Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 512

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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 282.
Beneath the Almond Tree (25)
Hispania, a man not easily startled by ordinary matters, flinched and opened his eyes wide. The plainly dressed man now seated before him—the one who had walked through the rain without an entourage or even a carriage—could this truly be Count Giscard de Natangsong, the Great Lord of Rosa Alb?
Giscard smiled broadly once more.
“I apologize for the surprise.”
“You have truly astonished me. That a person of such standing would undertake such a difficult journey without hesitation. I find myself quite embarrassed at being so unprepared to receive you.”
“Please think nothing of it. It would have been customary for me to send word in advance and announce my intentions, but given my precarious circumstances, I had no choice but to slip in like a thief to avoid the eyes of heaven and earth. I beg your forgiveness.”
Count Giscard was known to always write rejection letters to Orlanne’s social circles, and the beauty of his prose often became a topic of conversation. Soon, a smile graced Hispania’s lips as well.
“A person of your standing sitting in such wet clothes will catch a chill. I shall have fresh garments brought.”
“There is no need. I traveled extensively in my youth and have grown accustomed to such conditions. As you yourself have, sir.”
“You know much about me?”
Measuring glances passed between the two men. Giscard spoke.
“I know somewhat more than most.”
Hispania smiled knowingly.
“I have long suspected that Nightwalk is no ordinary organization.”
“I have taken considerable personal interest in it.”
“That is quite an honor. Hehehehe….”
Hispania poured tea into his guest’s cup, then rose and placed a log into the hearth. Sparks flared up in crimson bursts.
“Seeing that you have traveled so far in person, it appears you have brought a matter of great importance. So let us hear it. What reason brings the Great Lord of Rosa Alb to seek out this unremarkable old wanderer, avoiding the eyes of men?”
Hispania had by now gathered considerable knowledge about Giscard de Natangsong. The secret suspicion of connections with the Friends of the People, yet the absence of proof; the fact that despite his noble birth, he was unusually learned and possessed a reputation for gentle character; the rumors of his reclusive nature, yet his possession of refined courtesy made it difficult to imagine his involvement with any radical faction as the former rumors suggested.
“As you say, I have come a long distance on a matter of grave importance. Of course, reaching this place was not easy. However, today’s visit is not at the request of the Exile Council, but a decision I have made alone. And my desire to see none other than you, sir, was a conclusion reached after much deliberation.”
Even as a foreigner, there was no reason for Giscard, a count and great lord, to address Hispania—a man cast out from a ducal house and bearing no title—as “sir.” Yet neither of them remarked upon this.
Instead, Hispania spoke thus.
“You seem to be a man of weight.”
Giscard fell silent. An unstable quiet descended. The firelight reflected in their locked gazes trembled. Then his eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
For the first time, emotion colored his voice. Hispania exhaled a short breath and turned his gaze away.
“I have heard you are a young man of the Young Duke’s generation.”
“I understand that forgiveness would be difficult for you.”
Hispania answered after a measured pause.
“That is not for me to decide.”
“I understand. Nor have I come to beg forgiveness.”
Giscard’s voice had by now regained its composure. Hispania’s brow furrowed slightly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I do not beg forgiveness because I understand that I have committed a sin too grave against you, the House of Arnim, and above all the Young Duke for such an act to hold any meaning. Such wrongs cannot be undone simply because someone comes and kneels to plead. I too am a man who raises children. How could I presume to approach you with such an impertinent request?”
“….”
Hispania turned his gaze to the hearth fire. Within his mind, countless pieces of information were being rapidly sorted and examined. He had anticipated much. Yet the extent of his visitor’s knowledge remained unclear, and he could not rashly confirm it.
Then Giscard continued.
“I have come to request a parley with you, sir.”
“As I understand it, parleys are conducted between the kings or lords of nations. You have standing as a great lord, but to address such a thing to a wandering old man like myself is hardly fitting language.”
“No. I believe you and I are meeting as representatives of two nations.”
“Do you mean that sincerely?”
Their eyes met. What Giscar had just said amounted to treason against the Grand Duke and King they each served. It was an even bolder statement when one considered which two nations he was referring to. Hispania could not have been unaware of this.
Giscar answered.
“If I had intended to hide something, I would not have come to this place.”
Now it was Hispania’s turn to speak. I had to either acknowledge or deny. It was a secret I had shared with no one except the Duke and a few trusted confidants. In just a few words, I had been backed into a corner—forced to either reveal such a secret immediately or retreat with cowardice. Hispania recalled the hidden reputation of my counterpart. The finest negotiator and educator of the Friends of the People, a theorist and long-standing expert in organizational construction.
“You seem to trust me far too much. I am the uncle of Duke Arnim, one of King Checel’s arms, and also a man of Anomarad. The Kingdom 8th Army is desperate to prove your connection to the Friends of the People, and King Checel himself is likely searching for a convenient scapegoat like you to humble the Orleans Grand Duke.”
