My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 20

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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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My Husband Lives in a Painting — Episode 20
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“Ugh…. Damn it.”
A stifled groan escaped Gail’s lips as he opened his eyes, his skull throbbing with savage intensity.
“Where…am I?”
Gail pushed himself up slowly, his gaze cast outward across the distance.
The Sunflower Field stretched from horizon to horizon—a dense carpet of blooms, their stems rising to his waist, their faces tilted defiantly toward the sky.
Yet the scene possessed an unsettling quality.
The blazing yellow assault was so intense it burned the eyes—as if his optic nerves had been seared by drink and dissipation.
‘We hadn’t received any sunflower seeds or oil in the recent supply shipment…. What is this?’
But more pressing: why was he here at all?
He struggled to piece together his circumstances, but the effort yielded nothing.
Then, from behind him came the sound of someone parting the field.
“Gail?”
A willowy frame unbecoming to a man, annoyingly large eyes, an offensively vivid shock of pink hair.
It could only be—
“…Kamiyou?”
Gail’s bewildered voice hung in the air.
“You…you were alive all along?”
Sweat that had trickled down Kamiyou’s brow pooled at his chin before falling into the dirt.
The sun beat down mercilessly.
Beneath its glare, Gail looked up at Kamiyou before him, unable to mask his shock.
Kamiyou, standing with not a bead of sweat upon his brow, smiled gently.
“Hm? What do you mean by that?”
…
“One might think I’d died, the way you’re carrying on.”
His voice carried an unflinching calm, paired with that infuriatingly serene smile Gail had come to know all too well.
“Are you all right, Gail?”
It was Kamiyou Ortega—reborn without flaw.
‘This can’t be real.’
As Gail’s mind recoiled from the thing he knew to be true, his thoughts seized entirely.
“Ugh!”
Vertigo struck him; Kamiyou’s hand shot out to steady him.
“Easy now. Let me help. Here—take my hand.”
As Gail caught sight of Kamiyou calmly supporting his alcohol-soaked frame, his pupils trembled.
Some moments passed.
The footprints of both men began to mark the damp earth beneath them.
“I didn’t expect to meet you here. How did you come to be in this place?”
Since Gail remained silent, Kamiyou smoothly took the lead in conversation.
“I’ve been racking my brain trying to find a way out of here. Finding you is truly a stroke of fortune.”
…
“It seems the Lord has sent you to me. But…Gail? Why aren’t you answering?”
“…Ah, ah.”
His unsettled gaze fled the instant it met Kamiyou’s.
Gail found it unbearable to look into those transparent blue eyes. The memory of that day kept surfacing, unbidden.
‘Does this man remember nothing?’
A glance at Kamiyou’s profile revealed not the slightest shadow of suspicion.
‘Or perhaps it’s all an act.’
Shaking his head, Gail fixed Kamiyou with a wary stare.
That was when Gail’s footsteps faltered.
“…Wait.”
What had this bastard just said?
He felt certain he’d heard something crucial….
“Wait, wait!!”
Gail grabbed Kamiyou urgently, halting him in his tracks.
Urgency flared in his voice as his hand shot out, seizing Kamiyou by the collar.
“What did you mean by that? Find a way out?!”
“Hm?”
“What you just said!”
Though Gail’s hand twisted roughly at his collar, Kamiyou’s eyes didn’t so much as blink. Instead, his voice emerged smooth and placating.
“Ah, this Sunflower Field. No matter how far I walk, I can’t seem to find the way out. But don’t worry. There appears to be at least one way to escape.”
He pointed to some distant place, speaking to Gail, whose expression had gone blank and hollow.
“Wouldn’t you know how to open that Safe over there?”
“……A Safe?”
Gail’s eyes hardened as they followed the direction of that pointing finger.
Among the pale yellow hues, a single geometric shape stood out—an incongruous, jet-black cube. It was something he knew intimately.
‘……Wait.’
Only then did it dawn on him. The true nature of all this wrongness.
“This place… surely not. No, that can’t be. Something this impossible couldn’t possibly…….”
Then came a clear laugh.
Kamiyou was laughing aloud at the sight of his bewildered face.
“You, are you laughing at me right now—”
“Judging by your reaction, it seems you know something after all?”
“What?”
Cherry-blossom-pink hair swayed, capturing his gaze.
Kamiyou withdrew his hand from atop Gail’s, which had been clenching his collar, and tilted the corner of his eye mischievously.
“Gail. I’m so glad I got to be your friend.”
A smooth, honeyed voice—one that could have delivered poetry with equal grace.
“You feel the same way, don’t you?”
“…….”
—Kamiyou had learned all his secrets one week before he took his own life.
* * *
What Gail felt toward Kamiyou was less jealousy than admiration.
“I’m looking for a new supplier for the Agnus Orphanage. The problem is, large merchant houses like Cashew are too rigid with their capital management. Do you know anywhere that might consistently sell quality daily necessities at reasonable prices?”
In other words, his entry into the charity supply business had been born of a somewhat genuine heart.
“Kamiyou, would it be so terrible if I took that on?”
“You? But I thought Pistachio didn’t deal in daily necessities.”
“Oh, we’re just expanding our inventory! We’ve already built a new warehouse. We can import anything you want. Even cheap manufactured goods!”
“If you’re willing to handle it, I’d welcome it.”
The charity supply business brought no immediate profit.
Yet in the end, his dealings with Ortega became the company’s strongest endorsement.
“Pistachio is bringing in salt now. The quality exceeded my expectations.”
“What? They supply food staples too? I had no idea.”
“I hear Ortega is backing them, so I’m planning to cultivate that connection myself soon.”
Contracts that Gail had long dreamed of materialized with ease, thanks to such an effective endorsement.
‘Things are working out so smoothly!’
His heart raced as if it might burst.
‘If this keeps up, becoming the top merchant house is within reach!’
As his longed-for dreams swam into view, ambition swelled even larger in Gail’s chest.
But greed begets greater greed.
It wasn’t long before he turned his eyes toward new business horizons.
“Baron, look at this, would you?”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“It was tucked among the receipts the orphanage director gave me…….”
“……An adoption list?”
Illegal Adoption.
It was a business catering to those who desired children in an empire where adoption procedures were prohibitively complex.
A covert channel through which children were procured for those who feared identity verification, asset scrutiny, and especially the leaving of an “official record” of adoption.
Gail had wanted no part of such affairs and tried to ignore what he’d seen. But,
‘……What? This man was already in on it?’
The fact that someone he knew had already crossed that threshold easily eroded his defenses.
And besides, didn’t he have an excellent means of access to the children?
……The charity supply business, no less.
‘That’s right. When I think about it, there’s no reason I can’t do this either?’
And so Gail began to wade into the adoption trade.
But was it a cruel joke of fate?
“Gail. What on earth is this?”
“K-Kamiyou. That is to say—”
About a year into running that operation alongside the charity supply business, he was caught red-handed when Kamiyou happened to visit the Baron’s House.
“……I’m deeply disappointed in you.”
Without a shred of excuse, a list of adoptees lay in Kamiyou’s hands—retrieved from the deepest recesses of the Safe.

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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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