Limited Extra Time - Chapter 94

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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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It became the man’s final masterpiece.

Later, he attempted to paint with his right arm, but that limb too had grown so numb that sensation was nearly impossible to feel.

“No matter what I tried, it wouldn’t move. I thought it would be better to remove such a useless arm altogether. So I cut it off myself.”

He procured a sharp blade and brought it down upon his arm repeatedly.

Crying out, he swallowed his screams, desperately hoping to feel even pain.

Yet his center of gravity simply grew lighter, as though a chunk of meat had fallen away.

What lay sprawled on the ground was his own arm.

“I felt no pain even then. My arm was severed, spurting blood across the floor, yet I didn’t hurt. It fell away as though it had already ceased to be mine.”

Had a friend who visited to check on him not summoned the Physician to intervene, he would surely have died.

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That.

Unable to see everything he had lost and others thriving, the man fled.

He ended up fleeing to the Northern Territory, the place most distant and least connected to art.

And even here, I ultimately couldn’t completely let go of painting, so I opened a Paint Shop in this place. Though the number of customers was really almost nonexistent.

The Northern Territory really had no interest whatsoever in art.

From childhood, they rarely held brushes or pencils in their hands, even though they often held swords or axes.

“That’s how I ended up here, flowing along like that.”

“Am I losing the area where the pain is?”

“Yes, in my case, I haven’t experienced pain in other areas.”

It was only the arm. Above the arm—that is, from the shoulder upward—there was no pain anywhere else.

Like a monster, it seemed to swallow him whole, its jaws opening wider and wider. Thus the domain of pain expanded.

“That’s a monster. It continues to inflict pain on the parts it intends to consume. It spreads gradually, like paint bleeding across canvas.”

“…Does that pain ever reach the heart?”

“…The heart?”

“Yes. The heart, or sometimes the entire body aches as if with illness.”

Occasionally when the pain came, she trembled so violently she could barely touch herself. Most of the time it seemed to be the heart that ached.

At Millaiyen’s question, the man’s expression hardened. He clamped his mouth shut as if flustered.

The man remained silent for a long while, then stubbed out his second cigarette and hastily brought a third to his lips.

“That….”

With his one remaining hand, the man pressed his eye

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sockets firmly.

As he rubbed his face roughly, he kept his mouth shut in hesitation until the third cigarette had burned halfway through.

Just as Millaiyen, growing impatient, was about to speak, the man’s mouth finally opened.

“Might I ask what sort of miracle that young lady performs?”

“When she draws a picture, the painted image comes to life and springs forth.”

No matter how many times I’ve witnessed it, it remains a wondrous sight.

She too, gazing up at the swarms of butterflies soaring through the sky, was as beautiful as a living landscape.

Beautiful enough to replay in my mind again and again.

The man who heard the story took another deep drag from his cigarette. When he reached for a fourth one and found the pack empty, he exhaled a heavy sigh.

“This should suffice, if you don’t mind.”

Millaiyen Pestellio offered his own cigarette. Whatever tension gripped the man, Millaiyen’s cigarettes contained a mild sedative compound.

It would be enough to ease his anxiety.

The man placed the cigarette between his lips and deftly lit it with a match.

After drawing on the cigarette a few times, the man’s eyes relaxed slightly. Watching his tension dissolve into a slack expression, Millaiyen swallowed a sigh.

“So?”

“…One more thing. What does she typically create?”

“Usually living things. But she also manifests things that don’t exist.”

“Good heavens, she creates….”

At the man’s words, Millaiyen’s brow furrowed sharply.

Now that he thought about it, he vaguely recalled Periel Kalos explaining something about creation. Drawing upon that hazy memory, he nodded quickly.

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“Yes, is that a problem?”

“…The miracle of creation differs somewhat from ordinary artistic afflictions. One might say it operates on a different plane altogether.”

The man drew on his cigarette with increasing desperation. His crumpled expression betrayed such alarm that even Millaiyen could sense it.

