Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 33

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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 33.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (3)
As Boris gradually slowed his pace and came to a stop before Walnut Teacher, he had been expecting the man to apologize for forgetting, perhaps offering some remark like “You certainly are stubborn, continuing to run like that.” Instead, what fell from his lips was an unexpected rebuke.
But what came was a thunderous reprimand.
“Why did you release your sword!”
Neither Boris nor Lanji had ever seen Walnut Teacher angry before. Even Rosnis flinched, swallowing the words she had been about to speak.
Boris stood with his mouth agape, unable even to think of explaining the situation.
“Do you think you’re simply practicing your running! What I teach is the sword! What kind of swordcraft do you expect to learn with a mind that releases the blade because it’s heavy! This is pathetic!”
He hadn’t released it because it was heavy. Yet in that moment, Boris instinctively understood that no rebuttal or excuse was needed.
The moment he picked up his sword, he knelt before his teacher. He had forgotten the very fact that he had never knelt before anyone other than his Father until now.
The instant he heard Walnut Teacher’s words, he recognized his own mistake, and the reason why it had happened ceased to matter.
“I have erred. I will not do so again.”
What followed was not some plea like “Please forgive me just this once.”
“Please punish me.”
Walnut Teacher responded as though he had been waiting for exactly those words.
“Very well. I shall punish you.”
Rosnis, startled, took several steps back and glanced around frantically. Spotting Camia standing at a distance, she gestured urgently for her to come closer.
She had suddenly realized that, having become Walnut Teacher’s student, her own circumstances were no different from Boris’s.
Walnut Teacher turned his head toward Lanji.
“How many times did Boris circle the Manor today?”
“Twelve times, sir.”
Walnut Teacher looked down at Boris once more.
“From now on, every day, do the same thing each morning. Until the day I leave this Manor.”
Rosnis’s face paled, as did Camia’s, who had just arrived breathless. Circle the Manor a dozen times each day?
Yet Boris was a boy raised in Trabaches to become a strong individual and a political creature from his youth, taught by a Father who offered no indulgence. He answered briefly.
“Thank you.”
Rosnis need not have feared the teacher. Once Walnut Teacher finished with Boris, he looked at the two little ladies and his expression suddenly shifted to one of gentle smiling. Then he departed toward one side of the Training Ground for what amounted to playful sword instruction.
When Boris turned, he saw Lanji standing with a cup of water already prepared.
As Boris accepted the water from this servant’s hands—hands that still refused to obey—he felt as though the man had become his comrade in this struggle he must endure.
Walnut Teacher left Rosnis and Camia to play with their swords, then withdrew to a distance. After a moment, he muttered to himself.
“Hah, truly… why did I get angry at that boy for no reason. What was wrong with my mind for a moment.”
After that day, Boris never released his sword again.
Not during rest periods in his lessons, nor anywhere he went within the Manor—not when eating, not when meeting the Count and Countess. Even while sleeping, he kept it at his bedside where he could draw it at any moment.
Before long, Boris came to understand clearly what it meant to never be parted from his sword.
This place was a beautiful Manor in a peaceful land, the servants attended to him, and the Count and Countess treated him as a son—but it was all illusion. It was obvious, yet he kept forgetting it.
But with the sword at his side, it became a truth impossible to forget, no matter how he tried.
I was a child cast into enemy territory. So weak that vigilance itself was meaningless; in truth, even keeping my eyes open day and night was insufficient.
I struggle to survive, but what defense could I mount if someone approached in the darkness and cut my throat?
Yet despite carrying it always, the sword was rarely drawn.
Walnut Teacher, during his lessons, merely occupied Rosnis and Camia with trivial games, offering Boris no systematic instruction whatsoever.
The days of running as ordered continued for more than a month.
As time and energy began to linger even after the running ended, I reluctantly began lifting the sword above my head and lowering it to point, then repeating the motion over and over.
It seemed as though someone deliberately selected only tedious tasks, hoping I would grow exhausted and collapse.
The only person who watched over me as I repeated these dull drills was Langie. He offered no evaluation, no advice, no encouragement, yet the mere presence of his watchful gaze gave me a strange strength.
There were days when I thought I might have truly given up if even Langie had not been there. But I never spoke such words to him.
“Miss, it looks like it will rain today.”
Camia, who had gone to the kitchen and overheard the conversation, looked up at the sky with the expression of someone who knew something about weather.
By then, dark clouds blanketed the sky so thoroughly that anyone, not just Camia, could see rain was coming.
“Is that so?”
Rosnis’s voice rose slightly, as though she wanted Walnut Teacher to hear. As expected, the teacher responded immediately.
“Then shall we stop practice today and go inside to talk?”
“Yes!”
“Will it be an interesting story, teacher?”
Walnut Teacher openly favored Rosnis over me. Whatever she asked for, he readily agreed, but he did not do the same for me. Though I rarely asked for anything anyway.
Walnut Teacher seemed to avoid even conversing with me.
Even Rosnis had noticed. Though she was accustomed to receiving special treatment, my case was somewhat different.
