We Can't Contain Him
“It was dangerous.”
Yu Seong-un spoke as if releasing a long-held sigh.
“I agreed to it myself, but watching the staff whisper about the ‘ghost story’ made my heart race. We came this close to an internal split.”
“Our guild members aren’t so petty that a single ghost story would tear them apart. Curator Yu Seong-un, you don’t seem to place much faith in your coworkers.”
“Faith has nothing to do with it. It was far too much of a gamble. This wasn’t something we could simply rest easy about because of mutual trust.”
In the end things had turned out well, yet that did not change the fact that it had been a dangerous gamble.
“We essentially set free an existence of the Source whose true nature we still haven’t properly grasped…”
Even now, no one knew what Seo Ji-oh truly was. No matter how many books Yu Seong-un scoured, nothing remotely similar ever appeared.
Leaving the investigation to the Association might yield answers, but the odds were unknown, and Bi Sa-beol would never allow it in the first place.
As if he would ever hand over something he pours so much devotion into.
One thing was certain: the Haunted Portrait of Ji-oh was an existence heavily influenced by the Source.
Gardeners and the few humans who knew of their existence referred to such monsters, items, skills, or phenomena as “existences of the Source.” It was a vague umbrella term for things too difficult to define properly.
It was a somewhat embarrassing fact for professionals of this era, yet the Haunted Portrait of Ji-oh was exactly that kind of case.
“We nearly unleashed a catastrophe.”
“Is that so? Curator Yu Seong-un, what do you think Ji-oh’s true nature is?”
“Are you changing the subject…?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“…….”
Yu Seong-un shrugged.
“I have no idea. Just as I never have.”
Ji-oh was cut from an entirely different cloth than ordinary existences of the Source.
“First of all, the probability that he’s a monster is low.”
“True. They are hostile toward civilization outside the dungeons.”
“Their hostility is closer to instinct. Like the way a human recoils or instantly wants to kill a cockroach—pure reflex. It’s not something a monster can regulate just because it decides to try….”
“Even if it could, that level of patience and judgment would already place it far beyond the category of ‘monster.’”
“That’s why I concluded he isn’t one.”
Ji-oh’s goodwill sometimes felt indifferent or merciless precisely because it stemmed from fondness for the species itself, yet that did not make the goodwill any less genuine.
Therefore he could not be a monster.
“He’s showing a completely different pattern, isn’t he?”
Yu Seong-un nodded.
“Of course there are monsters that appear friendly toward humans, but strictly speaking those cases are closer to love-hate than pure affection. If the Aberration Incident eleven years ago had truly been pure goodwill, they would have carefully observed the humans screaming in terror and then helped them recover.”
“But I heard they were clearly enjoying themselves?”
“Part of it was that they had no intention of understanding humans, and part of it may simply have been that the humans’ reactions were entertaining. That case was cleaned up so hastily that it remained unsolved… so I can’t speak with any certainty.”
“That’s not the important point right now, so let’s move on.”
“Mm, and also…”
Yu Seong-un rolled his deep navy eyes thoughtfully as he continued.
“He’s not an item either.”
“There are items that possess a self, though.”
“The self that resides in an item is something humans create. It has limits.”
He added,
“It’s not a matter of how human-like their thinking appears… We have to look at their essence.”
“Essence?”
“Ji-oh created life—even if only inside the portrait.”
After a moment’s consideration, Yu Seong-un tilted his head.
“Perhaps those created lives can even emerge outside the painting. I haven’t received an answer from Ji-oh himself, but given that he can freely leave on his own and can easily bring ordinary objects out of the painting, the possibility seems high.”
“And if Ji-oh were to paint a monster and that monster stepped outside?”
“That also seems possible. Even if it weren’t, the fact that Ji-oh himself can come and go at will is already confirmed. If he brought out even a contracted beast whose soul he’d bound—or if he were merely an item that could do that much—we would already be unable to handle it.”
“And a mere item couldn’t manage that much?”
