Chapter 19

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons — Episode 19

Yoo Seongun spoke like a sigh.

“I did agree to it too, but watching the employees whispering about the ‘ghost story’ made my heart tremble.

It almost caused an internal feud.”

“Our guild members aren’t such narrow-minded people that an internal feud would break out over a single ghost story.

Curator Yoo Seongun seems to have rather little faith in his coworkers?”

“Faith, my ass—this was too much of a gamble.

This wasn’t something you could feel at ease about on the grounds of trust between colleagues.”

In the end, things did work out well, but it didn’t change the fact that it had been a dangerous gamble.

“It was like we just let an Origin existence whose identity we haven’t even properly grasped run free...”

Yoo Seongun still didn’t know what Gio truly was.

For some reason, it was still like that.

No matter how much Yoo Seongun flipped through books, not a single similar bastard turned up.

If they handed the investigation to the Association, maybe they’d get an answer, but even how likely that was was unknown, and in the first place, Bisabeol would never allow it.

‘A man who pours that much care into what’s his.’

Still, one thing was certain: “Gio’s portrait” was an existence strongly influenced by the Origin.

Gardeners, and a few humans who knew of their existence, called such monsters, items, or skills and phenomena “Origin existences.”

Since they were hard to define concretely, it was a way of roughly handwaving it away.

It was a slightly embarrassing fact for professionals of this era, but “Gio’s portrait” was exactly such a case.

“It almost ended up like we let a calamity loose.”

“Well, Curator Yoo Seongun—what do you think Gio’s identity is?”

“Are you changing the subject...”

“It’s an ordinary question.”

“...”

Yoo Seongun shrugged.

“I don’t know.

Just like it’s been so far.”

Gio ran on a different track from ordinary Origin existences.

“First of all, there’s a high probability he isn’t a monster.”

“Certainly, they’re hostile to civilization outside dungeons.”

“Their hostility is close to instinct.

Like how humans freak out when they see a cockroach, or reflexively want to kill it right away.

That isn’t something the monster itself can control just because it decides it wants to...”

“Even if it could, with that level of patience and judgment, it would already be beyond the level of a ‘monster.’”

“In that sense, I judged he isn’t a monster.”

Gio’s goodwill—because it cherished the species itself—could sometimes feel indifferent or merciless, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t genuine goodwill.

So he couldn’t be a monster.

“Isn’t he showing a completely different pattern from monsters?”

Yoo Seongun nodded.

“Of course, there are monsters favorable toward humans too, but strictly speaking, that’s closer to love-hate than affection. If that deformity incident eleven years ago had truly been pure goodwill, they would have carefully observed humans screaming in fear and cleaned up after it.”

“But didn’t they say those things were clearly enjoying it?”

“They had no intention of understanding humans in the first place, and maybe they simply found humans’ reactions amusing.

On this part, since the incident was wrapped up in a hurry and ended unsolved... I can’t really make a firm statement either.”

“What matters right now isn’t that, so let’s move on.”

“Mmm, and...”

Rolling his deep navy eyes around, Yoo Seongun continued.

“It isn’t an item, either.”

“There are definitely items with an ego.”

“The ego dwelling in an item is, in the end, something humans created.

There’s a limit.”

He added,

“It’s not something you can judge by how humanlike they can think... you have to see their essence.”

“Essence?”

“Gio created life, even if only inside the portrait.”

After thinking for a moment, Yoo Seongun tilted his head.

“Perhaps that life created that way might be able to come out beyond the painting.

I didn’t get an answer from Gio, but considering that he himself has no limits on coming out, and he can easily smuggle even objects out of the painting, the possibility is high.”

“What if Gio draws a monster, and it comes out?”

“That seems possible too.

Even if it turns out it can’t, the point is we’ve confirmed that Gio alone can come out at will.

If it’s not a monster but merely an item, or if Gio brings out a contracted beast he’s bound by soul... even that alone would already be beyond what we can handle.”

“And a mere item can’t do something like that?”

“All items are created by humans.

No matter how you cast off prejudice and think about it, only a high-intelligence monster could create something like that.

