The Artist Who Paints Dungeon-Chapter 68
The moment she was born, she was recognized by the sea.
A mermaid who had been the successor of the deep sea since birth, Aria was always curious about the underside of the sun, where she had neither the duty nor the authority to rule. And there she met a human.
“Now, Aria. Look at this cross-section. Human skin has layers.”
“Is it different from a mermaid’s skin?”
“It’s a little different. A mermaid’s skin can survive in the deep sea....”
He was her teacher.
“What are you drawing now?”
“Aria, I was drawing you.”
“This is a picture of the sea.”
“The sea is the mermaid.”
He was her friend.
“It’s good to understand humans, but it’s not bad to empathize with them either.”
“I don’t think there’s a difference.”
“Just empathizing with them can accomplish more than understanding.”
“.......”
They were her family.
Giovanni was the only one who was equal to Aria, or even higher. He was different from Isser, her younger brother who had to be protected and cared for.
Aria could have interesting conversations with Giovanni. No matter what Aria did, Giovanni could handle her.
The existence of perfectly meshing gears.
“Aria.”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t hurt humans.”
She thought so.
“Why should I?”
“Because I don’t want that.”
“That’s selfish.”
“Aria, that ignorant priest always said.”
“A relationship is about being considerate and adapting.”
“I’m glad you remember.”
Aria thought of Giovanni and herself as cogs that would never break apart, but Giovanni didn’t think that way. He always talked about hatred.
“I am human, and Aria is a mermaid. We have different ways of thinking and expressing ourselves, but we have been able to become so close. Up until now, Aria has made many concessions to me and received a corresponding price in return.”
“So do the same this time?”
“If you really don’t like it, fighting and winning is also an option. I prefer resolving our differences through conversation rather than fighting, but Aria might like a clearer approach.”
“Geo, I don’t want to fight you. So I’ll make concessions.”
“It’s really nice that we can have different opinions but not hate each other. Then, let’s put Aria’s favorite clams on the table tonight.”
It was cheerful.
“Is this the human way? It’s quite troublesome.”
“Not all humans are like this. I always say that humans are much more colorful and capricious than mermaids. If you want to interact with other humans later....”
“I don’t want to interact with such shallow people.”
“I see.”
It was fun to be with him.
That was something rare even among my kind.
“I wish you were a mermaid.”
“Unfortunately, when I die, I will return to the sun. That’s what I want.”
“Well, humans get cold easily. It would be warmer near the sun than in the deep sea. I admit it.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
Then, Geo.
“.......”
“.......”
When I finally let you go out of my kindness, you should have returned to the sun.
“...Who, sister....”
“What happened to Giovanni?”
I barely managed to save my brother who was taken to the temple while helping humans, and I destroyed all the temples on the ground, but for some reason, I couldn’t find even a single piece of Giovanni’s bone.
Almost a year later, my brother came to his senses and answered without crying.
“I ate it.”
The younger brother was laughing.
“I ate it because I was hungry. The humans put some kind of drug in that small tank....”
“.......”
“...The remaining body of that person probably rotted and dissolved in the water. I ate most of it.”
“Aha.”
Maybe because I had been thinking about the worst that I could imagine, I wasn’t that surprised.
‘Geo always worried that I would be hurt after he died, but he wasn’t as shaken up as I thought.’
He was quite calm.
“I see.”
However, he couldn’t stop himself from searching for the last traces of Geo, even the water in which he had rotted. He continued to search for Geo’s body, killing every human he could see.
And he was able to find Geo in the residence of the Pope, who was most loved by the sun.
“.......”
He became water.
“...It smells bad.”
It was like looking at sea water.
“Should I clean it up, Princess?”
“Okay, just leave it like this.”
“But....”
“If we just leave it like that, it’ll flow into the sea.”
How long and with what did they keep the corpse? When they opened the large coffin used as a torture device, his corpse, which had melted like seaweed juice, flowed out.
There was no trace of a human form.
“.......”
No, it wasn’t even a living thing.
“But it’s far from here to the sea.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
All they had to do was drag the sea up to the surface.
“So....”
Deep enough for the sun to sink.
