Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 92

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 92.
Blood That Won’t Fade (5)
A subtle luminescence flowed from the stone sphere. An image seemed to flicker at the edge of consciousness, neither fully appearing nor fading away.
Daphnen, who had fallen back asleep, eventually awoke and gazed into the spheres once more, just as before. The moon outside the cave had tilted and vanished from sight.
Ever since glimpsing his younger self within one of the spheres, I had been searching through them one by one, hoping to uncover old memories that might yet surface.
Endymion had told me that these spheres contained memories and imaginings stored within Daphnen’s soul, and that they could also grant prophetic dreams of the future.
Daphnen had no curiosity about the future. There was only one thing I sought—Yefnen’s face.
I had seen it often enough in dreams. But dreams slip away; no matter how hard one tries, only fragments remain. Yet images seen with open eyes were different.
How wonderful it would be to see Yefnen smiling in reality, not in a dream. Even if it were merely an image, if only I could see it.
If these spheres truly reflected my soul, I could not imagine that Yefnen’s image would not be contained within them.

“What do you desire so intensely?”

Endymion had been sitting beside me for some time, yet I hadn’t noticed. Only when I heard his voice did I start and pull away.
Clear laughter rang in my ears.
“Still so easily startled.”
“Of course. I’m human, and you’re a ghost.”
Even with such words, Endymion showed no anger. Instead, he gazed quietly at the sphere I held and spoke.
“You desire something desperately. Shall I help you?”
There was no need for hesitation. I nodded immediately.
“Help me. You said my memories would be reflected in these spheres, didn’t you? I want to see my dead brother’s face. Show me.”

“You want me to show you a dead person?”

Endymion tilted his head. His translucent hair slipped across one shoulder.
“You fear me when you see me. If a dead person spoke to you, even someone you were once close to, you would surely be frightened.”
“I’m not saying I want to meet the ghost of a dead person. I mean what’s inside this sphere—”
I stopped mid-sentence. I drew a deep breath and opened my eyes wide.
“That means… you… are you saying I could meet my brother’s ghost?”
Endymion raised his eyebrows slightly.
“I am a spirit who has been dead for hundreds of years. Yet here I stand before your eyes. Your brother has been dead for only a few years—there is no reason you cannot meet him.”

Daphnen’s face seemed to contort and simultaneously relax, as though tears and laughter were about to burst forth at once.
Without thinking, I reached out to grasp Endymion’s hand, only to clutch at empty air.
“Please… let me meet him!”
Endymion shook his head.
「It would be better if you didn’t.」
“No, I don’t care what happens! I’m not afraid! As long as my brother is well….”
The rest tumbled out as a habit from when my brother was alive. Yet the moment I spoke those words, doubt crept in.
“What if… something terrible happens to my brother if I meet his soul?”
Endymion shook his head again and spoke.
「That won’t happen. But there’s a far greater problem. You said your brother died not long ago, didn’t you? I died so very long ago that the suffering and resentment I felt in life have mostly faded and become clear. That’s why I feel no particular desire when meeting a living person like you. But recently deceased souls are different.」
To Daphnen, it didn’t seem recent at all, but perhaps in the world of spirits, time moved differently. Endymion continued.
「They cling to the emotions they felt at death—chaotic and even amplified of their own accord. And if they learn how to communicate with the living…」

Endymion paused, hesitating slightly. Daphnen couldn’t bear the suspense and pressed him.
“What happens? Do they become violent… lose control?”
「Worse than that. They will exert all their strength to expel the living soul and seize the body.」
“….”
I fell silent, yet a tempest of emotions churned within my mind.
A desperate longing to meet my brother no matter what, yet simultaneously a primal fear of encountering the dead; the memory that my brother had not been at peace when he died; and overwhelming all of that, an emotion I could not easily overcome….
It was the anguished mixture of affection and selfishness—the dread of seeing my brother transformed into something grotesque. Each time the thought surfaced, it carved into my heart with excruciating pain.
Endymion waited for Daphnen to compose himself before speaking.

「The people of the outer world are calling you now. It may be your only chance. It would be wise to answer. That’s why I came to tell you.」

“They’re… calling me?”
Drip, drip, drip—the sound of falling water suddenly pierced through my hearing. It felt as though time, which had been suspended, was beginning to flow again.

「Yes. I’ve searched for many ways to help you, but it seems difficult without informing the ‘elder spirits.’ However, as I said, if they learn of this matter, I don’t think they’ll let you go easily. But I do know how to answer a call from the outside world. Will you go?」
The final question carried a subtle nuance that touched my heart. Will you go? Of course….
But would a happy life await me if I returned? Perhaps this hermit’s cave I had yearned for so long was not unlike the world I would return to?
“The world of the dead is far more peaceful than I imagined. I never knew such a place existed. Have you all lived here quietly for hundreds of years? Unaffected by the affairs of life, uninvolved in the world of the living?”
Endymion answered as though he had seen through my thoughts.
「It’s far more tedious than you think. How bored must we be to observe you living beings and record their deaths upon the Obelisk?」
With that, Endymion reached out and lightly touched the sphere I was holding. Suddenly, a brilliantly blinding light poured forth from it.

