Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 65

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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 65.
The Island of the Survivors (7)

It was truly the island’s name.
At dawn, only jagged rocky cliffs were visible. Then, as the tide receded, a coastline stretching hundreds of meters emerged.
The upper portion of the island consisted solely of sharp rocks, making it impossible for any vessel to dock without the sandy beach that appeared only at low tide. For this reason, the Pilgrims had named it Ebb Tide Island.
These characteristics of Ebb Tide Island created distinct advantages and disadvantages.
First, during high tide, even a close approach made it difficult to recognize the island as a place where one could land. It appeared merely as a large reef.
Therefore, it served ideally as a secret passage.
Conversely, even after mooring a vessel when the tide receded, the time one could remain on the island was brief. Should one linger until the coastline vanished, the ship anchored on the beach would either sink or drift away.
As the boat slid toward the island, the boundary between night and morning spread across the entire sky. Fragments of clouds scattered and flowed beyond the dark, rocky island.
Overhead, a strange sky unfolded. Blue and crimson and black, every shade of violet cloud stretched across it. Through the gaps, draped like the five fingers of a god, twilight light wove itself.
A hand was just about to draw back the curtain. Beyond the curtain lay day; within it, the world of night.
Boris gazed at the sky for a long time. Ebb Tide Island—a meeting to be remembered for years to come.
Upon reaching the shore, I saw that a ship was already moored there. It must have arrived after the tide began to recede. My heart pounded.
Reaching shallow water, the three of us leaped from the boat and waded ashore.
While Dansen chose a protruding rock to secure the boat, Isildor San looked around the island as though seeing it anew.
In truth, the scenery was unremarkable. This was inevitable, for the place submerged during high tide, leaving the surroundings cluttered with seaweed, shells, marine worms, and hermit crabs.
Yet to Boris, everything was wondrous. He had never played on a beach with receded waters before. For one still a boy, such a place brimmed with fascination.
Unfortunately, Isildor San did not allow Boris to linger on the beach.
They climbed directly up the jagged rocky mountain. Soon we reached a point that would not be submerged by the sea.
Upon drawing closer, I realized that what appeared at first glance to be an ordinary rocky mountain was in fact a natural fortress. Within it, stairs existed.
Halfway up the fortress, an entrance fitted with a sturdy iron door came into view. Instead of a handle, the door bore an elliptical groove.
Isildor San placed his palm there and murmured something softly. With a metallic click, the door swung open, and we stepped inside. It was a door that opened and locked by magic.
Boris asked.
“What about Dansen?”
“He’ll wait on the beach.”
“Isn’t he coming with us?”
“Not everyone can enter such a place.”
Following the damp corridor, which occasionally seemed to submerge underwater, Boris tilted his head in confusion.
Isildor San and Dansen appeared intimate as brothers, so why could Dansen not go where Isildor San went?
Yet that matter was merely the first hint of the strange life I would experience on the island.
The interior passage was not smoothly finished either. The rough floor and walls, the ceiling—all bore large and small holes through which light seeped. I wondered if small creatures might freely come and go.
The morning sunlight stretching forth stained various spots white with light. On the walls, unfamiliar seashells and dead starfish lay embedded as naturally as though they had always been there.
The passage led to the summit of the fortress.
As we climbed higher, the surroundings grew brighter. At some point, Boris was startled to see there was no ceiling above his head. A cool breeze brushed against his hair.
“Look,” he said.
Upon stepping onto the final stair, I emerged at the very peak. The summit spanned roughly twenty paces in all directions, and the ground sloped slightly. Seven elongated stones stood in a circle around the perimeter.
Gazing all around, nothing but steep slopes too sheer for any person to climb met my eyes. Such slopes extended all the way to the beach. Overhead was only empty space where sky and sea met.
My breath opened wide, and simultaneously, it was stolen away.
If there is something so small you fear losing it, there is also something so vast you struggle to hold it.
Beyond that overwhelmingly broad and deep curve, I felt nothing else.
As if surveying the entire world from above, as if that world had never contained anything from the beginning, the sky was a void where there was nothing to give, nothing to lose, nothing seen or unseen. It was an abyss.
“There is the ship we came on. If we launch another boat from there….”
Isildor San’s hand stretched toward the northeast.
“That is the direction. The path ships take when heading to the Island.”
Right now there was nothing there. Neither they nor any unknown visitor had launched a boat.
But if a boat were to set out, that coastline was relatively close—close enough that one might recognize the face of someone standing at the bow. Certainly, this open vantage point was optimal for spotting any vessel approaching the Island.
While Boris’s eyes traced the empty waters, a voice came from behind.
“No, who is this? Have you truly returned?”
Isildor San turned, and Boris turned as well. At that moment, wind swept through, scattering the long hair of both men.
With identical movements, they brushed the hair from their faces and looked at each other.
“Hirassei!”
Isildor San embraced the unfamiliar man’s shoulders. Boris, leaning on a stone pillar, watched the two men’s hair flutter in the wind. It was a similar shade of brown.
“Has it been three years, or four? You said you came to Lugran last year, didn’t you? At that time, I was in Hyacan meeting with Darumachi.”
“I….”
The man called Hirassei turned to look at Boris.
“Who are you again? Since I’m assigned duties outside the Island, I’m ashamed to say your face escapes me. Do you perhaps remember seeing me when you were young?”
Boris, flustered, responded without thinking.
“Ah, no….”
“Well then, we’re even. My memory has gotten so poor I can’t recognize the children of the Pilgrims—that’s serious. Unless you’ve grown unusually different since childhood.”
His manner was quite familiar, yet his embarrassment at not recognizing Boris was evident. Boris, uncertain what to say, hesitated and looked toward Isildor San.
“By the way, what is your name? And your mother?”
The conversation had progressed so rapidly that Isildor San seemed momentarily caught off guard. But once he collected himself, he cut off Hirassei’s words.
“This child is not one of the Pilgrims.”
“What?”
It was more than mere surprise. His expression shifted to something closer to anger, with bewilderment beneath it. Hirassei’s words faltered.
“W-wait, not a child of the Island? Then who? And why are you here? Did you bring him?”
Boris watched Hirassei’s face transform and instinctively stepped back half a pace, seized by an ominous premonition.
He had not known who this man was before, and he still did not know now—yet his demeanor had changed completely. From unconditionally friendly to unconditionally hostile.
All because of a single phrase: not one of the Pilgrims.
“Explain yourself!”
“He is a child aspiring to become a Pilgrim.”
Hirassei’s face changed a third time. Hostility gave way to confusion.
“This… this is… I, I have been… ah, no. Never mind. Hah, this is….”
Yet his gaze upon Boris did not soften. Hirassei turned to Isildor San, pressing him as if making a vow.
“I’ll take your word for it, but this is certain fact, yes? Who is the witness?”
Isildor San offered a weary smile.
“Dansen, the white-haired Origin Bearer.”
“Hmm, hmmm…. If this is not the truth, then what will happen is….”
Isildor San cut him off decisively.
“I’m not so lacking in discernment as to bring outsiders aboard without reason. Even if I happened to rescue someone from the sea, surely everyone knows one cannot simply bring them back alive?”
Boris listened to the exchange between them with wide eyes.
He was no longer anxious. Instead, he felt acutely aware that he had arrived in a strange place.
Until now, he had traveled from Trabaches to Anomarad, and then to Lemme, but they were all within the same continent—nations that acknowledged each other’s existence.
But the Island was different.
Boris was heading to a place that thoroughly opposed outsiders, asking to be accepted. He had known this all along, but only now did he truly feel it.
The Island would not welcome him.

