Chapter 5: 4

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Like an ordinary noble’s mansion, open space was revealed upon entrance.

However, the atmosphere inside was different not only from Vivian’s memory but also from the mansion that she was currently living in. Perhaps, the norms of aristocrats’ mansions had simply been relinquished when the decision to use this mansion as an art gallery had been made. 

Usually, lighting is reduced in order to maintain grandeur, and the lighting of the interior was controlled by itself. However, the windows of this place were enlarged, allowing light to stream through into the interior. 

The interior was very bright as a result of that.

“Wow.”

As the hall was the place that was most crowded, an individual exhibit wasn’t on display, and there wasn’t any kind of works in particular. 

All except for one work.

Perhaps it was clear that the first work that everyone would view upon stepping into this space would be the majestic statue of Ranka, the goddess of victory, the sole exhibit located atop the flight of steps in the center of the hall. 

Vivian tilted her head upwards and looked at the statue of the goddess for a while.

It made her feel oddly emotional to come across a statue that she had memories of in an unexpected place. 

It was said that this sculpture was carved thousands of years ago, and was discovered in a temple buried at sea. At that time, her neck had already vanished, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t dignified.

Because of her beautiful wings that were spread out behind her back, the statue that was located at the top of the flight of stairs seemed as though she was about to fly in that instance. 

“…Due to familial matters, I went to the capital city. That was the first time I’d seen that statue in the central palace.”

Whether it was then or now, Vivian’s feelings haven’t changed. At that time, she thought that if she had grown up, if her eye level had increased, if she became a more brilliant person, she wondered if she would feel less overwhelmed.

“When I first met Sister, I was quite young and she seemed like an adult. I remember having to tilt my head upwards to look at her.”

Whether it was then or now, Vivian’s thoughts remained the same. 

“My feelings when I first saw that statue was similar to when I first saw Sister.”

“…I want to meet Sasha more when you say that.”

“Sister’s a really amazing person.”

When Vivian reached out to Edmund, he clasped their hands together. He then laughed cheekily.

“Would you like to look at it up close?”

“Uhm, wasn’t it prohibited to ascend?”

“That doesn’t matter. All of this belongs to my family, so why would it matter?”

As he spoke confidently, he pulled down the string that prevented people from crossing over.

He ascended the stairs at Vivian’s speed. As her eye level gradually increased, another side that couldn’t be seen on the first floor appeared. 

Thump, thump.

Vivian’s heart raced.

After passing the statue of Ranka and standing on the opposite railing, a spacious place was revealed.

It was quieter than the place she was at a little earlier. Marble sculptures of mythical heroes and gods made in ancient times lined the place. It was like she was peeping into a mythical temple.

“The mansion is bigger than what I’ve remembered it to be.”

“Apparently it was expanded in the process of making this place into an art museum. As this place was designed to be an open space, the stairs here were destroyed.”

“After expansion, the whole mansion became an art museum?”

“Yes. This is the largest museum in the Empire.”

Even so, expanding that big mansion? And the mansion was demolished and rebuilt in order to make it more spacious? It seems that there are more people obsessed with art than she’d thought.

Haha. As Vivian turned her head while laughing, she made eye contact with a happily smiling Edmund.

Just then, he spoke proudly. 

“Even the Imperial Museum isn’t as big as this.”

It was no wonder that he looked so proud.

It was obvious that Edmund was beside himself with pride in this space. But the scale of this place was deserving of such pride. It definitely was amazing that such a beautiful space was filled to the brim. 

The fact that the statue of the goddess of victory that could only be seen in the Imperial Palace in the past, was located here, which goes to show how great his family was. 

There were many different types of people present when observed from above. 

Although there were some that could be identified as nobility like Edmund, just from their clothes, there were various types of people, such as working professionals from upper class to middle class. 

As Vivian stared blankly at them, who entered a place where only high ranking aristocrats would have been allowed into, Edmund seems to have noticed what she was thinking about and spoke casually. 

“Many changes had occurred over the past 200 years. The world that was dictated by mages has collapsed, and compared to the past, Imperial authority has fallen to the bottom. While the aristocrats that possessed capital still maintained their power, in the case of the majority, most families collapsed.”

Her mouth felt bitter.

“And the newly emerged families filled their places.”

It was no longer an era where the Emperor decided everything. No matter what it was, it required the Assembly’s approval.

