Chapter 408 |
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The Exhibitor II
The first-ever ‘Special Anomaly Exhibition’ came to a successful close.
It was a triumph that engraved the three-syllable name ‘Sim Ah-ryeon’ into the minds of everyone on the Korean Peninsula, Awakened and ordinary people alike.
“Artist Ms. Sim Ah-ryeon! Can I please have your autograph!”
“Me too! I was so deeply moved by your work, I can’t even pick a favorite!”
“Eh, ehehe. Yes...”
“Can we take a picture, Artist-nim?!”
“What? No. I’d absolutely hate that...”
“Eh.”
Of course, the visitors all felt an instinctual sense, whether they knew it or not, that this artist might not be entirely sound of mind, but isn't that just how geniuses are?
A person's personality could be packaged in any number of ways. With titles like 'artist', 'genius painter', and 'mad anomaly artist' attached to her name, Sim Ah-ryeon's unique eccentricity was actually a charming point.
After all, the only people who would like someone for being perfect were Plato or Confucius. Unless finding joy in being adored by old men was your life's goal, a few moderate flaws in a person were like necessary breathing holes.
“Much like my own passionate love for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is for me, the Undertaker.”
[Hey, Dad. If you have time to spout nonsense, hurry up and move the equipment.]
“Yes, milady.”
[Alright.]
Chastened by Ha-yul's retort, I sullenly directed the demolition of the gallery's temporary structure.
Now that the exhibition was over, clearing out the Tower of Babel Plaza was the natural course of action.
The plaza was also a place where some homeless people lived and food stalls thrived, so it wasn't good to monopolize it for too long.
“Ah.”
Just then, Sim Ah-ryeon came scurrying over from a corner of the exhibition hall.
“G-Guild Leader. Please don't clear it out yet!”
“Hm? Why? The exhibition ended today.”
“Well...”
Sim Ah-ryeon twiddled her index fingers.
“I-it's a secret!”
“A secret?”
“Yes, yes. There's something I want to show you, Guild Leader... Could you maybe leave it up without tearing it down for about a week?”
“Oh.”
I was a little taken aback.
“I think Director Noh Do-hwa is going to be breathing down our necks, asking what we're doing and telling us to clear out.”
“T-the gallery doesn't have to be as big as it is now! Just a space big enough for you and me to walk around is enough.”
“Hmm.”
If it was just that much.
“Wait. Let's see. You're saying it's okay to shrink it to about one-fifth of the current size, instead of using the whole plaza?”
“Yes!”
“Alright. Your Guild Leader will see what he can do.”
“Ehehe. Th-thank you. You're the best, Guild Leader...”
At Sim Ah-ryeon's strange request, the demolition work was halted immediately. The marionette labor corps led by Lee Ha-yul also trotted back.
“D-don't. You absolutely cannot enter the gallery until I say you can!”
“No one?”
“No one! It's a t-total secret. A super, super secret... If you try to peek behind my back, I won't forgive you, even if you are the Guild Leader...”
A threat from anyone else might have been different, but a threat from Sim Ah-ryeon was terrifying, so I quickly made myself scarce.
If anyone wishes to know the reason for my fear, please refer to the list of posts made on SG Net by [OldManGoryeo] and [Saintess of the North] in the slightly earlier episodes.
“Saintess, do you know anything?”
[No.]
I exchanged telepathic messages with the real Saintess, not the fake one, but I didn't get much.
[Ms. Ah-ryeon made me promise not to peek either.]
“She’s already been holed up in the gallery for four days without a word... I'm getting worried.”
After the demolition was postponed, Sim Ah-ryeon had surrounded the entire exhibition hall with a white tent. Then she went inside and started working on something with tapping and clicking sounds.
She had cut off all contact and communication with others.
Twice a day, when I placed a meal at the gallery entrance, a hand would shoot out from the tent as quick as a flash and snatch the meal tray.
The sliver of Sim Ah-ryeon's bare arm that I saw was completely covered in paint.
“From the looks of it, she’s clearly working on something else inside the exhibition hall.”
