Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 613

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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 62.
The Velvet Invitation (26)
Maximian had always thought he understood men like Benet well enough. The type who insisted deals should be made and fights should be stopped, who wedged themselves into everything, planted themselves firmly, and then gradually started spouting nonsense.
But when Benet held the leather pouch right before his eyes and shook it frantically, and it even made a jingling sound as if it contained money, Maximian found himself instinctively accepting it. After that, his mood only worsened, and he asked curtly.
“What is this?”
“Just open it, will you?”
Benet spoke with an enormous grin spreading across his face. He’d been smiling in an almost comical way from the moment they first met, and somehow he managed to smile even wider. Maximian inserted his fingers into the pouch and pulled out what was caught inside—a bundle of keys.
For a moment, Maximian stared at the keys, but his eyes narrowed and his focus shifted from the keys to the background, to Benet’s smiling face.
“So, what exactly is this?”
“Keys! You don’t have these! You need them!”
“What I don’t have is a lock, not keys! Now get out!”
Maximian tried to push him out, but Benet held his ground. Though he was shorter than Maximian, his round, fleshy shoulders pushed back quite effectively as he shouted.
“No, you’re saying that without a lock you don’t need keys? I thought you were smart, but you can’t even understand simple logic….”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and since I don’t need to know, I don’t want to know….”
“Maximian, wait a moment.”
Espin, who had approached from behind, extended her fingertips and took the keys, then shook them toward Benet and asked.
“So what lock do these keys open?”
“Of course, somewhere locked with a lock. In other words, a place where you can lock the door and sleep comfortably! Do you know what’s happening? Right now, rumors are spreading by the minute that Pleasance’s grandson has returned home! In a little while, I’d bet almost anything that about twenty people will come rushing here!”
Astonishment spread across Maximian’s face. Twenty people?
“What are you talking about? Pleasance himself didn’t return—just his grandson. What kind of idiots would come rushing over during dinner time for that?”
“Well, of course there are all sorts of reasons, but above all, isn’t it because the grandson is rumored to be just as outstanding a detective as his grandfather?”
Benet raised and lowered his eyebrows with a brazen smile, but it was far from enough to ease the situation.
Maximian grabbed Benet by the collar. Benet braced himself. Espin reached between the two of them and closed the open entrance door so they could engage in close combat without interruption.
But looking at Maximian’s angry face, she found it difficult to suppress her laughter. Why were there so many funny things happening today?
“You crazy bastard… You spread that rumor yourself!”
Even as Benet was grabbed by the collar, he wore a cheerful smile and spoke.
“Calm down. I was just trying to help you. So let’s go to a safe new place together. Oh right, and we can have a nice dinner too.
Hey, the rest of you can come along too. There should be plenty of room, right? Of course, I’ve never been inside myself….”
5. The First Intrusion
The forest and plains near Nenyaple, and Heimachi Village, grew quiet once all the Nenyaple students had left. Though this happened every vacation, this break was somewhat different. Not a single Research Student or teaching assistant came to buy snacks or sundries with that half-dead expression.
Of course, the professors remained at the school. But the townspeople rarely encountered the professors even during the semester.
The professors had no shortage of business in the village, but they delegated light errands to the students, and for important matters, they could simply use magic. Whether it was invisibility, flight magic, or teleportation magic, it was all the same in that people would never notice.
Therefore, if a Nenyaple professor didn’t enjoy trivial conversations with people who didn’t know magic, wasn’t sick to death of walking in circles around the beautiful Nenyaple campus, or didn’t have a companion who enjoyed taking walks, there would be no reason for them to be seen by people outside.
Of course, most Nenyaple professors fell into none of these categories. Professors of Nenyaple’s caliber tended to lack the ability to understand everyday matters unrelated to magic. And they possessed the ability to walk in circles within their own chambers while painting entire universes in their minds.
And they didn’t keep dogs. Because they didn’t live long.
“Come on, let’s go. Hurry up. All right?”
But there was one person who fit all of these categories. The professor the townspeople saw most easily: Evangeline Ostley.
Due to the nature of her research, she had much to discuss with the Blacksmith and carpenters. And she kept a large wolf-dog named Snori, whom she walked every day. Moreover, because she had walked the same paths countless times with the dog, she was thoroughly sick of the Nenyaple campus.
Today’s walk took longer than usual. Snori was never an obedient dog to begin with, but today he lingered in all sorts of places. He scratched at frozen mud, butted his head against dead trees, and brought back something half-rotten. He found about a dozen dead birds and mice beneath bushes and in the soil. Before long, it was dusk.
