Chapter 72

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons - Episode 72

Of course, exchanging names was a popular and convenient way to socialize.

“But, um... how should I put it... do you know that feeling, like something that isn’t human at all is imitating a human?”

“Monsters often try mimicry to lure humans.

A monster like the Jangsanbeom, which still hasn’t been subjugated, imitates human voices.

Among overseas monsters as well, there are individuals that put on human skin, or learn human language.”

At the researcher’s words, the hunter shook her head.

“It didn’t feel that half-baked.

Like I told you earlier, even though it was plainly obvious it wasn’t human at all, I still, deep down, felt certain it was human.”

“Yes, you did say that.”

“It’s a similar context to that.”

With a troubled face that said, ‘How do I explain this so you’ll understand,’ the hunter struggled to explain.

“‘The Black Cloak’ definitely wasn’t human.

But there was no excess to the way it acted like a human.

With the monsters you just gave as examples, that fragment can look perfect... but it still doesn’t look like a perfect human, you know?”

“...”

“Whereas with ‘the Black Cloak,’ there wasn’t that kind of alienness.

The dissonance was strong, but it was definitely a perfect human.

That was...”

“A perfect human?”

The researcher stared straight at the hunter.

“Humans cannot be perfect.”

“That’s the problem.”

The hunter nodded.

“It was too perfect.”

The behavior of ‘the Black Cloak’ she saw that day had no alienness you’d feel from calling it human, and yet the dissonance was considerable.

“Like it wasn’t born human, but afterward became human...”

“That isn’t a concrete description.”

“They say it’s a hunter’s gut, right.

Like, you could say it felt ‘off’?

There isn’t any clear evidence, but wow, this is really weird.

This isn’t something I can just gloss over... I think I got that kind of gut feeling.”

The hunter let out a hollow laugh.

“Honestly, calling it ‘gut’ is kind of... even to anyone’s eyes, it wouldn’t be human.”

No matter the age or gender, if you tossed it in front of them, they’d think, ‘Uh, that’s not human,’ so it shouldn’t be defined with a vague sense like “gut.”

It was extremely polite.

The voice that seeped into your ears as if teaching someone felt like it was whispering not through the mouth but through the brain, and that voice was so quiet it was embarrassing to even call it ‘sound.’

It was like a peaceful grave.

“Just, um, I mean that the sensation I felt was that contradictory and vague.

It’s too hard to explain concretely.

If you see ‘the Black Cloak’ directly, you’ll probably understand what I mean.”

“Hm...”

The researcher asked, as if puzzled,

“Surprisingly, you’re favorable toward ‘the Black Cloak’?”

“...Pardon?

Me?

I was?”

“It doesn’t seem like you realized it, but what you just said didn’t feel like ‘you should suffer it too’—it felt more like ‘I want to introduce it to you’ strongly.

Did I misunderstand?”

“...”

After hesitating for a long time, the hunter finally opened her mouth with difficulty.

“...I think I probably am favorable.”

“I’m not criticizing you, so you don’t need to worry.

I’m simply curious how you came to hold such favor toward something that is clearly an object of fear.”

“Ah... this is too hard...”

Letting out a sigh, the hunter continued.

“...I’m not sure this is a sufficient answer, but I think it was because the other party was extremely kind to us.”

“A monster, to humans?”

“Didn’t I write it in the report?”

“I can see how it behaved, but that alone is difficult to understand.

Can you explain it?”

“...”

The hunter, thinking, nodded.

“It would be best to talk from when we first met.”

She recalled what happened in ‘The Country of the Deep Sea.’

That black, enormous cloak.

* * *

“Team Leader.”

It was when they fled from the humanoid monster ‘Iser’ and the monsters he brought along.

“There are no other monsters nearby.”

“You’re sure?

No traps?”

“There aren’t any of those either.

We all checked, so it’s certain.”

“Something feels odd...”

Hunter Jeong Daun, the team leader, knew something about the situation was strange.

“The dungeon owner isn’t unaware of our location, so it makes no sense that only this area has no monsters.

This can’t be a safe zone, can it?”

“Obviously not...”

A safe zone refers to a literal ‘safe area’ that exists in some dungeons.

Sometimes, when a dungeon has multiple owners, monsters avoid the area to avoid conflict with the other owner, and such a zone forms.

‘There are exceptions, where it isn’t about territory disputes and yet a safe zone sits there by itself, but it doesn’t feel like that kind of atmosphere either.’

