Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 281

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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 51.
Not All Children Are Angels (51)
Joshua playfully squinted and spoke.
“Father asked me to come home, and besides, I was growing tired of that place.”
“What about the school you were attending there?”
“I quit that ages ago. You know as well as I do that I’m not cut out for school. I missed more days than I attended.”
“Why bother going at all? The tuition is wasted.”
“I thought so too!”
As Joshua chuckled, Maximian couldn’t help but smile. Yet he found himself thinking that five years was perhaps too long—he no longer felt the ease they once shared. Perhaps nobility truly remained nobility, after all.
A moment later, Maximian lowered his voice so others wouldn’t hear.
“Then the performance you were keeping secret—that’s cancelled too?”
“Performance?”
“You know, that thing with the Aquarian… whatever it was.”
Joshua seemed to think for a moment, then shrugged.
“Oh, I cancelled it.”
“You seemed so eager about it after all that preparation, and now you’re just throwing it away? Well done.”
“I can’t stand forcing myself to do something I’m not in the mood for.”
“You were excited about it before, weren’t you? Then why did you send tickets? I was almost about to travel all the way to Hyacan to see it.”
Joshua’s expression grew puzzled.
“Tickets?”
“You sent them in a letter—two of them, asking Grandfather and me to come watch.”
“I sent something like that? When did you receive them?”
“Five days ago. In other words, I got the tickets, and two days later news arrived that you were in Keltika. Try to imagine how bewildered I was.”
Joshua continued to tilt his head in confusion. Maximian’s expression grew slightly odd as well.
“That’s strange. I really can’t remember. Maybe I was drunk when I sent them.”
….
“Though I must have sent tickets to more than just one or two people.”
As Maximian fell silent, a man appeared through the crowd. Maximian had never seen him before. Yet Joshua brightened immediately and greeted him warmly.
“Theo! Where have you been? You’re only just arriving?”
“Ah, I went out for a bit and got held up. I was just coming back from greeting your parents.”
He was a man in his late twenties. Tall as Joshua, with conventionally handsome features, yet his blue eyes held an unsettling quality—as if they could pierce through to one’s very soul. Maximian instinctively composed his expression to conceal himself.
Theo turned to Joshua and asked.
“Is this a friend?”
“Yes. This is Maximian Lipkner. We became friends back when I was in Kotzboldt. Maximian, this is my brother-in-law. Theostid da Moro.”
Maximian shook hands with Theo, unable to immediately relax his expression. Joshua treated his brother-in-law with considerable warmth, which struck Maximian as peculiar.
Joshua had once spoken to him with bitter sentiment about his sister and brother-in-law. Moreover, he’d heard that his sister had died afterward—yet in such circumstances, they’d grown closer? And since Joshua had gone to Hyacan the following year, they hadn’t even spent time together.
“Joshua, shall we step over there and talk for a moment? It won’t take long.”
Joshua immediately nodded and said to Maximian.
“I’ll be right back. Wait for me.”
As Maximian nodded, Joshua turned and followed Theo, disappearing into the crowd as if swallowed by it, impossible to track with the eye.
Maximian fingered the cup in his hand, lost in thought. Deep thought. Very deep thought.
Maximian lacked Joshua’s peculiar memory, his computational prowess, his artistic gifts. But he possessed something Joshua did not—a keen grasp of reality. His deductive faculties were exceptional. Above all, he saw through pretense. Where others needed time to discern the essence of most matters, he required far less.
Something was amiss. Certainly, something was amiss.
“Mak, what are you thinking so hard about?”
Until Hispanie returned and touched his shoulder, Maximian had been oblivious to his surroundings. The moment he saw Hispanie, he spoke rapidly.
“Can you imagine a situation where Grandfather says Joshua doesn’t ‘remember’ something he did?”
“Joshua?”
Hispanie stared blankly, as though Maximian had suddenly spoken nonsense, but seeing the unusual intensity in the boy’s eyes, he answered.
“Unless it’s a joke, that’s impossible. You know his memory as well as I do.”
“I do. It seems absolutely impossible to me.”
Maximian withdrew the letter Joshua had sent from his trouser pocket and extracted a ticket from the envelope. The performance date for the Aquarian printed there was May 20th—roughly a month and a half away.
“Joshua cannot forget anything. That’s simply how he was made from the beginning, isn’t it? The Joshua I know….”
Maximian returned the ticket to the envelope and grasped Hispanie’s hand, his eyes bearing a gravity he had never shown before.