“The Deers are one of the ruling families in this era, and this art museum was a large-scale plan requiring astronomical sums of money. Even now, this place was barely made by pouring out a huge sum.” 

“…Is that so?”

“As such, it’s something only the Deers can do.”

Edmund’s words were saying that his family was like the Imperial Family.

“That’s why an art museum was built.”

Vivian looked upwards at Edmund, who was leaning his upper body against the railing.

“I didn’t bring you here with the intention to brag about the greatness of the Deers, but to show you something else. That’s located inside, so let’s head there first.”

At the way she looked downwards at the statues reluctantly, Edmund laughed softly. 

“A week wouldn’t be enough to tour the entire place. You’d probably need a full month to look through it all.”

“…Sister would have loved it if she was here.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Sister liked to view paintings.”

In Vivian’s time, rather than art, music was viewed to be the more sophisticated fine arts. As such, aristocrats learned the piano, violin, and vocal music.

In such a situation, her sister picked up a brush and drew. 

Now that she thought about it, Edmund and her sister seem to be quite similar in many ways. Her sister loved the process of painting, and Edmund seems to love the act of discovering and interpreting completed works.

“Let’s go.”

As she followed beside Edmund, he opened the door immediately with a push. He grabbed the door, which looked heavy at first glance, with one hand and held it open as he nodded his head towards Vivian to enter first.

Within was an exhibition hall. It was a painting that she’s seeing for the first time. There were people walking slowly before the painting, looking around.

Edmund walked without giving that painting a single glance. Vivian was drawn to his movements and quickly followed behind, brushing the painting to one side. 

“Perhaps if you catch anyone that’s visiting this place and ask them which painting they think to be the most famous in The Deer, nine out of ten would say the painting that we’ve about to view now.”

“What exactly is the painting you’re talking about?”

“”

“……”

At that extremely undisguised name, Vivian stopped in her steps.

‘Sister, the painting that you drew had such a name?’

“Although not everyone knows which country or city The Deer is located in, and what kind of family the Deers are, everyone knows that the painting by Sasha, , is housed in The Deer.”

“…….”

“Because you’re the symbol of the richest and most beautiful Sierra from 200 years ago.”

Vivi, At the Festival.

It was her first time hearing that name. 

“Sasha doesn’t give her paintings a name. Her paintings were only named by the people from later generations. But there are just a few paintings that she’d named herself.”

Edmund supported Vivian and led her while telling her a story that he didn’t tell me in the carriage.

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“ was the name that Sasha gave herself.”

Vivian walked through a room containing myths from thousands of years ago, passed by a room with tranquil paintings from the next continent, and another room filled with portraits of prestigious aristocrats from her time.

As the place was so wide, Vivian couldn’t even estimate how many paintings she had passed by, or their quality. 

The place that she had arrived in had more people outside the exhibition hall than the others. As she hesitated, low laughter from beside her resounded. 

With his eyes folded into an arc, Edmund bowed down slightly as he whispered in her ear.

“Next time, let’s either close the museum or come here before the museum opens. Then, you can enjoy it as much as you want.”

“No, you don’t have to do that…”

“There are many paintings by Sasha here.”

He swept the hair that fell forward back. His straight fingertips brushed against her cheeks.

“What I wanted to show you today wasn’t a painting, but these people.”

“Why?”

“Over there, from that room onwards are filled with the works of impressionist masters with Sasha Summers at the center.”

Edmund had been saying all week about how great Sasha is as an artist, but Vivian felt that it was unreal. That was turned upside down at this place today. 

“As such, the innermost room of this building houses a painting that everyone from all over the world longs to see.”

It would be, as he says, a portrait of Vivian.

As she slowly entered the exhibition hall, there were various kinds of people, ranging from those discussing the paintings, to those who were absorbed by the paintings, as such taking a while to view them. 

Vivian gave them a glance, before looking through the works.

Although she wasn’t well informed about art and was even less informed about her sister’s paintings, she knew it was a canvas that completely contained her sister’s painting style.

Vivian slowly walked from one end of the wall to the other end.

While there were paintings of cups and desks drawn on very small canvases, there were also large frames filled with nature.

Her memories vaguely recalled the vibrant colours that gushed from the painting. 

When she stopped before the painting of a man standing in the midst of a wheat field, Edmund let out a low sigh, “Ah.”

