Chapter 19, Boss Battle: The Ghost Painter
Tsukino and Chiya said, "It's here."
As soon as the words were spoken, a figure leaped over the second-floor window and landed steadily on the bedroom floor.
"Ugh, so ugly."
Although Wang Ma Xiaoji had seen what the strange creature looked like before when he accompanied it on a walk, this was the first time he had been in the same room with it at such close range, and he didn't hold back in complaining.
"Why did it have to break a window to make its appearance? Since the window was closed when we arrived, it means Yukimura Mio didn't open it before, right? But it still managed to get into the bedroom and kill her... Why does it have to go through the window now? Is it some kind of weird ritual? And..."
Wang Ma Xiaoji rested a finger on his chin and tilted his head innocently: "Now that it has shown such strength, how come it couldn't even catch up with us before?"
Although it's undeniable that this guy was responsible for the car's bizarre sudden stall.
"As for why the window was broken... who knows? I'm not really sure either."
Tsukino and Chiya said they didn't understand this either, maybe the supernatural has its own rhythm.
"It couldn't catch up before because it didn't have the corresponding speed, but now it can appear immediately as soon as you finish speaking, which means that this is a special ability of this strange creature."
Even while sharing a room with a hideous and bizarre creature, Tsukino and Chiya remained calm and explained, "—In other words, it has the ability to instantly appear next to the person who writes a manga that belittles it. In that sense, this matches the ghost story circulating online."
Wang Ma Xiaoji had naturally already realized this. However, since he had asked, Tsukino and Chiya, who knew the other party actually knew the answer, simply replied, since talking wasn't a difficult or troublesome thing.
At this moment, Tsukiyo and Chiyo, who seemed a little too relaxed, stood on the same side as Ohma Kokichi, while the strange creature that had just broken in through the window was located on the other side of the bedroom.
Unlike Ohma Kokichi, who was standing in a corner, Tsukino and Chiya happened to meet the gaze of the ghost painter who slowly turned around after landing... Hmm? That seems a bit ambiguous. Anyway, Chiya met the gaze of the pair of eyes on the strange face that looked the most regular and were in the exact position of "human features".
While Tsukino, Chiya, and Ohma Kokichi were talking, the Ghost Painter began to move and gradually approached.
Snap, snap snap snap—
As the ghost painter moved, bright red liquid dripped continuously from its large sleeves that completely covered its arms and hands. However, what actually fell to the ground were not random, irregular splatter patterns, but rather one scarlet handprint after another.
Every mouth on the ghost painter's face was constantly opening and closing, incessantly murmuring different things.
"Praise me..."
"I cannot forgive, I cannot forgive."
"Why doesn't anyone praise me?"
"Praise me, praise me, praise me."
"I...I..."
The same sounds, but different content, were mixed together, to the point of causing mental pollution, making people feel dizzy and unable to tell what each mouth was saying.
But soon, what they said gradually became unified, and finally, they opened and closed in unison, with countless identical voices overlapping to form the following question:
"--who I am?"
Wangma Xiaoji said with a smile, "Saiyama Eiichiro. You are Saiyama Eiichiro."
Ghost Painter: "..."
Ghost Painter: "Saiyama...Eiichiro..."
The strange figure, which had begun to become violent, fell silent after receiving this answer. Although Tsukino and Chiya still didn't understand why a strange figure formerly known as Eiichiro Saiyama would appear when Saiyama himself should still be alive... in any case, it seemed that the question had been answered correctly.
"My paintings...my comics..."
After successfully finding his name, the ghost painter stood quietly for a few seconds before clearly becoming dissatisfied again.
It moved closer, and the face that had been blurry due to the distance became clearer as it drew nearer.
"Why……?"
Snap, snap snap snap—
The trail of bloody handprints on the floor represents the path the strange creature has already traversed.
"Why...why doesn't anyone praise my comics?!"
In a situation like this, if they gave an honest answer like "because it's ugly," they would surely suffer a terrible fate.
