Chapter 189
Chapter 189
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: 189. Echoes of the Forgotten Space
-----------------------------------------------------------------
They say there's a principle called gaze tracking.
It usually happens when a figure in a painting consistently looks in one direction.
The idea is that people's eyes follow the direction the figure in the painting is looking. In other words, if the painting faces straight ahead, it feels like it's staring right at you no matter where you look.
To put it simply,
...
Our eyes meet those of the people in the painting who are staring right at us.
If I shift to the side, their gazes follow me, and even if I step back, their eyes track me.
"Those people... they seem like they're looking at us, don't they?"
Yoo Daon pointed at the painting with her hand.
"Idiot. Paintings are supposed to look at us."
Song Arin sighed as she looked at Yoo Daon.
...
Yoo Daon pouted her lips and turned back to the painting.
"...Huh."
Then she grabbed my sleeve.
"Jaeheon."
"Yeah."
"...The painting changed."
"What?"
I looked up at the painting following Yoo Daon's words.
"...You're right."
The figures that had just been staring at us were now grinning ear to ear as they watched us.
"...Creepy."
Song Arin muttered, and Jang Chaeyeon frowned deeply at the painting before tapping my arm.
"Look here. What's this?"
Following Jang Chaeyeon's words, I glanced to the side, where a description plaque—like those found in any art gallery—was adorned with gold leaf.
"...Wasn't this here earlier?"
"It wasn't."
As expected.
There's something off about this place that I don't know about.
For now, I decided to check the description.
['Crowd' explores the uncomfortable emotions hidden behind formulaic expressions of laughter.]
[Multiple figures smile at the viewer all at once, but their smiles carry not warmth but a chilling, coercive tension.]
[The faces are slightly distorted, and each smile is unnaturally stiff, making the laughter feel like a mask.]
[This work hints at emotional dissonance and the burden of collective gazes, evoking a subtle unease.]
[It prompts viewers to peer into the underside of the universal emotion of laughter, wondering, 'Why do their smiles make me uncomfortable?']
[This reveals that smiles don't always signify positive feelings.]
It's so different from what I see.
I looked back at the painting.
[Name: Crowd]
[Age: -]
[Specialty: X]
[Talent: X]
[Background: How many people do the foolish revere?]
[Weakness: Burn the painting. Of course, the people inside will die too.]
It feels like someone is messing with my head.
...
I turned around.
Endless darkness stretched out.
Right in front of me was a single painting.
Behind it, nothing but endless darkness and hanging canvases.
...
I considered burning the painting in front of me, but the words in the weakness section bothered me, so I couldn't.
The problem was,
"Did we take any detours on the way here?"
"No."
Jang Chaeyeon shook her head sharply at my question.
"We had no choice but to come this way."
"...Should we head back?"
"No."
As soon as I finished speaking, Yoo Daon shook her head firmly with a resolute voice.
"Daon?"
"...I smell something."
Yoo Daon turned her head back, closed her eyes, and sniffed.
"Really... um, a dark smell."
"I'm not going."
It was abstract, but I decided to trust Yoo Daon.
After all, her sense of smell had saved us from danger far more times than I could count.
"...Anyway, let me explain."
I described the painting to the others.
Song Arin furrowed her brow, Yoo Daon listened calmly to my story, and Jang Chaeyeon leaned in with a hardened expression.
"...So, that's the scene I'm seeing right now."
The unpleasant heat wedged between the people persisted.
In the stifling air that made sweat bead on my skin, Jang Chaeyeon spoke up.
"I thought of something."
"Yeah."
"...That one."
She pointed at the painting in front of us.
"Let's go in."
"...Pardon?"
"If what you say is true, there are people in the painting."
"Yeah... that's right?"
"It's hot in here."
"...Yeah."
"So, we just need to get the people out of the painting. Or go in ourselves."
...
I understood what Jang Chaeyeon meant.
In short, since there are people inside the painting, we could tear it open and pull them out, or go in ourselves.
"The issue is how..."
As I looked at her with a bewildered expression, she pointed to her eyes, then to mine.
"Look and rip."
"...Ah."
A translucent window popped up in front of my eyes.
