NOVPUBThrough the thin gaps in the clouds stretched across the sky, the glow of the setting sun scattered softly.
A warm red light slanted downward, casting a long shadow beside Ludger.
Shwaaa...
With the rustle of grass swaying gently in the wind came the loud cries of insects.
Despite being blind, the painter stared at Ludger as if trying to see something.
“If you’ve come all the way here, I suppose that means you already know quite a bit.”
It was the painter who spoke first, breaking a long silence.
Gathering his art tools into one hand, he stood up from his seat.
“Let’s head down. The story will take some time, so let’s talk on the way. Ah, now that I think about it, we haven’t introduced ourselves.”
“Ludger Cherish.”
“My name is Pierre. Just a no-name painter, really.”
With simple introductions exchanged, the two began walking slowly down the hill toward the ruins below.
Hans tactfully backed off to give them space to talk more comfortably.
Leading the descent, Pierre brushed his fingertips through the grass that rose up to his waist.
“This place is nothing but a ruin now, but once, Roteng was truly beautiful.”
“A village so picturesque it could’ve come out of a painting. I’ve heard that a lot.”
“It was, in fact. But everything was lost in the great fire that happened {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} that day.”
A bitter smile formed on Pierre’s lips.
Though his eyes could no longer see, it felt like he was gazing directly at the scene from back then.
“As you guessed, Mr. Ludger, I’m a mage. No, more accurately—I was. I had some talent, so a noble mage took me in as a disciple, but I couldn’t adapt. Even back then, I was timid and more inclined to painting than anything else.”
Ludger listened in silence as the sudden story of the past began to unfold.
“I was too sentimental, not at all mage-like, and my head didn’t work all that well. My master used to scold me often. He even snapped my brush once, saying my art was garbage. At first, I endured it, but over time, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I ran away in the middle of the night. Painting meant more to me than using magic ever did.”
He wanted to paint.
With that simple desire, Pierre ran away and wandered from place to place until he arrived at a village.
A place so beautiful and peaceful it seemed straight out of a fairytale—Roteng.
“It felt like a truly special place. I thought I’d finally found somewhere I could really paint. But what could a clueless, green little brat possibly do just by suddenly deciding to settle in a new village? I stuck out, couldn’t fit in... and that’s when she helped me.”
“She?”
By then, they had reached the edge of the ruins at the bottom of the hill.
Instead of answering, Pierre took out his brush.
Before Ludger could even ask why he suddenly did that, Pierre raised his hand and began moving it.
As though painting—toward the empty air.
Ssshhk.
Something incredible happened.
As Pierre’s brush swept through the air, colors bloomed where it passed, and lines were drawn into the void.
It resembled the act of constructing a magic formula for spellcasting—but Ludger immediately realized it was something else entirely.
With just a few strokes, Pierre filled the surroundings with color.
Red. Blue. Green. Yellow.
All sorts of brilliant hues began to spread around them.
The sun had already vanished behind the western hills, and twilight had settled in. Darkness crept across the ruin like a fog of nightfall.
And in that darkness, only Pierre’s painting shone vividly.
Ludger quietly watched.
The magical energy Pierre spread like paint through the air drew lines, spread out, and gradually formed a landscape.
And what Ludger saw was not a midnight ruin—but a bright, sunlit village at its prime.
Carriages rolled by. People went about their daily lives.
‘Magic through painting...’
Painting Magic.
A new form of magic Ludger had never seen before.
Before he could even process the shock, the people within the painted scene began to move.
As if they were alive.
The world inside the painting began to reenact that era in vivid detail.
Pierre started walking forward, and Ludger silently followed him.
“Roteng was a town where many drifters came and went. People without roots, or travelers. Some ended up settling here. A place where even the wind would stop to rest—that’s what Roteng was. And even in a town like that, we had one thing to be proud of.”
Pierre stopped walking at the center of the painted world.
Ludger stopped beside him.
There, at the center of the illusion, stood a woman who immediately drew their eyes.
A beautiful woman with long black hair. Though only her back was visible, it was clear from the glimpse of her profile that her beauty was exceptional.
Her form was strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar at the same time.
That must’ve been because shadows cast over her eyes kept her face from being fully seen.
“You can’t see her face.”
“My meager painting skills couldn’t properly capture her beauty.”
That was another way of saying painting magic had its limits—it couldn’t depict what the artist couldn’t express.
Ludger accepted that fact with a nod.
“She was like a heroine out of a fairytale. Always smiling brightly, always kind to everyone. The whole village loved her. Even the spirits adored her—perhaps because of her strong affinity with nature.”
As she walked through the village, people smiled and waved at her.
