I Am a Portrait
He was lost.
"Fuck, where the hell even is this…."
They hadn't slapped the word "kingdom" onto the name for nothing. Even among entry dungeons, the Abyssal Kingdom was disgustingly vast. And it wasn't as if the monsters were weak, either. The first and second stages had been manageable enough to push through, but the moment the third stage began and the temple architecture started to show itself, even breathing became a struggle.
"Map, the map is… the map…."
Unfortunately, this was a brand-new dungeon whose basic layout had yet to be mapped at all.
"……."
Every one of the hunter's teammates was already dead.
"…What do I do…."
What do I do? What else is there to do but die?
He laughed at himself and sank down onto the path. The water-scale light shimmering across the cavern ceiling looked exactly like the shadows of monsters, and the sight of it was enough to make his skin crawl.
"…Should never have come."
Alone, every thought in the world rose up at once. It had been the team leader, not him, who had insisted they come here—but with every comrade dead and only himself left, self-reproach was impossible to keep out. He swallowed the tears hard and forced his feet to move again.
"Fuck, is this a temple or a cave… The paths are a maze…."
Everything looked the same, and he had never once found the same corridor twice. He was moving, that much was true, yet he felt himself drifting deeper rather than toward any exit. Stopping to hide somewhere was no better: dangerous monsters and traps waited in every direction.
"Shiiit…."
He huffed and growled just to hold the tears back.
If I don't make it out alive, I won't even be able to file for body recovery.
When a guild-affiliated hunter died in a dungeon, the guild itself usually handled the remains. Freelance hunters and civilians had no such luxury. A freelance hunter who wanted a comrade's body recovered had to prove identity in person and file a formal request with the Hunter Association.
I don't even have the ability to recover them…
The only reason he was still breathing at all was the stealth skill among his abilities.
"I just have to get out first. Yeah. Then I get paid… anything…."
He was clinging to the thought of what he might gain after escape, trying to steady himself, when it happened.
"……."
A single portrait entered his field of vision.
"……?"
It was a portrait whose face had been smeared over with black paint until nothing remained.
It was unnerving.
"…W-what is this?"
Any ordinary object he would have dismissed as dungeon décor. But against the temple backdrop that until now had seemed to repeat the same motifs over and over, this portrait was far too abrupt.
Even with the eyes completely hidden, he somehow felt a gaze upon him.
"……."
He walked past it.
Could be a dangerous item. A monster disguised as a portrait, maybe…
The thing itself already radiated a heavy, skin-crawling atmosphere. Unlike the pure white stone of the temple and cavern, it was set in a wooden frame. Gold leaf seemed to coat it, yet a strange warmth clung to the object, completely at odds with the dungeon. That warmth only made him want to stay farther away. The sense of wrongness was overwhelming.
"……."
But the moment he collected himself and looked around again, the frame was there once more.
"…It wasn't… it wasn't here before…."
Once or twice would have been one thing.
"It was in the corridor just now."
He still felt the gaze.
It was as if the portrait were following him.
"……."
Maybe it really was.
His hands and feet shook; his breath snagged in his throat. Even so, in a hunter driven to the absolute edge, a thin thread of hope rose. He knew the whole flow of it was strange, yet he could not help himself. By any objective measure the phenomenon was anything but positive—yet he forced the thought into place. He simply wanted to believe it.
What if… this is some kind of key item for escaping?
In story-heavy dungeons, a single item like this could sometimes tip a clear in the party's favor. The odds of walking out alive would barely rise, but the hunter's capacity for rational thought had already worn thin. He stepped closer to the portrait.
"If only I had an appraisal skill… this is…."
"Good day to you."
"……."
He flinched back.
"…Uh, uhh…?"
"I am a portrait."
"Uh…?"
"May I ask your name?"
"……."
"I am curious about your name."
The lips of the lower face, the only part not drowned in black paint, asked again.
"Will you speak with me?"
"…Right now…."
What is this?
A portrait talking? A portrait?