And there was also objective evidence.

“If it were a safe zone, there are too many traces of monsters passing through.”

“So it was a place originally full of monsters, and suddenly the monsters disappeared?”

It wasn’t a good sign.

“Then the only case would be that an even stronger monster barged in, but...?”

If you thought that, then even the reaction of ‘Iser,’ whom they had just faced off against, felt odd.

“He looked confused because something happened in the dungeon.”

“Yes, if you recall how the air of the whole dungeon shook, something likely did happen.

This dungeon seems tightly connected to its owner.”

“If a humanoid monster is shaken, it would have to be a monster far stronger than it for the story to add up.

But if that’s the case...”

“...We can’t be safe either.”

“Ah, this is truly fucked.”

As they fled in a daze, it seemed they hadn’t even known whether this place was dangerous.

“To walk into a tiger’s den on my own two feet.”

It seemed likely that the place they were in was where a monster so strong it could shake the humanoid monster ‘Iser’ had barged in.

“At the very least, it’ll be nearby.”

“...We were so out of it...”

“Yeah, if we hadn’t come here, we would’ve died anyway.”

Even though there were moments they thought something felt off as they came, they had to come here.

With their bodies at their worst, they wouldn’t have been able to kill off the surrounding monsters and succeed in the raid.

“...Hoo...”

Jeong Daun forced a smile.

“Well, maybe it could be a monster you can talk to.”

“That too... yeah.”

Even though they knew the probability was almost none, the hunters snickered among themselves.

They had realized long ago that they might die here, and thanks to having mentally prepared beforehand, they could do that.

“Who knows?

If we beg hard enough, maybe it’ll spare us.”

Making jokes like that, the hunters rested.

“Hey, hey, rest.

If we leave here, it’s war again.”

“Yeah... true, if we don’t rest at a time like this, when will we ever rest again?”

“Aaagh, my leg... anyone got a potion?”

Thanks to that, they could take time to regroup, but the longer time passed, the more their anxiety grew.

“...Why aren’t monsters coming here?”

“...How strong does the monster have to be for them to even refuse a prepared meal...”

The time monsters attacked most often was, of course, the moment hunters were forcibly regrouping.

Hunters near their limit, with weakened equipment, became good snacks for monsters.

“And even so, they’re not coming at all?”

Even the humanoid monster they’d been facing had panicked and avoided the area, hadn’t it?

It was hard to even guess what had happened in this dungeon.

“I don’t think we can just sit still.”

“But if we move rashly, we might agitate both monsters at once.”

“But if we only stay here, that becomes a problem too.”

“You’re not wrong, but...”

“...”

“...Ah.”

The gaze of Team Leader Hunter Jeong Daun, who had been soothing her team, landed somewhere.

“Team Leader?

Why...”

“...”

“...”

Something pitch-black entered the hunters’ view.

“A, a person?”

“A survivor?”

“No, that is...”

It was a man wrapped in a black cloak.

“Hello.”

“...”

“I am a portrait.”

“...Uh...”

“What are your names?”

“Uh, uh...”

“I’m curious about your names.”

That was their first meeting with the Black Cloak.

“Will you speak with me?”

* * *

“...”

The researcher shrugged.

“Just from what you’ve said, I can’t feel any favor at all.”

“That’s right.

From the start, it’s scary that something that isn’t human is asking for a human’s name.

It was the same for me and my teammates.”

“...”

“But maybe we were a little reassured because it seemed like we could talk, at least.”

Unlike ‘Iser,’ from whom you could vividly feel the will to tear humans apart and kill them, ‘the Black Cloak,’ which approached silently and requested conversation, did not feel even the slightest hostility.

“I can’t say its existence itself wasn’t frightening—that’s absolutely not true, but...”

Even so, they were reassured.

“...Should I say it felt like receiving the favor of something of an extremely high rank?”

“...If you say extremely high rank, do you mean a god?

If so, it becomes difficult to call it a monster.

It is rare, but there are gods who visit dungeons in a form humans can perceive, so please keep that in mind when answering.”

“No, I know what gods are like too.

They’re closer to fate or nature with will.

But even I, as a believer of the sun god, can say: that absolutely wasn’t a god.

I could feel divinity, but it wasn’t.”

It might have been an existence even higher than that.

“I felt the energy of the sun from it.

It was truly warm.

But it was cold like a corpse.

I could clearly feel the energy of death too.

But it wasn’t rough, and all of that was just an outer shell...

