Chapter 118
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 118
"Did you enjoy looking around the Gallery yesterday?" the woman’s senior asked the next day.
"Yes...?"
"I saw your name on the register."
"Ah, yes."
The woman nodded.
"I feel like I got a pretty intense hazing, but I enjoyed the tour."
"Huh? Hazing?"
The senior curator tilted her head.
"Wait, did you take the elevator at 4:44?"
"...Yes, I’m sorry. I should have memorized the rules properly..."
"Ah, don’t worry, I’m not scolding you."
The curator chuckled softly and continued.
"I’m the curator assigned to the first floor, you see. I asked the people on the night shift yesterday, and they said they didn’t let anyone out. They also said the emergency rescue button wasn’t pressed."
"Ah..."
"And since I didn’t hear any news about someone being found 'still breathing' in the elevator this morning, someone from another floor must have let you out. Which floor’s curator was it? We should thank them."
"U-Um, they were from the fifth floor. Thanks to them, I even got to see the gallery that’s said to be the most dangerous."
"...The fifth floor?"
"...Pardon? Yes."
"..."
The senior curator, who had a naturally cheerful face, kept her gentle smile, but her reaction was somewhat strange.
As the woman watched her anxiously, waiting for a response, the senior curator spoke.
"But you know what?"
"W-What is it?"
"There was no curator working overtime on the fifth floor yesterday."
"..."
Goosebumps broke out all over her skin.
"...What?"
"Oh, I’m just kidding, just kidding!"
A bright laugh rang out. The senior curator burst into a wide grin.
"To survive in this Gallery, you have to be able to handle jokes like this."
"...It... it was a joke, right?"
"Well, to be honest, there really wasn’t any name on the visitor log."
"Then it’s not a joke...!"
"But we do have someone in our guild who roams around without writing their name on the log."
"...Ah..."
"Didn’t Yoo Seong-un mention it to you yesterday? I heard he gave you a heads-up."
At that, the woman nodded.
"I-I heard. Mr. Seo Gio."
"Right, Mr. Seo Gio."
The senior curator grinned.
"Wow, you’re lucky. I heard Mr. Seo Gio hasn’t been around much lately."
"Ah... does he not come in often? Is he not a curator?"
"He’s not a curator. You can think of him as our guild’s special asset."
"I did hear that from Mr. Yoo Seong-un as well... but does that mean he doesn’t have any set duties?"
"The most important duty of the Collector Guild members is simply being one of the Guild Master’s collectibles."
"...Why bring that up all of a sudden?"
"I just meant that Mr. Seo Gio is fully fulfilling his role as a collectible, at least."
"...I-Is that really okay? Isn’t that a bit of a free ride...?"
"Actually..."
Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, the curator murmured,
"There’s a rumor that he’s a hidden S-Rank Hunter."
"...An S-Rank? One of the very few in the country...?"
"He hates drawing attention to himself, so he lies and says he’s an A-Rank."
"Isn’t that illegal?!"
"Oh, who cares about that? This is the Collector Guild."
"Uh... well, I mean..."
"Our Guild Master can do at least this much for his guild members. Doesn’t it make you feel a sudden surge of company loyalty?"
The curator shrugged. She pointed to the rabbit plush toy she was in charge of and said,
"Now, now, pat our Dolbomi on the head. It’s very fluffy and cute."
"...Do I just pat it like this?"
"Yes, excellent. If you do this, there’s a very low chance it’ll give you a Fragment."
"You mentioned that’s like a gift from the Works, right?"
"Sometimes it’s a curse... but Dolbomi is a gentle Work, so that won’t happen. Yes, it’s a gift."
"What kind of gift does this doll give?"
"Uh-uh, calling Dolbomi a doll? Watch your language."
"Ah, right. What kind of gift does Dolbomi give?"
"It gives sweet-smelling flowers, or a sewing kit that can mend any kind of clothing."
"Oh..."
"Cute, right?"
"It is cute."
After the brief training session, the curator returned to their previous topic.
"So that’s what happened. Mr. Seo Gio opened the door for our junior. That’s surprising."