With the ghost painter's accusatory roar, a strange left hand suddenly emerged from the long sleeve of his clothes. But rather than a hand... what was connected to the left arm was indeed a palm, but the palm was covered with long, dense hairs, like the bristles at the end of a paintbrush.
Its entire arm was covered in various pigments, a mixture of colors, and at the very tip was a red liquid that was still dripping down, continuing to spill onto the ground, forming large and small, unscientific red handprints.
Tsukino and Chiya swiftly dodged the "hand" that was rushing straight toward their faces, and as it got closer, they quickly extended their right hands, which were holding the sketching pen that had been picked up, and plunged the pen tip hard into the ghost painter's arm.
The ghost painter winced and withdrew his "hand," seemingly hesitant to attack for a moment.
While it hesitated, Tsukino and Chiya showed the strange the comic book they had been holding in their left hands, and randomly flipped to a page with one hand: "How can I praise you if I can't see the pictures?"
Ghost Painter: "..."
The strange creature fell silent again, seemingly accepting the statement, or perhaps pondering with its not-so-bright mind whether it was true or not.
"Then we need to... redraw... redraw..."
But soon, the strange entity, having reached a new conclusion, resumed its activities.
"Drawing... requires a model..."
"Who is my model?"
"Where is my model?"
The ghost painter got even closer.
Tsukino and Chiya had shared a room with this strange creature before and had witnessed its appearance, but this was the first time he had ever been so close to it.
As they got closer, Tsukino and Chiya were finally able to see the entire strange sight before them with perfect clarity.
Pigment suddenly began to flow continuously from the eyes that covered the strange face, some facing forward, some sideways, and some backward. Because many of the eyes were oriented in a completely illogical way, the flowing pigment quickly covered almost the entire face.
Its mouths opened and closed incessantly, telling a story. Some of the paint flowed into its mouths, was swallowed without a care, and then continued to open and close, telling its obsession.
Behind Tsukino and Chiya were walls and objects placed against them. At such close range with the Oni Painter, he had almost nowhere left to retreat.
But he doesn't need to back down.
Tsukino and Chiya clearly heard the ghost painter ask intermittently, "This time... the model..."
"—Is that you?"
...This distance is just right.
The moment they reached this conclusion, Tsukino and Chiya moved.
Faced with this overwhelming malice that could engulf a person, Tsukino and Chiya, who had already put their pens back in their pockets, reached behind them and precisely grasped one of the long spears that were placed behind them and leaning against the wall.
...
…………
"...Why...me?..."
The ghost artist made that sound in a daze, seemingly not yet understanding what was happening.
"Heave-ho—alright, alright, look here, look here! Lighting technician, please move the lights over here!"
Wang Ma Xiaoji, who had been waiting on the side, slightly moved the full-length mirror next to him.
Drawn by the sound, I subconsciously looked over and finally saw my reflection in the mirror.
If there's any part of the monstrous body that still belongs to "humanity," it's undoubtedly its torso. But now, its torso has been pierced through by Tsukino and Chiya with incredible speed and precision using several spears.
For a human, this would undoubtedly be a fatal wound. Although the part pierced mercilessly by the spear belongs to the "human" torso, the bizarre is still the bizarre. Therefore, even after suffering such an injury, it can still move.
He looked strangely at himself in the mirror.
“Yes…this is…the one I’ve seen before…”
It stretched out its right arm, and its right hand, now replaced by a paintbrush, gently touched the surface of the mirror.
"The most perfect copycat murder..."
"With this...I'll be able to draw it..."
"They all...praise me..."
All the mouths on the grotesque face simultaneously opened into a wide grin.
The next second, the strange creature with a satisfied smile turned into smoke in the bedroom and vanished into the air in the blink of an eye.
As the strange phenomenon disappeared, the red handprints that had appeared on the floor also vanished. Tsukino and Chiya went to the window and found that the shards of glass scattered all over the floor were gone, replaced by a window that was as good as new.