“I need your help, Grandfather. I must go to Hyacan. Tonight. Immediately.”
“Which way should I go?”
“That depends on which way you wish to go,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care which way I go,” said Alice.
“Then it matters not which way you go,” said the Cat.
— Lewis Carroll,
from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Children of Rune
Demonic
Act 3. Shower
1. Finding the Cat in the Furnace
Listen, gray cat!
With ashen fur, you’ve burrowed into the furnace ash?
Your body curled tight, your tail tucked away completely.
But even hide-and-seek must end.
Gray cat, nodding off with eyes closed!
Why won’t you crawl out when I call?
What’s with that defiant glare?
If you dawdle, I’ll light a fire in that furnace!
A distant wind sent ripples across the water. With a strong breath, the sleeping rocks all claimed to be drenched at once. They would dry white soon enough. Not a mark would remain. Only transparent warmth lingered.
The sea, without a single island, lay quiet as a blue carpet. On the beach, a striped wind canopy of white cloth with blue stripes fluttered. Beneath it lay a young boy, using a thick book as a pillow.
The boy sprawled so loosely that his legs extended beyond the canopy’s edge. A wide-brimmed straw hat obscured his face. Yet a murmuring voice continued to drift from beneath it.
“I told you I don’t want to swim! Why are you so persistent? You know how much I hate getting my hair soaked?”
“Rehearsal will soak you in sweat anyway. It’s the same either way. I prefer this method.”
“I’m not your friend born on an island! I have no intention of boarding a ship—why would I fall into the sea?”
Shortly after, the boy sighed, tossed his hat aside, and sat up. Then he spoke toward the empty air.
“Ah, you’ve become quite the nag. Now you won’t even let me nap.”
After waiting a moment, she finally raised her voice.
“Fine! You were right! When wet hair clings to my head, it ruins the style, so I won’t do it! Are you satisfied now?”
The Young Boy picked up his hat, pulled it down firmly over his head, and rose to his feet, walking toward the Sea. Then, suddenly turning his head, he shot back a retort.
“I’m not going swimming, I told you!”
From beginning to end, there was no shadow of a person where the Young Boy had turned to look. Not even a dog out for a walk was visible.
Yet the Young Boy glared irritably at the empty air, then walked barefoot with nothing but an unbuttoned white shirt and a wide-brimmed hat, letting the wind carry his garments. The faint footprints left in the sand were erased in an instant by the waves that followed.
It was still early morning at the Sea. But by around eleven o’clock, both sand and stone would surely be warm enough to make a walk uncomfortable. Instead, swimmers would begin to appear, tucking towels, hats, and picnic baskets under their arms.
This season was perfect for swimming until two in the afternoon. After a good swim, one would pull sandwiches and fruit from the basket to eat, pass the time reading or taking a sand bath, perhaps even doze off briefly, and then as evening approached, rinse off the sand lightly and enter a beachside restaurant, enjoying an evening meal accompanied by a sweet glass of sherry. The kind of place with cream-colored coral adorning the white walls and blue parasols lined up neatly on the pebbles, where meals were served anytime between four and nine o’clock.
But the Young Boy came only in the early morning, and did nothing but walk. By the time people began to appear, he would quickly disappear. Though some who frequented this Beach occasionally saw a boy who came every day and left early, no one could identify him because he always kept his face hidden beneath his hat.
The Young Boy walked to where the sandy beach ended at the Cliff, treading barefoot over the scattered Rocky Outcrop. The densely packed stone joints grew sparse, and soon became the Sea’s edge, with white foam collecting in every crevice. When he dipped his feet into the stone gaps where ripples ebbed and flowed, a cool sensation traveled up from his heels along his spine to his cervical vertebrae.
He rubbed his bare feet against the white foam that moved in and out of the sand collected in the crevices. It was rough in places and slippery in others—a sensation that felt just right. But he had no intention of submerging anything above his ankles in the water.
「That’s even worse than a Cat washing itself, Joshua.」
At the voice that came from a slightly elevated Rocky Outcrop nearby, the Young Boy, Joshua, furrowed his brow. Kelsniti’s voice was soft, but now it carried a mischievous teasing quality.
Joshua chose a suitable rock to sit on, then looked up and waggled his fingers in response.
“Do you think you could teach a Cat to swim? Even someone as nagging as you couldn’t possibly manage that.”

Children of Rune – 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 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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