[Coordinate Rip - 3 uses remaining]
I fully understood what Jang Chaeyeon was getting at.
The scene before me turned into graph paper,
...
And the painting in front of me writhed grotesquely.
...
Did Jang Chaeyeon see the same thing?
She reached out,
-Kwachik!
And clenched her fist. A tearing sound came from the painting,
revealing a black hole.
But only for a moment.
"Wha, kyaa!"
"Hey, wait, this is, what... argh!"
Our bodies began getting sucked straight into the hole.
Yoo Daon and Song Arin screamed,
and Jang Chaeyeon calmly grabbed my arm.
"Let's go."
"Even if I don't want to, we have to."
"Yeah."
Jang Chaeyeon smiled softly,
and we were pulled right into the painting.
*
"Ow!"
"Ugh!"
...
"Oof."
With dull thuds, Yoo Daon fell from above first in sequence, then Song Arin, who had landed on her, rubbed her butt and got up.
"...My tailbone might be broken."
"I think my spine just twisted."
Yoo Daon stood up nonchalantly, and a cracking sound came from her back.
...
"Arin, shouldn't you lose some weight?"
"I'm skinnier than you."
"Have you weighed yourself?"
"I can tell just by looking!"
Ignoring the two who started bickering again, Jang Chaeyeon checked on me.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine."
Jang Chaeyeon had used telekinesis to lower me slowly before I fell, so honestly, I was completely unharmed.
"Thanks."
...
She smiled faintly, and the two looked at me as if they'd ended their fight.
...
I looked around.
It was a different place from before.
Marble floors and paintings on the walls, just as impressive, but the biggest difference was,
"...People."
Jang Chaeyeon muttered beside me.
She was right.
People were scattered here and there, admiring the paintings.
If there was one thing they had in common, it was that they all wore entranced expressions as they gazed at the art.
They were so absorbed that not a single one glanced our way even after we fell from the ceiling.
"Excuse me."
In the end, we had no choice but to approach and talk to them.
I spotted the nearest person.
A woman staring blankly at a painting.
"Excuse me."
...
"Excuse me."
No response.
This called for the right person.
"Arin."
"Got it."
She must have been in real pain, as Song Arin tapped her lower back and walked over to the people.
...
She squinted slightly and tapped the person's shoulder. With a gasp, the person snapped out of it.
"Wh-where is this...?"
"Inside an art gallery."
"I-I... how...?"
The woman muttered and looked around.
"I was supposed to go see an art exhibit with a friend..."
...
"And then..."
Her eyes darted around before starting to glaze over again.
"Ah, so beautiful..."
"Ma'am!"
Clap! Song Arin clapped her hands, but the woman ignored it completely and turned back to the painting.
Her face full of rapture.
"...No good."
Song Arin shook her head after tapping her shoulder several times.
"She won't listen."
"So the hypnosis hasn't worn off?"
"It wasn't hypnosis to begin with."
Song Arin sighed and looked around.
"Pure longing for beauty."
...
"If it were mind control, I could break it."
Song Arin gritted her teeth.
"She's just completely convinced that's beautiful."
"Can you twist her perception?"
"I tried. But she feels beauty according to her warped perception, so there's no foothold to grab onto."
...
I looked at the painting the woman was seeing.
A massive frame showed a person's head hanging over a bed melted like candle wax.
And the person inside stared blankly ahead, expressionless.
['Echoes of the Forgotten Space' provides a psychological sense of stability through familiar yet somehow off-kilter scenes.]
[Common objects and figures are arranged in slightly distorted forms, evoking the feeling of recalling a scene you truly saw in your memories.]
[The colors are beautiful and clean, suggesting a space that once existed in the past.]
[This work poses the question 'Have I really seen this scene before?' to viewers, guiding them to unearth fragments of deeply buried memories in the unconscious.]
[Those who find the memory head there. In search of true beauty.]
And the translucent window that appeared in my vision.
[Name: Hell's Room]
[Oil painting, human skin canvas accented with candle wax.]
[100 X 80 cm]
...
Countless people gazed at their respective paintings, exclaiming in admiration.
In that place, we alone remained sane.