Chapter 41

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons - Episode 41

Sausage made from Tree-Antler Deer meat and medicinal herbs and fruits that grow wild along the fateful ley lines.

Processed directly by Gio, the owner of the forest, so that even a human body can accept it.

This sausage, which provides deep satiety, is excellent for certain injuries and for recovering immunity.

“Help.”

“Oh, you startled me.”

“Please help me.”

“Would you stop coming to find me every time you receive an awkward gift to deal with, Curator Yoo Sungwoon?”

“This time, I’m the one who received it, so I can’t even share it with other people.”

At the sudden appearance of Yoo Sungwoon, Bisabeol answered cheerfully.

“Then shouldn’t you just ask whether you can share it and eat it?”

“I guess there’s no other way.”

“Have you tried this gift?”

“I ate about three at home before coming.”

Yoo Sungwoon nodded.

“It was delicious.”

“Ah, when you say it like that, now I suddenly want some too.”

“Wait until I ask Gio.”

“If you’re not even going to let me eat it, then why did you bring it to me at all?”

“Because if other people notice it, it’s obvious my position will get awkward.”

“Ah, for the safe...”

Bisabeol smiled bitterly.

“As expected, our employees have a very cynical side to them.”

“Didn’t you say you gathered all those people yourself?”

“No matter what, who uses the guildmaster as a safe.

Nobody treasures me enough.”

“Who made this atmosphere, and now you’re acting pitiful.”

“So how’s the effect?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

After hesitating a moment, Yoo Sungwoon rubbed the back of his neck.

“They say it’s excellent for injury and immunity recovery, but I don’t have any injuries like that yet, so I haven’t seen the effect.

However...”

“However?”

“I do feel like my eyes get a bit clearer.”

“Your eyes get clearer?”

Even after the world became like this, medical technology related to eyesight had progressed slowly.

Worn-down optic nerves simply don’t recover more and more as time passes.

In that sense, the effect Yoo Sungwoon mentioned sounded quite interesting.

“Is it a definite effect?”

“As far as I can tell, yes.

If someone else eats it with me too, we’ll have a comparison group, so we can analyze the effect more precisely.”

“Then first we’ll have to get Gio’s permission.

You should have asked together when you received the gift.

It didn’t seem like Gio would refuse flat-out, either.”

“Not only must you not make that kind of definitive judgment about an existence of the Origin, but at the time I was also out of it after pulling an all-nighter.

Do you think I would have known that I’d go over to deliver some bungeoppang and end up receiving a gift like this?”

“If you’re truly tired, how about eating the cookies you got last time?”

“I finished those a long time ago.”

Yoo Sungwoon had become a slave to caffeine again.

“The fruit syrup we got before... it didn’t look like it at all, but anyway, what did the other employees think of the fruit syrup?”

“The reactions were very good.

And they also looked confused.

To start, the greatest advantage of ley-line honey—‘restores a human’s physical abilities to their limit’—that part...”

“No matter how much you say they didn’t read the description, they’ll still feel it in their body, so they’ll be doubtful.”

Bisabeol asked with a smile.

“Would you like a cup of fruit tea before you go?”

“...Please.”

For Yoo Sungwoon, on the verge of being worked to death, recovery was necessary.

After drinking fruit tea with a thick savoriness like soup, Yoo Sungwoon let out a small sigh.

It truly was delicious, but consuming something this tremendous just for fatigue recovery made him feel an unnecessary sense of doubt.

“If you took it into a dungeon, it would be a huge help.

It feels like it would have a meaningful impact on changes in the death rate, too.”

“That’s true.”

“But if we actually bring it, the commotion will grow again.”

“That’s also true.”

“...It’s a problem even if an existence of the Origin is too friendly.”

It was a new realization.

“So the employees didn’t suspect anything?

They must have felt something was strange.”

“Everyone was curious about where the fruit syrup came from, but no one asked me again.

