Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 350

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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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Episode 120.
Ninety-Eight Souls (33)
A few sailors rushed toward the rail. By now they had drawn close enough that the ship’s silhouette came into reasonable view. Yet the vessel was not sinking. The sailors’ bewilderment stemmed from something else entirely. One of them shouted at the lookout sailor as if demanding he listen.
“Hey! You should have been more precise with your explanation! You should have said ‘a strange ship appears,’ not just ‘a ship appears!'”
The surrounding sailors, and even Captain Kalaimon who had just approached from behind, agreed with the sentiment. Because that ship—with its towering central mast and shorter triangular sail, sturdy keel and sleek hull, bore a golden figurehead carved in the likeness of a mermaid, while its pale yellow sides were densely etched with scallop shells, conches, and starfish shapes, and the hull itself was painted with waves—
it was shameful to even call it a ship.
“Could that be something sent out by a theater company? Part of a promotional campaign to welcome warriors home and attract customers?”
The Deck Master offered this plausible opinion, and everyone was nodding in agreement when Captain Kalaimon shouted from behind them.
“What are you doing! Get ready to tow that ship at once!”
Just as the sailors began scrambling into motion, inside the problematic ship, two boys and one girl were running about in confusion. Running wasn’t exactly the purpose, but since they had nothing else to do, it was fair to say they were running.
“How on earth do you unfurl this sail?”
“Why are these ropes twisted like this?”
“Did I twist them?”
“Are we actually moving forward right now?”
“Which way is forward?”
“The bow is forward, obviously!”
“Doesn’t a ship go sideways?”
I wish they had been small children admiring a model ship in a display case while engaging in such absurdly ignorant conversation, but unfortunately they were playing the role of model sailors aboard it. Joshua, gripping a torch with smoke rising from it in both hands while struggling to maintain his balance, called out pitifully after the two people running off somewhere again.
“Where are you going! Come trade places with me!”
It had only been seven hours. Real sailing, that is—sailing upon the sea itself. There was a time when I had harbored what seemed like plausible fantasies about sailing, but now I couldn’t even remember when that was. Though only seven hours had passed since the ship touched seawater, if someone asked me what sailing was, I felt I could answer with perfect accuracy. Sailing is seasickness.
Beyond seasickness, problems abounded. As their conversation suggested, they had no idea how to operate the ship. Even if they had known, they lacked the strength to do it. To move a sailing vessel of this size required at least five or six sailors, even if you gave up on having a captain or navigator. Three people couldn’t lower or raise the sails, couldn’t adjust direction with sail and rudder, and couldn’t even drop anchor. Moreover, two of them possessed less than half the strength of ordinary sailors.
Because they were ignorant of sailing, it was only natural that they didn’t know where they were. They had drifted somewhere over seven hours, but it never even occurred to them that they should measure their current position. In the middle of the sea with no land in sight and no landmarks to guide them, how did other ships know where they were going?
To those who had never once tried to understand such things, it seemed as mysterious as magic—no, more mysterious than magic itself. Engaging in the same kind of reasoning that ancient humans must have done when they first built sailing ships to venture onto the sea, they reached no better conclusions. Riche had even insisted that they should put a letter in a bottle and set it adrift.
The only thing they had done properly was light the torches that served as maritime distress signals. Only Riche, who had lived on The Island, knew that burning torches to send up smoke meant a request for rescue. But Riche, after all, was a seamstress—or rather, a land-dwelling human who had never even sailed in small boats that hugged the coastline.
The time was approximately noon. So their sailing—or rather, their distress—had begun around five in the morning. If not for the fact that the triangular sail had somehow unfurled of its own accord the moment the ship touched water, and if not for the fortunate wind that had blown at just the right strength for seven hours, they would surely have drowned within five minutes had a storm struck. As it was, they had managed this much.
They didn’t yet know it, but the wind that carried them was a fair wind toward harbor—an extraordinarily fortunate stroke of luck. They had been sailing in such peaceful conditions that real sailors would have grown drowsy, yet they firmly believed themselves to be in the worst possible situation. According to one of their opinions, it was the worst possible ‘conspiracy’—three unfortunate victims caught in The Mage’s plot to test the ship’s performance.
The ship they had boarded was certainly one that flew through the sky. So why had it become like their ordinary neighbors, spraying water as it went? The cause was, of course, the reckless ten hours of sleep they had indulged in previously.
