Chapter 244
An Exhibition Hall. Was it a place where the Prezen family gathered their valuable collected artworks?
No wonder it felt unusual right from the start; the room that looked like it had cracks everywhere due to an optical illusion must have been a type of spatial art too.
Anyway, Young Lady Alexandra didn’t seem like the type to enjoy art.
Sure enough, as I looked at her with that thought, Alexandra was wearing a displeased expression.
“Tch, and here I thought it might be a restricted zone.”
I wondered why she was wandering around so unpredictably, and it seemed she was looking for the “Restricted area for Visitors” that the Dolls had mentioned.
I should have known from the moment she asked the Dolls a question about it.
It was a curiosity truly befitting the tomboy Young Lady.
Team Leader Hank and Ms. Kali had calm expressions, as if they weren’t surprised. Unexpectedly, Prezen of the Meredith Family was the same.
“If it were a Forbidden Zone, you wouldn’t have even been able to make it this far, Alexandra Amadeus Schneider.”
They definitely hadn’t introduced themselves, yet he knew Alexandra’s name. As the bodyguards' expressions stiffened, Prezen de Se Meredith tapped his streamlined head and lightly explained.
“The information of all the visitors invited this time is stored right here. Just as I’ve heard, you are truly beautiful, and your intellectual curiosity is extraordinary.”
Her intellectual curiosity is extraordinary… why does that sound like “Just as I’ve heard, she is unruly.' to my ears?
At Prezen’s words, Alexandra furrowed her brow and spoke.
“I haven’t heard anything about you. Prezen Meredith de Se.”
In short, it felt like she was retorting, “I don’t know you. Why are you acting like you know me?'
I wasn’t used to the noble way of speaking, but that was the nuance.
Even so, Prezen Meredith smiled faintly without a single hint of offense.
“It is only natural that you haven’t. I am just an idler with no important duties in the family. You can tell just by looking at how I guard this secluded Exhibition Hall all alone. I am simply grateful for my own existence.”
A smooth, flexible answer. I hardened my expression at the strange sense of disparity I felt for a moment.
That Raver named Prezen de Se Meredith - something was strange about him.
I didn’t know if the Meredith Family was originally like this, or if it was just that Raver among them who was like this… but there was something uniquely strange about him that was hard to pinpoint, something that couldn’t be found in other ravers.
It was a different feeling from when I looked at the Dolls. What in the world was it?
“You probably didn’t come all the way here with the Exhibition Hall as your destination, but since you are here, would you like to take a look around? It is small in size and there aren’t that many exhibits, but it still has quite a bit of personality.”
At Prezen’s dry suggestion, Alexandra seemed to ponder for a moment before nodding her head.
She didn’t look particularly interested, but she had an expression that seemed to say, “Since I’m here anyway, I might as well take a look.'
“Then I will guide you. It is my first time moving around with a visitor, so my heart is fluttering.”
Judging by his calm tone and indifferent eyes, he didn’t seem to be fluttering at all, but he still seemed to feel some sense of reward in guiding a visitor.
Prezen led Alexandra inside with smooth footsteps that looked quite light.
Because of the first impression that had startled me, I thought the inside of the exhibition room would also be filled with bizarre spatial art or structures using mirrors and glass, but it wasn’t.
The inside of the exhibition room was entirely paintings.
The types were incredibly diverse, ranging from watercolors, oil paintings, and prints to ink-and-wash paintings and even charcoal drawings.
The sizes also varied greatly, from the size of a palm to massive paintings large enough to fill an entire wall.
I knew that the professions of writer and artist had gone extinct from the moment artificial intelligence and robots became able to draw and write more precisely, beautifully, cheaply, and conveniently than humans, but it seemed the story was different for the highest tier of nobles like this.
Or perhaps these were works created before all the human artists starved to death.
The strange thing was, usually when you think of an exhibition room, bright and warm lighting often shines to show off the artworks inside, but that wasn’t the case here.
Cold and dark-colored lighting swept over the exhibits, and just quietly watching it gave me a somewhat eerie chill.
Perhaps because of that, Young Lady Alexandra looked around at a few paintings before quickly putting on a bored expression, as if she had already lost interest.
In Team Leader Hank’s case, he seemed to have no interest at all, and while Ms. Kali was looking at them, she seemed to be thinking about something else.
As for me… I was interested, but I felt like I would get scolded by the Team Leader for not concentrating on my escort duties if I stared too intently, so I was examining the paintings while stealing quick glances.