If I could not defeat that boy, would disaster not befall her immediately? To marry an idiot—it was unthinkable!
In that sense, I was quite precious to Rosnis. She glanced at me as I repeatedly lifted and lowered the sword alone, then spoke.
“You’ll get rained on here. Today, let my brother come inside too and listen to the story, yes?”
“Is that so?”
As expected, when Rosnis spoke, both I and Langie were ushered into the parlor.
Not long after we entered, rain began to fall. I gazed for a long time at the landscape beyond the window, where blue lines streaked the glass.
“The Continent has many nations, and many swordsmen too. Shall I tell you about them today?”
Walnut Teacher began to speak, then grabbed three pastries and shoved them all into his mouth at once. As his throat clogged, he gulped down warm tea like water until it all dissolved.
“Ah, that tastes good. Suddenly I’m even hungrier. You know how it is—the more you eat, the hungrier you become. Have you ever felt that? After starving for so long, finally you pile up food and eat it, and even though you’ll eat it all yourself, you can’t help but feel restless, wanting to eat faster. Have you felt that?”
I looked at Walnut Teacher with bewildered eyes. It was not only that he had strayed from his promised talk of swordsmen.
I knew hunger better than anyone. But I had never felt the sensation he described—continuing to eat while wanting more?
Rosnis, who had never even gone hungry, wore an utterly baffled expression. She, raised as a noblewoman, could hardly relate to such obsession with food.
Walnut Teacher continued, unbothered by their expressions.
“Appetite is a tremendously powerful desire. People become seized by certain desires they cannot suppress, and they indulge even when satisfied. But since humans can only consume a limited amount at once, appetite is actually a rather unstable desire.”
Walnut Teacher looked over both of us again and raised his eyebrows.
“Imagine this: you have the thought ‘I want to eat,’ but you know for certain you will not be able to eat your fill soon. What happens then? You become selective about food. You restrain the urge to sweep everything into your stomach and instead focus on filling your belly with the finest taste, the best combinations. You would not touch the mundane things you normally eat without thinking, choosing only the most delicious parts. The problem is, eating this way creates much waste. You end up with leftovers everywhere.”
I realized this was not merely a story about appetite.
Was it not a story about all desire? The desire to have more even after having much, to climb higher even after climbing high.
Appetite reaches a limit at some point, but other desires? When do such desires ever end?
Suddenly Walnut Teacher looked at Rosnis.
“Rosnis, what is it you most wish to achieve? Something you desire so deeply that if it came to pass, you would have no other wish?”
“Pardon?”
For Rosnis, who had never restrained herself from having what she wanted, such a question was unfamiliar.
When Father asked “What would you like to have, Rose?” it was to give it to her. But this was different. The thought—”Perhaps you cannot have it, but if you had one wish, what would it be?”—was foreign to her.
“I have everything I could want. There’s no need to worry—Father provides whatever I desire.”
“That can’t be true. Surely there’s a wish even Father cannot grant you?”
“What could that possibly be?”
Walnut Teacher tilted his head, then stroked his bound hair as he replied.
“Haha… Well, I suppose Father could help with this. You’re hoping to debut at the court of Keltika as the most beautiful young lady, aren’t you? So you’d receive countless marriage proposals from young noblemen and agonize over which one to choose—isn’t that right?”
“I… yes?”
Rosnis’s expression suggested she’d never entertained such thoughts in her wildest dreams, yet simultaneously betrayed that he’d struck a nerve.
Walnut Teacher turned to look at Boris.
“What about you? Will you speak first before I say anything?”
By then, Boris had already decided long ago what he truly wanted. There was little reason to hide it, so he answered clearly.
“To possess the ability to live without depending on anyone’s favor.”
“That’s far easier to achieve than Rosnis’s wish. At least you won’t have any rivals.”
“Rivals?”
Rosnis blurted out the question immediately, her earlier claim of having no wishes completely forgotten.
Walnut Teacher replied in an offhand tone.
“Ah, you do have a rival. Someone your exact age, and rumor already has it she’ll become Anomarad’s finest bride prospect in Keltika’s high society. If you can’t surpass her, your dream will crumble to dust.”
“Who is it!”
Her voice was genuinely angry. Boris thought it unlikely Rosnis’s mood would improve anytime soon.
“Duke Fontina’s daughter—Chloe da Fontina. I’ve seen her myself, and she truly has the face of a future beauty.”
“That’s absurd! You’re lying!”
Walnut Teacher was teasing Rosnis. Even though she’d been fooled once before about walnuts when she first arrived and had bounced around indignantly, she still took Walnut’s words at face value—it was almost exasperating.
Boris couldn’t even be certain whether the girl Chloe that Walnut mentioned actually existed.
“Please stop now and tell us what you actually came to say.”
Boris didn’t accept Walnut’s occasional pranks as mere jokes. To him, the teacher remained a cautious figure whose true nature he had yet to fathom.
Walnut Teacher chuckled as he watched Rosnis pout and clamp her mouth shut. Then he finished the remaining pastries, scattering crumbs everywhere, and asked.
“Do you know who is called the greatest knight of Anomarad?”

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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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