The Problem of Resolution
“I judged it to be a problem of resolution.”
“…Resolution?”
Unexpectedly, the portrait answered Yu Seong-un’s question with ease.
“When I step outside, it is as if a painting becomes reality.”
“That’s right.”
“In that case, wouldn’t there be a difference in the range that a human observing it can perceive?”
Having opened his eyes for the first time in quite a while, Ji-oh continued speaking with an air of complete unconcern.
“I have never looked into a mirror outside the painting, so I cannot be certain, but most of the staff here, even while looking at me and speaking with me directly, seemed dazed, as though confronting something unknown. If even after introducing ourselves and exchanging information the terror only deepens…”
“You’re saying there must have been a problem in the process of recognition.”
“Exactly.”
That’s a good analogy.
To express the grade of a soul that way… he’d have made a fine teacher.
Unaware that Ji-oh was offering a completely truthful conjecture without a shred of falsehood, Yu Seong-un simply took it as the most plausible metaphor the portrait could manage. “Resolution”—it made a surprising amount of sense.
Come to think of it, has Ji-oh been exchanging names with every person he meets for the first time?
The sudden question made Seong-un ask aloud.
“Do you place that much importance on introducing yourselves?”
“By exchanging names, intimacy can be increased. I judged that the same would hold true for me.”
“Ah…”
To raise intimacy. Seong-un looked a little flustered as he pressed further.
“So you’ve been deliberately exchanging names this whole time just to make people feel closer to you?”
“It is also basic human courtesy. If you wish to know the other party, you must introduce yourself first.”
“I see.”
He seemed completely unaware that such a thing could make him even more terrifying.
…A being whose soul is so vast that people have trouble even perceiving him when he’s standing right in front of them, asking for their names. It’s hard enough to feel any intimacy from something like that.
To spiritual entities, a true name was always an item of trade. Unless someone was a complete country bumpkin or very elderly—no, even those people usually understood the danger of exchanging true names.
And Ji-oh, all in black like that, looks a bit like a reaper too, so people would be even more on guard.
Of course, between humans the rule still held. In practice, exchanging names was a useful technique for drawing out information from others. Just sharing names could build a small measure of trust.
In that sense—and Seong-un felt this every time—
…Does Ji-oh truly believe he is human?
It was something to keep carefully in mind.
If the natural respect and consideration he shows, calibrated entirely to human standards, comes from that misconception, then I need to maintain the conditions that let him keep thinking of himself as human for as long as possible.
Otherwise there was no telling what kind of catastrophe might occur.
“Mm… right.”
If he currently thought of himself as human, it would be easier to ask all sorts of questions.
“So how old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“…….”
This, however, was unexpected.
“…Twenty-nine?”
“Yes.”
“You’re young.”
“I often hear that I look older than my age, but that reaction still stings a little.”
“Ah—no, that wasn’t what I meant…”
Even Seong-un found it funny that he had asked a talking portrait its age in the first place, but he had never imagined that a portrait so overwhelming you could barely meet its gaze was not even thirty yet.
Is this another of his personal misconceptions?
If Ji-oh currently perceived himself as an ordinary twenty-nine-year-old human, the answer made perfect sense—no matter how long the portrait had actually existed.
Seong-un gave an awkward laugh.
“I honestly didn’t expect you to be younger than me.”
“I am curious about your age, Mr. Yu Seong-un. Would you mind telling me?”
“Thirty-three.”
“I thought you were still in your twenties.”
“That’s actually a really nice thing to hear.”
“You have a youthful face.”
The portrait added in its characteristic blunt tone,
“In that case, you may speak more casually with me.”
“Ah… is that really okay?”
“I do not believe I ever specifically requested that you use honorifics.”
“Well, no, but…”
Because the portrait seemed to value courtesy, Seong-un had deliberately kept his speech formal, yet apparently that particular point did not matter much. Perhaps the portrait placed more weight on respectful actions than on polished language.
Anyway, it seems he doesn’t dislike me.
He wouldn’t tell someone he found unpleasant or off-putting to drop the formal speech.
“Alright then, I’ll speak a bit more comfortably.”
“As you wish.”
“It’s weird switching after talking politely this whole time.”
“For all that, you’re speaking quite naturally.”
“Ah, well… I’m just used to casual speech originally…”
Working as a curator and researcher had made him accustomed to hierarchical language, but back when he had been a Gardener he had been a wanderer through and through. He had never been so rough that he ignored all manners, yet honestly, casual speech was more comfortable.
“More importantly—looking old? Who the hell told you that?”
“I heard it from time to time.”
