TFOA Chapter 40

Niksi's fields now boasted lush green foliage.

Despite being called a beginner farmer, the crops were each bearing sturdy fruits. Among them, the berries that had received the most love had grown so much they could be harvested as soon as next week passed.

In preparation for the upcoming harvest season, she prepared for battle against the animals that would steal her crops—squirrels, deer, raccoons, and such. Specifically, developing a tiger scented spray.

The sunflowers in her yard had also grown up to her knees. She had hoped they would surpass her height in a month, but their growth rate was somewhat disappointing.

"Hmm... should I make a plant growth stimulant?"

'Nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potassium...' As Niksi muttered to herself, her gaze fell upon the quaintly decorated village entrance.

Colorful light bulbs strung on long lines. Poles with French flags planted in them. Red, white, and blue fluttering in the sky.

The village festival Gilbert had once mentioned—alongside Bastille Day commemorating the French Revolution, the village was busy preparing for a bazaar. Since the Bastille festival was a commemorative event on a national scale, the village was scheduled to be bustling and joyful for almost the entire summer.

Moreover, this year was the first time they were holding a large-scale festival after the war ended. The village head said this festival would be held on a grander scale than the spring festival.

Niksi had seen the Bastille festival when she was in Paris. Colorful papers of all sorts scattered about, and people poured into the streets in droves to hold music festivals. Back then, she was exhausted from research and wondered what could be so enjoyable about all that.

Niksi looked at the colorfully decorated lights on the road leading to the sea and trembled with a smile.

'Of course! Festivals exist to be enjoyed, so I should enjoy them to the fullest!'

Then there was one thing she had to do first.

That was responding to the summons issued by Gilbert, the village's unofficial power holder, to the village troublemakers.

"The bazaar will be open for three days. From the village to the sea, we'll set up one stall per household along the entire road."

Gilbert sat down the village troublemaker Niksi and the person requiring attention Benjamin, kindly explaining about the festival.

The painter, who had been dragged from sleep into his own yard, yawned softly with a face still full of sleepiness.

"Now here's the question. Why am I telling you two about setting up one stall per household?"

"The answer, the answer!"

Niksi shot her hand up high. Gilbert snapped his finger toward her as if responding enthusiastically.

"You're telling us we must participate! Since you've even set up spots for us?"

"Correct."

Gilbert pointed to the crooked drawing he had made on the yard floor. He claimed it depicted himself, a farmer, and a painter, but no matter how you looked at it, they were just three bean sprouts.

'Gilbert Grace... He really can't draw.'

"You must participate, so think ahead about what you'll put out!"

"But Gil, I don't have anything suitable for a bazaar?"

She hadn't harvested her crops yet. So if she wanted to put something out, she'd have to scrape and scrape together her household belongings, but with her already nonexistent possessions—if she had to give up even those, Niksi would have to come back after selling her liver or something.

"It doesn't have to be goods or miscellaneous items."

"Then what?"

"Hmm... something you can do best? For reference, Mr. Edgar used to run an arm-wrestling stall in the past. He'd give 5 euros if you won and take 5 euros if you lost."

"Ah, that kind of thing."

Something I can do best.

Various specialties flashed through her mind. Among them, the most spectacular and impressive was, without a doubt, launching anti-aircraft missiles. It was one of her specialties, boasting a perfect hit rate.

"Ah, I'm warning you in advance—like with the green beans last time, you can't do anything that will throw the village into chaos. It absolutely has to be something harmless and ordinary."

The missiles flying around in her head suddenly fizzled out.

"What's wrong with green beans? They got such a good reaction."

"The village elders fainted, I tell you. Anyway, once you decide what to do, let me know. I need to make a sign in advance."

"Got it."

Busy village head Gilbert left just like that. When the painter, wrapped in a blanket, was about to go back into the house to catch up on his unfinished sleep, Niksi grabbed his blanket.

"Painter, what are you going to do?"

Even though she had only grabbed it with her index finger and thumb, the blanket wouldn't budge at all. What tremendous strength it was.

Not wanting his cherished blanket to tear, he had no choice but to sit back down.

"Not going."

"Didn't you just hear what the village head said? You have to participate. Mandatory attendance."

What am I supposed to go and do?

During the last spring festival, he had managed to stay safe because people were distracted by the green beans, but this time green beans were banned too, so there wouldn't be anything else to distract the villagers. Then surely the villagers would scream and throw tomatoes at him.

"What are you going to do?"

"Me?"

She had been wondering about that very thing. No green beans, no missiles. Then bombs wouldn't work either. A machine gun salute show firing 500 rounds per minute wouldn't work either.