Creating life is impossible at the level of humans or monsters, and the fact that the rank of that soul isn’t something you can even compare to humans has already been testified to by countless witnesses.

It isn’t an item.”

“Ah-ha.”

Bisabeol giggled as if it were amusing.

For his age, it was a very childish look.

“Then perhaps it’s a kind of skill?

In the case of skills, it was proven long ago that they can handle souls.

There’s only one person, but there is a user of a resurrection skill that even revives the dead.”

“That, too, only kneads an already-existing soul—it can’t create an entirely new soul.

Even if there really were a skill somewhere in the world capable of creating souls... in the first place, skills are formless energy that intelligent lifeforms can handle.”

“So the meaning is that Gio, who has form and ego, can’t be a remnant of a skill?

But what if he’s merely a kind of awakened person who obtained a skill to turn himself into a portrait?”

Bisabeol said, waving his fingers about.

“Gio calls himself a twenty-nine-year-old youth, and he said there was a time when he was in human society.

Then he might simply be a kind of awakened person that hasn’t been revealed until now.”

Yoo Seongun shook his head.

“Impossible.”

“Why?

Does Mr. Yoo Seongun, who was the Association’s research team leader, see something?”

“If anyone sees it, Guildmaster would see it better than I would...

I just know something.”

“Then what do you know?”

“Do you know why superpowered people came to be called ‘awakeners’ in the first place?”

“Umm...”

Bisabeol shrugged.

“It isn’t a field I’m that interested in.”

“If you just say you don’t know, does it scratch that lofty pride of yours or something?”

“Seems like it would scratch it quite a lot, considering I’m the head of one of Korea’s top three guilds.

Can you even imagine how expensive a single speck of this pride is?”

“Sure, of course.”

Letting out a hollow, bitter laugh, Yoo Seongun continued.

“If you retrace the meaning of the word awakening, it’s easy.”

“1. To wake and come to one’s senses. 2. To realize and know. 3. To come to one’s senses and live attentively, observing and being on guard.”

“...You said you weren’t interested, but why are you talking like a Korean dictionary...”

“If you don’t even know the meaning of the word, I start wondering whether it means anything that you became guildmaster with only an emotion skill.”

“Ah, yes.

Sure, of course.”

“So which is it?”

“Mm... any of them are fine.”

Yoo Seongun spoke evenly.

“What matters is the essence.”

“Interesting.”

“In whatever sense, awakening is something newly organized within an already existing state.”

He propped his chin up.

“Whether you open your eyes and come to your senses, or unfortunately straighten out a twisted head, or mature inwardly and reflect on your younger days... it means a change that happens within that one person who already existed.”

“Ah-ha, so?”

“An awakener’s skill isn’t receiving an ability that didn’t exist—it’s a way for an ability that was buried in their original aptitude to awaken.

Dungeons came into being, energy and resources that didn’t exist on Earth originally appeared, and the environment changed along with it.

Humans evolved to match that.”

“I feel like I’ve seen something similar in the center’s textbook.

So you mean it’s an era where you can realize that the stone you already had was a diamond, and you just realized it, is that how I should understand it?”

“Roughly similar.”

Yoo Seongun scratched the back of his neck.

“In that sense, Gio can’t be seen as an awakener.”

“Hmm...”

“Even if he were an awakener, it would be that the rank of the soul he already had awakened, not something newly granted.”

“So it is like that, after all.”

The two of them didn’t know it, but Yoo Seongun’s words had an error.

Seo Gio was a case where, in the process of Earth being newly born, he very, very, incredibly coincidentally fused with the Origin and his soul rank rose.

It was a miraculous mutation with odds so extreme that it was hard to observe in a small dimension like Earth.

“It’s a headache.”

“It’s a headache.”

Of course, there was no way for the two of them to figure that out at a point when only about thirty years had passed since the great calamity.

To ordinary humans like them, “Gio’s portrait” was simply an existence that had never been human from the start.

“...”

Bisabeol, blinking his bright-yellow eyes and thinking, opened his mouth.

“Then how about calling Gio a ‘child of the Origin’?”

