Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 315

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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 85.
Finding the Cat in the Hearth (34)
Hearing those words, I shifted my perspective on the situation. If I couldn’t leave, that meant no one could enter either, right? For someone seeking refuge, nothing could be more ideal than this.
In any case, I was the type who needed to see things with my own eyes before believing them, so I wandered through the house feeling The Mage’s proud gaze at my back—which is to say, The Mage had followed behind me to savor the expression of a prisoner resigned to his fate. The first door led to the Warehouse, the second to the Bedroom, the third to a guest room, and the fourth to a Staircase leading upstairs. There truly was no front entrance. Then what about the windows?
When I opened the window in the Bedroom and looked out, I was even more astonished. Even if this house had been surrounded by a barrier and rendered invisible, by my logic the landscape I saw should have been the Meadow where we’d been. Yet the view outside was a sheer Gorge, wasn’t it? Moreover, it was late autumn. Nothing made sense.
“….”
I voluntarily turned my direction toward the Kitchen. And I began carefully gauging whether this Mage was more dangerous than the so-called “salaryman.” Looking back, Joshua, who had been sitting in front of a tub of potatoes, was holding an unpeeled potato and examining it with curiosity.
“This is my first time seeing a potato with dirt on it.”
“…So you thought peeled boiled potatoes came straight from the ground?”
Riche, who had been looking at a mop handle that didn’t emit a particularly pleasant smell, sighed and muttered.
“That man looked cold and sharp, but you really can’t judge by appearances alone.”
I at least knew the basics of peeling potatoes, so I taught Joshua how to hold a spoon first. But after initially just splashing water and getting in the way, Joshua peeled about three potatoes before surprisingly beginning to outpace my speed.
I frowned in disbelief.
“Damn it, do we really live in a world where you need demonic talent just to peel potatoes?”
“This is more fun than I thought?”
As Joshua peeled potatoes at a furious pace beside me, my motivation to work evaporated, and I began repeatedly counting the potatoes I’d already peeled. The Mage had told me to peel potatoes, not to completely strip three massive tubs each four hand-spans in diameter.
Suddenly, I thought of something and spoke.
“That man—he didn’t forget about the barrier stone he created, did he?”
“Is that even possible?”
“Well, it seems like anything’s possible for that man.”
“But what happened to Caesar anyway?”
“He definitely ran off knowing this would happen.”
Riche initially cleaned the mop carelessly, but after wiping a few times, she became dissatisfied with herself and launched into serious cleaning work. Once she wiped it, the black marble floor that had accumulated dust became surprisingly gleaming and beautiful, igniting her enthusiasm without her realizing it.
Shortly after, she went to The Mage and demanded an apron and head scarf, then insisted he produce a feather duster next, then a hand cloth, and when she saw the broom following her around, she outright nagged him.
“You need a proper broom, but you’re making these toys instead! Hurry up and turn it back into a decent broom!”
I regaled Joshua with stories of my Kitchen experience for quite some time, arguing that potato peeling was terribly tedious difficulty-wise. According to my claims, the most irritating ingredient was onions, as my eyes were particularly sensitive to onion compounds—tears would stream down my face just from cutting one in half. Moved by these vivid and horrifying anecdotes, Joshua nodded in agreement.
“At least it’s not onions.”
“If it were onions, I’d have abandoned the Kitchen.”
Caesar sat with his rear end planted on a dilapidated tombstone placed in the middle of the Meadow. He yawned, glanced around, and tilted his head. He didn’t seem worried—merely that something differed from his calculations.
“It’s about time to pick him up. Has this fellow developed a new hobby?”
6. The Puppeteer
Beneath the Sea lay colossal statues of ancient kings.
Children skilled in breath-holding competed to see them. When they returned, they would say the statues remained exactly as before. As those children grew and had children of their own, they too went to see them in the same way. Moss had accumulated in the eyes of the kings.
In the days of greatness, nothing was forgotten. The kings wore golden belts and received worship. Now the royal capital, transformed into a Seaside Village, lay desolate as if under a spell.
The statues of kings remaining beneath the Sea bore sorrowful expressions. Why?
Because they knew that the prosperous royal capital that had once stood tall at the harbor, gazing upon the Sea, had declined after taking its first steps away. Because their feet had already transformed into shattered stone, and they knew they could never return to land for eternity.
Anistan was popular with the people. Whenever he walked about carrying books, greetings echoed from all around.
“Anistan’s here? How’s the research you’ve been working on going? I saw your light on late into the night.”
“Anistan, on such a beautiful day, you’re cooped up in your room? Why don’t you go outside and gather medicinal herbs?”
“Will you come to the market on your next day off? I was thinking of introducing you to a pretty young woman. I’m sure you’d like her.”
