Limited Extra Time - Chapter 85

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The moment I finished breakfast, my feet naturally carried me toward the Studio.

Despite this not being my own home, my steps had already grown more familiar here than in my own residence. I came to an abrupt halt before the Studio door, struck by this realization.

The way my feet moved so naturally revealed just how accustomed I had become to this place. Once I recognized this truth, my emotions surged like waves crashing against the shore.

Should I have desperately guarded my heart from the beginning? Was the problem that I had failed to straighten my body as it helplessly leaned toward his tenderness?

Even if I tried to rebuild my defenses now, I was already on the verge of collapse.

No amount of belated effort would change anything. All that awaited me was to sink deeper into this mire.

“Sigh….”

My chest felt suffocated. With nowhere to pour out these feelings,

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my fingers twitched once more. It was always the same. Whenever my emotions wavered, an urge would rise from within—a compulsion to paint. And each time, I wanted to surrender to that impulse. I knew it would bring relief. I knew that when I focused, I could think of nothing else. Yet knowing was far more terrifying than ignorance. “Just a little more.” As long as I didn’t complete it, that was all that mattered. I approached the easel as though entranced, brush in hand. Lately, I had begun to think that even the time spent sketching with pencil was wasteful. Staring at the pristine canvas, I eventually gripped the brush. The lake I had seen with Millaiyen came to mind first, but I wanted to paint that on location if the opportunity ever arose.

I moved my hand. Purely by instinct. I wasn’t even certain what I was painting. I blinked once. Colors spread across the canvas, layer upon layer, new hues overlaying the old. What had seemed like mere play or idle scribbling gradually took on definition as time passed.

I stared at it blankly. If I completed this, would it remain with me until my dying breath?

A few more brushstrokes and the canvas would be finished. To complete it was to invite a miracle. “….” Thump, thump, thump. My heartbeat echoed in my ears like a ringing in my head. Someone kept urging me to finish the painting. Not completing it felt unbearable. Conversely, finishing it would bring ease,

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My eyes grew clouded. As though bereft of reason, I lifted the brush mechanically.

Once, twice, thrice. With each stroke, the painting revealed itself with ever-sharper clarity.

‘Just a little more…’

“Just a little bit more…”

Just a little more and it will be fine. As long as I don’t finish it, it doesn’t matter. Despite what I envisioned in my mind,

my brush moved with surprising speed across the canvas.

‘Just a bit more…’

A smile bloomed at the corners of Carina Leopold’s lips. It bore a resemblance to madness.

Once it’s complete, the pain will vanish. I’ll obtain everything I desire.

The thought that I shouldn’t do this and the compulsion that I absolutely must finish it drifted weightlessly through my mind.

‘Just a little more.’

Now I no longer hesitated. My hand moved with feverish urgency.

I painted the background and began the final touches on the figure.

“Almost done…”

I murmured softly, lifting my brush slowly toward the canvas.

Crack—splinter.

If only my wrist hadn’t been seized.

My face contorted violently.

Completion was within reach. Just a little more and I could surely finish it. Then somehow I would be free.

My expression twisted with a ferocity I could scarcely imagine in ordinary moments.

I whirled around with startling force.

Periel Kalos stood there, unable to conceal his shock.

“Carina Leopold…?”

His voice trembled as he spoke my name.

I couldn’t be certain whether the figure before me was truly Carina Leopold or someone wearing her face as a mask.

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The woman painting with such manic fervor bore an unsettling resemblance to the other Creators described in the ancient texts passed down through the Kalos Family.

Those brilliant blue eyes that had always reflected such clarity and luminescence now gleamed with turbid desire.

“I must complete it…”

The work had to be finished. Carina Leopold glanced at Periel Kalos once before tensing her right hand with renewed force.

Yet no matter how she struggled, Carina Leopold—with her weaker physique—could never overcome the strength of a man like Periel Kalos.

“Look at this!”

“Carina Leopold! Did I not explain the taboos to you? You cannot complete that work.”

At Periel Kalos’s words, Carina Leopold’s body trembled slightly.

Taboos? What taboos existed in art? She was a Creator, and the Creators were chosen by the divine. They possessed power equal to that of gods.

“I will die.”

At Periel Kalos’s words, Carina Leopold blinked. Then she laughed—a sharp, brittle sound. Periel Kalos’s shoulders flinched.

“If I can complete my masterpiece by sacrificing my own life, wouldn’t that be the greatest work of all?”

Her voice dripped with madness.

