On this morning, which should have been sunny and bright, a dazzling starry sky suddenly descended upon the miniature garden without warning.
That was not the real starry sky—everyone present realized this the moment they looked at it—it was more like an oil painting than a real one, with the marks left by the brushstrokes and a faint scent of pine resin. Upon closer inspection, its edges were also slightly rough.
As time went by, not only in the distance, but also in the sky, colors that seemed to be full of life first occupied the entire sky, and then slowly fell down from it in streaks of color of varying lengths, like the tear stains of oil paint falling on their own after being heated, or the tentacles of some living thing, constantly moving and exploring everything around them, staining everything they touched with their own color.
However, before I could react, everything in front of me vanished as if it were an illusion.
I rushed to the window and looked out. The bright sunlight warmly shone on the green grass, and I could not see any trace of what I had just seen.
"what happened?"
The flower fairy also rushed to the window, asking questions with surprise and uncertainty. The people inside looked at each other, paused for a moment, and then rushed back to the door from which the screams had come earlier.
We knocked lightly on the door as a signal, but before we could break in, Miss [Aisha], looking dazed, opened it. Seeing everyone anxiously looking at her, she seemed startled, but quickly forgot her surprise, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me inside.
"Well... never mind! Could you please come in and take a look?"
Not counting the previous [gallery], this was my very first time entering [Aisha's] studio.
As an unfolding of authority, the Library of All Things can be regarded as a living building. After the request to establish a studio was approved, an empty room of the set size grew out on its own, perfectly enveloping [Aisha]'s unfolded studio and serving as her workspace.
The familiar lily-shaped lanterns, the wooden floor, the four empty picture frames hanging on both sides of the wall, the paintings piled up in the corner and covered by cloth... and the easel in the center of the room, and the cat with a colorful head sitting next to the overturned palette, looking into this room.
There appears to be nothing unusual.
The only blank canvas, which had contained the fruits of Aisha's labor all night, was now completely empty. If I hadn't been certain that I had personally witnessed her putting brush to paper and diligently painting on it last night, I might have thought, like the others around me, that there was nothing strange or noteworthy about it.
“Just now,” [Aisha] began her story anxiously, pulling us all inside, “as I finished the last stroke of my painting, and as I was contemplating that this was indeed the last painting I could create, that painting! Right before my eyes, in that instant! suddenly burst forth with a powerful light!”
"And then?" the competent straight man asked, tilting his head.
"It's gone!"
The artist showed everyone the empty canvas and exclaimed, "I put so much effort into completing this painting, and now it's just vanished! How can I accept this?!"
She did look quite devastated. After all, for an artist, wanting to preserve their best works is a common instinct. Even if not for exhibitions for others to appreciate, simply using them to assess one's own progress is a good option.
But thinking back to what I had just seen, a possible idea began to stir in my mind.
The quiz game over there is still going on.
Hikari, still curiously peering around the room, launched into a question: "[Aisha] Miss, may I know what you drew? This is the first time I've ever seen an artist's studio in person!"
Instead of [Aisha], who turned her head away with a slightly flushed face and muttered softly, I answered for her: "It's the starry sky. Didn't we say before that we needed to work on the general structure of the miniature garden? Since I'm not familiar with it, I asked Miss [Aisha] to help me draw up a rough blueprint, and we'll refer to that when we work on it."
"I see."
The flower fairy nodded in agreement, then seemed to notice something and showed a thoughtful expression.
Hikari tilted her head in confusion, looked around, and then whispered in my ear, "Mr. Yumi, Mr. Yumi! I remember, it seems, it was before, um, the time you brought Miss [Aisha] back, didn't you summon a very beautiful starry sky? I don't think I'm mistaken... Could it be that it didn't work?"
She first looked puzzled, then looked at me with her clear, inquisitive eyes.
It's really overwhelming.
I coughed lightly, looked away, and replied in a low voice, "If you're referring to that layer between reality and illusion, unfortunately, it can't be used as the foundation for constructing the miniature garden's nightscape. I don't know where the starry sky there comes from, nor can I imagine what it would look like from the ground up."
"And to be honest, it's actually a temporary space forcibly created by capturing the surrounding free-floating magic after the gate to the miniature garden opened from reality. It's like a [gallery] or a [garden], but it's just a fleeting illusion that can't last long."
Hikari nodded thoughtfully, but it was obvious that the little fool didn't understand what I was saying at all; she was just pretending to understand.
...However, although that's how I explained it to the girl, I still had no idea why the temporary space that was created would appear as a dazzling sea of stars.
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