The soil was wet.
It was the first thing Boris felt when he set foot on the Island. It was damp, like freshly thawed earth.
While Isildor San and Dansen secured the boat, Boris recalled the moment when the Four Islands of Pilgrims had emerged quietly on the horizon.
The islands had not appeared suddenly. Like the sun beginning with a golden ribbon and circling the horizon before rising fully, everything revealed itself gradually—from the highest peak to the gentle coastline.
Boris did not take his eyes away as the elongated silhouette grew larger and finally filled his entire field of vision.
Memory Island had only one designated landing point: the Southern Dock. There were no large ships there—only small sailing vessels similar to the one they had arrived in.
Three men wearing black mufflers stood at the dock and approached.
They quietly congratulated Isildor San and Dansen on their return, then demanded an explanation regarding Boris.
After Isildor San spoke a few words, they regarded the boy with eyes full of surprise and wariness.
There was not the slightest hint of welcome. They did not even offer empty pleasantries.
“We shall report this to the Priest of the Staff.”
“It is quite a rare occurrence.”
Isildor San shrugged and smiled.
“It is not something one could not witness in a lifetime.”
But the other man replied coldly.
“It is something only you would do, Nauplion.”
Boris looked at Isildor San beside him upon hearing the unfamiliar name. The one called Nauplion laughed with an expression that seemed to ask, “Surprised?”
“You heard?”
“That’s another name of yours?”
The moment Boris spoke, the men in black mufflers who had been about to lead the way all flinched and turned around simultaneously.
Not knowing what mistake he had made, Boris was flustered and merely raised his eyebrows slightly.
They did not point out his error. They simply turned away with an attitude that suggested it was not worth mentioning. Dansen spoke quietly as he stepped onto the shore.
“Your brother holds a noble position in this place. It might be wise to choose your words more carefully.”
Dansen said he would meet the Priest of the Staff first and hurried after the man in the black muffler with quick strides.
Boris and Nauplion slowly left the dock with the others.
Boris thought the landscape here resembled Ebb Tide Island. Nature had been tended to minimally; the rest remained wild and untouched.
Between the trees, a dirt path appeared with sparse grass sprouting through it. The path led into a great Forest.
The Forest seemed very deep—until one entered it. The moment Boris felt he had stepped inside, the trees suddenly thinned, and a vast plateau spread before his eyes.
Had Boris turned back then, he would have seen thousands of densely packed trees and white sailing vessels floating like toys upon the sea.
For some time afterward, Boris remained unaware of this secret, but the path he had crossed in merely a few steps was in fact an extraordinarily great distance.

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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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