Nuri picked up the pace, his shoulders bumping the wall more times than he liked, but he couldn’t contain himself. It was as if he were the first human to discover fire during the ice age, and his life mission was to get to it.

After a while, his shoulder slipped into open air, and he stumbled out of the passage into open space, dropping to one knee.

When he looked up, the ceiling was higher than he had ever seen, and a single pearl the size of his fist hung embedded in the stone, spilling soft light across the dry floor.

"...Oh, thank fuck."

Two paths stretched out before him, and both looked promising. The left was wide and low, its mouth slanting down into the depths. The right ran flatter and narrower, lit by another faint glow a little further in.

Nuri slumped against the nearest wall and exhaled loudly, like he had just come home from war — which, quite literally, he had.

’Those monsters are no joke.’

He had used the terrain to barely manage to kill one mantis, and the second and third had nearly killed him if not for his quick thinking. So what about the other 1-Star monsters?

They always hunted in packs and rarely wandered off alone. Even if there was only one, Nuri couldn’t dispatch it quickly as he had hoped. His swordsmanship was above average at best, and without an Imprint to support it, he was just like any ordinary human trying to survive this hellhole.

’Ah, whatever! I need supplies first.’

Nuri drew up the Labyrinth Shop’s window the same way he had called his status screen.

[Tip: Each floor has its own unique catalog.]

────SHOP (1F)────

Balance: 1000 Labyrinth Coins

[COMMON ITEMS]

[Waterskin (500 ml)] [200 LC]

[Waterskin refill] [50 LC]

[Mystery meal] [500 LC]

[Glowstone (12h)] [1000 LC]

[Bandage roll] [600 LC]

...[More]

[UNIQUE ITEMS] (14D)

(0/10) [Essence Vial (Common-tier)] [80000 LC] (20%!!)

(0/5) [1★ Equipment Crate (Common – Epic)] [75000 LC]

─────────────

’Damn, I gotta kill 74 more mantises for just one damn equipment.’

The Academy had also detailed the shop and its prices, but seeing it right in front of him made it feel unreal to Nuri.

Shaking his head, he clicked through to buy the essentials he needed for now.

[Waterskin (500 ml) acquired.]

[Waterskin refill acquired.]

[Bandage roll acquired.]

[Balance: 150 LC]

As soon as his shopping spree ended, a waterskin magically appeared in his hand, and a bandage roll on his thigh.

Color returned to his amethyst eyes. Nuri immediately removed the bung, tilted his head back, and lifted the skin, letting water flow into his parched mouth.

"Haaaaa. Water has never tasted this good!" He mumbled under his breath, careful not to alert any monsters nearby.

Nuri wiped his chin and brushed away the spilled water.

After rehydrating, he tugged his trousers down to expose the wound and wrapped the bandage snugly around his injured thigh — loose enough to let it breathe.

’Should I even wear this anymore?’

He wore long shorts underneath in case this ever happened, and it did. He hadn’t expected to throw away his pants on the first day, though.

’Alright, fuck this.’

He wiggled the pants off his legs and threw them haphazardly to the opposite side of the passage. It came down with a thud.

As for the wound beneath his ribs, it was only a shallow scratch. The blood had already dried into a thin, dark scab, so there was no need to waste the rest of his bandage roll wrapping his entire torso.

Nuri pocketed the bandage roll and slung the waterskin over his shoulder. He let his back slide down the rough stone and sighed.

Just one encounter, and his body was already battered like this... No wonder Explorers formed parties as soon as their first Exploration ended. Hunting alone meant keeping every last bit of XP and every Coin, but it also meant the odds of dying rose just as fast as the rewards.

Leveling up didn’t help much either. The ceiling was twenty, and no one had ever touched it. Each level let you stomach two more Essences and increased your stats, but the gains were so small that Explorers barely felt anything.

Speaking of Essences, now that Nuri had found a pocket of safety, he finally dared to check his Soul Canvas. Rosaria’s Blessing had carved out a sanctuary inside his soul — a quiet, private chamber where everything involving the Painted would unfold.

