Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 43

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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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Chapter 43.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (13)

April had ended.
For some reason, Walnut called for Boris in broad daylight. They sat facing each other in the Grassland, where white petals scattered like stars across the verdant expanse.
“Are you confident?”
Boris momentarily faltered, uncertain what Walnut was asking. Was it about the boy Guitapra, whom he would soon have to fight and defeat? Or was it about Winterer?
When Walnut posed a question, unlike before the Count and Countess, Boris found himself unable to answer readily. The white flower stamens crumbled beneath his unconsciously grasping fingertips. For a moment, he gazed down at the ruined blossom.
“You’re truly a pathetic fellow.”
Yet despite his words, Walnut smiled faintly.
Boris understood what Walnut meant by that habitual remark. Through their time together, he had come to know that Walnut was not drawn to cunning or ambitious people. Rather, Boris’s unpretentious simplicity and lack of greed had won his favor.
When Boris first realized this, he had indeed considered how to exploit it. But soon enough, he abandoned such thoughts.
Not because he wished to be honest with Walnut, nor because he refused to manipulate another’s heart.
Rather, he had come to understand that an inexperienced person gambling against a seasoned one would likely invite ruin.
His counterpart favored his rigid, honest simplicity. So he would continue to act accordingly. Following instinct was effortless, and genuine behavior naturally yielded better results than fabricated conduct.
It was far better than losing all trust through some hasty, ill-conceived attempt.
“You lack confidence? What will you do if I suddenly disappear?”
That question too was equally ambiguous in its intent.
‘If I suddenly leave, how will you defeat that boy?’
‘If I suddenly leave, how will you reclaim Winterer?’
Above them stretched a sky adorned with feathered clouds, drifting lazily. It was pleasant weather—the kind that seemed to demand happiness, too beautiful for such troubled contemplation.
Yet a man incapable of happiness gazed upward into that sky.
A man who had grown suddenly mature through loss, who despised the abundance of this unfamiliar land, who could not forget dark memories, whose hope arrived only to pierce his heart before vanishing swiftly.
“Are you leaving?”
It seemed likely to be true. Within Walnut’s jests always lay a seed of truth, like the pit within fruit.
“Yes. I’m going.”
It should have been unexpected. Yet Boris revealed no emotion.
Nothing remained by one’s side forever. Whatever disappeared, he would not be surprised.
“Where to?”
“Very far away.”
Walnut suddenly rose to his feet. The wind swept through, sending his tightly bound hair streaming.
He was a man like rough, ancient wood. A man like moss-covered stone that had grown drinking moonlight.
“I leave tomorrow. It will be difficult to return.”
Yet as Boris watched Walnut, he felt a premonition visit him once more.
They would meet again.
In an unexpected place.
Their lives, like threads twisted into multiple strands, would be knotted together in a single knot.
“About your sword….”
It was something he naturally ought to say. Walnut was not one to hesitate while speaking. Yet this time was different.
“I don’t know if you realized, but from the beginning I never intended to steal your sword. Rather, it’s a sword I cannot steal. That blade does not align with my convictions. For I possess a principle I must uphold throughout my entire life.”
“….”
When Boris did not answer, Walnut rubbed his temples with both hands. He knew he would be misunderstood, but he was searching for some way to make himself understood, even if only slightly.
“But I cannot return it. The uncertainty is unbearable.”
As Boris lifted his head, Walnut’s smile grew even more troubled.
“You might ask what could possibly go wrong right now, but the problem lies in the future. I cannot leave a kitchen knife in the hands of a three-year-old child and simply walk away. Even if he doesn’t drop it on his own foot immediately. I’m speaking from the heart, truly.”
Walnut was a man of boundless honesty when he chose to be sincere. Boris knew this about him.
“Yes, perhaps you think everything I say is mere flattery, that I actually covet the blade for myself. So be it. But I am worried. Even if I incur your misunderstanding, I cannot bear to leave it in your possession.”
“There is no need to worry.”
Only then did Boris open his mouth and rise from his seat. He was no longer small enough for Walnut to lift effortlessly as he once had been.
“You took it from me anyway, and I promised to reclaim it through my own strength. One day remains, so I shall honor that promise. There is still one more night, is there not.”
“But….”
As Walnut began to speak, Boris cut him off.
“Do not worry. I will return what you entrusted to me. Please stop by my room before you leave and take it with you.”
The roles had reversed—now it was the student bestowing kindness upon the master. Walnut fell silent, his hand rising to his lips in bewilderment.
There was no chance Boris would suddenly succeed in reclaiming Winterer that night. If so, the outcome was already decided.
I had known long ago that Boris would not accept this. Yet I could not leave it without explanation. Even knowing it would sound like an excuse.
But Walnut chose not to speak.
“Thank you for understanding.”
It did not mean “thank you for understanding that I need the blade.” It meant “thank you for understanding the struggle I have endured in being unable to return Winterer.”
On the surface it might have appeared to be the former, but Walnut simply spoke what he felt in his heart—gratitude.
As Walnut turned to leave, Boris asked the question he should have asked from the beginning.
“But why are you leaving?”
Walnut looked down at Boris, then reached out and grasped his hand. They exchanged a light handshake.
“Because I have been called.”
That was all the explanation offered.
Walnut released his hand and departed with heavy footsteps.

