Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 45

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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 45.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (15)
It was an unexpected turn in the conversation, and Boris found himself uncertain how to respond.
“Young master, what would you do in such circumstances?”
“I….”
Perhaps Lanji had endured hardships that Boris could scarcely fathom. He gathered his thoughts for the other’s sake.
“I’m not certain. But if there were someone who killed me within their heart, wouldn’t I simply do the same to them? To stop thinking of that person at all…that’s what I mean.”
Boris knew well that such words offered no true comfort. Lanji merely nodded once.
“Indeed, that would be the way. Instead, one should treat those still living in one’s heart all the better.”
Boris assented. Then Lanji’s expression shifted, and he smiled softly.
“So you too, young master, should treat those around you who are still alive with greater kindness. As for those who have passed, let them fade from memory.”
A pang struck him—Walnut came to mind. Walnut had spoken of something similar before. And now Boris realized how deeply Walnut had cared for him.
That man had initially refused to open his heart to Boris. Yet affection between people is a transformation that defies reason, and neither could resist it, nor did Boris fully comprehend it.
In that final moment, Walnut had departed with an expression of utter disappointment. Neither had offered a single word of excuse.
If they met again, could he make Walnut understand his actions then?
No…it would not be possible.
He did not wish to explain. He did not believe he had failed to give as much as he received, nor that a debt of reckoning remained.
He possessed no heart capable of loving many people at once. The remainder of his life would have to be a memorial. Perhaps by the time Yefnen’s memory faded…
But it would never fade.
“Some people never truly die. It is different from the death of the body. You cannot kill the very essence of that person who erased you from their heart. You are not a murderer. Neither am I. If I were to kill one person in my heart, I would feel a guilt far greater than that of becoming a murderer. I do not wish for that. Never.”
Lanji continued to regard Boris without losing his smile. His lack of rebuttal felt strangely unfamiliar.
After a long pause, Lanji spoke again.
“When I was young, I lived only with my mother. With Lanzumi, we were three. I knew little want. Our home stood in the countryside, some four days’ journey from Keltika, and we had several servants.”
It was a story like descending into a deep, verdant tunnel. Lanji’s voice remained calm.
“At that time, I did not wonder how my mother, who did nothing, could command servants and wear beautiful clothes and provide us fine meals. Since it had always been so from birth, it seemed natural. Lanzumi was a curious child, though shy, and often caused mischief. It would be difficult to imagine her as she is now.”
“….”
Beyond the open window, peach-colored petals swirled in a small vortex. It was a spring storm.
“Once or twice a month, a dignified gentleman would visit. When he came, he would give my sister and me small gifts, and then speak quietly with my mother. I vaguely believed he was a guardian helping my mother. He was much older than she, and he would discuss complex matters of money and documents. I imagined he might be a distant relative managing my mother’s estate, and I deliberately instructed Lanzumi to treat him with proper courtesy.”
The pages of the book Lanji had left open fluttered in the wind that shook the window.
Wind and sunlight scattered across the faded parchment pages.
“When he had free time in the afternoon, he would leave my mother’s side and speak with me for a few moments. He would ask about the books I was reading and tell me of Keltika. His knowledge seemed worthy of admiration to my young self, and without realizing it, I came to follow him deeply.”
Boris listened quietly.
“I thought perhaps he was a scholar, but looking back now, I suspect he bore the bearing of a statesman. In any case, I soon found myself waiting for him as eagerly as I waited for my mother—perhaps even more so. And I believed he loved me as well.”
He caught sight of Lanji then. Once a master who had commanded servants, he now wore the clothes of a servant and addressed his young master with polished formality.
He had become composed and mature beyond his years. Because he had to endure the world alone. Since when?
Within Lanji’s story lay an anxious happiness—one destined to shatter like a dream.
Even as he anticipated what would come next, he hoped that happiness would not break. Though he knew it was a futile hope, just as it had been for himself.
“I was nine years old. One day, my mother called my sister and me and had us pack our belongings. She said we would leave this house and live in Keltika, and she was excited and joyful about it. I did not understand why it was good, yet I gathered my things and left the house. Though I had lived there long, I had no time to look back and feel regret.”
Suddenly, Boris recalled Jineman Manor. When he left that place, he had never imagined he would travel so far.
“A carriage with covered sides was waiting. It carried our family straight to Keltika. Only then did I learn that the journey to Keltika would take four days. I doubt I could have retraced that path alone.”
A petal fell onto the bookshelf, one by one. As the wind turned the pages, they scattered across the wooden floor.
Like the passage of years flowing through memory, the story within the unread book continued to drift forward.
“Mother told me that when she held me, I would meet him. So I thought, at last, coming to Keltika would be worthwhile. My wish back then was simply that he would live in our home and always tell us wonderful stories. I desired nothing more than that.”
A faint scent of despair lingered—the kind that dwells within such small, tender hopes.
“Our family descended from the carriage and stayed the night at a pleasant inn. But when we awoke the next morning, only the three of us remained. The carriage and all the people who had brought us to Keltika had vanished without a trace.”
