Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 58

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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 58.
Breaking Through the Trap, Into the Storm (28)

“So that’s what Langie did.”
The conversation about what had transpired at Belnoir Castle had just concluded. The lanky mentor and his smaller apprentice walked across Lemme’s rocky plains, leading a single horse between them.
Several days had passed since they began traveling together. The evening sky stretched impossibly high above them. Summer, the finest season for journeying through the northern lands, was drawing near.
“I still don’t understand him well. Not that he fabricated his past, but rather… I can’t grasp what lies beneath. He doesn’t seem like someone my age, yet he’s not quite an adult either. I find myself unable to grow close to him, yet unable to despise him either.”
I tried to summon my most honest feelings. Langie was someone worthy of such reflection.
“He seems pitiful, yet he’s not someone to pity. He appears strong, yet he clearly has weaknesses. He saved me through methods only he could employ, and I’m genuinely grateful for it, and yet…”
“Even if you met again, it would be difficult to become friends, wouldn’t it?”
Isildor San’s words struck true. I had not become friends with Langie, and I sensed I never would.
“In my view, you see.”
Isildor San absently touched the crown of his head while gazing down at my long hair, already thinking he would tie it back for me soon.
“Langie is a political creature. He said he hated his father, that he’d killed him in his heart, but I suspect he resembles his father more than he admits. The tightrope he walked between the Count and you, the way he investigated the Count’s background in preparation for what was to come—these are things an ordinary person his age wouldn’t dare imagine, much less accomplish.”
I nodded. During my solitary travels, I’d imagined the situation reversed several times, yet I felt certain I could never have done what Langie did.
“Of course, his suffering played a role, but that’s not the only reason. There was a moment when I saw clearly what kind of person he was—when he made Lanzumi speak. Do you remember? He said that if his help was sincere, he would repay it his whole life, but if things went wrong, he wouldn’t hesitate to stake his life on it.”
I remembered it too.
“What does it mean to act as a political person?”
Still lacking understanding of politics, I couldn’t quite grasp what “a political person” meant. My concerns remained confined to personal matters of affection and resentment.
“Not confusing the line between gratitude and grudge. Knowing one’s place precisely. Anticipating that circumstances will shift in all directions and preparing countermeasures in advance. Not trusting uncertain fortune or goodwill, but laying groundwork for the future with every action. Sensing instinctively the ripples one’s actions will create, like a stone cast into a pond. And.”
Isildor San suddenly raised his head to look at me.
“When meeting someone like you, quickly grasping both the strengths and weaknesses of that person’s character.”
I fell silent for a moment before speaking.
“I thought that might be the case. But if he were truly such a person, shouldn’t he have refrained from helping me? I have nothing to offer him now, and I don’t seem destined for any great position.”
“Well, it’s hard to express, but that action was both extraordinary and fundamental. Just as he risked danger to help you, doesn’t he ordinarily care for his ailing sister? Fortunately, his political nature is connected to compassion for others. Perhaps he also glimpsed what kind of person you might become and cast a very long game indeed.”
I looked somewhat bewildered. I had never given thought to what I might become as I grew. There had been no time for such considerations.
“But even if rooted in compassion, a political person is formidable. If that boy grows and wields his innate political acumen for the Republic he desires…”
Isildor San’s voice lowered.
“The Holy Kingdom Anomarad might gain itself a worthy adversary.”
I suddenly reached inside my cloak and grasped the hilt of the Winterer.
I had strived, yet lost what was meant to be lost. Only this remained. And it was Langie who had helped me keep it.
I had said I would repay him someday. But we were not bound by friendship—how could I ever repay such a debt?
That was still unknown. The future was.
The sky’s hue was cool, as if to announce that Lemme was a cold land. Even at night, the sky held a deep blue tint. I turned to look back and called to Isildor San, who had stopped to observe the weather.
“Where did you come from, and where are you going?”
Isildor San approached with a smile that existed only in the shape of his lips. He lifted his foot and kicked a stone far into the distance.
“Humans come from the earth and return to the earth, don’t they?”
“I don’t mean it like that. Don’t you have family or a homeland?”
Isildor San made a gesture as if drawing a sword with empty hands, then mimed pulling the bowstring. His profile spoke.
“The moon.”
Whoosh—a blade that did not exist carved through empty air, singing with the sound of wind.
“The home of the heart.”

