Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 81

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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 81.
Island of the Survivors (23)

June had arrived.
Dozens of days had passed since our lessons became relatively smooth.
Now I often sought out Isolet even on days I didn’t go to Skoli. One morning in early June, Daphnen skipped his Skoli class and climbed up to the Hillside Meadow—our private classroom. Perhaps the weather was simply too beautiful to resist.
Daphnen was taken aback to find Isolet absent from her usual spot. This meadow had been her playground long before our lessons began. Why would she venture elsewhere on such a fine summer day?
“Isolet?”
After a few steps forward, the familiar rocks where they always sat came into view, and beyond them, the Cliff rose into sight.
He gazed up at the Cliff without thinking. Midway up its face, a flat ledge jutted out abruptly, where grass had begun to grow. Isolet had once mentioned that a spring existed there.
The sunlight, having risen not long before, reflected off the spring in a dazzling brilliance that seemed to shimmer and dance.
No—moments later, Daphnen realized his mistake. What lay there were dozens of white birds.
Was this a dream?
Even from where he stood, he could see their fluttering wings and pristine white plumage. The birds’ bodies seemed to glow with an ethereal radiance. It was beautiful beyond belief.
It felt like a hallucination. They rose with beating wings, then descended, spiraled in circles, hid in the Cliff’s shadow, and returned as though perpetually on the verge of departure.
There was something else there besides the birds. Something that made the birds dance.
As his doubt transformed into certainty, one bird suddenly soared high, then dove toward Daphnen with arrow-like speed.
Daphnen startled and stepped back. But the bird reached his face and hovered in the air, fluttering its wings and extending a golden beak.
A note folded into quarters was held in its beak. He plucked it with his index finger and unfolded it.

Let’s have today’s lesson here.