Vivian felt like she was about to get sucked into the painting.  

“Erickson Riverry.”

“Yes, Sasha’s fiance.”

As she spoke with a strangely excited voice, the corners of her mouth raised slightly. 

In the lower right corner of the canvas, there was a man that seemed to disappear with the billowing wind, and although both his face and the shape of his body was smudged, it was obvious that the man was Erickson Riverry.

Vivian fully agreed with Edmund’s constant praise of her sister as ‘great’. As she stood viewing the painting quietly, the conversation between the two people standing next to her flowed into her ears.

“It’s so beautiful.”

“Sasha is a genius. Perhaps if it was not for her, art like hers wouldn’t exist now.”

“I heard that she was a mage?”

“I heard the Summers are one of the most prestigious families. Apparently, she was the Lord of that family.”

“……It’s amazing. How does she draw a painting like this?”

Her sister was such an amazing person.

She had thought that if her sister were to be remembered, it would be as a mage or a politician, or perhaps as a member of the Summers family. 

But the words representative of her sister was a painter, a word that was insignificant. 

Mage, politician, aristocrat, a family’s ruler… All of those magnificent and glistening positions were just words to embellish Sasha, the painter. 

“Why are you making such a face already?”

“I feel strange.”

The nausea she was feeling seems to have worsened. 

It seemed that the nausea she was feeling became more severe. As she approached the room where her portrait was hung in, the feelings of wanting to throw up turned into feelings of fear. 

Strangely, she couldn’t lift her feet. 

When Edmund saw Vivian like that, he asked if she was alright as she was more disconcerted than expected, saying that it was alright to not view the work now if it was too difficult for her to do so, and asking her if she would like to leave. He also said that they could go and view the many excellent paintings housed in The Deer, and that they could come again another day. 

But it felt like unless it was today, unless it was right now, Vivian wouldn’t be able to see her sister’s paintings. 

As she was the type of person that kept running away, and not someone that faced things confidently.  

She slowly lifted her foot off the ground. The sound of shoes tapping against the ground was drowned out by the murmurs of the people.

“Vivi, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. It was just because of my mood.”

“You don’t have to overdo it.”

“I had kept wondering for the whole week why I had come here.”

She walked past the works on display mechanically. The number of works that she had passed by without giving them a glance increased.

“Do you know what’s the word that I’ve heard the most in here?”

“No–”

“Sasha.”

Edmund stood next to her when Vivian stopped walking. 

“…Those are all things I couldn’t understand. I can’t understand how my sister and I are mentioned at the same time. Perhaps ‘Sasha’ would know why I fell here, and what I should do from now onwards; no matter what, wouldn’t she know what to do?”

She might have left the right answer in her painting.

Vivian feared Sasha as much as she had admired her. 

She had always felt like she was fully disassembled before Sasha’s gaze, and it felt like her world was falling apart when she realized that her faint expectations were cut off. 

Of course. Her staying with the Summers was all thanks to her sister. If it wasn’t for her sister, she might have been kicked out of the mansion before she turned twenty, and died in a place where no one was aware of.

Vivian took another step forward to lift her subdued mood.

The next space seemed to be very spacious upon first glance.

However, the expansive space was overshadowed by the number of people present, which was more than she had ever seen in one place. With an expression of weariness, Edmund sighed lowly. 

“There’s a lot of people here today.”

There was a painting at the center of the other side, and many people were gathered in front of it. 

“We can look at the painting properly next time, so let’s take a peek at it and leave. What I had wanted to show you were those people.”

Vivian shook her head when she heard that he wanted to show her how many people flocked over to see her sister’s painting. She had already known that her sister was a famous painter. 

“Only now do I know how famous Sister is.”

As she moved forward, Vivian spotted a painting hidden by the crowd. It wasn’t a very big canvas. Its size was big enough to cover her from her upper body to her head.

This is the most famous painting by her sister housed in this museum. 

What kind of painting would the one with her name hanging before it be like?

There were numerous people with slightly gaping mouths, looking at the huge canvas silently. 

While there were many people, it was contradictory in its stillness.

From the side, Edmund’s excitement was conveyed to her. As she looked at his side profile, whose attention had already been captured by the canvas, Vivian slowly raised her head. 

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And…

Thump, thump.

She had even forgotten to breathe.

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