Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 424

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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 194.
The Face of an Angel and
the Blood Flowing Through a Demon’s Heart (3)
2. Words of Secrets
Listen, there’s no way a demon would simply hand over a gift and leave….
“Can you admit it now?”
It was Aurelia’s question. When Joshua’s gaze turned toward her, Aurelia spoke again.
“You might have thought she was a heartless woman—that Anarose left Icabon, which shattered their bond, and even after you visited several times, she refused to see you. But Anarose had reasons she couldn’t meet Icabon, reasons she never wanted to reveal. She didn’t want him to know about the child’s existence. She knew all too well how he would act if he found out. She couldn’t bear the thought of reclaiming him in that manner. If there had been no child, perhaps she would have softened first. But by then, it was already irreversible. She hid it thoroughly. And her family, respecting her wishes, said nothing either. Icabon came many times, waiting and waiting, but he could only leave without answers to any of his questions.”
Joshua shook his head.
“That’s difficult to understand. Such thinking.”
“I understand it. Truly. I believe I would have done the same.”
Their eyes met. Just as their ancestors long ago had failed to understand each other, so too did their gazes now. Stubborn, yet compassionate. Curious, yet wanting to hide such feelings. After centuries had passed, these two—siblings and yet strangers—remained locked in that tension.
Aurelia spoke.
“People didn’t want to believe that the sins they had accumulated created the ‘Witch’s Sin,’ made the Island an uninhabitable place, and destroyed their own destinies. So the legend of the witch was born. How convenient it is to hate the witch instead of blaming themselves and seeking atonement? I know Anarose’s nature. She will never forgive such people. Neither will I. ‘Silent Eilerose’ is Anarose’s older sister. She accepted Anarose’s daughter as her own and raised her, giving her the surname Tikaram. Everyone on Sunset Island believes Eilerose’s bloodline flows through her. No one suspects Arnim blood runs in her veins. And they couldn’t possibly suspect it. Because, because, this bloodline produces only idiots.”
As Aurelia closed her lips, finishing her words, she stared at Joshua persistently. As if he had unjustly taken what was hers, she repeated it.
“Only idiots.”
Joshua shook his head.
“Don’t speak that way.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”
Joshua didn’t answer immediately, rubbing his eyes with both hands as if exhausted. After a long moment, his answer came.
“I… that word hurts me terribly.”
Aurelia seemed about to rise from her seat but barely held herself back, taking only a breath before speaking.
“Why? Don’t you think it’s the opposite? Who is in the unjust position?”
Joshua’s eyebrows moved.
“Becoming Demonic isn’t good at all. If I could, I’d trade places with you, but I can’t, and that’s what pains me. But more than that, more than anything else, I… I can’t bear that word. That way of speaking… I just can’t. Ah, truly… don’t say it again. I…”
Aurelia was silent for a moment, then spoke.
“Is it possible that your side also produces idiots?”
Joshua didn’t answer, but there was no need to hear his response. Aurelia pressed her lips together and continued.
“Why is that? I thought it happened because we lived on Sunset Island, but why there too? They’re called idiots, but they’re not simply ordinary fools—everyone knows how they’re different. People who should have been born as Demonic were affected by corrupted mana amplified by the Island’s innocent power even before birth, driving them mad.”
Joshua’s eyes widened.
“Wait, are you certain about that?”
“Not a single one has been born since magic disappeared from Sunset Island. Instead, only people like me.”
“People like you?”
“What do you think is the greatest characteristic of a Demonic?”
When Joshua didn’t answer quickly, lost in his own confusion, Aurelia answered directly.
“A medium.”
It wasn’t entirely accurate—there was Hispania, a Demonic who wasn’t a medium—but she didn’t bother to correct it. Aurelia’s tone grew more intense as she continued.
“I’m a medium despite not being Demonic. How unfair is that? Incomparably stronger than an ordinary medium, but because I’m not Demonic, it’s far too dangerous. One misstep and I’ll go mad. I must always keep my wits about me. I must maintain neutrality. Perhaps those born on Sunset Island had the Island’s innocent mana thin the boundaries of their minds, and they lost consciousness the moment they were born without any resistance.”
It was truly astonishing—a person who wasn’t Demonic yet possessed a spirit affinity equal to one maintaining sanity. Joshua himself had suffered the mischievous torment of spirits during the time he couldn’t handle them well, but because he was Demonic, he had somehow endured and survived. What if he hadn’t been?
Aurelia continued pouring out stories he could never have imagined.
“Listen, you don’t understand how desperately I need Demonic’s power. You don’t know how stubbornly I must be protected. I have no intention of going mad or becoming an idiot, so who will help me? I wake with a start even from sleep, forced to live among Spirits instead of people—who can help someone like me? Who made me this way? The blood of Arnim without the power passed down, a name with no rights and only burdens—how can anything be so unfair! How can anything be so unjust!”