“Anistan, take a handful of these peanuts with you. You’ve been pulling all-nighters lately, so at least your mouth won’t get bored.”
Anistan smiled and answered each person individually, humbly teaching anyone who asked questions. When he left, he walked through the City Gate with his arms full of light things like peanuts, and items his skills couldn’t utilize—a bundle of turnips, dried fish, bundles of eggs. Even the guards at the gate greeted him with laughter.
“You’ve gotten quite the haul again. Young Mage, you’re awfully popular, aren’t you?”
“Ah, Cox. Please take these turnips to The Lady. She said the soup from last time was truly delicious.”
“What, you’re pawning them off again? Linda will be happy, but if Aunt Pomery finds out, she’ll be upset. You know her well enough—she’s a fan of yours.”
Anistan laughed with an easy expression. Much of his popularity among the people came from that smile.
“I’m sure Aunt Pomery hopes these turnips become a delicious soup. In my hands, they’d only become rotten turnips. So please tell Linda to look forward to turnip soup.”
“Haha, so this is an advance payment? Fine. I’ll take it. Thank you.”
Beyond the City Gate, following the sparsely set paving stones, a narrow tower rose at one corner of the Castle. Anistan used the third floor as his laboratory and the fourth floor as his quarters. This had traditionally been where the lord’s mage resided, and Anistan too had the duty to visit Lord Topelim, the lord of Magran, once every ten days to report on the use of materials stored in the Castle and the progress of his research.
Being a conscientious man, Anistan never neglected this duty, but the lord showed little interest and often dozed off while he reported. Lord Topelim was so elderly that he could barely move, and since he had no heir to inherit the Castle, it was scheduled to revert to the Royal House immediately upon his death. There was no meaning in conducting new magical research in such a place.
Anistan was well aware of this fact. The research he was currently conducting was not for Lord Topelim.
Though he used two floors, Anistan primarily used the third floor. A simple bed was prepared there as well. The fourth floor—he might use it as a Reception Room if guests arrived, but otherwise he rarely entered it more than once every few days. Even the servants’ cleaning was limited to the fourth floor.
Just as he entered the first floor, a servant came down and spoke.
“Ah, you’ve arrived. A visitor came, so I showed them to the fourth floor.”
Anistan stopped for a moment, then asked.
“A visitor?”
“They said they were a friend.”
The moment Anistan heard the word “friend,” his expression changed completely. The servant was somewhat taken aback, but since Anistan said nothing more, he quickly left to avoid reproach.
Friend. Perhaps no one in the world feared that word as much as Anistan did. Slowly, he climbed the stairs and pushed open the fourth-floor door. The person sitting with their back to the window raised a hand lightly in greeting.
From closing the door to approaching the visitor, Anistan had transformed into someone entirely different from the man who had walked to the Castle smiling comfortably at people. By the time their faces met, he had already become someone for whom a smile would be difficult to see for the rest of his life.
“Why did you come? Leave.”
“What’s this? To your closest friend?”
“I told you. I won’t see you again.”
Theo raised his eyebrows and laughed.
“Why are you like this? You sound so serious it seems genuine. Are we the kind of friends who part like that? You weren’t in your right mind back then because of the shock of your aunt’s passing. That’s why I endured all the harsh words you threw at me. Now that I see your face, you seem to be doing better?”
Anistan’s lips tightened. Memories he never wanted to recall, that he had tried to bury forever, were inevitably resurrected, and his lips trembled. No—in truth, he had seen it hundreds of times, in dreams and in the bright daylight. A quiet seaside, what happened without a sound. Perhaps because there was no sound, since coming here Anistan had wondered countless times whether it was an event his imagination had created. He had hoped so. He had wanted to believe it.
But it wasn’t. Because Theo was right here before his eyes. Because he was smiling like that.
“Anistan, don’t be like that. Just sit down.”
Saying so, Theo’s smile faded and he fixed Anistan with a sharp look. A deeper shadow fell over Anistan’s eyes. Finally, when Anistan sat across from him, Theo continued.
“I just came to see how you were doing. You said you liked a place like this, but seeing it in person, it’s really suffocatingly remote. Are you really okay living in such a countryside?”
The room was dark, with few windows. Outside, sunlight blazed brilliantly, but only a little entered inside. Purifying sunlight—perhaps too meager a quantity to forgive one person. Yet he had come all this way because he wanted it.
“It couldn’t be better.”
Despite the content of his words, his tone was barbed.
“Well, you’re different from me. I have no taste for the countryside.”
Though he was asking after his friend living in the countryside as if making a courtesy visit, Anistan knew why Theo had come. He also knew that when he came again, his brief happiness would shatter into pieces. He knew he could not avoid it forever—because it was something he himself had done.
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The copyright to this book belongs to the author and 14 Months Publishing.
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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