What Jio had done was simple.

“I brought them onto my palette.”

“I believe I asked you for a more detailed, straightforward, specific explanation.”

“...”

“And don't look at me as if you have no idea how you could possibly explain it any better.”

“I made no such expression.”

“It's written all over your face. Don't deny it.”

“I am being falsely accused.”

It took quite some time before Jio could explain what he had done. Somewhere along the way, he had become the platinum-blond priest.

“... You need paint to make a painting, correct?”

“You must be finding this hard to explain. You've turned into Giovanni. Yes, that's true. And?”

“In other words, a painting is something made with paint.”

“Right?”

“The same applies to me as I am now. The me inside the frame consists of paint, or can be defined by an equivalent concept. I consider that self-evident.”

The same principle applied.

“The mermaids, along with the ‘Breathing Sea’ where they had their roots... or the ‘country of the deep sea,’ were linked to my frame. In other words, you could consider them a single frame and painting.”

Jio spoke calmly.

“In that case, wouldn't our mermaid friends also have been paint?”

“... Does that really follow? Why? That's quite a leap.”

“But it is self-evident that a painting is essentially a combination of paints.”

“...”

Ju-hyeon was finally struck speechless. He could not even muster the usual “... I see!” and simply sat there dumbfounded. Yu Seongun, however, was used to the novel incidents and disasters that Root entities caused, and understood at once.

“I more or less follow.”

Jio was a “portrait,” after all.

“But then does every being painted inside your frame become a... resident of that palette? By that logic, Ju-hyeon and I have both visited. So has young Yi-sol.”

“None of you are residents of the palette.”

“So there are other criteria?”

“Your roots must be connected.”

“Roots, hm...”

As a Gardener, he understood. Roots played an immensely important role in constituting a being. And if these were the roots of the soul, that most fundamental of concepts, nothing more needed saying.

“You mean simply sharing a flowerpot isn't enough?”

“Correct. As I said, there must be a ‘link.’ In terms of plants, it would be more than sharing a flowerpot: their roots and stems would have fused together.”

“And in human terms, being lovers wouldn't be enough. You'd have to be conjoined twins?”

“I believe it would be closer to the relationship between organs within a single body. Or to nutrients, chewed and swallowed, being converted into fat that will remain stored in the body forever.”

“So their ‘roots’ really do have to become completely identical.”

Apparently, they had to go beyond merely “sharing” and become “one.”

“Then what can you do with them? What changes?”

“I can call them forth.”

“Call what forth? They were already dead.”

“Residents of the palette are paint, are they not?”

“... Ah.”

Yu Seongun nodded.

“True. Life and death don't enter into it.”

Even Jio himself had died, yet remained preserved at his most perfect. With an example right before his eyes, there was no reason others couldn't do the same. Though they would need a great deal of Jio's help.

“So those mermaids have now... become paint?”

“To be precise, they have become colors.”

“Colors?”

“Yes.”

The portrait mechanically recited the truth.

“Aria became gray, and Iser became sky blue.”

“...”

“You will be able to find them in my shadow and my works.”

“... That's really...”

Yu Seongun hesitated, then continued.

“... Wonderful.”

He meant it.

“That means death has no bearing on them.”

“It has no bearing on them, just as it has none on me.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘colors’?”

“Literally that. Colors.”

“Can they speak? Can you talk to them? Is interaction possible?”

“With that intention, it can be.”

“And they retain their intelligence?”

“If that is what is wanted.”

“They're already dead, aren't they?”

“Yes. They have become something far removed from life.”

“... Haha, that's genuinely romantic...!”

Laughter spilled out of him.

“I'd love to see them. Where can I go to admire them? If you wouldn't find it offensive, I'd like to see them with my own eyes. If I'm not being rude, could you tell me the way?”

“You can visit the ‘Temple of the Deep Sea’ or the ‘City of Emptiness.’ You should also have little trouble finding them in the cabin where I stay.”

“Do I need to find a frame?”

“Either way is fine. Visible colors are everywhere, after all.”

“That's extraordinary...”

Ju-hyeon looked distinctly uncomfortable as he listened to them.

“... Am I the only one who doesn't understand this?”

“There are worlds beyond your understanding, Ju-hyeon.”

“Since Jio is part of that world, I feel I ought to understand it too, but I can't help finding it strangely repellent. Am I narrow-minded...? Too set in my ways...?”

“You're a conscientious person.”

It was only natural for him to feel repelled.

“We look in different directions. It can't be helped.”

“... I'll try to adjust, little by little.”

Ju-hyeon's professional smile finally broke, and he let out a deep sigh. Since the person he served was an immense mystery regarded as the Root, it was time he improved himself in all sorts of ways.

'Still...'

He looked at Yu Seongun's delighted smile.

“...”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Nothing.”

Ju-hyeon smiled back.

“I was just thinking what a headache this must be for you.”

“When isn't it?”

Yu Seongun still could not define Jio.

* * *

“...”

Yu Seongun had come to the “City of Emptiness.”

“... There are water birds here too.”

“Of course. This is one of the homes I made.”