It was strange.
“But all the anomalies Ah-ryeon could possibly paint have already been completed as artworks. The exhibition ended well, too. What more could she be drawing.”
[Perhaps she is painting a piece she wants to show only to you, Mr. Undertaker?]
The Saintess said in a gentle tone.
[Ms. Ah-ryeon surely knows how much you do for her.]
[So I suspect she might be preparing a kind of thank-you gift.]
“My goodness.”
What a thoughtful gesture.
‘Ah, our Ah-ryeon is becoming more and more human! This Guild Leader is so happy I could cry!’
Tears were, in fact, streaming down my face.
[...You truly are devoted to Ms. Ah-ryeon, Mr. Undertaker.]
“Well, as an intellectual, I can't help but be moved, since I'm witnessing the evolution of an ape into a human in real time.”
[Pardon?]
“Yes?”
The promised week passed.
That morning, I was drinking a cafe au lait while brushing Ha-yul’s hair.
I was feeling a little lonely without the green-haired coffee thief who always appeared like a ninja to steal her share of caffeine, when.
Ping!
A notification popped up on my smartphone.
– Saintess of the North: Mr. Barista.
Sim Ah-ryeon had sent a message.
It was a private, secret message sent to the ‘Admin-Only Chatroom,’ which only members of the Regression Alliance could access, an internet chatroom we had set up using Seo Gyu's SG Net ability.
I skillfully turned on the one-on-one secret chat function and replied.
– ZERO_SUGAR: What?
– Saintess of the North: Respectfully, the preparations are complete. I request that Mr. Barista come alone to the designated place tonight at 11 PM.
– ZERO_SUGAR: OK
So the preparations were finally done.
‘This is making me strangely excited.’
The thought that I might receive a proper gift from the green-haired coffee thief for the first time in my life mixed excitement and pride, creating a cocktail called fondness.
Ping!
– Saintess of the North: Furthermore, a strict dress code will be in effect at the location. Please refrain from using the seven-colored perfume you usually wear.
– Saintess of the North: I will see you tonight then.
I paused for a moment at the follow-up message.
First, I wondered what on earth was the correlation between a dress code and perfume.
But more than that, it was because an intangible sense of foreboding was creeping out from between the casually arranged words.
“...”
When night fell, I went to the exhibition hall.
The 11 PM of today felt quite different from the 11 PM of the past.
In the past, the dazzling modern civilization forced insomnia upon people, but now, the entirety of Busan was shrouded in quiet silence, except for the area around the casino.
“Ah.”
That was why Sim Ah-ryeon's gallery, the only place in the area where lights swayed brightly, looked just like a bug zapper lamp or a fishing light on the night sea.
“W-welcome... Guild Leader!”
Sim Ah-ryeon was...
She was waiting for me at the entrance of the exhibition hall.
For someone who had mentioned a dress code in the chatroom, the great artist’s own attire was a mess.
Her whole body was splattered with paint, a complete disaster.
She had barely covered it with a doctor's gown, but even the white gown was stained with paint here and there.
However.
“Ah-ryeon, that thing in your pocket is...”
“Ah?!”
Sim Ah-ryeon hastily shoved the bridal veil peeking out of her doctor's gown pocket back inside.
“Th-this is a secret! A secret!”
“You’ve been saying it's a secret for a whole week, and there's another secret now?”
“Yes! Ugh, I-I was really pressed for time. It reminded me of my graduation exhibition deadline for the first time in a while. I don't have those dreams much these days, but before, whenever my condition got a little bad, I'd always have nightmares about my gr-graduation exhibition...”
Sim Ah-ryeon suddenly came closer and sniffed me. There was no context for it, but she often did things like this.
In the first place, overt ‘speech’ and ‘language’ didn't hold much meaning for Sim Ah-ryeon.
“Ah. Y-you didn't wear it... The scent.”
“I didn't realize you disliked that perfume. You never showed it before.”
“Hm? Oh, I don't dislike it. It's just that if you smelled like that today, Guild Leader, it might have been a bit of a problem...”
“Why?”
