Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 615

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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 67.
The Velvet Invitation (28)
Langie was just reaching toward the box when a dog’s bark suddenly pierced the air.
Woof! Woof woof!
Snori came charging through the chapel’s vast ceiling with sharp, echoing barks, leaping between Langie and the box.
Snori seemed intent on separating Langie from the box, but as the dog’s weight pushed against him, Langie’s body tilted backward and he fell. The moment he instinctively braced his left hand against the floor to catch himself, his face contorted as though pierced by a blade. His eyes clenched shut and his teeth gritted involuntarily.
He had never been able to use his left hand. Thanks to the glove Professor Ostley had crafted, he could manage operations that didn’t require great force, but he was unprepared for sudden impact.
“Hgh….”
As I finally opened my eyes, a faint black spot appeared on the wall beyond the box. It hung there like an impossibly surreal painting. As I glared at it with a grimace, the spot grew larger, darker, gaining thickness and texture. Then grayish smoke began to seep out, stretching toward the box.
“Get away. Now.”
I pushed the dog aside and slowly dragged myself upright. My eyes still struggled to open properly, and my left arm trembled uncontrollably. I stood straight, my left arm hanging limp like a broken puppet’s. Then I gathered my thoughts. My right hand was intact. So was my mind. I forced strength into my eyes and lips, crafting an expression of clarity.
My judgment returned swiftly. It was a painful truth to admit, but from those few moments when I’d teetered on the edge of losing my humanity, I’d developed the ability to grasp the core of any situation with crystalline clarity—the worse the circumstances, the sharper my focus became.
To protect one essential thing, everything else must be abandoned without hesitation. When that thought surfaced, all else appeared as gray stone. Even myself.
Whatever that black spot was, it was attempting to breach Professor Leomentiis’s formidable protective magic. I didn’t know how it was possible. There was no way to find out. No way to stop it.
Then the only thing I could do was strike the protective magic with force, sending a signal to its caster. A spell left active by a mage remains weakly or strongly connected to the mage’s consciousness.
I placed the cyan box in my back pocket, drew out the iron ruler from my belt, and slowly stepped backward. Using the ruler, I suspended the box in midair and hurled it forcefully against the wall.
Crash!
Whether because it was already cracked or from the impact of the protective magic, the box shattered as if it had exploded. The objects inside scattered like hail, rolling across the floor.
I made the subjective judgment that none of the items I’d seen in the box were truly important. Professor Ostley’s beloved collection of screws and nuts was scattered about, but it couldn’t be helped—he’d understand. If he didn’t… well, there was nothing for it.
Simultaneously, vibrations rippled through the protective magic that blanketed the entire Rabbit Burrow like a net. The whole structure rang like a hollow tube for a moment. Was this enough? There was no way to know.
Since I didn’t know, doing it once more seemed wise.
I selected another nearby box at random. Whether it contained someone’s precious possessions was irrelevant compared to this breach of the protective magic.
When I destroyed a second box by hurling it, the noise began again. At first it pressed forward faintly, then swelled like a downpour, drumming against my ears. But this time I didn’t panic—I listened carefully to determine if the noise was coming from the black spot. My suspicion was correct.
The seeping black smoke spread low over the scattered debris, as if searching for something. If there was something to find, it would be this. I reached back and grasped the box. Then I suddenly remembered what was inside.
Maximian’s pistol. The one with the chocolate syrup drizzled on it… though it wasn’t actually chocolate.
The absurd conversation from that day surfaced, and a fragment of my humanity returned, scattering my focus. It felt like gravity returning to my transparent shadow self. In that moment, the pain in my arm had nearly vanished. I moved my hand slightly.
The noise faded again. Instead, clicking and tapping sounds erupted from various places—from boxes everywhere. Countless objects rattled as if someone were shaking them. Would something explode like this?
I retreated toward the center of the chapel when I suddenly saw the black smoke. What had been spread across the floor was gathering, rising upward. It grew taller than I was. Yet it had no form or outline—merely a mass. And yet it didn’t feel like mere matter; it felt like a conscious being.
If that thing was indeed after the pistol in this box, it would come toward me.
The noise surged again, louder than before, pressing in from all sides. As if surrounded by snakes, as if trapped in a serpent’s den, I was engulfed in noise. I stood holding the box, staring at the smoke.
The fear I should naturally feel as a human malfunctioned like a broken gun. I simply thought without expression: if that thing kills me, what’s the best I can do before it does?
It was then that a better method occurred to me than signaling the professors by touching the protective magic.
