Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 349

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

Episode 119.
Ninety-Eight Souls (32)
“But… something definitely feels off.”
The Young Boy traced the jagged edge with his fingertip.
“There was definitely a moment when I decided to return. I remember it. I resolved to cancel everything and go back, but I can’t quite grasp what I was feeling at that moment. When I try to recall that emotion, it’s hazy, like looking through fog. I remember the situation, but the feeling is gone—and this didn’t happen a hundred years ago. How could this be? Was I drunk that day? I’ve rarely drunk myself into such a state. Though I think I had a glass or two that day.”
Hispanie felt a chill settle in his chest as he asked.
“You find that strange about yourself?”
“You know this, Grandfather. Better than anyone, in fact. You know I can accurately sketch the shape of a vase that sat on a windowsill ten years ago. With such a memory, when everything else is clear but one thing remains blurred, I find myself desperately trying to recall it. Gradually, I can think of nothing else… I’m playing chess and laughing with Mother, but my thoughts are entirely consumed by this. That’s why I’ve been doing nothing lately. I can’t help it. Why am I like this?”
The Young Boy looked down at what he’d been touching—the rough, fractured edge.
“I feel like I’m broken in one corner, just like this edge.”
His fingers, bent at a right angle as if trying to fit a missing piece back together, pressed against the jagged end, and through them emanated his obsession with the lost memory.
“And through that broken place… something inside me seems to be flowing away.”
Joshua jolted awake suddenly. It was from a sharp, stabbing pain near his solar plexus, as if pierced by a needle.
Upon waking, it seemed like a dream—there was no pain at all. He slipped his hand beneath the blanket and slowly felt around his solar plexus, but found nothing. There was nothing in the bedding that could have pricked him.
He sat up in bed. Only then did he notice his forehead was damp with sweat. The pain had been severe enough to break a cold sweat of shock, yet now nothing was wrong. It was as if he possessed another body that had taken the injury in his stead.
No. He did have another body.
At that thought, Joshua drew in a deep breath without realizing it. He held it and followed his own heart inward. That place was dark. Deep within lay a tangle of fear, revulsion, hatred, loss, spinning things—but that was not all.
Deeper still, wrapped in a thin membrane, lay something else.
“I do not hate you.”
He was certainly afraid. The existence of another self was a repugnant experience. It had cost him much.
“I wanted to kill you.”
He had thought it countless times. Never once had he spoken it aloud. The contradiction of saying “he is also me” while thinking “I want to kill him” had been unbearable. Yet it was not a lie.
“If you were me, you would hurt too. Even if you know nothing now, something would surely ache. Like me. And such fierce self-love as yours cannot be divided in two. If I were to love another as much as I love myself, I would surely go mad.”
“I might truly kill you. But not from hatred. I cannot hate you, nor can I regard you indifferently. Then what remains is only one thing—to love you.”
“If I love you, there is only one reason. Because you are me. You are not false. If you, my duplicate, are false, then so am I. Between you and me, there is no true and false. Only essence. What we both possess equally.”
Only then did Joshua exhale deeply and fix his gaze on empty space before him. For one who could immerse himself in non-existent figures, rendering a person not before his eyes with clarity was nothing.
“You, who do my work in my stead. You, who became someone I could love when I could love no one. You, who are no longer glass. I am grateful to you. There, doing what I could not, you too are searching for what it means to be me. We are the same, after all. Demonic, bearing nearly identical memories, perhaps needing no discussion at all. Only we could meet such a being. That is why, even if the next moment I kill you, I want to meet you. I must see you. You moving before me exactly as I do. You walking like my mirror image. No other existence in this world captures my attention as you do.”
Joshua rose. He turned toward the entrance, then turned his head as if looking back at someone actually standing there, and smiled like a character in a play shrouded in darkness.
“If a demon can love, wouldn’t its object be none other than itself?”
5. Dancing Kalayso
Kalayso, homeland of dancers
Kalayso, grave of the blue marlin
When I came there today
Thieving gulls cawed and cried
The dock fees were highway robbery
A taciturn girl came round
Said the food cost ten times the price
And a brigand stripped me of my coins
So I became a pauper overnight
Ah, I’ll never return to that place
Damn, it’s like my homeland.
On the last day of May—that pleasant threshold between spring and summer—the great sailing ship Highsaebaramho glided across a sea as calm as soup served at the morning table.
