Chapter 93
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 93
How miserable it was to live an entire lifetime clinging to the memory of a single moment.
That was the fate of mermaids, a disease they were born with. The most intense emotion ever engraved upon their souls left a scar so deep that no circumstance could ever erase or alter it.
For Iser, that scar was the human named Giovanni.
“Good night.”
“…You too, Teacher…”
This place was peaceful.
“Have a peaceful night.”
It was chillingly comfortable.
The sensation was absurd. It was not a feeling a mermaid—not a feeling Iser—could permit himself. Even the gentle spring breeze and the rustling murmur of the forest felt irresistibly alluring, impossible to shake off. Iser had been given a bedroom in Gio’s cabin.
“……”
The wooden floor was cool beneath his bare feet.
The polished floors, walls, and ceiling gave off a sharp, clean scent that seemed to numb the mind.
The large terrace window was wide open, drinking in the forest air, and the bed—neither too big nor too small—felt softly warm.
“……”
As he lay down, sinking into its texture, Iser couldn’t stop the words from escaping.
“…Does this…”
“…make any sense?”
In the midst of this peace, he felt a terrible emptiness and loss.
“Where am I right now…?”
In a mermaid’s memory, Giovanni was dead. He had died horribly.
His body had been covered in wounds that seemed impossible to have been inflicted by the gentle Children of the Sun, his skin rotting, with festering streams trickling from his empty eye sockets. What had Iser thought when he had looked upon that sight?
…I might have been drugged, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember.
On the contrary, the memory was all too vivid. No one would ever know what had gone through his mind as he was forced to consume him.
In that moment, our peace died. What is dead should never return. So what on earth was this comfortable space? Where was he, that he could feel such tranquility?
“…It’s terrifying…”
His once-full stomach suddenly felt completely empty.
“……”
In its place, a familiar rot would surely fill the void.
“…I feel sick.”
His stomach churned.
A wave of motion sickness washed over him, his brain feeling as if it were rattling in his skull.
His vision was blurry yet unnervingly sharp, and the voice of the silent forest grew increasingly loud. Since a mermaid’s memory was frozen at the moment of Giovanni’s death and the ruin of the sun, this tranquility could only feel repulsive. Iser had grown more accustomed to blood and screams.
“Ah…”
That was Iser’s fate.
“……”
Mermaids lived in a sea of blood.
To be presented with such an absurd gift at this point… he had become a pathetic adult who felt fear before anything else.
“……”
Only after a long while did the mermaid speak again.
“…I think I’m going to have a bad dream.”
I never knew the place I lived was a nightmare.
Lying here like a corpse, only now did he realize it had been hell.
* * *
“……”
Gio sat up in bed, nudged by a strange sensation.
“…Hmm…”
He felt a sudden urge to take a walk.
Should I go out?
Gio was not one to ponder the source of his desires.
Leaving the sleeping Honey behind, he stepped out of his room. As he walked down the smooth wooden stairs to the living room, he saw the Teddy Bear lying on the sofa with the cat, Dana, beside it.
The two looked up at Gio, emitting a faint light that seemed on the verge of flickering out.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“……”
“Dana, want to come?”
Dana, who had been staring at the black-haired Gio, padded over to his side. Her footsteps made no sound, like a ghost’s. The Teddy Bear didn’t stop them, merely watching as they left the cabin.
Wearing his usual black cloak, Gio strolled aimlessly along the path. Though he had come out barefoot, the rustling grass was soft and didn’t prick his feet.
No matter where he stepped, the texture felt wonderful. Perhaps that was why he found himself wandering around without shoes so often. The simple joy of walking was immense.
“The forest is quiet.”
At this hour, the forest always maintained a strange silence, as if it were asleep.
“Dana, do you like the forest?”
“……”
“How about the trees? The scent of the flowers?”
“……”
“The weather is lovely.”
Rustle, rustle…
The sound of tender grass swayed around them.