Periel Kalos couldn’t determine whether the being before him was truly Carina Leopold or a human possessed by a malevolent spirit. Even as he held her arm, she continued struggling to wrench free.

“Do you truly desire such a counterfeit?”

“You want to have something fake like that?”

“….”

“If you want to see Millaiyen, you’d better leave this room. When Carina runs over and hugs him, he’ll open his arms wide and embrace you.”

At the sound of Periel Kalos’s voice, the light in Carina Leopold’s eyes softened considerably. The strength drained from her hand holding the brush.

“A forgery can never replace the genuine article.”

Thud, rolling away—

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The brush tumbled to the floor and rolled across it.

Only then did Carina Leopold lower her head, as though exhaustion had finally claimed her. A soul entranced by something otherworldly had returned to itself.

The pupils that had gleamed with madness grew calm once more.

“Carina Leopold.”

“…Yes.”

She dropped both the brush and palette to the floor, then collapsed heavily into her chair.

Slowly, she lifted her head. Before her lay the painting she had been creating just moments before.

“…Oh.”

Carina Leopold pressed her hand to her forehead. The figure rendered in close-up detail within the painting was Millaiyen.

She had been attempting to create Millaiyen.

Why?

The reason was simple enough, was it not?

What one creates belongs to oneself.

It obeys one’s commands. She had desired to possess him.

To make him into a being like Herta—one who gazed only upon her master with absolute devotion.

Carina Leopold wrapped her trembling arms around herself. How utterly abhorrent.

‘How could this happen?’

At first, I had only intended to paint a portrait. But as it neared completion, my thoughts seemed to open wider and wider.

“…I’m sorry, Periel.”

I could imagine what catastrophe might have unfolded had Periel not been there.

I had tried to deceive Millaiyen. Overwhelmed by the sorrow of not being able to possess that tender-hearted man, I surrendered my reason to instinct.

“No, it’s fine. But why did you suddenly do that? It was as though you had become someone else entirely.”

An artist intoxicated by madness.

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That phrase seemed most fitting to describe Carina Leopold just moments ago.

She was truly consumed by it—as though she could only survive by painting.

…It was exactly like the ancient texts.

Though her condition seemed less severe than theirs.

Still, she hadn’t released the brush from her hand at merely a few words from me. Normally, when someone tried to stop her, she would resort to self-harm without hesitation, or so the records claimed.

‘Do all the Creators possess this madness?’

Such reports continued to emerge exclusively from art patients who possessed the miracle of creation.

Madness, frenzy—these words appeared relentlessly in the ancient texts, only when speaking of the Creators.

‘Millaiyen’s name is what stops her.’

I realized anew just how vast his presence was within her. There was

no room for anything else. On that point alone, my mouth turned bitter.

“I simply wanted to.”

I stammered out a response.

If asked why I had done it, I had no explanation to offer.

I simply wanted to. It felt as though I had to. How could I even describe such a feeling?

“…It felt like I had to. Like someone kept urging me to complete it.”

If I didn’t finish, I felt as though I would die. Each time I thought to stop, a sharp pain would suddenly pierce my chest.

Desperate to escape that terrible ache, I moved my brush again and again—just once more, just once more.

“Who told you to complete it?”

“If I had to explain it, it felt like

that.”

“…You tried to stop?”

“I did try, but I’m not sure. I truly wanted to stop, but I couldn’t—

or perhaps I simply found another excuse not to.

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I cannot know for certain.”

There was no clarity in any of it. I only knew that painting was the only way I could breathe.

Watching me lower my head in exhaustion, Periel swallowed a sigh. His gaze turned to the canvas.

Only a little remained until completion. Just a few more brushstrokes—perhaps two or three—and the painting would have been finished.

A chill ran down his spine at the thought of what might have happened had he arrived even a moment later.

“It felt similar to before.”

“Before?”

Periel questioned her again, watching Carina’s profile as she stared blankly at the canvas, murmuring to herself.

Her expression was utterly exhausted, as though her spirit had abandoned her body.

“Yes, I’ve felt something similar before. Back then… I couldn’t overcome it.”

It was as though someone continued whispering in my ear. Finish the painting. You must complete the painting.

If you do, you won’t be alone anymore.

You won’t have to suffer in solitude.

“…Back then? When exactly?”

“When I was young…”

Her lips, which had been moving, suddenly sealed shut. It was a story she should not tell.

Carina Leopold’s eyes widened in panic, rolling frantically. As Periel watched her hold her breath, his own eyes

grew wide with realization.

“Carina Leopold, have you… breathed life into a person… before?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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