The Artist Who Paints Dungeon-Chapter 367

The man's only friend had died.

“He must have thought himself a match for even the gods in greed.”

Why had he gone so far—driving his own fate into ruin—just to keep the man tethered to the earth?

Because of that, the man was forced to continue a life of immortality he hadn’t planned for. The life was pleasant... yet somehow grotesque.

“You’re truly beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

Sweet words burned the tongue.

“Your singing voice is like a divine instrument from the heavens!”

“You recognize my worth.”

Sincere admiration pleased the ears.

“To think such a perfect being exists...!”

“......”

Profound reverence fattened the soul.

“...Haha!”

And yet, it eroded much of the man.

He was no longer human. When he had been, whispers of love had only tasted sweet. But now that he had become a flower, a tree, the earth itself—it somehow grated on him.

'Why is that?'

Their praise still tasted sweet, but the sensation had grown rough. It no longer felt like a lush field of golden wheat, but like a dry cake choking the breath. At the very least, he wanted to breathe.

Had the world begun to scorn him not as a man, but as something other?

“...It’s ridiculous...”

When he was human, his beauty had been an honor. He proved that a mere human could be something greater. But once he ceased to be human, it became nothing more than a fact. Simply, a fact.

People spoke with awe, claiming he had become more than human—but the man didn’t feel that way. He felt less than human. And whenever that faintly miserable feeling crept in, he whispered of love.

“I love you.”

“Ah, there will never be a beauty more perfect than you...”

“Whisper it again, with more sincerity—my love.”

Unless they proved it endlessly, he could not accept that their love was real. Their confessions, praise, and reverence felt like mockery unless those who loved him made an effort. Only then did it feel right.

“More... just a little more.”

And so, those who claimed to “love” him always walked into ruin.

“......”

He knew—it was all his fault.

'I was the one who pushed them to the edge.'

Proofs of shapeless illusions never ended well.

He had never pushed them with his hands, but he whispered: Beyond this cliff lies your paradise. Who could resist jumping? He found himself laughable—just as foolish as those blind lovers, repeating this ritual of love.

And in such moments, he always thought of that cursed friend.

“If only you hadn’t made me like this. Don’t you think?”

He resented him.

“You reduced me to nothing more than wood or a gemstone.”

Sure, trees have their own worth. So do gems. But if he had remained human, what meaning would any of that worth have?

There was nothing. No substance. Nothing that lingered. Nothing of this world. The man would sometimes grow sorrowful and mutter to himself.

“Come play with me again.”

He missed those days.

“I’ll make you something tasty.”

He wished that adorable pig-dragon who loved to eat would return. Then all this meaningless business about love could stop. Then he could show him his friendship. But the dragon never returned.

And so, he had no choice. The man set out to find the dragon himself. He wasn’t a hero, much less righteous—but he had to track down the sinful dragon. One by one, the remnants began to gather in his hands.

“......”

It wasn’t easy.

“...What are you, a sugar sculpture?”

Shattered into pieces and melted away—he couldn’t even find a trace.

It was absurd. What happened to the powerful dragon’s body and might? The man had wandered through countless dimensions and lived countless lives, yet found fewer than five fragments.

Even so, having a goal brought great comfort to the wanderer.

“When I finally find you again, you’re getting scolded.”

So he grumbled as he continued walking.

A patch of dragon’s skin melted black. Unrecognizable bones. A thread spun from his tears into spider silk. A single claw turned to underground gold. A breath trapped inside an artifact...

“Excuse me, sir.”

“...Hello?”

“Yes, hello.”

Around that time, someone spoke to the man.

“I don’t know what kind of fairy you are or what you're searching for in this city...”

Polite yet dry voice.

“But I wouldn’t recommend walking around with all those visible treasures.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Of course. Even in this glittering city, there are starving children. And desperate children move fast. I don’t want to blame either their desperation or your purity. Will you help me?”

“How can I help you?”

“It’s simple—just hide those treasures somewhere safer. Don’t parade around with them and that flashy face of yours.”

