Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 35

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

Chapter 35.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (5)
As I listened, countless thoughts surged up like waves I had swallowed and suppressed. I spoke with a firmness that even surprised myself.
“No matter how hungry you are, not eating is your choice! If you starve to death, that’s your responsibility—who are you to meddle? Once you’re dead, everything’s the same anyway, so why can’t you live as you please? Even if I grow strong and slaughter all those so-called great heroes, what changes? The dead don’t come back to life just because of that!”
Was this what I had meant to say?
The dead who cannot return.
Yet Walnut Teacher did not back down, fixing me with a sharp gaze.
“You’re wrong! You’re deliberately starving yourself. Left as you are, you’ll only wither away! You say the lives of the dead end there, so why do you keep measuring your own life’s worth against their deaths? Do you have no will of your own, for your own sake?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t even recall what it meant to have a will for myself.
Walnut Teacher’s brow twisted strangely, and his voice erupted.
“If you truly believe death is the end, then finish off all those dead and live anew pursuing your own desires! Or else! Shouldn’t you live all the more vibrantly and fully for their sake? So long as you cannot become immortal, you have no choice but to deepen the density of your own life to replace the lives the dead have lost. If that’s what you wish!”
Whichever path was chosen, both pointed in the same direction—like a compass needle.
Yet I found such guidance for living increasingly hollow. Even living for something felt pointless.
It hadn’t been this way before…. Once I had hoped for my family’s safety, desperately wanted my brother to survive.
But now?
All my wishes had vanished, as if passion had burned away leaving only ash.
I longed to wield the Winter Sword as my brother did, but even that was merely an extension of not wanting to be indebted to or hindered by anyone.
Is mere survival meaningless?
Yefnen had said it in life. Survive, he said. Live long, testing every possibility of your life until the very end—that’s what he said.
So I would not die easily. I would never surrender so readily.
But what should I do with all those long years I’ve gained this way…?
It was Rosnis who broke the long silence.
“Teacher, why do you say my brother is poor? My brother lacks nothing in our home and lives well. He never goes hungry. I don’t understand what you mean.”
Walnut Teacher nodded. I watched his expression return to normal through lowered eyes.
“Ah, I see. But I’m a hungry person, so I need to eat something. Langie, go downstairs and bring me some food. Something warm would be nice. Even better if you have the Dining Hall prepare a full spread.”
Until then, Langie had sat to the side, listening silently to the exchange between us. Before rising to leave, he glanced once at me.
The strange discussion on this rainy day ended thus.
Yet the two of us were entirely different at night.
When eleven o’clock came, I would take up my sword and head to the Training Ground. There, without fail, Walnut Teacher waited with the Winter Sword in one hand and an oak staff in the other.
The two of us faced each other, eyes locked. Only moonlight looked down upon us.
“Shall we begin?”
“….”
I drew my blade. In his hand lay the Winter Sword in its white scabbard. I had to seize it.
I kicked off the ground and rushed forward.
Crack!
The moment my sword struck the solid staff, my entire body was driven back. Walnut Teacher held the Winter Sword tucked at his side, facing me with nothing but the oak staff.
Yet that staff never cut, never broke, never even showed a scratch when my blade struck it.
I staggered backward, then attacked again. For a time, I circled around Walnut Teacher.
I wielded a true sword that could actually cut a person. So at first, I had hesitated in this duel.
But not anymore. Even if I had drawn the Winter Sword instead of this blade, piercing through Walnut Teacher’s single wooden staff was nearly impossible.
From the day I first lost the Winter Sword until now, I had fought this strange battle with Walnut at the same hour every single day, yet I had not only failed to reclaim it—I hadn’t even torn a thread from his garment.
“Oh, quite fast, aren’t you?”
It was different from the praise Yefnen used to offer back when we practiced with wooden swords on the Hill. This was half mockery, or perhaps—viewed another way—an attempt to goad me forward, to keep me from surrendering.
Either way, I refused to yield and threw myself at him again.
Whether I fell or stumbled, whether I bled from my wounds, I would not rest until the appointed hour ended. I attacked, and attacked, and attacked again.
One day I would escape everyone’s gaze, live without interference from anyone. For that, I needed strength enough to wield the Winter Sword freely.
Because it was a blade many coveted—to protect it, I needed skill.
But that was merely a means, not the true purpose. I sought only to become strong enough for a quiet life, nothing more.
Even if the great powers of the Continent divided it among themselves, I would find a cave to hide in. Or I would cross the sea.
Alone, to a place where no one could threaten me, where I could lose myself in thought as I wished. A place where I could grieve and weep as much as I desired.
How suffocating.
My heart, trapped in a place where tears could not fall.
“Your mind is wandering!”