I said it was something I bought at an auction, but even so, the reaction that they still couldn’t understand it was strong.”

“So what did you say?”

“What do you mean what did I say.

No one asked, so I didn’t say anything either.

Our employees really hate getting involved in complicated matters.”

“No office worker likes additional work.”

“Anyway, everyone’s so cold.”

Bisabeol said, drinking his own fruit tea.

“Still, it seems there weren’t many people who guessed it might be a ‘fragment of a work.’”

A ‘fragment of a work’ was an idiom used within the collectors’ guild, referring to an item or blessing—or curse—that a work trapped in Bisabeol’s gallery gives to a curator.

“Hardly anyone even considers that there could be a work that gives food as a gift...”

“As expected.”

Among the works gathered in Bisabeol’s gallery, quite a few had self-awareness.

Depending on how sophisticated that self-awareness was, a high-level curator would be assigned, and the curator would manage it while paying attention to their bond with the work.

So very, very occasionally—very exceptionally—there were curators who received ‘fragments’ like this.

“Usually, they give objects.”

“If food is an object, then it is an object.”

“Rather than that, they give things like accessories, paintings, or weapons.”

“Right, most of them.”

There was no way there would be another work like Gio that had gotten a taste for cooking.

“Is Gio’s only hobby cooking?”

“No, as I said before, he also enjoys drawing.”

“And those drawings become passages, or living creatures.”

“That’s right.”

“Then what happens if he draws a landscape?”

“...”

Yoo Sungwoon’s face crumpled like foil with a crunch.

“I’m resting right now, so don’t make me anxious.”

“It wasn’t that big of a story.”

“It was something I’d vaguely guessed the possibility of, but I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“Pitiful...”

“Does it become anything but sarcasm when a boss says ‘pitiful’?”

Bisabeol nodded with a smile at the sight of his subordinate, warped with fatigue.

“I’m just curious.

Since Gio can create everything through drawings, I was simply intrigued about what happens in that case if it’s a landscape.”

“Maybe he could create another world.”

“Like a dungeon?”

“...”

“Cool.”

Bisabeol stroked his chin and said.

“From what quite a few night guards have witnessed, they said Gio moves through some kind of landscape painting.”

“That’s a bit different from what I heard—landscapes, not portraits?”

“It seems if Gio is inside it, it’s a portrait, and if he’s outside, it’s a landscape.

It looks quite convenient, doesn’t it?”

“That’s really nuts...”

“They say that around daybreak, works hanging in the hallway disappear, so it certainly seems he can use them for movement too.”

“But wasn’t that something you’d already guessed?”

“So what I’m curious about is, if he can move to places that already exist through paintings...”

Then.

“Can Gio also move to other dungeons?”

“...”

“I’m curious.”

“That...”

Yoo Sungwoon frowned.

“I think that’s a bit of a dangerous thought.”

“Did it sound like that?”

“Maybe I don’t know exactly what you’ve seen of Gio, Guildmaster, but from my standpoint—my eyesight isn’t that good—it does.”

“Gio has already toured outside under Curator Yoo Sungwoon’s guidance.”

“I agreed to that too, but what you’re saying now means we should broaden Gio’s range of activity even further.”

It felt unpleasant.

“That I show Gio more favor than I should as a work... I have nothing to say about that either.

But it’s the gardeners’ nature.

Something engraved into the soul.”

That is what gardeners are like.

They don’t feel threats as threats, and they can’t think of cruelty as cruelty.

To those who tend a garden, an existence of the Origin is something to be cared for.

“As I told you when I accepted your offer and signed the employment contract, I truly told you again and again: gardeners are not on humanity’s side.”

Born as humans, tending gardens, they hope both can coexist.

It was inevitable that Yoo Sungwoon would be bewitched by Gio, who seemed very close to the Origin.

Because a gardener cannot survive without being driven mad by the Origin.

It was an ancient taste that cannot change, and must not change.

“But you are a whole human being, Guildmaster.