It was a woman dressed in a stylish suit.

She was a bit taller than the local women the man knew, and though the fabric wasn’t high quality, the outfit itself was quite fashionable. The man remembered—it was the current city trend.

“I’m the owner of this shop.”

She introduced herself as a tailor.

“Shall we exchange names, sir?”

“I don’t like it when people vanish after learning my name, miss.”

“Oh my, how sweet. Call me Jay.”

“Is that your name?”

“That’s what everyone calls me.”

“Then please call me Gio.”

That was the name the human and dragon had once called him.

“I’m glad to have made a good friend as soon as I arrived.”

“With a face that sweet, calling me a friend will make me fall for you instantly. You’re dangerous, you know. What a lovely day for expanding my network.”

“Is expanding your network something to be happy about?”

“Look at my shop. In a small tailor shop like this, the most important thing is how many people you know. Well, I guess that’s true for all clothing stores...”

Jay was a good friend. She had manners. She often whispered sweet things—but she was light about it. All her love confessions were just a way of speaking. The man liked that about her.

Then one day, the man made a request to his friend.

“Would you mind working on this?”

“...It’s damaged, but isn’t this expensive leather? It’s one of the treasures you always carry around.”

“Of course. It’s priceless.”

“I don’t know how to tan leather.”

“Please ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) learn.”

“What kind of absurdity is this?”

But in the end, his friend gave in to the absurdity and learned leathercraft. Still, working on the man’s treasure-hide was no easy task. Jay sometimes got angry.

“Where did you even get this kind of leather?!”

“Look at my face and calm down.”

“How could I calm down when you’re handing me ruined leather and asking me to fix it?! You’ve got no shame! I make clothes—I don’t process raw materials!”

“You already learned it, so don’t complain...”

“You think this is complaining, you universally beloved bastard?! If you had even a shred of the conscience equal to today’s pile of love letters, you wouldn’t be doing this to me!!”

“Ahaha!!”

“You’re laughing?! You laughed just now?!”

But in the end—she did it.

“Next is this.”

“...Who are you?”

“Please take care of this too.”

“...Who even are you to me?”

“Your lovely friend Gio.”

“I don’t remember having a friend like that?”

“Oh come now, such jokes...”

“You think this sounds like a joke?”

Fortunately, she was a talented craftswoman, respectful of her friend, and someone who always finished what she started. In the end, Jay completed work on five of the “treasures.”

With them, she made the gentleman a hat.

“This is the gift you wanted.”

“......”

The man had asked her to make something from those materials—and she’d been bothered by the fact that he, always dressed like a layabout, didn’t even own a proper hat.

“...Thank you.”

The dragon’s melted black skin gleamed like obsidian.

The unrecognizable bones, combined with a breath trapped in an artifact, became a blue ribbon.

The thread of spider silk spun from dragon’s tears and the golden claw turned into embroidery threads adorning the hat.

“Thanks to you, my friend is clean now.”

“......”

By then, his friend had grown old—an aged artisan.

“I must be going now, Jay.”

“...Damn fairy bastard.”

“I told you, I’m not a fairy.”

“Screw off, you plague.”

“Then I’ll come visit again.”

It wasn’t a lie.

The man wandered through more lives to collect more traces of the dragon. Then, on a sunny patch of wildflowers, he sat down and wove a flower crown. Even if she had aged and turned to soil, he could still leave a gift on her grave.

After countless cycles of reincarnation, when he returned in a young body to find his friend again—of course, she was dead. Time had passed here too, while he’d been living other lives.

“......”

“Ah, just as I thought...”

But contrary to Zeorge’s expectations, Jay was not resting in a clean, peaceful grave.

“The record was right. There really was a fairy!”

“...And who are you?”

“Please call me Bell. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to arrive.”

“That... that’s definitely my friend.”

“To think you’d be such a young gentleman. It must be cold with the snow—shall I prepare a banquet for you?”

“That hand belongs to Jay.”

“Oh my... how could something be so beautiful...”

