Chapter 17

Chapter 17 : Free Event to Celebrate the Grand Opening (3)

Selly’s studio was not far from the castle.

It was positioned about halfway between the night market and the castle, so it was a route where I could look around and then head straight back to my lodgings.

Selly, who said she had rented a separate studio because of the smell of paint, flushed a little at the messy state of the interior and hurried over to open the shut window.

“Would you like me to bring out something to drink?”

“No, it’s fine. More importantly, the painting……”

“Ah! This way, please.”

When I stepped farther inside, I found a single painting resting on an easel, alone among the many canvases stacked in layers.

The painting revealed beneath the thick, distinctive scent of oil paint was beyond anything I had imagined.

It was a landscape.

A quiet night scene of an ordinary forest after darkness had fallen.

“Is this the ruler’s castle?”

I had been wondering where I had seen such a strangely familiar composition before, only to realize that it matched exactly the view from the studio window. The only difference was that the perspective had been brought slightly closer, as though I were looking at it from right in front of me.

“You recognized it right away. Yes, that’s right. It’s the view from that window.”

“You’ve really captured the nightscape beautifully. The light, and everything……”

“Yes. It’s truly lovely at night.”

That was why I had not recognized it immediately when I first saw it.

Lights were lit in the windows all across the castle, and they made the whole place look like floating lanterns and stars glittering in the night sky.

It really was beautiful.

There was just one thing that bothered me a little.

The room where I was staying had also been painted into that landscape with perfect accuracy.

A strange, indefinable eeriness ran down my spine.

“Hmm?”

For a moment, in the painting’s dark night background, the light in that room flickered once or twice.

Thinking I might have seen it wrong, I rubbed my eyes and checked again, but nothing had changed from what I first saw.

‘Am I just overly sensitive, and my eyes are tired?’

Oooh-hehehe—

Whooo—

Children’s laughter rang out, first short, then long. It sounded like the mischievous laughter of children peeking from beneath a distant window or over a wall after being caught spying.

At first, I thought Soi and the others might be playing a prank.

So I frowned and leaned out past the window, looking around, but I saw nothing.

As though this were simply a repetition of what had happened that night when I first heard laughter.

When I wiped a hand over my face and turned around, both Selly and Soi were staring at me with baffled expressions.

“Um…… you didn’t hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“……Children laughing.”

“Mister, don’t joke around.”

Soi wrapped himself around Selly’s waist and hid behind her. Selly too took a few hesitant steps back, looking at me as though I were the strange one.

Goosebumps rose on my skin as I also backed far away from the painting.

The painting remained exactly as it had been when I first saw it, unchanged in the slightest.

“Well then, I’ve seen the painting now, so I should probably……”

Heheheheheeeek—

At that moment, the children’s laughter rang out again, this time so unnervingly that I knew at once it was not a sound any human being could make.

Before I could even flinch, I was already out the door without looking back, and the other two hurried out after me.

What was different was Selly’s reaction.

“Naiwell, what’s wrong? Why are you covering your ears?”

Looking into empty space with a worried expression, Selly reacted as though that invisible man had heard the sound just as I had.

‘Ah. So that’s it?’

The thought that struck me then was so absurd that I let out a hollow laugh.

That child’s laughter was the same sound I had heard that night while I was flailing around trying to figure out my Frame.

That night, just like now, the lights had gone out, and at the same time many people had witnessed illusions.

Selly, too, had claimed that the shadow inside the painting had stepped out into reality.

“You didn’t unlock your Frame, did you?”

And above all, there was Pan’s suspicion.

Maybe what I did that night had not been entirely pointless after all.

If all these strange phenomena, from that night up to what was happening to Selly now, were actually an extension of whatever I had done then—

And on top of that, the place where Selly said the illusion appeared was the very same room where I myself was staying.

“How does it look to you, Selly?”

“Pardon?”

Even though I knew it sounded absurd, I had no choice but to ask. Because it felt as though my instincts had been warning me from the beginning that this was exactly what it would be.

“I was wondering whether Naiwell and I resemble each other a little.”

