Depraved Hero's Path-Chapter 57: Undying Archives Of Old: Painting’s Game, Cleared!

"I used to compete after weeks of starving myself..." Katherine muttered as she stood on her shaking legs.

[100 seconds left before Black Plague Infection.]

"So I think..." She swung the Spear, holding the weapon with both hands. "I can handle this, if only for a couple of minutes."

A silent moment passed.

"Handle it...?"

Those words caused Katherine’s shock to equal that of the grayish peasant.

’It... Reacted to my words...?’

The female peasant clenched her fists,

"What do you know..." She whispered, her face expressionless as she stared at the ground. "About Famine?"

Katherine frowned, and felt herself swaying.

Her foot moved to adjust her posture before she could fall.

"You don’t know anything... Anything about Famine... About Pain... About unjustly losing... So much." The Painting suddenly raised its gaze and stared at Katherine with such piercing eyes that the latter felt like her soul was being watched, and judged.

"How would you know," She waved her arms, stretching them wide. "How could you know..." Her arms spread so wide they enveloped Katherine’s entire world. "About anything of these things?"

The words echoed inside Katherine’s mind.

"Working the fields day and night, day and night... The inability to provide for them... The land resisting... And resisting... Until the mule gave up... Shortly after the mule followed... To feed his family, my husband overworked himself to death... My children died in my arms before they could even walk..." The peasant clenched her teeth, pointing at Katherine with a shaking hand. "How dare you... Say that you can handle it? You, who live like our Kings and Nobles, away from the fields, away from the struggles, and away from the pain?"

Katherine could feel her heart shake at the peasant’s words.

But,

[80 seconds left before Black Plague Infection.]

"It’s..." Katherine muttered as she took a step forward, Spear in hand. "Just trying to buy time."

"Why did our land turn against us? Why did my children have to die? Why did my husband have to be taken away from us?"

As another step was taken,

’...!’

Katherine’s knee hit the ground as she stumbled.

[You have been affected by the Status Effect "Famine Lv.2".]

"You..." Katherine clenched her teeth, pushing herself up. "Really want me to understand..." She muttered, aware that the Famine was only going to get worse the closer she got to the Painting.

Six Fire Balls were conjured. They floated in the air as Katherine stood with the Spear in her hands.

They were brought together, merged into one, and condensed so that the size became that of a normal Fire Ball.

BOOM!

Katherine’s eyes narrowed as smoke covered the Painting.

"Do you really think... You can hurt me? After everything I’ve been through? Do you... Not understand?"

"I couldn’t understand," Katherine answered as her weak legs barely managed another step. "Even if you told me."

"One by one, my husband’s tools broke. The barren earth that even tools couldn’t pierce, I tried to... Digging into that earth with my fingers until my nails broke, until my skin screeched... Seeing my children cry and scream from hunger... Seeing their cheeks slowly sink in, their legs grow as thin as their arms, and their arms as thin as their wrists... Why? Why did these things happen to us?"

"We’re... From different worlds." Katherine answered, her eyes cold and distant as she tried not to let the Painting’s words get to her. "I can’t... Understand."

[You have been affected by the Status Effect "Famine Lv.3".]

"While the Kings and Nobles enriched themselves, fed themselves beyond all need, we were left to gnaw at crusts and curse the fields..."

Katherine’s eyelids grew heavier with each step.

"Until I was forced to gnaw at the fields themselves... Swallowing the dry earth..."

[You have been affected by the Status Effect "Famine Lv.MAX".]

"Watching them weaken by the hour... Grow paler by the day... Watching my children wither away..."

Were it not for the Spear used to assist herself like a cane, Katherine would have immediately fallen to the ground.

’...’

Katherine found herself unable to take a full breath in, as if her jealous and shrunken stomach was refusing to let the lungs expand before it.

"But in the end..."

Standing right in front of the peasant, Katherine changed her stance. She would be able to use her Spear without falling. Just for a moment. Just for a moment, her legs would be able to handle the weight, as her arms thrust the spear into the peasant’s heart.

"It is my fault..." The peasant whispered, gaze on the ground. "That my children couldn’t..."

Katherine stared at her peasant’s lifeless eyes for a moment.

Just before she could lift the spear off the ground to use it as a weapon instead of a cane, the peasant’s knees hit the ground.

The fall had been so sudden that Katherine thought she had been attacked.

"It’s my fault..." The peasant whispered, seated on her knees, with her arms crossed.

Katherine frowned. The dizziness and blurriness made it seem like a baby was resting in the peasant’s arms.

She clenched her teeth.

The famine, exhaustion, light-headedness... Katherine told herself that those were the cause of the tears running down her face.

Even so, the image was too brutal for Katherine to attack.

The peasant remained silent. She had run out of tears. Only once Katherine stood this close did she notice that the peasant’s body had changed. Perhaps with every one of Katherine’s steps. Her skin was cracked and dry. Most of her hair had fallen off. Her clothes were torn.

Katherine couldn’t bring herself to thrust the Spear as the peasant clenched her teeth in quiet desperation, squeezing on her own breast harder and harder.

"I couldn’t... Feed my children... It’s... My fault..."

Katherine’s right hand moved.

"It... Wasn’t your fault." Katherine whispered through the pain that choked her vocal cords and dry throat.

"But it is... My own body... Refused to feed my children... God... God must have been. Punishing-"

The peasant’s words were interrupted as a soft hand was gently laid on her head.

"You didn’t do..." Katherine’s left hand was extended, aiming beyond the peasant. "Anything wrong."

[11 seconds left before Black Plague Infection.]

"The time... The era... The world... Those... Are at fault." She whispered, tenderly patting the peasant’s head with her right hand, while a stream of blazing flames was conjured and shot by her left hand. "The world around you was at fault."

The peasant raised her gaze for a moment.

"Thank..."

The stream of blazing flames went beyond the peasant, burning and destroying the canvas that she had walked out of.

"You..."

With the Painting destroyed, color slowly came back to the peasant’s body.

[The Game "The Reality Behind The Painting" has been Cleared!]

With the setting taken out, her pain and anger faded away.

[Clear Rank: S!]