2
## Chapter 2 — A Small Village From a Fairytale
Art.
Some people believe that art belongs only to the rich.
That art exists solely to entertain the eyes and ears of those who have wealth.
…But that wasn’t true.
Art was something anyone could enjoy.
Even a three-year-old child who had only just begun to speak.
Even an old farmer who had spent decades working the fields without knowing the first thing about paintings.
Like a man possessed, Elder Kim slowly walked along the village walls, admiring the mural.
“…This here’s our village.”
The forms were somewhat different, yet the mural painted across the walls was unmistakably his village.
As he walked while looking at the mural, it felt as if memories were replaying in his mind like a panorama.
He had already lived in this tiny village for seventy years.
And during that time, so much had happened.
Born to farmer parents just like himself, he spent his childhood running around this village without a care in the
world.
Later, he married his wife and worked hard in the fields until he could buy a house and land under his own name.
He had a son and daughter who made him smile just by looking at them, and he tirelessly tilled the land to raise those
children.
He raised them with money earned through sweat, then watched them leave. Then those children had children of their own.
Time passed.
Wrinkles formed on what was once a youthful, firm face.
His aging wife passed away first, leaving the world behind with a peaceful expression.
And still he continued working the land, spending joyful moments with his children and grandchildren whenever they came
to visit.
‘Ah.’
At that moment, Elder Kim finally realized something.
The village within the mural was changing along with the flow of time.
At first, the paintings were innocent and full of life.
But the farther the wall stretched, the quieter the atmosphere became.
Even so, it was beautiful.
Just like life itself.
“……Hah. Getting emotional at my age…”
Feeling his eyes grow moist for some reason, Elder Kim eventually reached the end after nearly circling the entire
village.
And there—
Swish—, sweep. Swish.
The young man he had met earlier that morning was still moving his brush across the wall.
‘Looks like some shaman performing a ritual.’
A state of complete selflessness.
The young man swung his brush like a madman, seemingly unaware that Elder Kim had even approached.
Without disturbing him, Elder Kim simply stood beside him and watched.
The young man looked genuinely happy painting the village mural.
The smile on his face was so warm and content.
And before long, an equally bright smile appeared on Elder Kim’s face as he watched him.
---
Swish—, sweep.
“Haa… haa…”
At last, after finishing the mural that stretched around the entire village, I stopped moving my hand and let out a
drained sigh.
Tremble.
The hands that had once shaken from trauma were now trembling from muscle pain after moving too fast for too long.
And somehow, I liked this pleasant exhaustion.
Six hours.
I had painted the mural nonstop like a madman, and during that time, I was happier than anyone else in the world.
But it still wasn’t over.
Swish.
For the final touch, I picked up the brush once more.
I planned to leave my name in one corner of the mural as proof that I had created it today.
It was a routine I had always followed ever since I was a child whenever I finished a painting.
However—
“……Ah.”
Just as I was about to write the name *Baek Hangyeol*, anxiety resurfaced and made me pause.
‘What if people recognize me again after seeing the name Baek Hangyeol?’
Because of today, I had fallen in love with painting once more.
But I didn’t want to return to being the child painting genius “Baek Hangyeol.”
After thinking for a moment, I wrote down a different name instead.
Swish—, sweep.
You didn’t need fame in order to paint.
Yeah.
From now on, I would live as a faceless painter.
Not Baek Hangyeol, the artist who painted to satisfy others—
but a new painter who painted his own art.
“Hoo…”
Just as I finished writing the new name I would use as a faceless artist in the corner of the wall and stood up—
“You finished?”
“…O-Oh, sir.”
I had been so immersed in painting the mural that I never noticed the old man standing behind me.
Before I could even say anything, he patted my shoulder with a deeply satisfied smile.
“Thank you so much. Turns out this young fellow was actually an incredible master painter.”
“……”
“I don’t even know how I could repay this kindness.”
“Kindness? If anything, I should be the grateful one.”
If I hadn’t come to this village today, I probably never would have painted again.
Meeting unexpected people in unexpected places and doing unexpected things.
Maybe that was the true charm of traveling.
“It’s a truly wonderful painting. But… what’s written over there in the corner?”
“Ah, that’s my artist name. If it bothers you, I can erase it.”
“Erase it? No way. People should know who painted such an amazing mural. But you wrote the name in English? What does it
mean?”
“Well…”
The alias I would use from now on as a faceless painter.
**creep.**
Literally translated…
A loser.
It was a name born from the fact that a pathetic loser who had hidden in his room for over ten years because of pressure
and anxiety had finally started painting again.
Still, introducing myself as “a loser” with my own mouth felt a little embarrassing.
So when the old man asked what it meant, I simply shook my head and pretended not to know.
“Well… it doesn’t really mean much. Hehe.”
