Chapter 36 of 50

Chapter 36

The reflection in the mirror looked a little ridiculous.

The first thing that drew the eye was the backpack bulging behind me like a turtle shell.

It looked big enough for a cross-country trek.

And yet, instead of proper hiking gear, I had a green cap and sunglasses on my head.

"Hmm...."

I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment, then shrugged.

It wasn't like I'd be carrying the backpack the entire time.

Chaeri had been busily packing her things into the small box I'd given her.

Apparently finished, she fluttered over.

"Ready to go?"

"Ready to go!"

The way she copied me like a joke practically overflowed with excitement.

Waiting in the yard wasn't one of the guards I'd grown accustomed to seeing.

It was a familiar face.

Eom Seok-hwan.

"Hey. What's that thing on your back?"

"What do you think? Travel luggage."

"You're rich. Just buy whatever you need on the way."

"I'll buy clothes and daily necessities."

"...Then what did you pack in that backpack?"

What else would a sculptor pack?

I walked past the slightly confused Eom Seok-hwan and got into the car.

Soon afterward, he climbed into the driver's seat.

After buying a decent amount of sculpting material, I'd hit a wall.

I still intended to invite my parents to the exhibition and show them what I truly wanted to say.

But no matter how hard I tried to imagine what kind of work could persuade them...

Nothing came to mind.

I'd only recently learned that Father had once studied art.

I had also only just found out that Father's tastes were reflected in the furniture and interior design of our family home.

Maybe the reason I couldn't make my parents understand me...

Was because I didn't understand them either.

Perhaps as little as I felt they understood me.

Or even less.

After worrying about it for several days, I decided to take a trip for inspiration.

To avoid being recognized along the way, I greatly reduced the number of guards.

Usually five or six people worked hard to protect me.

This time, I decided to bring only one person I could trust.

"I'm happy to have you, but you're a team leader. Is it really okay for you to follow me around on a trip?"

"Normally, no. But the guild's situation changed thanks to a certain someone."

"..."

Eom Seok-hwan gave me a teasing grin.

"You see, some incredible artist made amazing weapons for the guild master and vice guild master. Now they're saying they'll personally enter Gates they used to leave to the younger guys. How am I supposed to stop them?"

"It's changed that much?"

"Yeah. Weirdly enough, things got more relaxed after the massive Gate. So I figured I'd treat this as a vacation and volunteer as your bodyguard while I'm at it."

"Seriously...."

"If something urgent happens, they'll call me back. Someone else will come replace me, and I'll return to Seoul and work myself to death."

Eom Seok-hwan complained dramatically and told me to pray nothing urgent happened.

Just like Chaeri that morning, it was obvious he was in a good mood.

He says that now, but give it a few days and he'll start saying his body's itching and want to go back.

Even I, who only visited Yeonwoo Guild occasionally, had heard plenty about how much Eom Seok-hwan loved being a Hunter.

People called him addicted to training.

Addicted to work too.

He hadn't become the young captain of Raid Team Two for no reason.

We might end up traveling together for less time than he claimed.

That was fine.

It was my first time traveling with a friend too.

"So, what's our first destination?"

"My grandfather's house."

I pulled my phone from my pocket.

A conversation with my brother from a few days earlier sat at the top of my messages.

[I worked hard to secretly find this, so appreciate it. The address is....]

More precisely, it was the address of the house where Grandfather had lived alone before I was born.

The reason Father and I had fallen apart was tied to Grandfather.

And Grandfather had also been the person who supported me.

Maybe understanding him was the best place to begin.

As a child, I'd easily made a mistake.

Grandfather had always been there for as long as I could remember.

So somewhere in my mind, I'd assumed the reverse was also true.

But I occupied only around fifteen years of Grandfather's life.

For the other sixty or so years, he had lived without even knowing I would ever exist.

And yet, with only those fifteen years, I'd convinced myself I occupied a huge portion of his life.

As for the other sixty years?

I'd simply decided I knew them because of the scattered stories Grandfather and Father occasionally told.

There was another small question bothering me too.

How did the Association get Grandfather's posthumous work?

And so easily, at that.

At first, I thought that since Grandfather had been called a master painter, the Association had discovered the work while investigating my background.

But the more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

Even the bereaved family hadn't known the work existed.

If Father had known about it, he probably would've torn it up without even understanding what it meant.

And since the canvas hadn't even been framed, it probably hadn't been exhibited or sold anywhere either.

So where had Grandfather painted it?

Where had it been stored all these years?

And how had it ended up in the Association's hands?

I lowered the window.

Cool spring wind tousled my hair.

Wild grass and flowers along the roadside bent and twisted in the breeze.

Beyond the natural scenery were plastic greenhouses and fields.

And in one corner stood a flag.

The emblem on it had a medieval elegance.

A sword and shield.