She smiled back and waved in return.
Tiny nature spirits floated around her, and birds perched on her shoulder to preen their feathers.
It was like something out of a dream—so much so that even Ludger found himself momentarily entranced.
Warm. Gentle. Like returning to childhood innocence.
“She was the one who helped me, someone who hadn’t yet adapted to the village. That woman with a smile more radiant than sunlight. Her name... was Esmeralda.”
So that woman is...
There was no end to the smiling faces in the village. It was that peaceful of a place.
Warm, serene.
Watching it, Ludger felt a strange longing—an impulse that made him think he would’ve liked to live there.
But that peace didn’t last.
Everything changed the day a certain noble mage visited the village of Roteng.
The watercolor-like scenery distorted suddenly as the painting world shifted.
The mage was a tall, handsome man with blond hair, traveling with his subordinates.
He whispered all kinds of sweet words to Esmeralda.
That he’d fallen for her at first sight. That he wanted her to come with him.
It wasn’t hard for Ludger to see that it wasn’t love.
The nobleman didn’t want Esmeralda as a person—he wanted her power. Her affinity with spirits. A new strength to add to his bloodline.
Nobles like him scoured the land, seeking out talented women to force into bearing their children.
Marriages of convenience for stronger bloodlines were still common.
“But she was too pure. She believed the noble’s honeyed words. She had such an innocent heart, she couldn’t even imagine someone lying to her.”
The painting shifted again—showing Esmeralda in a state of hope, dreaming of a better future. The villagers, worried but uncertain, could only watch.
If she were to be joined with someone, it should be a moment of celebration.
But if that someone didn’t truly love her... then even if it meant earning her resentment, someone had to stop it.
They had all been helped by her.
Her warmth, her purity—she had saved them.
They couldn’t let her be dragged off by some vile noble, forced to live in misery forever.
“But no one dared to act. Or rather... no one had the courage to.”
“Well. That’s the kind of place the old Durmang Kingdom was.”
Ludger nodded, understanding.
While the current society still had classes, it was nothing compared to how bad things had been.
Durmang had been the pinnacle of such a rotten system.
A word from his previous life came to Ludger’s mind.
‘Ancien Régime.’
The old regime. A society rotted from centuries of feudal hierarchy.
Durmang was the perfect example of it.
Nobles and royals at war with each other, the lower classes suffering in between. People starving, rising up in revolt—only to be crushed.
To defy a noble was practically treason.
If one person stepped out of line, their entire family could be slaughtered. In extreme cases, even the nearby villagers could be hanged.
“So what, they just let her go?”
Was that it? Had they abandoned her? Was she cursed with resentment and burned the town down?
But Pierre didn’t answer.
The painted world was moving toward its inevitable conclusion—there was no need for him to speak the tragedy aloud.
“You’ll see for yourself.”
Pierre stood still, as though weighed down by grief.
The painting shifted again—to the day the noble came to take Esmeralda away.
The once-beautiful Roteng now seemed somber and heavy. The gentle light it always gave off at night had vanished, replaced by a foreboding gloom.
Even the air felt cold on the skin—not imagination, but something real.
The noble had returned as promised, leading his house’s soldiers.
—“Come, Esmeralda. Come with me.”
—“I...”
Their voices filtered faintly through the scene.
Even innocent Esmeralda sensed something was wrong. She hesitated, unable to answer.
But the moment had already come. She couldn’t bring herself to say no.
She reached out her hand toward the man’s...
—“No! Don’t!”
A young boy from the village stepped forward and shouted.
—“Miss! Don’t believe that bastard! Everything he says is a lie! He’s just using fancy words to trick you! His love is all fake!”
—“How dare you! Do you even know who you’re speaking to?!”
A soldier raised his spear and threatened the boy.
But the boy wasn’t alone.
—“I don’t care if he’s a noble. He’s not taking her!”
—“Get out of our village, now!”
—“Miss! You can’t go with a man like that!”
The kindly old man from the bakery, the woman who ran the general store, the farmer next door—
Every villager stood up for Esmeralda, raising their voices in protest against the noble and his soldiers.
If this had been a storybook tale, the noble might have scoffed, sworn revenge, and left in a huff.
But the world being shown through this painting magic wasn’t some hopeful parable of justice prevailing.
It was bleak. Horrific.
This was reality.
—“These lowborn worms dare defy me?”
Gone was the noble’s charming demeanor from when he whispered sweet nothings to Esmeralda. His face now twisted like a demon’s.
He raised his hand, and the soldiers lined up behind him moved without hesitation.
—“These people have insulted a noble. That’s an act of rebellion against the kingdom! Kill them all!”
