Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 511

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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 281.
Beneath the Almond Tree (24)
My hand stilled.
“What… do you mean?”
I lifted my head to meet his gaze. Watching his eyes tremble again, I spoke.
“You know what I mean. You couldn’t possibly not know.”
“Don’t misunderstand. The Doppelgänger is…”
“You? No. Long before you were even born, I—we—knew of you. We thought of you, wished for your existence. Thank you for appearing like this. Thank you for taking my place all this time. Now we must switch. From now on, I’ll become the glass doll.”
The gleaming glass doll living in Jade Ring Castle was the Young Duke who protected the Family Clan, the blessed Arnim beloved by the people of Periwinkle Island. He was the Duke of the People of Promise, bound by the oath inherited from Icabon. He was everything Joshua had always wanted to escape from, and so that name was Demonic. Now I accepted that name. I claimed it as my own.
“I…”
“You can become anything now.”
Joshua suddenly burst into laughter. In truth, tears glistened in his eyes as well.
“To think there’s someone who would make such an impossible childhood dream come true—the world really is a more livable place than expected, isn’t it? Because you exist, I won’t have to torment myself wondering why I couldn’t become the little boy from the rotting pasture or the actor Max Cardi. Right now, I’m as if…”
Suddenly my throat tightened. I forced the words out.
“You’ve burst out from within me, and I’m just the empty shell left behind.”
The Young Boy’s hand moved slowly, pushing Joshua away. Then he rose. Joshua stood as well, noting the resolute expression on his face. An ominous premonition washed over him. He wouldn’t have to wait long.
“Look at this.”
The Young Boy rolled up the long sleeves of his indoor clothes and held his arm before Joshua’s eyes. At first glance, it resembled the dried traces of playing with white clay. But the reality was devastating. The pale, desiccated skin was peeling, fractured and cracked, with the raw flesh beneath exposed in crimson fissures. The cracks, growing progressively finer, extended toward the elbow.
“How… did this happen?”
“This isn’t the only place. Do you understand? I’m not like you.”
The Young Boy lowered his sleeve with a bitter smile. Joshua stared into empty space. Even after the wound vanished from sight, he struggled to believe what he had witnessed.
“I wish I had been glass instead. It wouldn’t crack like this.”
It must have been because he’d been separated from his original body for far too long. He was truly disintegrating. Like a plaster doll.
“When did it start? Was it like this when you awakened?”
“I don’t know. One day I noticed it had become this way.”
“Did you tell Juspian?”
“No. Don’t tell anyone else. I hate the thought of all sorts of people flocking here to gawk at me curiously. You know why, don’t you? Why this happened. A Doctor can’t fix this. I’m like a complicated pocket watch, you see. A clockmaker needs to come. A technician, not a Doctor. Nothing else is necessary.”
“Are you really waiting for that person?”
The Young Boy regarded Joshua in silence before responding.
“You’ll find it hard to forgive that person. But you understand that I’m different, don’t you? Even though the day may never come when I clearly know what emotion that is.”
Joshua couldn’t answer and hesitated. The Young Boy continued.
“I knew something was wrong with me far earlier than you think. When I first heard the voice coming from inside my head, I thought I was going mad. I wasn’t surprised. As you know, it was like a predetermined future. I just didn’t know when it would happen. That’s why I’ve thought about it so calmly all along. That worldly matters are of no consequence. A world I won’t even understand once I’ve lost my mind—I can’t live by loving and suffering through it, can I?”
Joshua couldn’t say that he no longer thought that way. That was an opportunity never granted to that other self of his.
“But then I realized it wasn’t like that. It was such a difficult problem that I only understood it after thinking long and hard. At first, I called it ‘the broken place.’ I thought I was gradually leaking out through there. I wondered if it would all drain away and then it would end. But in that emptiness that formed, someone was there from some point onward. Watching in silence, waiting.”
“Waiting?”
The Young Boy nodded and smiled, but his expression didn’t reflect the smile he had made.
“Waiting. For when I would look at him. I felt his gaze, but I desperately turned away from it. What would happen if he opened his mouth? I didn’t want to imagine. It’s different from madness. Madness comes from within me, but he is not me. Not a me I created. And yet he came inside me, occupied a part of me, and has been watching me from within.”
The Young Boy’s hand traced and pressed against his own wound, hidden beneath his sleeve.
“According to what Annie said, that’s precisely the original body.”
Joshua’s cheeks paled.
“I was so glad when he disappeared while I slept. For the first time in ages, I felt free. I thought it would be fine to shatter like this, even if it meant breaking apart like a peppermint candy. But he came back.”
The Young Boy began trembling again. Joshua gripped his shoulders with both hands.
“There’s nothing I can do. I’m a broken puppet. When that person calls, I have to go.”
“No. You heard what Juspian told you, didn’t you?”
“Go to Nenya-Yaplia School? It’s useless. Even if I run, he’ll find me.”
“Do you want to see him? Do you want to meet that person?”
“…No.”
“Then don’t meet him.”