Whenever I gazed into a campfire, ancient stories would surface in my mind.
I was thinking of the fire my Elder Brother had once kindled, a fire I could never manage to light no matter how I tried. When that flame died, the world turned bitterly cold.
“There are people who revere and serve the moon as their mother. They gathered their sparse numbers and formed a settlement, elected priests, and live atoning for the calamities of old. Within their lives, the blade and song have become so intertwined that they are now one. Forgiveness and vengeance, gentleness and cruelty—a forgotten civilization where opposites share the same name. Take up this blade.”
Isildor San drew a short sword and drove it into the ground.
“As if it could kill a life and liberate it in the same moment.”
It was a night thick with mist. Even the campfire seemed damp.
At the forest’s edge lay a modest lake. As the land of Lemme grew cold, so too did the lake’s waters—bone-chilling and crystalline. We had washed our faces in it and were exchanging a few words before sleep.
“Is that civilization your homeland? Where is it located?”
“Do you wish to see it?”
Isildor San’s expression did not seem entirely pleased. There was a conflict of emotions—a desire to show me such a place, yet simultaneously a doubt as to what purpose it would serve, a hesitation that hung unresolved.
“It’s not that exactly… but since it’s where you were born and raised, I’m curious. You possess not only excellent swordsmanship but many strange abilities. I probably couldn’t learn them, but…”
“Do you wish to learn?”
“…”
Isildor San rose and gestured for me to follow.
We made our way to the lakeside. As we moved away from the campfire, the darkness became so complete that even shadows were invisible.
Standing side by side at the water’s edge, Isildor San placed a hand within his garments and gripped something tightly.
“What you will see, even I do not know. It depends on what you wish to see, though you yourself may not know what that is…”
When Isildor San withdrew his hand, an object familiar to me was revealed.
A short sword with a crescent-moon-shaped hole pierced through its blade, inscribed with strange characters. The one I had taken in place of Winterer.
Isildor San knelt down.
Black water surged and lapped against his robes, soaking the hem. As I looked down, the short sword sank into the water. Then golden ripples began to form and spread outward.
It was as if a key had been turned, opening a door to a world of light.
The golden waves eventually settled upon the surface like a mirror, perfectly circular. At first there was only light. But soon an image began to emerge.
“This is…”
Isildor San had not used magic. The power belonged entirely to the moon-marked short sword.
“A blade that sends the heart back to its homeland, so to speak. It is called Lunette. Lunette will know what you wish to see. Look closely.”
First, a towering mountain peak appeared.
Beneath the sloping rise of the mountain lay a lake, and a flower-filled valley where summer insects sang spread across its slopes.
Beyond wildflowers scattered across the hills, shallow-roofed dwellings hidden along the ridgeline came into view.
The image flowed like water. Seven tall stones appeared, arranged in a circle upon a grassland. Unknown patterns were carved into the stone surfaces, and upon a flat stone placed at the center like a pillow, something was also inscribed. Perhaps they were runes of ancient magic unknown to me.
Was it a peaceful refuge? No people were visible, yet did they live in happiness? Did mysterious magic lost from the Continent still live there, and did forgotten tales of antiquity still whisper in that place?
Isildor San spoke without lifting his gaze.
“It is a place requiring a long journey. Those who do not know the way cannot find it even by chance—it lies beyond treacherous seas that are difficult to cross alive without the aid of curse-songs. The people of the Continent know nothing of their existence, and they themselves wish not to be known. They have lived with a history long severed since the calamities of old.”
“But you came from there, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I will return there again.”
After a moment, Isildor San spoke.
“It is not a place as beautiful as it appears.”
Boris gazed quietly at the image in the water and spoke.
“It seems like a quiet place.”
Had Boris’s longing for such a place somehow conjured this very landscape?
The image rippled like a golden tapestry with each undulation of the water. Whether sound failed to transmit or not, it appeared endlessly serene.
Beyond the mountains, beyond the Unnamed Village, until a solitary house perched at the edge of a high Cliff came into view—I remained entranced by this strange tranquility, gazing into the water.
“….”
Isildor San, who seemed about to speak, suddenly fell silent. A fleeting shadow of a person had crossed his vision. Moments later, I saw it clearly as well.
It was a woman. Over a flax-colored skirt with a wide band, she wore a loose sweater that left her waist slightly exposed, and a rough, green woolen outer garment.
The woman opened the lid of a jar placed beside the house and peered inside. Soon after, she closed it and descended into the Grassland.
Her short golden hair, cut high and neat, glistened wetly in the moonlight. The smooth curve of her exposed ear was striking. I had never before seen a woman with hair so short that both ears were revealed in this manner.
Kneeling on the sloped Grassland, she rested her chin on one raised arm and gazed toward the dark Forest. A pale ankle slipped from beneath her skirt hem, then stopped. Around the ankle hung a delicate bracelet woven from small gemstones strung on fine cord.
Was she a girl, or an adult?
Between sixteen and twenty-one, her features held an ambiguous quality that defied precise age. Her profile, sharp as a blade’s edge, was cold, yet beneath it lay an inexplicable melancholy.
It was an unfamiliar beauty—a beauty that seemed inhuman, all the more yearned for in its distance.
Suddenly, the chirping of a night bird reached my ears. Of course, it came not from the world within the image, but from a real bird flying about the Lakeside.
Yet remarkably, in that same moment, a white bird flew toward the woman as well.
The bird alighted on the tip of her extended hand and bobbed its head as if speaking. As the woman parted her lips to tell a silent tale, I observed her hand.
It was not the soft, delicate hand of a gently raised girl like Rosnis. It was a strong hand, with firm joints and pale veins standing prominent between them.
Isildor San’s voice reached me.
“You’re doing well, Isolet.”

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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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