I stepped backward to the position I wanted—where the diamond-shaped pattern still faintly remained. From there, I looked toward the round window and gauged the distance. In the wall niche below the window, four levers made of crystal glass were clearly visible.
Mercury was contained within the glass. Normally, mercury wouldn’t be used for items that must be handled by hand due to danger, but given the urgency now, and trusting that the professors and assistants would exercise sufficient caution, they must have used such materials. Mercury was naturally a substance that held magical power exceptionally well.
I knew the purpose of all four levers well. The first was security, the second light adjustment, the third temperature control, and the fourth….
Before taking action, I needed to test it. I drew the iron ruler from my belt and concentrated, pointing it at the levers.
Applying too much force would break the lever and spill the mercury. Conversely, the lever itself was quite heavy and wouldn’t budge with just one or two fingers. Therefore, I needed to press it lightly, as when setting the box on the floor, but with firm, decisive force.
“….”
Finally, I saw the third lever I’d targeted click downward. As I exhaled a low breath, Snori suddenly bounded out toward something.
Woof!
While Langie concentrated on the lever, the black smoke had already crept within a few paces of him, then swelled upward to touch the ceiling. I thought the dog wouldn’t be able to hold back the smoke, but I was wrong. It was a tangible form masquerading as vapor.
When Snori, the wolf-dog, charged and shoved, most people would be knocked off their feet. Yet this thing merely staggered backward before coiling around Snori’s neck and squeezing. I watched the suspended dog thrash helplessly in the air.
“….”
Langie’s brow furrowed with tension. I had never harbored passionate affection for this dog. Snori was certainly a fine animal, but painful childhood memories made it difficult for me to love dogs. Yet the baseness of tormenting a beast was something I could not abide.
Then it turned its formless body toward me. I felt its attention despite the absence of shape. A nonexistent face gazed upon me. Nonexistent eyes burned with fire. Nonexistent hands seemed to throttle my throat. A nonexistent voice commanded.
You shall be overwhelmed by fear. Ancient magic shall incinerate the mind of an ordinary human.
But this entity had chosen its opponent poorly. The current Langie was virtually incapable of feeling fear. And I had always possessed a disposition toward the supernatural that resembled an anatomist’s clinical gaze.
To me, the human world was infinitely a greater mystery than magic. An incomprehensible entity is merely something not yet fully interpreted. If I continue to understand it, why should I fear the unknown?
Langie gazed at the smoke with composure, then held out a teal box gripped in his left hand.
“Do you want this?”
Then I hurled the box toward the diamond-shaped mark. I watched the black smoke release Snori as if throwing him aside, then surge toward me like a small dark cloud. The moment the smoke engulfed the box, I extended the iron rod held in my right hand toward the lever. Slowly… I pressed down.
The fourth lever plunged downward. Simultaneously, both the black smoke and the box vanished from that spot.
Langie dropped the iron rod and rushed to Snori, kneeling beside him. I examined the dog’s face and placed my hand at his neck to check his pulse. He was alive. Though breathing heavily, he was unharmed. As a sigh of relief escaped me, the hypnotic tension finally shattered.
I smiled with an awkward expression, as though enduring pain, and spoke.
“You’re all right. It’s over now.”
Then I unfastened the buckle of the glove on my left hand and withdrew the pistol wedged in the gap. While the black smoke held Snori, I had extracted it from the box and concealed it within the glove on my left hand.
The glove’s properties, identical to the mana-shielding box, helped conceal the pistol’s existence. Still, to be absolutely certain, I threw the box with my left hand to maintain the deception until the end. It was a perilously reckless gamble, but would I meekly surrender this object when that entity had breached even the security magic to pursue it?
Soon, having regained his composure, Langie inserted his finger into the pistol’s trigger guard and murmured.
“It appears to be a 200,000 Elso model.”
The fourth lever was a teleportation device that sent whatever or whoever stood at that location directly to the Purification Chamber within Nenyaple. And the Purification Chamber was essentially no different from a sealed vault. At this moment, everyone had gone to Symbolion’s conference, so there was no possibility of anyone remaining there to suffer an accident.
Even if that entity escaped the Purification Chamber itself, Nenyaple too was now a vast prison. Nothing could leave Nenyaple before purification was complete. And the Professors would immediately sense the appearance of some foreign force within Nenyaple.
Snori regained some strength and licked Langie’s hand. I stroked the dog’s neck in return. But as the excitement faded, my entire body began to tremble strangely. I was cold all over. It was as though my body had belatedly recognized fear, and panic had come calling.
But upon reflection, there was nothing strange about it. I had lowered the temperature control lever.

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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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