Climbing vines.

An owl with unusually large feet.

All combined like the crest of some medieval noble house.

At the bottom of the flag was a word in English.

[GLORY]

It marked that we'd entered Glory Guild territory.

It also meant Glory Guild regularly patrolled this area.

Sure enough, from time to time we passed Hunters in silver armor marching somewhere in neat formation.

And old people stopping those Hunters to press snacks into their hands.

Glory Guild was sometimes mocked for taking its theme far too seriously.

But this was how it maintained the image of honorable knights worthy of its name.

When many guilds moved toward the metropolitan area, Glory Guild alone remained responsible for huge stretches of the provinces.

I'd heard they patrolled this frequently because Sudden-Type Gates sometimes went undiscovered out here.

I'll probably end up crossing paths with them someday too, right?

I'd heard they really loved weapons.

By the time we reached our destination, the sun had already set.

The farther south we traveled, the more often we encountered roads that had never been properly repaired after being destroyed by monsters.

We'd been forced to take several long detours.

"This is it?"

"...That's what I was told."

My voice came out slightly less confident than I'd intended.

The hanok in front of us looked like something ghosts would rent.

The paper-covered doors rattled in the wind as though burglars had broken in.

Cobwebs hung under the eaves.

Clear shoe prints marked the wooden porch, as though someone had entered and left whenever they pleased.

Could the Association have taken Grandfather's posthumous work from here?

While that suspicion began growing, Eom Seok-hwan spoke in a slightly awkward voice.

"We're sleeping here tonight, right?"

"..."

Maybe.

I'd have to see the inside first.

If it was just as bad in there, we'd have no choice but to wipe down the floor and sleep wherever we could stretch out.

I checked on Eom Seok-hwan, who was looking around the yard, and Chaeri flying overhead.

Then I headed inside.

There was no way I could bring myself to take off my shoes, so I entered wearing them.

I deliberately ignored the clear sneaker prints I left behind.

Creak. Clunk.

Contrary to my suspicion that thieves had been inside, the furniture and household items were still there.

What immediately caught my attention was a painting covering an entire wall.

A vertically long piece inside a frame.

I wiped the dust from the surface.

The painting, which had looked faded and dull, regained its original colors.

At the very bottom, mountains were painted like rolling clouds.

From those mountains, a winding road stretched outward like a river.

Houses and fields lined both sides.

Each house had its own distinctive feature.

One had an unusual roof color.

One raised horses.

One was full of birds.

There was also a supermarket, a rice mill, the village hall, and what looked like a patrol office.

I understood immediately.

It was a painting of the village where this hanok stood.

It was difficult to tell whether I was looking at a map or a landscape painting.

It had been painted in oils, using Western tools, yet traces of Eastern painting appeared here and there.

The mixture of East and West gave it a strangely fascinating charm.

On one of the mountain peaks at the bottom, I found a familiar signature.

A signature formed by twisting the middle Chinese character in the name.

My grandfather.

Master Painter Do Jae-hwan.

The strength suddenly left my body.

My shoulders drooped.

I rubbed a hand down my face, then belatedly looked around the rest of the house.

The disappointment I'd felt upon seeing the place looking almost abandoned began to settle.

This really had been Grandfather's home.

His touch still remained here.

Even if his posthumous work had been taken away, his other paintings were still here.

Why that was possible could wait.

For now, simply knowing not every one of Grandfather's works had been lost gave me comfort.

"Do Hwa-in! Come outside for a second!"

Eom Seok-hwan's voice called from outside.

"Why? Huh...?"

There were two unfamiliar middle-aged people standing in front of him.

A man and a woman.

Judging from their comfortable clothes, they seemed to be villagers.

The flashlight in the man's hand trembled slightly.

He was looking at the hanok.

Eventually, the light fell near my feet.

"You're the painter's grandson?"

It sounded more like he was muttering to himself than asking me.

Eom Seok-hwan cut in and explained what had happened.

"I was looking around the yard when these two came over from a distance. They asked who we were and why we were trespassing. So I told them I was a friend of the owner's grandson."

"Did you know my grandfather? His name was Do Jae-hwan."

I quickly removed my cap and showed my face.

They were wary of us.

Hiding my face would only create more trouble.

They might even call the police.

The woman studied every part of my face as though searching for something.

Then she let out a deep sigh.

"Of course we knew him. What's your name, young man?"

"...Do Hwa-in."

"Oh my. That's exactly the kind of name that man would've liked."

"Goodness, I can still see the old man's face in you!"

The man looked around the house, which resembled an abandoned building, and slowly shook his head.

Then he asked,

"Do you have somewhere to sleep?"

"We were planning to sleep here."

"In this abandoned wreck? Forget that. Come to our place instead. We'll feed you too."

Apparently my name and face had convinced them I really was Grandfather's grandson.

