Chapter 9

Late evening.

The top floor of the cabin, the attic. Soft lighting. The scent of the forest drifting in. A black wooden desk set before a round window.

Jio was there, organizing the rules he had discovered.

"So..."

Jio continued.

"You could call it one-to-one."

Jio could do anything inside this painting.

He had not actually tried absolutely everything, but that was how it felt. In a world where he could even create warm corpses, it was fair to say nothing was impossible for Jio.

'But once reality gets involved, that changes things.'

Asking Yu Seongun to draw him an apple had also been part of the process of confirming that.

'A picture I draw and a picture someone else draws for me are the same picture from my perspective, so I can enjoy them without any issue. But the moment I take that out, it becomes reality. I thought it would be too much if there were no restrictions at all...'

That was where his suspicion had begun.

"I'm glad Mr. Yu Seongun is kind."

He had been moved that the man had obediently drawn an apple when a portrait had suddenly asked him to.

"He's such a mature person. He even plays along when a portrait says nonsense."

Like that, thanks to the kind caretaker's consideration and the attempts he had made over the past few days, Jio had been able to understand his own situation.

When Jio went outside the painting, his figure disappeared from inside the painting, and the frame became a simple landscape. If Jio wanted to give a gift to someone outside the painting, he had to receive something from them.

In general, if something came in, something went out: a one-to-one rule.

"..."

Of course, the snacks he had handed out to the seventeen employees he had met before had simply been goodwill.

'They all looked so scared, so I thought the mood might loosen up if I at least gave them snacks.'

As a result, the mood had loosened up. Or rather, it had changed from terror to bewilderment. Yes, even I would probably be flustered if a pitch-black lump popped out of a painting and suddenly handed me cookies.

'It's also true that those people helped me.'

In the end, he had simply been showing basic courtesy.

If he had received something from someone, or if something happened that required him to apologize, his grandmother had told him to give them a tangible gift along with polished words that could charm the other person. She said that was the basic courtesy between people.

'She said gratitude and apologies made only of words were corpses.'

Speaking nicely was only natural, and whether he had the means or not, he should give even a very small gift. For Seo Jio, whose facial muscles had degenerated to a state worse than a pony's, it was advice that became flesh and blood.

Therefore, the good little potato Seo Jio was still faithfully following the words of his life mentor, his grandmother, even now at twenty-nine years old. If he had not, Jio would not have been able to become a teacher loved by his students.

Anyway, that was why.

"I can't just keep receiving help."

That was Seo Jio's ironclad rule.

"In that sense, I should say this world's rules suit me quite well. It might be a result that reflects my nature, like the animals of the forest."

He liked it.

"If I want to pass something into reality while I am in the state of a painting, I need to receive something too."

Jio could freely do quite a lot.

That was already obvious inside this painting, where he enjoyed power practically like that of a creator, and even when he went out into reality, he could act without being bound by separate rules.

'I can even make passages with paintings and go to other floors without taking the elevator.'

However, when Jio was a painting and the other party was in reality, he could not break this one-to-one rule. This was something he had learned while exchanging conversation with Yu Seongun, the employee who managed the portrait.

"When I asked that man to draw me an apple, a system explanation appeared."

It was an explanation telling him to give something in return, and there was even a time limit.

'Was it about a week?'

He still did not know exactly what problem would occur if he did not give the other person compensation within a week. But it did not seem as though anything good would happen, so he had given Yu Seongun a gift the very next day.

"..."

Jio rolled the odds and ends beside the desk with his fingers. They clattered as they struck the wooden desk.

"Gemstones..."

Among them were gemstones of various colors.

"I didn't know I could make these too."

Jio liked various painting styles.

People said that a proper painter had a worldview of their own, but perhaps because Jio was not that kind of painter and was only a mere teacher, he painted in all sorts of styles. That Seo Jio was also skilled at hyperrealism.

The gemstones he was touching now had been born in that way.

"Once I made paint with these, it became easier to paint the gemstone I gave to Mr. Yu Seongun."

It felt as though the paint, the painting, the result itself, was a living being.

"..."

It was clearly something that could not live and breathe, yet it felt as though life had settled within it.