Giscar smiled faintly.
“Would you covet the glory of King Checel, sir? Or perhaps the bounty? Even if acquiring such things would not be unwelcome, what if you could create something far more valuable than those things together with me?”
That statement pleased Hispania. It was a bold development only possible if one chose honesty rather than resorting to tricks to manipulate one’s counterpart. At least he was no schemer. Of course, a schemer could never contend with Demonic. Perhaps he understood that as well.
So instead of offering easy praise, Hispania leaned back deeply into the chair and spoke.
“You speak as though you’ve pierced my very heart. Very well. I do not jest with those who wish to speak in earnest. Let us suppose that whatever this valuable thing is, you are capable of giving it to me. But was there not another reason you came all this way? In other words, had this matter not occurred, would you have still sought to give me such a valuable thing?”
When Giscar had resolved to meet with Hispania, he had envisioned countless scenarios in his mind. Over long years wandering across the continent, he had encountered people of every station, every profession, every temperament. He had sufficient experience in how attitudes and responses varied according to type, and had studied countermeasures countless times. Yet as he prepared for this meeting with Hispania, he deliberately abandoned some of the standards he had built through experience. His counterpart was a category he had never encountered. Because this person was one of only two who existed in this world.
Prediction was presumption. His counterpart wasted no words and found precisely the weak point Giscar had anticipated. In a way, it was the exact same situation Hispania had just found myself in. Too burdensome to affirm, too cowardly to deny.
“To speak truthfully, it would not have been.”
Hispania tilted my head at this unexpectedly candid admission. Yet there was no time to be surprised.
“Because Arnim is already a name that has betrayed the Republic once. Why do you think the Exile Council bears such a name?”
“….”
The two locked eyes with palpable tension. In the silence that pressed down on all sides, a log snapped and fell with a sound. When Hispania responded, my low voice carried restrained anger.
“You overstep.”
“In the campaign to conquer Keltika that year, I lost a brother with whom I had lived as sworn siblings for seven years.”
Giscar’s voice as he continued was composed.
“Two days before the fall, when the occupying forces’ victory was becoming assured, my brother, who was then the chairman of Keltika District 8, wrote a letter saying he would join the castle’s reduced garrison—halved due to soldiers who had fled under cover of night. Thus he became one of the hundred whose blood still stains the steps before the throne. ‘The Four Days of Lightning’ was swift as its name suggested, and I, who was in the Southern Region at the time, had no chance to return to Keltika. The final letter my brother wrote reached my hands only after he was dead.”
Hispania also knew this. On the day Keltika fell, more than half of the final castle garrison were ordinary people who did not even know how to properly hold a sword. In those final moments, armed with nothing but their bare bodies and empty hands, they were literally slaughtered. And as if that were not enough, the already-dead had their heads severed and hung from the city wall. Unable to hang all hundred heads, they were bundled together with rope and left dangling. Though they were removed not long after through remonstration, those who had seen it directly could never forget the sight. The image remained vivid in Hispania’s mind as well.
“I spent a long time dwelling on myself—on how I had failed to stop my brother from going to the castle, and simultaneously how I had failed to save even a single member of the garrison. How worthless I was, how meaningless my existence. What weight could possibly have been behind the words and actions I had been engaged in until that day?”
In Keltika in the immediate aftermath of the campaign, a literal feast of slaughter unfolded over several months. Among the Republicans who heard of these events from outside Keltika, it was not rare for those unable to bear the despair and guilt to take their own lives.
“I survived merely because I was not in Keltika during those Four Days of Lightning. You may call it chance. If the ‘survival’ granted by chance was all I accomplished, then its value depends on what I do with it—in other words, only the future determines it. Only when I reached that understanding could I finally calm myself and look upon life anew.”
Giscar’s voice as he spoke of pain he would not readily reveal to anyone was merely composed. And Hispania understood what he was saying. A survivor cannot help but be seized by such emotions. There are times when it is difficult to believe that survival granted by chance holds any value.
In the moment of sharing a sensation only survivors know, I felt an impulse to sympathize with the other’s emotion, but I suppressed it and answered.
“I am well aware that the campaign to conquer Keltika ended in tragedy. But at that time, the House of Arnim would have been torn to shreds as spoils of war regardless of which side won. In other words, we could have become part of that tragedy. If you believe we caused your tragedy to survive, then your revenge would be justified. But simultaneously, you cannot deny that the Duke would equally gain the right to seek justified revenge against you.”
Even as I spoke, Hispania thought that had I been the one who created the Four Days of Lightning, I could not have said such things. I was someone who had directly witnessed Keltika in the immediate aftermath of its fall.
Giscar gazed quietly at Hispania as though peering into my heart, and surprisingly, nodded.
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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