“What? Ummm. That scent is p-proof that Guild Leader is always thinking of Ms. Yu Ji-won in a corner of your mind, isn't it. Ehehe.”
Sim Ah-ryeon laughed as if she were embarrassed.
“So it would have been a d-distraction to viewing the exhibition. An interference with immersion. It's distracting. So I got rid of it.”
“...”
Question:
Does Sim Ah-ryeon dislike Yu Ji-won?
Answer:
No. That is impossible.
Counter-question:
Is there anyone in particular whom Sim Ah-ryeon dislikes?
Response:
No. That is impossible.
Interrogation:
Why is it impossible?
Reply:
Because while one can dislike cockroaches as a whole, to single out and hate or detest just one particular cockroach would be a very strange thing to do.
“P-please come in, Guild Leader. I worked really hard on this all night for a week! Ho-honestly, I think these are the masterworks of my life.”
Sim Ah-ryeon suddenly grabbed my hand and led me inside.
Into the gallery. Into a labyrinth of vision, blocked on all sides by temporary walls and white canvas.
“Ta-da, ta, ta-daaaa...”
The exhibition that had received nothing but praise from all walks of life, from the National Road Director to influential guild leaders, Awakened, and even ordinary people.
All the paintings in that place had been painted over in black.
Chaotically. Messily. Like graffiti.
The paintings that had so brilliantly depicted the anomalies were all ruined.
The works that some would have paid a fortune to add to their collections were gone, and in their place, hideously distorted ‘overpaintings’ were coiled.
“...”
My mouth went dry.
“What... is this, Ah-ryeon?”
“Yes?”
It was a natural question.
It was no exaggeration to say that the portraits enshrined in this gallery were originally the last treasures produced by the art world of humanity. And to think she had spent a week painstakingly ruining them like this.
But upon hearing my natural question, Sim Ah-ryeon made an unnatural expression, muttering, ‘Ummm’.
It was similar to before.
When I had asked ‘Why?’ about not wearing the perfume. In fact, her reaction back then was exactly the same as it was now.
It's strange.
Why does Guild Leader keep asking me things he already knows?
“Even if you ask... what it is. Well. I-it's how the anomalies look from Guild Leader's perspective... isn't it.”
My heart pounded.
I barely managed to calm the trembling of my tongue.
“You're saying this is how I... see the anomalies?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well... Because you have Complete Memory, Guild Leader?”
Sim Ah-ryeon tilted her head.
“M-memory is a form of association. It's not that different from sensation. An apple you see right now... and an apple you saw three years ago. From a person's perspective, it's all visual information.”
“...”
“But for normal people, the present perception is much stronger. O-of course. The thing in front of your eyes is clear, but the apple in your memory is blurry and indistinct... B-but! You're different, Guild Leader!”
Sim Ah-ryeon continued.
Like a university student explaining her work in front of a panel of judges. Like a curator leading visitors to the true meaning of a painting.
With conviction.
“They're both... the same... aren't they?”
“Ehehe.”
She laughed.
“Um, for exaample... Here! Here, the Ten Legs!”
The painting of the Ten Legs had also changed drastically from what I saw a week ago at the ‘Day Exhibition.’
In the portrait of the Ten Legs hanging in the ‘Night Exhibition,’ the corpse of Dang Seo-rin was depicted for some reason, her chest pierced and her limbs severed.
“B-because of the Ten Legs, something very precious to you died, didn't it, Guild Leader. Because you have Complete Memory. For normal people, the object in front of them is just the object in front of them... and memory is memory. Well, of course they can overlap, but the clarity and blurriness are so distinct that they can be separated...”
She brought me in front of the massive painting.
Sim Ah-ryeon brought her hands together, palms touching.
“But not you, Guild Leader. Y-you can't do that. Because you literally have Complete Memory... The present Ten Legs and the past Ten Legs are perceived as completely equal, ‘overlapping.’”
“...”
