Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 327

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 97.
Ninety-Eight Souls (10)
“Demonic?”
Juspian stared at Joshua for quite some time before finally uttering those words.
“I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
Then he turned to look at Maximian.
“What is a Demonic?”
Maximian spread his palm toward Riche as if to say she knew the essence of it. Rather than explaining at length, Riche recycled the explanation that had been well-received last time.
“A genius candidate for madness, or something like that, I’ve heard.”
Hearing only those words, Juspian’s expression grew peculiar as he looked at Joshua, then slowly tilted his head to the side. After a moment, his head returned to its original position, and he blinked slowly at Joshua several times.
“Could it be the House of Duke Arnim from Periwinkle?”
“You knew?”
Juspian formed a smile by moving only his lips. Yet it carried not merely recognition, but a nuance of genuine delight.
“I know it well.”
“He is Duke Arnim of Keltika now.”
Since his attire was shabby for someone of a ducal house and he had not a single attendant, Riche doubted whether Juspian would believe this. Yet Juspian suddenly began to chuckle with amusement.
“I see. So that Demonic. Then it makes sense. Ah, if he’s Demonic, it’s possible. They really could be different beings. So what I’m saying is, suppose you got struck on the back of the head right now and collapsed, losing all your memories. Would the puppet and you become different entities? That wouldn’t be the case, would it? But if there were slight differences from the moment the two of you were duplicated, then the story changes. Perhaps it was an error on the part of the Mage who created the puppet. But that’s not something I can judge. It depends on how ‘Order’ views this problem. This is quite interesting. But why was that memory omitted?”
Maximian spoke.
“I don’t know the reason either. Only the one who created it would know. But if that flaw hadn’t existed, I would have found it absolutely impossible to distinguish between the two of you. So regardless of what Order is or how it works, at least it was helpful to me.”
“What memory is it, exactly?”
“A letter.”
Maximian glanced at Joshua before speaking.
“Joshua sent me a letter. We are friends, but we hadn’t seen each other for a long time since childhood. So we only exchanged letters occasionally. Then one day, I received a letter saying he would be performing in a play in Hyacan and asking me to come watch, with two invitation tickets enclosed. The date I received that letter was March 30th. The performance was scheduled for May 20th. But just two days after receiving the letter, Joshua suddenly contacted me saying he had wound up his life in Hyacan and returned to Keltika, asking me to come to a welcome party. At first, I thought his mind had changed while the letter was being delivered to me, so I attended the party. That was April 5th. Even until that day, I hadn’t thought for a moment that he might be a fake.”
“And then?”
“That fake didn’t remember sending me the invitation tickets. Yet I clearly have the letter and tickets in my hands. So I followed him here to confirm.”
Juspian spoke in exasperation.
“What? Then Joshua wrote the letter right after being duplicated, and so the puppet simply doesn’t remember that, right?”
“That could be the case. But at least thanks to that incident, I was able to determine that the other one is the fake.”
Then Juspian shook his head.
“Can you judge based on that? Rather, couldn’t the one who sent the letter be the fake, and the one without such a memory be the real one? In other words, they could have made the duplicate write the letter after the duplication was already complete.”
“That’s not it.”
“Why not?”
Maximian slowly felt through his thoughts as if rehearsing what he would do upon returning to Jade Ring Castle, then spoke.
“First, the fake said the ‘performance had been cancelled.’ There would be no reason to send tickets for a cancelled performance. And Joshua is the heir of a ducal house. If someone duplicated Joshua, what would be the next step? Naturally, to swap him with the real one and then command the fake to devise schemes in their favor, wouldn’t it? Surely no one would go through the trouble of creating a puppet only to abandon it saying, ‘Now go have adventures and find your way to the Castle’? The purpose wouldn’t be to educate the fake.”
Though logically sound, Juspian seemed to be thinking of someone like himself.
“How would you know? Perhaps it’s merely a Mage with an experimental spirit?”
“Unless someone duplicates you, Juspian, such a thing wouldn’t—”
Maximian, speaking thus, caught sight of the other’s expression and changed his words.
“Hmm, in any case, there is another reason I believe that’s not the case.”
“What is it?”
“I have a suspicion about who created that doll.”
As I turned to look at Joshua, our eyes met instantly. Though we had never discussed this matter, Joshua spoke first.
“There’s no evidence yet.”
Maximian shook his head firmly.
“But I have my suspicions. Why would the doll be in Keltika rather than Hyacan? Wouldn’t it be because the doll’s owner must remain in Keltika? And if the doll appears unusually close to someone who was previously distant? Moreover, if that person stands to gain the most from your disappearance?”