That night, beneath moonlight as enchanting as it had been the night we first clashed over Winterer, we faced each other once more.
Walnut and I engaged in one final, desperate duel—for each other’s sake.
It was fiercer than any bout before it, as it had to be. I bore not mere scrapes, but proper cuts and puncture wounds across my body. Walnut’s garments were similarly torn and slashed by blade-tips in countless places.
Again and again, I pressed forward without pause, and Walnut faltered several times beneath my relentless assault. Of course, had Walnut unleashed his full strength, dispatching me with a single stroke would have been trivial.
But Walnut did not wish to see me injured. Especially not now. For that reason, he adopted a defensive stance, concentrating solely on disrupting my attacks.
I was different. I allowed no respite, no opening. For an entire hour, I maintained absolute intensity.
Had my skill been greater, I would have burned with such killing intent that the bout could not have ended without one of us dead.
That very difference narrowed the vast gulf between us somewhat. To an untrained eye, we might have appeared evenly matched.
But an hour was brief.
“Enough. It is finished.”
Walnut suddenly shoved our locked blades with tremendous force, sending me crashing to the ground. This was not the measured strength he had shown before.
I lay there for a long moment, unmoving—not because I could not move.
But because it was truly over. Our nightly duels had ended. And I had never won a single one.
“Rise.”
Walnut set down his blade and helped me to my feet, brushing the dirt-caked hair from my face.
“I have never had a student like you.”
I said nothing. Walnut chuckled softly to himself.
“Heh, truth be told, I have never properly taught anyone before. I had never met a student worth teaching—until now.”
I lifted my head slightly. Our eyes met.
“But you are the first I have ever encountered who does not know how to open their heart.”
Walnut saw through to the truth.
Certainly, I did not dislike Walnut. Yet it was quite different from how the children Walnut had met before would admire their teacher, desperately seeking to learn everything, begging for instruction.
A sovereign of my own perfect world. Should a portion of my walls crumble, I would gather stones from anywhere to rebuild them, and I would not refuse a helping hand.
But I would not allow anyone inside those walls.
During this time, I had learned much. Yet rather than merely following where my teacher led, I was gradually making my own discoveries, integrating them into my own style at my own pace.
For a novice swordsman to maintain such a pace while learning from an overwhelmingly superior master should have been impossible.
The reason it was possible had nothing to do with any exceptional genius on my part. It was a matter of temperament.
My true goal had always been not to grow stronger, but to walk my own path without wavering. That conviction had forged my style.
Walnut could not enter that world. Several times it seemed as though he might, yet ultimately the door remained closed.
There were openings in my heart facing outward. We had touched, overlapped several times, and shared understanding—but nothing more. I was a boy who seemed within grasp yet remained forever beyond capture.
“We may meet again someday. I have that feeling. I intend to leave quietly without telling the Count. Pretend you know nothing. He will curse me, but having hired a wanderer like myself, he must accept it as inevitable karma. It has been pleasant—meeting such a strange fellow as you.”
I bowed my head once more and spoke softly.
“Farewell.”
“In our duels… I taught you enough to win. If you lose, it will be because you have not properly woven my lessons into your own style.”
As we sometimes did, instead of heading to our rooms, we walked together toward the empty Kitchen. Walnut retrieved the brandy he always kept hidden in a crevice and drained it entirely. It seemed he was making a final farewell of it.
When I pestered him for a sip, he flatly refused—children could not have any—but instead mischievously filled a bowl with water from the bucket and handed it to me. The water bowl and brandy glass clinked together in a toast.
I spoke briefly.
“To a good journey.”
After parting with Walnut, I washed my sweat-soaked body in cold water and crawled into bed.

The next morning, Walnut woke with a slightly heavy head, ate breakfast, and seriously deliberated whether to depart.
Slipping away unnoticed during the day was nothing—he could easily grab a simple meal and leave. But this was Belcruze in Songro.
Was this not a blessed land where gourmands across the Continent would sell their very souls for even a single taste of that dark treasure, yet here one could indulge in it for days?
In truth, Walnut’s initial agreement to tutor Count Belnoir’s son had been seduced by Songro itself.
In such a place, a single meal held tremendous value. After much internal struggle, Walnut muttered to himself.
“Sigh… I’ll just have to endure it.”
Unfortunately, time was scarce. The one summoning Walnut was someone he could not afford to keep waiting, not even half a day past the promised date.
He understood the gravity of this summons well enough. The mere fact that Yozrel, the princess of the white birds, had come in person said everything.
With barely any possessions to gather, Walnut reached under the bed to retrieve Winterer. Then he froze.
“Teacher, are you leaving now?”
At the voice from behind, he spun around in alarm. Though he didn’t realize it, Walnut’s expression had twisted into something grave and dismayed—a far cry from his usual demeanor.
Boris stood in the doorway.
They locked eyes. It took Walnut a moment to recognize just how indignant he felt. He steadied himself and shifted his gaze, then spoke tersely.
“So you’ve deceived me quite well.”

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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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