Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 421

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

Episode 191.
In the Name of Loyalty and Vengeance (33)
“Starting tomorrow, I’ll need to investigate rumors while traveling across The Island, and now there’s an all-nighter.”
“If I could just smash someone over the head with that birth registry, I could easily catch one person.”
Riche pinched the shrimp tail repeatedly as she muttered, then fell silent. Maximian propped his elbows on the dining table and spread both hands before him.
“You have five of these murder weapons? Why are so many people born on this Island?”
“That’s not something someone with six siblings should be saying.”
Joshua began to chuckle, and Maximian grew indignant.
“I didn’t create my siblings!”
“You should be grateful to the Duke who inspected your family’s birth records.”
“Our Village has no Duke—only the Abbot!”
Riche, listening to their bickering, laughed and dropped the shrimp to the floor. Maximian quickly devised a retort.
“Still, no one in Kotzboldt came chasing after the Abbot believing that his touch would heal Yeonjuchang.”
Joshua’s face flushed.
“Faith might heal illness. Either way, I couldn’t turn them away.”
It wasn’t just Yeonjuchang. People came seeking relief from mysterious diseases spreading among the chickens they raised at home, desperately wanting to recover wedding rings lost while swimming in the sea, curious whether their sons would marry this year, and some even asking for a bountiful harvest of sea bream next year—truly a versatile Duke was what they expected.
Riche picked up a fresh shrimp, took a bite, and spoke.
“The people here believe the Duke is a judge, a doctor, a detective, a prophet, and a sorcerer all at once. What can you do? To rule them, you must live up to their expectations….”
Maximian continued.
“Just give them a magical phrase. ‘I’ll think about it.'”
Joshua laughed, but it was not a matter he could simply laugh away. For the first time today, he seriously contemplated The Island that his father and Grandfather had abandoned. How had past rulers acted? What had they heard and lived by that made them expect so much from a mere boy? Would they not grow angry or disappointed even when he merely evaded the issue?
Did they truly believe that Joshua would one day build dikes for them, drive away the pirates of the Shell Peninsula, enable their children to marry happily, and even heal the boy whose head he had touched? Could they believe such things without sensing contradiction or doubt?
If that were truly the case, what should he do?
When the late dinner ended, Maximian and Riche yawned. Exhausted from the day, they wanted nothing but to return and sleep. Maximian asked Joshua.
“Are you really going to stay up all night reading documents?”
Joshua yawned as well, but after closing his mouth, he nodded clearly.
“Yes.”
Across from where he sat hung a large portrait. Because four people were painted together, it was far larger than an ordinary portrait. In the room illuminated by twenty-one candles and two lamps, the painting was suffused with gold and shadow.
2 AM.
Joshua sat deeply embedded in a massive chair that was difficult to pull himself up from, reading books stacked on a heavy desk that he could not move by himself. Whenever his eyes ached and he lifted his head, he found himself gazing at the portrait. Of the faces visible in the painting, he could recognize only one. Icabon, who had a portrait in Jade Ring Castle.
The other three were unfamiliar faces. It was strange. By rights, those people should have been Icabon’s three Sworn Allies. Yet Kelsniti’s face was absent. How could that be?
He could have called Kelsniti and asked, but he decided against it for now. There were still many books and documents to review. He had only just finished reading through all the birth registries. Birth registries, composed merely of names and dates, were ordinarily tedious reading. Yet Joshua had squeezed out superhuman diligence to read through every single one.
But at this hour, Joshua too felt a desperate longing to rest his body, worn from morning until night, and close his eyes for a moment. Looking back, today had been truly daunting. Sitting while feeling the gaze of hundreds of people, and whenever he unconsciously brushed his hair back, watching dozens of people unconsciously mimic him—maintaining a natural expression was beyond imagination. It had essentially required acting ability.
In that state, answering questions one by one about problems he had never once considered in his lifetime had nearly exhausted even his remarkable concentration. He put away the birth registries, pulled out the land register, turned through about five pages, and without realizing it, buried his face between the book pages and fell asleep.
How much time had passed?
Joshua felt his shoulder grow warm and awoke instead. At first, he opened only his eyes narrowly. The flickering candlelight appeared dimly. Next, the familiar portrait came into view, and below it, a shadow standing caught his attention.
Joshua raised himself up. The blanket that had covered his shoulder slipped and fell onto the back of the chair. The other person smiled.
“You’ve awakened.”
“It was Kelce… How long have you been standing there?”
“Less than an hour.”
“You should have woken me. I can’t keep sleeping like this.”
I was already thinking of waking you myself.
Joshua smiled and glanced around at the books surrounding him.
“There’s so much to do.”
Yet instead of returning to the ledger, Joshua found himself looking at Kelsniti and the portrait behind her. Standing there as she was, she seemed to occupy a place within the painting itself.
“I’ve been curious about that painting since earlier. Who are the other people drawn there?”
