Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 368

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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 138.
May Your Final Performance
Be Your Greatest (13)
Etern fumbled through attempts at consolation, though she was clumsy at playing the role of comforter. Ines Olfranje refused to lean on anyone, her head bowed low, her face shielded only by her hands. Tears streamed between her fingers. Yet Bin remained motionless as stone, making no move toward his sister. His expression betrayed profound embarrassment.
Then Joshua cut through the crowd. He glanced back at Bin and spoke.
“I don’t know what you were fighting about, but why are you just standing there while your sister cries?”
Joshua approached Ines, lowering his body slightly to peer at her face.
“Come on, stop crying.”
“….”
Ines didn’t respond. Etern, meanwhile, exhaled in relief. The sudden intrusion had been his doing, so he had no grounds to complain if Joshua or the others blamed him for ruining the audition. At least the mention of “Olfranje” had revealed Bin’s connection to her, preventing the others from voicing their anger.
“Don’t cry. Talk to me instead. I have something to tell you.”
Giovani and the others gestured to Etern to take Ines away, but Joshua instead brought her back, offering her a chair to sit in.
“I’m not just making conversation—I really do have something to say.”
Ines barely lowered her hands, her tear-stained eyes stealing a glance at Joshua. Seeing his youthful face, she suddenly felt embarrassed and covered her face again.
“Ah, well, I suppose we should wipe those tears away.”
When Joshua produced a handkerchief, it soon became an object no one would wish to reuse. Noticing this, Giovani stepped in with an odd expression and offered his own handkerchief. It met the same fate shortly after.
“I’m sorry.”
Though it came out as barely a murmur, the words were spoken, and Joshua sighed.
“Finally you speak. Now may I tell you my business?”
“Your… business?”
“What I mean is….”
Joshua began to continue, but Ines suddenly cut him off.
“I have no money.”
Joshua’s eyes widened, then he shook his head.
“Money? Why would you think of that all of a sudden?”
“Ask my brother for money. He’s found work, so he can pay whatever you ask. I’m sorry for the disruption. I’ll be going now.”
As Ines rose abruptly from her seat, Joshua grabbed her arm.
“Wait! You have to listen before you leave. You can’t just say your piece and disappear like that.”
“But I—”
“It’s not about money!”
Ines stood awkwardly, her arm in his grasp, looking down at Joshua.
“Then what business could you possibly have with someone like me?”
Joshua forcibly pulled her back down into the chair and met her eyes directly.
“Audition for us.”
“What?”
Ines was startled, but so were the others.
“An audition?”
Joshua’s expression softened slightly.
“When you cried out just now, I was deeply impressed by your voice. A few words are enough to gauge your talent.”
He turned to the others and smiled warmly.
“I’ve never polished raw gemstones before, but I know myself well enough to be confident I’ll do fine at it. So I’m adding another role to my responsibilities. Starting today, I’ll be sponsoring this person.”
After checking on Lucy Eterne’s repairs and leaving the Theater Company, I headed home. It was seven in the evening. Given the tight schedule, the repair workers planned to work through the night. If we allowed for a day’s buffer, the progress seemed manageable.
For the past few days, Etern had been exhausted. He’d conducted auditions, secured an additional practice room, had to tear out repairs that deviated from his specifications, and needed to secure wages for the day laborers. He’d met with staff to determine salaries and coordinate work schedules, allocated budgets for additional personnel, and all the while promotional ideas churned through his mind. In the end, he was the only one who could clean up after Joshua’s successive blunders.
As night fell and the heat subsided, Etern walked through the streets and stopped at a shop to buy a loaf of bread for tomorrow and some groceries. She rarely cooked at home, but she always did her own shopping. Living with just her father, she entrusted household duties to the maid who had been with them since her childhood.
Even as she walked with the bread basket tucked under her arm, she kept glancing at the few sheets of paper in her left hand. The streets were crowded. Several people brushed against the basket’s edge as they passed, but Etern didn’t lose her grip. She always juggled multiple tasks at once, yet rarely dropped or lost anything. Even with just a basket of bread, she held it firmly and pushed through the crowd.
And then, she collided with someone.
At first, she didn’t immediately grasp what had happened. The basket handle still hung near her elbow. But the bread, butter wrapped in paper, five tomatoes, and a milk bottle scattered across the stone-paved ground. The bread rolled all the way to a trash heap, and milk from the broken bottle seeped through the cracks in the stones.
“Oh?”