“Ah……? Now that you mention it, the atmosphere is completely different, but your features do resemble each other. If Riwin smiled a little more brightly, quite a bit, actually. Why didn’t I notice sooner?”

Ah.

That was why I had felt uneasy the moment I saw the painting.

Naiwell was an illusion very heavily influenced by me.

---

Pan was away.

Pering had disappeared with him, Ru was out of the question because every time I met her she demanded more copying, so I passed on that option.

When I asked Ochel, she introduced me to an expert in that area instead.

Pol adjusted his monocle and tapped his own shoulder lightly with a long pointer as he led the way.

“I can’t go around bringing just anyone here, of course, but Lord Pan is currently absent, and I’ve been granted temporary authority, so it should be all right.”

The central supply apparatus was deep underground in the castle.

Located near the roots of the enormous tree supporting the castle, this place was also the control institution that managed every territory in this forest.

When Pol said that if this place were blown apart, the city would be paralyzed while Pan was away, I found myself licking my lips for no reason as I obediently followed after him.

His speech sounded like that of an elderly gentleman, but I had heard enough already to know that his movements were no less formidable than Pering’s or Hwipone’s.

That something as light as the pointer in his hand could probably slice through my neck without the slightest difficulty.

Given that their race itself was essentially built as a combat race, I had reached the point where I wondered whether even a little child here might still be stronger than I was.

“That tea of yours.”

Pol, who had been walking ahead, turned and pointed the pointer at me.

“The one I tasted last time.”

Ah, yes. That dangerously addictive one.

“Yes. I’ve prepared plenty, so come by someday when you have time.”

“Ahem. That aside, have you found even a hint about the matter you’ve taken on?”

A heavy door opened with the sound of metal scraping.

The iron door was, as expected, thick enough to span the width of a hand, yet Pol pushed it open effortlessly, and I could only shake my head.

The place was not the kind of chamber packed full of intertwined machines and devices that I had imagined.

Since their whole system ran on magic, it was different.

The floor and walls were covered with letters and geometric patterns, with only a few operational devices added in between.

It felt like stepping directly into an enlarged system circuit, and the contrast with the natural scenery outside was jarring.

As though all of this vivid reality were, in fact, nothing more than the truth that someone had written it into a novel.

“This is it.”

Among the chaotic network of circuits, there was one area where they seemed especially concentrated.

“This magical circuit here was distorted, and the strand branched off in an entirely unintended direction.”

Pointing to a specific section with his stick, Pol traced the path along the circuit.

Even with him explaining it directly, there was only so much I could understand. To begin with, what I wanted to know was not the mechanics of the structure itself.

“Does that route perhaps connect to my room?”

“Hmmm. Let’s see……”

Pol operated several devices, then nodded to himself and moved off to confirm the end of the circuit.

I walked along the narrow catwalk and took in the circuits stretching all the way down to the floor.

The circuits had been running in an orderly pattern, but from the point Pol had indicated onward, they spread out wildly like branches of a tree.

Even to someone like me, who knew nothing, it was obvious that something had gone wrong there.

After confirming that, I followed Pol carefully all the way to the end of the line.

“What do you think?”

“You were right. It split in two. One goes to your room, and the other goes here.”

Pol spread out a map he seemed to have produced from nowhere and pointed to one of the locations. It was a map of the entire forest city, and even I, knowing very little, recognized the place at once.

“That’s Selly’s studio.”

“Is it?”

“Have the circuits been fully repaired now?”

“Not yet. It’ll take about a week.”

If my guess was correct, that meant Selly’s Naiwell would disappear around then as well.

I scratched my cheek, feeling a strange unease. I also remembered what Ru had almost said once before, about how Underfolk Frames affect the surroundings.

If I really thought about it, the beginning of all of this did seem to be me.

Suddenly, Selly came to mind, sitting there with a gaze as empty as a hollow shell.

Only her eyes had lit up when she looked at the illusion called Naiwell.

“Could I ask you to let me know separately when the repairs are complete?”

“Why?”

