Chapter 469

That wasn’t something he was saying based on looking at my drawings.

I had a feeling. Leo must have realized it too, and now Ulrike would probably catch on as well.

Eugène Lamour had decided I was an artist without even properly looking through my sketchbook. I knew exactly when he’d made that judgment. He’d already reached his conclusion just before I handed him the sketchbook, when he was staring straight at me.

He must have been able to get a sense of my skill just from skimming through the sketchbook, so he knew I wasn’t suitable as a student. And yet he had still said he would teach me regardless of my skill level.

Leo was still looking at me. I clicked my tongue and turned away. I could more or less guess why he was looking at me. I didn’t want to think about that part anymore.

After Eugène Lamour left, Ulrike spoke quietly.

“So I guess he didn’t choose you based on your drawings.”

“…….”

“I think you were his target from the beginning. He had some business with you, but once he saw your drawing skills, he ended up in a situation where he had no choice but to turn you down. So he changed tactics and started making weird claims about you being an artist and all that. That way, he could stay around you.”

“…Maybe.”

It was absurd hearing him say something so harsh with such a serious expression, but I wasn’t hurt because I had no particular attachment to my drawing skills. What mattered was that Ulrike might actually be right. Maybe. More importantly, though, Ulrike was partially off the mark. Eugène Lamour hadn’t been mistaken. He had said nothing but the truth…

“Think about it. How can you tell whether someone’s an artist just by looking at their face the first time you meet them? What, are their eyes supposed to be clear? No. Maybe cloudy? People who call themselves artists are usually kind of weird anyway… Either way, Lukas is about as far from one as you can get.”

“…….”

I said nothing. I couldn’t.

I had no idea what Eugène Lamour’s definition of art was, but if we took the narrow, conventional meaning of an artist as someone who practiced one of the arts, then I fit that definition better than anyone.

But he didn’t know that I’d spent twenty-three years, by the calendar, in the entertainment industry. He didn’t know that I’d acted as the lead in well over twenty productions, even by a rough estimate. That had never happened in this world. It wasn’t something Lukas Askanien had accomplished. It was something I’d accomplished under my own name—the three syllable name that no one in this world even knew.

And yet Eugène Lamour had spoken with such certainty, as if he knew my entire history.

He was an Old Human with neither vitriol nor mana. A complete non-mage, which meant he had relied on his own insight.

‘…That makes no sense.’

How was that even possible? Abraham had also uncovered countless facts through his own innate insight, but while that had left me with nothing more than a wary sense of awe, this time, unease was slowly creeping in. The realization that Eugène Lamour had seen through me—the person inside Lukas Askanien, rather than Lukas Askanien himself—was gradually making my expression stiffen.

Maybe Ulrike was right, and Lamour had simply thrown out a random excuse to keep me around. But by sheer coincidence, Eugène Lamour had chosen the right answer. Even in a situation where a hundred teachers would have taken one look at a student with my level of skill and decided there was no way they could teach me, he had said it anyway, knowing full well how absurd his words would sound.

I needed to know what he had seen to come to that conclusion. Staring down at the pattern on the table, I muttered, “What’s so special about art? If you’re breathing and alive in this world, you’re art. Even if you die, you’re still art.”

“Hahaha! Then does that make me an artist too?!”

“I suppose it does.”

“Lukas, you’re so pessimistic.”

“Why? Anyway, he jumped to conclusions way too quickly. Leo, did you tell him I’d be here too?”

“Of course. I told him the heir of House Kleist wanted to meet him as well.”

“…….”

I nodded. Of course he would have had to tell him who would be attending.

I asked one of Leo’s attendants if he could get me some more French newspapers, then searched through every article mentioning Eugène Lamour from the past three years. His name had appeared on the front page repeatedly around the time of the Salon every year, so I didn’t even need to use a spell to find them.

Ulrike, who was helping me with the research, sucked in a breath.

“Wow, one of his paintings costs as much as a house in Paris… This guy must be richer than my entire family. He’s really popular, huh?”

No wonder the royal family wanted to see him. In a word, he was one of France’s foremost masters. I studied his paintings in the newspapers while reading the columns printed beside them. His early style had been academic, but as the years passed and he entered his more recent period, hints of Fauvism had begun to appear in his work. His change in style had earned him an enormous amount of criticism and condemnation, yet the prices of his paintings continued to soar.