Even in a world where superpowers had soaked into daily life, talking portraits were not something one saw every day. At the very least, the hunter currently trapped inside the Abyssal Kingdom had never seen one in his life.
"Wh-who…."
"I am a portrait."
Same voice. Same line.
"……."
Goosebumps rose along his arms.
The voice was so flawlessly perfect that it became almost painful to hear—sweet and soft beyond measure. If a devil ever spoke, it might sound like this. The hunter barely managed to cling to his senses and answer.
"Park Yoon-shin… that's me…."
He was not unaware of the danger in speaking one's true name, but he was far past the point of weighing such things. The only thought that filled him was that he must obey the presence in front of him.
He felt terror and mercy at the same time.
"Yes, P-Park Yoon-shin. Park Yoon-shin…."
"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Park Yoon-shin."
"…You're… a portrait, you said?"
"That is correct."
The pale lower face continued.
"I am a portrait."
"……."
Only then did the hunter realize that not a single monster was approaching from any direction.
…This situation is turning weird…
He felt as though something had already taken hold of him.
A portrait that was nothing more than a painting was scattering an atmosphere so heavy it bordered on grotesque. It was qualitatively different from the temple's own air. It felt like being invited to a pope's funeral. That was the strange sensation that rose in him.
"……."
He was still dazed when the next words came.
"Pardon the intrusion."
"Y-yes?"
The black-paint region began to swell outward as though wrapping around something.
The hunter recoiled in shock. Directly in front of the portrait, a human-shaped figure wrapped in a pitch-black cloak took form. Because the portrait hung at mid-wall height, the figure seemed almost to drop down—yet not a single footfall touched the floor.
"Ah…."
Only a soft rustle of cloth.
"……."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Park Yoon-shin."
Then footsteps sounded.
They were truly human footsteps.
"……."
No—if the footsteps sound like that, why do I keep thinking of it as human?
Am I losing my mind? Did I walk into a brainwashing skill?
In the middle of the confusion, something clicked.
"Ah, ah, ah…!"
The black cloak.
"Th-the black, black clo… cloak."
"Yes. I am wearing a black cloak."
"…Black Cloak…."
It was unmistakably the monster on which the Association had posted a bounty for information.
…This is a monster?
A sudden doubt rose.
This…?
The hunter hesitated, then looked at Black Cloak again.
It wore the pitch-black cloak pulled low like a reaper. Where the cloak had slipped slightly from the shoulder, the body beneath showed a black suit and shirt—dark to an almost unnatural degree.
"……."
It clearly had form, so of course a rounded head-shape would show when the cloak was worn.
…The hands too… pale, but you can see the skin. That means there's a human body underneath…
And yet he could not believe a face existed inside that darkness.
No. Just…
It felt as if there were nothing there at all.
"……."
"Mr. Park Yoon-shin."
"…Uh, yes, I…."
If it calls my name three times, do I die?
They say if a reaper calls your name three times, you die.
He did not truly believe Black Cloak and a reaper were the same being, yet the atmosphere clinging to it was undeniably thick with death.
Standing before a presence he dared not even look upon, the hunter lowered his head under a wave of awe and confusion.
"S-sorry for waking you. I was just…."
"You are a good person."
It was spoken like a declaration, like something being bestowed. For an instant it even sounded sacred—like a prophecy delivered by a god.
"……."
"Therefore I will help you."
The black cloak held something out.
"…Th-this is…."
A round bead that looked as if it had been made of gold. It was surprisingly heavy, and a powerful sweet scent rose from it that seemed ready to bewitch the mind.
"What is this…?"
"An apology for startling you, and a gift for one who has suffered."
"A gift…?"
"It is yours."
"…That…."
"Please take it."
Eat it?
This?
It did not look edible in the slightest. And yet the desire to put it in his mouth and make it his own surged up all the same. The bead was that beautiful in form.
I want to eat it.
"……."
Ensnared by the scent, the hunter placed the bead on his tongue.
Ah.
A rapturous sweetness swept gently through his entire body.
