Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 80

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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 80.
The Island of the Survivors (22)
“Ah, Daphnen has arrived.”
Zero greeted him without a trace of surprise. It seemed Oizis wasn’t coming today. Daphnen held out a book and spoke.
“It’s the book you gave me before, but the back pages are torn. I wanted to read the rest of this book.”
Zero accepted the book and examined it carefully, then gestured for Daphnen to climb the wooden ladder up with him.
Following Zero up the ladder, an astonishing world unfolded before me.
Cone-shaped, from where the two of us stood to the apex at the cone’s point, the entire wall was lined with tiered bookshelves. Thousands upon thousands of books were crammed into those shelves.
So this tower contained only two rooms—the lower chamber where we first entered and the upper chamber where we now stood. The ceiling of the upper room extended all the way to the tower’s peak.
How did one manage to remove and insert so many books? Upon closer inspection, a wooden staircase just wide enough for two people to walk carefully spiraled up along the wall.
In the gaps between the densely packed shelves were small alcoves where one could crouch and rest, and beside them, windows had been cut through.
I wondered if even the Study at Belnoir Castle contained more books than this. The weighty presence of volumes stacked vertically, visible at a glance, was truly overwhelming.
After a long moment, Daphnen asked this.
“Um… don’t rain and wind come through those windows?”
Upon reflection, it was an odd question, yet I was genuinely concerned.
Zero smiled faintly and pulled a red cord hanging on one side of the room. In that instant, the shutters of every window closed all at once.
“Wow, that’s impressive.”
Daphnen expressed genuine admiration. At the same time, my mood improved somewhat. Such was the power of pure wonder.
The floor of this level was piled with cushions and pillows for comfortable sitting or lying down. Though not particularly clean, Daphnen didn’t mind and sat down on one side.
Zero climbed the stairs and, without hesitation, found exactly the book Daphnen wanted, pulled it out, and came back down. Yet the stairs creaked in places throughout his ascent and descent.
After handing over the book, Zero held another volume, stacked a few cushions, and reclined diagonally on the floor.
It was a practiced posture, as if he did this often. By merely lifting his head, he could contentedly admire his fortress built of books.
But after observing everything carefully, Daphnen couldn’t help but say this.
“But sir, this tower seems rather dangerous. If we’re sitting here and the ground shakes even slightly, we could be crushed to death by falling books. And with a wooden building and paper books, fire could spread easily too.”
Zero sighed and smiled.
“This tower is the crystallization of my dream.”
Zero spoke of how the land where the island’s people once lived had contained a grand Library—tens, or perhaps hundreds of times larger than this tower. This tower was a crude imitation of that structure.
Of course, Zero could never have seen the Library of the Old Kingdom himself. Born into a family that had collected books for generations and devoted to them, he had discovered a book describing the Library’s structure in a pile of unread volumes.
From that moment on, Zero made it his life’s dream to see the great Library with his own eyes once more.
Of course, even with the strength of one person—or hundreds—there was no way to recreate the Library of the Old Kingdom. The beauty, intricate design, and scale of that ancient Library could not be matched by combining every building on the island.
As Zero spoke of these things, his eyes sparkled with the pure passion of a child.
In the end, Zero had accomplished what he could. Half his life had been consumed designing and constructing this small wooden tower, and gathering books scattered across the island to fill it.
He intended to devote the remaining half of his life to making this modest library safer and collecting even more books. Whenever someone ventured to the Continent, he never failed to ask them to bring back books.
“Why wood specifically?”
“The island lacks stone. Nearly all the usable stone on the island was used to build the Town Hall. The Town Hall is a structure we Pilgrims must build for the Moon Queen—there was no choice in the matter. Of course, stones lie scattered on the mountains and cliffs, but we lack the technology to quarry and transport them now. And something like a library… hardly anyone values such things anymore.”
The island had gradually become distant from the Old Kingdom not only geographically and by blood, but also in its spiritual culture.
The culture of the Old Kingdom, which had revered learning, art, and magic above all else, had gradually transformed into one that favored martial prowess—and particularly the sword.
Fields like learning and art require high-level critics capable of objective evaluation and many patrons to flourish, whereas the sword determines victory and defeat as soon as two opponents face each other.
Because the island’s environment was harsh, its population never grew easily. In a small society of barely a thousand people, or at most several thousand at its peak, people’s interests naturally concentrated on matters directly related to livelihood and survival.
Among the children growing up, more than half desired to become strong warriors. With such a trend, the competition among children gathering under the Priest of the Sword had already exceeded all bounds. Balance had long since vanished.
While magic and all other traditions barely clung to existence, those who had been pushed out of the competition for the Priest of the Sword and forced into farming, goat herding, and forest keeping grew increasingly resentful.
Some traditions, like the Sacred Chant Tradition, had been reduced to a single inheritor—Isolet. As for the traditions that had already vanished, there was nothing more to say.
Zero called it regression.
“It’s like discarding a culture we once developed brilliantly and regressing back into savagery. But I lack the power to reverse it. I can only gather books and pass them on to a child or two like Oizis, yet most people will never properly read a single book in their entire lives. With each passing year, it grows worse. By the time you all reach adulthood, we might not even be able to find a single teacher in Scoli to instruct children in history.”
Zero shrugged and continued.
“The mere thought of it terrifies me.”
In any case, after hearing Zero’s story, Daphnen understood why so many children, including Hector, envied and tormented him so intensely.
They despised “Daphnen, the first disciple of the Priest of the Sword” far more than “Daphnen, the strange boy from the Continent.”
According to what Oizis had told him before, Hector had been recognized as the finest swordsman among the Island’s children under twenty.
Daphnen, who had driven even such a Hector to the brink of death—despite the convergence of several fortunate circumstances—was both an object of fear and a source of displeasure for every child.
A boy cherished by the Priest of the Sword, who commanded respect and admiration second only to The Regent on the Island; the first disciple with the highest likelihood of succession; a foreigner from the Continent whom the children despised, so he could claim no friends; and yet he had even received multiple kindnesses from Liriope, called “the Princess Below the Mountain.”
How could every condition have aligned so perfectly?
Hehehehe…
Daphnen rose from his seat with a silent laugh.
Zero asked if he was leaving already, seeming reluctant—as though the conversation they had shared had been enjoyable.
“I’ll come again. May I borrow books to read?”
“Of course. All who read books are my friends. Come visit whenever you wish.”
As I left the Library, I realized that much of what had been unclear to me had become clear and certain. When had the world ever been kind to me?
Never. Not once.
If I was destined to be hated by the very conditions of my existence, then surviving and thriving despite that hatred was my burden to bear. It was not a matter of choice.
Besides, was I not better off than those who hid their true hearts behind masks of kindness?

