Chapter 31: A Class Gate – Painting the dragon, dotting the eyes (4)

My life was strange, destined from birth to be a painter.

Perhaps, like all lives, I just considered myself special. After all, everyone’s life is unique and special to them.

But. I could confidently say I lived a more unique life than most people in the real world.

For starters, nameless people are rare.

“Right. Anything else to say or help with? I think I need to close the Gate, that is, the door, now. For reference… If you don’t say anything, I will kill you. Damage has already been caused because of you.”

The silver-haired beauty with a languid face asked me.

I knew her name well.

Agathe. The observer chosen by the world.

Though she likely didn’t realize it herself, she was the one who defined the boundaries of the world by ‘observing’ the gradually differentiating dimensions. At least, that’s what I heard from the Supreme Emperor.

“A painter… should at least be able to decide the painting they draw. Please help me with my final painting.”

A life decided as a painter. Yet a life unable to live as one.

I wanted to wield this brush as my heart desired. I wanted to pull out the pictures I had always kept only in my heart and show them to people.

It was impossible. I only drew dragons and dotted their eyes, recreating an absurd ancient story. Because I was merely a painter assigned that role.

I could just sink back into the foam of the unconscious and re-emerge through the collective unconscious of reality, but I disliked that. It would change my very foundation.

If I hadn’t been the painter of ‘Hwaryongjeomjeong’, the ancient story about my true origin, and if the Supreme Emperor hadn’t bestowed grace upon me, I likely wouldn’t have even felt anything strange about it.

“Painting. Is that all?”

Her puzzled voice was heard. I smiled bitterly at her words.

A life barely lasting a year. I was born with a fully formed personality, and having lived in the same monotony, even that felt long…

But it was impossible not to have the will to live. That’s just how people are.

However, I had something more important than the desire for life, so I could easily decide what to ask of her.

“A painter… should at least be able to decide the painting they draw. Please help me with my final painting.”

What is a painting?

Based on my shallow knowledge, a painting is a projection of reality composed of dots, lines, and planes.

But for the painter, it seemed slightly different.

“To me, paintings are like children. Not just metaphorically, but practically too. Though there’s the drawback of only being able to draw dragons, they come alive after I finish them.”

The painter continuously drew on the endlessly appearing canvas. Steep cliffs, cozy clouds, pine trees smelling of resin, and strangely shaped rocks manifested at her fingertips.

Caspar, watching the painter, opened his mouth and spoke.

“…This. Is it okay to take the rest of the paintings?”

The paintings in Caspar’s hand depicted numerous dragons without eyes drawn in.

“…Huh?”

The painter was momentarily taken aback, but she soon nodded.

“Yes. Well… Do as you please. Just be careful, they come alive if you dot the eyes. If you need to catch a dragon, leave the dotting to your wife.”

…Wife.

Yes. She has good eyes. Is it because she’s a painter?

“You just said they were like children, but you don’t seem too attached.”

“Perhaps. They were precious at first. No, they are still precious now, but should I say there have become too many? Besides, they weren’t drawn because I wanted to. It might sound harsh, but they are practically like children born after being raped by you humans.”

Swish.

A stroke is added to the painting. The ink had somehow become colorful paints.

Watching the landscape painting gradually gain color, I replied.

“…Anyway, we weren’t the ones who made you like that. Not that the humans outside are necessarily wrong either.”

Who is born wanting to be born? We live simply because we were born.

“Well. True. So I don’t think it’s particularly painful or anything.”

The painter shrugged and continued.

“Still. To correct one thing… The share of the subconscious that created me includes both Ms. Agathe and the husband beside you. Aren’t you both human?”

“We weren’t even here back then? Besides, Caspar is… well, he is a real human, but…”

Saying so, I glanced at Caspar. Worried he might be offended.

The fact that one’s life, personality, and birth originated from a predetermined creation. Honestly, anyone would suffer great mental shock from learning that.

But Caspar was just calm. As if such things didn’t matter at all.

“Right. That ambiguous collective unconscious, it seems it didn’t require any particular qualifications after all.”

The painter affirmed.

“Yes. Correct. That’s why it’s scary, and also fair. Because humans dredged up from the unconscious can also intervene in the unconscious.”