The established critics had published all sorts of articles, ranging from accusations that they couldn’t understand what he was trying to convey and that there was neither grace nor depth in his methods of expression, to outright personal attacks asking whether he had developed dementia at such a young age. In contrast, the emerging critics and the public overwhelmingly praised him for opening a new era in art.

He really was an honorary member of foreign academies, and back when he still painted in the academic style, he had even painted murals for the British royal family and been knighted for it. Just as I expected. Yes, when you put it that way, he wasn’t exactly a commoner. He had earned a title for himself.

Ulrike picked up the painting I had been looking at and spread it out before him, then let out an admiring gasp.

“Somehow… it really is impressive. I kind of want to hang one in my living room, too.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“He got a lot of invitations from America, too. But apparently he hasn’t been to America since the year before last.”

“Did he start accepting invitations only from Britain and Germany after that?”

“Looks like it.”

Ulrike was looking through the newspapers when he set them down on the table with a thud. He looked between Leo and me before asking, “This guy must already have more money than he could spend in a lifetime, so why is he getting involved in shady business? And his reputation is already incredible. You don’t think he’s really plotting something with the French Imperial Family, do you?”

“Hmm. He has an enormous fortune and plenty of prestige, so why would he need to join forces with the French Imperial Family? He already has pretty much everything.”

“Well, that’s…”

Ulrike looked serious, apparently unable to come up with a good reason. He started digging through the articles on the table again, then suddenly went pale and pressed a hand to his temple. As if he had just figured everything out, he clapped his hands.

“Look at this!”

[Eugène Lamour’s Work This Year Is the Scribblings of a Patient with Advanced Dementia]

[Vernell Guéret]

—The Fall of France’s Leading Academic Painter

To put it bluntly, Eugène Lamour, France’s beloved national painter, is finished.

He has completely forgotten the academic style! The work Eugène Lamour submitted to this year’s Salon is nothing more than garbage scribbled for the sake of visual novelty without emotion or meaning, a forced attempt to claim the position of pioneer of a new artistic movement—in other words, something that can hardly be called art at all. At this point, it would be better to have a dying old man draw on a napkin and submit it to the Salon. If he still wishes to live as a painter, he should either return to being a student at an elementary art school, seek treatment for dementia, or do everything he can to return to his former glory. And there is one thing he must be careful about. He must not go so far back into the past that he exhibits the kind of scribbles even a kindergarten child could draw and calls them works of art!

“This is the problem. Don’t you think he’s trying to bury these critics?! Lukas, wouldn’t you want to get rid of these critics at least once if you were him?”

“Hmm.”

What are you suddenly talking about? I was too dumbfounded to do anything but chuckle and press a hand to my mouth. But then the thought struck me that I had heard words like these somewhere before, and my smile quickly disappeared. I shook my head.

“Even with the Imperial Family backing you, something like that would be impossible. If they crossed the line, all he’d have to do was quietly sue them.”

“No, then they’d write an article saying he was petty for suing them. How can anyone say something that vicious about another person? If someone said that to me, I’d be furious.”

“Of course, it was rude—”

“That’s why, while the Imperial Family was looking for a card they could use, they might have offered to bury those people and shut them up. In exchange, they asked him to fulfill Terminus Eukairia’s demands. That’s why he came looking for you!”

“You’re the one getting angry on his behalf.”

I was reminded once again of how strong Ulrike’s empathy was. It was an enviable ability.

I didn’t want to think about this any further, either. It felt as though I had returned to the 21st century of my own world instead of the 19th century of this one. I had to deliberately push the thoughts forming in my head into a blur. Aware of Leo watching me, I tried to reason with Ulrike in the most casual tone I could manage.

“Spouting such blatant insults without an ounce of shame only shows how simplistic and narrow-minded they are. If someone so incapable of restraining their own vulgarity is bound by the academic style, doesn’t that, in itself, weaken the argument that the academic style deserves to survive as the mainstream style, Luise? So I’m sure Sir Eugène Lamour knows how worthless that kind of criticism is.”

“…Yeah, I suppose so. But I see it differently.”

Ulrike firmly disagreed.

“Lukas. No matter how narrow-minded critic Vernell Guéret is, the people reading his articles aren’t going to think on that level. If someone says something like this, they’ll take it as fact, and if someone says something else, they’ll believe that too. Why do you think newspaper headlines keep getting more and more vicious? Because papers that drive someone to the edge sell better! They’ll think Eugène Lamour deserves to be accused of dementia because he was the one who started painting so crudely, and once someone believes their own insults are justified criticism, there will always be someone who takes it a step further. Sir Eugène Lamour must have received countless mocking letters with clippings of that article after it was published.”