“Really? Well then… that means it’s all finished now?”
“Yes. It’s completely done. I don’t think there’s any need to touch it anymore.”
Hearing that the work was finished, the old man chuckled and gestured toward his house.
“Then let’s head inside. I slaughtered a chicken and made baeksuk, so come eat.”
“Baeksuk…! Wow…! Thank you!”
Eating delicious food was another joy of traveling.
Since I had worked nonstop for half a day, I was starving, and the moment he mentioned chicken soup, I practically
swallowed my saliva.
And so, I followed the old man home, ate the delicious baeksuk, took a refreshing shower, and slept deeply that night.
Then the next day—
After saying goodbye to the old man, I set off once more in search of another destination.
---
Dalsol-ri, Jangseong County, Jeollanam-do.
It was a tiny village with barely any people, occasionally used as a midway stop for cycling clubs.
“Huff… huff… Shouldn’t we take a short break? We’re completely out of water.”
“Huh? You already drank all your water? And we still have around nine kilometers left until the meetup point.”
“It’s my first day today, so…”
She had been fairly confident in her riding skills, but keeping up with the veteran club members who had been cycling
for years was difficult.
Meanwhile, the lead group was already far ahead of the slower group she belonged to.
“Well, I guess we can’t help it. Let’s have the slower group reorganize and depart afterward.”
“I’m sorry… I’m causing trouble because of me.”
“Not at all. Haha, it’s your first day. Things like this happen.”
Although it was obviously a nuisance, the members all waved it off since they didn’t want to lose one of the few female
members in the club.
“Let’s see… Ah! There’s a small village nearby. No matter how tiny the place is, there should at least be a convenience
store. Let’s regroup there.”
“Yes!”
Soon, the cycling club members headed toward Dalsol-ri.
When they entered the village looking for water, they couldn’t help laughing at first after seeing how small it was.
“What? This is Dalsol-ri?”
“Haha. I knew it’d be small, but wow, it’s *really* small.”
“I don’t think we’re finding a convenience store here.”
“Seriously. This is rough.”
Forget a convenience store—finding even a single person walking around the street was difficult.
Because of that, the group decided to split up and search the village separately.
“It’s still a village, so even if there’s no convenience store, there should at least be a tiny supermarket somewhere.
Let’s split up and look around.”
“Okay!”
Even she, despite it being her first day, pushed her bicycle and entered the village alone.
“It really feels like one of those old countryside towns Grandma used to live in…”
A peaceful atmosphere and the fresh scent of grass.
But beyond that, it seemed like a boring rural village with nothing to see.
That was her first impression of Dalsol-ri.
But then—
“…Huh?”
The moment she discovered the mural painted across the walls inside the village, her eyes changed.
“…Wow. How does such a tiny village have something like this?”
The walls stretched around the entire village.
And painted across them were murals bursting with colorful life.
Even to someone completely ignorant about art, the mural looked beautiful.
Having stumbled across an unexpected work of art in the middle of a remote village, she stared wide-eyed as she walked
along the road admiring it.
“Did they paint this village itself?”
But it wasn’t merely a painting of the scenery.
It felt more like the entire story of the village had been captured within the mural.
As she looked at it, memories of her grandmother’s countryside home resurfaced once more.
But this time, instead of thinking of it as some boring backwater village, she remembered the days of her childhood when
she used to run around laughing.
‘Back in elementary school, I went to Grandma’s house every summer vacation.’
Running through fields with dogs.
Climbing mountains.
Swimming in valleys.
After dinner, eating watermelon beside a bonfire while falling asleep to the sound of insects.
It felt as though the exhaustion of modern life was being healed, and the innocence she had forgotten was coming back to
life.
“To think I’d feel something like this in a village I just happened to visit.”
It truly felt dreamlike.
Almost as if she had become the protagonist of a fairytale.
For a moment, she felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
“I have to take pictures of this.”
Wanting to share the emotions she was feeling, she took photos of the murals throughout the village.
And she wasn’t the only one.
“Hey! There you are! The village was so small I finished walking around it in no time.”
“More importantly, did you see the murals? Wow… how does a place this small have something like this…”
“Yeah, I saw them too. I was seriously shocked when I first saw them. I’m uploading the pictures to Instagram.”
“Oh, me too.”
That day, the random photos the cycling club members uploaded gathered countless likes and comments.
#Jeonnam_Dalsolri #CyclingClub #Mural #Emotional #Healing
—Wowㅠㅠ Where is this place? Jeonnam Dalsol-ri?
—Thought it was some Studio Ghibli village. I can’t believe Korea has a place like this.
—I need to visit this weekend. Just looking at the pictures feels healingㅠ
And only a few days later—
this tiny village in Jeollanam-do became a nationwide sensation.