The soldiers followed the order as if they’d done this before.
Thus began the massacre of Roteng.
The villagers didn’t go down without resistance—but the difference in strength was far too great.
Their opponents were elite soldiers from a prestigious noble house. Among them were knights and even mages.
The villagers? At best, a few retired mercenaries and wandering adventurers.
They never stood a chance.
A spear pierced someone’s side. Screams rang out as they collapsed.
Red paint spread across the canvas.
The torches thrown by the soldiers set homes ablaze.
Yellows and oranges exploded outward like firecrackers.
Sparks scattered, and those trapped inside burned to death.
Black paint splattered across the ground.
Hell descended upon the mortal realm.
“This... no way, this is...”
“Yes. You’re right.”
Pierre nodded, as if he knew exactly what Ludger was about to say.
“This is the truth of the Great Fire of Roteng. The truth the world never knew.”
It hadn’t been a natural disaster.
It had been a man-made catastrophe. And the Durmang Kingdom had hidden that filthy truth ever since.
—“Please stop! I beg you! The villagers did nothing wrong. I’ll go with you, just—please...”
In the center of the massacre, Esmeralda wept.
She pleaded with the noble to stop. She said she would go with him—just stop the killing, stop the meaningless slaughter.
But the man who once whispered love replied in a cold, heartless voice.
—“Foolish girl. It’s already too late. Watch closely with those eyes of yours—this is what happens to those who defy a noble.”
The man who had once spoken tender words was gone. All that remained was a monster, bloated with vile desire.
Ah... so that’s what he really was.
Esmeralda collapsed to her knees. Her vacant eyes took in the dying forms of her friends and neighbors.
—“No...”
A house collapsed in flames. Lives flickered out like candles, the sparks dissolving into nothing.
Each spark was a life. Each cry was someone’s last breath.
—“No...”
Tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks as she bowed her head low.
The noble clicked his tongue as he looked down at her.
—“Broken already? No, maybe this is better. Easier to control like a doll than one that talks back.”
He no longer bothered to hide his true nature.
—“Ugh, the stench of burning trash is giving me a headache. I’ll go on ahead. Make sure you don’t let a single rat escape.”
—“Yes, sir.”
—“Leave the woman. Bring her to me once this is over.”
—“Understood.”
The noble turned his back on the burning village and left with his personal guards.
There was no guilt on his face. No remorse for what he had done.
—“Looks like it’s almost over.”
—“Yeah. The ones who tried to run were killed by the squad waiting outside.”
—“Tch. Why resist a noble and bring this on themselves? Let’s just grab the girl. She’s going to be the young master’s concubine anyway.”
The soldiers who remained moved toward Esmeralda, reaching out their hands as ordered.
But at that moment, flames began to rise around her.
Like ghostly lanterns, balls of fire appeared one by one, circling Esmeralda protectively.
—“Wh-What the hell is this?!”
—“Are those... spirits?”
Judging them as weak, low-level spirits, the soldiers swung their spears to disperse them.
That mistake cost them their lives.
The fire climbed up the spear shafts and wrapped around the soldiers. One tried to scream—but even his cry was consumed by the flames.
In an instant, two soldiers were reduced to ash.
The fire spirits fed on their corpses, growing larger.
What they became was no longer something that could be called a “spirit.”
The flames resonated with Esmeralda’s despair. From every burning corner of the village, more fires rose up.
They fed on the deep red paint pooling on the ground—paint that was blood.
Ludger could do nothing but watch.
Was it the grudge of the dead?
The black and red paints soaking the ground were absorbed by the fire, which began to converge around Esmeralda.
—“Wh-What the hell is this?! What did you do, you bitch?! Answer me!”
The soldiers were paralyzed by a fear they couldn’t name.
Esmeralda slowly raised her head.
Her empty, hollow eyes looked past the soldiers—toward the place where the noble had vanished.
—“I curse you.”
The words that slipped from her lips were soaked in dread and hatred.
And then, from the flames gathered behind her, something was born.
A giant figure of blazing fire rose up.
Its body grotesque and hunched, its face a churning mass of molten fury—twisted in pure rage.
Ludger remembered that spirit.
The one that had attacked the banquet hall back then.
—“I hate everything about you.”
The soldiers panicked, raising their spears.
Watching their confusion, Esmeralda pressed her hands together and whispered like a prayer.
—“So please... <Quasimodo>.”
The resentful spirits of the dead. The tiny elemental sprites. Esmeralda’s despair and hatred—all tangled together to form one being.
A god of fire born of vengeance.
—“Burn it all.”
Quasimodo opened its mouth wide and unleashed a torrent of flame.
A new life born from death now brought death once more.