“That also feels a bit... strange.”

“In what sense is it strange? Please explain.”

“Most children of the Origin don’t have anything you’d call reason.

No—if you don’t even go as far as children, this applies to almost every existence born from the Origin, but...”

With an uncomfortable face, Yoo Seongun said,

“If I had to describe an Origin existence in a single phrase, I’d call it a ‘living story.’

So they can’t think.

Even if they look like they’re thinking, it’s only an illusion—they aren’t actually reasoning.”

“Are you certain?”

“...Not exactly... no.

No matter how much I’m a gardener, this field still isn’t properly revealed.”

After hesitating, Yoo Seongun spoke again.

“Still, I said it because every child of the Origin we’ve seen so far could be seen as nature itself.”

There were times when a human, holding a strong obsession, created a single dungeon with their own rules and became that dungeon’s boss monster.

But even they couldn’t be called “children of the Origin.”

“Monsters are one of two things.

Either they were born in a dungeon, or they became a monster because they made a dungeon.”

“Hmm...”

“It’s different from ‘children of the Origin,’ which arise directly from the Origin, or by chance come to belong to the Origin’s veins and then occur here and there across dimensions.”

“That side of the story is fascinating no matter how many times I hear it.”

Bisabeol smiled, his eyes narrowed like a snake.

“From the standpoint of a hunter like me, it feels like the biggest secret of the world would simply be dungeons themselves.”

“That’s a good thing.

There are still many people who haven’t adapted even to the existence of dungeons, so if you go around telling them that those dungeons are formed from a cosmic concept called the Origin... everyone’s heads would split.”

“I’m always grateful to you gardeners.

Want me to make you coffee?”

“No.

I’m sick of caffeine.”

Yoo Seongun openly looked disgusted.

He’d already been busy and working late often, and lately, to talk with Gio who only opened his eyes at dawn, he’d been consuming every kind of caffeine until he was about to throw up.

“Anyway, well, yes.

If you had to pick, it does seem far easier to explain Gio as a child of the Origin.

Other than that, there’s no way to explain it... and the Origin isn’t a concept narrow enough for Earth’s beings to grasp in thirty years.”

“Even dungeons aren’t fully understood yet, so there’s no room to explore knowledge even lower than that, I suppose.”

“The Association president still seems very interested, but... well.

Even now, it’s hard to say this or that definitively about Gio’s identity.”

The Origin is a single ecosystem, and nature itself.

Just as nitrogen in the air cannot understand humans, originally, children of the Origin have a woefully insufficient understanding of humans.

They simply survive in their own ways and cultivate their own ‘story.’

But Gio was not like that.

“How that’s possible... I don’t really know.

He said there was a time he was human, so if we investigate focusing on that, wouldn’t something come up...?”

“...”

“Even so, I still can’t understand how a human can become a child of the Origin.

And even if he was human, there’s a chance he wasn’t an Earth human, too.”

Many beginner gardeners often confuse ‘monsters’ with ‘children of the Origin,’ but just because something was formed under a strong influence of the Origin didn’t mean the two were the same.

“Monsters are born from dungeons, and children of the Origin are born from the Origin.

If the womb they were born from is different from the start, there’s no way the two can be the same.”

“Would it be like the relationship between an uncle and a nephew?”

“Mm... that’s somewhat similar.”

From the Origin as the maternal body, ‘dungeons’ and ‘children of the Origin’ are formed, and from those ‘dungeons,’ monsters are formed.

Usually, it follows that flow.

“If it’s a humanoid monster or something on that level, they might first make their own dungeon and create new rules or monsters there, but those cases aren’t common...”

The uncle and nephew comparison wasn’t that far off.

“There’s also a theory that dungeons themselves are one of the children of the Origin.”

“Ah, is that so?”

“That part still needs more research.

I can’t say for certain.

Anyway...”

Yoo Seongun looked at Bisabeol.

“So, was it fine?”

“...”

“I mean, we decided to let this unknown existence run free.”

To that, Bisabeol shrugged.

“...Haven’t we been exchanging answers about that since a while ago?”