「Go now. Even if you wished it, you cannot live here. Because you possess a body. To endure in our world of spirits with that flesh, you would have no choice but to lie in this cave and sleep eternally. In the embrace of an eternal night beneath an eternal moon, sleeping an endless sleep that brings no comfort even in dreams.」
Endymion, the master of this cave, rose and swept his hand through the air. A fissure appeared as though the very space itself had been split asunder.
Through that gap, a rosy light and warm wind seeped in—a world entirely different from this place, which was filled with blue mist.

「That warm and bright place is the world you lived in. You’ll go there soon. Just wait a little longer.」
“Wait! Then we’ll never see each other again?”
Regret seized Daphnen. He watched Endymion’s form blur and gradually scatter like droplets of water.
A trace of that final voice lingered at the edge of his hearing—incomplete, unfinished.
「Perhaps we will meet again….」
Before he could contemplate what came next, the light flowing from the orb transformed into waves that engulfed his vision.
It was so bright his eyes could barely open. After rubbing his closed eyes several times and shaking his head, Daphnen suddenly snapped them wide open.
“Ah….”
Before him stretched an endless Meadow.
It was nowhere within The Island. The familiar dance of needle grass, the distant horizon, the hazy sky and parched earth—there was only one place so desolate yet so stirring to the heart….
The boy stood with wide eyes. Even as he recognized what he was seeing, he could not believe it. Why am I here?
Ah… was I merely dreaming? Were those grueling years of travel nothing but a terrible nightmare?
All the sins and doubts I had to commit, losing everything and clinging to this one body…. That defiled self had no place here.
This Meadow was his homeland, the place where he had left behind his innocent heart, running and rolling with his beloved Elder Brother….
His trembling hand grasped a single grass seed, then released it. The ripened seeds tumbled through his fingers, and yellow dust scattered into the air.
It was late summer.
In Trabaches, it was the season when cool winds began to blow. Red shadows cast by the sun wavered listlessly across the field filled with useless grass.
Tears welled up. They flowed hot and heavy, breaking apart at his chin.
Like a baby taking its first steps, the boy hesitated and moved forward. He felt the warmth of the earth. His hands, as always, parted the long grass blades before him.
He had never left this place. Now that he had awakened from a brief nightmare, the person who would comfort him would be here as always….
Boris!
The boy turned around. He hurried and looked about in all directions, searching for the source of the voice he had heard. Like a child unable to bear missing his mother after sleeping for half a day, there was someone he longed to see so desperately.
The person who came to find the boy who had suffered a bad dream was right there.
“Ah…!”
Whether it was an exclamation or a cry, the boy did not know as he rushed forward nearly stumbling. He pushed through the grass that obscured his vision with both arms, running so that the other would not fail to see him.
With the sun at his back, a figure cast a long, familiar shadow and was gesturing. Eyes of a pale blue that resembled the sky….
Ah, had we truly been apart for years, or was it merely half a day?
“Elder Brother!”
Come on! It’s almost time for dinner!
With smiles and tears all tangled together, the boy ran forward. His Elder Brother seemed slightly younger. He was a bit shorter, and his face was more youthful.
Yet the smile and the light in his eyes that he loved remained unchanged. His brown hair fluttered in the evening breeze.
He came to a stop.
“Elder Brother….”
The boy suddenly felt afraid as he faced his Elder Brother. His Elder Brother’s height was no different from his own. Surely he had been so much taller, often reaching out to ruffle his younger brother’s hair.
No, this was not that Elder Brother. He could not have been more than fifteen. Then what about himself?
Let’s go quickly. Father must be waiting.
His Elder Brother made a motion as if lifting a small child into his arms before him. He swung his arms once more and turned away.
Yet there was no one in his Elder Brother’s arms. The seven-year-old boy he should have been was not there.
You’ll catch a cold napping in the Meadow, you little rascal. Will you do it again next time?
The voice grew distant. The boy murmured toward the back of the person he had longed so desperately to see, his voice trembling.
“No… I won’t. But… Elder Brother… my shoulders and back ache from sleeping on the ground….”
Of course they do. Let’s go ask Nanny to massage them for you.
I knew exactly what I should say. Speaking words that no one else would hear, tears streamed down my face once more.
“Yes… because Elder Brother is holding me… it’s warm… it feels good….”
Fifteen-year-old Yefnen continued moving toward that distant place. Beyond my back, Jineman Manor rose into view—an old house with not a single blemish, its exterior walls and roof pristine and unblemished.
My vision blurred.
It was not from tears. The world around me was gradually growing dark.
The withered weeds and distant horizon that had seemed so welcome began to fade. Dusk descended upon the manor. As if night itself were falling, the figure of my Elder Brother walking ahead was sinking into shadow.
The boy’s head snapped up suddenly.
“Elder Brother, Elder Brother, don’t go!”
He began to run again. Calling out at the top of his lungs, he chased after the phantom he could not grasp. But the world around him quickly became pitch black.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————