Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 32

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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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Chapter 32.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (2)
Boris stepped back and lowered his stance. He swept aside his cloak, revealing the hilt of his sword.
He knew that threats would be useless. There was no possibility of victory against this opponent.
Yet even if Boris died here, he would not allow the Winter Sword to be taken by another’s hand. Not while his eyes remained open.
What he had drawn forth was not a blade, but his will.
“If you wish to leave quietly, then kill me now.”
Purple clouds swirled rapidly overhead, fragmenting and coalescing, racing past one another. Between them, the moon revealed its pale face.
The night held its breath as if thirsting for blood.
Suddenly, Walnut laughed loudly.
“Ha, haha, hahaha….”
His laughter rang out like dry thunder hidden behind the clouds. Behind it, a heartbeat drummed dully, then quickened with gathering speed.
After a long moment, Walnut ceased his laughter and knelt on one knee to meet Boris’s gaze.
“Well now, a rare specimen indeed. Don’t look at me with such eyes. I won’t flee with your possessions, nor will I cut down children. Surely you don’t think I need to run from a blade you wield? Very well. Shall we make a wager?”
“….”
Walnut continued speaking to the silent Boris.
“I promised to teach you, so I shall teach you. That I appear untrustworthy is of my own making, so there’s nothing to be done about it. But I have already promised the Count that I will teach you until next spring. I will keep that promise. So until then, I shall extend the deadline of death you spoke of yourself. What say you?”
“What do you mean?”
Boris’s voice remained utterly unrelenting.
“Until then, I will give you the chance every day to seize my sword from my hands. If you succeed, I swear I will never lay a hand upon the Winter Sword again, so long as I live.”
Boris blinked his eyes several times with suspicion.
“But if you fail to succeed before I depart, then whether I cut you down or not, this blade shall become mine. Do you understand my words?”
“….”
I had to choose. If I could neither abandon honor to survive nor abandon survival for honor, then all that remained was this precarious tightrope walk.
Upon my shoulders lay my brother’s life like a heavy burden. I could not afford to die easily. I could not carelessly throw away either my life or my sword.
I would survive. Forever, like those immortals who live eternally.
“How will you prove your promise?”
Walnut reached into his garment and withdrew a short blade, placing it in Boris’s hand.
It was a broad dagger with blade and hilt joined directly without a crossguard. Simple in form, but when drawn from its sheath, the blade bore a peculiar crescent-shaped hole.
An inscription was carved into the hilt: “Remember the calamity.”
Walnut spoke.
“I entrust this dagger to you as a token of my promise. It is a thing of great importance to me. If you succeed, return it to me then. If you ultimately fail, I shall reclaim it myself.”
Boris hesitated, holding the dagger, uncertain whether to accept this contract. It was the second contract proposal he had received in his life. Yet unexpectedly, Langie’s voice reached his ears.
“Accept it, young master.”
Though simple words, they carried a power that somehow eased my mind. I slipped the dagger beneath my cloak.
Then I lifted my gaze to study my opponent. It was an unconscious act—seeking to discern through his eyes whether what I had just heard was truth. In that moment, my prescience, dormant for so long, awakened.
Something momentous had just passed between us. A dagger? A sword?
No, there was something far more important.
A faint but electric thrill coursed through my body. Was this a key and a door? A clear starlight that would become the first beacon in my life, still shrouded in darkness?
The contract was sealed. Walnut rose to his feet and looked down upon the two youths.
“Then go. Classes will begin tomorrow.”
Boris spoke before turning to leave.
“I trust you will keep faith as a true warrior.”
“Yes, and by your name, you shall be a warrior too. I understand.”
After Boris departed, Langie lingered for a moment, gazing up at Walnut Teacher. Walnut Teacher looked down at him with an expression of curiosity.
What came from Langie’s lips was unexpected.
“Whenever that time comes, it would be best to return the young master’s sword before you leave.”
Walnut Teacher chuckled softly, his tone tinged with mockery.
“So you’re more loyal than you appear?”
Walnut Teacher had already discerned that Langie was not a man who found life’s purpose in serving his master. Langie spoke quietly, his expression unchanged.
“I can surmise your intentions. For now, I’ll consider this an extension of his education, but if you tease the young master excessively, I’ll have no choice but to reconsider.”
Walnut Teacher opened his eyes wide in exaggerated surprise.
“A little thing like you threatening me outright? But there’s one thing you don’t know.”
“What is that?”
Walnut Teacher lowered his tone, then spoke playfully again.
“Right now, your actions mean you don’t trust your master’s abilities.”
Langie’s response was cold.
“That has nothing to do with me. Every person must prove their own worth independently.”
It was not words one would expect from a young boy’s lips. Walnut Teacher deliberately answered lightly.
“So you merely fulfill your duty? Fine. I won’t make a contract with you, but I’m curious to see how you’ll conduct yourself. Watch me as you see fit. Whatever the outcome may be.”
Yet what Langie said next was even more astonishing.
“Don’t speak as though you’re granting permission to matters of my free will. That’s all.”
The boy turned and followed his master’s departing figure with quickened steps.
Walnut Teacher stood motionless, his expression vacant.
“Free will? Did he say free will?”
It was a word that not only a young boy but most people on this continent would never speak aloud in their entire lives.
Yet Walnut Teacher understood the meaning of that word.