And so, five days later, Daphnen met Isolet again.
As Daphnen climbed the slope, Isolet, who had been sitting on a rock lost in thought, looked somewhat startled. She watched him in silence until he settled onto the rock across from her.
“I apologize for missing lessons for so long without explanation. I will accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate.”
Isolet suddenly turned her head and let out a soft laugh. Daphnen could not fathom why.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Pffft…”
Isolet continued laughing with similar sounds for quite some time, amused by her own thoughts. When her laughter subsided, she examined Daphnen’s face intently once more. Daphnen spoke.
“You smile quite often, don’t you?”
With his resolve strengthened, Daphnen no longer feared coldness or unkindness. He had climbed here determined to endure whatever distance Isolet maintained and to persist in conversation until she answered him.
But this was not the reaction he had anticipated.
“What do you mean?”
“The truth is…”
Daphnen replied with an honest smile.
“I had been imagining you as a beautiful woman from some terrifying legend.”
Isolet blinked her transparent pink eyes and asked.
“You think I’m terrifying?”
“Ah, no. The terrifying part is the legend, and the beautiful woman is…”
“So what exactly is this beautiful woman from a ‘terrifying legend’?”
“…Terrifying, I suppose.”
The same conclusion had emerged. Yet instead of anger or laughter, Isolet wore a contemplative expression.
“Why didn’t you come all this time?”
“Because I was thinking wrongly. Now that I’ve corrected my mind, it won’t happen again.”
“So you’ll come without fail from now on? Even though you gain nothing from me?”
“No. I am gaining something.”
Daphnen offered a peaceful smile.
“Perhaps I will become someone who can endure silence.”
“…”
Isolet rose without responding and paced back and forth across the Grassland for a moment.
Daphnen found himself gazing at the pale ankles revealed beneath the hem of her trousers, thinking to himself how aesthetically beautiful the curve of an ankle bone truly was.
“You are different.”
It was a murmur. When Daphnen looked up, Isolet spoke to him directly.
“I thought you resembled the Nauplion Priest. That fact troubled me greatly. But you are different somehow. If it were him, he would never patiently endure such trivial displays of silence. He is a person who would break rather than bend. But you seem like someone who may bend many times yet ultimately never breaks.”
It was a statement that crystallized some suspicion. Daphnen spoke.
“You share something with me as well, Isolet.”
“What could that be?”
Daphnen continued, gambling somewhat with his words.
“The way you neither forget your past nor try to forget it.”
It was a bold statement made without knowing what that past was.
Isolet stopped abruptly and turned around. Suddenly, rapid words poured forth, ignoring everything he had said before.
“I won’t be a good teacher. Because I’ve never taught anyone before. And I’m not a kind person either. You can see that from how no one approaches me, can’t you? Can you still get along with me? Are you certain you can?”
Daphnen paused briefly before answering.
“I think I’ll manage quite well.”
“Is that so? Why?”
Like in those days when he was called Boris, Daphnen’s eyes deepened slightly.
“Because I’ve never attempted anything under favorable circumstances until now.”
Isolet tilted her head slightly as she listened to his words, then raised her hand to smooth her white hair.

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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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