If I’m not being thorough as a curator, you need to point it out and correct it.”

“...”

“You allow far too much... to your work.

It wouldn’t be strange if I worried about that.”

Bisabeol smiled.

“Wasn’t it the same logic that let you use me as a safe, Yoo Sungwoon?”

“...I know I’m not in a position to say anything, since I’ve received help from your favoritism many times, big and small.”

Every member of the collectors’ guild was part of Bisabeol’s collection.

The fact that he looked weak enough to be pathetic, and that he gave overly excessive favor—both stemmed from Bisabeol’s irrational collecting urge.

Bisabeol loved all of his collections.

“Even so, I think using the world as your work’s testing ground will bring a big backlash later.”

“Backlash.”

“Each time an out-of-spec work like Gio appears, you’ve behaved like this.”

“How have I behaved?”

“Like no matter how the world breaks, no matter how many die, you don’t care at all as long as you can understand and appreciate your work.”

“You saw correctly.”

Bisabeol nodded.

“So I hired curators to manage it for me, while I’m busy appreciating.”

“...”

It was a disgustingly irresponsible thing to say, but since it wasn’t exactly wrong, Yoo Sungwoon sighed.

“The fact that even I, a gardener, am taking humanity’s side like this means it’s truly serious.”

“I thought I was restraining myself in my own way, but if you’re saying that, then it seems I did go too far.”

Bisabeol’s eyes curved clearly.

“But aren’t you curious?”

They were the eyes of someone with no intention of hiding their greed.

“I’m curious what my work is.

I’m very curious how diligent a young man Gio is, whether he can kill people, and if he kills, how much and in what way he’ll kill.”

“...”

“Gio is a painter.

He’s also a portrait.

He has a personality that avoids friction.

He thinks of himself as a 29-year-old young man.

How will he blend among people?

If he has an unpleasant experience, how will he react?

If he realizes he is a work, how will he change—that’s what I’m curious about.”

“...”

“To be honest, I don’t care what happens to the world because of Gio.

I’d be angry if my work gets damaged because of stupid people, but I’m not afraid of works fighting each other and getting hurt and burning.”

That was Bisabeol’s honest greed.

“Have you heard the saying that the higher the rank, the farther you depart from being human?”

“...It’s a famous story.

Stories about how inhuman S-rank hunters are are popular, after all.”

“It’s very embarrassing to claim this with such a shabby physical ability, but I hope you’ll understand that I, too, am S-rank.”

He was close to the inhuman.

“It would have been nice if this world were beautiful and clear enough that I could cherish it.

Isn’t that so?”

“...”

Yoo Sungwoon’s face, forced to hear such absurdity to his face, twisted with fatigue.

“...Ordinary people don’t even consider the possibility of mass slaughter just because the world isn’t beautiful or clear, Guildmaster...”

“That’s only because their view of the world is narrow.

To put it more bluntly, even if the world is destroyed because of my work, that would only be something that was going to happen anyway.”

“I wish the Association President had heard this.

Isn’t Bisabeol’s gallery the only place the Association—so strict about regulating high-risk items—trusts and leaves things to?”

“He said it knowing it, but he doesn’t exactly trust me, either.

It’s just that the Association President himself lacks the time and resources to manage everything, and as dangerous works increase day by day, I was the only lesser evil who could take them.”

Because he bears about half of the government’s and Association’s burden together.

For that one reason, Bisabeol obtained autonomy over the gallery.

“So it’s no different from the Association President not trusting me.

He simply needed a space and personnel who would keep up minimal management steadily.”

“...Even with that distrust, the Association still hasn’t taken the works from you.

When I think back to when I was a researcher there, it was clear the Association coveted your gallery...”

“That’s why life is all about timing.

If I’d opened this gallery even ten years later, would the Association have gone this far in letting things slide?”

As if he’d heard an amusing bit, Bisabeol’s face brightened.

“In today’s world, Bisabeol’s gallery is very famous.

