The Artist Who Paints Dungeon #Chapter 72 - Read The Artist Who Paints Dungeon Chapter 72 Online - All Page

Chapter 72

Of course, the public name system was a popular and convenient way to communicate.

“But, that... what should I say... you know that feeling when something that isn’t human at all is imitating a human?”

“Monsters often try to imitate humans in order to lure them out. In the case of the Jangsanbeom, a monster that has yet to be subdued, they imitate human voices. There are monsters overseas that wear human skins or learn human language.”

The Hunter shook his head at the researcher’s words.

“It didn’t feel that awkward. As I said earlier, you said that you were convinced that it was human even though it was obvious that it wasn’t human at all.”

“Yes, that’s what you said.”

“It’s somewhat similar to that.”

The Hunter explained awkwardly, looking like he was wondering how to say this.

“Obviously, ‘Black Cloak’ wasn’t human. But there was nothing superfluous about acting like a human. In the case of the monster you just gave as an example, that short story may seem perfect, but... it doesn’t seem like a perfect human, right?”

“.......”

“On the other hand, ‘Black Cloak’ didn’t have that sense of incongruity. It felt awkward, but it was definitely a perfect human. That’s....”

“A perfect human?”

The researcher stared straight at Hunter.

“Humans can’t be perfect.”

“That’s the problem.”

Hunter nodded.

“It was too perfect.”

The behavior of ‘Black Cloak’ that I saw that day was definitely human, so it didn’t feel awkward, but it felt quite awkward.

“It was as if he wasn’t human when he was born, but he became human afterward....”

“That’s not a specific description.”

“It’s called Hunter’s intuition. Should I say it’s strong? Even though there’s no clear evidence, I thought, wow, this is really strange. I can’t just ignore this... I think I had that kind of intuition.”

Hunter laughed in vain.

“Actually, if you call it ‘intuition’, it’s obvious that it’s not human.”

Regardless of gender or age, if you threw it in front of him, he’d think, ‘Oh, that’s not human,’ so it shouldn’t be defined as a vague sense called intuition.

It was extremely polite. The voice that permeated my ears as if teaching someone seemed to whisper through my brain, not my mouth, and the voice was so quiet that it was embarrassing to even call it a ‘sound.’ He was like a peaceful tomb.

“It’s just, um, what I meant was that the feeling I had was that contradictory and ambiguous. It’s too hard to explain in detail. If you witness the ‘Black Cloak’ in person, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.”

“Hmm....”

The researcher asked incredulously.

“You’re surprisingly friendly to ‘Black Cloak’?”

“...Yes? Me? Did I do it?”

“You don’t seem to realize it, but what you just said didn’t sound like ‘You should try it too’, but more like ‘I want to introduce it to you too’. Did I misunderstand?”

“.......”

After hesitating for a while, the Hunter finally opened his mouth.

“...I think it’s probably friendly.”

“I’m not criticizing you, it’s a genuine question, so don’t worry. I’m just curious as to how you could be so friendly to someone who is clearly a target of fear.”

“Ah... It’s so hard....”

The Hunter sighed and continued.

“...I wonder if saying this is a sufficient answer, but I think it was because the other person was very kind to us.”

“Monsters, to humans?”

“Didn’t it say it in the report?”

“I understand how you acted, but that alone doesn’t make sense. Can you explain?”

“.......”

The hunter who had been thinking nodded.

“It would be better to talk about when we first met.”

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

That black, large cloak.

“Team Leader.”

It was when they ran away from the humanoid monster ‘Iser’ and the monsters he brought with him.

“There are no other monsters around.”

“Are you sure? Any traps?”

“There’s nothing like that. We all checked together, so it’s certain.”

“It’s a little strange....”

The team leader, Jeong Da-woon, knew that the situation was strange.

“It’s not like the dungeon owner doesn’t know where we are, so it doesn’t make sense that there are no monsters around here. This can’t be a safe zone.”

“You can tell just by looking at it....”