I noticed Lanji’s eyes had grown pale. A fragment of dreamlike afternoon light made them ache. His cheeks were ashen, like those of a sick man.
“Even Mother, bewildered, seized the inn staff and questioned them, but all that came back was their indifferent dismissal. We struggled to understand the situation until that evening, but ultimately had no choice but to leave the inn.”
Had the inn staff been instructed? Or did they simply not care?
“We needed to find someone, but Mother knew nothing of Keltika’s geography, and we had no horse to ride. Our luggage was so abundant that we had no choice but to sell it at the inn. Knowing our desperate circumstances, they mocked us and refused to pay fair value for our belongings. At first, Mother asked them to hold our things temporarily, but they even refused that.”
The story of sudden decline flowed like slow music.
“But Mother was not one to despair easily. Once she resolved herself, she sold the dress boxes, beautiful hats, shoes, and precious dishes—keeping only the jewelry that could be easily carried. It was early autumn then, so she dressed us in as many clothes as possible and sold the rest. Then she left the inn and spent days wandering the streets, searching for someone’s house.”
Lanji suddenly fixed his gaze on Boris’s face and smiled.
“Do you think she found it?”
Unable to speak, I stared at him, while Lanji calmly turned the pages of the bookshelf the wind had scattered, one by one. A few petals that had lodged between the pages fluttered up and fell onto the back of his hand.
A hand as bloodless as the petals themselves, with only bone structure protruding.
“Yes, she found it. It took about four days. It was a magnificent estate—far beyond anything Lanzumi and I could have imagined in our dreams.”
For the first time, I detected a new emotion in Lanji’s voice. Contempt.
“Mother seemed somewhat intimidated as well, but she still managed to speak confidently with the Gatekeeper. Shortly after, we were led inside the estate. But we were taken not to the Reception Room, but to a small, cramped corner room. A man who appeared to be a steward came and called only Mother outside. We waited for a long time. Slowly, an inexplicable sense of dread began to rise unbearably.”
Lanji was now speaking with meticulous attention to detail. He was not excited, and his tone remained unchanged, yet something about him was different from usual.
No, actually it was the same.
If his usual demeanor was merely a faint reflection, then what I saw now approached his true essence.
“Leaving Lanzumi behind, I went outside. Or rather, I tried to. A man standing at the door roughly pushed me back inside. On the second or third attempt, I suddenly bolted forward, shoved him aside, and ran ahead. I heard several people pursuing me, but it was too late to stop and turn back. Beyond the door blocking the end of the corridor came a tremendous noise—screams, shouts, the sound of things breaking and rolling. When I burst through the door into the Reception Room, I finally saw the face I had desperately longed to see during those days wandering the unfamiliar city.”
“That….”
Boris opened his mouth to speak but stopped, and Lanji continued immediately.
“Yes, it was him.”
What must that feeling have been like.
I could not fully imagine it. Just as Lanji could not fully understand what Boris felt when he lost Yefnen.
Lanji fell silent, his eyes fixed on the pages he had been turning.
An emotion that had not appeared on his face was revealed there. The pages had been turned far beyond the section he had been seeking.
While he spoke with such composure, his hand had conversely lost all reason.
“….”
We both gazed silently at the book. The fallen petal had left a stain on one corner of the page—a mark as if lightly touched by a fingertip, a handprint left by the wind pressing down.
A sorrowful tale that did not suit the hazy spring.
After a very long time had passed, Lanji spoke.
“That man is my Father.”
The story continued in fragments. That man—ultimately Lanji and Lanzumi’s Father—was one who had decided to abandon the commoner wife and children he had hidden away at a Countryside Estate in order to arrange a significant marriage alliance.
What he had done was so cruel, base, and cunning that even Boris, who had endured considerable tragedy, trembled with rage.
He had abandoned the three of them in the heart of the great city Keltika and had made thorough preparations against their return.
No—the abandonment itself from the beginning was already a carefully laid scheme. A method to suddenly cast them into ruin, make them wretched, drive them to despair, and ultimately force them to surrender.
Before that man’s eyes, Lanji’s Mother was beaten mercilessly by servants and kicked to the ground.
Even as Lanji rushed forward, he did not spare a single glance in his direction. With calculated indifference, he remained unmoved—as if to demonstrate that affection had never existed from the start.
The butler, who had cast out Lanji’s mother—half-conscious from shock—and Lanji himself, numb with devastation, empty-handed, warned them that if they wished for Lanzumi, left alone in the house, to remain safe, they must never set foot in Keltika again.
The two could not abandon their young Lanzumi and depart. When her senses returned, Lanji’s mother circled the Jineman Manor for days, weeping with degrading pleas—if only they would return her daughter, she would never appear again.
Precisely ten days later, Lanzumi appeared before them once more. But by then, she had already become as she is now.
“There was no apology, no pity, not even contempt. He treated our family as one might handle three stones. He demonstrated perfectly that we three had died within his heart. So I killed him—ensured he could never rise again.”

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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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