Chapter 24
Contrary to my concerns, the Association stayed quiet.
Even when I said I wanted to use an expensive material, they simply agreed.
Even when I said I would work at Yeonwoo Guild, they only said that was fine.
"Good. I'll just focus on what I'm good at."
The expensive material I chose was a stone found inside an Assault-Type Fixed Gate called the Avida Rainforest.
Outdoor sculptures were usually made from metal, so I'd considered bronze as well.
But the location the manager had pointed out was near the river.
In years with particularly heavy monsoon rains, the area sometimes flooded.
If I made a memorial sculpture there out of metal, rust would appear in no time.
Of course, rust itself could become an artistic element....
But what kind of meaning would a rust-stained sculpture have for people who came to mourn?
It probably wouldn't leave them with a very beautiful memory.
The stone found in the Avida Rainforest, on the other hand, didn't have the weaknesses of ordinary Earth metals.
It shared enough similarities with marble that people called it Avida Marble.
But unlike actual marble, it was highly resistant to water.
Perhaps because it was found in a rainforest where rain fell almost constantly, it didn't dissolve or weather easily.
Its hardness was comparable to a B-Class monster.
In other words, it barely wore down at all.
That means it'll be difficult to carve.... But that's not a problem for me.
Its color was beautiful too.
Deep blue, reminiscent of a dark ocean, with white marbling running through it.
It possessed a calm and subdued beauty.
The problem was that stone wasn't the main resource collected from the Avida Rainforest.
The real targets were various plants that could only be found there.
In short, Avida Marble was both rare and expensive.
A stone that was already rare and rarely brought back in large quantities.
And to carve something at least 3.5 meters tall, as the Association requested, I needed an even larger block.
The material budget provided by the Association wasn't remotely enough.
I would've had no choice but to spend nearly half the money I'd carefully saved from my previous commissions.
But I can't exactly half-ass a memorial sculpture.
It was a matter of artistic pride.
Fortunately, things somehow worked out well.
It turned out Taepyeong Guild had a good relationship with the American guild that owned the Avida Rainforest Gate.
"Taepyeong Guild has quite a few former athletes, as you know. Some of our members even competed in the Olympics for South Korea."
"I heard."
"The master of OA Guild in the United States, which owns the Avida Rainforest Gate, is also a former national-level taekwondo athlete."
"Oh.... Then?"
"The guild member who connected us with OA Guild said they were close even before awakening. And he asked me to pass along his thanks to you, Artist Do."
"To me? I've never even seen his face...."
"Haha! You have no idea how peaceful our guild has become thanks to that jangseung item you sent us. So, are you really not going to tell me what exactly it does?"
"It wouldn't be fun if I told you. Ask your guild master."
"Oh dear. He didn't exactly look like he was in the mood to explain it. What a shame."
Taepyeong Guild even agreed to help transport the Avida Marble once it arrived by ship.
Oh Hyeon-seok himself came out to the port.
Hooooonk!
The ship was still only a tiny dot in the distance, yet its horn was already echoing across the harbor.
Leaving the complicated circumstances aside, my chest started pounding at the thought of finally seeing Avida Marble in person instead of only in photographs.
Thankfully, the Avida Marble arrived safely after its long voyage.
Somehow, there wasn't even a drop of moisture on it.
The Hunters who extracted it must have handled it carefully, because even the cut surfaces were exceptionally clean.
Oh Hyeon-seok and the Taepyeong Guild members helped transport the stone all the way to Yeonwoo Guild before leaving.
"If Taepyeong Guild can ever help you with anything, please contact us. You're always welcome to reach out."
I'd used the one request from Taepyeong Guild clause from our previous contract to obtain the Avida Marble.
So what Oh Hyeon-seok was saying meant they'd help even without another formal agreement.
Maybe that was thanks to Guild Master Kim Gi-hun's newly improved attitude.
Either way, I appreciated it.
"All right. Time to sketch."
I looked at the Avida Marble sitting in the middle of the enormous workshop Yeonwoo Guild had given me.
Originally, it had been one of their training rooms.
The color drew my eyes in.
It reminded me of both the deep ocean and a dark sky.
The white marbling running through the dark blue looked like sea foam.
Or perhaps wispy clouds.
Either image could stir something in the heart.
But for the sculpture itself, I thought it would be better to evoke the sky rather than the sea.
For a very long time, the sky had been associated with death and mystery.
"The sky.... The world where the dead go. Heaven...."
The first thing that came to mind was the Gates of Paradise.
When people heard that name, they would probably think of the doors installed at Florence Cathedral in Italy.
Those doors, carved with biblical stories related to salvation, were said to have been created to comfort the citizens of Florence.
What if I imagine the sky from a more universal perspective instead of limiting myself to the Bible?
The reason Florence's Gates of Paradise could offer salvation to the people there was probably because the viewers saw themselves in it.
The ten biblical scenes carved into the doors all suggested that Heaven existed and showed God saving His children.
Wouldn't people living through Florence's chaos have looked at those doors and thought,
God will save us again.
Wouldn't they have believed that if they kept their faith and lived devoutly, they would eventually pass through the gates of Heaven?
Then the Gate of Heaven I created needed to be different.
The people viewing mine wouldn't imagine a destination for themselves.
They would imagine the place where someone they had lost had gone.
For a moment, I pictured an architect creating a memorial space around it.
And at the center of everything stood the <Gate of Heaven>.
The more majestic the gate, the better.
I decided to use almost the entire marble block.
Four meters tall.
Two meters wide.
Since it was a gate, the depth would naturally be reduced somewhat.
First, I outlined the overall form.
I designed the very bottom and top to be broader and more solid than the sides, almost as though they supported the earth and the heavens separately.
For the base touching the ground, I added decorations resembling clouds rising upward to help balance the visual weight.
The frames on both sides looked like long streams of clouds twisting upward from the earth.
I separated the upper section, from the very top down about one meter, into three sections.
Each would contain a different heavenly landscape.
After spending a long time shifting and refining the design through my carving-tool skill, the finished sketch of the <Gate of Heaven> looked....
Like some kind of paradise.
In the East, it would resemble Peach Blossom Spring.
In the West, the Garden of Eden.
A place filled with abundant nature and peaceful leisure.
Human figures appeared here and there.
Distant.
Faint.
Yet unmistakably joyful.
Some hugged.
Some walked hand in hand.
Some kissed the people they loved.
After refining the details a little more, I finally began carving.
Since the material was as hard as a B-Class monster, I had to use my stoneworking item set from the very beginning.
I pulled over the ladder I'd prepared in advance and started from the top.
Clang! Claaang!
Clear ringing sounds, almost like bells, filled the workshop.
Working inside Yeonwoo Guild was very different from working at home.
People visited often.
Naturally, Shin Ha-gyeon came because he'd even signed a support contract just to watch me work.
Kim Sang-hyeon visited too.
So did several Yeonwoo Guild members I'd become familiar with through security work.