"I don't think I have anything to sell or show!"

She had reached a shocking conclusion. The fact that Niksi had nothing to show except for things related to war!

"What should I do? Maybe parachuting and aerial landing wouldn't work? Oh! I'm good at making rings from shell casings. If I dig around the village's back mountain, wouldn't I find a pile of shell casings?"

It was a shocking fact. The genius of the century, Lady Niksi, knew absolutely nothing harmless and ordinary!

'Parachute aerial landing? A circus troupe would be better.'

Benjamin, who had been watching her fluster, yawned and muttered softly.

"...Just do a show, a show."

"So I prepared a show!"

Niksi slammed Gilbert's desk as she spoke. Gilbert was trimming fruits to freeze for the festival.

"What, what kind of show?"

"A plant breeding show."

He dropped the plum he was holding. Thinking he was hearing things strangely today, he stammered and asked again.

"Breed, breed what...?"

"Breeding."

Unfortunately, it wasn't a hallucination. What on earth was this combination of words: plants, breeding, and show?

Well, the meeting of plants and breeding wasn't that strange. It was knowledge any farmer should be familiar with. Mixing the pistils and stamens of flowers that bloom on fruit trees like grapes or peaches... skipping the middle part and tada. The method of making them bear fruit.

But a show?

A show was supposed to be something where people do interesting and exciting actions for viewers to watch. But even with a hundred concessions, there was no way what she called a 'show' could be normal.

"You didn't make moving plants, did you...? Like... mimosas or Venus flytraps engaging in frenzied repro... I mean, that kind of... reproductive activities?"

Please. Gilbert prayed earnestly to God. Creating heaven and earth was really good, but please let it be that you didn't create creatures to move so grotesquely. Please!

"No? What good would it do to watch plants exert themselves?"

Oh, Lord, thank you. Gilbert let out a sigh of relief.

"Then what?"

"I thought about what I do best."

Niksi listed out what she thought she was good at. First place was destruction. Second place was reassembling destroyed things. Third place was admiring her own great creations made that way.

"When villagers bring vegetable seedlings, I'll crossbreed them with different vegetable seedlings that other people brought. If someone brought tomato seedlings, and potatoes or onions grew from the roots, wouldn't that be fun!"

What she had come up with was crop improvement. The plants growing in the village were all sturdy and resilient. They survived in salty soil with sea breezes blowing and withstood harsh winds as well.

That meant they wouldn't die easily under most circumstances.

"Tomato with potato roots...?"

Common-sensical Gilbert couldn't understand Niksi's chaotic plant breeding show.

"At least the grandmothers won't faint watching it, right?"

"Yes! Their common sense might get destroyed a bit, but probably."

"The plants won't move around wildly?"

"Yes! Oh, I could make it look like the plants are moving."

"...How?"

"With cannabis or poppies?"

"Please spare me that."

She giggled, saying it was a joke. Anyway, she decided to open a shop at the 'Auvers Bastille Bazaar' with a 'Plant Breeding Show!'

Niksi stayed up all night and stretched long with tired eyes. She had gotten excited about genetic engineering after so long and ended up making all sorts of things.

Tissue culture samples for successful nuclear fusion, and growth stimulants to help plants become sturdy so they wouldn't die during combination. Wondering where to test these, Niksi's gaze fell on the sunflowers.

Dozens of sunflower plants growing to a modest height near the yard.

"Grow big and strong!"

She diluted the growth stimulant sample in water and sprayed it on the sunflowers. If the experiment was successful, these sunflowers would gain steel bodies that wouldn't break even if someone kicked them.

Now the festival preparations were complete. Niksi saw stalls and tents that hadn't been there yesterday lined up along the roadside.

In quiet places, even small changes feel significant. Niksi felt a tickling sensation in her heart as she imagined the atmosphere of the upcoming festival street.

"Come to think of it, I don't see the painter."

The person who should be painting in the fields during late morning and early lunch time was nowhere to be seen. Instead, where the painter usually painted, festival banners placed by villagers were set up.

Obviously. He ran away with his tail between his legs because people appeared in a spot where he needed to be alone. At this rate, wouldn't he not come out until the festival ends?

"Surely not..."

Benjamin had just finished today's work. Today he had been painting outside when he saw villagers in the distance rushing out with festival supplies and quickly fled the scene.

Under the pretense of the festival, they had spread all sorts of things on the streets, and even the area where he painted had been occupied by brilliant garlands. Now he could finish his commission in just a little while.