“......”

The familiar remnant soaked in preservatives was hardly different from his memories. At the very least, it likely hadn’t been a natural death.

No matter who had crafted them, the assorted works were too neatly preserved—yet time showed in their finish. Drawn in by a familiar scent, what greeted the man was merely the figure of a friend turned into bait.

He had forgotten—thanks to meeting such a good friend like her.

“...Ahaha.”

Zeorge had always been beautiful—coveted by all.

“Do you love me, Bell?”

That was why he had whispered love.

***

“...It may not be the clearest example,”

Aram began to speak after finishing her analysis.

“There are monsters that can be lured by hanging the corpse of their mate in an open field. And there are many recorded cases of using a loved one as bait to summon a specific mystical entity.”

The success rate of such summoning methods is high—but equally high is the chance of provoking the entity's wrath. Modern Earthlings generally avoid using such crude techniques. Nonetheless, Aram nodded as if she generally understood the context.

“This dimension clearly had Mystics. And the owner of the accessories we’ve found so far belonged to a class of people who had frequent contact with those Mystics. They would have known how such baiting methods work.”

“I think I also understand why they used such a brutish form of preservation. The dimension was saturated with Mystics, but the techniques for handling them were primitive. They had no choice but to preserve the ‘bait’ in a way that allowed it to degrade.”

“Still, to go as far as collecting all of them and storing them together... They must’ve believed that the more medium they had to summon the ‘Fairy,’ the better. It might seem crude to us, but by the standards of that era, it’s not entirely irrational.”

A Collector's Guild member, who had been quietly listening to the Moon Cult priests' analysis, asked,

“Then this flower crown...”

“Was probably made by the ‘Fairy,’ like the letter’s author.”

One of the priests stroked their chin and said,

“Seems like the ‘wrong answer’ was Bell’s trace of love for the Fairy. The ‘correct answer’ is the trace of friendship the Fairy left for Jay. It’s fortunate that the owner of this garden made their story so clear.”

“So it was the garden’s master themselves who wanted this story reflected?”

“It’s possible the story was reflected unintentionally. As you Collectors are aware, this entire garden was transformed into a dungeon by the Black Cloak, wasn’t it? There’s a high chance it was forcibly projected.”

“Then how exactly are we supposed to strategize this dungeon by finding things like these ‘answers’? I don’t really get it. Even if we do find something called a correct answer—then what?”

“Hmm, well... If there’s anything we can conclude here...”

One priest, making a sour face, continued,

“It’s one of two things, isn’t it?”

“...Ah.”

“The right and wrong answers are already laid out.”

“I see.”

The Collector’s Guild member nodded.

“It’s up to us to choose.”

To become Bell—or to become Jay.

The direction the garden would take would depend on that choice.

***

Then, Jeong Hae-Woon asked,

“So?”

His expression was somewhat indifferent.

“Are you really going to show yourself in front of them?”

“...I don’t know. Stuff like that.”

“Our Black Cloak sure set the stage well.”

“The dungeon’s set up well, that’s all. If we’re talking schemes, I’m better at them.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Hey, it’s true! Do you know how terrifyingly intricate my plots can be?”

“Scary, for sure.”

The Moon Cult and Collector’s teams were busy talking about right and wrong answers. So they must’ve already figured out how to conquer this illusion of a dungeon. In the end, they would have to summon the being behind it—Zeorge.

'They’ll have to at least summon this garden if they want to do any real damage... and seeing this beautiful face is part of the strategy, isn’t it?'

But there were only two reasons that would ever compel him—who hated to lose—to show himself to humans. Either to whisper love for their happiness, or to be drawn in by a friendship too compelling to refuse.

Which meant he might really show up. He was that mercurial. Like a garden with no visible logic, his thoughts were impossible to read.

“......”

Jeong Hae-Woon, still silent, asked again,

“...Do you hate humans?”

“I do.”

“But you love them.”

“I do.”

“You’re fickle.”

“Could I be more fickle than humans?”

Probably not.