"AAARGH...!!"
Climbing onto the windowsill, I threw myself down after Yang Myeong-hyun.
He had gone out the window without hesitation, so I hadn't even had time to be afraid.
But no matter how long I fell, my feet didn't touch the ground. This was maddening!
'Isn't this taking way too long?! How far down does this thing go?!'
I was the kind of person who couldn't enjoy this sort of thrill at all.
I'd never once ridden an amusement park ride, so I hadn't known.
'At this point, forget amusement rides, this is dropping out of the sky. My body's going to be driven into the ground and I'll die!'
But just then.
My feet suddenly touched an invisible floor.
"AAH!! ...?!"
Trembling with the terror of death, I squeezed my eyes shut.
But fortunately, my body, which had been plummeting at a terrifying speed, came to a comfortable stop the moment my feet met the ground.
For someone with his eyes screwed shut, it was a fairly graceful landing.
Yang Myeong-hyun, who had set foot on the ground before me, blinked and marveled.
"Brother Ji-san, your voice is a resounding one. My ears nearly burst."
"Isn't it stranger that you fell all that way without making a single sound? No, seriously, how is a second story this high?"
Feeling sheepish, I looked up at The Bedroom in Arles we'd escaped from.
Detestably, the bedroom's height was exactly that of a second story.
To go out of its way to design fear that the quest didn't need. This Tower really was vicious.
"Letter delivery~"
It was the voice of the postal carrier who had taken the letter outside the bedroom door earlier.
When I turned my head forward again, the postal carrier was holding out a letter toward Yang Myeong-hyun and me.
"Mr. Vincent Willem van Gogh. That's right, isn't it?"
"......."
The postal carrier delivering the letter with a bright smile.
We'd written the letter pretending to be van Gogh, so we'd have to be van Gogh to the end.
Yang Myeong-hyun and I glanced at each other, then took the letter.
"Yes, that's right."
"It is a letter from 1801. What a fine moonlit night. Well then, I'll be off~!"
The postal carrier waved cheerfully and vanished far off between the buildings.
Vincent van Gogh's name was written on the envelope.
When we tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter—
=================
[Floor 10 Exhibition: Silent Light]
-To my dear van Gogh
I hope my moonlight has brightly lit up your starry night.
The yellow wheat field road will be silent, but my moonlight will guide you and walk with you.
-Ludwig Beethoven
=================
[Visitor Kim Ji-san]
[Visitor Yang Myeong-hyun]
[Floor 10 Quest.]
[Success.]
"We did it!"
A small leaflet announcing our success rose above the letter.
Once again we'd barely avoided failure and would be going up to the floor above.
The instant the leaflet appeared, Yang Myeong-hyun bent at the waist and bowed to me politely.
"Thank you for bringing the quest to success. Brother Ji-san."
"I didn't do it alone."
The formal bow was too much for me, so I hurriedly straightened him up.
The two of us had led this quest to success together.
In fact, thanks to what Yang Myeong-hyun had said earlier, I'd learned something myself.
'I believe the purpose of this quest lies in the visitor standing in van Gogh's place and fathoming his state of mind.'
If not for Yang Myeong-hyun, I'd have used van Gogh again through Soul Rental.
Granted, it was a Perk for using people to begin with.
Still, thanks to him I held back, and in the end I was able to help van Gogh at least a little.
"It is as good as Brother Ji-san having done it alone. I could not come up with a single idea and only harbored doubts."
'Not that he's wrong. His self-assessment is past cold and into cruel. He could stand to be drunk on success right now.'
With a troubled expression, Yang Myeong-hyun lowered his eyes and let out a deep sigh.
"I am a lacking..., human being."
"Why beat yourself up that badly? Either way, it's a good thing we succeeded together."
Because of Yang Myeong-hyun's excessive self-reproach, I ended up in the position of having to console him.
He'd been so laid-back and composed all this time; I had no idea why he was so stingy in judging himself.