That was all the note contained. Daphnen held the slip of paper, utterly bewildered, making helpless sounds. Climb up that cliff? Without even showing me the way?
“Do you perhaps know how to get up there?”
I hadn’t expected an answer. A bird couldn’t possibly understand human speech. I’d only asked out of sheer exasperation.
Yet the bird tilted its head. As if nodding—yes, I know.
Uncertain but curious, Daphnen asked again.
“You really know?”
The head bobbed once more. How extraordinary.
“Then show me.”
Suddenly the bird spread its wings and fluttered upward a little. Then it made a gesture clearly visible to Daphnen. In short, it meant this:
No.
“….”
The bird abandoned its perch and soared back up toward the cliff’s summit.
Being mocked even by a bird kindled a quiet anger in Daphnen.
He also assumed that Isolet’s insistence on holding lessons up in such a place stemmed from her reluctance to teach him.
In truth, all the two of them had accomplished by the time June arrived was trivial song practice. Their conversations flowed smoothly enough, but Isolet had never taught him even a single verse—not even half a verse—of the Sacred Chant Tradition.
Moreover, while she’d never once sung her own song all the way through for him, she continued to make him sing and pointed out only his mistakes.
Without a demonstration, there was no way to perform correctly. Even Nauplion, who had despised teaching him back when he was called Walnut at Belnor Estate, had never gone to such lengths.
Yet despite all this… the more time passed, the more suffocating Skoli became, and the more refreshing—no, exhilarating—time spent with Isolet felt.
Isolet was far more straightforward than she appeared. She hid neither her thoughts nor her feelings. If something displeased her, she said so immediately. Even regarding The Island’s customs, she sometimes criticized without hesitation.
At some point, Daphnen had come to enjoy the way Isolet spoke. Listening to her prattle on with stubborn pride like a willful girl made him wonder if he’d lived far too timidly all his life.
Beneath Isolet’s typically cold exterior—as if she dismissed all problems—lay a fierce intensity that would pursue an enemy to the cliff’s edge and shatter them utterly.
Still, should I go up there or not?
Unable to decide, Daphnen examined the cliff’s surroundings, searching for any path that might lead upward.
At first he saw nothing, but upon closer inspection, a low cave entrance appeared in a corner obscured by undergrowth. It was a cave so cramped that one would have to bend nearly double just to squeeze inside.
There was no guarantee this cave led to that place. Yet no matter how capable Isolet was, she couldn’t have crawled up that sheer cliff face.
“Hmm….”
In the end, I entered. Half defiance, half curiosity.
The cave’s interior was surprisingly not dark. A few steps in, a passage leading outside became visible.
The path led behind the cliff—to a place absolutely invisible from the Grassland where the two of us spent our time. It was less a cave than a tunnel connecting two entrances.
But when I emerged on the other side, below lay a bottomless chasm.
The path wound precariously around the cliff in spiraling loops. It looked like someone had carved it, but it was narrow and uneven—barely wide enough for one person—with nothing to grip nearby.
Even if one were careful, Daphnen had a problem: Winterer.
The black sword jutted out horizontally from my back, and if the blade caught on the wall or my foot slipped even slightly, I would plummet to my end without question.
Returning to the cave, Daphnen pondered the dilemma, then unbuckled Winterer and retied the belt, securing the sword tightly against my back. I took considerable care to bind it so it wouldn’t fall—if it did, the blade would tumble into the abyss below, into a ravine I could never hope to retrieve it from.
Only then did I attempt the cliff path.
I pressed my body flush against the wall and moved with utmost caution. A glance to the side sent cold sweat cascading down. The path held firm until the cliff’s midpoint.
As I wondered who on earth had carved such a route, the path grew steadily narrower, then simply ended.
“Damn….”
It was difficult even to turn my body, yet there was no path ahead. My eyes, which had been studying my feet, now gazed into the vast emptiness below, and fear seized me.
Why had I come this far? There was absolutely no reason to risk such danger.
It happened then.
A white bird descended from above, hovering in the empty air before me. As Daphnen’s gaze followed it, the bird retreated slightly.
Only then did it become visible to his eyes—something he had missed while walking with his gaze fixed downward.
It was a sight beyond imagination. His mouth fell open of its own accord.
“How could this possibly… exist?”
A boulder was floating in the air.
With nothing to touch it in any direction, it simply hung suspended in the void. His hands trembled so violently he could barely rub his eyes. The sight was eerie, unsettling. It felt as though he had stumbled into a forbidden realm of secret magic where he had no right to tread.
After gathering his wits somewhat, Daphnen observed the boulder more carefully.
Its shape resembled a rounded stone split in half, with a flat top. It spanned roughly three paces across. The distance to the boulder was perhaps ten paces? And it hung slightly higher than where Daphnen stood.
Jumping from here to there was obviously impossible—but wait, who had asked him to go up there in the first place?
Flutter…
Three more birds descended toward Daphnen, tracing small arcs through the air. Now four birds in total, they folded their wings and came to rest as though standing upon something invisible.
Four birds in a line, as if beckoning him to step upon each one and make his way toward the boulder.
Tap.
One bird hopped lightly and shifted sideways by a span. With wings still folded, the other birds moved similarly, swaying left and right. Only then did Daphnen understand.
Though invisible, there were footholds here!
A floating boulder in the air… and invisible stairs?
At this point, the thought that he was being tested burrowed into his mind. An irrational desire not to turn back began to seep through him.
He wanted to solve this problem posed by the arrogant girl testing him, to prove himself through it.
Why was that? He had never been the sort to care about others’ judgments.
Drawing a deep breath, Daphnen boldly stepped into the empty air.
In that moment, he didn’t know what he was thinking. He believed in magic. He believed it would carry him forward.
His foot found purchase.
“…”
Step after step, he climbed. Each invisible stair was solid as stone. Crossing the transparent steps, he finally reached the floating boulder suspended in the void.
There, he tilted his head back and gazed upward. The mysterious shadows cast by sunlight and the continuing magical stairs…
He climbed higher. The birds continued to shift and perch, guiding his ascent. Already entranced by the wonder of it all, Daphnen didn’t question why these birds performed human tasks so expertly. He simply climbed.
He was ascending into the sunlight.
Upon the Cliff, he saw dozens of dancing wings, thousands of feathers. Between the fluttering plumes, light poured down like a blessing. A transparent spring came into view.
And surrounded by all of this, he saw a person.
Two hands raised high as if in prayer, short golden hair gleaming like that of a fairy, flowing sleeves, a neck carved like marble—the most unreal girl stood there.
A white bird that had been perched on the girl’s outstretched hand spread its wings and took flight. Her lifted chin, bathed in light, traced an elegant curve.
Isolet wore a white long skirt he had never seen before. The shimmering breeze wrapped around her hem. The moment she turned her head toward where Daphnen had climbed up…
“Ah…”
What had startled him so?
His foot stepped into empty air. As he stumbled and fell, the stair he had been treading struck him hard, splitting his lip. Though he had walked upon it all this way, he had unconsciously felt its existence as incomplete.
But there was no time to think of such things.
He barely managed to grasp a transparent stone, but in that instant, it tilted precariously. Daphnen lost his grip.
He fell like a small stone.
Without time to feel anything. Not the sharp wind past his ears, nor the fading light, nor even fear of death.
Was it merely an illusion that it seemed to slow?
“Ahhh….”
Daphnen’s body froze like the stones that had been suspended in the air. As if time itself had stopped.
Then he began to rise slowly upward.
The speed was languid. Yet he was unmistakably ascending. Not flying in the traditional sense, but…moving through empty space without grasping or treading upon anything!
A sound pierced through my ears.
It was singing.

La la la la la…

Perhaps because the pronunciation was difficult to discern, the melody that had sounded thus far gradually drew nearer. Soon it transformed into a sacred resonance I had never heard before.

Purla, from the dream of nothingness
Unveil what lies beyond memory

It was Isolet’s voice. The first time I had heard her Sacred Chant Tradition.
A timbre beyond words filled my ears and resonated across the vast ravine. The sound layered and amplified as if thousands sang in unison.
I could not believe such a song emanated from a single human throat. Beauty alone could not capture it. The entire world seemed to pause and listen.

Touch, O feathers of the wind
Spread your harp-like wings

The Isolet’s voice I knew from daily life—that husky tone I had thought somewhat low—transformed into a radiant instrument cradling thousands of natural sounds. The whisper of blooming flowers, the murmur of falling rain, the trembling of forests, the melting of earth.
If magic did not dwell in that voice, then magic would not exist in this world.

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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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