Chapter 9

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons — Episode 9

A late evening.

The top floor of the cabin, the attic.

A soft light.

The drifting scent of the forest.

A black wooden desk set up before a round window.

Gio was organizing the rules he had discovered there.

“So...”

Gio continued.

“You could call it 1:1.”

In this painting, Gio could do anything.

He hadn’t truly tried doing ‘anything,’ but that was how it felt.

In a world where he could even create a warm corpse, it would be fair to say there was nothing Gio couldn’t do.

‘But when reality gets involved, it becomes a different story.’

Even asking Yoo Seongun to draw an apple had been part of the work of confirming that.

‘A drawing I make or a drawing someone else makes is the same drawing from my standpoint, so I can enjoy it without any problem, but the moment I smuggle it outside, it becomes reality.

If there were no constraints at all, I thought that would be too much...’

That was where the suspicion began.

“It’s fortunate Mr. Yoo Seongun is kind.”

He was moved that he’d so readily drawn an apple for him out of nowhere.

“He’s such an adult—he goes along with it even when a portrait says nonsense.”

That way, with the considerate help of a kind manager and the trials of the past several days, Gio was able to grasp his situation.

When Gio goes outside the painting, his 모습 disappears inside it and the frame becomes a simple landscape painting.

If Gio wants to give a gift to a person outside the painting, he has to receive something from them.

In general, if something comes in, something goes out—the rule was 1:1.

“...”

Of course, the snacks he’d scattered to the 17 employees he met before had simply been goodwill.

‘Everyone was so scared, I thought if I gave them snacks the mood might loosen up.’

As a result, the mood did loosen.

More like it changed from terror to bewilderment.

Yeah—if a pitch-black lump popped out of a painting and suddenly shoved cookies into my hands, I’d be flustered too.

‘It’s also true those people helped me.’

In the end, it meant he’d only kept courtesy.

If there was something he received from someone, or if something happened that he needed to apologize for, his grandmother said he should give them something tangible along with smooth words that would charm the other person.

That it was the basic courtesy between people as they lived.

‘She said gratitude and apology that are only words are a corpse.’

Speaking nicely was the obvious part, and whether you could afford it or not, she told him to give a gift, even if it was very small.

For Seo Gio, whose facial muscles had atrophied to worse than a pony’s, it was advice that became blood and flesh.

Thus, the good potato Seo Gio was still faithfully following the words of his life mentor, his grandmother, even now at twenty-nine.

If he hadn’t, Gio wouldn’t have been able to become a teacher loved by his students.

Anyway, so.

“I can’t just keep receiving help.”

That was Seo Gio’s iron rule.

“In that sense, I should say the rules of this world fit me quite well.

It might be the result of my disposition being reflected, like the animals of the forest.”

He liked it.

“To pass something into reality while I’m a painting, I have to receive something too.”

Gio could do quite a lot freely.

It was already obvious inside this painting, where he enjoyed almost the authority of a creator, and even outside in reality, he could act without being bound by separate rules.

‘You can even make a passage with a painting and go to other floors without taking the elevator.’

However, when Gio is a painting and the other side is in reality, he couldn’t break this 1:1 rule.

This was something he learned while exchanging conversation with Yoo Seongun, the employee who manages the portrait.

“When I asked that person to draw an apple, a system explanation popped up.”

It was an explanation telling him to repay the favor, and there was even a time limit.

‘Was it about a week.’

He still didn’t know what problem would happen if he didn’t pay the price within a week.

But it didn’t seem like something good would happen, so he gave Yoo Seongun a gift the very next day.

“...”

Gio rolled the clutter by the side of the desk with his fingertip.

It made a clinking sound as it bumped against the wooden desk.

“Jewels...”

Among them were jewels of varied colors.

“I didn’t know I’d be able to make these too.”

Gio likes many different painting styles.

They say a proper painter has their own worldview, but perhaps because Gio was just a teacher rather than that kind of painter, he drew in all sorts of styles.

That Seo Gio was also skilled in hyperrealism.

The jewels he was touching now were things born that way.

“Making paint with these made it easier to draw the jewel I gave Mr. Yoo Seongun.”

As if the paint, the painting, the result itself were living creatures.

“...”

It certainly felt like life had taken root in something that couldn’t breathe.

