Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 457

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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 227.
Playing Oneself (3)
Doubt flickered across Anarose’s eyes.
“How do you know that?”
Maximian spoke quickly.
“So much time has passed. Old secrets often become common knowledge as the years accumulate, don’t they?”
Anarose fell silent for a moment, then spoke.
“That may be true. Then you must know why the calamity that befell the South Sea occurred. What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened?”
Maximian asked in return.
“What was supposed to happen? Because the seal was broken?”
Joshua said.
“Sunset Island was merely struck by a magical storm. Periwinkle suffered no damage at all….”
As Joshua answered thus, the image of an island swept by a mysterious tidal wave suddenly surfaced in his mind. The moment he recalled the landscape of the destroyed island, his vision blurred and a chill ran through him.
“Could there have been storms or… tidal waves as well?”
Anarose nodded.
“Did such things occur?”
“I have seen such an island….”
Joshua pictured Periwinkle Island in his mind’s eye. The people who welcomed him calling him Young Duke, quarreling over coral and pearls, rushing to board ships bound for Sunset Island…. The land with its almond groves and ancient ossuary, he imagined the destruction that had befallen Cardril Island descending upon that place.
Anarose’s voice reached him.
“Muugu is a vast source of magical power. For centuries, it transformed all the people of Sunset Island into mages. Such a thing was suppressed and sealed away, then released. Tremendous magical power must have erupted and spread outward, shaking the sea and the atmosphere.”
Joshua’s face had gone pale.
“Will such devastation continue?”
“Until the seal is rebound. What else may happen in the meantime, I cannot guess. How long it will take, I do not know. Whether it will be decades or merely a few months.”
Maximian began to sigh but swallowed it instead, crying out.
“No, why was the seal broken in the first place? What went wrong?”
Anarose stared at Maximian, then spoke.
“It would have been better had you learned of this before me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Anarose stepped forward and stretched her hand into empty air. The empty space grew hollow, then deepened into a vast depression. From within it rose a barrier—whether water or glass, none could say. Had it been water, it would have been unlike all the water in the world, capable of pooling against vertical surfaces. Soon its shape approached that of a mirror. Light shimmered across its surface.
Joshua and Maximian peered into the mirror. At first, the reflected light obscured the image, but soon it became clear. A round chamber. In the center stood a small tree with a thick trunk. Its bark was covered in cracks like parched earth, and countless branches—thick and thin—grew in profusion. Yet upon closer inspection, the branches bent not outward but inward toward themselves, toward the trunk, coiling around something.
“What is that?”
It was difficult to discern the form hidden beneath the dense twigs. A black shaft slightly longer than a forearm and a blade of similar length attached to a weapon were barely recognizable. At the junction of blade and shaft hung a droplet of blood-red liquid. The golden blade, wrapped in branches, bore a faint engraving—as if drawn with a fine brush—of a crown crossed with four swords. The end of the shaft was broken.
A spear.
2. The Broken Hand
The blood that never loved you
no longer flows through my body.
Not even a single strand of my hair
grows alongside your memory,
becoming such a long thread.
I cut it today.
Unable to cut my heart,
unable to sever my memories,
I scissored through my hair, laid it upon the shelf,
and stitched my skirt and jacket before stepping out into the world.
Will you reject me?
Of course you will—your heart is too gentle,
and you’ll coldly drive me away, walking alone.
Yet today, does not fresh blood not course through my veins?
To call your name, does not my blood
tumble and roll, pushing and pulling me toward you,
does it not cry out?
What I have cut is the remainder of my life,
and now I have only to follow the traces your god has left behind.
“The Mage’s Broken Hand….”
From Joshua’s lips flowed the name that Grandmother Weatheren had spoken. It was a broken spear. Beneath it, there must have once been a long shaft.
Anarose spoke.
“Before it broke, it was called the Bleeding Spear. That was the name given by those who saw the red wine as flowing blood.”
Maximian asked.
“But why the Mage’s Hand?”
“There was a Mage who drove the spear’s shaft into his own arm. What remained was broken off from his limb.”
Joshua spoke.
“So that’s what it meant—being ruled by an evil artifact.”
“In two senses. Either the artifact and oneself become one body, or the artifact is destroyed forever.”
I did not understand immediately.
“How does it come to mean that?”
“When an artifact is driven into the body, it does not destroy the flesh—rather, it strengthens it. It grants immense power and even magic that the human body could never achieve through effort alone. Yet that strengthened body is no longer one’s own; it already belongs to the artifact. The one robbed of self is no longer human, but merely a monster.”
“Then, what does it mean to destroy it forever?”
“Artifacts cannot originally be destroyed. By no force whatsoever.”
Even the people of Ganapoli, once a Magic Kingdom, could not destroy the artifacts and had to abandon their realm. The fragment of an artifact brought by the migrants could not be annihilated either, so it has been sealed and preserved to this day. It was an artifact that could not be destroyed.