"Let's work hard on the floor above too."
"Will you keep the alliance going?"
"Of course."
When I lifted the corner of my mouth reassuringly, Yang Myeong-hyun cleared the darkness that had settled over his face as well.
Fwish-
=================
[Supplementary Perk: Soul Rental]
[Ludwig van Beethoven]
Soul acquired!
=================
'Beethoven's soul this time.'
A supplementary Perk leaflet that Yang Myeong-hyun couldn't see had risen up.
That made two artists' souls in my possession.
Now, even if I used the Soul Rental Perk, one soul would remain, which was at least a relief.
"The yellow wheat field road. Over there, would that not be it?"
"...Let's go."
Yang Myeong-hyun narrowed his eyes and looked at the yellow ground far off.
We set off at once and walked toward the wheat field mentioned in Beethoven's reply.
"It was a wheat field after all."
Before long we reached a golden-yellow wheat field.
The way the village street broke off abruptly and the wheat field spread out beyond it was quite contrived.
But the blue night and the shining moon remained the same.
CAW CAW.
As we walked in along the dirt road, crows that had been pecking at the grain burst out here and there.
The flapping of black crows' wings. Their noisy cries.
This was the road up to the floor above after a successful quest, yet the atmosphere couldn't have been bleaker.
"This scenery.... It is 'Wheatfield with Crows.' We are walking into the last work van Gogh painted before he died."
"Hm. I've heard there's a view that this isn't the last painting van Gogh made."
The landscape of 'Wheatfield with Crows,' which symbolizes van Gogh's end.
It might not actually be the last work of his lifetime, but—
"Still, it does seem the museum is parting us from van Gogh on Floor 10."
BANG—!
"......."
The instant I finished speaking, the sound of a gunshot rang out from within the wheat field.
Crows took flight around where the shot had come from.
The crows filled the sky black, then scattered each in its own direction.
Vincent van Gogh had taken his own life with a gun. He was a virtual figure the Tower had made, but it was bitter all the same.
"Regardless of Brother Ji-san's efforts, van Gogh's ending is the same in the end. Given the Tower's structure, it must be an unavoidable staging."
"...I suppose so."
Like the ones I'd seen on other floors, he would come back to life, take his own life again, and then live again.
I could only hope he was data formed together with the Tower from the start, rather than a component made from a visitor. Like with the Skeleton Yokai.
"Then it is fortunate that we could give van Gogh even a little joy, at least this once. Even if it is fiction."
I nodded without a word in agreement.
And I imagined too: if I'd chosen the road of living in the Floor 10 world, would van Gogh not have died?
'I can't give up my wish for a fictional van Gogh. Still, I'd wanted him to live.'
"Brother Ji-san, stop."
Yang Myeong-hyun stroked the endlessly spreading sky with his hand.
No, not empty air; it was a wall with van Gogh's sky painted on it as a mural.
If not for Yang Myeong-hyun, I'd have smacked my forehead straight into the wall.
'The mural is moving.'
The cloud mural scattered to either side, and a black tunnel formed inside the flat wall.
At the end of the tunnel, stairs leading upward were visible.
"Let's go."
I widened my stride and advanced faster than before.
Thanks to the light of the moon and stars, my field of vision wasn't completely dark after all.
'The feel against my feet...?'
At some point the muddy dirt road had changed to a soft, dry texture.
It wasn't the feel of any ground you could find in nature. ...It was fur.
We passed all the way through the tunnel and climbed the stairs.
Tense about what Floor 11 would be like, I found my mouth clamping shut.
"!"
When we finished climbing the stairs, a bright light lit up our surroundings.
The light stabbed my eyes so suddenly that I furrowed my brow.
Gradually my eyes adjusted to the light, and I could see my surroundings in detail.
'A performance hall?'
Red carpet and audience seating. And a golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Wherever I looked, there wasn't a part of it that wasn't lavish.