It has far more performance, stimulation, and public exposure than the Association, where only quiet research, analysis, and control take place.”

“...”

“And what I manage is a gallery.

Customers can come, and those customers can buy works.

The Association can’t suppress this historic gallery that has customers who support me.”

Bisabeol’s face dramatically filled with sorrow.

“Ah, truly... when I think of the works that would be trapped inside the Association, my eyes fill with tears.

How harshly they must be treated as they cling to life.”

“...That...”

“On top of that, thinking of the humiliation and pain my precious, delicate works could suffer in the Association’s laboratory, I absolutely can’t hand them over.

A work contains a soul.”

“Ah, yes...”

From the standpoint of Yoo Sungwoon, once the head of the Association’s research team, it was maddening talk, but since he was now working under Bisabeol and receiving conveniences, he decided to let it pass for now.

“So you have no intention of restraining yourself?”

“I’m restraining myself plenty, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to restrain.”

“This is a demon king’s castle.”

No one could know what kind of catastrophe would happen once it blew.

“If an accident happens even once, it’ll really happen properly.

You know that, right?”

“That’s why I’m even adding life-risk pay for the curators, aren’t I?”

“That wasn’t what I was asking whether you know.

Korea could get wiped off the map.”

“That would be very scary.

I trust that our curators will take care of things properly on their own before that happens.”

“What an irresponsible director.

Please be aware that it’s your gallery.”

Bisabeol’s gallery was more stimulating and open than the Association’s laboratory, but its safety was that much lower.

‘If we truly must manage those dangerous, sensitive works safely... we’d need stronger control.’

This place had only the bare minimum control, and a lot of volume.

It was the complete opposite flow from the Association’s laboratory.

Bisabeol loved his works, and managed them with love.

One of the basic requirements demanded of the curators here was ‘build a strong bond with the work.’

“...”

In the end, today’s Earth was being maintained far too precariously.

‘Even if it’s unavoidable since everything collapsed once and is being built again...’

Everything was being driven only by the mercy of a handful of the strong on Earth.

‘If even one person goes off the rails, it would really be a disaster, but fortunately, nothing like that has happened yet.’

It was amazing it was holding on.

“...We’ll try to work harder.

About Gio-related matters, too.”

“Then, in that sense, do you have any intention of helping Gio make a new friend?

It must be lonely alone.”

“Now you can’t even be bothered to wrap it up as some noble cause?

It’s clear you listened to everything I just said with one ear and let it out the other.”

At this point, he wondered if it was fate that Gio ended up being won by Bisabeol rather than the Association President.

“...”

Well, still

Even Yoo Sungwoon himself, now a gardener, welcoming these work-friendly opinions of Bisabeol, was a ridiculous guy.

He nodded.

“I’ll ask him once.”

He was going to go talk with Gio at dawn anyway.

Adding one question on top of that would probably be fine.

* * *

At that time, Gio.

“I made a few.”

“Kung?”

A few?

“Yeah, it is a bit many.”

“Kung?”

A little?

“Yeah, Dad was being shameless.

I got so excited I couldn’t even handle myself.”

“Gguruk.”

“I’ll reflect.”

He handed about 5 kg of sausages over to Yoo Sungwoon, and even then 5 kg of sausages remained.

“I dried them once in the sunlight, so if I store them in the ice storehouse they won’t spoil, but...”

“Gurur?”

“Like I said earlier, I got too excited, and I’ve neglected the waterfowl nest lately, so I was going to give them a gift.

Meaning, let’s not eat it all ourselves—let’s share it with everyone.”

“Ggururururururuk.”

“I knew you’d like it.”

The pile of grilled sausages was so plentiful it almost looked like a small hill.

Even so, it was smaller than all the waterfowl living in this forest, but what use was that—perspective differences and all that.

There wasn’t much difference in that the amount was excessively large.

But Gio stayed steadfast.

“Try this one first.

