chapter 117

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons - Episode 117

The woman wasn’t the type to sleep much at night.

Even at the hour when the new hires who had received their first day of training at the Collector’s had all come in and were sleeping, the woman couldn’t fall asleep.

For the past few years, she’d had many sleepless nights because of anxiety that she might fall behind.

The insomnia that came from that had tormented her viciously.

It couldn’t be helped.

“...This isn’t time for this—I should be studying even one more thing...”

It wasn’t that she had anything you could call ambition, but there was a desperation that stemmed from a not-so-good situation.

She didn’t want to become someone great or be noticed, but she was one of those people who longed for something called “ordinary happiness.”

“The handouts the Collector gave us—I’ve memorized them all.”

The woman was from the Carnation Child background, and she’d grown up working under a hunter from an illegal guild.

For her, who had always been looking for the moment she could step out into the light, the hand Collector Visabel extended this time was a golden opportunity.

“It’s not like I’m the only new hire, and more than anything, I’m the lowest among my peers at only C-rank... I don’t even know if I’ll be hired or not.

I can’t just let go of this chance to be protected by one of Korea’s three major guilds.”

Where the woman currently was, was the Collector’s dormitory.

“...The company itself runs 24 hours, right...”

The woman gathered her clothes and headed for the Collector’s.

It was a little past 4 a.m.

Seeing the woman visit at a time when working employees were scarce, the guard in charge of the entrance widened his eyes.

The man in charge of the entrance knew every employee’s face.

That didn’t change even for new hires.

“You’re one of the people who came in this time, right?”

“Ah, yes, yes.

That’s right.”

“I heard you were assigned to the gallery—do you already have work?”

“That... I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this, but I wanted to try adapting a bit...”

“So you’re saying there’s no separate work.”

“...Is it not allowed?”

“Everything that happens afterward will be your responsibility, so there’s nothing that can’t be allowed.”

When the guard pointed at the access gate, the woman hurriedly tapped her employee card.

Having safely gotten inside, the woman bowed her head to the guard.

“Th-thank you.”

“You’re coming in to work—what is there for you to thank me for?”

Maybe he was fairly sociable, because the guard, with a friendly impression, naturally spoke to her.

“If you’re going to the gallery, it would be best not to approach below Basement Level 1.

There are about two people on duty in the 1st-floor gallery right now, so if there’s something you don’t know, ask them.”

“Is that okay?

Am I not going to be a nuisance...”

“They’re people who come to keep their post by obligation at a time when they’re sleepy anyway.

They’ll probably like it if there’s someone to talk to.

They’re basically on night watch.”

“...Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re working this hard, so I hope you become a full-time employee soon.

I know you’re in a hurry, but take the elevator with a little leeway.”

“...”

The woman bowed her head and headed deeper into the building.

‘Even at dawn, the lights are this bright.’

Perhaps for the employees working the night shift, there wasn’t any place where the lights were off.

Even so, the silence with not a single person in sight suddenly sent a chill down her spine, but the woman stubbornly headed for the gallery elevator.

The sound of her own shoes walking down the corridor felt especially loud.

The elevator Curator Yoo Seong-woon had shown them during the day could only be reached by a fairly complicated route.

“...”

After even verifying her identity with her employee card, the woman pressed the gold button.

Perhaps because no one had clocked out, it was a long while before the elevator doors finally opened.

“...Ah, the entry/exit roster.”

The paper roster hanging on the elevator wall caught her eye.

“He told us to make it a habit.”

Would that apply even to someone like her, who wasn’t a full-time employee?

“Mm...”

After hesitating for a moment, the woman wrote her name on the roster.

A non-combat-type hunter, the woman didn’t have the ability to bring back special items from a dungeon, and since she’d been born poor and grown up in an illegal guild without receiving any education, her administrative skills were poor, too.

‘But they said what matters most in the Collector’s gallery is the affection with which you treat the works.

They said they won’t assign me something beyond my ability, so if it’s only a matter of giving my heart and sincerity, then even I can do well in this gallery.’

Carrying the wish to remain in the position she’d been assigned if possible, the woman carefully wrote the letters.

“Destination... Basement, 1st floor...”

After briefly describing her purpose, the woman returned the gold fountain pen to its original place.

“...Shouldn’t something like this be tied down—won’t someone steal it?”

Well, it was none other than one of Korea’s three major guilds.

It didn’t seem like anyone would have the guts to do something like that.