Safe zones are literally ‘safe areas’ that exist in some dungeons. Sometimes, when there are multiple owners of a dungeon, monsters avoid the area to avoid conflict with the other entities, and this area is created.

‘There are exceptions where there are safe zones that are just there even though it’s not a problem of territory disputes, but you can’t say that it’s that kind of atmosphere.’

In addition, there was objective evidence.

“There are too many traces of monsters passing through to call it a safe zone.”

“In a place where there were originally a lot of monsters, they suddenly disappeared?”

It wasn’t a good sign.

“Then it must have been a stronger monster that invaded...?”

If you think about it that way, the reaction of ‘Iser’ that we just confronted was also strange.

“He seemed confused because something was wrong with the dungeon.”

“Yes, if you think about the fact that the air in the entire dungeon shook, then there must have been a problem. This dungeon seems to be closely connected to its owner.”

“If it wasn’t just another monster, but a humanoid monster, then it would have to have been a much stronger monster to be aggro. But if that’s the case....”

“...We wouldn’t be safe either.”

“Oh, this is really screwed.”

They had been running around so frantically that they didn’t even realize this place was dangerous.

“You came into the tiger’s den on your own.”

The place where a monster strong enough to shake the humanoid monster ‘Iser’ had barged in seemed to be where they were.

“No matter how bad it was, it must have been nearby.”

“...Because they were so out of their minds....”

“Yeah, if they hadn’t come here anyway, they would have died.”

They had to come here, even though they didn’t think something was strange on their way here. With their bodies in such dire condition, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat the other monsters around them and successfully attack them.

“...Huh....”

Jeong Da-woon tried to laugh.

“Well, maybe they’re monsters that can communicate.”

“That’s true.”

Even though they knew that the chances of that happening were slim, the hunters snickered among themselves. They had realized long ago that they could die here, and that was because they had prepared themselves mentally in advance.

“Who knows? If you beg me, I’ll let you live.”

The hunters took a break while joking like that.

“Hey, take a break. It’ll be war again once we get out of here anyway.”

“Yeah... If we don’t rest now, when else will we rest?”

“Ahhh, Dari... Does anyone have any potions?”

Thanks to that, they were able to regroup, but as time passed, their anxiety grew.

“...Why aren’t the monsters coming here?”

“...How strong must a monster be to refuse a table full of food....”

The most frequent attacks by monsters were when the hunters were semi-forcibly reorganizing. Hunters who were almost at their limit and had weakened armor were a good snack for the monsters.

“And yet they didn’t come this far?”

Even the humanoid monsters that were confronting them panicked and fled. It was hard to understand what was happening in this dungeon.

“We shouldn’t just sit here.”

“But if we move rashly, we could upset both monsters at the same time.”

“But if we just stay here, that’s a problem in itself.”

“You’re right, but....”

“.......”

“...Ah.”

The gaze of the gentle hunter who had been trying to calm his teammates fell on something.

“Team Leader? Why....”

“.......”

In the hunters’ sight, something very black came into view.

“A, human?”

“Are you a survivor?”

“No, that’s....”

It was a man wearing a black cloak.

“Hello.”

“.......”

“I’m a portrait.”

“...Uh....”

“What are your names?”

“Uh, uh....”

“I’m curious about your names.”

That was their first meeting with the black cloak.

“Would you like to talk to me?”

“.......”

The researcher shrugged.

“Just from what you said, I don’t feel any favorability?”

“That’s true. It’s scary to have something that isn’t human ask for a human’s name in the first place. It was the same for me and my teammates.”

“.......”

“But maybe I was a little relieved that it seemed like we could talk.”

In contrast to ‘Iser’, whose will to tear humans apart was as vivid as a color, ‘Black Cloak’, who approached silently and asked for conversation, did not seem to have even the slightest hostility.

“If you were to ask if I was afraid of that existence itself, it was absolutely not....”

Nevertheless, I was relieved.

“...I should say it felt like I was receiving favor from something of a very... high rank.”

