Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 52

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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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Chapter 52.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (22)
Rain fell.
Already drenched, I could not become any wetter. Water streamed from every part of my body, yet somehow that felt right. There was something I wished to wash away endlessly from myself.
I wanted to submerge myself in water until the stench of blood vanished entirely.
In the steady patter of rain, my short cloak had grown heavy, and my boots squelched with water. I began walking to give my exhausted horse a brief respite, yet I could not afford to halt my journey.
The sun was setting.
The crimson and azure light bleeding across the boundary between day and night held more enchantment than any monochrome sky. How strange that the setting sun remained visible even as rain fell. Truly peculiar weather.
As darkness descended and the rain began to cease, I entered a small village. It was truly diminutive—counting all the houses within, there could scarcely be thirty.
I possessed sufficient coin to seek lodging somewhere. Though still young, I knew I appeared as a respectable young swordsman in bearing, so unlike the end of last summer, people did not frighten me.
Yet upon venturing deeper into the village, I witnessed an unexpected scene.
“Kill him!”
“Slay the wretch!”
A crowd surrounded a single victim, hurling curses and striking at him.
None wielded swords or spears, but some carried pitchforks and sickles. Yet they did not swing them directly—most merely kicked or threw rotten apples.
“What madness brings you to another’s village with such nonsense!”
“Such a creature should be sent to the King to have his head severed!”
“Bah! Do not drag peaceful folk into your senseless affairs!”
The one surrounded, shielding his head with both hands, appeared to be an elderly man well past sixty. What transgression warranted such persecution?
Yet I had no desire to intervene. I myself was no longer a clean man. What harm could there be in overlooking another’s misfortune? Besides, what difference would aid truly make?
The old man, pelted with stones and spittle, suddenly lurched to his feet and muttered something unintelligible before abruptly crying out so loudly that the surrounding crowd flinched.
Yet the content did not reach my ears clearly. Perhaps because the words were unfamiliar.
Only the final phrases registered.
“…You have abandoned your humanity! Go ahead and kill me! I say, kill me! Never again shall I fight for the likes of you!”
The enraged crowd’s kicks descended upon him all at once. The old man could speak no further and collapsed, curling inward. I stepped back several paces.
Fortunately, they did not kill him. Believing they had vented their fury sufficiently, they cursed and departed one by one.
When none remained, I approached the old man. His words had seemed strangely familiar—similar to something once said by a person who still lingered in my thoughts.
“….”
I said nothing, yet the old man lifted his head. However, he did not look at me, as though my identity mattered not.
“What is this… Ugh, so there remains someone to mock me still. Hack, cough! Begone! In a world that shall never be set right….”
I asked at last.
“Are you a supporter of the Republic, sir?”
The old man’s gaze suddenly turned toward me. Only then did I realize his eyes were nearly sightless.
He directed his gaze awkwardly toward my chin as he spoke.
“Who are you? Your voice sounds like a child’s, yet your form appears grown. Why ask such a thing now? Do you mean to bring my head as tribute? The King himself would find no pleasure in the stench of this rotted old man’s neck.”
One could not speak of the “King” in such terms without accepting death. I looked down at the old man from where I stood.
“Why do you support the Republic? Does something like the Trabaches Republic appear so appealing to you?”
“Trabaches? That is… nonsense….”
The old man rose slowly and sat upright. His eyes rolled toward empty space, and his voice grew clearer as he spoke.
“Did you come from Trabaches? But Trabaches is no Republic. Do the commoners there vote? The lords merely select the Prince-Electors, and the Prince-Electors select the Chancellor—nothing more. When elections are mixed into such a narrow pit of factional strife, blood inevitably spills as they grind against one another. Those fools spouting incomprehensible… Pfft, cough! The reason they divide into factions with such pretexts is transparent. They simply need to sway others’ allegiances to their side, yet lack justification, so they fabricate reasons. Rotten to the core.”
Boris listened quietly. He felt no anger at the man’s criticism of his homeland.
“A ruler who holds power for life unless defeated in war, territories passed down through generations, electoral princes chosen from among them, a half-measure republic—they fear it so much. That’s why the Anomarad Republic tried so desperately to implement universal voting. But we were too busy defending against the nobility’s attacks, and that voting we fought so hard for happened only once, even in Keltika.”
Did commoners possess superior judgment to the nobility? Were they free from greed? Boris still couldn’t fully accept this.
The old man continued.
“The siege of Keltika… Those three nights we stayed awake, waiting for the total assault of the Holy Kingdom’s forces surrounding us from all sides… I’ll never forget it until I die. No, I won’t forget it even after death. Every morning, when surrender proposals rained down, no one accepted them.”