An elevator harmoniously blending ivory and gold.

Before pressing the button, the woman unconsciously took in its elegance.

The elevator’s bright atmosphere, cleanly managed without a speck of dust, felt old-fashioned in some way.

‘...Come to think of it, it’s strange for an elevator in a big corporation to have metal buttons.

And the roster being paper, too.

Is this a design choice to preserve the gallery’s classical image?’

Then the woman suddenly felt a chill.

“...”

The atmosphere was far stranger than when she had seen it during the day.

“...Is it because I’m riding alone? It’s definitely scary...”

When there had been many people, it had been cramped but not scary.

This was the Collector’s gallery, said to display the world’s strangest and most dangerous works.

If she finished the training period and got hired as a full-time employee, from then on she would have to ride alone, so she had to adapt in advance to even this kind of eerie feeling.

‘Right, once I’m assigned a work, I have to build proper rapport, don’t I.

If I get scared from the elevator already, what am I going to do later.’

As she firmed her resolve and was about to press the elevator button—

“...”

The woman tilted her head.

“...The buttons...?”

They were all set to the 4th floor.

“...W-why is it like this?

This isn’t supposed to happen, is it?”

Then the woman recalled the Collector handout she’d thought she had memorized in the dorm.

More precisely, the passage about the things to be careful about when using the gallery.

“Ah.”

It said that at 4:44 a.m., you should refrain from using the elevator to the gallery if possible.

They said there was a work on the 4th floor of the gallery that played pranks using numbers considered especially ominous in the East. That it loved the number 4 so much that even if they moved it to another floor, it kept appearing on the 4th floor.

“I... what work was it, exactly...”

The guard’s words earlier—“take the elevator with a little leeway”—came back to her.

She’d thought it was just a kind word telling her to relax, but to think there had been this kind of reason—she felt pathetic for not realizing sooner.

‘Then he should’ve stopped me...!’

For a moment, resentment rose, but the woman was none other than a fifth-grade citizen. In a world where even first-grade citizens died for no reason, there was no one who would feel regret if someone like her died.

‘But if I cause an accident and the works end up affected, isn’t that a bigger problem?

No, I don’t have time to think like that—I need to remember the response method.’

But perhaps because she was so anxious, she couldn’t think clearly.

“It was... a work that embodied elevator buttons... that’s what it said...”

Flicker—.

The lights blinked.

“...”

Flicker, flicker.

The blink speed gradually increased.

“...Uh...”

What is it?

‘What do I do?’

Panicking, the woman shuffled without even being able to lean against the wall.

It was true she’d memorized all the handouts the company gave her, but when faced with an urgent situation, it became harder to pull out the correct information.

This work description felt like that one’s story, this felt like that, and that felt like this...

“Ugh...”

Why do I always do something stupid at the important moment.

“Th-there should be... a device here in the elevator... to request help...”

Kiiiiik—.

With an ominous sound, the elevator jolted.

Sliding down with a shudder, the elevator doors repeatedly closed and opened.

With banging and crashing, the inside and outside of her body were both noisy at once.

It was so chaotic she could barely stop the emotion from surging up.

“Please...”

She felt stifled, to the point her breath clogged.

This elevator had a rescue request button prepared for just-in-case situations.

He’d said that if she just pressed it, a rescue team on standby would come and help—Curator Yoo Seong-woon, who had handled the day’s training, had said so.

“...”

A creaking sound.

The elevator sent an odd vibration that made it feel like it might fall at any moment, and she reached out toward the button she hoped would request rescue.

But she stopped just before touching it.

“...”

It wasn’t a monster’s trick.

“...I, I...”

It was because of the woman’s own selfishness.

“Will I get cut?”

It was entirely possible.

Crawling into a dangerous place at a time that wasn’t even scheduled, making the dawn guards a nuisance.

Doing something that was clearly written not to do, causing an accident that didn’t have to happen.

What if she’d created some problem in this expensive-looking elevator?

‘And I’m a C-rank hunter.’

A C-rank hunter, so common in a world like this.

Most of her peers were a higher grade than her, and even those of the same grade clearly had sturdy bodies that looked like they were combat-type.

‘I’ve got the worst conditions.’

And after causing an accident like this and then making people a nuisance...

“...”

She couldn’t cause an even bigger accident.

It was at that very moment, with her hand stretched toward the button.

“...Huh?”

Flicker...