I thought you’d dislike spicy things, so I made this one mild.”

He was excited.

He would have enjoyed it even if he’d made sausage himself from ordinary ingredients, but wasn’t this food made with fantasy ingredients?

“This one is a sausage made with arum and Raven Walnut, and vinegar.

I also ground a bit of Milky Way Mary into it.

Honestly, it’s a little too mild for my taste... but I thought you’d like it.”

“Gguruk.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m saying I won’t eat it.”

For the first time in a while, Gio set a table outside the cabin and finished preparing a meal.

On the table were freshly cooked rice from a cauldron, vibamneel with its toxicity removed and dressed like seasoned greens, and piping-hot handmade sausages roasted like they’d been deep-fried in the oven, stuffed full of juices.

“I’ll grill more later and take it to the waterfowl nest.

For now, I set the table because I wanted us to taste it first, so let’s eat slowly, and we’ll drop by the nest later.

Do you agree, son?”

“Ggururuk.”

“As expected, you really are my son.”

Seo Gio, putting a long sausage into his mouth without cutting it, nodded inwardly.

‘...People like me, who like stimulating flavors, might find it a bit bland.

Honestly, it is a little plain, but it’s seasoned appropriately, so it’s good to eat with rice.’

The sausage, briefly dried in the sunlight, had been grilled once, and its outside was very crispy.

And the casing, made by directly cleaning and preparing intestines, was somehow savory and chewy, yet it was still soft enough not to resist the teeth.

It was a texture where crispness, chewiness, and softness coexisted.

“Mmm...”

Crunch!

“Ah, hot.”

Juices overflowed from the filling inside.

A faint scent of wood seeping into the roof of his mouth.

The sausage, freshly grilled in an oven where firewood blazed, was warm enough to be a little hot, and the sweet, somehow sticky juices that had been tightly trapped inside the casing wetted his mouth.

Warm.

“...”

And delicious.

‘...It turned out mild, but the aroma is good, as expected.’

He reduced the salt as much as possible to bring out the natural flavor of the meat, then added varied, complex aromas to fully encourage its compatibility with the original meat.

The result was this sausage.

The combination of Raven Walnut, which matched the deer meat’s faint nutty aroma, unified the sausage’s flavor.

On top of that, the biting scent of arum hidden deep beneath, and the vinegar from Candy Trap Tree fruit above it, were gently yet clearly asserting themselves.

‘As I keep eating it, it’s better than I thought. I thought it would be very plain.’

It even matched well with the faint bitterness from the vinegar itself and the heavy smoky aroma of the campfire wood the sausage was grilled over.

Both the sausage and the cooking method were excellent.

“Especially, I think I added the vinegar well.”

“Kku?”

“Is it because it’s fruit vinegar that fermented naturally?

It has a faint sweetness, and this sourness and bitterness that catches greasiness without being too sharp... it matches really well.”

Next was the sausage Gio made for himself.

Crunch!

“...”

The red sausage stimulated his taste buds the moment he bit into it.

‘My mouth is burning.’

There was a burning heat that somehow wrapped around his tongue stickily.

‘The aftertaste isn’t very long.

It’s a very soft, clean spiciness.’

His own sausage contained every ingredient he’d found this time.

Milky Way Mary, with a clean aroma like chili and pepper combined, and Weeping Fringe, which brings strong heat while also giving an enigmatic, heavy sweet scent.

Arum, with a ginger aroma that binds all the mixed, miscellaneous scents into one, and Raven Walnut, which lightly covers it with a steady, soft, deep fragrance.

And finally, Candy Trap Tree vinegar, adding a stinging sourness here and there to vary the flavor...

“...”

Was it a bit too much.

“Still, it tastes fine.”

“Kung.”

“It would be fine if you didn’t avoid it and tried it once.”

“Kungkungkung...”

“If you don’t want to, it can’t be helped.”

Whatever Honey thought about avoiding the sausage with a spicy aroma, it suited Gio’s mouth very well.