But he didn't have the courage to sit there calmly painting in the middle of that noisy field. He headed to the window to rest for a moment.

The village's bustling atmosphere didn't suit him. This time the festival was being held at the beach rather than the village square, unfortunately. Since his house was close to the sea, he had to be right in the middle of the festival grounds even though he had no desire to enjoy the festival.

'I won't be able to go outside for a while.'

"Yahoo! Hello, painter!"

A yellow head suddenly appeared beyond the window. He habitually drew the curtains.

"What! Wait! That painting—that's the painting I commissioned, right? Did you already finish the painting?"

Regardless, she climbed in through the window making a clattering noise. She immediately ran to the painting that was drying in a cool corner.

A landscape where Auvers' wheat fields seemed to embrace her house. It was definitely the painting she had commissioned.

"Not yet."

"This is 'not yet'? To my eyes, this is the final of finals!"

"I haven't added enough complementary colors yet."

"Comple-what?"

His painting had reached near completion at some point. Even when he was sketching, his painting speed was like a snail crawling, so she had wondered if it would ever be finished, but the paints that had accumulated quietly and calmly were now filling the canvas completely.

According to him, he hadn't added enough complementary colors or whatever, but to Niksi, who was a layperson, it was already a sufficiently beautiful painting.

"The promised day isn't far away."

"Huh?"

The painter leaned against the window frame and said casually.

"What you promised me."

'Show me Christ at Emmaus.'

'Ah.' Starting with that short exclamation, emergency air raid sirens wailed in Niksi's head.

'Ack! Come to think of it, that's right! I promised to take the painter to the Louvre Museum!'

'Someone I knew had that painting.'

'Huh? That's right.'

'You said the Louvre Museum was in your hometown...'

'Yeah.'

But that painting was a fake, and the Colonel, who had bragged about and cherished it without knowing it was fake, burned the painting after learning the truth. No fake and no idea where the real one was!

In short, worse and worse, false contract, soon to be, friendship destruction!

While Niksi's head was burning up, the painter in front of her still didn't know anything. That he was a victim of a fraudulent contract.

"...Painter, would you happen to have any thoughts about teaching painting? To me."

"...You're not planning to draw something weird and then insist it's Christ at Emmaus to me, are you?"

"Are you crazy? I'm not that rotten of a person."

She was rotten for about 3 seconds. She quickly withdrew that method and changed her mind. Niksi frowned and agonized.

'...Do I really want to learn?'

Enough to stare at paintings so intently?

Benjamin, who mistook her staring blankly into space while lost in thought for carefully observing the painting, thought for a moment and brought out a brush he had put in oil to clean.

A brush with the oil completely wrung out with a dry cloth. And he brought out a canvas the size of his palm.

Benjamin sat in front of her, who was blankly staring at the painting, and extended his hand.

"Give me your hand."

"Huh?"

"You can hold a pencil, right?"

There's no way that could be the case, but just in case, just in case his neighbor didn't know how to hold a brush, the painter gently wrapped her small hand with his own.

Over Niksi's small hand lightly gripping the brush, his large, scarred hand softly covered hers.

From a distance, one could say it was a mysterious skin contact between a man and woman with a strange tension and mysterious atmosphere flowing between them.

But that was only when viewed from afar—in reality, Niksi was thinking something completely different.

'What is he doing? Did he find out about the fraudulent contract? So he's telling me to write a body forfeiture agreement?'

"First, think about what you want to bring out."

"Uh, bring out from where?"

At her flustered question, the painter was the one who felt puzzled. After all, when you're in front of a canvas with a brush, shouldn't you bring out what you want to paint from within yourself?

"From inside your head, bring out what you want to pour out here."

'Pour out...! So he really is asking me to write an agreement!'

"...First, kidneys."

Kidneys come in two, so they'd be easier to give up than other body parts.

Hearing that, Benjamin was disgusted.

'What kind of thing is she planning to draw?'

"...Then think about how to express that."

"Express?"

"Texture, color. What the object itself is saying to you, that kind of thing."

The language of artists really wasn't easy. After thinking for a long time, she finally interpreted his words.

"Ah. What the kidneys are saying to me?"

Kidneys, you now have to vacate, so are you telling me to write your final regretful words?

Niksi took the red paint Benjamin handed her. It was a slightly sharp-feeling brown paint. He didn't particularly want to see it, but if she really, really wanted to draw kidneys... it was paint that didn't have much left, but he decided to concede it.

But Niksi, receiving it, felt as if she had received an ultimatum. Tsk. Why did it have to be such an ominously red color just for writing one agreement?

