Chapter 23
Meanwhile, Jio had fallen into an idle concern.
A truly idle concern.
“...”
Since coming to this world, he had never once painted a landscape.
‘No, maybe not never.’
Thinking about it, he had once made a lake for Honey and the water birds of its kind, but that was all.
Strictly speaking, that had merely added one more accessory to this world, not created a proper landscape painting.
That led him to one question.
“Fruit, buildings, animals...”
He could draw them all.
“Then what about landscapes?”
What would happen to a world I drew?
“...”
With that question in mind, Jio continued to paint.
For now, about three.
* * *
* * *
“What is this?”
“...”
Jio felt it.
‘The promise of fun.’
It was new content that had appeared with ghostlike timing as soon as he finished farming.
Working through the night was the companion of artists and a sacred act symbolizing a free soul.
After painting all night, Jio completed a total of three landscapes.
“Hmm.”
Seeing that there were three notifications, he could roughly guess.
He felt as delighted as if he had received a Christmas present that had arrived at Chuseok by mistake.
“Good adults are rewarded someday.”
“Coo?”
“Where in the world would you find someone as good as your dad?”
“Purr...”
“The trust between father and son is this absurdly lacking.
What a lamentable thing.”
With a solemn face, Jio skillfully spouted nonsense and checked the system notifications.
“...”
Then he asked.
“Where would the help menu be?”
Yes.
He could not interpret it.
‘I get that it has something to do with the three paintings I finished yesterday.’
First, Jio had painted a seascape; second, a wilderness landscape; and last, a landscape of an empty city.
‘Breathing Sea, Animal Kingdom, City of Emptiness... I never gave them names like that.’
He figured the system had probably named them on its own.
“The system must have recognized my naming skills and snatched away my chance to title the works...
But even so, what does ‘corresponding dimension exists’ mean?”
Taken literally, it sounded as though an actual dimension matching the landscape painting Jio had drawn existed.
“An ability capable of discovering an entire dimension...
I wonder how that stacks up for a human.”
Of course, it might be possible for New Jio, who had newly evolved into a portrait.
When a human had evolved into a painting, standards as a human could be left beside Andromeda for a while.
“Ta-da.”
After completing an astonishingly neat rationalization, Jio resumed his deduction worthy of slapping Sherlock Holmes across the face.
“It said entry is possible... so among the paintings I drew, there must be a dimension that actually exists, and I can apparently enter it directly.”
He had not expected an update on such a large scale.
Originally, he did not think human life came with such diligent operators, so this could be called a highly encouraging change.
“Nice.”
A fresh soul of Gangwon Province who did not walk the same path as others.
Jio affirmed and cheered on his own extraordinary challenge, which he was apparently undertaking all on its own despite his never having thought about it.
“But there is still something I don’t understand...”
He simply could not understand the words “Adaptor” and “Synchronization.”
“...”
“...”
“What is compatible, and what is being synchronized with what?”
“Coo?”
Cute, but he could not be fooled.
That did not mean “Right?” but “How the hell would I know?”
“Fine.”
Jio nodded.
Judging from that impure gaze, Honey seemed to have reached puberty, but the fact that it still responded to everything its dad said showed just how earnest a son Honey was.
There were bad paints in the world, but no bad paintings.
Honey was like that.
‘What a good boy.’
As Jio checked the system window, he soon discovered a new list.
It was obviously the answer.
“Let’s see.”
What is it?
“...”
“You do have a conscience.”
“What are you going to do if I still can’t understand even after this?
I’m genuinely curious how you’ll react.”
But he understood.
“So if an ‘Adaptor’ exists among the dimensions that actually exist, I can walk around in that person’s body...”
This house knows how to work.
He did not know what that Adaptor thought about it, but from the user’s standpoint, it was an extremely considerate structure.
“I won’t know the culture of that dimension, and above all, there may be bacteria that don’t agree with my current body.
Even if I can breathe by inhaling air on Earth, in another place, they might breathe a gas like nitrogen.”
In that sense, receiving the help of an “Adaptor” would be a convenient choice.
“And the standard for finding that Adaptor would be that the other person is ‘Jio’...”
Looking at the names on the list, he could roughly tell.
“These people were probably called ‘Jio’ too.”
In any case, was it enough as long as the name contained “Jio”?
“... No, if that were the case, they wouldn’t have gone out of their way to use a word like Adaptor.
There must be other conditions, and that’s why it was treated as important enough to make and manage a separate list.”
He guessed they had probably checked things like Assimilation Rate with Jio himself and the possibility of adaptation.
“Interesting.”
He liked it very much.
“I suppose I’ll never be bored for the rest of my life.”