Kelsniti shook her head.
I don’t know.
“You don’t know? But they were people who were with Icabon, weren’t they?”
They weren’t people who were with Icabon. I’m not even sure if they were real people at all. That painting has a story behind it.
Kelsniti moved to stand before the figure drawn on the far left.
I was originally painted in this spot.
“Wait—so you deliberately erased yourself and painted someone else in your place?”
Not erased, exactly. Painted over. Look closely.
Kelsniti stepped back slightly, as if inviting comparison. Now that Joshua examined it carefully, the figure in the painting had a different face, but the shoulders, arms, hands, and build were nearly identical to Kelsniti’s. Joshua felt a chill of suspicion.
“Who on earth…?”
Instead of answering, Kelsniti pointed to the second figure from the left.
Anarose Tikarum was in this spot. And Stchoan Oblivion on Icabon’s right. That’s how the painting originally was.
“How could anyone dare alter such a painting?”
Joshua pushed his chair back forcefully and stood. He seized a candlestick and approached the portrait. When he held the light close to examine the face of the person Kelsniti claimed to be, the overpainted marks became unmistakably visible. From behind him came Kelsniti’s voice.
Stchoan. He was the one who originally painted it. He was a painter, after all. He altered his own work.
Joshua spun around to face Kelsniti directly.
“But why…?”
Because the oath was broken. When Anarose left and I died, Stchoan, left alone, altered the painting like this and departed. He never returned to Icabon’s side again.
…
Joshua fell silent, his gaze returning to the portrait. Only then did he realize that Icabon was the sole figure smiling in the painting. The others bore no expression at all. Like death masks.
“I don’t understand why he kept this painting all this time. This room is the study of successive Dukes, and yet he kept it here. Wouldn’t his descendants have believed those were the faces of his sworn allies? More than that—how did Icabon endure looking at it? It must have caused him pain every time. Why did he leave it?”
Icabon said he would leave the painting as it was until Stchoan came and altered it himself. Instead, he had a new one painted. The one you saw at Jade Ring Castle. This painting hung in Jade Ring Castle for some time after Icabon’s death, but when the family moved down to Periwinkle, they brought it with them. The fact that it was hung here again suggests that by then, the overpainted alteration had been forgotten. This painting came to be believed as the only one depicting all of the sworn allies.
Joshua shook his head, though understanding began to dawn on him. A broken oath, people long dead… Perhaps Icabon, left alone, endured that agonizing portrait in hope that even one friend might someday return. He thought of how much pain Stchoan must have felt, defacing a painting he had once poured his heart into before abandoning it.
At the same time, Joshua felt the full weight of Icabon’s resilience. That portrait was the punishment his friend had inflicted upon him for breaking the oath—a wound left in the heart. Anyone would have wanted to forget it, yet he chose not to. If he removed it, he seemed to think, then truly his friend would never return. But his friend never did return.
As Joshua’s thoughts reached this point, he suddenly realized something odd.
“Wait, Kelce. But how do you know what happened to this painting after it left Jade Ring Castle? You couldn’t have left the castle before meeting me, so you couldn’t have come here either, could you?”
When Kelsniti smiled, it created a striking contrast with the expressionless face in the portrait.
I came here yesterday and met someone. I’ll introduce you now.
The moment Kelsniti turned toward the door, as if on cue, it clicked open. A small silhouette appeared in the dark corridor. The approaching footsteps rang out crisply, as if from leather shoes. As the visitor entered the study, the door slowly closed behind them—not by anyone’s hand.
Joshua’s eyes clearly saw it. Someone else had closed the door. That figure slipped away behind it and vanished. It was unmistakably a spirit.
The visitor stopped before the desk. The candlelight pierced the darkness. In its dim glow, the face of a young girl—no more than twelve or thirteen—was revealed.
“Who…?”
The girl looked up at the bewildered Joshua and, spreading her skirt with both hands, offered a curtsy.
“Hello, Demonic Joshua.”
Then she turned her head to look beside her and spoke.
“It’s been a while, Kelsniti.”
Joshua stood frozen, unable to utter a single word.
The black dress that covered her knees was as dark as mourning garb. Beneath the hem, the black lace of a pannier peeked out subtly. Small floral embroidery adorned her chest in regular patterns, but rendered in black identical to the dress itself, making them nearly imperceptible. Her only other adornment was a slender golden ribbon at her neck.
The girl’s hair was blonde. Yet it was unlike ordinary gold. It possessed the bleached, faded quality of an elderly person’s locks—much as Joshua’s black hair had gradually turned to grey.
A low nose with slightly upturned tip, small and pointed lips, a neat fringe that concealed her forehead, and eyes of the same black as Joshua’s own. The longer one gazed upon her, the more uncanny the sensation became—as if a hidden secret, trapped within, writhed and strained to break free.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Aurelie.”
The girl paused for a moment, then lifted her chin and fixed Joshua with a piercing gaze.
“Aurelie von Arnim.”
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.

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