depiction of me from childhood, younger than I am now.”
Maximian interjected.
“Wait, I just thought of something. What’s written beneath the portrait?”
“My name, of course.”
“Right, that’s what I mean. What’s your real name? No one in this village knows it, not even me.”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Month Books
The copyright of this book belongs to the author and 14 Month Books.
To reuse all or part of the contents of this book, you must obtain written consent from both parties.

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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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