Millaiyen’s expression darkened.

“I’m not in the mood for this. Explain quickly.”

Millaiyen clenched his fist. The taut sinews of his hand revealed his impatience—

The man nodded slowly.

“First, there is no limit to it. Anything is permitted as long as one pours out everything they have.”

“…Anything?”

“Yes. Whatever it may be, even if it doesn’t exist in this world, if one desires it, they can bring it into existence. They are those who have been granted the divine power of creation.”

The man’s expression as he explained was not particularly pleasant.

But the price for it was astronomical.

The man himself had come to know these things only after searching through various texts and treatises on the Artistic Affliction to find a cure.

How relieved he was to realize that the abilities he possessed at that time were not a miracle of creation.

“I usually painted natural landscapes. Landscape paintings, as one might say. And…the miracle I possessed was one that allowed sleeping people to see the scenery of the paintings I drew when they rested their heads upon them.”

“It was the kind that showed everyone the landscape of the drawn picture.”

It was hardly a remarkable miracle. Only after contracting the Artistic Affliction did I learn of such stories by searching for the paintings I had sold.

A ridiculous miracle that never revealed itself outwardly. A pathetic miracle if there ever was one.

Yet those who had placed it at their bedside said the landscapes were beautiful.

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It was the decisive moment my name became known.

“I was dedicating the lives of my two daughters with each painting I created.”

“Doesn’t the color of your eyes change?”

“Miracles usually manifested at night, and since I lived alone, I didn’t even notice my eye color changing.”

I found out later.

The one saving grace was the fact that once a miracle occurred, the same method wouldn’t produce another miracle.

Everything was something I came to understand only after contracting art fever and examining it closely.

“Then what about the pain in my heart? Sometimes it feels like my entire body aches.”

Millaiyen asked, struggling to suppress his anxiety.

A strange unease clawed at his insides. He was terrified. He dreaded learning what name this dread carried. He could only hope it was mere paranoia.

“The Miracle of Creation, from what I’ve discovered… most of them are dead.”

“What…?”

“Among Art Sickness cases, there are those that demand one’s life as the price.”

Millaiyen’s breath caught.

He wanted to clamp his hand over the man’s mouth.

Or failing that, to seal his own ears. It was ironic—he’d come here tonight seeking answers, yet now he wanted to hear none of this.

“Of course, the materials I’ve found are limited… but the bearers of the Miracle of Creation… all of them contracted Art Sickness and most paid with their lives, and most ended their days at a young age….”

The man’s faltering words died as his mouth clamped shut.

A hole had been punched through the shabby wall. Blood dripped steadily from Millaiyen’s hand. The man furrowed his brow in bewilderment.

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He’d anticipated such a reaction.

That’s why he’d been cautious. Even as he tried not to provoke him, the very content was too inflammatory to avoid.

This man had witnessed firsthand how deeply Millaiyen cherished Carina Leopold.

‘Come to think of it, he collapsed clutching his chest back then too.’

It would have been better to notice then.

But he soon realized that whether he’d hinted at it then or spoke of it now,

the reaction would likely be much the same.

As the man turned his head, Millaiyen Pestellio’s face became starkly visible.

The man’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t breathe.

He hadn’t done anything, yet merely meeting that gaze felt like receiving a command to stop breathing.

“So what you’re saying is….”

“….”

“There’s no lie in that.”

Millaiyen’s voice dropped to an infinitesimal whisper.

The man he’d expected to shout and hurl objects instead spoke with surprising restraint.

That was only true if one hadn’t witnessed the murderous intent radiating from his face—more terrifying than any Magical Beast.

“To the best of my knowledge, that is correct. I have not lied.”

“She dies, you say…?”

“…According to the records, at least.”

The man stammered his reply.

His intensity was so sharp he couldn’t even meet the man’s eyes properly. Upon hearing the answer, Millaiyen’s face contorted.

“Periel Kalos!”

Millaiyen clenched his teeth and spun around, striding swiftly out of the Paint Shop.

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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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