A man stood before her. He wore a hat pulled low and a long-sleeved jacket despite the summer heat, gripping an umbrella in his left hand. The incongruous seasonal appearance left Etern bewildered. She looked down at the basket again. Below the handle, the remnants of the torn basket hung limply. It hadn’t been cut with a blade or crushed by impact. It looked as though someone had gripped it with tremendous force and torn it in half.
The man spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
People continued to pass by them. A few glanced at the spilled milk but showed little interest and quickly moved on. Etern looked down at the milk splattered on her skirt. She should have been angry, should have raised her voice in complaint, yet strangely her heart sank. When Etern said nothing, the man spoke again.
“I’ll compensate you.”
The man moved his left hand and drew a handful of silver coins from his pocket. He let them fall into the remaining half of the basket. Etern stood dazed until the coins stopped clinking, then suddenly looked up at the man’s face.
She saw his face.
A pale complexion, a distinct philtrum, thin lips. Light blonde hair cut short around his ears. A fine jawline, hollow cheeks, lips curled slightly upward—a face that suggested he might be a musician or painter.
His eyes were hidden beneath the hat.
“….”
While Etern still couldn’t respond, the man stared at her face. Briefly, yet long enough that she distinctly felt his gaze.
“Then I’ll be going.”
He spoke in a polite but dry tone and passed by her. Etern came to her senses a moment later. She looked at the silver coins in the torn basket, shook her head several times, and left the spot. She didn’t know that the man, who seemed to have passed by, had turned around a few steps away and was watching her. His lips, unheard by anyone, spoke.
“A quiet woman, I see.”
7. The Purpose of Spirits
Just as the drink I offer you is not medicine, neither is the drink I take poison.
Long ago, in the distant past, from the northern Orlanne Duchy, one had to sail further north to reach an island—an island called Morbihan, or more formally, “Ile de Morbihan.”
The island was small, windswept, and waves crawled up daily into the fortress hillside and harbor valley. Yet in the palm-sized meadow within the island where the sea breeze was gentler, there was an orchard where small blue apples grew. The weather was unpredictable—when the sun shone, people burst from their hole-like homes to hang laundry, and when the north wind rolled in, they gathered up their things faster than mice stealing cheese. It was a place where such people lived.
On Morbihan Island, where little grain grew, they raised cattle and sheep. They fished as well. But the silver mine along the Northern Coastline was the true source that had sustained the island’s inhabitants. Silver had flowed endlessly—as if bottomless—since the Count’s grandfather’s grandfather’s time, or perhaps even earlier. This allowed the small island to import not only bread and spirits but also fine fabrics and ceramic vessels and much more.
The story begins from a few years ago when that precious silver suddenly ran dry. The Count, who had never anticipated such circumstances, couldn’t suddenly change his extravagant habits and lived for a few more years before abruptly dying.
The Count had eight children. His eldest son, Maximilien, became the young Count at seventeen, wearing nothing but the shirt he’d had on the previous evening and a corner of his father’s cloak—no brass band nor crimson silk. Upon becoming Count, he investigated the family’s finances only to find that his father had spent everything down to the last silver goblet. All that remained were seven younger siblings to care for, a castle whose basement flooded with waves from neglect, and thousands of subjects whose eyes had grown hollow from hunger, trapped like starving rats in a granary. What could the young Count of Morbihan do in such circumstances?
“Well, what could he do? There’s nothing he can do at all.”
“You’re talking about someone else’s story so casually. Shouldn’t something happen for the story to progress?”
“That’s for the kid to figure out. How would I know?”
Maximian leaned back against the chair and propped his feet on the crooked table leg. It was a noisy tavern. They were waiting for someone. Since it was unclear when he would appear, Maximian had leisurely ordered drinks.
On the table lay a beer glass, an empty ashtray, and scattered pages of a script. Maximian had read only the first page and the third line of the second page, yet he leaned back as if he’d grasped everything, merely shrugging his shoulders. Riche spoke.
“You’d understand if you finished reading it.”
“Ah, ugh, it’s tedious.”
“Still, it’s your friend’s work. Even if you can’t give serious critique, shouldn’t you at least pretend to read it? That’s basic courtesy.”
“It’s about me, so what’s there for me to be curious about? I have no talent for literary criticism. I only do what I’m good at.”
Riche, scanning him from head to toe, delivered her verdict bluntly.
“Well, you’re certainly drinking right now.”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The rights to this book belong to the author and 14 Months Publishing.
To reuse all or part of the contents of this book, 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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