How, exactly, were they supposed to keep a mysterious, uncontrollable existence from being free.

“It’s not a monster, not an item, not an awakener.

And there are too many strange points for him to simply be a child of the Origin.”

“...”

“He creates life, his soul rank is high, and there’s nothing he can’t do.

He takes everything for himself.

If there were even limits or conditions to coming out beyond the portrait, that would be one thing, but he does that freely and easily too.”

“...That’s true.”

“How do you plan to stop him?

Is it even possible?

We can’t even handle a god we’ve grown close to, and how are we supposed to stop ‘Gio’s portrait,’ whose identity we can’t even know?”

Bisabeol laughed and waved his hand.

“Ah, perhaps it might work if we took a human he cherishes as a hostage.”

“Are you insane?”

“I expected that reaction, of course.

It isn’t to the taste of good people like us in humanitarian terms, and in the first place, we don’t even know how effective it would be.

At Gio’s level, he could probably smuggle the hostage away easily... and then all we’d do is make him angry.”

“...”

“Do you understand?”

He laughed, as if pleased.

“We can’t stop him.”

“...I know.”

“Trying to stop a tidal wave by standing up a single small child as a meat shield—what’s the difference, really.

If we can’t stop it anyway, then at the very least we shouldn’t make it angry.”

He smiled thinly.

A smile that felt, as if soothing a sulking child, like the gaze of an old man looking down from above.

“And it would be best to win as much goodwill as possible.”

As the greatest luck amidst misfortune, “Gio’s portrait” is very gentlemanly, values manners, and is also fair.

If he receives something as goodwill, he returns it with the same goodwill, with an even greater value.

That is probably Gio’s ‘rule.’

“This incident was a kind of vaccination.

It was a prior warning, for the sake of coexisting with an existence we can never handle.

Fortunately, I know my employees very well, and they showed the kind of indifference that matched my expectations.”

“...The countless ghost-story commotions that happened in the guild until now likely played a part too.

They must have thought that since nothing happened up to now, there was no need to tremble over a single ghost story now.”

“That’s exactly it.”

“...”

“This is ‘Collector.’”

A place Bisabeol himself manages, filled only with employees Bisabeol himself chose, and packed with the works Bisabeol himself loves.

That was Korea’s #3 guild, “Collector.”

“Mr. Yoo Seongun, remember this. ‘Gio’s portrait’ is not an existence we can control.”

Thinking of fighting it was stupidity.

“It is a natural disaster, and fortunately, it can communicate with us and also bears goodwill.

That can be seen as tremendous luck—an unbelievable miracle beyond even that.”

“...”

“Think the fate of Earth hangs in your hands, and don’t even think about stupidly throwing this miracle away.

We must be cautious, and bold, and always kind.”

“...Did you buy Gio knowing this would happen?

Since he was going to be revealed to the world anyway once he came up at auction, you struck first to prepare for any possible disaster in the process?”

“I see quite a lot.”

“...”

“I thought it wasn’t an ordinary work.”

Bisabeol then smiled with a childish, playful face.

Dressed like a gentleman, it really shouldn’t have suited him, yet it made him seem lively.

He said,

“Because it was the only work I couldn’t read.”

A correct statement.

“...”

“...I trust you, Guildmaster.”

“It’s troublesome if you trust me too much.”

“More precisely, I trust your eye.”

He trusted those eyes.

Since it was, in the end, a successful gamble, Yoo Seongun decided to swallow his words.

“But even so, I’m anxious because I’m only human, I suppose.”

“With a talking disaster in your arms, how could you not be?”

“Like... right before a horror movie starts.”

Ah, yes.

That.

“...Maybe it’s because it’s so huge...”

What could you do about a heart that cowered before a giant.

Originally, humans were—

such tiny existences.

* * *

Meanwhile, Gio, who, by a truly absurd and nose-stuffing, shouldn’t-exist level of miracle among miracles, on that day that was the last day of Earth but in truth was not, unconsciously fused with the Origin and evolved into a haunted portrait...

“This is the taste.”

Was farming.

Meaning he had no thoughts at all.

Fantasy, modern,