“Quite a few more residents since my last visit, too.”

Looking around, he saw several human figures mottled in black, as though covered in ink. They were probably “wicked humans” who had been caught after making a nuisance of themselves in front of the “City of Emptiness.”

'Still, not as many as I expected.'

In an age overflowing with wicked people, he had thought the place might be full by now. No, perhaps there were other spaces beyond the one he could currently see.

'Well, there's no end to this boulevard in sight.'

The “City of Emptiness” took the shape of a road between two walls of towering buildings. He could enter the alleys between those buildings, and it looked as though he could keep traveling down the road, whose end lay who knew where.

'The view through the frame is only a fragment of the whole...'

As Yu Seongun surveyed his surroundings, water birds settled on his head and shoulders.

“Whoa, what's this? What are they doing?”

“I believe these are water birds that met you at the cabin last time.”

“Ah... Oh, that time.”

That had been quite a while ago. They had good memories.

'I saw water birds perched in the trees before I went inside the cabin on my first visit.'

These seemed to be those same little ones.

“...”

He held out a hand, and more hopped onto it.

“... They're gray?”

“Naturally. This space is gray.”

“True enough.”

Water was transparent, so it was only natural that it took on the colors around it.

'This place and these little things are all part of a painting.'

The water birds on his hand pecked at it or tilted their heads, as if to say, “I don't know why you're here.”

'Is it because most humans who come here are wicked? I suppose I should thank them for not treating me like one...'

Just then, he spotted a black human figure being devoured by a water bird.

“Oh.”

So that was another way of dealing with them.

“Your children must be stuffed to bursting.”

“Not necessarily. It is more play than eating...”

“Calling that play is a little chilling for a human to hear.”

“You and your jokes.”

“You need to start taking people at their word.”

“Are you enjoying the viewing?”

“... I'm certainly less tense than last time.”

That certainly didn't mean he was comfortable.

'And I'm not even the target of its hostility.'

He had visited before, but it remained an eerie place. Simply breathing in and out here made him feel as though the being called “me” might be erased. His chest felt constricted, as if his lungs were full of plaster dust.

'And I can probably only bear even this much thanks to Jio's goodwill.'

There was a reason even capable Hunters could not contend with the “City of Emptiness.” Once caught by Black Cloak's works, they could not escape unless the works themselves chose to show mercy.

“Hmm...”

Yu Seongun tilted his head.

“... Where are the mermaids?”

“It would be difficult to call them mermaids now.”

“Then can I no longer call them by their names, either?”

“No, you can. Death does not erase a name.”

“I don't know whether to call that merciful or horrifying...”

Then a deep gray caught Yu Seongun's eye.

“...”

Ah.

“... Eyes...”

“Yes, those are eyes.”

“... Are they looking at me?”

“They are.”

They were eyes made of color.

'A mermaid's eyes.'

An uncanny silver, like light glinting on water. No, they resembled the color of pearls. Gleaming pupils surrounded by irises like polar auroras. Not two, not one, but dozens, hundreds of them.

Then hands emerged. Buried in color, made of color, their indistinct shapes writhed within their allotted hue. Those, too, numbered not one or two, but thousands.

He could not quite make sense of it.

'Is it alive?'

Or had it been preserved?

'There's far too much vitality here to call it a preserved specimen...'

Yet he could sense no life itself at all.

It resembled the thin sheen of oil on an oil painting. Though no wind blew, it drifted leisurely with the sweep of the brush, rather like the mermaid's tail when she had been alive.

'Is it repulsive?'

It was beautiful.

'Should I call it horrifying? Say that even if she was wicked, even if she was a monster, desecrating the dead is wrong?'

It was no different from the portrait.

It was, quite literally, “color.” Gray. As the sea by day differed from the sea at evening, distinct variations of light and shade suffused it throughout. He had wondered why a mermaid born of the sea had become gray.

“...”

It was a gray sea.

'... The color never mattered.'

It flowed as gently as the sea in spring.

“... It looks as though there's no intelligence left. Is that right?”

“No, that is not the case.”

“Then why isn't she showing hostility toward me?”

“Because she is nothing more than color. Paint can neither express a will of its own nor possess one.”

“I see.”

Yu Seongun looked up.

“... I understand.”

Twilight, ill suited to the name Void, flowed across the “sky.”

'So this is the hell the mermaids chose.'

They had decided to remain by Jio's side as tools.

Before, the mermaids had had two paths before them: become evil gods and spend something approaching eternity with Jio, though he would never forgive them, or remain even in the form of tools like these, waiting for the day he might grant forgiveness. They had chosen the latter.

“I was going to ask if you'd make hell next, now that you've made heaven.”

“I make neither heaven nor hell.”

“I know. You only wanted to make a home where the things you like could stay.”

“I am glad you seem to understand.”

“... Yes...”

But if this wasn't hell, what was it?

“... I know I keep saying this, but it's wonderful.”

When he died, Yu Seongun wanted to go to a hell like this. This bizarre, fairy-tale hell.

“...”

... Would the day ever come when he saw Jio as a person?

(To be continued)