A Painting of the Villainess as a Young Lady

Whilst basking in the thought of smacking Roen on the cheek, Violet eventually sighed. Perhaps her imagination had become a little too rich.

And still with paint-smeared clothes, Violet went on to guide the two men to her unorganized studio.

Mary was just standing quietly outside the drawing room, and so she followed behind the three of them as well.

“……”

“……”

“…Nothing to be proud of, as I said.”

The two newcomers to the studio went silent.

First of all, the entire room was messy.

No, not just messy. It was positively chaotic.

The walls had been splashed with paint, and various tools—like easels, brushes and palette knives—were strewn all around. It looked like they had been organized in their own way, but it still looked quite cluttered.

“That’s why I told you I should organize the room, Milady.”

“It gets confusing when things change locations suddenly though.”

“But I still should have cleaned up a bit.”

Watching how completely stunned the father and son had become while they stared into Violet’s sketchbook, Mary and Violet whispered as sneakily as they could to each other.

“Hmm…”

“……”

Right after they got shocked from the mess of a studio, yet again, they were filled anew with surprise as they caught sight of Violet’s art.

Seeing that Roen somehow couldn’t school his features, Violet frowned at him.

What was he going to tell Aileen again this time?

Regardless, however, whether she’d grimace or not behind them, Roen and the duke just stared at her art for the longest time, perhaps grappling with their thoughts.

This painting packed a punch, that’s true. But it was way ahead of its time. Even so, this was the only way Violet knew how to express herself.

In the era in which Violet was living now, what mattered was how realistically the artist could capture the world as did the human eye. The more similar the painting was to the subject it aimed to depict, the better it would fit the standard of beauty of this era.

Violet recalled how cameras were the exclusive property of a rich aristocrat nowadays. Art movements were bound to shift along with the development of photography, but in this world, the standard was still quite antiquated.

It was glaringly obvious that Violet’s art was much too ahead of its time.

Although this was a portrait, the style in which Violet painted her subject was with obscure, indistinct shapes.

And, the person’s face was covered with flowers, making it difficult to distinguish whether it was a man or a woman. Besides that, the person was shedding tears of azure and obsidian shades.

At first glance, one might think that there were truncated horns in between the petals, and this suggestion might elicit the image of the devil.

Aside from that, petals were typically painted with bright colors, and yet they were depicted with a gloomy blue hue here—how else could this be interpreted if not odd?

Gobsmacked, the duke and Roen continued flipping through the pages of the sketchbook. However, the colors that were used became brighter and brighter, with more pastel hues, as they reached the more recent pieces.

But of course, they were still not painted in the style of realism.

“This is, indeed…”

Actually, if Violet had come back to an era four centuries prior, she would not be able to protest even if she’d get sent to the holy tribunal and condemned as a witch.

Roen and the duke thought the same thing at that moment.

“It’s not bad… I didn’t know that you had a talent such as this, my daughter.”

It seemed as if the duke liked the painting nonetheless, even with that first impression.

In response, all Violet did was scratch her brush and palette knife on a canvas on a whim, smiling awkwardly.

“You must have reached this point because there wasn’t a teacher beside you. It would be great to see the art world shift into this new direction. This is truly unique.”

The duke elucidated various insights from Violet’s work. Watching the duke talk a lot all so suddenly, Violet couldn’t help but press down her hand in surprise.

Certainly, her art was strange and eccentric, but at the same time, it had a mysterious charm that had the power to pull in the viewer.

The color combinations she used were not ones that could be typically seen, and the brush strokes and textures she left upon the canvas were placed in just the right spots, proving her excellent skill.

Especially, though the blue light that was shining upon the subject was quite unusual, it was beautiful.

“…I only heard that you drew in a unique manner.”

As Roen’s eyes continued to remain affixed on her paintings, he murmured these words weakly.

What exactly did Aileen say for him to react like this?

But instead of answering him, Violet just casually shrugged her shoulders.

“……”

All the paintings here by Yeon Ha-yoon—by Violet—revealed her innermost thoughts and feelings.

Truncated horns. Face covered by giant petals. Black-blue teardrops, trickling down.

It was the first painting that Violet made after she fell into the lake and came back to life, and it was especially dark in color.

Still staring at the painting, Roen’s lips moved slightly. In the end, he really couldn’t say much.

“…It’s very different from what I heard.”

“I don’t even know what you might’ve heard.”

“Violet, you…”

Roen had opened his mouth to ask something else, but he was cut off mid-sentence.

Duke Everett, who had been staring at Violet’s painting for quite a while, finally spoke.

“…If it’s alright with you, I would like to ask for one of your paintings as a gift. Even His Majesty the Emperor would be envious.”