Joshua, who had awakened first, peered at the object that looked like an overturned plate but supposedly indicated their location (it had no name, thanks to Juspian’s peculiar nature) and was startled. The trajectory marked by a dot on the ‘plate’ showed they had progressed only slightly from where they departed before stopping. Yet they had supposedly been flying for more than a day and a night.
Upon immediately checking the golden crucible, he saw the gold had diminished to the point where it needed immediate replenishment. There was only one conclusion: the ‘plate’ was broken!
Riche, trained by her life at the Costume Workshop, awoke immediately when called, but it took over half an hour to wake Maximian. Once he finally awoke and heard the situation explained, just as Maximian was about to say something, Joshua asked slyly.
“You ate something before going to sleep, didn’t you?”
“I had some wine. What about it?”
“Where would there be wine on this ship?”
“It said ‘christening wine’ on the label. I thought Juspian really does need everything, you know?”
True, the ship didn’t even have a name yet.
“So now we can’t perform the christening ceremony?”
“Is a christening ceremony important right now?!”
With things proceeding this way, proper situation assessment was impossible. Eventually it took another half hour before they could conduct a proper discussion. The conclusions they reached while eating biscuits softened in soup for breakfast were these:
Juspian was at fault for constructing such an important mechanism so shoddily that it broke so quickly, but since he wasn’t here, they set that aside for now. The real problem was what to do from here on. They had lost any way to determine their current location. Because they traveled by sky routes, there were no intermediate stops. Had Juspian set this ship to find its own way to Periwinkle? They should have asked before departure, but they had been in such a rush escaping that no one had thought to do so.
According to what Joshua had read in Juspian’s book, changing the ship’s direction of travel wasn’t difficult. But only if the ‘plate’ was functioning properly could they know where to change course to. Should they wait quietly, or should they change direction to somewhere—anywhere?
Riche’s opinion leaned toward simply leaving matters as they were. Maximian, however, thought differently.
“Last time, while you were sleeping, Joshua, I stood at the rail all night observing the movements of the moon and stars. From what I could tell, this ship seems to be traveling southeast. And it appears to be doing the same now. If that’s the case, we can at least determine our current latitude—it should match Blue Coral Island’s. But if we continue westward like this, we’ll never reach Periwinkle Island. At some point, we’ll have no choice but to change course to the southwest. But does this ship have a function that automatically adjusts its course and delivers us to our destination? It’s impossible to know, but even if it were designed that way, there’s a problem. The sky experiences strong winds and storms just like the land and sea do. If our position shifts even slightly due to such variables, we’ll end up somewhere completely different from our original orders. So logically speaking, I doubt such a function exists. The people on this ship will need to watch that broken ‘dish’ and adjust the course themselves.”
Riche shrugged her shoulders.
“But we have no way of knowing when we should change course. If we change it at random, we could end up going somewhere completely wrong. Nobody knows what’s in the sea south of Periwinkle Island. It’s not even on any maps.”
“So you’re saying we should just let it keep going southeast?”
“If we go west, we’ll at least end up on Anomarad Land, won’t we?”
“If we crash somewhere in Anomarad right now, all three of us are as good as dead. Those who were chasing us would naturally expect us to head to Anomarad, so the moment rumors spread of people who fell from the sky in some village, it’s only a matter of time before we’re caught. And if we crash on land, the ship will be destroyed, and there’s no guarantee we’ll survive the impact. Most importantly, we’d lose our only way to reach Periwinkle Island.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Joshua, could you possibly repair that dish?”
Joshua’s expression was uncertain.
“I can try, but I can’t guarantee it will work. Most of all, if magic is required, I won’t be able to fix it.”
“How fast do you think this ship is traveling?”
All three of them exchanged glances. Just how fast was it going?
“This is only speculation, but Juspian said it takes about two weeks to reach Periwinkle, right? Assuming we’ve been traveling southeast, if there are no unexpected variables, I’d estimate we should be passing over the Shell Peninsula about five or six days after we departed. If we change course to the southwest around that point, I think that would be an appropriate location.”
Maximian nodded at Joshua’s words.
“Then let’s use that as our benchmark. We’ll try to repair the dish for the next three days, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll watch for the Shell Peninsula to appear and change course to the southwest. In the worst case, our target destination will be somewhere between Anomarad’s Southern Coast and Periwinkle Island. We can’t afford to crash on Anomarad Land.”
Riche asked what they would do if clouds obscured the Shell Peninsula, but that question was set aside for now. So three days passed, the dish remained unrepaired, and the Shell Peninsula never appeared. It wasn’t because of clouds. It simply never showed up.
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.
To reuse all or part of this book’s contents, written consent from both parties is required.

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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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