Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 70

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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 70.
The Island of the Survivors (12)
“You said before that sneaking around with a sword is no different from the behavior of an assassin, didn’t you? No one knows who he intended to harm with that blade! We heard this boy came from the Continent. How could he possibly have a good heart when he comes from a place teeming with villains? You’ve always told us never to trust outsiders, haven’t you? I absolutely refuse to trust him! Before he commits something worse, we must either drive him off the Island or punish him severely so he never does such a thing again!”
For his age, Ekion’s eloquence flowed like a river in spring. The Priest of Gwe furrowed his brow and gazed across at the Boy Who Knows Not Himself. The boy stood quietly without offering any defense.
The Priest of Gwe suddenly looked at the ground squirrel Oizis.
“Is what they say true?”
“What? I… I…”
Oizis, rendered speechless, looked at Ekion with bewildered eyes, then back at the Boy Who Knows Not Himself.
Then one of the boys who had just been accusing him turned to look at Oizis and tapped his feet sharply—a silent threat that things would become unpleasant if he spoke otherwise.
Oizis hesitated for a long while before finally speaking.
“So, so… he did hit… h-he… it’s true, but… that was…”
Then Ekion spoke softly.
“Are you still stammering now? I know you’re easily frightened, but if you pretend not to know while our friends suffer injustice, how can we continue to be friends going forward?”
Another boy then raised one foot slightly before stomping it down hard.
Yet another clenched his fist and rubbed it against his open palm.
Oizis trembled as he wrestled with his thoughts. But in the end, he spoke these words.
“Everything Ekion said… is true. He hit us… and he frightened us.”
Ekion turned around as if to say “I told you so” and raised his voice.
“You heard him, didn’t you? As you know, I don’t lie! Just as my Mother doesn’t lie!”
The Boy Who Knows Not Himself heard every word exchanged, yet he did not turn to look again.
Oizis, seized by fear and guilt, kept glancing at the boy even before finishing his words, but the boy did not grant him a single glance.
His expression remained unchanged. Only the corner of his lips twitched slightly. As if he were smiling.
What he was deriding was his own foolishness.
Self-reproach had grown tiresome. How many times was this now? There was no better way to court disaster than to be led by momentary emotion. Why did he keep making the same mistake?
The worst situations that had unfolded whenever he let his guard down had taught him lessons aplenty, yet here he was, making mistakes even in such trivial matters.
He should have known better than anyone that this would happen.
“If what you say is true…”
The Priest of Gwe looked at the Boy Who Knows Not Himself again. Without taking his eyes away, he spoke decisively.
“Then I must indeed impose a punishment equivalent to that of an assassin.”
Oizis gasped in surprise, his breath catching, and he covered his mouth with his hand.
Liriope, who had been pretending to look at the picture drawn on the wall, suddenly turned her head. Shock was plainly written across her face.
The Priest continued. Anger colored his voice.
“When one hears such an accusation, it is natural for anyone to surrender their sword and argue in their own defense, yet you have not offered up the sword you possessed nor begged for forgiveness—this shows you have not reflected at all!”
“…”
The Red-haired Boy, who had been watching from a distance until now, suddenly moved as if to approach, then stopped again.
The Boy Who Knows Not Himself was half-lost in other thoughts and was not even listening carefully to their words. At this moment, what mattered was not the boys’ childish accusations. Such things could go either way for all he cared.
Compared to the likelihood that he would repeat foolish mistakes in the future, false accusations and lies were trivial matters. He did not even feel the desire to clarify the truth.
“Boy Who Knows Not Himself, do you still not understand your crime?”
The Priest of Gwe knew that the boy had yet to be given a name. His voice was markedly different from when he had spoken with Isolet moments before.
The Priest of Gwe upheld the Island’s laws. Therefore, at this moment, his words could become an irreversible judgment. This was precisely why Ekion and the other boys had been so eager to force the Priest to make a swift decision.
At that moment, the Boy Who Knows Not Himself opened his mouth.
“I understand my crime.”
Ekion and the other boys were taken aback by this unexpected answer. The Priest of Gwe raised his eyebrows, then lowered them.
“Then can you defend your actions?”
“I cannot.”
“You cannot?”
The priest’s voice rose involuntarily. In all his years as the Priest of Gwe, this was the first time he’d encountered someone facing severe punishment who refused to mount a defense.
He wondered if the boy simply didn’t understand what punishment awaited him. The priest steadied his voice and spoke with solemn gravity.
“Do you understand what punishment you will receive, and yet you still speak thus?”
“No. I do not.”
“The crime of assassination demands the severing of three fingers—all except the index finger.”
Any ordinary child, even most adults, would have gone pale at such words. Yet the strange boy from the Continent showed no change in expression as he spoke.
“Is this the first gift I shall receive since arriving on the Island?”
The priest was rendered speechless. He understood the boy’s meaning perfectly.
A boy who had only just arrived on the Island could not possibly have known such laws. While ignorance could sometimes be a crime, it could never carry the same weight as a crime committed knowingly.
The Priest of Gwe was a man of rigid principles, but he was also faithful to the justice in his heart. He heard a faint cough from Isolet beside him.
“Then why not defend yourself? Will you accept all the accusations these children have made? Or are there falsehoods in their words? Regardless, since you now understand your actions are problematic, shouldn’t you apologize and correct them?”