The amount of updated data was so enormous that he did not know whether he would be able to enjoy it all while he was alive.
“An update on the scale of dimensions.”
It was truly astonishing.
“...”
But even after this long explanation and analysis ended, there was still one round left.
“What is the City of Emptiness?”
“Does that mean I created a new dimension?”
That was properly insane.
“I can hear my life getting flashy from all the way over here.”
Very good.
Jio was never one to think deeply.
This matter was the same.
Of course, if world peace, friendship, and love were at stake, he would ponder deeply with the pure heart of an unspoiled mountain village youth, but this did not particularly stir his motivation.
Jio looked as though he would drink only espresso every morning, yet had the elementary-schooler palate of spitting out bitter things and swallowing sweet ones.
“Hmm.”
His ultimate positive mindset did not falter over something as minor as creating a dimension.
“It’s not like a random nuclear power plant on Earth is going to explode one second later just because I created a new dimension.”
Then that was fine.
“Honey, do you agree too?”
“Gurgle!”
“Then it really is fine.”
Now that he had also obtained his family’s consent, there was nothing more to hold him back.
Though it was a scale he had never experienced while alive, such trivial information could not stop the growth of the deeply rooted tree known as Jio.
Jio was a portrait with convictions.
“Life is amazing.”
When you live, new content always appears.
“If I do not enjoy this content immediately, I am not human.”
“...”
“I don’t know which part made you fall silent, but Honey, trust this dad of yours.”
Jio was confident.
Very confident he would enjoy it.
“Life is a hurricane.”
After letting his tongue run freely, Jio selected the Adaptor on the list, [Giovanni].
It was a name sometimes used in Italy on Earth, so it felt pointlessly familiar.
And Jio...
POP.
“...”
‘Pop?’
Was left alone in an operating room.
“...”
Honey, who should rightfully have been on his shoulder, was gone too.
Sadness surged in.
‘I’m lonely.’
No, what kind of situation was this?
Having been dropped by the system’s trickery into an operating room that looked like something out of eighteenth-century Europe, Jio muttered inwardly.
‘It feels like it hasn’t even been thirty minutes, let alone yesterday, since I was admiring the system’s inspired operational skills and vast content, so what the hell is this thoughtless delivery service?’
He ended up wounded by the system’s inconsiderate behavior.
It should have asked Jio for his opinion one more time, then kindly informed him that the transfer would proceed.
As Jio wondered where the customer satisfaction center was where he ought to file a complaint in this situation, he realized that someone had at some point appeared in front of him and stopped acting miserable.
“...”
“... Ah.”
At the sudden sign of another person, Jio briefly turned shy.
He did not know who it was, but the man’s stealth skills were enough to slap Agent 0○7 himself across the face.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“... Hello?”
While Jio was momentarily lost in the ridiculous thought of “101 Dalm○tians doing killer self-introductions,” the first to speak was the man in his early thirties who seemed to be the owner of the operating room.
“Pleased to meet you.
I am Giovanni of House Bartlan.”
“... I am Jio.”
“Yes, I know.
Teacher, you may call me Gio.”
His kind, trustworthy smile suited him remarkably well, and he looked astonishingly similar to Jio.
So much so that if Jio were Western and a little older, he thought he would have exactly that kind of face.
And Jio bravely did not hold back his question.
“You look very much like me.”
“We are probably similar in many ways.”
“I cannot smile as kindly as you.
I am clumsy at smiling itself, so I have been misunderstood often.”
“That is an adorable and honest concern, like one of my students might have had.
It is all right.
From now on, you will be able to smile like me.”
After saying something meaningful, “Giovanni” soon smiled with embarrassment.
He was an adult who seemed far more hearty than Jio.
“Teacher Seo Jio, you seem to be an extremely direct and kind person.”
“I think the same of you, Mr. Giovanni.
Judging by the praise you gave me at our first meeting, I can feel that your very way of thinking is good.”
“As a priest of the sun, affirming the light others possess is only natural.
It is not a matter of being good or not.”
“... Priest...”
Priest?
“... This place looks like a hospital.
Were you not a doctor?”
“I am also a doctor.
Just because one is a priest of the sun does not mean one must remain inside a temple chanting scripture.
There are many priests who come outside and work, like me.”
After saying that, “Giovanni” soon let out a sigh.
“No... there were many.”
“I see.”
“My world was covered in seawater and destroyed.”
Ah, suddenly?
“The fact that Mr. Giovanni’s homeland was destroyed seems like too deep a story for me to hear at our first meeting...”
“Listen.”
“Yes, I will listen carefully.”
“Now, the only ones left in that world are probably the mermaids hiding beneath the sea.
Our planet shrank and became regulated like a single game board.”