“You don’t look particularly old to me. Someone wasn’t just badmouthing you, right?”
“There are people who refuse to believe me when I say I’m in my twenties…”
“Ah, that I get.”
Seong-un nodded in understanding.
“Your atmosphere is pretty heavy. You don’t really feel like you’re in your twenties.”
“I have heard that quite often as well.”
“Then that settles it. They probably said it because you don’t give off a youthful vibe.”
Whether this portrait had once been human and become a painting, or was simply a painting that possessed human memories, if people told him he “didn’t seem that age,” it was almost certainly because of the atmosphere.
“Besides, before anyone starts talking about looking old—you’re just handsome.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“With looks like that, any sense of maturity doesn’t matter at all.”
His skin was so smooth it looked as though white powder might flake off it, porcelain-like, while the features set within it were strongly drawn yet clear, leaving a powerful impression. The expression that could be read as either angry or simply calm suited that bluntness perfectly.
“You must have been popular.”
“I have no experience with romance.”
“…….”
He had not expected to hear something like that from a portrait.
“…None? With that face?”
“I have never received a confession either.”
“Have you ever made one?”
“I had no interest, so I did not.”
“I think I can picture the situation.”
Seong-un laughed hollowly. Same context as earlier. The atmosphere was so heavy that even people who felt something couldn’t bring themselves to confess, or else they assumed someone with that face already had a partner and backed off.
…The way he talks about these things makes me think he really was human once and then became a portrait.
Especially considering the remarks that suggested experience with social life.
“Well…”
Still, it was not yet the time to ask about that part.
I already made him run away once before.
Seong-un decided to change the subject.
“More importantly, you haven’t been coming outside much lately, have you?”
“We are conversing right now, are we not?”
“Not like that. There were times when you actually came out.”
Thanks to that, an ominous ghost story was still circulating among the curators. Because Bi Sa-beol had ordered a gag order on the matter, Seong-un had not been able to explain the true nature of the rumor either.
“Back then it looked like you were about to leave the gallery entirely.”
“If that created a misunderstanding I apologize, but even then I had no intention of leaving.”
“That’s surprising. Your range of activity kept expanding, so I thought you wanted to go outside the gallery.”
“I was simply curious how far the place I inhabit extended.”
“Now that you’ve checked the entire first floor, there’s no need to go out anymore?”
“That is part of it…”
The portrait looked down at Seong-un.
“Even originally I preferred to avoid active adventures in crowded places, and I have been restraining myself as much as possible because it seemed it would cause all of you trouble.”
“…I never even imagined that reason. That’s why you weren’t coming out? That’s way too considerate.”
He almost wished other monsters and ego weapons would take a look at Ji-oh and learn something.
I never expected to receive this kind of consideration from a non-human. If this gets reported to the academic societies there’ll be chaos.
Was it wondrous, or simply impressive? The portrait’s true nature was still not properly identified, yet as a Gardener he felt grateful for the fortune of encountering such a special existence.
Of course, all of this consideration was only possible because the portrait thought of himself as human…
“Then would you not tell me a little about yourself as well, Mr. Yu Seong-un?”
“…About me?”
“Until now it seems we have only spoken about me.”
“Ah, true.”
Seong-un accepted that.
I guess this could also be considered part of the one-to-one rule.
The portrait really did like fairness. Then again, after prying so thoroughly into the portrait’s stories, this was a natural flow even without any talk of rules.
“Where should I start…”
Seong-un blinked, choosing a topic.
“…Well, first of all I’m a curator. I manage and maintain the gallery of our guild master, Bi Sa-beol. There are a lot of other curators here besides me.”
“When you say gallery, does that mean you also sell works?”
“Sometimes. This gallery is a place that collects the rarest and most dangerous things in the world, so occasionally people come wanting to take pieces for the purpose of subjugation or research.”
Seong-un dealt with those clients and provided explanations of the works.
“That’s why any piece that no curator can explain is, without exception, marked as not for sale. Even if this is a gallery that only gathers the most dangerous things in the world, if a client takes something and gets hurt, the responsibility ends up coming back to us.”
“You cannot simply wash your hands of it?”
“Even if we wanted to pretend we didn’t know, we can’t. It doesn’t stop at simple legal disputes—it can escalate into armed conflict, which makes everything twice as complicated. Even if we get them to sign something saying ‘we informed you of the danger, any losses are your own fault’… we still can’t completely control the clients’ dissatisfaction.”
And if things went badly, even curators who were not particularly outstanding as hunters could face direct retaliation. In other companies, assassins had actually been hired and several curators had died.