“This specialness couldn’t suit this wonderful potato with no limits of thought any better...”

He’d never felt such freedom—like he’d thrown off even his underwear—at twenty-nine, but anyway, it was good that he could do so many things.

As a result, it felt like Gio had evolved into a potato that showed off even more varied charm.

Having finished organizing things to some extent, Gio continued thoughts no different from an unemployed person’s.

‘...Tonight, let’s sleep outside.

It’ll feel good to sleep while looking at the stars.

What should I eat tomorrow morning.

Even just baking potatoes and dipping them in salt would be tasty, right?

And if I get bored, it’d be fine to farm too.

If I ask Mr. Yoo Seongun...’

Since the weather was nice, the crops would grow well.

If he found seedlings he liked and farmed, it would feel refreshing.

He would eat meals with the crops that grew like that, and he would also have to give gifts to Mr. Yoo Seongun outside the painting.

If there were bees somewhere, he even felt like bringing them and raising them.

“Let’s wander around a lot.”

Then he’d come back to the cabin and draw.

If he drew...

“...”

Gio, half-dozing in the languid spring air, quietly opened his eyes.

“I need a companion animal.”

The scale had gotten a bit big, but isn’t this still country living, in the end.

“Raising a companion animal in a house with a yard is like soju with pork belly.

And I am a sturdy Korean man who drinks soju with pork belly...

Therefore, the conclusion is that I need a new family member.”

The creatures of this forest were friendly toward Gio, but perhaps because a wild animal’s basic wariness remained, he couldn’t touch them easily.

‘I wanted to knead them like glutinous rice cake, but I was firmly refused too.’

And Gio, who was gentleman itself, did not knead a rabbit that said it didn’t want to.

The forest friends were only wild animals that approached Gio easily and left easily.

Becoming friends with those guys would surely be enjoyable too, but Gio had another way.

“If I draw...”

He couldn’t create a human, and he had no intention of doing so.

He was already enough with just this one human taking responsibility for himself.

But animals?

“...Can I make them?”

Gio headed to the studio on the second floor.

* * *

Up to now, everything Gio had drawn was an object.

“They had no ego.”

Fruits, vegetables, food, plates, furniture, and more—he’d drawn many things, but they weren’t living, breathing beings.

Separate from the vague vitality Gio felt from them.

“...”

Gio sat in front of the canvas.

“...Will it work?”

Humans had failed, but for a small animal or so—would it be possible?

“...There are no other people here, but there are other animals...”

It seemed possible.

“...”

Gio stood up from the chair and walked toward the small drawers that filled the wall.

They had the form of a medicine cabinet you might only see at an old oriental medicine clinic.

There were too many to count, but Gio knew what was where.

“...Here, definitely...”

Clack.

He opened one drawer.

“There it is.”

There was a blue, transparent jewel.

Gio also didn’t know exactly what this jewel was.

But the jewel was cool.

Rather than cold, it was refreshing, and when you touched it, it was hard, yet its interior swayed fluidly as if water were flowing.

“...”

Shimmering and flowing within a single shape, it was a liquid in the form of a solid, and no different from life that gathered together and breathed on its own.

“Let’s use this.”

Besides that, Seo Gio took out a few more jewels, dried leaves, and minerals.

He broke the jewels with an awl and hammer.

Even the leaves, holding vivid color despite being thoroughly dried, and the minerals holding diverse hues—he ground them all into powder.

Made into a fine powder like flour, it was born as paint in Gio’s hands.

“...”

He gave it body with sap from trees found in the forest.

“...”

And then he gave it gradations again, finding an appropriate viscosity.

“...”

The finely ground paint on a glass plate where the color showed well glowed softly like fireflies.

‘...Pale like the Milky Way...’

It gave that much of a cool feeling.

“Done.”

Gio began to paint.

This forest had no lake.

Perhaps it was only natural, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit regretful.

He wished that transparent things without an end—like a neat pond, a magnificent lake, or a vast sea—would give off the scent of water.

Imagining the cool wind that would blow from a vast pool of water, Gio moved his brush.

“...”

A round body.

A small head, big wings.

The beak will only sing, so it doesn’t need to be large.

They would build their homes wherever water exists, and that home itself would become them.

“...”

