Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 481

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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 251.
Playing Oneself (27)
Strom lifted her head from examining the wound.
“How deep was he stabbed?”
The Young Boy sitting across from the bed spread his fingers to show a length slightly less than a span. Upon seeing him, Strom suddenly remarked.
“He’s wearing glasses.”
Then she retrieved her own glasses and put them on. Maximian’s expression turned bewildered.
“It didn’t go all the way through?”
Hispanie answered.
“It went in at an angle.”
“Ribs broken?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s been like this for four days?”
Strom cut through her words without even considering touching Joshua’s body.
“He should be dead.”
Maximian suppressed the urge to strike the Doctor and spoke.
“Right. But that’s why I called you—because I’m curious why he’s alive.”
“That makes sense. So why is he alive?”
Riche grabbed Maximian’s sleeve. Strom looked up at Hispanie with cold indifference, arms crossed.
“How did the bleeding stop? This isn’t a wound that would stop bleeding easily.”
“It just stopped on its own at some point.”
Strom examined Joshua’s wound again. After a long while, she rested her chin in her hand. Her already small frame gradually sank deeper into the chair. Seeing this, Hispanie waved his hand, signaling the others to step back. Soon only Hispanie, Maximian, Riche, and Duke Arnim remained beside the bed.
Throughout this, Strom, who had said nothing until now, suddenly spoke from that very position.
“You’re a wicked old man. You called me here knowing this, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m still not good at this. I need several more years.”
“There’s no one else who knows how to do it anyway.”
“That’s not true. There are people who do it better. It’s just that there’s no way to call them.”
Then she looked around and complained.
“How many people are here? Isn’t it too many?”
“No one here is worth learning from watching you work.”
“Well. That one wearing glasses looks pretty smart.”
Maximian’s expression stiffened, and Hispanie burst into silent laughter.
“Don’t worry—he’s not that kind of person.”
Strom nodded.
“So he’s dumber than he looks, then.”
….
Normally Maximian would never have stayed silent, but he kept his mouth shut. After four days without proper sleep, Maximian’s condition was in no better state.
Strom rose from her seat. She stood with her eyes closed for a moment. After a duration long enough to bore those around her, she opened her eyes and grasped Joshua’s right hand in both of hers. Then she knelt down on the floor beneath the bed. Because of her small stature, Joshua’s hand extended down below the bed’s edge.
“Please be quiet from now on.”
Strom closed her eyes and bowed her head in prayer, her forehead pressed against Joshua’s hand. For a long time, she remained perfectly still.
Beyond the slightly open window, rain pattered softly. A chill wind seeped through the gap.
Fractured ribs—a mortal wound. Over half an hour of bleeding. Cyanosis. A weakening pulse and dropping body temperature. By any measure, Joshua should have stopped breathing within hours. Yet he lived. For four days in that exact state, conscious only of the void. Every doctor who had visited said it was impossible to survive in such a condition. It was as though time itself had frozen within Joshua’s body alone. As if someone had seized his fraying lifeline and refused to let go.
Joshua’s face, sleeping and refusing to wake, resembled an actor prepared for the stage with special makeup. Like the corpse-pale makeup applied beneath the eyes in “The Wedding of Ile de Morbiane.” His neck darkened by cyanosis contrasted with the pallid eyelids that would not open. He heard nothing when called, stirred not when touched. He alone sang and performed on a stage that needed no audience, lost in that solitary theater and refusing to return.
The rain began to subside.
“Ah!”
Strom’s eyes snapped open. In the same instant, she released Joshua’s hand as though burned. Hispanie asked her.
“What is it?”
Strom’s face had gone ashen. She stared blankly ahead, sweat pouring down her forehead like rain. Maximian, desperate to shake her by the shoulders, barely restrained himself and sent her an urgent look. Finally, Strom shook her head once and exhaled heavily.
“This… this is going to be difficult.”
“Difficult?”
“Difficult, you say?”
Maximian and Riche fired back their questions simultaneously. Strom gazed at the ceiling before her expression finally returned. Then her eyes widened as she spun sharply toward Hispanie.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That the Young Duke is a medium! This isn’t ordinary. It’s completely sealed off. You should have warned me beforehand.”
Though her tone wasn’t harsh, excitement trembled in each precisely articulated word. Maximian spoke instead of Hispanie.
“Yeah, he’s a medium alright, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I attempted direct ‘communion’ with the Young Duke’s mind without knowing. To use an analogy—I thought the door was open and tried to walk straight through, only to slam headfirst into an iron gate that was locked shut. Damn it, I thought my head would split open.”
“What exactly is blocking the way?”
I didn’t even know what “communion” meant, but I had no choice but to ask. Strom’s voice rose.
“Spirits, that’s what!”
Maximian and Riche exchanged alarmed glances. Hispanie looked at them.
“Is Joshua truly a medium?”
Maximian nodded, and Riche added.
“Yes. He’s even performed séances several times.”
“Séances? You’re certain? How did it happen?”