Even though I wasn’t looking at that stance, it wasn’t long before I could discover a few more peculiar things.
First, the art styles were similar.
I wasn’t a master craftsman in paintings, but I could still tell that the color palettes were all similarly cold.
Not just the colors, but even if there were some differences in texture and lines, they all gave off a similarly blurry yet sharply cut-off atmosphere.
They seemed to be either all the works of a single artist or a collection of similar types of paintings gathered in one place. This might be the concept or theme of this exhibition room.
And another peculiar thing… among the characters in the artworks, excluding still lifes and landscapes, there were no humans. To be exact, the characters were all ravers.
Occasionally, animals that exist in reality, or even imaginary animals, would appear in the paintings, but humans alone were nowhere to be found, no matter how hard I looked.
Even in a large oil painting depicting a scene with hundreds of people gathered, I could find the distinct characteristics of a Raver in every single person.
A Ladam screaming in shrieking colors beneath flowing blood-like clouds, an Ever shamelessly exposing a pale blue and frail naked body, a Ladam openly pulling down its pants in front of others and pulling out a hose to urinate on the street (it seemed ravers also needed to periodically excrete waste like humans)…
From bizarre, cubist paintings like those of Picasso to hyper-realistic portraits that looked like photographs, they used all sorts of techniques and styles, but without a single exception, the models were ravers.
Was it because this was the Meredith Family, a Pure Raver Family?
It could be that I felt that way because I had a prejudice against ravers, but I could feel a certain obsession in these paintings.
That was why I stared for a long time after discovering a painting located in a particularly secluded corner.
The spot was isolated, and the size was small. It was cast in shadow, making it hard to even find.
However, this hidden painting was different from the other paintings. The style itself was similar. It seemed to have been drawn by the same artist.
But the colors were bright and warm. Also, the lines weren’t faint and blurry, but thick and clear.
And the model wasn’t a Raver. To be exact, I should say it hadn’t been decided yet.
It was a portrait, but the head portion was still left completely blank and white. The body below it was tightly wrapped in clothes, making it difficult to guess the gender or race just from the curves.
I didn’t know if it was an unfinished work, or if it was a completed piece in itself. I was staring at it blankly when I realized my mistake and was about to look back toward Alexandra.
“You found the self-portrait.”
A frail voice whispered in my ear. For a moment, I got goosebumps and almost had a fit, but I calmly turned my head.
Prezen de Se Meredith was standing right next to me, looking at me.
I hurriedly bowed and stepped back, speaking awkwardly.
“Ah, I suppose the title of this painting is a self-portrait.”
There was no title written separately, so I didn’t know.
Anyway, I answered since he spoke to me first, but wasn’t I going to get chewed out like a dog again for unnecessarily mingling words with a potential risk factor while I was a bodyguard?
I was feeling on pins and needles, but Prezen Meredith didn’t care and spoke again.
“Yes. It is a self-portrait of the artist who painted it. I heard that the artist drew it when he or she felt extreme shock and terror, existential anxiety and panic… well, emotions like that.”
Shock and terror. The colors and style actually seemed more stable and comfortable than the other paintings…
I tilted my head and asked.
“Is it a finished piece?”
“No, it is an unfinished work.”
He had a subtle smile that seemed like he was smiling or maybe not, a faint impression that didn’t stick well in the memory, and an odorless, colorless silicone face.
Could it be?
I blurted out a thought that suddenly came to mind while looking at Prezen de Se Meredith.
“By any chance… did you paint this yourself?”
Prezen Meredith paused for a moment, then soon pulled the corners of his mouth up into a smile that seemed as if they would tear. It was a sight I was afraid would appear in my dreams.
“You are quick-witted. How did you know?”
I wasn’t certain, so I just asked based on a “could it be” intuition… but being asked how I knew left me at a loss for an answer.
“Because you seem to know a lot about this piece, what about the artist’s emotions, whether it’s a finished piece or not, and things like that?”
“That is only natural, since my role is to manage this Exhibition Hall. Is there no other reason?”
A persistent question. Why is this Raver acting like this? I wondered. It felt like there was an answer he wanted to hear from me. I pondered for a moment before speaking.
“And… although it has no face, that self-portrait somehow felt like it resembled you, Lord Prezen.”
Although he didn’t openly show it, the unidentified noble, Prezen de Se Meredith, seemed extremely pleased to hear those words.