“.......”
Just looking at the corpse that had become water.
“.......”
When they were left alone, Aria whispered.
“...I thought that when you die, it would be natural death due to the limitations of the species.”
“.......”
“Humans have shorter life spans than mermaids. They age faster and change easily. So if we were to eventually part ways... I thought it would be because your value had become blurred.”
“.......”
“Your noble character would become blurred by greed, your weak body would wither away from illness, or you would overcome all those trials and die completely and return to the sun. That was the only parting I imagined. I understood and accepted that part.”
“.......”
“Why did you have to die like this? It was definitely not because your own value had become blurred, but because you were beaten by the hands of demons who had eyes but couldn’t see... You were not in the sun, but spread out in the deep sea.”
“.......”
“How can you hate someone so easily? Humans are truly worthy of study.”
I couldn’t help but ask.
“Don’t you hate humans?”
The mermaid hated humans.
My vagueness about our separation came from your mortality, so I didn’t know that the ending of this story would be so funny and miserable.
“Wouldn’t it be cold there?”
You should have gone to the sun, you idiot.
“No one won.”
You died trying to protect the mermaid, but you shivered in the cold.
Your value shouldn’t have been destroyed by such a stupid racial conflict.
You shouldn’t have been unable to go to the sun like this, and at best, you should have become a part of the sea.
“.......”
The younger sibling, the only mermaid who defended humans, kept his mouth shut.
“Ah....”
Giovanni, the only human who held the mermaid, lost his mouth.
“...That’s right.”
“.......”
“Now there’s no one who can stop me.”
It was such a shame.
“.......”
“.......”
“Hey.”
Can’t you feel my sincerity?
“...Mr. Geo is good at cooking too.”
Sergio smiled at Isser’s words that he had difficulty saying.
“I’m glad you said that.”
“Are you particularly good at seafood dishes?”
“You’re good at everything in general.”
“Where did you learn this recipe?”
“Well, I don’t know, just....”
His eyes caught sight of platinum hair that was almost silver.
“I wanted to try it like this.”
“I see.”
His blue eyes, resembling the surface of the water where sunlight scatters, are visible.
“It was just roasted over a campfire, but it was so delicious that I asked.”
“If that’s the case, feel free to ask me anytime.”
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“Sharing what you know is a happy thing, isn’t it?”
“...Is there a mind-reading skill among Eunha’s students?”
“I had a feeling you’d say that.”
Giovanni always said that.
‘As expected, a little...’
No, a lot.
‘It’s too similar.’
That’s why even the suspicion I created myself, saying ‘another person who looks quite similar’, didn’t work.
‘I can’t keep acting like this.’
I was fully aware that I was doing stupid things. When a human named Yoo Seong-un looked at me like ‘are you really okay with this?’, I felt so pathetic that I couldn’t even call him arrogant.
“Where is your hometown, Geo?”
“I don’t know if you know, but it was a really rural area.”
“Because it’s the countryside....”
“Sometimes I farmed and stuff.”
“I see.”
He was also strangely easygoing for a priest of noble birth.
‘Ah, this won’t work...’
He lost the will to talk.
‘... Judging from the fact that the atmosphere of the entire dungeon has become lighter, I’m sure my sister is flustered too. If even my sister is flustered, I can’t be okay. This wasn’t supposed to drag on like this... It’s better to leave Earth quickly...’
It was going to be a way to regain his former calm reason.
“.......”
But.
Is that okay?
‘... Is it really right for us to leave this dimension alone and leave alone?’
Although he had traveled to countless dimensions, there was no one he could tell at a glance, ‘Ah, this person is Giovanni.’ But no matter how much I thought about it, this person seemed to be Giovanni’s reincarnation.
‘But why is there divinity? It must have been some kind of sun god from some dimension doing something, no, but... If he was the level of the sun god, he wouldn’t care what happened to humans.’
The situation was confusing, but there was one thing for sure.
“...What are you going to do next?”
I had to get these people out quickly.
‘Looking at the situation, it’s hard to keep Gi-oh alone. I’ll just send them all away, and after discussing it with my older sister and organizing my thoughts, it won’t be too late to come up with a new plan.’
