Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 359

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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 129.
May Your Final Performance
Be Your Greatest (4)
The dark chandelier crouched in the center of the ceiling like a taxidermied gorilla. As the door opened, the gorilla began to swing slowly, as if alive once more. Creak… creak.
“Sleeping since morning?”
The shadow hunched beneath the ceiling was human. Riche yawned at the sound of footsteps and rose, stretching luxuriously before glancing at Maximian as he approached.
“Was I asleep…?”
She extended her legs beneath the chair with a long stretch, then sprang to her feet.
They stood upon the stage. Under repair, the empty stage had a single table and chair—discarded items the workers had gathered—set to one side, and dozens of papers stacked atop the table where she had apparently dozed off. Maximian gazed down at the papers on the table.
“Didn’t you send all the packages yesterday?”
“I did.”
“Then what are you writing?”
He picked up a sheet and realized she hadn’t been writing at all. Until yesterday she’d been composing letters for the packages, but what she was scribbling now was a drawing.
“This is… clothing?”
Now fully awake, Riche quickly reached out and snatched the paper away.
“It’s nothing.”
Maximian then picked up another sheet from the table, Riche tried to snatch it back, and moments later, with dozens of papers scattered around the table, their voices rose.
“I said don’t look!”
“It’s right in front of me—what are you trying to hide?”
“I’m not hiding anything!”
“Then why are you snatching it away?”
Riche gathered the papers from the table haphazardly, creased or not, and stuffed the ones that had fallen to the floor into her side. Maximian shrugged.
“Why are you doing this here? Go tell them you’ll make the clothing.”
“Why should I?”
“You’re good at it.”
“Good at what? This theater has a proper exclusive designer. I’m just a seamstress. A seamstress who does needlework, not a designer!”
“Why are you getting angry?”
Maximian looked down, then picked up a paper from behind the table that Riche had missed, and spoke.
“This looks quite convincing.”
The paper bore a precise sketch: a white jacket with a front opening that descended to the chest, beginning with a rounded collar, sleeves cut in a diamond shape with their ends finished in rose-patterned bobbin lace covering half the back of the hand, and trousers and enamel shoes still seemingly unfinished. Of course, Maximian only knew such details because Riche had written them in the margins—he could never have known otherwise.
Though the face wasn’t drawn, the slender build and lean frame made it unmistakably clear she’d sketched this imagining Joshua wearing it. Maximian waggled his finger back and forth teasingly.
“Why include such complicated lace? Last time that masked bastard had you making nothing but difficult clothes, nearly working you to death.”
Riche tried to snatch the paper, but Maximian raised his arm too high for her to reach.
“If you’re not going to make it anyway, what does it matter?”
“Looks like you will make it. So you do want to see that bastard wearing these clothes. Why keep denying it?”
“I’m not! I’m throwing it away!”
Instead of returning it, Maximian flipped the paper over and tilted his head back sharply to read what was written on the reverse.
“What’s this? ‘We would be deeply honored if someone of your caliber would attend the staff auditions for this original and magnificent performance, planned on an unprecedented scale like no other… ‘ Is this the letter you were putting in the packages? Why is it so complicated?”
“If you think it’s strange, you should have written it from the beginning. Why nag me after everything’s already been sent? I just changed some words—I don’t care how the sentences turned out.”
“Just changed some words?”
“The original says, ‘I am confident it would be a great honor if someone of your stature would attend the unveiling of an original and magnificent summer collection dress made with such invaluable materials as we have never seen before,’ so there.”
Maximian chuckled softly.
“You’ve memorized it so well you must have used it dozens of times. But if it were ‘a humble banquet made with valuable materials,’ I’d understand—so why does ‘valuable materials’ come first when introducing a dress?”
“I don’t know. They said that’s what makes the nobility interested.”
While Riche was speaking, her hand dropped, and Maximian seized the moment to fold the paper with his fingertips before quickly shoving it into his back pocket. Riche bristled.
“Why are you taking that?”
“You said you were going to throw it away anyway, didn’t you? I’ll throw it away for you.”
“Give it back!”
Maximian stepped backward several paces, skillfully dodging Riche’s attempts to grab him as he fled to the opposite side of the stage. Riche stopped abruptly in the center of the stage, then suddenly remembered something and laughed with a mischievous grin.
“You know, judging by the fact that you don’t know what was in the letter enclosed with the package, you have no idea what’s inside it either, do you?”
“The package? Isn’t that the script that Jo wrote?”
“You don’t know the contents?”
“The script’s contents?”
Seeing Riche’s mischievous expression, Maximian adjusted his glasses.