One caveat of entering the Soul Canvas, however, was that Nuri would be extremely vulnerable, with his consciousness gone entirely. Rosaria said she would alert him whenever danger came, but with her running out of allotted words, he was essentially gambling with his life.

Well, stepping into this godforsaken place had been a gamble from the start, so what difference would one more make?

Zero.

Being afraid of possibilities invited consequences more often than not. It only slowed you down until you could no longer get up on your own again.

That was something both his fathers liked to say.

’Ironic! Life always finds its way to mock you.’

Nuri snorted under his breath.

’Let’s check it out!’

He set the iron sword across his lap with the hilt by his right hand, and closed his eyes.

Nuri followed Rosaria’s instruction, imagining a blank canvas of pure white — a place where not even light could pry into his mind.

Then, the world remade itself.

It happened in a blink. One moment, Nuri was sitting against the stone with his eyes closed, and the next... he was standing on something soft and pale, with a flat white sky above him.

Was he even standing on anything?

Everything was pure white. There was no horizon, no matter where he looked. It just went on and on.

Nuri thought the emptiness would blind him, but there was no light at all — only white, pressing in from every direction.

On closer inspection, though the ground was the same pale white as the sky, it was much grainier... like paper.

’Wow... So this is the Canvas.’

He turned slowly and saw that the space wasn’t empty.

A short way off on the paper floor sat a cluster of objects he recognized from Rosaria’s lessons.

A wooden easel stood bare, along with a workbench holding a few brushes laid in a tray. A stack of blank canvases leaned against the workbench leg, each one sized to fit the easel. To the side, a shelf held two small empty frames, waiting to be hung somewhere.

The whole setup took up no more ground than a market stall.

’It’s tinier than I thought.’

Nuri lifted his eyes past the easel and realized he was dead wrong. The real work waited behind.

’Wait, wait, what the fuck?’

The actual canvas towered behind the tiny workstation. A wall-sized sheet of stretched white stood as tall as a three-story manor. Up close, it was the same grainy paper as the ground, only finer and more exquisite.

Whatever he painted here would leap from the canvas and come alive.

’...I can even fit a dragon.’

To the right stood the Inkwell. A wide-mouthed vessel as tall as Nuri’s chest, with an opening broad enough to fit both his arms to the elbow. Inside drifted a handful of glowing motes, each one the size of a marble, each a different color, moving at different paces.

’Traits!’

They were the ones Life Canvas had pulled out of the two Essences he had absorbed.

To the left stood the Reliquary. A broad pedestal rose to Nuri’s hip, wider than a banquet table. Five hollow basins punctuated its surface, each large enough to swallow a barrel.

Two of them did.

Inside those two sat clear glass receptacles, each of which cradled a knot of light as big as a pumpkin. The other three slots stood empty.

The drafting station before it all suddenly looked like a child’s playset at the foot of a cathedral.

"Holy..."

Nuri stared blankly, his body trembling with excitement. If this wasn’t the greatest thing to ever happen to him, he didn’t know what was. The perfect station to express all of his artistry and imagination was here!

Forget the past! Forget the present! Forget the future!

His existence had already belonged to the Canvas the moment he laid eyes upon it.

Nuri approached the giant canvas, reverent with every step. He pressed his palm to its surface, absorbing the texture and the warmth it gave off.

’Oh man...’

He turned in a slow circle to take the whole place in again, just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Everything was still there — the canvas, the Inkwell, the Reliquary, all of it.

That was when something on the workbench moved.

’Wait, is that...’

A small figure, half his size, flew from behind the brush tray, wings beating in a blur, and shot straight up before swooping down to hover an inch from Nuri’s nose.

"Nuri! It’s you! It’s really you!" she squealed, palms clapped together under her chin. "Oh, the honor of finally meeting you in person!"

She zipped sideways to look him over, then around behind him, then back to the front.

"I’ve watched every piece you ever painted. You’re so talented and exceptional!"

She floated up to circle his head, eyes shining.

"And by Rosaria, you’re so much prettier than I imagined! The Lady kept showing me your face, but stars, those portraits did not do you justice!"