"We’re coworkers, though. Is it really that surprising...?"
"Coworkers are one thing, but he’s different. Mr. Seo Gio doesn’t really like crowds, so he mostly roams around in the early hours of the morning when no one is around."
"He seemed very kind for someone like that, though."
"..."
The curator asked back,
"He was kind?"
"Pardon? Ah, yes, yes. He was incredibly kind."
"Hmm... Gio is a very radiant, handsome man, isn’t he?"
"Ah..."
The woman nodded.
"Now that I think about it, yes. He was strikingly handsome."
She felt a bit strange.
"I guess I was too shocked and scared in the middle of the night to even register how good-looking he was."
"Everyone who meets Mr. Seo Gio says the same thing. They only realize how handsome he is after the fact."
The curator’s eyes sparkled.
"But just how handsome is he? I’ve never even seen his face, but people say he’s like a statue with blonde hair and blue eyes. Radiant, like he smells of warm sunshine."
"You describe him in incredible detail for someone who’s never seen his face... But yes, I think that’s right. His nose was very sharp, as if he had Western heritage, and his eyes were large."
"Ooh..."
After letting out an admiring sigh, the curator murmured softly,
"So that’s his current state."
"?"
"Hmm, not bad."
"...Even if he is handsome, evaluating a person like that is a bit..."
"Oh my, I’m not that rude of a person, you know?"
The curator giggled.
"I heard Gio gets gloomy sometimes."
"...I can’t picture that at all."
"His presence is so heavy that many people find him terrifying."
"Ah... certainly..."
He was someone who suited the pure white Gallery perfectly, yet carried an air of strangeness.
"...Maybe it’s because he’s too handsome, but he didn’t feel like someone from this world. There was a sense of distance."
"Even though Gio acts very friendly, people still react that way?"
"I know he was being kind. When I was leaving, he even gave me a chocolate so I wouldn’t wander off because of exhaustion."
"Right, right. That’s classic Gio. He carries snacks in his pockets like a squirrel."
"A squirrel..."
"You’re thinking it doesn’t suit him, aren’t you?"
The curator, placing a pink bag in the fluffy plush toy’s hand, asked next,
"What was your impression of him?"
"..."
"Of Seo Gio, I mean."
Her voice was calmer now, a pitch lower than before. At her question, the woman recalled the man she had seen in the early hours of the morning.
"...It sounds strange, but my first thought was that he was perfect."
The moment he entered her sight, she felt as if the world had suddenly become full.
Just as it was hard to disparage the spring sunshine, or find fault with the cool waves of summer. It was a sensation akin to blankly listening to a mother’s lullaby or a local superstition passed down through generations in some village.
An existence that one could find flaws in if they tried, or criticize if they wished, but simply felt no desire to do so. An existence that could be called complete even if his skin were torn, his blood spilled, or any kind of scar left upon him. An existence that made one think he was merely observing the flow of history.
It was a presence that, by its very existence, made one feel both a sense of fullness and a strange constriction.
"It’s a bit strange to have those thoughts the very moment we crossed paths, right?"
"...I think it’s possible if it was your first time seeing someone of a high caliber, like an S-Rank."
"I’m glad to hear I’m not just being weird."
She laughed awkwardly and continued.
"His way of speaking was also a bit unusual. Should I call it archaic, or elegant...? Honestly, he spoke with such overwhelming politeness that it was a little overwhelming."
Seo Gio’s speech had a somewhat disjointed quality to it.
"How should I put it... like someone using a broken translator? It wasn’t that it felt completely bizarre, but maybe because I was already terrified, it felt a little creepy."
"Well... he might really be a foreign Hunter. It’s clear he has strong Western features, after all. Even we don’t know exactly where the Guild Master recruited him from."
"Then maybe he’s just not fully used to Korean yet. But I don’t mean it was actually weird. Rather, it suited him so well that... it was a little..."
Scary.
"Maybe because he’s so handsome he doesn’t seem human."
A subtle sense of dissonance lingered.