Yoo Seong-un answered that question.
“First, we have to find a way out.”
“A way out....”
“Usually, in cases like this, there are three ways to do it.”
Yoo Seong-un, who had filled his stomach with fish, continued speaking.
“The most orthodox way is to succeed in the conquest. However, we do not have many hunters, and above all, there are many civilians who will die if we take our eyes off them for a moment. It is a difficult conquest even without someone to guard them. There’s no way we can solve this with this number of people.”
“Then what’s the other way?”
“If there’s an item that can help us exit the dungeon, like a return stone, that would be fine, but that’s not a very wise choice either. After looking around, it seems like this isn’t a dungeon where low-grade items would work... and even if they did, how many items would there be? Only a few of us would be able to escape.”
“That’s true.”
“The last way, of course...”
Yoo Seong-un’s gaze fell on Eunha, Isser, who was still smiling colorlessly.
“... ... .”
“... ... .”
The momentary gaze dispersed, Yoo Seong-un continued.
“The dungeon owner himself opens the door.”
Isser clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘Did you read my mind?’
No, it might have been too obvious an ending even before his thoughts were read.
For both the mermaids and the humans, Giovanni’s presence was extremely unexpected. It seemed like he meant that since both sides were confused, they should reorganize and fight again.
The C-class hunter who had been quietly listening to Yoo Seong-woon asked anxiously.
“T-That could be it? If something happened at the Temple of the Sun, then the dungeon owner must have planned it too... And the number of ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) people captured is quite large. He must be a strong owner.”
“It’s not impossible at all.”
Kang Seo-dam replied in the gentle tone characteristic of a priest.
“There’s a saying that dungeons are like theater stages. The higher the dungeon level, the more closely it is intertwined with its owner, and the raiders can look into the dungeon owner’s story in more detail.”
“Uh... why is that...?”
“In short, if you just follow the story, there are times when the door will open with luck. The stories of civilians who escaped the dungeon because they were moved by the dedication of the raider who learned the story of the dungeon are not just empty boasts.”
“Oh my, I thought that was a flyer....”
“It actually happens often. Especially when the owner is intelligent enough to be close to a humanoid monster, the possibility of such an escape increases. In a dungeon of this scale, the owner must be close to a humanoid.”
At that point, Yoo Seong-un intervened.
“A similar phenomenon is already occurring. There were quite a few victims right after they were dragged into the dungeon, but look now. We’re having a meal by a campfire, and there are no monsters attacking us.”
“It’s definitely strangely stable for a dungeon that has so many raiders. It probably means that the owner who caused this incident has changed his mind. I feel like he’s being very lenient.”
“Thinking about it, considering our situation, the third case is the one with the highest probability of success. If we just rub it well, maybe the door will open.”
“I have similar expectations.”
Oh, right.
“.......”
Isser decided to just keep his mouth shut.
‘What bad luck.’
The conversation between the two of them, pretending not to know my identity, was very advanced.
‘Yoo Seong-un has already talked directly with me, but I don’t think Master Kang Seo-dam knows my identity. I’ve shown the aura of the deep sea before because I didn’t want to hide it... I can’t come here and pretend to be a normal young human.’
Isser looked back at Geo.
“I hope it goes well either way. The fish here is delicious, but....”
“.......”
“I really want to go home.”
Isser then asked.
“What kind of place is Geo’s house?”
“Ah, it’s just an ordinary cabin.”
“A cabin.”
“A cabin in a forest with few people.”
“.......”
Isn’t this a house that suits you so well?
‘... To hear such things... .’
I can’t just keep them.
Isser decided to release the humans caught in the net.
“.......”
They’ll just catch them again anyway.
Isser knew the greed of humans toward mermaids.
The people who were dragged into the virtual dungeon of an unspecified rank returned alive.
The number of survivors reached 80% of the total, and everyone unanimously praised it as a miracle.
“If this is a miracle, then it must be a miracle.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Geo, just stay where you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah... That’s what you’re saying now.”
Yoo Seong-un was thrilled by the effectiveness of ‘Portrait of Geo’.
Painter who draws dungeons