Walnut, who had been purely defensive, shifted to the offensive. He thrust the staff forward with sudden speed, striking down at my shoulder.
I tried to dodge but my foot caught wrong, and I tumbled to the ground. Salty sweat pooled on my lips.
As I fell, my knee struck a stone, and my calf went numb with a stinging ache that lingered.
But Walnut was not Yefnen. He did not rush over to cradle my cheek and ask if I was hurt. Instead, he came at me in one stride, thrusting the staff’s end toward my back.
I rolled hard to the side with all my strength. My wet cheek became caked with dirt, but fortunately I managed to push myself up on my other knee before the next attack came.
The pain in my leg faded quickly. I wiped the sweat from my mouth with my sleeve and took my stance again.
Moonlight washed over the boy’s heaving head, pale and luminous.
“Here I come!”
Tap, tap-tap—I surged forward with all my strength, launching myself upward. I aimed for Walnut’s neck.
Walnut deliberately lowered his stance as if inviting the blow, then tried to strike my waist. In that position, I lifted my foot and swept away the incoming staff.
My form was good. But my strength was insufficient—the staff merely hesitated before retreating.
“Excellent!”
The moment my feet touched the ground, I thrust at Walnut’s wrist. He pulled his arm back and knocked away my sword hand, but I did not release my grip.
Through endless repetition of this unwinnable battle, a fierce determination grew within me. The time limit on our duels only amplified that resolve.
Every night for one hour—when midnight came, my brief daily opportunity vanished.
Moreover, outside this hour, Walnut would not allow me to touch a blade. Sparring was unthinkable, and even the staff he now wielded so fiercely never appeared otherwise.
He would only play with Rosnis using practice swords, indifferent to whether I completed the training he had assigned.
During the day, it felt as though I trained with Langie rather than Walnut Teacher. The only one who ever watched over me was him.
“One last time!”
When Walnut, who seemed to possess an uncanny sense of time, called out those words, my determination burned even fiercer.
There would be tomorrow if not today, but I could not know how many tomorrows remained.
I had to seize it—I must!
My blade cut through a sharp angle, and for the first time, Walnut’s staff deviated from its anticipated trajectory.
Walnut’s eyes widened as my sword thrust toward his chest. He extended the staff like a blade to meet it, and they slid against each other. The oak staff, which had never even been scratched, scraped against the blade’s edge, sending white dust scattering into the air.
Walnut held the Winter Sword in one hand, so he could only grip the staff with one as well. I, holding my blade with both hands, braced myself with all my strength and pushed forward.
Our eyes met.
“….”
A faint smile played at the corners of Walnut’s mouth. For a moment, I thought I’d imagined it—but I hadn’t. Moments later, the corners of my own lips curved upward, sketching something resembling a smile.
We stood facing each other, both smiling.
That was when it happened.
“You’re letting your guard down!”
The staff suddenly slid down to the blade’s edge, and an overwhelmingly powerful force crushed my hand beneath it.
It was instantaneous. My arm wavered, my fingers loosened, and the sword flew into the air.
A sharp clang, then a metallic clatter.
As I heard the sword fall behind my back, a chill ran down my spine.
Even after nights of fighting, I had never dropped my blade. Since the day I’d bound myself to the sword, it was a value I’d clung to with all my might. I had always lost, but I never surrendered my sword—not even when I fell. And yet….
Walnut lowered his staff and looked at my face.
Suddenly, the boy’s jaw trembled. Something surged up, pressing against his chest with unbearable force. And in that same instant, something unexpected occurred.
“You pathetic wretch!”
Contrary to his words, Walnut threw down his staff and even released the Winter Sword, rushing forward to lift my small frame clean off the ground.
His powerful hands seized my armpits, hoisting me overhead and spinning me in a complete circle, then pulled me back down into a crushing embrace.
The scent of sweat and hot breath…. Against his beard-covered face, he rubbed my soft cheek again and again, and from his lips poured words that revealed nothing of his true heart.
“Pathetic! Pathetic, you wretch! Truly pathetic!”
Yet as if dying of affection, as if unable to bear how adorable I was, Walnut held me close again and again.
Tears streamed down my face. It wasn’t because of the situation. Among the many things that had hardened into a knot within my chest, one shattered, melted, and transformed into unstoppable tears.
Silently, yet so torrentially that I could barely breathe.
Since my brother died, no one had ever held me with such strength. Whoever he was, his chest was warm. It was the chest of a human with a heart.
“You haven’t lived through the entire world, you small wretch…. Why do you struggle so hard to endure? No one in this world lives without hardship. Yet despite that, people live—refusing to hide their desire to survive, their desire to live more nobly, and living accordingly. Humans don’t live in order to die someday. They live only for the tomorrow that awaits them, for as long as they draw breath….”
Moonlight swirled and flowed. The Winter Sword, lying on the ground, trembled once, as if absorbing the emotions of the living.

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