It felt like his slightly hollow insides were being completely loosened.

The feeling when you down a whole samgyetang in one shot, or when you step into boiling hot water, then head straight to a jjimjilbang with a sikhye in hand, sweating buckets while slurping a sikhye with fine ice through a straw.

This fullness that precisely fills what was lacking.

“Nice.”

Happiness isn’t far away.

‘I worried because I was using unfamiliar ingredients, but it came out even better than I expected.’

It was a sausage with “spicy” as its concept, but overall, the faint sweetness and the fat coating all the meat made the spiciness very clean.

With spicy food, if it’s simply cleanly spicy, you should consider it over 90% successful.

“It was worth having built up a feel for cooking.

This is when you use Grandma’s touch.”

“Kungkungkungkungkung...”

“It’s not that Dad made it wrong—it’s that our tastes are a little different.”

At this level, it was a very delicious spiciness.

Gourmet Seo Gio even ate chicken feet deliciously.

Usually, if buldakbal is too spicy to handle, you dip it in oil sauce or drink something sweet alongside it.

Then you can eat like an intellectual with a calmer mind.

This sausage was the same.

‘The taste and aroma themselves are overall spicy and sharp, but Weeping Fringe also had a faint sweet scent to begin with.

And Raven Walnut has that soft sweetness unique to nuts.

Not to mention the vinegar made naturally by Candy Trap Tree, which bears very sweet fruit...’

If the spice flavor seemed too strong, a soft aroma pressed it down.

If it seemed too spicy, the deer fat he’d added a little too much of washed the tongue’s pain like silk.

If the fat felt greasy, the vinegar asserted its sour presence and soothed his queasy stomach.

Overall, the balance was good.

‘Arum’s role in stickily binding these complex, tangled flavors and aromas into one is also big.

The effect is far better than I expected.’

Even while chewing food in his mouth, Gio planned a new dish.

“If I’m making something by tossing in various things, adding arum will really improve the quality of the dish.”

“Kung...?”

“I’ll make it less spicy than this next time.

It seems you have an aversion to spicy aromas.”

Arum gathered all the spices that burst out in all directions, boasting their individuality, and bound them in one place.

That stickiness was so effective that even while tasting such complex flavors, he didn’t think it was burdensome at all.

‘And this sausage, I paid attention to the texture too.’

Gio nodded.

“Doesn’t it have a nice chew, in its own way?”

“Ggururuk.”

“Yeah, it’s tasty, right?

When you vary the size of the meat bits, the chew becomes far more diverse.

Next time I make it, I should think about how to handle the texture too.”

“Kku kku...”

“I always think this forest is great because it doesn’t grow mold.”

If it weren’t, he couldn’t even have dreamed of this work.

‘Even the casing uses actual intestines with high moisture... it’d be lucky if it didn’t rot during the work.’

When meat bits differ, air forms inside the casing, and through those gaps the chance of mold forming rises.

At the very least, the sausages Gio had made up to now all went through that kind of process.

‘Weak-willed bastards.’

If you’re truly pork, shouldn’t you endure a little mold by sheer spirit?

“Hm.”

Anyway, thanks to that, this sausage’s texture was excellent as well.

Meat already mashed soft as porridge touched one corner of his mouth even before he chewed, pleasing the tongue, and the uneven chunks of meat bounced pleasantly against his teeth.

‘Juices are running, too... and the innards casing’s texture is better than I imagined.’

Maybe because the intestines were so plump, it felt like chewing thin gopchang.

The intestines he’d prepared in advance had no off smell at all, and had the chewiness and savoriness unique to innards foods.

And since it was grilled in the oven, the outer skin was crisp like a cracker, but the inner side of the casing was still sticky.

He could even feel the faint bitterness unique to nuts.

“...”

Gio muttered.

“I think it’s good.”

He wanted to live like this forever.

Peacefully.

Fantasy, modern,