“What good would it do me to know what that bastard wrote? I’m neither an actor nor a staff member. I don’t have the brains to understand such refined things.”
“But if you hear who the protagonist is, you’ll definitely want to know the contents, won’t you?”
Maximian’s expression became suspicious, and he stepped closer.
“Who’s the protagonist?”
Riche extended her hand.
“Give it back first.”
Maximian pulled out the paper folded into quarters from his back pocket and handed it over. Riche took it and immediately crumpled it into the front pocket of her skirt, then smiled brightly and spoke.
“It’s the story of a young Count named Maximilienne de Morbiane who, after his parents passed away, resolved to enter into a marriage of convenience with a wealthy old spinster for the sake of his family clan and seven younger siblings.”
At first, Maximian stared at Riche with a bewildered expression. But the moment he heard the name at the end, his face flushed red in an instant, and he shouted.
“Wait! Are you joking right now? Did Joshua actually write something like that?”
Riche stuck out her tongue.
“What’s wrong with having a similar name? I think the young Count Maximilienne would be far more elegant and refined than you.”
“An elegant and refined fellow entering into a marriage of convenience? That’s ridiculous!”
“What’s wrong with a marriage of convenience? Except for Maximian Lipkne, who is as far removed from elegance and refinement as the stars, anyone could do it.”
Maximian turned to leave regardless of Riche’s teasing, but he stopped and turned back to ask.
“Where is Joshua?”
“I don’t know. He probably went to talk with the Theater Master about preparing for auditions or something.”
“Are there any copies of the script left?”
“In the waiting room. But are you going to read it? If you’d seen it earlier, that would be one thing, but reading it now…”
Maximian left without responding, his footsteps echoing heavily. Riche, satisfied with her revenge, giggled to herself, then suddenly remembered something and pulled out the paper she had put in her pocket. What Riche discovered instead of the dress sketch she had drawn was this text:
§ Today’s Recommended Dinner §
Anchovy pizza, mushroom cream sauce parpalle, apple pudding, and a glass of pastis. Price: 4 goblins. The lowest price and rarely excellent food.
Bin Olfranje, a man whose cynical mouth had already hardened at the mere age of twenty-eight, tilted his head and looked down at the sandwich board standing in front of the theater. Below the notice that there would be no shows for several days, he saw the phrase he despised most. He growled softly.
“Go eat at the dining hall, I say.”
Just then, someone tapped his shoulder from behind. When he turned around, backlit by the harsh sunlight, an elderly gentleman with a white beard came into view, tipping his hat brim slightly. Bin squinted and asked.
“Where have I seen you before?”
“Aren’t you Bin Olfranje?”
“How do you know my name?”
The moment I replied, my mind—clouded by the midday heat and the Theater’s banquet menu—suddenly cleared. I had seen a violin case in the old gentleman’s hand.
“Oh, Master Rigi Strauss!”
Rigi Strauss smiled warmly.
“Fortunately, you remember.”
“My apologies. My mind has been rather foggy lately.”
Strauss looked down at me with eyes that had grown somewhat stern. Though a gentleman of salt-and-pepper years, Strauss stood half a head taller than me, his posture ramrod straight.
“That’s unfortunate. You were a remarkably sharp young man. Though I’ve heard rumors of excessive drinking.”
Despite the sweltering heat, I felt my face flush as I stammered.
“Yes, well… I’m trying to cut back now.”
“A wise decision. Come along then.”
As Strauss stepped through the Theater entrance, I started in surprise and called after him.
“Master! Where are you going?”
“To the Theater. Weren’t you invited as well?”
“You, sir? But why would someone of your caliber visit a third-rate Theater like this?”
Strauss turned and offered a smile.
“Same reason as you. I read the script.”
Strauss’s figure disappeared deeper into the corridor. I stared at his retreating back in bewilderment, then my expression soured moments later.
“An invitation, he said.”
The gentle Master Strauss still regarded me as a figure in the theatrical world, but no one else did anymore. Three consecutive box office failures were enough to shake any Theater, and the productions I’d ruined already numbered more than five. In such circumstances, there couldn’t possibly be a single Theater Master left willing to discuss production with me. As evidence, whoever had sent this invitation—even the owner of a mediocre Theater like Diamond Rush—hadn’t invited me or sent me a script. Whatever their intentions, one thing was certain: I was not needed.
“There’s no one left in Kalayso who would invite me, Master.”
I turned from the entrance and stepped out into the glaring sunlight. The morning after the rain promised a sweltering heat to come.
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 content, 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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