The sensation of every cell settling into calm was vivid. It was like the spring breeze of a late afternoon, and joy rose with it.
The freshness of fruit swollen with juice, condensed to its purest, suited the gentle golden bead perfectly.
"…Uh, uh?"
"Has the bleeding stopped?"
"This, this is… yes, how. Why."
"I see."
"……."
Black Cloak looked down at the hunter with the inorganic gaze of a researcher waiting for a predetermined value to appear. The sense of wrongness—that this could never be called human—made him shrink, yet at the same time a strange gratitude welled up. He felt glad that he had shown the value it had been waiting for. It was a feeling he neither recognized nor understood.
"Do you wish to leave?"
"…Leave?"
His lowered head lifted on its own.
"C-can I… get out?"
"I can send you out."
"Ah…."
Only then did the information posted on the Association website come back to him.
The first discoverer also escaped the Abyssal Kingdom with Black Cloak's help.
Hope flared. He raised his face toward the place where a face should be—
"……."
"……."
Their eyes met.
Eyes?
Yes. Eyes. Pupils. Irises. He could see them.
But they were not spheres. Flat? No—perhaps they were three-dimensional after all. Yet lines were visible. Those elegant lines. Not one. Many, tangled like the roots of a tree and yet somehow a single whole.
What color were they? Gold? No—dark. So dark they seemed bright. Then black? But closer to silver. Where had the word silver even come from? They were that dark. They were that bright. What am I looking at right now?
Am I even allowed to look at this in the first place?
In the sheer vastness of it he could not even feel fear; he was simply being pulled under when the voice came again.
"Mr. Park Yoon-shin."
"……."
"I would like to ask a question."
"…A question…?"
Ah. Right. It said it had something to ask.
"Y-yes, yes. Yes… anything."
"May I paint you?"
"…Paint me…?"
After that, he did not remember clearly.
His mind drifted far more completely than it had at the first sight of Black Cloak. The awareness that he himself was a living creature simply disappeared.
His whole body melted away, yet there was no fear inside it—only a cozy feeling, as if he were lying in a forest where a spring breeze stirred the leaves.
When he came back to himself, he was standing in the middle of the city.
"……."
Only then did he understand that it had been a miracle.
"…That's…."
In front of the researcher, Park Yoon-shin continued.
"Everything that happened to me."
"It turned a person into paint and used that paint to make a picture."
"At the time I could hardly think of it as strange."
Park Yoon-shin spoke in a dazed voice.
"The fact that conversation with a monster was even possible is… extremely rare to begin with, and I knew that, yet I felt almost no surprise about it. It simply felt so wise and so knowing—as if it already understood everything in the world, including me…."
The researcher asked,
"Do you feel a desire to revere it?"
"…A little, yes. That person showed me a miracle."
"A miracle of turning a person into paint. You said there was no pain."
"After I came back to myself… I was quite confused, yes."
A human with an intact self had become paint and a painting, then returned to being human again. Having been forcibly made to perceive the viewpoint of something completely inorganic, the aftereffects could not be small.
"…But I don't feel any ill will toward Black Cloak…."
Only fear, vastness, and wonder.
"It was simply… too beautiful…."
Even though his life had never been one spent close to art, he had known at once that this was art, that this was a work. The presence so vast it felt sacred and noble, the geometric and brilliant structure of it, had been more than enough to make a heart race.
"Black Cloak is clearly well-disposed toward humans. No—it was closer to mercy than mere goodwill. It granted mercy. It asked for nothing in return."
"Yes. Thank you for agreeing to the interview."
The researcher nodded.
"The information you provided on Black Cloak has been a great help. You may collect your reward at the Association lobby counter immediately. If you remember anything further or have additional questions, please contact the counter at any time."
"Excuse me."
"Yes, Hunter Park Yoon-shin."
"Is that person really a monster?"
"……."
The researcher said,
"Hunter Park Yoon-shin, you refer to it as a 'person.'"
That was where the conversation ended.
To be continued…