“Our guild master is ridiculously protective of his employees, so that kind of thing would never happen here, but curators elsewhere get retaliated against pretty frequently.”
“Those companies do not prepare any separate countermeasures?”
“Why would they bother? There are more people who want the job than they can hire. Protecting existing staff costs more than just hiring new ones, so most places just leave it.”
“That is cold.”
“That’s how the world is.”
From the perspective of a monster who seemed to like good things, it might be enough to inspire disgust, but in the human world it was hardly remarkable.
“Outside the cities, people are already dying. There’s no manpower to protect them, monsters keep crawling out… rural areas without proper infrastructure are practically pure nature.”
“…….”
“Cities and countryside are almost a full century apart in civilization level. Though some people say the countryside is better because you don’t have to deal with all sorts of petty oppression.”
The portrait spoke bluntly.
“It sounds tiring.”
“Did I talk too much?”
“I meant that the inside of the painting is better.”
“I’ll agree with you there.”
Whatever it was like inside that painting, it had to be far more peaceful than this filthy, petty world they had to live in.
The portrait soon asked,
“Then have you always worked as a curator, Mr. Yu Seong-un?”
“Ah… no. I’ve only been employed for a few years.”
“If it is not rude, would you tell me what you did before?”
“…….”
Was it alright to talk even about that?
After a brief hesitation, Seong-un decided to speak freely.
“I used to be a researcher.”
“An unexpected answer.”
“And before that, I was a Gardener. Actually I still am a Gardener.”
“A gardener who tends gardens full of grass and flowers?”
“No. We manage the Source.”
In this world, the Source existed.
“I’m not sure how much you know, but Earth has things called dungeons. Dens of monsters created around all sorts of different themes…”
“…….”
“Even though they are clearly separate dimensions, sometimes the same flora appears in completely different dungeons. We call those ‘Children of the Source.’”
The same species of plant might be found in a dungeon filled with fire and in another made entirely of caves. Even though the dungeons had no connection whatsoever, it still happened, and some research teams claimed it was possible because those plants had derived from the Source.
“Could you explain the Source?”
“We don’t know the details either.”
But the Source was that kind of existence. The lowest, most fundamental concept underlying every dimension.
“If you think of it as a tree, dungeons are the fruit, and the monsters inside are the seeds. The Source is the roots of the tree.”
“…….”
“In other words, we suspect that the power creating the dungeons themselves is also the Source’s…”
“Thank you for telling me such an interesting story.”
“I find you interesting too.”
Seong-un laughed easily and continued.
“Gardeners analyze, manage, and share the things that arise from that Source. It’s similar to researchers who analyze the names and powers of new monsters when they appear. Also similar to geography hunters who roam dungeons redrawing maps.”
“It does not seem related—why is the name ‘Gardener’ attached to it?”
“Well… let’s see.”
Seong-un blinked his blue-tinged eyes. A moment later they brightened slightly.
“Partly because we regarded the Source as a single garden.”
“…….”
“…And also because we actually manage ‘Gardens.’”
The portrait asked,
“Gardens.”
“Yeah. Gardens.”
“Are they different from the Source?”
“You could call them parts of the Source.”
Seong-un answered faithfully.
“If you think of one person as the Source, then what we call a Garden is like that person’s blood vessels, fingernails, heart, eyes—some portion of them.”
“…….”
“They’re enormous, and there are a lot of them. A tiny minority of highly talented Gardeners are each assigned one of those Gardens, and it’s pretty hard work, so…”
Seong-un laughed like a sigh.
“Plenty of people die. It’s not a job that lets you take it easy.”
“Is it work that someone must do no matter what?”
“Once you’re chosen by the Source you have to do the work, and if you neglect it the difficulty of various dungeons skyrockets.”
“That sounds frightening.”
“…Even if you say it’s frightening, I can’t really picture it…”
Feeling as though he had just heard something absurd, Seong-un scratched behind his ear and continued.
“I’m still a Gardener. Becoming a Gardener isn’t something you can choose by personal will, so even though I’m doing curator work right now, I can’t just cast off the Gardener qualification.”
“Is it difficult?”
“A little?”
Seong-un shrugged.
“But it’s manageable.”
When he closed his eyes, he could see a vast snow-covered mountain. He could see glaciers. That grandeur captivated people.
“Having a garden of my own is pretty magnificent, after all.”
“…….”
The portrait soon replied,
“I understand.”
“You do?”
“I am the same.”
“I see.”
The conversation that day ended there.
He did not know how it had been for the portrait, but at the very least, for the Gardener it had been a rather pleasant time.
To be continued.