“I-I think it's amazing. Picasso's Cubism was an attempt to paint human perception by overlapping not just the present, but also the realms of recollection and prediction, but h-honestly, that was something imagined with the ‘head.’ It's not like the p-past, present, and future appeared to the artist with equal color and tone... It's a bit... lame. For a theme that pursued fundamental intuition, the m-method to reach it was ultimately intellect, not sensation. But... not you, Guild Leader! You're total human Cubism!”
“...”
“Wh-when you see one Ten Legs. Assuming this is the 1,000th cycle. You're looking at a whopping 1,000 Ten Legs at the same time! Weell. In most regressions, the behavior of the Ten Legs would have been similar, so even if it's 1,000, they'd probably blend into some clumps... Ehehe. I'm so jealous, Guild Leader.”
Sim Ah-ryeon squirmed.
“Guild Leader, you're a... a living, moving exhibition hall. You're different from the kids who just talk about how their intuition is special or whatever. You, Guild Leader, are, fwah. The real deal...”
“...”
“Umm. But it's strange. Why do you keep telling me to paint from ‘other people's perspectives’ and not ‘your own perspective’? Y-your perspective is so much. Soo much, a million, ten million times more interesting...”
My throat was parched.
My mouth had long since become a desert.
The thick saliva that pooled under my tongue felt not like the moisture I craved, but like a swamp pulling my tongue down.
“How...”
“Well, because I was thinking of you, Guild Leader?”
It was an immediate answer.
There wasn't even a need to finish the sentence, ‘How did you know?’
Because in Sim Ah-ryeon's mind, my lines were already being completed automatically.
“Every single day.”
Skip. A conversational shortcut.
It was something that often happened when I was talking with Sim Ah-ryeon alone.
As I said, overt ‘speech’ and ‘language’ didn't hold much meaning for her.
“I... I'm actually always amazed by you, Guild Leader. You must see everything. You must be seeing it. How can you a-act so perfectly...”
“See everything?”
“Us, in our dead forms.”
“...”
“You can see them, can't you? Even now.”
Thump. Sim Ah-ryeon came closer.
“L-like being decapitated. Or having our limbs torn off by an anomaly. Bloodstains. All those things, all those memories, you must see them clearly, right before your eyes.”
“...”
“A-amazing, Guild Leader! Actually, your acting skills might be your most amazing talent, even more than your intuition...”
Fumble, fumble.
Sim Ah-ryeon took something out of her doctor's gown pocket. The bridal veil she had crumpled up earlier.
It was the veil from a Saintess's habit.
“U-umm. Sooo. Ah. There.”
Sim Ah-ryeon unfolded the veil this way and that before placing it on her head.
Click, clack.
She walked down the gallery corridor, and in the very center, beneath the largest painting, Sim Ah-ryeon knelt down.
Artwork Title:
‘World Tree Udumbara.’
On the painting where vibrant petals should have been dancing wildly.
Brushstrokes were painted over, and the ‘corpses’ of Sim Ah-ryeon were drawn, her limbs all twisted like dead trees.
Like an afterstory of Sim Ah-ryeon, fallen to corruption while fending off the Monster Wave.
“...”
I could recognize it.
No. In this world, only I could immerse myself in the true meaning of the masterpieces in this ‘Night Exhibition.’
“Every time you brush m-my hair, Guild Leader.”
Sim Ah-ryeon, kneeling with her back to me, murmured softly.
“I can feel it. So many... emotions. Sadness. Resentment. Sorry. Gratitude. Really, really dense emotions...”
“...”
“So I thought. Ah, come to think of it. I must have been active as the Saintess of the North in the Final Defensive War. Since the Eastern Holy State would have participated. Then I would have worn a Saintess's habit... The sight of me becoming corrupted. I couldn't let the believers see that, right? Ah, so I'd wear something like a veil that covers even my head. So.”
The shoulders of the kneeling Sim Ah-ryeon, her back turned to me, trembled slightly.
“Ehehe. I thought, this is probably what I looked like at the very end! What do you think? Am I right?”
“...”
“G-Guild Leader, now...”
Sim Ah-ryeon smiled.
“Brush... my hair, please.”
Footnotes:
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