“Because I owe a debt. If something feels unfinished, I can’t sleep with my legs stretched out.”

Since this had happened because of me, I had to clean up my own mess.

---

The source of the white flower I had received was a greenhouse not far from the ruler’s castle.

It seemed absurd to me that a greenhouse would be necessary in a place already surrounded on all sides by forest and plant life, but for people who lived in the air, there was not much wide open space where they could simply run around and rest comfortably.

The greenhouse, made by layering transparent panes of glass across several trees at once, served as a place of rest for the people here and functioned much like a park.

A place where people met, spent their leisure, and drifted in a relaxed but lively atmosphere.

I sat down in an empty chair with a bouquet of the white flowers from the entrance—flowers that resembled peonies—and waited for Selly.

“Did she say I smiled better?”

I found myself twisting the corners of my mouth into an awkward grin, only to make eye contact with someone passing by and quietly turn my head away.

To think I would go this far.

After hearing from Pol yesterday that the central circuits had all been repaired, I had secretly arranged to meet Soi.

“And how is your sister reacting?”

“She won’t come out after going into the studio. She screams, and she got so frightened that I told our mother, but she won’t open the door.”

“That’s because Naiwell disappeared.”

“Really?!”

“A fairy appeared that let her taste a dream, and then vanished.”

“……I don’t believe things like that.”

“Ahem. Anyway, just bring your sister to that greenhouse tomorrow.”

“Why? Are you interested in her?”

“No?! No, it’s all for your sister’s sake, and yours. I think I look a little like that Naiwell or whatever his name is. So……”

Soi looked unconvinced all the way to the end, but in any case, the plan had worked.

I could see Selly entering the greenhouse from the entrance, looking around.

I rose from my seat with the bouquet in hand and strode toward her, pasting on the smile I had practiced a few times.

“……Naiwell?”

“Take this first……”

Was this deception?

What right did I have to stand in for an illusion like Naiwell? Who said that offering a convincing farewell in someone else’s place hurt less?

Wasn’t this just another form of cruel false hope?

All I wanted was to spare her the regret of thinking, later, that he should at least have said goodbye or spoken one last word before leaving.

And yet, as I watched Selly accept the large bouquet and blush, it felt more and more like this was the wrong thing to do.

“Thank you, Riwin.”

“You knew?”

I ran a hand through my hair and dropped the forced smile.

“I said your features resembled his, not that you looked exactly the same. I heard you were Underfolk, so Soi didn’t like the thought of me getting involved with you, but this is not bad.”

“Naiwell…… isn’t coming.”

“I know. I know, but I wanted to keep some trace of him behind.”

Watching Selly shake her head, I felt bitterness rise in me.

A person could not live in reality forever while trapped in an illusion.

And neither could I—

“It’s my fault. The problem with the supply circuits, the fact that I was making a useless mess of things at exactly the wrong time, the fact that Naiwell ended up resembling me—it’s all because of me.”

The children’s request had, from the beginning, been simple.

Please catch the ghost.

“Don’t lose yourself in an illusion. It’s fake.”

There was nothing I could truly do for her.

All I could do was hope that, because I resembled that illusion, perhaps my words would reach her a little more easily.

“Ah, and the painting was astonishing in a completely different sense. If my office does well and I make a lot of money, I’ll buy it.”

I patted Selly on the shoulder and glanced around, only to see Soi waving from far away.

Would our little client happen to have a bonus for me?

Promotion, word of mouth, perfection?

Ding!

[You clear the 【Time】 Quest 〈Succeed at Your First Commission〉.

You’ve done a splendid…… well, in any case, you’ve successfully uncovered the ghost’s true identity.

You reflected on your own fault and acknowledged it with a warm…… well, at least moderate degree of sincerity.

▶Fixed Reward ― Fragment of the Original Work, Original Work Contribution, a set amount of Points

▶Time Remaining ― 1d : 2h : 00m : 59s]

[Selecting a reward based on the remaining time.]

[……Processing……]

Ding!

[The reward for the 【Time】 Quest 〈Succeed at Your First Commission〉 has been selected.]