“However, when an artifact enters a human body, it becomes part of that person’s flesh, or the person themselves. The artifact has no life, but the person does. If you kill the one who has become one body with the artifact, the artifact’s breath ceases as well. That is the only way to destroy an artifact.”
Maximian murmured.
“It’s troublesome that a person must die, and the world is full of all manner of people, yet no one has tried this method all this time. I find it difficult to believe.”
Anarose regarded Maximian without a smile.
“Even I, after centuries of being trapped and suffering thus, would have wished to die together with the artifact rather than endure. Yet do not overlook the power gained by one who becomes one body with an artifact. The calamity that befell when the Mage who was the king of Ganapoli became one with the artifact. Had I done the same, I would have become that same monster, sending all within my reach to the land of oblivion. The sacrifice required to kill one strengthened by an artifact is incomparable to the suffering I bear as I maintain the seal.”
Her words were true. The two gazed anew at the broken spear with dawning dread. And perhaps because they looked upon it thus, a crimson aura seemed to ripple across the spear’s blade, inscribed with golden patterns.
“As you know, I have a duty to protect Periwinkle.”
Joshua finally tore his eyes from the spear and opened his mouth.
“It is an island where countless people live. Perhaps the island cannot be protected by what I alone might do, yet there is a duty I cannot turn away from regardless. In the name Arnim, in the blood I have inherited—if you know, please teach me. How can I protect the island?”
Joshua had originally come here to prevent the crisis that had befallen him. Yet in this moment, that initial problem felt strangely distant. He had never arrogantly thought of Periwinkle as his own. He had done nothing yet for the island’s people. And yet they had shown him trust and support. That weight was immense.
Yet Anarose’s answer was brief.
“I cannot.”
“It’s impossible?”
My lips had gone dry. Was I the sort of person who could simply turn away with a resigned “then there’s nothing to be done” and leave it at that? Could I comfort myself with the belief that since things were manageable now, they would remain so in the future?
Anarose offered no response. Maximian glanced between them both before scratching the back of his head.
“You make it sound so simple. Setting Periwinkle aside, don’t you have any concern for Sunset Island? If Periwinkle is going to sink, there’s no way Sunset Island will escape unscathed, is there?”
Still, there was no answer. She didn’t appear lost in thought either. Her expression remained blank, her gaze merely observing them both. Maximian released a quiet sigh and shifted his tone.
“Fine, maybe there isn’t a way. But surely there’s some method to at least keep Sunset Island safe? Let’s start small. We can expand gradually, can’t we? Or better yet, let’s talk about why it failed in the first place. Why did a seal that held for hundreds of years suddenly break? What exactly caused your mission to fail?”
“Because of people like you.”
When the answer came, Maximian’s expression shifted to one of shock.
“Why are we suddenly catching the blame for this?”
Anarose had always been this way, and regardless of what Maximian said, she paid it little mind.
“Someone came to this island.”
Maximian’s head snapped toward Joshua. This was the story they had been waiting to hear.
“They did not enter through the tomb, so I never saw their face. But the moment they set foot on this island, I awoke from my slumber. It was not yet time, yet I could not help but wake. Because of another fragment they brought to this island.”
“A fragment?”
“When I broke the spear that remained in the Mage’s arm, part of the haft shattered. The small piece was believed to have vanished somewhere. Yet somehow it fell into that person’s hands. Had it remained on Periwinkle? Or somewhere on the Continent? I do not know that much. But the moment they brought it to Sunset Island, hundreds of years of my effort became nothing.”
It was strange that no pain could be detected in Anarose’s voice as she spoke those words.
“That person likely sought to amplify magical power to complete a spell requiring immense strength. Judging by their knowledge that a source of magic lay buried here, they may have originated from this island. When the two fragments, which once shared magical power, met on Sunset Island, they resonated with each other, and that person obtained the power they desired. Simultaneously, the seal shattered. Did they know what consequences their actions would bring? It is unknowable. Were their deeds worthy of bearing such consequences? It is unknowable.”
“Shall I tell you what that wretch accomplished?”
Despite the mocking tone, Maximian’s face was flushed with intensity.
“That cursed bastard accomplished something infinitely valuable. A magic that no one in the world has completed since Ganapoli fell—and despite lacking the power to do so, they obtained abnormal magical force from this place and succeeded brilliantly. Thanks to that, there now sits another Demonic Joshua von Arnim in Jade Ring Castle. A perfect replica with the same appearance, thoughts, memories, talents, and even recognized by the world’s laws as a single being!”
“A puppet.”
It was not a question. Anarose spoke once more.
“A puppet of the Demonic.”
Joshua looked upon Anarose’s expressionless face. And for the first time, he understood that learning of his own puppet’s creation could be felt as an insult. In her brief words, he read an emotion—that even the existence of Demonic Icabon, whom she loved infinitely, had been desecrated.
Now was the time to ask. Joshua suppressed his emotion and spoke.
“Are you… certain that for hundreds of years, no one has ever laid a hand upon this coffin?”
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 the contents of this book, you must obtain written consent from both parties.

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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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