Birds that are water itself.

“...”

What kind of birds would they be?

“...They seem like they’d form flocks.”

They would live in flocks.

They could stay anywhere there was water, and even if there was no water, they could create a pond, a lake, a sea at any time.

Holding life and breathing, they were transparent water and at the same time birds that raised a cool wind.

“The colors will be different for each one.”

Because water is transparent, the ones with egos would think,

‘That they want a color to reveal themselves.’

They would be cute friends.

To decorate their transparent selves, they would put all sorts of treasures inside their bodies.

Just as all birds groom their feathers, with their small beaks they would choose treasures suited to their bodies, put them inside their transparent bodies, and decorate themselves.

That could be a flower.

It could be a jewel, or fruit hanging from a tree, or food a person left behind after eating.

Perhaps they might hold a very old relic or a small fish.

“Everything is...”

Because it’s up to you.

As water and as birds, you could do anything freely.

It’s fine to fall asleep in a flowing stream, and it’s fine to fly freely across the vast sky.

They had freedom.

“...”

Gio drew a very small bird.

Its body was round, its wings were exactly the size of that torso, its tail feathers were long, and its beak was short.

With small bodies, they could hide anywhere, and they knew they were water themselves.

Water with life.

“...”

With jewels, flowers, and fruit inside those transparent bodies, shining in varied colors...

It was beautiful.

“...”

When Gio carefully tapped the bird’s beak with the tip of his finger—

“Ah.”

—Poruruk!

“...”

A bird holding its own treasure in its body perched on Gio’s shoulder.

“...Hello.”

Pashuk.

“Nice to meet you.”

Pasuseuk, pashuk!

“Yeah, me too.”

Instead of a cry, the bird rustled, making sound with the flower inside its body.

A quiet but noisy friend.

“You were a chatterbox.”

Petals trapped in its small transparent body made faint noises, playfully crying out.

“Amazing.”

Before he knew it, Gio’s room was filled with transparent, sparkling birds.

They hovered around Gio for a moment, then soon went whooshing out through the open window.

The wind raised by the wingbeats of living water droplets was far larger than he’d imagined.

The scene, like watching cherry blossom petals scattering in a vivid spring breeze, was truly beautiful.

“...”

Gio, blankly dazed for a moment, soon moved his feet and stood on the terrace.

“...Ah.”

They’re there.

“They didn’t go far.”

They formed a small pond beside Gio’s cabin.

He propped his chin on the terrace railing and leaned his body against it.

“Good little things.”

The pond, or perhaps the lake, encircling the cabin in a long curve flowed gently.

Beneath it, countless ‘treasures’ lay like beach sand or river pebbles.

The lake, sunk full of flowers, jewels, fruit, and the like, glittered enchantingly under the moonlight.

They flowed calmly as one, and then—pop!

They rose up, looked around, and then hid inside again, forming a pond with their friends.

“...”

Gio closed his eyes.

When the living, moving, sparkling water disappeared from his sight, he could soon hear the sound of their breathing.

Instead of chirping cries, jewels clinked, petals brushed, and small stones or sand shifted with faint rustling noises.

That was how those friends conversed and cried out.

It was like the sound of summer insects...

“...I should sleep.”

Gio went outside the cabin holding only a single pillow.

Then he lay down between the cabin and the pond.

“...”

Rustle—.

When he lay down to fall asleep, he heard the sound of animals approaching.

‘Considering they all ran when I tried to touch them, isn’t it a bit fast how they’re coming closer.’

Birds that had been tilting their heads on tree branches fluttered down and perched on Seo Gio’s chest.

The deer that had been sniffing around the shallow wide pond also moved its long legs and came beside Seo Gio.

Squirrels that had been twitching in the bushes put acorns or small fruit into the pond and then crowded around him.

“...”

At that sight, Gio muttered.

“...A toll?”

A toll gate fee?

Anyway, both the squirrels and the birds of the pond looked satisfied.

‘Then that’s fine.’

Anyway, isn’t it peaceful.

If the friends Gio created weren’t beings that deserved to be rejected—if they could mingle and blend with the existing ones as much as they liked—then that alone was enough to satisfy him.

Around then, Gio thought.

“...”

That it might be fun to decorate this portrait, too.

Fantasy, modern,