"Brother Ji-san. The door we came in through has vanished."
"A performance hall with no entrance. It's telling us to sit, I suppose."
I shrugged and sat in the center of the first row.
Yang Myeong-hyun took a seat after me without a word of complaint. Well, there was nothing else for it.
~~~
"?! Brother Ji-san, what song is this?"
"...I don't know either."
Unlike the piano pieces we'd heard on Floor 10, this was a majestic orchestral performance.
Instrument sounds I guessed were a violin and a flute struck the ear hard, then quickly shifted back into a slow melody.
'Is this a song everyone knows and my knowledge is just lacking? Or is it a relatively less popular one?'
SWISH.
The red stage curtain opened, and the performance began in earnest.
Backdrop staging pieces that looked to be made of plywood stood at either end of the stage.
And then dancers came up onto the stage, dancing gracefully.
'Those look like ancient Greek and Roman costumes. A musical? An opera?'
Crowns made of leaves.
Garments that seemed to be long cloth wrapped around the body.
Armor and helmets as well.
It was the ancient Greek and Roman dress we all commonly know.
'I wondered what kind of performance it was, and this time it's ballet!'
One by one the dancing performers leapt up lightly.
They struck their feet together in midair as they jumped, and lifted one leg to spin like tops.
'This is my first time seeing a ballet.'
For me, who had never encountered any performance apart from school shows, it was a tremendous shock.
Mouth hanging open, I took in the dancers' ballet.
Dancers dancing lightly in time with the beautiful music.
They even rose onto their toes and spun around while holding torches with real fire lit on them.
'Staying up on those toes the whole time is amazing....'
...?
The pointe shoes of the ballerinas standing on their curled toes were not ordinary.
The same went for the feet of the ballerinos, who wore no pointe shoes.
We were in the first row, close to the stage; why hadn't I seen it sooner?
'Maybe it was hidden on purpose so we'd catch on late.'
"...Brother Ji-san."
"I saw it too."
Goosebumps rose and I shuddered without meaning to.
Every time the dancers swept across the stage in their dance, red blood was painted onto the floor.
The dancers' feet, and the floor, were covered in blood.
Startled, I got up and ran toward the stage.
Looking up from close by, the dancers' faces were a wreck too.
Their makeup must have been applied long ago; the colors had all smeared, and their lips were blistered.
"S-stop, stop it!"
Even though I shouted loudly, the dancers didn't so much as pretend to hear and kept on dancing.
The corners of their mouths were pulled up unnaturally. Their eyes barely blinked, held open in a grotesque stare.
Dancers wearing unnatural smiles, as if they had masks on.
'They're definitely being forced to dance.'
"Brother Ji-san, what do we do? They will not listen to us."
"We'll have to block them with our bodies!"
The only thing that could stop them now was physical force.
I leapt up onto the stage without hesitation.
Then I stood among the dancers and obstructed their paths, hoping that at least this might make them stop dancing.
[Oh dear. That will not do.]
"?!!"
Just then a squishy hand appeared out of nowhere and pulled at my wrist.
Led by that hand, I fell right off the stage.
"Ugh...."
"Brother Ji-san, are you all right?"
Yang Myeong-hyun supported me and helped me up.
I groaned and screwed up my whole face.
The revulsion was greater than the pain of slamming into the floor.
"Curator...!"
The feeling of touching the human hand attached to the Curator's shoulder..., it was truly the worst.
Since it was being used as a component, the hand probably wasn't rotting.
The Curator had appeared out of nowhere and set me down off the stage.
Then it shrugged its shoulders again in that infuriating way of its.
[Visitor Kim Ji-san.]
[This is troublesome. Interfering with the performance.]
"Dancers drenched in blood, and that's a performance?"
At my question, the Curator's robe rippled.
It had no mouth to make an expression with, but it was probably sneering inwardly.
[Of course.]
[A very. A very beautiful performance.]