The lights that had been blinking eerily came back on.

“Uh, uh...?”

She still hadn’t pressed the button.

In the light air that felt like returning from a ghost story to reality, the woman unconsciously checked the elevator buttons.

The five buttons that had all been 4th floor were now in order, from 1st through 5th floor.

And when she checked the floor the elevator had stopped at—

“...5th floor?”

Ding—.

The elevator doors opened.

“...Huh? 5th floor?

N-no, wait...!!”

The woman, panicking at the thought that she’d crawled into the worst hellhole without noticing, fell backward with a crash.

Before she could even groan at the sharp pain, the elevator doors opened fully, and beyond them, a long shadow appeared.

“...”

“...”

A blond man wearing a black cloak.

“Hello.”

Taking Giovanni’s form, it was ‘Seo Gio.’

* * *

“...You’re saying it was like an initiation...”

“More precisely, it would feel like an annual event.”

At the woman’s hollow question, the blond man nodded.

“It’s a work that doesn’t cause real harm and only frightens you, but apparently new curators who haven’t properly memorized the rules get hit by it whenever they start to forget.”

“Ah...”

“Even though it’s just a prank, because it can convey quite safely that not having the manual ingrained could truly be dangerous, it seems no one gives you direct advice.”

At those words, the woman recalled the entrance guard.

“Now that I think about it, he only told me, ‘Take the elevator with a little leeway.’

I thought he meant to relax, but... ugh, so that’s what it was.”

Anyway, it was a relief it wasn’t truly dangerous.

“It’s a work on the 4th floor, so I thought I’d caused an accident I couldn’t handle.”

“It’s a work that isn’t very dangerous, so they tried to move it down to the 1st floor again and again, but since it loves the number 4 so much that it keeps returning there, it ended up being a 4th-floor work.”

“...I was too flustered to think that far...”

It was a work whose description said they’d tried to move it somewhere other than the 4th floor. With a gallery that only went down to Basement Level 5, it was more likely they tried to move it to an upper floor than to the 5th floor.

“I still can’t remember—what was the response method?”

“If someone outside the elevator calls it from the outside, the abnormal phenomenon stops.”

“...So I could’ve pressed the rescue request button, or just held out until morning?

It really wasn’t dangerous at all.”

“Don’t blame yourself.

Even if it’s a prank, it’s clearly a phenomenon with heavy mental exhaustion, so if you’d stayed until morning, you might have developed trauma.”

“Thank you for comforting me...”

The woman let out a small breath.

“Actually... at first, I thought you, Seo Gio, were one of the abnormal phenomena too.”

His first words had been an abrupt greeting.

To see someone sweating cold sweat and rolling around disgracefully, and say a calm “Hello.”

That insensitive consideration, as if he were exchanging morning greetings with a neighbor, made her feel how bizarre it was no matter how flustered she’d been.

It was similar to monsters who didn’t care what happened to humans.

‘...I can’t exactly say such an rude impression to his face, but...’

The woman wiped away the place where cold sweat had run.

“And then you introduced yourself right after... and you asked my name too, so I thought I’d really gotten caught by a proper work.

I thought I was being forced into a dreadful, wicked contract.”

“That is embarrassing.

I meant to ease your tension through greetings and introductions because you looked very startled, but it seems it only frightened you more.

It’s late, but I apologize.”

Saying that, Seo Gio bowed deeply, very politely.

Even though it was the behavior of lowering himself, he looked old-fashioned, like someone up in a high place, and the woman’s face reddened.

It was treatment far too excessive.

“Th-that... you don’t have to say it like that.

I’m the one who got help, after all.”

She’d only been a little startled.

The atmosphere was so heavy, and his speech was stiff to an odd degree, so the woman’s mind, having just come out of the work’s prank, must have felt dizzy.

“Seo Gio, you’re really polite.”

“I always wanted to be a polite person.”

The man in the black cloak smiled.

“That makes me happy.”

“...”

“Then you are a courteous and good person.”

“...Ah, um...”

“Thank you for affirming me.”

There was no lie in those words.

“...”

A good person.

The blond hair, as if holding sunlight, fell softly.

The kind smile on his straight, porcelain-like face is gentle.

As if containing the sea of a spring day, those mysterious eyes are beautiful.

Everything about him is made of goodwill.

‘...He’s truly a kind and gentle person, but why...’

...Why is it so eerie?

Fantasy, Modern,