“Like a game board?”
“I believe it probably became... dungeonized.”
“You know about dungeons?”
“It was a concept that did not originally exist in our world, so I did not know until I died.”
From the way he said that, “Giovanni” seemed to be someone who had already died.
“But Teacher Seo Jio, the moment you called me, I came to know.”
“...”
“We are the same ‘Jio.’”
He spoke with the same good-natured smile.
“But we are by no means the same person.”
“Can I consider you to be myself from a parallel world?”
“No, not that either.
We are simply completely separate humans who miraculously share a very great many commonalities.”
“...”
“A similar face, a similar voice, similar manual skills, things like that...
But our souls are by no means the same color.”
After thinking for a moment, Jio asked.
“Do you like painting?
Since you say it like that, I’m curious whether your tastes really are similar to mine.”
“It is one of my secret hobbies.
I loved painting seas that resembled mermaids.”
“Seas that resembled mermaids...”
Their taste for enjoying painting was the same too.
With that alone, Jio acknowledged that they were the same “Jio.”
“I would like to see them.”
“You will see them soon.”
A voice filled with gentle certainty.
At that mild voice that did not seem easily broken, Jio felt a question arise.
“I understand that I will take your soul and body from you.
Are you not afraid of me or resentful?
I am robbing you of everything merely to appreciate a new dimension.”
“This is not robbery.
To begin with, I am already dead, my soul has returned to the side of the sun, and my body became earth and was buried in the ground...
Hm, I suppose it did not become earth or get buried in the ground.
By now, even that land has surely been submerged in seawater.”
“What sort of black joke is that, like old people saying there is no need to buy them expensive things because they are going to die soon?
You may be fine with it, but I am not.
You seem to have forgotten that this is our first meeting.”
“Hahaha...”
“Giovanni” laughed as if he had truly made a funny joke, when it was not funny at all, and then continued.
“My soul will become one with Teacher Jio’s.
You might call it a kind of resurrection and reincarnation.
I will seep into you, spend more time, build memories, and live in the Root that way.”
“... Root?”
“It is probably still an unfamiliar concept to you.”
He smiled gently.
“But you are already living there.”
“You mean the place where I stay is the ‘Root’?
I have heard of it from a new acquaintance I made recently.”
“In truth, even that must be a name given by Earthlings.
No one knows what name it truly has, or what rules and what form it possesses.
As a humble soul, I merely answer the call and respond to you.”
Soon after, “Giovanni” opened his mouth apologetically.
“If possible, please look after the god of the sun.
So, to be precise, I mean the Sun God of the world I came from.”
“I cannot believe that a request to look after a god came from a mere humble soul.
You are making a very funny joke again.
In truth, it is not very funny.”
“I thought the same in life, but unless one is the Root, even a god is ultimately forgotten if they have no believers.
That does not mean the Sun will disappear, but as his son, I cannot help being concerned.”
“How could I possibly look after a god?
I am only an ordinary human too.”
“Remember him, speak with him from time to time, or borrow his power.
As a priest shaped by sunlight, I swear upon my honored soul that it will not burden you greatly.”
Jio nodded.
‘He did call him a god, but if I summarize it, is it like visiting elderly people who live alone?’
Jio, who had been an art teacher, had often done volunteer work since his university days.
Among them were quite a few elderly people growing old alone with unfortunate stories.
Thinking of it that way, Jio had experience.
Having shrunk back at the word “god,” he regained his confidence.
“I’m good at that.”
“Haha, that is a relief.
I leave it to you.”
“Is there anything else you want?”
“Are you not burdened by the request to look after a god alone?”
“I was burdened until a moment ago, but not now.”
In the remote mountain village of Gangwon Province, which had been an ultra-ultra-ultra-aged society, Jio had been the only child.
At the very least, he was confident in performing little acts to please the elderly.
Sensing that confidence, “Giovanni” hesitated before opening his mouth.
“... Aria...”
“Aria?”
“She is my student’s name.”
“...”
“This conversation has grown too long.”
His tone was still gentle, but carried a trace of sorrow somewhere within it.
“Give her an end.”
At that moment.
“... Ah...”
Jio returned to the bed in the cabin.
“...”
“...”
“Purr...”
“... Yes...”
“I’m okay.”
“Dad is okay.”
“Really...”
“I’m fine.”
“...”
“There is no problem.”
It was a strange feeling.
At the chill crawling up his entire body and the pain splitting his bones.
At a sadness greater than that, Giovanni cried without understanding why.
He remembered nothing.
“...”
“...”
He cried like that until the moon set and new sunlight entered...
“... I don’t regret it.”
Then smiled with raw, swollen eyes.
I was happy.