The Young Boy shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll only shatter like this. Even as I break apart, I can’t find a moment of peace because of the gaze of the original body watching me. I have to end my life in my own way someday. Once I disappear, you… might live for a very long time. A demon whispers in my ear. That it will give me dreamless sleep. Complete oblivion. So I won’t have to repeat this painful life, so I won’t be reborn.”
The Young Boy laughed. Was his smile always like this? It was fragile yet radiant, as if it might shatter.
“I like the last part best.”
I recalled what Grandmother Weatheren had said in Periwinkle. About Daemon, who held the fate of Demonic—or the demon—and the secret words he had given. When he found those words within himself, he would die….
‘People say that the moment the child remembers the secret words, he will be released from Daemon’s grasp. He will regain a body that does not die, does not age, does not grow. They say he will escape the causality imposed by ‘Order’ and become free, and at the same time be erased from the minds of all people in the world.’
“No. It can’t be. You haven’t shattered yet.”
Joshua pulled the Young Boy’s hand and grasped it. It was warm, fevered.
“Your heart can’t die first while you’re still alive. Soon you might become free. You might be released from the hands of Order and the demon’s grasp and never be reborn again. That will be the moment you find the secret words. I haven’t found mine yet. So I learned how to live within Order.”
Identical eyes gazed at each other. They read the hearts within those eyes. Countless riddles explained each other.
“I envy you for seeing the secret before me. But not yet. Until that time comes, let’s learn from each other. We were boys who wanted a puppet. That’s why we have each other now. We can see in each other the paths we didn’t take. Look at me—I live without awakening the demon in my heart. I can teach you. The balance I found. In return, tell me the secret you discovered. I want to know how it was hidden within you.”
I felt the Young Boy’s grasped hand digging in. They were each other’s escaped shadows. In this moment, they became shadows again. They spoke to each other: ‘So this shadow, which seemed only black and featureless, was covered in wounds all along.’
“We are the kind of pair who must endlessly yearn for each other while we live in this world. But someday, we too will meet without remembering each other.”
The Young Boy answered.
“Yes. It won’t be in this world. We were born unable to forget anything.”
3. A Messenger from the Future
When your descendants and mine walk this land in the distant future
Fields watered by river currents and seas where ships sail every day and
Hands gathering apples and ground swept clean to build a home and
If there is no small child pondering what they will become when grown
Then whatever we do today will have been in vain.
On a rainy autumn morning, a visitor arrived at Jade Ring Castle.
Without a carriage, shielding themselves from the rain with only a hooded cloak, they passed through the city gate and walked down the tree-lined avenue. By the time they reached the entrance, their clothes and hair were thoroughly soaked from the drizzling rain.
When a servant tried to stop them, the visitor produced a letter. More precisely, it was a small bundle sealed in an oil-treated leather pouch to keep it dry. The servant who took the letter inside returned shortly and allowed them to enter the castle.
“Remove your wet things and use this to dry your hair at least. The carpets will be ruined.”
“Thank you.”
The visitor seemed indifferent to the servant’s condescending tone. Before lowering the hood to dry their hair, they deliberately turned toward the wall. The servant, judging from the visitor’s appearance that they were no one of particular importance, showed little interest. Since the order came to let them in, the servant simply did so.
The visitor, having dried the moisture from the cloak and put it back on, followed the servant upstairs. They passed the second floor where visitors to the Duke went, and the third floor where those visiting the Duchess stayed, reaching the fourth floor where they stopped before a certain door. The servant knocked to announce the visitor’s arrival and withdrew. The visitor entered.
Hispanie was reading alone and rose to his feet.
“Welcome. You’ve been caught in the rain quite heavily. It would be best to sit by the fireplace.”
There were no attendants in the chamber. Hispanie personally moved a chair to the fireplace and extended his hand toward the visitor. The visitor bowed silently and sat in the chair. The hem of the cloak stretched toward the fireplace, where frost glimmered white before fading away.
Hispanie personally filled the teapot with fresh tea and lifted the kettle resting on the fireplace, pouring hot water. The visitor watched this carefully.
“You have traveled far and endured much hardship.”
“You do not seem surprised.”
The first words were measured. Despite being drenched from the rain, the voice carried neither tension nor tremor—the voice of someone accustomed to travel. Hispania judged his visitor to be a seasoned wanderer.
“Indeed. I anticipated you would arrive within these recent days.”
The guest nodded and brought a hand to his hood.
“I have the honor of meeting the keen insight I have long heard spoken of.”
The hood fell away. It was not a face I recognized. Yet he was older than expected—well past forty, it seemed. At first glance he bore a scholarly demeanor, but as I studied him further, there was something extraordinary in the light that dwelt within his eyes.
“I had assumed it was customary for messengers to send younger men, yet it appears those people think differently.”
The guest smiled.
“Then it would be proper for me to offer my introduction.”
“There is no need, should it prove difficult. I understand well enough the reasons for discretion.”
“I am Giscard de Natangsong.”
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 this book’s contents, 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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