Sword lessons began the following day.
The Training Ground was a clearing prepared behind The Castle. Yet the reality proved far different from what Boris had imagined while awaiting his teacher.
On the first day, Walnut Teacher had Boris strap a boy’s sword to his waist—a blade that remained undrawn for one day, then two, and even after ten days had yet to taste the air once.
The first command Boris received was to run.
“No rush. Just circle The Castle at a comfortable pace. I’ll let you know when to stop.”
From that vague instruction alone, something felt amiss. For the first two laps around The Castle, Walnut Teacher at least drew his blade and made a show of warming up.
But by the third lap, he had vanished without a trace.
Assuming he’d merely stepped away briefly, I completed the fourth lap. Belnoir Castle’s scale was renowned as the greatest in Belcruze, and by then sweat drenched my entire body.
Walnut Teacher remained absent. Perhaps he’d returned and gone elsewhere momentarily. That must be it.
Yet through the fifth lap, the sixth, and even the seventh, my teacher kept himself hidden, not showing so much as a whisker.
As more laps accumulated, the situation transcended disappointment in my teacher’s negligence and became a matter of life and death. With no teacher to return and tell me to stop, I couldn’t cease!
Though I could have simply stopped, I possessed a peculiar rigidity that compelled me to continue until Walnut Teacher returned and commanded me to halt.
Perhaps it was because I’d witnessed the Winterer gleaming in his hands the night before. Walnut Teacher was no mere fool despite his appearance.
I had made my second contract with Walnut Teacher in this lifetime. A wager must be fair, so I believed he wouldn’t teach me with negligence. Even his casual disappearance seemed to serve some purpose.
Though Walnut Teacher possessed formidable swordsmanship, his character was deplorable enough that the possibility he might deceive or mock me couldn’t be entirely dismissed. Yet I buried such doubts deep within my heart.
Better not to have begun a wager or contract at all than to falter under such anxieties. Now that I’d started, I would demonstrate that I don’t break easily.
That I was a master worthy of that blade, that I would absorb any teaching necessary to win.
Perhaps my nature was excessively serious?
Still, one person watched over me. It was Langie.
Yet Langie did nothing beyond his assigned duties. He merely observed me with those characteristically cold eyes.
He neither told me to stop nor offered me water. He didn’t even go searching for Walnut Teacher.
My legs trembled and my vision blurred. As I struggled to stay on the running path, I found myself thinking something absurd.
Humans strive to survive by any means, yet the body is pathetically fragile. Run a bit longer and it aches as though death approaches; continue further and death might truly come.
No—when consciousness fades, the body forgets its purpose and marshals all strength to survive anew. It would collapse or unconditionally accept rest and water offered by others.
But I had decided… to survive… to the end….
I staggered, the sky and earth inverted, and something bitter flooded my mouth. The impact of my head striking the ground came only belatedly.
I spat out dry saliva several times and struggled to my feet again. Then I fell to my knees once more. I’d lost count of how many laps had passed.
Yet Walnut Teacher had said to run, not to stop. So I would run to the end… and prove that I was worthy of survival… that I deserved to be the master of that blade….
Thud!
But with the world growing so dark around me….

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself sprawled across the empty training ground.
The moment my eyes opened, brilliant sunlight pierced through my corneas. In a way, it was a blessing. The instant I reflexively shut them again, a bucket of cold water was dumped over my head.
If anything, it felt refreshing and invigorating. I sprang to my feet with such elasticity that it seemed impossible I had just collapsed moments before.
Langie stood before me. He set down the bucket and offered me a dry towel.
“Walnut Teacher has not yet arrived. Please forgive me for acting on my own initiative.”
Even with that tone—as if to say do whatever you like if you won’t forgive me—I felt no anger. Rather, Langie’s actions made him feel like a friend, someone close to me. Perhaps my mind had grown simple from all the hardship.
“Understood. Thank you.”
Though I dried myself with the towel, my entire body was still soaked, so I unbuckled my sword from my waist. There was no point in letting the blade get wet.
Then I returned to where I had collapsed and resumed running.
After completing another lap, Walnut Teacher finally appeared.
Rosnis was with him. Dressed in hunting attire, she held a practice sword in her hand, and unlike me, the lesson seemed to delight and fascinate her. Her face flushed with excitement, she chattered away to Walnut Teacher without pause.
The sword Rosnis carried had a dull blade adorned only with ornate decorations. Her entire lesson consisted of repeatedly drawing it from her waist and pointing it forward.
Walnut Teacher, who had been indulging Rosnis’s questions to some degree, caught sight of me running toward them from a distance.
His expression changed.
“Stop!”

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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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