“…….”

“He must have been furious. If it were me, I’d be desperately looking for a way to punish those people. I don’t think I’d actually be able to go through with it, but Sir Eugène Lamour…”

“How do you know Sir Lamour was angry?”

“Huh?”

I waved a hand. Then, gesturing toward the newspaper and the empty air, I went through his reasoning point by point.

“All right, Luise. I understand what you’re thinking. It does seem like Sir Lamour is after me, and it’s certainly suspicious that a French master painter the French Imperial Family would have their eye on is approaching the British and German royal families. But if you think about it, someone as wealthy as him would have to be working with a major institution, like a royal family or a major corporation, if he wanted to gain something from it. And as it happens, Sir Lamour has a reason to join hands with an institution like that—and that reason would be articles like this.”

“Exactly. You think there are only one or two articles like this? There must have been tons of them since his style changed. If you were him, could you really just sit there and take it?”

Leo shook his head and replied with an uneasy expression.

“I agree that there’s something strange about what Sir Lamour says, but I’m not entirely convinced he joined forces with Terminus Eukairia just to silence people who write things like that, Luise.”

“Why not? It might not seem like a big deal to outsiders like us, but this isn’t something he can just brush off as bad luck. I’m telling you, you’d see things differently if you experienced it yourself.”

As I swallowed, I could feel Leo looking at me as though I’d done something. I lightly patted Ulrike on the shoulder and immediately stood up.

“There are all kinds of people in the world, so it’s not impossible. But let’s think about it a little more. What he said about me being an artist might not have had any particular intention behind it.”

“Hmm…”

“Besides, we have another lesson tomorrow morning. If there’s anything strange about him, we’ll probably notice it soon enough.”

That night, I extracted divine power meant to be supplied to the Bavarian government and hospitals—for protection against Atropos—and delivered it to them. The next morning, we gathered in the banquet hall again. If it were a banquet hall, it ought to be used for banquets, so seeing an easel standing there in plain sight made my heart feel rather heavy.

“All right~ Let’s do some more painting today~”

Ulrike had already brightened up again after just one night. He rubbed his hands together and grinned before carefully gathering his energy into the pencil. He tried drawing an animal’s head, then let out a sigh.

“My hand isn’t warmed up yet. Now that I actually have to learn how to paint, I kind of want to round up the others and play rugby.”

“…….”

Leo stared at him with an utterly dumbfounded look.

About thirty minutes later, Eugène Lamour entered the room. He bowed to us in greeting, then skipped all small talk and went straight to the point.

“It is an honor once again. Let us hear what kind of paintings His Highness the Crown Prince and Lord Kleist would like to paint. But before that…”

Eugène Lamour took a stack of papers from his bag and set it down with a noticeable thud on the side table beside my easel. A pair of scissors and a tube of glue followed from his bag. I narrowed my eyes at the stack of papers and cautiously asked, “…Are these photographs?”

“Yes. Most of them are photographs from newspaper articles, but there are also advertising illustrations and department store catalogs.”

“And?”

“Cut them out and paste them onto the canvas.”

I stared blankly at the stack of photographs and the scissors, my mouth slowly falling open. Was this guy seriously telling me to make a collage? As far as I knew, collages didn’t even exist in this world yet. Was he really trying to get ahead of his time by this much?

Eugène Lamour shrugged at my expression.

“Do you truly want to learn how to paint and draw? The techniques of painting?”

“…….”

“There must be scenes you want to express in your mind, yes? If you can’t do it through painting, express them another way. Go out and dance, perform on a stage, sing—if a person is capable of artistic thought, then whatever medium you choose is merely a means of expression. Why chain yourself to brushes and paint?”

There it was again. It was the same sort of thing he’d said when he called me an artist. He had figured out that my technical skills were absolutely terrible. I quietly replied, “That is an impressive way of putting it. I never expected to hear something like that from a painter.”

“The reason we learn to paint is to bring a world that exists nowhere outside our minds into reality before we die. If our hands cannot keep up, we cannot bring what is in our heads into existence. In that sense, a lack of skill is no different from being dead to an artist.”

“……”

His way of speaking was blunt enough that it could easily rub many people the wrong way—especially artists in his position. I’d sensed it since yesterday, so I supposed this was simply part of who he was. I nodded while staring at Eugène Lamour’s sleepy expression. Lamour spoke indifferently.