The old man’s voice trembled.
“At the last dawn, I watched thousands of soldiers pour in and brutally slaughter my comrades who formed a human chain. Hah… Would anyone who has lived in a republic ever wish to become a living corpse again, a slave like cattle? Do you think only prisoners of war become slaves? Everyone living in this land is enslaved. Everyone except those damned nobility!”
Was voting to elect representatives truly so important? And even if we did, could commoners ever become equal to lords and nobility?
Wasn’t the difference between commoner and nobility more about wealth and power than the status determined at birth?
Voting wouldn’t create wealth, and those without money couldn’t gain power.
Having thought this far, Boris asked.
“Is that truly all? So many people shed blood for just one thing—the right to elect representatives through voting?”
The old man seemed to gain strength from Boris’s question. His voice grew firm.
“A representative elected by vote is cast out if they lose support in the next election. So they must govern for the people who vote. What is such governance? First, it is the establishment of just laws. When we create laws equal for both nobility and commoners, power and wealth gradually spread evenly.”
Boris shook his head and countered.
“Do you truly believe all those people would follow only what is right? Are all people virtuous? When many gather who sell children for small profit and steal others’ possessions, how could any righteous agreement emerge?”
These were words born from painful experience. Had there ever been unconditionally virtuous people in this world?
Even if there were, they were few. Most were merely those scheming to exploit others, ready to become bandits at the first opportunity.
The old man gazed into empty space.
“Those evil to the bone are rarer than you think. When wrongs are exposed before everyone, people recognize their shame. Even those who commit petty crimes ordinarily don’t wish their rulers to be evil. And many crimes arise from the struggle to survive. When you serve as a servant and are trampled by nobility, you become callous to trampling those beneath you.”
“Then why do lords with wealth trample their servants? Isn’t human greed insatiable? Don’t humans, even possessing countless treasures, seek to steal another’s single treasure?”
Like Count Belnoir, who possessed so many treasures in his exhibition hall.
The old man thought for a moment, then spoke.
“You are young but have witnessed much evil. However, when someone conceives a righteous thought, there must be a way to convey it. Voting is merely the first channel. The nobility wish this world to never change. But how much suffering does a single evil king bring upon people? Must we simply endure an evil king as we do famine or flood?”
Boris stepped back and spoke.
“When people gather, they hesitate at first, but swept up in the atmosphere, they commit greater sins. The right to overthrow an evil king—very well. But what of those sacrificed in the process? If people who lost loved ones are told to accept it because many others became happy, I would refuse. People prefer profit to righteousness. I have seen many who change at the slightest gain. I cannot surrender what I cherish more than life for something so imperfect.”
The old man closed his eyes and spoke.
“You are likely of noble birth. You don’t seem noble, but you’re no commoner either.”
It was something Langie had once said. Boris did not answer.
“It is true that the Republic grows on blood. But those like you, who were never born as humans from the start, do not begrudge the blood shed to become human. What can be lost if nothing was possessed? What should those with empty hands fear? Yet it is those with nothing to lose who feed this nation. They till the soil, go to war, build bridges, manufacture goods. Can a nation where they suffer be a proper nation? Can a nation where they have nothing to eat be left alone?”
Boris was momentarily speechless, then suddenly asked.
“Who are you?”
The more they talked, the more an inexplicable pressure arose. The old man loved the Republic. Despite witnessing so many people slaughtered. Among them must have been his friends, perhaps his family.
Those who refused to surrender and died in Keltika that day—what meaning did they think their deaths held? That countless unknown people would become happy, so it was acceptable?
In Trabaches too, many spoke of justifications, but few could die for them. Unless they staked their lives on a lord’s command.
How could so many people dedicate themselves to a political system that held no visible power, fraught with every possibility of error?
“Nameless Stone, they call me. I thought I would be the foundation stone of the Republic, but I merely ended up rolling about in the wasteland.”
When he first saw the old man, he seemed a foolish wretch beaten by people. Had it not been for that one sudden cry from the old man, he would not have stopped to exchange such words.
Boris firmly believed the Republic to be a force that divided humanity. He thought the tragedy brought by division was far more terrifying than the politics of a tyrant.
It was better for everyone to hate a single tyrant. Better than having those you should love kill and be killed by one another.
Yet the more I heard, the more peculiar the Republic seemed—drawing people in, then rendering them unable to exchange their loyalty for anything else. It was like a malevolent enchantment.
Perhaps I failed to understand it precisely because I was truly the son of a lord?
The old man rose to his feet, turning away toward the edge of the village as he spoke.
“I pray that good fortune finds you in abundance, so that one day you might trust in the goodwill of countless souls.”

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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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