The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 95

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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 095

Ruone had been looking at Kai, who had been silent for a while, with a worried expression before carefully speaking up.

“Um, how about we try going to the front entrance?”

The young boy, who had shown no reaction to anything said until then, flinched for the first time.

Kai slowly turned his head.

“Not the place I came in through, but there’s also the place you came in through, right? Maybe he came out through there.”

At that, Kai suddenly jumped up from his seat. Ruone was startled and stood up as well.

As he urgently chased after Kai who immediately ran out of the alley, he heard an “Oh my!” sound from ahead where someone had turned the corner first.

“Oh dear, my aching bones. What’s going on here? Are you alright, child?”

Ruone brightened at the familiar voice.

“Uncle Jon!”

“Ruone! What are you doing out here at this hour instead of coming home? Huh?”

It was Jon, the street painter who had been trying to catch customers in front of the theater in the afternoon but felt creeped out and went home early.

He hadn’t been able to sleep until now because the words muttered by the coachman who had brought the black widow kept circling in his head all day.

‘Does she have some memories at that ruined theater with nothing in it? Coming to find a place like this.’

As the coachman had said, this theater was a place that had failed and closed long ago.

There were rumors that there had been some accident during a play, and since that was during the theater’s harsh winter period, there were also rumors that it simply closed due to competition.

A theater that hadn’t even been demolished for decades, forgotten from people’s memories long ago.

‘Nothing will happen. What would an ignorant person like me know by looking?’

He had been tossing and turning because the scene he saw today kept bothering him, and when he heard that Ruone, who shared the same rented room, hadn’t come home yet, he came out to look for him.

When he asked around, someone said they saw him going this way, so he turned pale and ran here, only to bump into Kai who had burst out of the alley.

“Let go of this!”

“Gasp, that kid!”

Because the black widow had left such a strong impression, Jon immediately recognized Kai.

Kai bit his lips and ran toward the eerie theater. Ruone also chased after him.

Jon couldn’t just leave the children soaked in rain, so he hurriedly followed them.

“Kids, wait, don’t go there. I have a really bad feeling about it!”

Kai opened the door of the theater shrouded in darkness without hesitation.

Flutter-

At the same time, the heavy sound of rain suddenly diminished and a banner hanging overhead fluttered.

Was it because of the veil of night? They couldn’t see exactly what was drawn there, but they felt as if something eerie was watching them.

Unlike the children who seemed unaffected, Jon went “Eek!” and got scared.

“Hey, kids? Can’t we go back? Huh?”

Whiiiii.

A ghostly wail was heard through the narrow gap of the slightly open door.

Jon, now completely tearful, trembled as he followed the children heading inside without hesitation.

Finally, Kai stopped in front of a certain place.

“The box office is…”

The young boy muttered blankly.

That spot was empty with only a few abandoned materials piled up. Grayish dust had settled on the materials as well, showing traces of time.

“There’s no box office.”

“Huh, what are you talking about? This is a theater that failed long ago, so there was never a box office to begin with.”

“There were definitely lights, lights on here.”

Kai was confused.

There was no sign reading [Box Office], no lit lighting, no partition where there should have been a person beyond it – nothing at all.

The young boy, breaking out in cold sweat, urgently ran to Performance Hall 5 that led to the ballroom.

And he discovered it.

“…”

An empty wall, as if nothing had ever existed there in the first place.

Where on earth had they been?

While Kai stood there pale and dazed, Ruone asked Jon.

“Uncle, did you happen to see a gentleman wearing a white mask? A tall gentleman wearing a nice hat who gave me candy and said he’d pay me daily wages if I helped him complete a painting.”

“A painting? What kind of painting?”

“Um, it was a painting on a really big canvas with just a lake. The name was… Ah!”

Ruone’s voice sounded somehow more innocent than before. His reddish eyes curved faintly.

“It was [Black Swan Lake].”

Jon’s face instantly turned white. He urgently grabbed Ruone’s shoulders and shook him.

“Black Swan Lake, what do you mean! That, that was 30 years ago…”

Jon muttered in dismay.

“It was called the man-eating painting.”

The midnight bell rang and the world turned upside down.

As if a painted shell was being peeled away, the surroundings filled with chaotic colors.

It felt like being inside a disturbing abstract painting.

And…

“Shubel?”

When I turned around, I saw the ballroom that had become silent.

Whiiiii.

The eerie sound of wind circling around.

The monster statues had lost their power and stopped, as if they had never moved with life.

I tried to find familiar faces in that chaotic scene, but Shubel and Erban were nowhere to be seen.

I gripped my gun and stayed alert of my surroundings in the chilling tension.

At that moment.

Pop!

Suddenly all the lights around went out, and a single beam of light descended upon me like a spotlight.

At the same time, I heard a strange, indescribable voice in my ear.

“Hello there, actor?”

I was startled and looked to the side.

Click.

When I instinctively aimed my gun, I saw that gentleman with the white mask.

He looked at me with mocking eyes and playfully raised both hands in the air, stepping back one step.

I heard a chuckling laugh.

“What an intense welcome greeting!”

“…Who are you?”

I asked coldly, suppressing my agitation.

“Are you the dark mage who planned this ball?”

“Dark mage?”

He tilted his head as if thinking for a moment-

“Please refrain from comparing me to such a low-grade, crude, unqualified thing! It’s very, very, very unpleasant!”

He suddenly got furiously angry.

What was I supposed to do with this?

I looked at my opponent who was whining like a child with coldly indifferent eyes and came to a conclusion.

Because I realized what this situation was.

Moving monster statues that don’t exist in reality, rough textures like hardened oil paint, and a space that transcends physical laws while magical power weakens.

This place is a world inside a painting.

“So you’re saying you planned this world inside the painting?”

“Oh my, you figured it out?”

The opponent’s smile deepened.

“That’s right! This place isn’t reality. You are currently inside my wonderful collection!”

“Collection?”

“Yes, that’s right! It’s a space I created with great care and effort. Isn’t it magnificent?”

I answered immediately to those words.

“No. It’s the worst.”

The laughter of the mask that had been chuckling came to an abrupt stop.

“If you have any interest in art, I’d recommend giving it up early. Your aesthetic sense is garbage.”

As I kindly offered my advice, the mask that had been drawing mockery somehow drooped.

“You are quite direct, Actor.”

I paid no mind to my opponent who staggered as if wounded in spirit.

The unidentified enemy readily answered even my criticism. Relying on that inexplicably strange goodwill, I threw out a question.

“So then, dark mage.”

“Please feel free to call me Playwright.”

“Dark mage.”

“…I can see that you are quite stubborn, Actor.”

“Why would someone with such abilities bother to stick by the 3rd Prince’s side?”

The atmosphere of the ball was clearly following the 3rd Prince.

Even if this wasn’t reality, trapping someone in a space that ignored the laws of physics was no ordinary ability.

This isn’t human methodology. Just having such an out-of-spec existence on the 3rd Prince’s side meant all plans had to be redrawn.

‘So this question is very important.’

I didn’t think my opponent would give an honest answer, but I intended to observe what kind of reaction they showed in that moment.

But unexpectedly, the masked gentleman cheerfully provided an answer.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it.”

“What?”

“This side is much more interesting, isn’t it. A tilted playing field isn’t interesting at all.”

And while grinning broadly—

“Don’t you think so, Actor who knows the future?”

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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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