"This is undoubtedly a special quality that suits this wonderful potato, whose thoughts know no limits, extremely well..."

He had never felt this free at the age of twenty-nine, as if he had stripped off even his underwear, but in any case, he was glad there were many things he could do. As a result, Jio seemed to have evolved into a potato that showed off even more varied charms.

Having finished organizing things in his own way, Jio continued thinking thoughts befitting someone no different from an unemployed bum.

'... Let's sleep outside tonight. It would feel nice to sleep while looking at the stars. What should I make for breakfast tomorrow? Even just roasting potatoes and dipping them in salt would be good, wouldn't it? And if I get bored after that, farming might be all right too. If I ask Mr. Yu Seongun...'

Since the weather was good, the crops would grow well. If he found seedlings he liked and farmed them, it would feel refreshing.

He would make meals with the crops grown that way and also give some as gifts to Mr. Yu Seongun outside the painting. If there were honeybees somewhere, he also wanted to bring them over and raise them.

"Let's roam around a lot."

Then he would return to the cabin and paint.

If he painted...

"..."

Jio, who had been half-dozing in the languid spring air, quietly opened his eyes.

"I need a pet."

The scale had gotten a little bigger, but this was country living too, wasn't it?

"Keeping a pet in a house with a yard goes together like pork belly and distilled liquor. And I am a healthy man of South Korea who drinks distilled liquor with pork belly... Therefore, the conclusion is that I need a new family member."

The creatures of this forest were friendly to Jio, but perhaps because the basic wariness of wild animals remained, he could not easily touch them.

'I wanted to knead them like chewy rice cakes, but they firmly rejected me.'

And Jio, who was the very image of a gentleman, did not knead rabbits that said they hated it.

The forest friends approached Jio easily and also left easily, truly nothing more than wild animals. Becoming friends with those fellows would certainly be fun, but Jio had another method too.

"If I paint..."

He could not create humans, and he had no intention of doing so. Taking responsibility for this one human creature was already enough.

But animals?

"... Can I make them?"

Jio headed to the studio on the second floor.

* * *

Everything Jio had painted so far had been an object.

"They had no sense of self."

Fruit, vegetables, food, plates, furniture, and various other things had been painted, but they were not living, breathing beings. That was separate from the life force Jio faintly felt from them.

"..."

Jio was sitting in front of a canvas.

"... Will it work?"

Humans had failed, but perhaps a small animal might be possible.

"... There are no other people here, but there are other animals..."

It seemed possible.

"..."

Jio rose from his chair and approached the small drawers that filled the wall. They were shaped like the medicine cabinets one might see in an old traditional medicine clinic.

Their number was too great to count, but Jio knew where everything was.

"... Here, I'm sure..."

CLICK.

He opened one drawer.

"There it is."

There was a blue, transparent gemstone.

Jio did not know exactly what this gemstone was. But the gemstone was cool. Rather than cold, it was refreshing, and though it was hard to the touch, its inside shifted fluidly as if water were flowing through it.

"..."

Glittering as it flowed within a single form, it was a liquid in the shape of a solid, and it was no different from life, gathered together and breathing among itself.

"Let's use this."

Other than that, Seo Jio took out several gemstones, dried leaves, and minerals.

He broke the gemstones with an awl and a hammer. The leaves that still held vivid colors despite being thoroughly dried, and the minerals that held various colors, were all turned into powder. The powder, made as fine as flour, became paint in Jio's hands.

"..."

He gave it substance with sap from a tree he had found in the forest.

"..."

Then he adjusted it by degrees and found the right viscosity.

"..."

On a glass plate where the colors showed well, the finely ground paint glowed softly like fireflies.

'... It's pale like the Milky Way, but...'

It gave that much of a cool feeling.

"Done."

Jio began to paint.

This forest had no lake. Perhaps that was natural, but he could not help feeling a little disappointed. He wanted something endlessly transparent, like a modest pond, a grand lake, or the vast sea, to give off the scent of water.

Thinking of a cool wind blowing from a vast pool of water, Jio moved his brush.

"..."

A round body.

The head small, the wings large. Since the beak would only sing, there was no need for it to be very large. They would make homes where water existed, and that home itself would become them.

"..."

Birds that were water itself.

"..."