Riche hesitated before continuing.
“At his worst… there were over ninety of them.”
Strom’s eyes looked ready to burst from her skull.
“Ninety? Good heavens.”
Maximian took up the thread.
“When those ninety-odd spirits entered, he unleashed some kind of psychic storm that sent everyone within a hundred paces flying.”
“That’s right. He’s even borrowed the spirits’ power to heal me.”
“And he lost consciousness to one of the summoned spirits for a time.”
“The ones that constantly follow him number in the dozens alone. Maximian, those people you mentioned with that promise or whatever—how many were there?”
“How should I know?”
“And there’s a spirit that’s permanently attached to him. We’ve conversed with it, and quite frequently at that.”
“You didn’t just talk to it. You saw it with your own eyes.”
“Right, we met it aboard that ghost ship.”
Hispanie and Strom, who had been listening to the exchange between the two, found their mouths falling open wider and wider.
“This is really, really terrible of you, Duke Arnim, calling me to such a dangerous place. Honestly, I was more than a little shocked when I nearly got dragged into the Young Duke’s consciousness just moments ago. The Young Duke is such a powerful medium that he’s gripping the spirits tightly, but the moment my mind entered through communication, he pulled me in as well. Do you know what would have happened if I hadn’t managed to break free and escape back then?”
Riche asked with her eyes wide open.
“What would have happened?”
“I would have become a ghost while still alive. My body would have become a corpse devoid of its soul. It would have been an instant separation of spirit and flesh. The Young Duke is an absolute monster. He even sucks in and devours the souls of the living.”
Then Duke Arnim, who had been silent until now, opened his mouth.
“It is true that a spirit follows this child. As you know, that child is Demonic, and therefore he would be the strongest medium in this world.”
It was the first time Duke Arnim had referred to Joshua as “Demonic” in front of people other than his own family.
“Such power has been ceaselessly threatening Joshua’s mind, so I have always been anxious about it. Every time I saw that child conversing with spirits, my heart felt uneasy. Sensing my discomfort, Joshua gradually stopped showing me such things. Now, hearing the conversation between these two, I can well understand how far that hidden power has grown. However.”
Pain appeared on the Duke’s face.
“I suspect that Joshua is alive now precisely because of the spirits. Perhaps they are forcibly holding onto that child’s body, which should have died. Perhaps they, not wanting to lose Joshua, their powerful medium, simply will not allow him to die peacefully.”
Maximian blurted out without thinking, forgetting all propriety.
“A peaceful death? I don’t think that’s right. There’s no such thing as a peaceful death.”
Duke Arnim looked at Maximian. He was not angry.
“Then do you believe it would be good for Joshua to live on like this forever?”
“That is….”
Strom cut off his words.
“That is an argument that cannot be concluded. It is an issue that doctors like myself, who deal with the wounds of souls, endlessly debate. Among those whose souls are wounded, many have healthy bodies. Whether it is right to grant such people a so-called ‘peaceful death,’ or whether it is duty and propriety to save them as long as we can—there is no conclusion to this matter.”
Maximian turned his head to look at Strom. His face was a tangle of anger, sorrow, and exhaustion.
“Yes. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? You deal with souls? I don’t care about that. Why do you keep doing strange things like communication and whatnot? Can you save him or not? Is he going to die like this, or will he live on forever? Give me an answer. I’m so frustrated I can barely breathe. I know this bastard doesn’t take his own death very seriously. But I absolutely cannot think that way!”
“It’s not me who will save him.”
Strom’s eyes were calm.
“Then are you saying we should leave it to the spirits?”
“The Duke’s words are correct—the spirits are keeping the Young Duke alive.”
Strom looked toward Duke Arnim.
“The Young Duke’s condition stopped progressing three days ago, when the bleeding from his wounds ceased. If it had continued, he would have stopped breathing within approximately half an hour. All signs already point to death. Shock has already begun. There is no one in this world who could remain alive for three days in this state.”
It would be difficult to say that Strom had examined the Young Duke. She had not even taken his pulse once. And yet the words continued to flow.
“For a person to die, each organ in the body must cease functioning. But right now, all of them, including the damaged organs, are being forcibly kept moving. Someone—the spirits, in other words—is moving the Young Duke’s body in his stead. However, his powerful consciousness alone cannot be revived by their power, which is why he does not awaken. Yet even with a sleeping consciousness, the Young Duke is capable of accepting the presence of so many spirits.”
“Then what on earth should we do?”
Riche asked. Strom looked down at Joshua’s face again and spoke.
“His consciousness must awaken.”
“Is that all it takes? His body is already….”
“I’m not certain, but perhaps healing might occur as things are. The fact that the organs are somehow functioning means that self-healing mechanisms are also operating.”
Maximian started to jump up, then stopped and asked instead.
“You’re serious about that, aren’t you?”
“Don’t push me, you’re more foolish than you look. I’m telling you the most optimistic outcome.”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The rights to this book belong 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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