“But can you really bring the world inside your head out through painting alone? You have no interest in painting, Your Highness. Do you really need to train your hands for it? Don’t waste your time on something you don’t enjoy. Expand your artistic abilities into other fields instead.”

“I’m not interested in painting? You hit the nail on the head.”

“That was how it seemed from what I saw you practicing yesterday.”

“Hahaha. Even so, I do think this is a good opportunity.”

“I am glad to hear it. If there is something you want to express but don’t know what technique or materials to use, call for me then.”

Lamour gave the side table one firm tap, his face still as indifferent as ever despite what he had said, then walked between Leo and Ulrike’s easels. I watched him go without taking my eyes off him.

From everything I’d observed so far, he really was someone who lived firmly in his own world. And yet he was calling me an artist. I stared after him for a long while before slowly taking out the photographs I would use for my collage.

As far as I knew, the lesson was supposed to last four hours. By the time three and a half hours had passed, Leo had already finished his preliminary sketch and moved on to basic coloring. The smell of oil paint was giving me a headache.

I’d pasted all the newspaper photographs onto the modeling paste I’d applied earlier and left to harden, then roughly painted over them in red before sitting there quietly. Whenever I finished planning out one section, I’d cut up another photograph and paste it on.

I stopped Eugène Lamour as he passed by.

“I’m finished.”

“Are you? Then you can leave now. Or do another one.”

“Um… no feedback?”

“Why would I give you any?”

“…….”

I nodded and asked, “I see. May I speak with you for a moment?”

“Certainly.”

I took him outside the room for a moment and asked quietly, “Sir Lamour, what did you see yesterday that made you call me an artist? I am nowhere near skilled enough for that.”

“That was what you wanted to know? You simply looked like one, so I said you were.”

“…Is that so? That is quite a clear answer.”

Sir Lamour merely lifted the corner of his mouth, still looking exhausted, and nodded. Then he gestured toward the door. He was asking whether he could go back in, so I told him to.

‘I should bring Narke here.’

I had no idea where he’d gone. He’d said he was going to stop by Trier Cathedral, and I hadn’t seen him even until this morning.

When I went back into the room, Ulrike was standing in front of my canvas. Leo was standing there too, with Ulrike holding onto him. The two of them turned toward me at the same time, both looking utterly baffled.

Ulrike spoke to me cautiously.

“Lord Askanien.”

“Yes?”

“Uh… why… what is this? How…?”

“What?”

“Why does this look so good?! What is this?! You couldn’t even draw yesterday!”

“…….”

He really has been blunt about my lack of skill since yesterday…

I could only laugh in disbelief. Then Eugène Lamour, who had followed me back in, said matter-of-factly, “Manual dexterity and aesthetic sense are two different things.”

“Ah.”

Ulrike clapped his hands as if he’d just figured something out. I guess that’s a habit of his. As I thought that, Ulrike cast a soundproofing spell and grabbed me by the shoulder.

“Sell this to me, Lukas! I want to hang it in my room!”

“Sure. I’ll give it to you as a gift.”

“Oh, great! I’ll give you the next one I finish, too. I was actually planning to give the one I’m working on now to my mother.”

Ulrike liked giving things to his friends, and somehow it had turned into a barter exchange. I answered, thinking about it.

“Sure.”

“What should I draw for you after I finish this one?”

Nothing came to mind. From experience, when I couldn’t think of anything, there was only one answer that worked best.

“Draw me.”

“Okay! Then I’ll have to ask him to teach me how to paint portraits~”

The lesson ended there. We didn’t have much time left anyway, and everyone seemed tired enough to decide that was enough for today. We said goodbye to Eugène Lamour, agreeing to meet again tomorrow.

Once the outsiders and servants had all left the room, Leo, who had been looking at my collage, spoke quietly.

“Can you make one for me, too?”

“My memory’s a little hazy, but didn’t I put up a soundproofing spell?”

“Sarcasm, huh? I guess I was right. Luise asked for it too, didn’t he?”

I nodded. Perhaps Leo thought he hadn’t gotten an answer to his actual question, because he asked again, a little more cautiously.

“Will you make one for me?”

“If you give me the painting you’re working on now, I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll give it to you.”

He answered without hesitation. And just like that, we had somehow turned our little gathering into a barter exchange where everyone traded paintings for paintings. An idea suddenly struck me, and I blurted it out.

“Guys. How about we call our club the Painting Barter Club?”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“…….”