Their voices immediately became warmer.

They must've known Grandfather well.

They even called him the painter.

And judging from how kind they became after hearing I was his grandson, they must have gotten along with him too.

If they came running the moment outsiders entered the house, they might know who left those footprints inside.

There was probably a lot I could learn from these two.

About Grandfather's past.

About this house.

I exchanged a glance with Eom Seok-hwan and slowly stepped down from the porch.

Chaeri, who had been watching from a tree at the edge of the yard, flew over and landed on my shoulder.

The villagers stared at her curiously for a moment before looking away.

Chaeri pecked at her own feathers and busied herself with grooming.

She seemed to enjoy the attention.

"Then we'll be in your care."

"Don't feel too burdened. We're just returning what your grandfather gave us. Here, watch your step. The roads around here aren't even like the ones in big cities...."

"We'll follow carefully. Don't worry."

"Well, you're young men. Your balance should be good."

It wasn't really because we were young.

We were Awakened.

Our sense of balance was naturally good.

Even if we fell, we probably wouldn't get so much as a bruise.

I can understand them not recognizing my face or name.

But it's a little surprising they don't recognize Eom Seok-hwan either.

I'd heard Glory Guild was far more popular than Yeonwoo Guild in provincial cities.

Maybe that really did affect who people recognized.

After walking through the darkness for a while, I heard a horse snort somewhere ahead.

Immediately, I remembered the house with the stable from Grandfather's painting.

Thinking back over the route we'd taken made me even more certain.

"This is our house. Yeong-a, you'll stay for dinner too, right?"

The moment we passed through the metal gate, what caught my attention wasn't the horse.

It was the stable the horse was stretching its long neck out from.

Prrr....

"All right, all right. We have guests."

The man spoke to the horse and fed it one of the carrots placed nearby.

Meanwhile, I stared at the painting covering the stable wall.

It hadn't been created using an ordinary painting technique.

It was closer to an old fresco.

Not exactly the same method, but I could tell a special finishing material had been applied so color could be laid directly onto the wall.

"Whoa... I don't know much about paintings, but even I can tell that's impressive."

"Yeah."

"You think this one is your grandfather's too?"

"I'm not sure...."

I could feel Grandfather's touch throughout the painting.

An artist's early, middle, and late works naturally changed over the course of a lifetime.

Sometimes it was the result of new understanding.

Sometimes experimenting with something new created habits that hadn't existed before.

But there were also habits that remained for an entire lifetime.

Like handwriting that stopped changing once a person was old enough.

The direction of a stroke.

How the brush moved.

And especially how color was used.

Color revealed preference more than almost anything else.

The painting of a young rider in front of me was the same.

The brushwork used to show the rider's flushed face.

The grass bent backward as though it felt the wind alongside the horse.

The colors of the towering sky.

I could feel Grandfather in all of it.

And yet I couldn't confidently say it was his.

There was no signature anywhere.

And just as I'd realized after entering his old home, I wasn't sure I had the right to claim I knew Grandfather that well.

So I simply stood there and looked at the painting for a long time.

"Haha. It's well painted, isn't it? Your grandfather would be very happy if I told him his grandson stood here staring at his work like that."

"It really is Grandfather's painting?"

"Of course. When I was young, he painted me riding this one's mother."

The man gently stroked the horse's muzzle.

"How did you end up raising horses in a village like this?"

Eom Seok-hwan must have been curious the whole time.

He leaned toward the man the moment he asked.

"I don't know either. There were horses in our family since I was young. My parents are already gone, so maybe the village headman across the river is the only person left who'd know."

"Ah...."

"The painter found it fascinating that there was a kid riding horses in such a small village. He offered to paint me himself. My parents immediately agreed. They were also the ones who asked him to paint it directly on this wall."

The man laughed loudly, slightly embarrassed, then urged us inside for dinner.

When we entered the house, the woman who had gone ahead to the kitchen was moving a dining table with another unfamiliar woman.

We hurried over to help.

Soon, everyone sat around the table together.

"I was so distracted earlier that I never introduced myself. My name is Oh Gi-deok, and this is my wife, Kim Su-yeong. The woman who came with me earlier is Lee Yeong-a. She lives next door."

Introductions went around the table.

When an awkward silence began to settle, Oh Gi-deok finally gave in to his curiosity.

"But what brings you all the way out to a remote village like this? The painter left this place decades ago."

"Well... I wanted to see how Grandfather lived before I was born."

"Hm? Didn't your grandfather ever tell you?"

"...He passed away while I was still a student."

"Ah. The old man...."

Silence briefly filled the room.

Lee Yeong-a seemed to collect herself quickly and cleared her throat.

"Ahem. We're all over fifty now, so I suppose we're at that age. These days, nothing feels as fleeting as a person's life."

"That's true...."

The adults quietly agreed with one another.