That's good. It seems that Miss Yukimura won't need to replace the windows after returning from the hospital.
A soft "click" was heard, and the previously dim bedroom suddenly came to life. Tsukino and Chiya turned around and saw Ohma Kokichi standing by the light switch—he was obviously the one who had turned on the light.
Before the strange occurrence, when the two of them were preparing to deal with it, the feeling of impending death emanating from the mark disappeared at this moment.
It seems they can see the sun tomorrow... no, this morning.
In fact, Wang Ma Xiaoji's help was indispensable in resolving this matter smoothly.
At that time, while they were still in the study that had been turned into a torture chamber, Ouma Kokichi saw the strange thing—that is, Eiichiro Saiyama's memories—after flipping through the blood-stained comic book.
Eiichiro Saiyama appears to be an ordinary manga artist who seeks praise from others, but in reality, he is also a serial killer.
Although he is a cartoonist, his drawing skills are actually not that great. However, his drawings have one special feature: he can draw corpses with remarkable realism. This is because he actually killed people in real life based on the plot of his comics, and then used real corpses as models to draw them.
One day, a man who appeared to be a fan of Eiichiro Saiyama broke into his house.
The man exposed Eiichiro Saiyama's identity as a serial killer and gave his imitation murder a score of "20". Later, when Eiichiro Saiyama was enraged and wanted to kill him to silence him, the man demonstrated to Saiyama what a perfect imitation murder should be.
—Although it was performed in a way that allowed him to easily defeat Eiichiro Saiyama.
The way Eiichiro Saiyama was killed... was exactly the same as the way Tsukino and Chiya had just used to "kill" the strange creature.
However, according to Ouma Kokichi, Eiichiro Saiyama actually died from a giant pen that resembled a spear. So... why would a manga artist's bizarre hallucinations be related to a spear rather than, more specifically, a pen?
Murder by imitation... The premise of "imitation" is that there is a "model" to imitate. Could it be that the model for Eiichiro Saiyama's death was actually killed by being pierced by several spears?
Besides this, there are other strange things. For example, based on the memories that Ouma Kokichi saw and the bizarre situation, Saiyama Eiichiro should undoubtedly be dead. However, according to Tsukino and Chiya's previous investigation, Saiyama Eiichiro should still be alive and well.
However, none of these things can be verified immediately.
In any case, at least for now, the matter concerning the ghost painter has been resolved.
Tsukino and Chiya were looking at Ohma Kokichi, about to say something, when they heard a cell phone ringing unexpectedly.
The sound came from Wangma Xiaoji.
The purple-haired boy took out his phone from his pocket. Faced with the incessantly ringing terminal, he didn't immediately answer the call, but instead first pointed the screen towards Qianye's location.
Therefore, Tsukino and Chiya easily saw that the name on the caller ID was Matsuda Jinpei.
“It seems,” Wang Ma Xiaoji said, clearly understanding the purpose of the call even though the call hadn’t been connected yet, “the mark on Officer Matsuda has disappeared.”
A note from the author:
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The unique feature of the Death Seal boss battle is the selection of correct options with bizarre logic, and the strange characters who initially appear quite far apart, but then get closer and closer over several rounds, their faces becoming larger and clearer in the frame (Don't come any closer! JPG).
Eiichiro Saiyama is from Danganronpa. His story is similar to what's described in this chapter: a manga artist who made his way of drawing corpses by killing people. He once drew the story of the first game (?), and was eventually killed by someone using the same method of copying murder (copying the situation of Mukuro in the first game...).
Qianye and Xiaoji completed this part quickly, since the others might still need to tinker with setting up a mechanism to place long spears. Qianye simply recreated Zhaishan's death scene manually [covering face and peeking].
(However, it wasn't that fast, since there was a deadline to resolve the matter before dawn.)
To be honest, Eiichiro Saiyama's story in the Danganronpa manga reminded me of a certain scene in NG... but they are essentially different.
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