“Every item is created by humans. Even setting prejudice aside, only high-intelligence monsters could produce anything close. Creating life is impossible at the level of humans or monsters, and countless witnesses have already testified that the grade of his soul is incomparable to a human’s. He is not an item.”
“Aha.”
Bi Sa-beol giggled as though thoroughly entertained. For a man of his age, the expression was remarkably childish.
“Then what about a type of skill? It’s long been proven that skills can manipulate souls. There’s even a resurrection skill user who can bring the dead back—though only one.”
“Even that is merely rearranging an existing soul; it doesn’t create an entirely new one. And even if a skill capable of soul creation existed somewhere in the world… a skill is, by nature, formless energy that an intelligent life-form can wield.”
“Meaning Ji-oh, who has both form and a self, cannot be residual skill energy? But what if he’s simply an awakener who obtained a skill that let him turn himself into a portrait?”
Bi Sa-beol waved a finger lazily.
“Ji-oh himself claims to be a twenty-nine-year-old young man, and he said he once lived in human society. So he could simply be an awakener of a type that hasn’t been discovered until now.”
Yu Seong-un shook his head.
“Impossible.”
“Why? Former research team leader of the Association Yu Seong-un—do you see something the rest of us don’t?”
“If anyone can ‘see’ things, Guildmaster, it would be you far more than me…. I simply happen to know a few facts.”
“Then what do you know?”
“Do you know why superpowered people came to be called ‘awakeners’ in the first place?”
“Hmm….”
Bi Sa-beol shrugged.
“Not a field I take particular interest in.”
“Just admitting you don’t know would scratch that lofty pride of yours, I suppose.”
“Quite a deep scratch, I imagine. I’m the head of one of Korea’s three great guilds, after all. Can you even imagine how expensive a single grain of that pride is?”
“I’m sure it is.”
Yu Seong-un let out a hollow, bitter laugh and continued.
“If you go back to the meaning of the word ‘awakening,’ it becomes simple.”
“One: to come to one’s senses. Two: to realize and understand. Three: the attitude of remaining alert and carefully on guard.”
“…For someone who claims no interest, you sound like a dictionary….”
“If you don’t even know the meaning of the word, what was the point of becoming guildmaster with a single emotion skill?”
“Ah, yes. I’m sure it is.”
“So which is it?”
“Mm… any of them is fine.”
Yu Seong-un continued evenly.
“What matters is the essence.”
“Interesting.”
“In every sense, awakening means newly composing something that already exists.”
He propped his chin on his hand.
“Whether you open your eyes and come to your senses, straighten out a hopelessly tangled mind, or mature inwardly and reflect on your younger days… it is a change that occurs inside a person who already existed.”
“Aha. And so?”
“An awakener’s skill isn’t a new ability bestowed from nowhere; it is an ability that had been buried within their own innate qualities and is now waking up. Dungeons appeared, energies and resources that never existed on Earth before came into being, and the environment changed with them. Humanity evolved to match.”
“I think the Center textbooks said something similar. So in this era people can finally realize that the stone they always carried was actually a diamond—something like that?”
“Roughly similar.”
Yu Seong-un scratched the back of his neck.
“In that sense, Ji-oh cannot be considered an awakener.”
“Hmm….”
“Even if we call him an awakener, it would mean the original grade of his soul woke up—not that something new was granted to him.”
“I see.”
Though neither of them knew it, Yu Seong-un’s reasoning contained an error. Seo Ji-oh was a case in which, during the process of Earth’s new birth, he had extremely, extraordinarily, and purely by chance fused with the Source and elevated the grade of his soul.
It was a miraculous mutation of a probability so low that it was almost impossible to observe from within the tiny dimension called Earth.
“What a headache.”
“It is a headache.”
Of course, the two of them—living a mere thirty years after the Great Cataclysm—had no way of discovering that particular truth.
To ordinary humans, the Haunted Portrait of Ji-oh simply looked like an existence that had never been human to begin with.
“…….”
Bi Sa-beol blinked his bright yellow eyes in thought, then opened his mouth.
“Then what if we call Ji-oh a Child of the Source?”
“That also feels… a little strange.”