What kind of birds would they be?

"... I think they'd flock together."

They would live in groups.

They could stay anywhere there was water, and even in places without water, they could create ponds, lakes, and seas whenever they wished.

Bearing life and breathing, they were transparent water and, at the same time, birds that stirred up a cool wind.

"Their colors will all be different."

Since water was transparent, those with a sense of self would think it.

'That they want colors to reveal themselves.'

They would become cute friends.

In order to decorate their transparent selves, they would put all kinds of treasures into their bodies. Just as all birds cared for their feathers, they would choose treasures that suited their bodies with their small beaks, put them inside their transparent bodies, and decorate themselves.

It could be a flower. It could be a gemstone, and it could be fruit hanging from a tree or food someone had left half-eaten. Perhaps they might hold a very old artifact or a small fish.

"Everything is..."

Because it would all be up to you.

You, who were water and birds, could do anything freely.

It was fine to fall asleep in a flowing stream, and it was fine to fly through the vast sky to your heart's content. They had freedom.

"..."

Jio painted a very small bird.

Its body was round, its wings were just the size of its body, its tail feathers were long, and its beak was short. Small as they were, they could hide anywhere, and they knew that they themselves were water.

Water with life.

"..."

With gemstones, flowers, and berries inside those transparent bodies, shining in many colors...

It was beautiful.

"..."

When Jio carefully tapped the bird's beak with the tip of his finger.

"Ah."

FLUTTER!

"..."

A bird holding its own treasures inside its body perched on Jio's shoulder.

"... Hello."

RUSTLE.

"Nice to meet you."

RUSTLE, RUSTLE!

"Yeah, me too."

Instead of crying out, the bird rustled and made sounds with the flowers inside its body.

It was a quiet but noisy friend.

"It was a chatterbox."

The flower petals trapped in its small, transparent body made faint noises and cried playfully.

"That's amazing."

Before he knew it, Jio's room was filled with transparent, sparkling birds.

After lingering around Jio for a while, they soon streamed out through the open window. The wind stirred up by the wingbeats of the living droplets of water was far larger than he had imagined.

The picturesque sight, as if he were watching cherry blossom petals scatter in a clear spring breeze, was truly beautiful.

"..."

Jio stood there blankly for a moment, then soon moved his feet and stood on the terrace.

"... Ah."

There they were.

"They don't go far."

They formed a small pond beside Jio's cabin. He rested his chin on the terrace railing and leaned against it.

"Clever little things."

The pond, or perhaps the lake, that stretched around the cabin was flowing gently.

Under it, countless "treasures" lay spread out like beach sand or river pebbles. The lake, where flowers, gemstones, berries, and the like had sunk in abundance, sparkled enchantingly in the moonlight.

They flowed gently as one, then soon popped up and looked around. Then they hid inside again and formed a pond together with their friends.

"..."

Jio closed his eyes. When the living water that moved here and there and sparkled disappeared from his sight, he soon heard the breathing sounds they made.

Instead of chirping cries, he heard gemstones clacking, flower petals brushing, and small stones or grains of sand shifting with faint noises. That was the way those friends conversed and cried out.

It was like the sound of summer insects in midsummer...

"... I should sleep."

Jio went outside the cabin, carrying only a single pillow. Then he lay down between the cabin and the pond.

"..."

RUSTLE.

When he lay down to sleep, he heard the sound of animals approaching.

'Considering they all ran away when I tried to touch them, aren't they pretty quick to come over?'

The birds that had been tilting their heads on tree branches fluttered over and perched on Seo Jio's chest. The deer that had been sniffing at the shallow, wide pond also moved its long legs and approached Seo Jio's side.

The squirrels that had been twitching among the bushes put acorns or small berries into the pond, then gathered around him.

"..."

At the sight, Jio muttered.

"... A toll?"

Was it a tollgate fee?

In any case, both the squirrels and the pond birds looked satisfied.

'That's fine, then.'

In any case, was this not peaceful?

If the friends Jio had created were not beings that deserved to be rejected, and if they could mingle and blend with the ones that had already been here as much as they wished, that alone was enough to satisfy him.

Around then, Jio thought.

"..."

That it might be fun to decorate this portrait too.