The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 91

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The World Thinks I’m Terminally Ill Episode 091

“Huh?”

“You have talent. The talent to become a truly wonderful painter.”

“R-really? The art studio owner said I didn’t have any.”

“That’s just the ugly jealousy of a pathetic adult who has no eye for art and is consumed by inferiority complex.”

I looked again at the notebook made by carefully collecting discarded things that could hardly be called a work, and the small world drawn within it.

For a single work to finally emerge into the world, there must first be eyes that can recognize it.

Otherwise, there would be no difference between tomato sauce stains carelessly spilled on a tablecloth and lumps of paint mixed with oil.

“You have talent.”

Therefore, I was confident. In my eyes, in the discernment I possessed.

In this darkness, there was a shining gem that had not yet fully bloomed.

“What’s your name?”

The boy, who seemed dazed and whose cheeks had shyly flushed as if the first compliment he’d ever received was sweet, answered with an excited expression.

“Ruone, it’s Ruone.”

“Your surname?”

“I’m an orphan…”

“I see, understood. Ruone.”

As I recited the boy’s name as if savoring it, Kai glared at Ruone as if wary of a rival for my affection.

Far from being uncomfortable with Kai’s behavior, Ruone quietly said ‘hello.’ Kai, who started panting again, clung tightly to my skirt.

I stroked the back of Kai’s head and stood up from my seat.

“We might be able to take you to the Northern Region. Would you like to come with us?”

“Really?”

“Of course. Really.”

Ruone pondered for a moment, then raised his head. His eyes, filled with dreams, sparkled brightly.

“I want to go. No, I will go.”

Seeing Ruone eagerly follow someone he’d just met without much suspicion, I thought to myself: I’ll need to give him thorough kidnapping prevention education.

“Then Ruone, do you happen to know the way you came in here? We got lost and want to get outside.”

“Um, there’s something like a rear door? It’s a place the men who bring paint use, and I came in through there too.”

I was delighted to hear there was a back door to the ballroom.

“Can you guide us there?”

“Of course!”

Thanks to Ruone, we secured a nearby escape route.

So now the problem was how to take the hypnotized people with us.

“I’ll make shadow puppets and carry them. Then I think we can somehow take everyone out.”

It was the moment I thought everything was solved by Erban’s confident words.

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

“The shadows aren’t moving well.”

Erban said in a flustered voice.

I could see the shadow that had risen from the floor at his gesture quickly crumbling.

“There’s light though. Even so?”

“Yeah. Why is this happening?”

The candlelight placed on the floor flickered precariously. As if the wick would go out at any moment.

I hurriedly moved to pick up one of those candles—

Splash.

I stopped when I saw the sticky, blood-colored liquid pooled under my feet.

‘I definitely turned off the fountain? When did the wine overflow all the way here?’

For a moment I wondered, then narrowed my eyes.

From the liquid spreading around my shadow came not the scent of aged wine, but a nauseating oily smell.

It was the red paint that Erban had brought from the storage room and put in his shadow.

‘Why is this…’

The paint that had spread around eventually touched the candle wax stuck to the floor. In an instant, the white candle was dyed red.

Like watercolor paint soaking into canvas.

Drip— Red wax fell.

‘Wait, canvas?’

I raised my head.

The people who had been staring at the canvas painted with a gloomy blue lake with vacant eyes as if they would fall into it were all staring intently at me.

I got goosebumps.

“…”

An eerie silence.

Thump, thump, thump.

My heartbeat grew louder.

And at some moment.

Whoosh—

All the candles went out at once.

Exactly 3 seconds later, with tension reaching its peak, whoosh! The candles lit up again, revealing the scene in the room.

By now, all the candles had been dyed red.

Like a scene from a nightmare.

“Here, let…”

I swallowed my breath. I heard a chilling voice that seemed to scrape the bottom of hell.

“Let me, out… please…”

“Letmeoutletmeoutletmeout!”

The moment I confirmed the face of the opponent revealed in the darkness, I shouted.

“Shubel! Erban!”

I immediately grabbed the children and stepped back.

People with pupils dyed bright red like mice that had fallen into paint buckets rushed at us.

“Kraaak!”

“Kyaaaak!”

Shubel, who tried to use magic to subdue the people, hardened his expression when he saw ice crystals form and then shatter. Like Erban, there seemed to be a problem with using his abilities.

Recognizing that his magic had been sealed, he entered hand-to-hand combat without hesitation.

He grabbed and twisted wildly swinging wrists, deflected attacks coming from blind spots. He instantly struck down a man who rushed at him screaming.

Even while simultaneously facing enemies who had already exceeded human limits and could be considered demons, he didn’t retreat an inch.

Thanks to Shubel deflecting all attacks directed at me with controlled movements, the children and I were safe.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

“Yes. Are they demons?”

“No. Their energy is definitely human.”

“Oops, excuse me!”

Erban slashed at an enemy who had lost reason with a dagger he barely managed to create.

Splat!

From the wound opened by the blade, not blood but colorful paints splattered.

‘Paint…!’

Everyone in the room except Ruone had suddenly turned into enemies.

Sorcery and magic lost their power, and the ballroom had grown beyond physical laws.

No matter how powerful black magic might be, was all this possible?

‘No.’

Even in the chaotic situation, I tried my best to analyze the clues rationally.

If this had been possible from the beginning, humans would have long ago been defeated by Kaiseus I and disappeared into history.

No matter how great a black mage might be, controlling space and time without a price is impossible. Even dragons can’t do that.

‘But what if this place was originally a space where physical laws don’t apply?’

The space that grew beyond limits when the first bell rang, the ball that drained vitality, the strange paints, the pale blue canvas.

“Here, please… let me… out… please!”

And people shedding tears of blood, begging to be let out of this place.

Yes, those ‘people.’

“They look just like hardened oil paint.”

Ruone, who was in my arms, muttered quietly.

Oil paintings use paint made from oil, giving them a distinctive luster. Additionally, they take a long time to dry and are often painted over multiple times, leaving the brush stroke textures intact as a characteristic feature.

Those who had appeared human became something grotesque after the lights went out and returned.

Eyes that gleamed with a luster, glistening even in the darkness. Skin that felt alien, as if oil paint had been layered on it, just as Ruone said.

When their flesh split, instead of blood, vivid paint burst forth. The nauseating smell of oil covered everything.

My head spun.

Shubel and Erban’s powers weren’t working properly.

Why?

Because this space rejected them.

The paint I had stored in the shadows was overflowing on its own.

Why?

“Shubel! What time is it now!”

“It’s 11:25.”

Because I was being compressed into this place just like those people!

Like pressing 3D clay onto a canvas and preserving its shape within the painting.

I gritted my teeth.

“I’m getting out of here right now. Kai, Ruone, hold on tight.”

At 11:30, the second bell would ring.

Even if I couldn’t know exactly what would happen, considering how the space had expanded with the first bell, something would definitely occur.

I followed the path that Shubel and Erban had cleared and turned the corner.

And then.

“Duck!”

Seeing an angel statue with broken wings thrust a sword at us, I urgently pushed the children down.

Instinctively, I reached toward my shadow and grabbed what had been struggling and writhing in the shadows.

Erban’s black fox transformed into a jet-black, sleek magic gun.

Aim—

Fire.

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