Niksi suppressed her sad tears and calmly moved the brush.

<I'm sorry.>

Thanks to the painter mistaking the agreement for a painting, her fraudulent scheme hadn't been discovered yet. He still had the expression of someone unable to understand how the sentence 'I'm sorry' written in French on the canvas could be 'kidneys.'

It was exactly the agonized expression of someone confronting incomprehensible surrealist art.

Thus, her first work somehow ended up in her shirt pocket.

Realizing that her fraud hadn't been discovered yet, Niksi excitedly filled a second canvas. This time, making it actually in the form of a painting.

The painter carefully examined her second painting, 'Eyeball.'

"How is it? Did I draw it well?"

"..."

A moderately white-tinged gray circle with a red circle in the middle. If she insisted it was modern art, it might receive a fairly decent evaluation.

"...It looks like something my younger brother drew."

"Your younger brother must have been an incredibly good artist?"

"No. He was at kindergarten level."

"What?"

The painter casually leaned it against the window frame. Thinking he'd use it later as a palette for wiping paint or tear the cloth from the wood to use for cleaning windows.

Niksi tossed away the brick-colored paint she had used up.

"You said you started painting when you were fifteen? Who did you learn from?"

"Never learned from anyone."

He briefly recalled his childhood. At first, it was coal. Small pieces used for making fires. He would collect those, grind them up fine, then pack them tightly into a small pipe and bake it. Then it would become like a long pencil, and scribbling with that on newspaper—that was his first drawing.

His weak younger brother had no choice but to stay inside the house every day, except when his body condition was decent. Moreover, the room where he and his brother lived had not a single window, so his brother always yearned for the outside.

What the weather was like today, what season it was. How the streets were changing. How people were smiling.

He started painting to show his brother the outside world. Pointing one by one to the drawings he made on black and yellowed paper.

'Theo. It snowed today. People were all walking around the streets with their noses red. But some foolish shop owner poured hot water to clear away the snow piled up in front of his store. What do you think happened? In less than an hour, the front of the store became an ice rink. Here. The sight of people flailing about every time they walked across that ice rink. Just like deflated balloons, right?'

When he told about the day's events like that, his brother would laugh brightly as if he had experienced it himself. That's how it was.

"I didn't start drawing with the thought that I had to paint from the beginning."

"I see."

Niksi looked at the numerous paintings the painter had drawn. Canvases piled carelessly on the floor. Not one of them was complete.

If he had properly completed even one, it seemed like it could be sold. The war had ended and such a peaceful era had arrived, hadn't it?

People like her raked in money during wartime, but art always flourished when times were leisurely and livable. Entertainment was always a kind of privilege that those who had could enjoy.

"Then you must have had something you wanted to do with painting. Like becoming a master recognized by the world. Or exhibiting paintings in museums. Didn't you have anything like that?"

"I did."

"What was it?"

The painter sat by the window. Then he rested his chin on his hand and wiggled his toes.

"I wanted to buy paintings by famous painters. Like Van Gogh or Gauguin."

"Oh... paintings by such people wouldn't be cheap."

"I know. The money from selling my paintings wouldn't even come close."

"Uh... I didn't mean it that way."

She had unintentionally stabbed the painter with a dagger. Niksi broke out in a cold sweat and apologized. He seemed to have no particular thoughts about it.

"Not buying completed paintings, but buying incompletely finished paintings. Like scribbles scrawled on napkins. Or things where they drew just one line and forgot about."

Why would you buy such things? Niksi, who wasn't familiar with the profound world of art, blinked.

"And then?"

"And then I'd erase the whole painting."

"Uh... and then?"

"I'd draw something new on top. The painting that artist couldn't complete."

"Oh... and then?"

"I'd sell it under that artist's name."

It was a quite shameless statement to sell under Van Gogh's name (1% content).

"That's fraud."

"However the process goes, the root of that painting is a famous artist's painting."

It wasn't entirely wrong. It was just that too many middle processes had been skipped, making it confusing where to start raising objections.

"Well, fine... You'd make a lot of money if you sold that."

She had heard that artists had very strong pride about their work. But to think of taking someone else's work, painting over it, and selling it under someone else's name—what a radical idea.

Maybe he didn't have affection for painting as much as she thought. Niksi wondered.

"Then what were you planning to do after working so hard to earn that money, thief? Alcohol? Paint? Or Christ at Emmaus?"

"No."

Benjamin clenched and unclenched his hands. They were hands full of scars.

"I wanted to buy medicine."