“Please explain in what sense it feels strange.”
“Most Children of the Source have nothing that could be called reason. Actually, you don’t even need to go as far as the ‘children’—this applies to nearly every existence born from the Source….”
Yu Seong-un spoke with a complicated expression.
“If I had to describe an existence of the Source in one phrase, it would be ‘a living story.’ So they cannot think. Even when they appear to be thinking, it’s only an illusion; they are not actually reasoning.”
“Are you certain?”
“…Not completely. Even if I am a Gardener, this field still hasn’t been properly clarified.”
After a brief hesitation, Yu Seong-un continued.
“I’m only saying this because every Child of the Source I’ve observed so far could be regarded as nature itself.”
There were occasional cases in which a human with powerful will created a dungeon according to their own rules and became its boss monster.
But even they could not be called Children of the Source.
“A monster is one of two things: either it was born inside a dungeon, or it became a monster because it created a dungeon.”
“Hmm….”
“That’s a different story from the Children of the Source that either spring directly from the Source or accidentally become caught in its veins and then appear here and there across dimensions.”
“That side of things always sounds fascinating no matter how many times I hear it.”
Bi Sa-beol’s eyes narrowed like a snake’s as he smiled.
“From a hunter’s perspective, the greatest secrets of the world all seem to revolve around dungeons.”
“That’s for the best. Plenty of people still haven’t adapted to the mere existence of dungeons. If you told them that those dungeons themselves were formed from a cosmic concept called the Source… their heads would explode.”
“I already feel constant gratitude toward all of you Gardeners. Shall I pour you some coffee?”
“No thank you. I’m drowning in caffeine.”
Yu Seong-un made no effort to hide his disgust. He was already overworked and frequently stayed late; recently he had been consuming every drop of caffeine he could find just to stay awake for conversations with Ji-oh, who only opened his eyes before dawn, and he was on the verge of throwing up.
“Anyway, yes. If we have to classify him, calling Ji-oh a Child of the Source is far easier to explain. There simply isn’t any other way…. And the Source isn’t a concept narrow enough for the beings of a single planet to fully grasp in thirty years.”
“True. We still haven’t even finished mapping the dungeons, so we hardly have the capacity to dig into the knowledge that lies further down.”
“The Association President still seems quite interested, but… honestly, it’s still difficult to say anything definitive about Ji-oh’s identity.”
The Source is both an ecosystem and nature itself. Just as atmospheric nitrogen has no understanding of humans, the Children of the Source by nature possess an abysmal lack of comprehension regarding humanity. They simply survive in their own way and cultivate their own “stories.”
But Ji-oh was different.
“How that’s even possible… I really don’t know. But since he said he was once human, if we investigate that angle maybe something will turn up…?”
“…….”
“Even so, I still can’t understand how a human could become a Child of the Source. And even if he was human, there’s a chance he wasn’t a human of Earth.”
Many novice Gardeners confused “monsters” with “Children of the Source,” but the fact that both were heavily influenced by the Source did not make them the same.
“Monsters are born in dungeons; Children of the Source are born from the Source. They come from different wombs—they can’t be identical.”
“Roughly like the relationship between an uncle and a nephew?”
“Mm… somewhat similar.”
From the mother body called the Source, both “dungeons” and “Children of the Source” are formed, and from those “dungeons” monsters are then formed. That is the usual flow.
“Humanoid monsters or beings of equivalent level might create their own dungeons first and then generate new rules or monsters inside them, but those cases aren’t common….”
The uncle-and-nephew comparison wasn’t entirely wrong.
“There’s even a theory that dungeons themselves are a type of Child of the Source.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“That part still needs more research. I can’t say for certain. Anyway….”
Yu Seong-un looked at Bi Sa-beol.
“So… was it really all right?”
“…….”
“We essentially decided to set free an existence whose identity we can’t even grasp.”
Bi Sa-beol shrugged in reply.
“…Haven’t we already been answering that question this whole time?”
How exactly was one supposed to keep such an unknown, uncontrollable existence from being free?
“He’s not a monster, not an item, not an awakener. And if we call him a Child of the Source, there are still far too many strange points.”