Aurelia’s voice rose in fury, yet Grandmother showed no reaction, as though she had fallen asleep. Joshua studied Aurelia’s face—or rather, her hair, which had faded of its color.
Only then did it occur to him that perhaps the House of Arnim had not birthed only one Demonic every four generations. It could not be so precise, like a ledger or a clock. There may have been more Ivnoas and Aurelias. What had become of them? Had they died at birth?
The second-floor staircase creaked as something shifted. Though he sensed someone watching, Joshua did not turn around. He was accustomed to watchful eyes—whether they belonged to the dead or the living.
But Aurelia was different. She turned at once and murmured something under her breath. In that same moment, several lights flickered on the upper staircase before vanishing. As Aurelia steadied her gaze and caught her breath, Grandmother spoke again.
“Your heart weeps, child. Do not let it. You are not one to be ashamed. The blood you inherited flows from an Origin far older than the Black-Eyed Duke.”
Both turned their eyes toward Grandmother. Aurelia spoke.
“Origin?”
It was the same for Aurelia to ask the Grandmother who could not hear. Grandmother nodded, though she appeared to be dozing.
“Where did that blood come from? No one on the Island of Blue Flowers knew where the Black-Eyed Duke came from. A person ought to have parents, yet the Duke was an orphan. Even when the Duke’s name echoed across the entire Archipelago, no one came forward as his parent. But certain people on Sunset Island knew. They knew who had passed down the Duke’s inexplicable bloodline.”
Grandmother turned her gaze toward Joshua.
“Long ago, in Ganapoli, there lived a Scholar of great renown, and many gathered around him. He married late in life but had no children. Those who followed him lamented that no heir would inherit his wisdom. The Scholar did not mind, but when his wife became pregnant, he was overjoyed. Yet the frail woman could not bear the child and fell into a deep sleep from which she did not wake.
Unable to contain his grief, the Scholar committed a reckless act. He crafted a replica doll of his wife using puppet arts and sent the child to grow within the doll’s womb. To do this, he sacrificed half of his own body. Yet even that was not enough. The child slowly died within the doll’s form, and desperate to save it, he made a pact with an inexplicable being. What that pact entailed, no one ever knew.
Yet through it, the child lived and was finally born. People said he had made a contract with one of the hundreds of Daemons that the people of Ganapoli revered as arbiters of oaths or guardians of human fate. Some said that Daemon was the King of Daemons with ten faces.”
Joshua could not hide his bewilderment as he stared at Grandmother. His wide eyes trembled once. Could this story truly be about Demonic’s ancestor? Because he had harbored no expectations, his suspicion was all the greater. No—every word was suspicion itself.
Had a Demonic existed in Icabon’s lineage before him? Since no person is born without parents, Demonic Icabon must have had ancestors. It was illogical to think that an ability passed down through generations suddenly appeared with Icabon.
The Island of Blue Flowers and Sunset Island—in other words, Periwinkle and Sunset Island—had their origins in Ganapoli. Had the mystery of Demonic come from there as well? Whether or not there was someone to prove it, was there at least the possibility?
Joshua turned to look at Aurelia.
“How is it that Grandmother knows such a story?”
“I don’t.”
She answered simply, then shook her head.
“It’s a story no one has ever told me.”
Grandmother’s words continued. Her pace quickened gradually.
“Later it was said that the Daemon taught the child within the doll a secret word to escape the approaching death. Originally, the child was both the offspring of a person and of a doll, so it could not grow beyond its birth form. And when the Daemon halted the child’s transformation to prevent death, it became a fate that could not die. The Daemon breathed into the child—who could not die, age, or grow—the power of time itself, transforming it into a human body. With only one secret word. A ‘word’ is a promise and a transformation, the power of causality that makes people live within ‘order.’ What dolls lack but humans possess.
Yet no one knew what the secret word was. Not the father, not the child itself. Because infinite time was locked within its body, the child with inexplicable power remembered everything it saw and heard, but could not remember what came before its birth. Yet because the child’s power was inexplicable, nothing could be declared impossible. So people said that the moment the child remembered the secret word, it would be freed from the Daemon’s grasp. It would reclaim a body that could not die, age, or grow. It would escape the causality imposed by ‘order’ and become free, while simultaneously being erased from the minds of all people in the world.”
“That word is….”
Joshua listened to Grandmother’s words. Of course, he remembered them perfectly, and it was possible he would never forget them until death. But above all, he understood. He understood that word more truly than anyone else. Whether the story was fact or fiction, it explained the strange shackle that had bound him since birth, and he felt it carried a grain of truth.
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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