Without stopping her brushstrokes for a single moment, she continued conversing with me.

Strange occurrences inside Gates. Stories of life. Stories of birth. The warmth of sunlight embraced while loving, and the beauty of a lover.

Troubles encountered while painting. Knowledge of paint shades (light and dark), canvas materials, how to hold a brush, and how to dot.

Such. Things that were nothing, yet were everything to someone, exchanging worlds. We shared our worlds with each other.

And. After who knows how long.

Slowly. Heat like fire began to emanate from the painting. The canvas gradually expanded, becoming large enough to envelop all three of us.

The painter now stood up, walked with short steps, and applied paint all over the canvas. As if some harmony occurred in the brush, even when alternating between various colors, the paints didn’t mix.

“Aha. Nice. Good.”

The painter’s clear laughter echoed desolately. Though shivering slightly in the cold night air, she smiled and held her brush.

“…Yeah. Nice.”

Even I could purely admire this moment.

The canvas, capturing the night, was painted with colors seemingly not of this world, exuding a strange atmosphere. Shining stars and the moon swam and revolved within the painting.

The blank paper became semi-transparent, clearly showing the outside beyond it.

“The beauty of blank space, they call it. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Though I knew the beauty of blank space wasn’t used this way, I couldn’t help but smile at her words.

Because the canvas stretched endlessly, surrounding us completely, and beyond the transparent canvas, the moonlit night was visible as it was.

However, it wasn’t entirely unchanged.

The world viewed through the painting contained the things she drew. The beauty of the world I had described while talking with the painter.

Where the moon was, a bright sun appeared. Mountain ranges once devoid of life now had mountain beasts and birds flying about.

The painting drawn on the canvas, filled with the painter’s subjectivity… was incredibly beautiful.

“Yes. Beautiful. But… The sun is a bit strange. The real sun is much brighter, and smaller.”

Besides, it’s night here.

The painter nodded sadly.

“Yes. Because there was only the moon here. It’s hard to draw what you haven’t seen.”

…Right.

The reason the painter could only draw dragons wasn’t because she was bound by concept.

Simply. She lacked experience. Even with eyes, if one cannot see, how can they be called eyes?

By conversing with me, by me becoming the audience appreciating her painting and her eyes, the painter finally found her meaning.

“Now it’s your turn. Agathe. Time to dot… the final point.”

Hwaryongjeomjeong .

Time to complete the most important part of the painting.

“All dots. Cannot actually exist in reality.”

Ultimately, what’s drawn in a painting is just a small circle.

I received the brush from the painter. And upon holding the brush, instinctively knowing what to do, I stood on tiptoe and added my subjectivity to the painter’s picture.

Rustle.

A circle.

Seen from afar, the sun looked just like a single dot.

And.

The world was captured in the painting.

-Fwoooosh!

“Ah…”

The painter’s dazed voice echoed softly on the mountaintop.

The rising sun burned away the painting, illuminating its light. The wind carried the chirping of birds and the sharp scent of the mountains. The night that had lasted the painter’s entire life ended, and morning finally arrived.

“Painting. I’ve, entered my own painting.”

“No. Probably the opposite.”

Because the world drawn in the painting came alive, because the painter’s world finally gained eyes upon my arrival, the painting became reality itself.

Just like the dragons she drew.

Tears flowed from the eyes of the painter seeing sunrise for the first time.

“Thank you. For becoming my eyes.”

Slowly, the painter’s body blurred. The world drawn in the painting also began to collapse slowly.

I hesitated, then asked the painter.

“Will you be okay not leaving? If you come out of the painting, you could live.”

The painter had drawn even her own body into the painting. Therefore, the moment the painting disappeared, the painter would also die.

“No. I’m not dying, I’m living. Finally, I am coming alive. Just like the dragon with its eyes dotted moves alive.”

Like that.

The painter, smiling brightly, vanished leaving only a faint smile behind.

Sender: A-rank Hunter Agathe.

Recipient: Lee Yeonah, Hunter Association Post-Processing Management Department.

A-rank Gate Hwaryongjeomjeong Subjugation Complete.

Casualties: None.

Spoils: One landscape painting.