No, no, not that... not that kind of... just...”

“...”

“...Rank or authority didn’t seem to have any use at all to ‘the Black Cloak.’

We sometimes say gods are fate or nature with will, but for it, it felt like it didn’t even have will.

It thinks and moves, but... can you call that will?”

“What do you mean?”

“It felt like it was simply existing.”

With no intent to save someone, and no intent to harm someone.

No will to be pure, and no intent to be greedy.

And yet it was clearly thinking, and could converse.

“...”

“...”

“...I don’t know how to explain this either.”

Birth and death.

Living and nonliving.

A rank and presence so enormous that trying to find ‘will’ in its thinking and actions felt impure in itself.

Something so clear it was cruel, and yet cannot be explained from a human viewpoint.

“And on top of that, its... eyes...”

Ah, that.

“...Those...”

“...What were those?”

“...”

Only after a long time did she answer.

“It felt like it could become anything.”

She didn’t know how vast and immense what was contained in those small eyes was.

You couldn’t express it with a trite word like ‘the universe.’

Between that black and blue endless space, connections like densely scattered stars—nature, fate—move as if they have will, then become quiet like mere nonliving matter.

How could a person ever describe that.

They couldn’t.

And they mustn’t.

“At the very least, I can’t.”

A realm humans must not see.

“It felt like it itself.”

“...”

“So... I don’t think you can call that... a god, probably.”

It was closer to a structure.

“...Or a system?

Or if not... no, I don’t know.”

“...I see.”

The researcher nodded.

“But in the end, because it was favorable, you survived and returned alive.”

“We did.

It didn’t seem like it even knew we were afraid, but still, it was quite gentlemanly.

From the standpoint of something that isn’t human, it would’ve been hard to notice human emotions, so I understand.”

“‘The Black Cloak’ introduced itself as a portrait, but...”

“That feels like the most fitting introduction.”

A person, but not a person; something that could be reality or delusion; a portrait that might hold someone’s death or life. The Black Cloak’s introduction was very appropriate.

“Um, and...”

“And?”

“It also used that kind of method.”

They returned alive through a painting.

* * *

To the hunters who had calmed down a little, the Black Cloak asked,

“Then you wish to leave.

Is that not so?”

“Well, th-that’s obviously...”

“I will help you.”

He brought out a frame from somewhere and held it up for the hunters to see.

“...”

“Do you know this place?”

It was a landscape painting that looked like an alley deep in the city.

It seemed like a slum, but there was no hunter here who knew the complex anthill-like structure of the slums well.

“...”

“Do you know this place?”

“Ah, no.

I’m sorry.”

When he asked twice with the same pitch, as if he disliked it when they didn’t answer in time, they couldn’t not answer.

Jeong Daun looked at them as if to ask, ‘Do you know?’ but they shook their heads.

They were anxious.

They would have to solve this unknown mystery to survive.

No, even aside from that, for some reason, Jeong Daun wanted to meet the expectations of the existence before her.

She wanted to catch his eye.

“...”

And because of that, she couldn’t lie.

In awe and fear so great she couldn’t even dare to imagine such a thing, Jeong Daun shook her head.

“...I’m sorry, we... don’t really know.”

“You do not need to be sorry.”

It was a steady voice in which no emotion could be felt, yet it didn’t feel cold either. The Black Cloak swept his pale, long hand over the frame.

Then the landscape painting changed.

“Do you know this place?”

“Ah.”

This time, she definitely knew the picture.

“Yes, yes, I know.

That... the collectors’ guild... the ground-level subway, yes, it’s the ground-level subway station.”

“That is correct.”

“Haa...”

Jeong Daun was greatly relieved.

Even though she could see his hand, the other party, covered entirely by a black cloak and nothing but shadow, did not feel like something with substance.

“Th-then... are you sending us out?”

“You do not need to be afraid.”

“...”

“Yes, I will help you.”

Like something that embodied a funeral, the Black Cloak—something resembling a grim reaper—stroked the painting.

“May I draw you?”

The Black Cloak melted the hunters into paint, and drew them into the landscape painting.

“...”

“...Uh...”

“...No way...”

When they opened their eyes, they were at the ground-level subway station.

An abrupt return alive.

* * *

“...”

“...”

“Was that enough of an answer?”

“...Yes, for now.”

The researcher nodded.

“I will report it to the Association.”

It was the moment ‘the Black Cloak’ was officially registered in the world.

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons

Fantasy, modern,