“...If you say something of a very high rank, are you referring to a god? If so, it would be difficult to say it was a monster. Although it is rare, there are gods who visit dungeons in a form that humans can recognize, so please take note and answer accordingly.”

“No, I also know what a god is. They are fates with a will or people close to nature. However, from my perspective as a believer of the sun, I would say that it was absolutely not a god. I felt divinity, but it wasn’t.”

It might have been a higher being.

“I felt the energy of the sun on him. It was really warm. But it was cold like a corpse. I definitely felt the energy of death. But it wasn’t rough, and it was all just a shell... No, no, that... More than that, it was just....”

“.......”

“...For the ‘Black Cloak’, rank and authority seemed of no use. We sometimes call gods fate and nature with will, but he didn’t even seem to have will. He thought and moved... but could you call that will?”

“What do you mean?”

“He just seemed to exist.”

He had no intention of saving anyone, no intention of harming anyone. He didn’t seem to have any intention of being clean, or of being greedy. But he was clearly thinking and able to communicate.

There was.

“.......”

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

Birth and death. Living and nonliving things. The very act of trying to find ‘will’ in the way they think and act feels impure, a sense of great intensity and presence. It’s impossible to explain from a human perspective, but it’s a sense so vivid that it’s terribly clear.

“And that, that eye....”

Oh, that.

“...That....”

“...What could it have been?”

“.......”

She answered after a while.

“It seemed like it could be anything.”

I don’t know how much that small eye contained, how vast and vast it was.

It couldn’t be expressed with the boring word ‘universe.’ Between that endless black and blue space, the stars, nature, fate, move as if they have will, but then become quiet like a mere inanimate object.

How could a human express that? It couldn’t be done. That’s why it couldn’t be done.

“At least I can’t.”

An area that shouldn’t be seen by humans.

“It seemed to be itself.”

“.......”

“So you can’t call it... God, right?”

It was more like a structure.

“...Or a system? Or... No, I don’t know.”

“...I see.”

The researcher nodded.

“But in the end, you were able to survive thanks to his kindness.”

“Yes. He didn’t seem to know that we were afraid, but he was still quite gentlemanly. I understand that it would have been difficult to perceive human emotions from the perspective of something that wasn’t human.”

“The ‘Black Cloak’ introduced himself as a portrait....”

“That seemed to be the most fitting introduction.”

A portrait that is a person but not a person, that could be real or a delusion, and that contains someone’s death or life. The introduction of ‘Black Cloak’ was very appropriate.

“Um, and....”

“And?”

“We used that method too.”

They were revived through the painting.

‘Black Cloak’ asked the hunters who had calmed down a little.

“Then you want to leave, right? Don’t you?”

“T-That’s of course....”

“I’ll help you.”

He brought a picture frame from somewhere and showed it to the hunters.

“.......”

“Do you know this place?”

It was a landscape painting that seemed to depict an alley deep in the city. It probably looked like a slum, but there was no hunter here who knew the complex structure of the slums that were intertwined like an ant hole.

“.......”

“Do you know this place?”

“Oh, no. Sorry.”

He couldn’t help but answer when he asked twice with the same tone, perhaps because he didn’t like it when they didn’t answer on time. Jeong Da-woon looked at them, saying, “Do you know?” but they shook their heads.

They were anxious. They had to solve this mysterious riddle to survive. No, even if that wasn’t the case, Jeong Da-woon wanted to live up to the expectations of the being in front of him. He wanted to catch his eye.

“.......”

And that’s why he couldn’t lie. Jeong Da-woon shook his head in awe and fear that made it impossible to imagine doing something like that.

“...I’m sorry, we... don’t know.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

It was a stable voice that didn’t convey any emotion, but didn’t feel cold either. ‘Black Cloak’ swept the top of the frame with his pale, long hand.

Then the landscape /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ changed.

“Do you know this place?”

“Ah.”

He definitely knew this painting.

“Yes, yes, I know. That... Collector’s Guild Station... Ji-sang-cheol, yes, Ji-sang-cheol Station.”

“That’s right.”

“Haa....”