Leo’s bluntness sometimes left me completely speechless. I stared at him as if to ask what exactly he wanted me to do about that. Usually, if you rejected a suggestion, you were supposed to offer an improvement, but this guy was just all talk.

Ulrike, however, seemed deeply moved now that we were finally talking about the small club he had proposed in the first place. His brows furrowed completely as he shouted, “I like it!”

Before that terrible name could become official, Leo stepped in and stopped us, suggesting that we think about it a little more.

After that, I spent some time catching up on work as Nikolaus. Then, when it was time for my appointment with the basic art instructor before dinner, I went back down to the banquet hall. Now I was getting ready to practice drawing again.

“You are learning to paint from Sir Eugène Lamour?”

The basic art instructor who had been teaching me since yesterday looked displeased when he heard the name. Since we were already talking about art, I had casually mentioned how the lesson earlier had ended without any feedback. The instructor pulled down the corners of his lips and continued.

“That is how he has always been. He absolutely hates evaluating a finished work, whether it is his own or someone else’s. For a beginner, that means you never get a chance to improve. A painter’s job as a teacher is to point out what went wrong and what needs to be improved, but he doesn’t do that…”

He briefly lifted my hand from the paper as I was drawing a circle, making me loosen my grip.

“In a way, I suppose that is rather irresponsible.”

“No, well. I liked it. I suppose that’s just his personality.”

“You are being quite generous in your judgment.”

With that, he took a business card from his pocket and handed it to me.

“I can give you feedback as well. If you need more, bring your drawings to the art club I run. I teach a group of nobles and wealthy commoners, and we have sessions where we critique each other’s work.”

They even do group critiques. For paintings, not writing? They really go that far? I shook my head.

“I don’t think I am at that level yet.”

“We conduct the sessions without revealing anyone’s identity, so feel free to come.”

After dealing with someone so blunt, encountering someone this kind was a strange experience. It was almost unusual. I glanced at the clock and went back to shading the circle.

By the time the lesson ended and I returned to Leo’s room, Narke was there. The moment he saw me, Narke broke into a bright smile and led me out into the Crown Prince’s Palace garden. I quietly listened to him hum to himself as we walked around the garden, then asked him once we sat down at a table.

“Narke. Sorry, but can I ask you something? Do you think… something like that is going to happen to me?”

“Hm? I don’t get that feeling right now. Why?”

“There are people I met yesterday and today, and something about them is bothering me.”

“Shouldn’t it be fine? Because you won’t be here.”

“What are you talking about? I have a lesson tomorrow.”

“Hahaha~”

“…?”

Realizing Narke still had something he hadn’t told me, I narrowed my eyes. He rummaged through his bag as he spoke.

“Einsiedel was watching us. He really was.”

He handed me a cylindrical pen case. I took it and examined it.

“What’s this?”

“I thought you might have the last one. This one arrived for me at Trier Cathedral. So I came here right after receiving it.”

Einsiedel sent this? “The remaining one”? Did he figure that out through Insight, too?

Trier Cathedral. Narke. Of all people, Narke. A cylindrical case…

Then I remembered the conversation I hadn’t finished with Einsiedel.

‘The French spy within the Papal See.’

“Exactly.”

Narke gave me a short answer, looking straight into my eyes. He must have already figured out what Einsiedel was planning from this case alone. Just then, a white dove flew down from the sky and began circling overhead. Before I could even react, Narke reached out. The dove landed on his arm.

Narke untied the long note from the dove’s leg and handed it to me, muttering, “So I was right. This really was meant for you. We have to do this together.”

“…….”

The note was covered in a jumble of letters I couldn’t make sense of. The case and the note. The moment I saw the two together, an idea flashed through my mind. I wrapped the note around the cylindrical case and slowly turned the cylinder. Among the countless nonsensical combinations of letters, one line formed a complete word.

[SAINT MARK]

“St. Mark.”

I muttered the words to myself. What Einsiedel had sent us was a scytale cipher—a cipher that could be decoded by wrapping a strip of writing around a cylinder. The problem was that SAINT MARK was a cipher too.

Narke said excitedly, “Exactly. The Papal See’s spy is at ‘St. Mark.’ We have to track them down together.”

“Hmm…”

Fine. He’s thoroughly convinced. If it had been anyone else, I would have asked what the hell they were talking about. But if Narke was saying this, there was a good chance he was right. I unwrapped the note, slipped it into my pocket, returned the case to Narke, and asked, “So, how are we going to track him down?”