“The moon is bright, too.”
There was a sun and a moon here, but they were clearly different from those of Earth or other worlds. They boasted colors like transparent jewels and didn’t shine so brightly that looking at them would blind you. It felt more like gazing at a brightly painted picture.
“Look.”
Above their heads hung a Jewel Moon, shining with a cold, glacier-like light.
“It looks like you.”
“Meow.”
“That’s a different cry than usual.”
It was a meow that sounded almost like an imitation of a cat.
“Though you are a cat…”
He started to say something but, not wanting to think on it further, averted his gaze. She did resemble that cold moon floating in the night sky.
“You’re glowing.”
“Meow.”
“Thanks to you, it’s not dark.”
The round moon was large, and the Milky Way stretched across the sky like a school of jellyfish he had once seen in the deep sea. They maintained their silence with a dry, lifeless sparkle.
The moon shed its light. The Milky Way cast a veil. A cold cat stood at his feet, and the forest, which should have been dark, grew secretly bright, leaving Gio as the only shadow. He was the only blackness in this place.
“Even with the strong scent of trees…”
His footsteps soon stopped before a brilliant spring.
“…there’s the scent of the sea within it.”
“……”
“Aria.”
He saw his student, her pale, bare feet dipped in the still water.
“Can’t you sleep?”
Looking at the Black Cloak, whose face was completely hidden in shadow, the mermaid offered her usual practiced smile.
“How could I possibly sleep in a place like this?”
“Did you not like the bed?”
“Everything was so perfect it was chilling.”
“And yet, you don’t run away.”
“Because I hope that one day, you will accept us.”
Her pearlescent eyes reflected the Black Cloak.
“If we take responsibility, will you forgive us? Will you love us again as you did back then?”
“It’s not my place to forgive you. Nor is it my role to resent or hate you.”
“…We have so much time.”
Aria’s voice was as clear and gentle as ever.
“I never knew that could feel so terrifying.”
She asked Gio, “Do you know what this spring is?”
“I had no reason to know, so I never tried to find out.”
“Do you know what this forest means to you?”
The mermaid continued to question him.
“Do you know why you were placed in this situation? Why you were revived in this bizarre form that is neither resurrection nor anything else? Or with what intention and context the world is moving…?”
“I’m not curious.”
“A very typical answer for you, Teacher.”
The mermaid’s voice had a smooth, pearl-like quality.
“Benevolent and indifferent.”
And because of that, it also had a rough edge.
“Are you aware that this place is inside your stomach?”
“This is a painting I drew.”
“That doesn’t seem much different.”
“If you say it’s a part of me, then perhaps it is.”
After all, Gio was the one who created this place, and at the same time, he was a portrait.
“I did know that this forest reflects my mental state.”
“Even so, can you really call yourself human?”
“I have never once ceased to be human.”
“……”
“I have always been human.”
It was an obvious fact, requiring no deliberation.
“It seems like a good night for a conversation. Is there anything you’d like to ask your teacher?”
“……”
At his voice, which had shifted tones in an instant, Aria stared at the pitch-black cloak.
“…I can’t see your face…”
Not a single glimpse of what lay beneath the hood was visible.
“Are you even real? Do you exist?”
“I have never disappeared, Aria.”
“What do you look like right now?”
“I haven’t looked in a mirror, so I don’t know.”
“But I can’t see you, either.”
If that was the case…
“How can you prove that you exist?”
How could one distinguish whether a human, the Sun God, a painting, life, or death resided within that pitch-black shadow? Especially when it was a shadow whose very appearance remained unknown until someone defined it.
“There’s something I’m curious about, Teacher.”
“I promise to give you the best answer I can.”
“How can you be so sure that you won’t disappear?”
“Nothing is eternal. Both the living and the dead are bound to change.”
“It’s true that I’ve never seen the limits of humanity. The humans I know constantly grew stronger, evolved, and even became gods or nature itself.”