“….”
The boy fell silent for a moment. Seizing the opportunity, Ekion cried out.
“He still won’t put down the sword! He must be hiding some wicked intention!”
“Put down the sword at once.”
This time the Priest of Gwe spoke with stern authority. Everyone expected the boy to lower his sword and beg forgiveness—both his enemies and those who might have been sympathetic.
The boy answered with courtesy, yet with unmistakable resolve in his voice.
“I cannot. No, I will not.”
“What did you say?”
“This sword is as vital to me as life itself. Even if you were to sever my neck instead of my fingers.”
The boy’s eyes shifted from grey to blue. They were deep and dark—eyes uncommon in an ordinary youth. When he spoke his final words, there was even a hint of arrogance in them.
“It is not something I will surrender.”
“Insolence!”
The cry came neither from the priest nor from the talkative Ekion, but from the red-haired boy who had remained silent until now, observing the situation unfold.
“Hector!”
When the priest called the name, the boy—Hector—stepped forward. He was truly tall, even taller than the Boy Who Knows Not Himself.
His fierce eyes fixed upon the strange boy. Beneath his crimson hair, his dark brows and sharply defined features made him stand out anywhere.
“Your laws ended on the Continent. Now that you’ve become one of the Island’s people, you must abide by the Island’s laws. Don’t speak so carelessly and presumptuously. To do so is to insult us.”
The Boy Who Knows Not Himself looked at Hector, but soon turned his gaze away. That dismissive attitude infuriated the other boy, yet it was not Hector who grew angry—it was Ekion.
“How dare you! To show such disrespect to our Elder Brother! I cannot forgive this!”
“Be silent!”
The priest said nothing to Hector, who had suddenly interjected, but barked sharply at Ekion. And he also shouted at the Boy Who Knows Not Himself.
“Put down that sword at once! Or whether you knew or not, you will receive your full punishment!”
As voices rose, the situation teetered on the brink of irreversible conflict. One more word from the enraged Priest of Gwe, and the Boy Who Knows Not Himself would receive a judgment from which there was no return.
His judgment was one that even the Regent, the supreme ruler of the Island, could not overturn without compelling reason.
Liriope, who had been standing by the window, was already fidgeting with the urge to leap down. She, more than anyone, understood the scope and limits of the authority wielded by the Priesthood and the Regent.
Then a cold voice cut through the heated air.
“I don’t understand.”
Beneath the exposed pale calves, shoes crafted from thinly tanned flax-colored sheepskin advanced two steps forward. Though sturdy cords were threaded around the ankle area to cinch them tight, they now hung loose and generous.
“Who is it that selects and permits those who may bear a sword on the Island?”
Isolet’s question was directed at the Priest of Gwe, but her gaze rested elsewhere.
The Boy Who Knows Not Himself remained motionless, head bowed. A faint shimmer danced across his bronze-colored hair.
“That would naturally be….”
The answer was one everyone knew. It fell under the purview of the Priest of the Sword among the six Priests. So then?
“Yes. And from what I can see, the Priest of the Sword has already granted permission for that boy’s sword, hasn’t he?”
“What?”
The Priest of Gwe looked around in surprise. Ekion faltered and spoke in astonishment.
“That child only arrived yesterday—there’s no way he could have received such permission….”
Though Ekion was the sort to act recklessly even before the Priests and earn scolding, he chose his words carefully in Isolet’s presence.
Nor was he alone in this. The Priest of Gwe also refrained from hasty speech before her. Rather, he regarded Isolet as if urging her to continue to the end.
“Isn’t the person who brought that boy here the Priest of the Sword himself? If he has not stripped the sword from the boy, then isn’t that itself permission?”
Ekion and the other boys apparently did not know that the person who had brought the Boy Who Knows Not Himself was Nauplion. The boys exchanged glances as if to say “Is that really true?” but none knew for certain.
For some reason, the return of the Priest of the Sword had not yet been officially announced to the Island.
Then Hector opened his mouth.
“No, one cannot simply say that. The Priest of the Sword has been away from the Island for a long time, so he may have momentarily forgotten the Island’s laws. Moreover, there is a difference between tacit approval and formal permission. Looking at how that child entered the Island, he cannot yet be fifteen years old. Naturally, he would not have undergone the purification ritual.”
Hector looked around at the gathered people, and his voice grew firm as he fixed his gaze on Isolet.
“Though the matter of sword-bearing falls under the Priest of the Sword’s jurisdiction, would he truly grant such a decision to a child so easily without consulting the other Priests and even the Regent himself?”
When Hector spoke of “the Regent,” his eyes briefly touched upon Liriope standing by the window.
Before Isolet could answer, a voice rang out from an unexpected place.
“Forgotten the Island’s laws? Who said such a thing? Is it your own thought?”
Tap.
A figure’s shadow leaped down between where the Boy Who Knows Not Himself, Hector, and the Priest of Gwe stood.
Above the Town Hall, a wide loft had been created around the great beam that supported the main structural timbers. It was a place where important ceremonial items were stored.
The person who had just leaped down had been in that very spot. It meant he had heard every word of the conversation thus far.
Nauplion, tossing back his hair as he rose to his feet, shrugged his shoulders and looked first at 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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