My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 76

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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 Within the Painting — Episode 76
Looking back, I had never felt fear of Camille even once since we made the contract.
Rather, there were countless times when she had stirred my heart like this.
But what if I were to break the contract right now?
‘……He would probably have to remain trapped in my painting forever.’
Because he said he needed the strength of one human being to escape this place.
‘But that would be too cruel. To spend a lifetime confined between endless flower fields and paintings littered with corpses…….’
I tried to picture it.
Him lying on this vast hillside, slowly withering away.
……I hated it. Dreadfully.
‘Then what should I do? Pledge my soul to him?’
That was when my mind began to tangle.
“This is too much,” he said, his voice wavering.
“…….”
“I spent all day thinking of you while I worked, came back here, and you’re nowhere to be found. I finally came to see your face, and you go plucking out my hair…….”
That’s right.
I decided to push all those complicated thoughts far away.
One thing was perfectly clear to me: I did not wish for this man—who was endlessly gentle only to me—to wither in unhappiness for the rest of his life.
Even if he had deceived me with some pitiful act.
……Even if he had dared to impersonate my dead husband.
“Camille.”
At the very least, I needed to face him and have this conversation.
“I have something to tell you.”
Camille looked at me with a tear-stained face.
His damp eyes and flushed cheeks were lovely enough to make me want to hold him.
“I’m actually a cowardly person.”
“W-what are you saying all of a sudden? Cowardly?”
“…….”
“No. You’re not a coward. Don’t say things like that.”
He denied it before even listening to what I was trying to say, and I nearly let out a laugh.
Standing before him with his eyes wide as a rabbit’s, I picked up the thread I had dropped.
“Actually, I met with Sara today. The Heretic Judge of the Temple.”
“……What?”
“I didn’t tell you beforehand, but I’ve been receiving considerable help from that man all this time.”
I confessed everything, laying out the events one by one.
Camille seemed quite shocked that Basaria had been involved in my plans, yet he listened to my account in silence nonetheless.
And once I had conveyed the full sequence of events——
“Today that person told me to break the contract. He also said my personality changed because of your deception.”
“That’s…….”
“A lie, isn’t it? I know. Or rather, I’ve come to know.”
It wasn’t difficult to grasp.
If he had truly stolen my emotions, how could I explain the fear and hesitation I felt before coming to see Camille?
The widow Basaria described had become a murderer at the end of her revenge.
But I was not like her.
I was still Orbe of Ortega.
“I didn’t do any of that. I wouldn’t even know how.”
So Camille’s words were beyond doubt true.
When I gently touched his cheek as he fumbled with his lips in bewilderment, he opened his eyes wide in surprise.
“O-Orbe.”
“Camille. So here’s what I wanted to say.”
Gulp.
The sound of me swallowing seemed unusually loud.
My heart pounded in my ears, though I couldn’t tell if it was mine or his.
“I don’t want you trapped in the painting, living out your days there. I want you to go out and roam freely.”
“…….”
“But on the other hand, I don’t want to die like this either. There are things I need to confirm anew.”
His bright blue eyes fixed on me directly.
They resembled the hue of the demon’s core that Basaria had shown me today, yet they were unmistakably different.
There was no trace of darkness in Camille’s eyes.
“So if you, too, have ever experienced even once this contradictory feeling I’m having right now.”
I grasped his hand desperately.
“Will you make a contract with me again……?”
“……!”
A breeze from somewhere tickled the tip of my nose.
Camille’s hair stirred gently with the sweet scent of flowers, and his face had flushed deeper than any moment I had witnessed before.
“…….”
Yet he deliberated. It was a choice that directly defied his instincts as a Demon.
I simply remained silent and waited. How much time had passed like that?
“I’m a Demon. A proposal like this isn’t worth a moment’s thought.”
Camille bit his lip hard.
“But…….”
He took my hand and drew it to his cheek.
He had closed his eyes as if savoring the warmth transmitted through my palm, and finally, slowly, he lifted his eyelids.
“Does it make sense that I’ve come to hate the thought of stealing your soul……?”
Thump-thump.
“If this isn’t love, what could it possibly be?”
“…….”
Love?
I understood the meaning of that word only after I lost Camille.
It is not sweet talk. It is a wretched and sublime emotion that makes you willing to cast aside your very life for the sake of another.
‘But…….’
I could not help but ask myself.
Whether that definition of my heart held true for the being before my eyes as well.
“Orbe. It’s all right. I’m not asking you to love me.”
“……Camille.”
In a brief moment, Camille seemed to have read through the turmoil of guilt and doubt swirling within me, all that complexity of emotion.
As if he feared I would flee far away, he chose to step back himself.
“Let’s change the contract conditions. This time, for each other’s future, in a better direction.”
He had already made his decision; his gaze held no wavering.
“And…….”
Camille smiled bright as a flower and whispered.
“I’ll stop pretending to be your former husband, so you recognize me as a separate being.”
* * *
I wrote the contract anew.
Having done it once, the second time was not difficult.
First. Camille shall find the true culprit who killed Orbe’s former husband and complete his vengeance.
Second. Orbe shall assist Camille in escaping from Within the Painting and returning to the mortal realm.
Third. Under this contract, no soul transaction shall any longer be valid.
“Simple enough.”
The White Magnolia Seal carved upon my hand emitted a subtle glow before fading.
Camille, having signed the contract floating in the air, looked at me with a flushed blush across his cheeks.
“I feel a little thrilled, somehow.”
“Thrilled, you say?”
“Yes. It feels just like writing a marriage certificate, doesn’t it?”
“…….”
True. He had always been this way.
The contract had turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, but his disposition had not changed.
“Cami…… No, um.”
“You can still call me by that name. Just think of it as a namesake.”
It would have been understandable to find it unpleasant to continue using the same name as a dead husband, yet he offered a soft smile, seeming entirely sincere.
I hesitated, then reluctantly nodded.
Because I too could not easily imagine calling him by any other name.
“In any case, my request is for you to pull me out of Within the Painting. And as a bonus, I’d appreciate it if you’d investigate why I ended up trapped here in the first place.”
“You said you had no memory of before that, yes?”
“Right. Someone must have summoned me, so I was definitely born here—but no matter how hard I try, I can’t recall it.”
“I understand. I’ll find a way.”
Now that I think about it, this is truly an uncanny coincidence.
How exactly did Camille come to dwell Within my painting?
“By the way, don’t you still need a human soul either way?”
“Wanting your soul was simply the fastest way to gain power. If there’s another means to replenish my strength, there’s no reason to insist on it.”
“A way to increase a demon’s power… does such a thing even exist?”
In that moment, a memory flashed through my mind like a revelation.
A trivial remark from Basaria that I’d dismissed at the time without a second thought.
“…… False Gold!”
“What?”
“Camille, do you know what False Gold is? They said it’s an object that amplifies a demon’s power!”
Camille shook her head, her expression blank.
“Since I heard it directly from the Heretic Judge, nothing could be more reliable than that. So let’s search for it first! Let me think—if we go to the Temple Library, we might find some useful clues…….”
“But what about the real culprit? Shouldn’t we prioritize that?”
I nodded firmly.
As long as the Heretic Judge knew of Camille’s existence, protecting our lives was more urgent than pursuing the true criminal.

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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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