The place Weed and Smith arrived at after passing through a black gate was a jet-black
stone mountain without a single growing tree .
It was definitely not going to be a normal stone mountain.
The stone was jet black with holes all over, and a river flowed through the area.
- Waaaaah.
- Save us. Save us.
- Let me escape from this pain.
The river cried out. It was wailing like a ghost.
‘Is this the River of Lamentation?’
There were quite a number of sculptures on the stone mountain.
Like evil, murderous antagonists, they were sculptures creepy enough to make demons
tremble!
The neck of a mother embracing her child was cut off. The mother and daughter were not
Human, but Orcs. The Trolls were stabbing each other with spears. Humans were waging war
en masse. Even a scene of a village being plundered and burned down was expressed
through sculptures.
Following the flow of the river, groups of sculptures were lined up, and continued on
endlessly.
“Ahem.”
It was enough to make even the likes of Weed grimace.
Some sculptures only depicted negative scenes that weren’t positive at all.
For a normal person, it was at a level where one couldn’t help but feel repulsed.
But the sculpture Weed liked and could understand was provokingly depicting a slaver.
The sculpture of the man was ignoring the scrawny kids and enjoying a steak by himself. The
kids, who looked like slaves, were eating barley bread at most.
“If you don’t have money then you will starve! They must be treating them well to give them
barley bread...”
It was a sculpture evoking 100% of Weed’s sympathy!
Those kids might be considered lucky to be enslaved under the wicked trader. Because if it
was Weed, he might not have even given them a single bowl of porridge!
The procession of sculptures continued endlessly down the River of Lamentation. The river
made more rough and raspy groaning noises as it flowed downstream.
- Waaaaah.
- Kill me. Kill me.
When Weed looked after approaching the river, he saw it wasn’t normal water.
Deep inside the river, ghosts of all kinds of monsters and humans were intactly flowing down
the river.
They had expressions of distress difficult to see even in the chilling horror of a haunted
house.
Smith approached and said, “Maybe it’s the influence of the sculptures?”
“What?”
“I’m talking ‘bout the artwork. The basics of artwork is to move emotions. These sculptures
are making the river wail.”
They were words Weed could relate to.
The sculptor’s feelings were buried into a sculpture. They all looked like the same sculptures,
but they were actually very different.
A person who keeps waking up at night will definitely look haggard. But there’s no reason
for a girl who receives a confession from someone she really loves to appear haggard.
Hopes and aspirations. Feelings full of affection!
Even if the subject was the same, a sculpture will convey a completely different mood
depending on the feeling it was sculpted with.
It was something as natural as a poem written by a poet or an author’s writing conveying a
different mood depending on their feelings.
A work of art can move the emotions.
If a person’s house was filled with gloomy drawings or sculptures, of course they would also
feel depressed and wouldn’t be motivated, either. If their house was filled with negative
sculptures, they wouldn’t even want to get up in the morning.
It might be a momentary impulse or simply a feeling, but after several years, several decades,
it could definitely change a person.
“It’s the topography.”
“Huh?”
“Shall I say it’s similar to how an apartment overlooking the Han River is more expensive?”
“What do you mean?”
“The better the view, the more expensive the apartment gets. Well, it’s something like that.”
Weed thought he could understand.
If artwork could convey emotion, it was hard to see sculptures made with evil intent, could
have given the river a good influence.
Sculptures created by the topography!
Weed was experiencing just about everything as he lived.
“Traditionally, there’s nothing as accurate as an apartment’s price. Besides, we should find out
where this place is.”
It was at that time.
Ding!
- The Entrance to Hell.
You have entered the River of Lamentation.
The end of the continent where living beings can breathe.
It is the place where the Priests of the Matallost Church lead the dead
to hell.
“Oh my.”
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
“So this is the end of the human continent. I’ve never been here even while working as a
mercenary... At least gimme a bottle of liquor. With this, the boasts you can make to your
friends at drinking parties have grown. Haw-haw!”
Smith was delighted as he drank.
Weed exhaled a deep sigh.
After wandering here and there, he was now at the entrance of hell. And with a drunk, no
less.
‘No wonder the surroundings looked so strange...’
The eerie atmosphere was slightly similar to when he went to Todeum!
He couldn’t feel any traces of