But the soup that actually graced their table was a treacherous minefield of reefs. Or rather, it never reached the table at all, since they had to squat on the deck to eat it. One sailor who took hold of the bowl peered inside and let out a cry.
“Don’t serve dog food to people!”
The cook, after licking a droplet of tomato soup from his thick forearm, shot back a reply.
“Sailors are a special breed between dogs and men.”
“Listen here—isn’t the captain a sailor?”
“The captain is a special breed between gods and men.”
He recited this with such utter conviction that no one had the will to argue. The sailor Appleton, turning away, settled into a corner and took a sip of soup, then spat out whatever had entered his mouth—whether a shell fragment or a fish bone—over the rail. Looking back at the bowl, now bare at the bottom, it contained a handful of things that ought to return to the homeland sea, just like what he’d just expelled.
“Damn it, even a dog wouldn’t eat this.”
He sprang to his feet, dumped the contents into the sea, and stacked his bowl atop that of a fellow sailor who’d just done the same. Still, the mere fact that they would reach port before evening consoled his gloomy spirits. Tonight he could feast on real food, meat from the land—good wine too, and give his eyes a treat after seeing nothing but salt-soaked, half-delirious faces. Their home port was Kalayso the Dancing, that wondrous realm where the most extravagant entertainments unfolded in Durnensa, kingdom of trade and piracy. Theaters and grand shows lined the streets….
“Why waste perfectly good food in the sea, eh?”
At the sharp, ringing voice from above, Appleton sprang up as if springs were attached to his heels and cried out.
“Of course not, sir!”
“Hmm, is that so?”
Captain Kalaimon, who even during arduous voyages never forgot to starch his collar and let a gold watch chain dangle beneath it, commanded with folded arms.
“Go fish it back out and eat it!”
“Yes, sir!”
Sailor Appleton rushed toward the ladder. He would probably force down a few gulps of seawater before returning—there being no way to retrieve soup once thrown into the ocean.
Regardless, Captain Kalaimon cleared his throat with an “ahem” like a country squire and began a leisurely inspection of the deck. Though he insisted at every turn that he and the port of Kalayso were siblings because his name differed by only one final syllable, and though he strutted about like some provincial noble fresh to the city, he was well-liked. He possessed a generous temperament, bore no grudges, readily shared his portion of profitable goods, and sang exceptionally well. When his broad-shouldered frame began belting out a rousing sea shanty in that resonant voice of his, every sailor found themselves unable to resist joining in.
In his youth, he had been a renowned swordsman in Kalayso. Twenty years ago, they said, no sailor was ignorant of “Kalaimon of Kalayso.” Now approaching fifty, he still held his own in close combat and possessed the audacity to never shy from a fight he’d walked into. But what truly accounted for his popularity was a character so shamelessly good-natured that even when he drank seawater instead of soup he couldn’t retrieve and grinned about it, people would merely shake their heads and move on.
This time, they’d been blown far off course by a storm and even stranded on an island, so provisions had run out and all they had was suspicious, chalky tomato soup. Ordinarily, the Highsaebaramho’s food was excellent. Still, Captain Kalaimon consistently upheld the sailor’s custom of distinguishing between captain and crew, so his own table still had edible biscuits and wine.
It seemed they needed only about an hour more to reach port. The wind was weak but favorable, and overhead, gulls from the homeland circled. Everyone’s belly was empty, but their hearts were perfectly at ease. Until the lookout sailor, who had been idly humming to himself, spotted an unidentified vessel.
“Ahoy! I see a ship!”
When the sailor in the lookout cried out, laughter erupted from various quarters.
“Seems he’s forgotten we’re right in front of the harbor.”
“The kind of fellow who’d shout ‘spoon!’ at the sight of a spoon on the table.”
“Then maybe send out a distress call for us. We are under attack by tomatoes! I repeat! We are under attack by tomatoes!”
They’d found tomatoes in abundance on the island and loaded them aboard, so they’d been eating nothing but tomatoes for days.
Then the lookout sailor cried out again.
“They are sending a distress call!”
It took a moment to realize he meant the other vessel was requesting rescue, not that they themselves were doing so. Because, to reiterate, they were right in front of the harbor. There was no reason to send a distress call unless a ship was actively sinking.
“What? Is the ship really going down?”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hui
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The rights to this book belong to the author and 14 Months Publishing.
To reuse all or part of this book’s contents, written consent from both parties is required.

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