"Yes, well. That’s how it was."
"Nothing else to share?"
"Just... that he was incredibly well-meaning?"
Yet, even in that goodwill, she had felt a distance. Something was off.
"It was goodwill, but rather than treating me well out of personal feelings..."
"My, my, did you want to develop a personal relationship with him?"
"No, that’s—that’s not what I meant. You know what I mean."
"If goodwill isn’t a personal feeling, then what is it?"
"...I wonder?"
She realized the strangeness of her own words as soon as they left her mouth.
"Ah, I mean, of course I don’t mean he was hypocritical or that his kindness was fake. Really."
"I didn’t take it that way."
"So what I’m trying to say is... the goodwill Mr. Seo Gio showed felt like it came from someone detached. Um... it wasn’t the kind of normal exchange people have... it was..."
It sounded incredibly bizarre, but...
"It felt like he was showing me goodwill simply because I am human."
Goodwill given unconditionally, solely because she was born human.
Which, ironically, made it feel almost like indifference...
"...No, I don’t mean it felt bad. If anything, it felt nice. Maybe I was just flustered because it was my first time meeting someone who showed such casual, unconditional kindness..."
It was as if she had received something far too immense without having done anything to deserve it, leaving her feeling humbled.
"Mr. Seo Gio is a 1st-Grade Citizen, right? Ah, is that too obvious of a question?"
"I don’t know for sure either, but he probably is, right?"
"No wonder his actions felt so elegant. Though it didn’t feel uniquely Korean..."
He possessed an aura that naturally commanded admiration.
"Incredibly relaxed, yet his words and actions carried weight. He definitely didn’t have a friendly vibe, but I could tell he was highly sociable. He also had this mysterious quality, like a prince from a fairy tale."
At the woman’s words, the senior curator gave a sly smile.
"Oh, sweetie. At this rate, you’re going to confess your love to him."
"...You’re the one who asked for my impressions, senior..."
"Oh, I didn’t expect you to go that far."
The curator let out a cheerful laugh.
"Anyway, I’m glad it seems like our junior will adjust well."
"Can I take this as a sign that I have a chance of becoming a full-time employee...?"
"The Gallery is so short-staffed that as long as you don’t cause any major disasters, you’re practically guaranteed a full-time position."
"I’d really love that, but I’m worried because I still have so much to learn."
"What is there to worry about? You’re someone who managed to hold a conversation perfectly fine even in front of that Seo Gio."
"Ah... is that how the standard is measured here?"
"The man is just so chilling, after all."
The curator’s eyes curved deeply as she smiled.
"Get along well with the staff..."
"..."
"...and with the Works."
Her tone carried a strange, lingering resonance.
'...Ah.'
The woman suddenly remembered that Curator Yoo Seong-un, whom she had met yesterday, had worn the exact same smile.
Those eyes, curving in a bizarre way, harboring emotions that could have been either goodwill or malice.
"..."
Only then did she realize that the curators here shared an atmosphere strikingly similar to the Gallery itself.
"...I will do my best."
Whether it was mysterious or grotesque...
She couldn’t be sure.
*
"Honey."
"Kkur."
"Daddy has gained confidence."
If there was one problem that arose from becoming a haunted portrait, it was the resolution. When he stepped out of the frame while in his portrait state, a resolution issue occurred, causing people to struggle and feel burdened when trying to perceive him.
And now, having completely assimilated with 'Giovanni', who had resolved that issue for him until now, he had wandered outside to test a theory: Can I still walk around without any resolution issues?
"I had a conversation with a staff member without any friction."
He had been so deeply moved that he even ended up giving away the chocolate he had been hoarding like pocket money.
After giving it, he thought, Wait, won’t this make them realize that I’m the same person as the Black Cloak? But then he brushed it off. Having grown up basking in the pure energy of the Gangwon-do mountains, Gio was not one to overthink.
"Maybe I can make a new friend this way."
"Kkururu."
"My very own pen pal..."
"...Kkuk."
Since he looked so happy, Honey didn’t bother to rain on his parade.