Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 502

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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 272.
Beneath the Almond Tree (15)
When Silviet stepped outside, the afternoon sun cast a reddish shadow across the Parade Ground. A few dozen soldiers happened to march past in formation. She didn’t relax until she crossed the Parade Ground and emerged beyond the tall wall. Two soldiers saluted formally, then shut the gate with a bang.
Left alone, Silviet turned back and looked up at the wall. It was a place she had passed countless times without giving it much thought, but from today onward, her perception of it had completely changed. It was she herself who had said there was no need for them to escort her home. Even now, that sentiment remained unchanged. She didn’t want to spend even a moment longer in their company.
As I walked away, a new plan gradually took shape in my mind. Today’s events could become a blessing in disguise. The Kingdom 8th Army had tried to extract information from me, but in doing so, they had also given me information. I knew exactly where the Amaranth Family Summer Estate was located. Langie was there. Regardless of how they had discovered this fact, all I needed to do was move first. Major Jenas couldn’t brazenly confront the prestigious Amaranth Family and pressure Yien, the Count’s daughter, but I could naturally find my way to that house.
Now I held two pieces of leverage.
Summer sunlight enveloped the Vineyard. The Reading Room was filled with roughly fifty thick books, nineteen journals, two peculiar volumes bound in snakeskin, four maps, eight paintings, bundles of scrolls totaling nearly a hundred sheets, a dozen artifacts both large and small, about ten stone tablets with inscriptions carved into them, and seven roof tiles—with three people squeezed between them as well. Though they weren’t particularly noticeable.
Tichiel, seated at the desk, was methodically pushing aside the clutter stacked all around her to turn the pages of an enormous book. Joshua attempted to retrieve the bottommost volume from a stack of twenty books, but after struggling, he realized he had no choice but to remove them one by one, and he sighed. Both of them felt an inexplicable urge to glance toward the corner of the room, and they exchanged narrow-eyed looks at each other. Then they both turned around simultaneously.
“That must be comfortable.”
“I’m thinking of loading about ten books onto the ship.”
“Then you’ll die.”
Maximian lay sprawled on a long bench, using the assignment Tichiel had given him as a pillow, sleeping soundly. Tichiel pointed at Maximian’s posture with her finger.
“Doesn’t his neck hurt?”
His head was tilted back with his mouth hanging open because he had rolled up a bundle of papers to support his neck, so objectively, it didn’t look particularly comfortable. Joshua stretched out one hand and waved it back and forth as he spoke.
“He wouldn’t dare wake for such trivial discomfort. He’ll sleep soundly until we wrap him up in a hammock and hang him from the ceiling.”
“I feel like waking him up anyway.”
Tichiel spoke with her usual bright expression and stood up from the desk. The pile of scrolls stacked beside her came tumbling down with a soft rustle. As Tichiel, who had grown immune to such disorder, paid it no mind and stepped over books and journals to approach Maximian, I stretched once. Even if we cleaned in the morning, by evening a fine white dust of crumbled paper would coat everything, so I had opened the windows wide early on. The chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves in the breeze, and the distant murmur of students drifted in leisurely. At the same time, a chaotic whisper that only I could hear lingered around me.
“He really won’t wake up.”
When I turned around, my eyes widened, and then I burst into quiet laughter. Maximian was floating about a hand’s breadth above the chair where he had been lying. His head hung downward, and his feet were in the position of about to kick the ceiling. Yet there was no sign whatsoever that he would wake.
Tichiel sighed, then gently waved her hand through the air. Maximian descended back onto the chair and continued sleeping peacefully. I smiled broadly.
“You really are a mage.”
As always when receiving praise, Tichiel’s cheeks flushed red.
“I still have a long way to go to become a true mage.”
“When do you become a true mage?”
“According to Father, you need to be around a hundred years old.”
“Wait, is age really that important?”
“Yes. It’s quite important. Magic isn’t something where learning it quickly is necessarily good.”
From my perspective of never having learned magic, it was something I couldn’t fully understand, but it seemed somehow connected to the idea that Demonic Joshua shouldn’t learn magic.
When Tichiel returned to the desk, I resumed the task of rearranging the tower of books. It was fortunate that Professor Leomentiis hadn’t come to inspect the chaos we had created in just a few weeks. She may have already looked while we were sleeping, but on the surface, she was pretending not to know. Just as I had anticipated, she had given her approval easily. It was as if she had expected us to do something like this. Or perhaps she had read Juspian’s intentions.
“You said you didn’t understand this passage, right? The part about the source of magic and the sun. I’ll look for something to reference.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Over time, we had become quite compatible research partners. Tichiel translated ancient languages fluently—languages that even older mages often stumbled over—and I remembered everything perfectly just from listening. Tichiel wasn’t the type to gloss over things she was curious about, and once I set my mind to understanding something, I absorbed it completely. Most importantly, neither of us was the jealous type. If we had been, the research wouldn’t have progressed at all.
When Tichiel selected a character floating above the lectern and read it aloud, the characters swiftly rotated and changed form. Sometimes the characters would switch places with each other or spin in circles. Soon a bluish radiance spread slowly across the lectern, tinting Tichiel’s cheeks.
After a moment, she drew a stone tablet from the empty space above the lectern. It was filled with inscriptions so fine they were like millet seeds, carved with such precision it was remarkable. She scanned it briefly and spoke.
“This record is also missing its beginning.”
“Read whatever is there anyway.”