“…….”
“He creates life, his soul grade is high—there’s nothing he can’t do. He handles everything by himself. If there were at least restrictions or conditions on leaving the portrait, maybe, but he does even that with complete ease.”
“…True.”
“How do you plan to stop him? Is it even possible? We can’t even handle the gods who have grown somewhat familiar with us—how are we supposed to stop the Haunted Portrait of Ji-oh, whose identity we can’t even name?”
Bi Sa-beol smiled and waved a hand.
“Ah, perhaps if we took the humans he cherishes as hostages it might work.”
“Are you insane?”
“I expected exactly that reaction. Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t suit the tastes of decent people like us on humanitarian grounds, we don’t even know how effective the method would be. With Ji-oh’s level of ability he could snatch the hostages away whenever he liked… and then he’d only be angry.”
“…….”
“Do you understand now?”
He laughed as though thoroughly amused.
“We can’t stop him.”
“…I know.”
“It’s no different from trying to hold back a tidal wave by using a tiny child as a meat shield. Honestly. If we can’t stop him anyway, the least we can do is avoid making him angry.”
He smiled thinly. It was the smile of an elder gently admonishing a sulking child—an old man’s looking-down gaze.
“And as much as possible, it would be best to earn his goodwill.”
The greatest stroke of luck amid misfortune was that the Haunted Portrait of Ji-oh was extremely gentlemanly, valued manners, and was fair.
If someone showed him goodwill, he returned that same goodwill—with interest. That was probably Ji-oh’s “rule.”
“This incident was a kind of vaccination. Advance warning so that we could coexist with an existence we can never truly handle. Fortunately I know my employees very well, and they displayed exactly the level of indifference I expected.”
“…All the countless ghost-story disturbances the guild has already weathered probably helped. They must have thought, ‘Nothing’s gone wrong so far, so there’s no need to start trembling over one more ghost story now.’”
“Exactly.”
“…….”
“This place is the Collector.”
A place managed by Bi Sa-beol himself, staffed only by employees he himself had chosen, and filled with works he himself loved.
That was the third-ranked guild of Korea, the Collector.
“Curator Yu Seong-un, remember this. The Haunted Portrait of Ji-oh is not an existence we can control.”
Even thinking of fighting him would be foolish.
“He is a natural disaster, yet fortunately he can communicate with us and even harbors goodwill. That is an incredible stroke of luck—no, a miracle that defies all reason.”
“…….”
“Don’t be stupid enough to throw away this miracle while thinking Earth’s fate rests in your hands. We must be careful, we must be magnanimous, and we must always be kind.”
“…Did you buy Ji-oh knowing it would come to this? Once he appeared at the auction he was going to be revealed to the world anyway, so you made the first move to prepare for any possible disasters along the way?”
“I see quite a lot of things, you know.”
“…….”
“I simply thought it wasn’t an ordinary work.”
Bi Sa-beol followed with a childish, playful grin. Dressed like a gentleman, the expression should have looked out of place, yet it only made him seem more vivid.
He said,
“Because it was the only work I couldn’t read.”
That was the truth.
“…….”
“…I trust you, Guildmaster.”
“Trusting me too much would be a problem.”
“More precisely, I trust your eye.”
He trusted those eyes.
In the end the gamble had succeeded, so Yu Seong-un decided to swallow whatever else he might have said.
“And yet I’m still uneasy—probably because I’m only human.”
“Of course you are. You’re carrying a talking disaster.”
“It feels like… right before a horror movie starts.”
Ah. Yes.
That was exactly it.
“…Maybe it’s because something far too vast is standing in front of me….”
What could one do about a heart that shrivels before a giant?
Humans had always been such tiny creatures.
Meanwhile, on that day which—by a miracle among miracles so absurd that it should never have been possible—was Earth’s final day yet somehow was not, the man who had unconsciously fused with the Source and evolved into a haunted portrait, Seo Ji-oh, was…
“This is the taste.”
…farming.
In other words, he wasn’t thinking about anything at all.
(To be continued)