“Why is he acting like this today?”
Professor Ostley was fond of dogs, but she was not the sort of owner who read their hearts with meticulous care. She too was, after all, Professor Nenyaple.
Even as I walked with the dog, my mind sketched an incomplete yet grand and beautiful structure, observing every corner and finding subtle connections within it. Throughout this, the dog continually interrupted my train of thought, yet I harbored no anger toward it. In fact, this pattern of breaking and reconnecting was the very essence of how I thought.
“Hmm? What was that?”
I stirred from my reverie and looked down at Snori. The dog tugged at the hem of my coat, trying to pull me toward somewhere. But I had no desire to take another detour.
“No. We must return. There’s no time left now.”
After soothing and coaxing Snori, I left the village and entered the Forest, arriving at the Research Lab I had recently established. It was a building constructed in the Forest some distance from Nenyaple, what was known as the “Rabbit Burrow.”
Had the villagers seen it, they would not have considered the Rabbit Burrow a building at all. It was a fairly spacious area composed of moss-covered reddish-brown stone walls, a Gallery Corridor, and arched entrances, yet it had no roof anywhere.
In other words, to all appearances it was merely an antiquely dilapidated Ruins. Because the underground space was so expansive, the name “Rabbit Burrow” suited it rather well.
However, the reason the Rabbit Burrow bore that name was because the shape of the Forest in which this building stood resembled a crouching rabbit when viewed from the Nenyaple Academy Dormitory System. The Forest itself, meanwhile, had no particular name and was simply called the “Forest.”
Passing between two alder trees and through the largest arch, there lay a spacious rectangular chamber in the center, surrounded by several smaller compartments. The largest space was called the “Chapel.”
On the tall front wall hung a flower-shaped circular window, half-shattered, and traces of mosaic carving remained on the floor. And though worn by time, there rose long stone formations that might once have served as benches, oriented toward the circular window.
The stones were not moved but part of the floor itself, which gave rise to the suspicion that perhaps the entire Rocky Plateau had been carved away, leaving only the form of benches behind. It was a bewildering task to imagine, and surely such work would have required grave purpose.
The reason one might think that nothing was worshipped here now, but perhaps once was, stemmed from this very observation.
The Rabbit Burrow had always stood in that same form since time immemorial, yet even among students attending Nenyaple, few had ever visited it. Perhaps there was no need to know of it. However, once Nenyaple closed, the professors too found themselves needing space to store their belongings. Their possessions were sometimes quite valuable, sometimes rare, sometimes dangerous—far too precious to be kept in ordinary places like the second floor of an Inn.
So the professors constructed a roof over the Rabbit Burrow and made it a Warehouse. From the outside, there was no change whatsoever, which might suggest a transparent roof, but that was merely a deception for security purposes. Once inside, beneath an ordinary-looking ceiling lay scattered wooden crates brimming with all manner of belongings.
It resembled a scene where moving boxes had been hastily unloaded and left untouched for days due to busyness, but the grandeur of the Ruins lent such an air of dignity that both professors and assistants tactfully overlooked it. There was simply too much work to do to organize the interior deliberately.
The moment I passed the alder tree and the first arch, I called out to my sole research assistant.
“Rosencrantz!”
Langie rose from before the experimental table placed beneath the circular window of the Chapel. He looked exactly as he had when in Nenyaple’s Research Lab, so much so that it felt as though only the background had been swapped in a painting.
Langie circled the experimental table, descended three steps, crossed the Chapel, and came to the entrance. I regarded him with a somewhat displeased expression before speaking.
“So, have you eaten dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Does bread not go down your throat when you’re looking at a person’s face?”
Though his words carried a somewhat sarcastic edge, Langie responded with an unflustered faint smile.
“It seems to be the case.”
I abruptly thrust the leash holding Snori into Langie’s hand and spoke.
“The dog will be better company.”
Langie accepted the leash but looked between it and me as if uncertain what I meant. Then he said:
“It would be difficult to work while caring for a dog.”
“Care for it? I’m telling the dog to care for you.”
“If that is your wish, I shall keep it inside until you return.”
“I’ll be back in about three hours. But surely it would be better if you came along? Look around you. Do you truly wish to be alone in this desolate place?”
Langie glanced around as if out of courtesy, then replied:
“It’s fine.”
I swept my cloak about me and headed back toward the entrance, muttering deliberately loud enough for him to hear.
“Truly, I surrender on all counts.”

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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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