“…the one who breathed in power shaped blood and flesh to mimic a king… This part is also erased. …bowing before, I say that I possess true skill. The dead shall not rise, nor shall those like the dead rise again, for if the same were to live twice, it would escape the mesh of order, and so the fisherman shall send him to the great sea and never receive him again. For power—that is to say, magic—magic is the craft of the farmer, the fisherman, and the hunter. Therefore, the untilled field, the unsailed sea, and the hunted lands belong to the Moon Queen.”
Tichiel paused as she worked through the translation in her mind. Suddenly, Maximian’s voice rang out.
“Tichiel, let me ask you just one thing.”
When I turned around, Maximian was sitting up straight, cross-legged at the desk, untangling his disheveled hair with his fingers while turning his glasses over in his other hand. I spoke.
“How very prophetic of you. Did you receive a revelation in your dreams?”
Maximian rose without answering and began pacing the chamber, deftly navigating around the formidable obstacles scattered throughout. Joshua and Tichiel tracked his movements with their eyes. Eventually, Maximian leaned against the wall, raised his index finger, and looked at Tichiel.
“Last time, you mentioned that whenever you received approval, you had to submit the key incantation for inspection. Does that mean everything viewed automatically leaves a record?”
“Yes.”
“Then can you also find out who read the records we’ve discovered in the past? Like access logs?”
“Only for those I have permission to access. But it won’t be just one or two people. Many of these records have existed for hundreds of years.”
Joshua looked at Maximian.
“You’re trying to confirm whether Annie also saw the same thing, aren’t you?”
Maximian pushed himself away from the wall.
“Annie? Joshua, did you know that person?”
“Actually, I met him once before. He came as my brother-in-law’s friend at my sister’s wedding.”
Joshua had met Anistan Bölf before he even knew Maximian. He had spoken with him when Anistan came as a guest around the time of Ivnoa and Theo’s wedding, and hadn’t seen him since. Joshua had left for Kotzboldt shortly after the wedding, and after Ivnoa’s death, he had gone back to Hyacan. During that interval, Anistan had come and gone from the Castle, creating the Puppet. While the Puppet lived in the Castle, Anistan had apparently stayed there too, but from that point onward, he stopped revealing his true name to people. The Anistan that Joshua remembered looked very different from the one the Castle’s inhabitants remembered.
“When I went to Sunset Island, I saw the name ‘Bwolf’ in the Graveyard. But I didn’t think to connect it to that person I’d met only once. Back then, I didn’t even know he was creating Puppets. Not until I came to the Castle and heard the name ‘Annie.'”
“Wait, I don’t remember what was written in the Graveyard, but are you saying that person is from Sunset Island?”
Joshua nodded.
“It’s quite likely. Anistan Bölf knew that his magical power would be amplified if he entered Sunset Island with a fragment of the spear. That person said it too on Sunset Island. ‘If you know that the source of magical power is buried here, you might be from this island.’ I agree with that assessment. Who else but someone from Sunset Island would know such a thing?”
“But there was no one left on Sunset Island. Does that mean he’s a descendant of those people who moved to Periwinkle?”
“That’s possible, but perhaps not all the people of Sunset Island came to Periwinkle at that time. Some might have gone to the Continent, right? There’s no way to prove it, but isn’t it quite likely that his ancestors were from Sunset Island?”
In the meantime, Tichiel seemed to have found the access records.
“Anistan Bölf… ah, there is such a person. He viewed this record, and um… that one I saw earlier too, and that one as well… somehow the order in which he searched is similar to mine?”
Maximian approached the desk and sat down with a shrug.
“So that fellow managed to get access permission quite well? Then can you also find out what dates he viewed the records? Any of them.”
“The regulations are somewhat lenient for students who have gone through the research process. The last access record I found was for corpse preservation techniques, and the date was 989… September?”
Both young men’s expressions suddenly turned pale. Joshua opened his mouth.
“Corpse…”
Joshua stopped mid-sentence and closed his mouth abruptly. Maximian paused for a moment, then suddenly contorted his face as if he’d eaten something revolting and turned to Tichiel.
“Tichiel. I think you just discovered something enormous.”
Tichiel blinked his wide eyes several times and looked at Joshua. Joshua stared intently at the edge of the book before him, but in reality, he wasn’t seeing anything at all. Anyone could tell. Finally, Maximian bit his lip and muttered.
“Right. Let’s organize this. We’ve searched everywhere, but there were no signs of intrusion in any of your family’s tombs. It didn’t even seem like anyone had been snooping around such places. In other words, the Puppet Master had a definite alternative somewhere. And in 989, he finally obtained it. What he’d been waiting for. And as I mentioned last time, the mark where the coffin in question had been placed was small enough to fit a three-year-old child… ah, damn it. This truly transcends common sense.”
“…”
It was indeed a horrifying possibility. Joshua withdrew his gaze from the book and closed his eyes for a moment. His breathing grew gradually rougher. Finally, his tightly sealed lips parted, and words he could never have forgotten fell from them.
“My brother-in-law told me that day that he was ‘a man who showed no interest even in the child that woman left behind.'”
Maximian shot to his feet. Then he turned to Tichiel.
“I’m sorry, but I have somewhere I need to go. Don’t misunderstand—I’m not running away because I don’t want to study. It might take a while, so don’t wait for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“Hyacan.”
Children of Rune – Winterer
Author: Jeon Min-hee
Publisher: 14 Months Publishing
The copyright of this book belongs to the author and 14 Months Publishing.
To reuse all or part of the contents of this book, 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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