When he reached that point, Joshua spoke as if spitting out the words.
“Don’t speak carelessly until evidence emerges.”
“As you wish.”
Maximian didn’t understand why Joshua reacted so sensitively, but he judged that now wasn’t the time to quarrel over this matter. So he turned his head back toward Juspian.
“The caretaker of the villa where Joshua lived said that Joshua had gone missing. If the one who returned to the Jineman Manor in Keltika is the real Joshua, then that lady should naturally know that Joshua went home, shouldn’t she?”
“That lady might also be in league with those who created the fake.”
“Then she wouldn’t have mentioned the missing Joshua at all. If she hadn’t, I would never have known that a missing Joshua existed in the first place. If I hadn’t discovered a new Joshua here, wouldn’t I have thought I was mistaken and simply returned home? The deception only works if everyone believes there is only one Joshua, doesn’t it? Well, it’s true that she is complicit.”
Maximian noticed Joshua beginning to say something before stopping.
“In any case, you hate believing that someone close to you has betrayed you until the very last piece of evidence is laid bare. Your noble preference for believing in human goodness is your own refined taste, but when you’re in a situation like this, shouldn’t you think a bit more intuitively? Your father’s old friend Sir Baiyer betrayed you—what makes you think Madame Bwaju couldn’t do the same? Isn’t that right?”
Joshua only pressed his temples with his fingers and said nothing. Juspian urged him on.
“Go on. So what about that invitation problem?”
“To verify it, I had to visit the villa briefly in the middle of the night without notice. I was looking for evidence that the real Joshua had written that letter. So I found an impression left by writing in Joshua’s room—an indentation. I couldn’t make out the contents from the indentation alone, but when I compared it with the letter I had, the ink marks matched perfectly. Judging from the fact that the indentation remained, I thought the real Joshua must have left home shortly after sending me the letter with the invitation. Am I right?”
When Maximian turned to look, Joshua nodded and spoke.
“It was right after I received a letter from my father telling me to come home. So the letter I sent to Maximian was the last one I wrote at the villa. I knew I would have to return someday, but I desperately wanted to complete the Aquarian performance I had been preparing for so long before I left. And since it would be my last, I wanted to show it to you as well, so I wrote that letter. After that, I asked the Theater Master—the only person who knew my true identity—to arrange a place for me to hide. Just until the performance.”
Riche, who had been silent for a long time, finally spoke.
“So that’s why you said in the dressing room back then that this performance would be the end of Max Cardi.”
Maximian narrowed his eyes as he spoke.
“As it turned out, you escaped very well. If you hadn’t escaped then, people like Madame Bwaju and Sir Baiyer would have killed you cleanly, erased the evidence, and when someone like me arrived, they would have smoothly said, ‘The young master returned to Keltika long ago, didn’t he?’ But since they couldn’t do that, Madame Bwaju must have been sweating profusely trying to fabricate lies in front of me like that. She was confused because of you, who might still be alive somewhere in Hyacan. Those people went through considerable trouble giving the fake memories of the journey all the way to Keltika. Even deceiving the fake themselves. But thinking about it, they must have discovered quite late that you and Max Cardi were the same person. That’s why, even though you were living in the same city, they couldn’t find you while I was chasing you from Anomarad here. If you hadn’t played the role of that masked theater actor, you would probably already be dead.”
Looking at it that way, the double life had indeed saved my life. Juspian spoke.
“Of course. If you’re planning to create a fake and swap it for the real one, the standard procedure would be to kill and eliminate one the moment you create the other, so that no one ever knows two existed for even a brief moment, wouldn’t it?”
Everyone felt a chill run through them as they contemplated the possibility. Maximian looked at Juspian with an attitude that suggested he finally needed to hear this.
“So, tell me how to eliminate that doll. Is it the same as killing a person?”
“No, it’s somewhat simpler.”
Before Juspian could answer, Joshua spoke first.
“The original.”
“Yes, the original. The original is like a heart outside the body for the replica doll. The state of the original determines the state of the doll. So if you destroy it, it’s all over.”
However, Maximian seemed to think differently and frowned.
“It doesn’t sound easy at all. The doll would be walking around fine, but the original or whatever it is would be thoroughly hidden, wouldn’t it? Where on earth would you even find such a thing?”
“There’s not entirely no way to guess its location.”
Juspian was staring at the ceiling for a moment as if checking his memories. So the three of us had to keep staring at the gaunt collarbone revealed above his loose robe.
“Does your family happen to have a crypt?”
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.
All or part of the contents of this book may not be reused without written consent from both parties.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————