But…
“You are of a different nature.”
A pitch-black canvas that could become anything.
“…If I feel fear and loss because of that, will you understand?”
“I think it’s only natural for you to feel a sense of distance, given how much I’ve changed.”
“Distance? That’s not what I meant. It’s completely different.”
As long as he was ‘Giovanni,’ she had absolutely no intention of distancing herself from him.
“Why would I want to distance myself from you? I’ve already spent ages staring at an empty sea—neither a coffin nor a grave—feeling your absence. Now that I know this isn’t some sudden, absurd nightmare or a miracle, I don’t feel any ridiculous sense of distance.”
Therefore, the emotion Aria was feeling right now…
“I…”
“……”
“…Teacher.”
…was closer to misery. Desperation.
“Why must you always stand at the center of fate?”
It was horrible.
“Couldn’t you have just been a trivial, passing person? Born into an ordinary family, living an ordinary life, and dying an ordinary death. Who else would suit such a fate so perfectly? Of the thousands, tens of thousands of humans I’ve seen… why couldn’t you be one of them?”
Looking at this forest, she knew. No.
“I know just by looking at you.”
If one couldn’t see it after looking into those eyes, they were as good as blind to the world.
“I wouldn’t have cared if you died, Teacher. It was an expected outcome. I would have been satisfied even if it wasn’t a peaceful death.”
“……”
“If only you had been just a little bit ordinary, common enough for the world to pass by… if only you had died like that, how wonderful would it have been?”
From beneath the pitch-black hood, out of the deep shadow where nothing could be seen, a voice drifted out.
“You wanted me to be happy.”
It was unmistakably the voice of ‘Giovanni.’
“Is it hard for you because I am too special? Too much to handle?”
“I’d like to think it’s just my own conceit, but it certainly seems that way.”
“Don’t you think that’s a rather cute complaint?”
“……”
Just how many voices could flow from within that one shadow?
“…Unfortunately, this isn’t such a cute situation…”
If only she could laugh it off, how wonderful that would be.
“…Since when were you a portrait?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think of yourself as?”
“I am Gio.”
“Your happiness is no longer what’s important.”
Giovanni had not met an unhappy end.
“I know that was a death to your liking.”
Therefore, what mattered now was the fear and loss of those left behind—of the mermaids, of Aria.
Because no matter what happened, Gio would always make the choice that brought him the greatest happiness.
“You will live a life to your liking. No matter what happens to those around you, you will always do the absolute best you can in that moment. Don’t you think that’s so idealistic it’s horrible?”
“I think Aria finds it horrible.”
“Yes, it’s horrible. Because I know it’s the best choice, the ideal choice. And because I respected that side of you, I can’t ask you to change now. I’ve already lived too long, too deeply immersed in it…”
What on earth was the essence of this portrait?
Its name was ‘Gio’s Portrait.’ He was a person, yet he was a painting. He was merely a painting, but also a painter. He was the master of his own fate, having painted his life himself, and he was like a vast force of nature, destined to embrace even more destinies.
Had he been a portrait from the very beginning, causing the name ‘Gio’ to be endlessly repeated? Or did he become a portrait at some point because he was Gio, embracing countless versions of himself?
“Yes.”
Aria finally defined the source of her anxiety.
In the far distant past, in the future, and even at this very moment…
“…You will be special for the rest of your life, Teacher.”
This man could never be ordinary. He never had been.
“……”
“……”
What was left to condemn as cruel?
“…Teacher, do you believe in humans?”
“There is a happiness that can only be obtained by believing.”
“And you have no intention of giving that up.”
“Just as Aria has not given up her wrath.”
“Right. In that case…”
Aria smiled, a weariness on her face that he had never seen before.
“I’ll take care of my own share.”
How much of the shadow beneath that pitch-black cloak could she possess?
She only prayed she wouldn’t have to let it wash away into the sea again.