A Mysterious Person’s Painting Ends Up Winning The Grand Prize

“Th-this is!? A-amazing! It’s art! A miracle of art is right here!”

At the scream of the genius artist Soltage, everyone in the venue turned around.

Soltage was known for having an unbelievably strict aesthetic sense. It was rare for him to praise another person’s artwork. And that Soltage was calling it a “miracle of art”!?

It was truly a world-shaking event.

Soltage turned his eyes toward Orfred.

“Orfred-sama, you think so too, don’t you!? You can understand this miracle, can’t you!?”

…This painting of “the brutally murdered corpse of an octopus pasted onto a grotesquely painted willow tree”?

That was what Orfred thought, but of course he did not let even a hint of it show. He gave a deep, slow nod and said this.

“Of course, Soltage. This is truly—a miracle of art.”

“As expected! I knew Orfred-sama would understand!”

Soltage was looking at Orfred with a broad smile on his face.

(…I do not understand it at all.)

That was what Orfred was thinking inwardly.

However, perhaps it had something that resonated with the finest artist in the Imperial Capital. In that case, there was no need to deny it. Orfred was a sword saint and a sage, but he was not an artist.

One of the judges came over and looked at the painting. The moment he saw it, wrinkles formed between his brows.

“…Th-this is… what should I say about it, Soltage-sama? A miracle? I-I cannot understand it. To begin with, what is this even depicting? It looks to me like nothing more than ‘the brutally murdered corpse of an octopus pasted onto a grotesquely painted willow tree’—”

“You understand nothing at all!”

Soltage sharply cut off the judge’s words.

“It does not matter what is being depicted! What an artist ought to do is ‘expression’! To burn one’s very existence and passions onto this canvas through the motif! Can you not feel it, the overwhelming emotion rising from this painting!? A vast passion equal to the very history of art humanity has steadily built up through the ages—or no, one that surpasses even that by far!?”

Soltage rattled on at incredible speed.

“…Uh, no, well—”

To the stammering judge, Soltage pressed on even further.

“Why can you not answer at once!? Have you not devoted your life to art!? When faced with a singularity like this—why do you feel nothing!? This much light!? Is it not the same as looking at the sun and failing to notice its brilliance!?”

Silence fell over the venue.

It was obvious from their expressions that they did not agree. In the eyes with which they gazed at the painting, there was only the feeling of looking at something alien—something eerie.

Soltage’s irritated eyes turned toward Orfred.

“Orfred-sama, you understand, don’t you!? The magnificence of this painting!?”

Orfred did not lose his composure.

He merely nodded quietly and continued.

“Of course. I have never seen such a wonderful painting. It is like a jewel—Soltage, I too have seen the miracle of art you speak of.”

Orfred’s words carried weight.

Following the words of the genius Soltage, even Orfred, the hero of the Imperial Capital, had acknowledged it. The attitudes of the judges were visibly softening.

…Could it be that the problem lay with them for not being able to understand this?

That was the impression they were beginning to have.

“Indeed… now that you mention it, it does have an aggressively challenging style, as if it were taking on the entire history of art.”

“I can sense the artist’s conviction in it—a desire to express something not of this world.”

“…Hmm… now that you mention it, the depth of this painting is terrifying. I was on the verge of judging it by the surface alone. Good grief, my eye for art is still far too immature…”

All of them were looking at the painting of “the brutally murdered corpse of an octopus pasted onto a grotesquely painted willow tree” with intent eyes. One after another, they began praising Soltage’s discernment.

“Hmm… it seems everyone has finally understood.”

Soltage nodded with a satisfied look.

“I would like to award this work the grand prize. What do the rest of you think? Anyone opposed, raise your hand.”

Naturally, not a single person raised a hand.

They looked at one another beside them and nodded as if to say that was only natural.

“Orfred-sama, you have no objection either, correct?”

“None.”

Orfred nodded.

At the same moment, Soltage turned both hands toward the painting and cried out in a ringing voice.

“Then I hereby declare this work the grand prize winner of the 14th Bladra Grand Art Prize!”

“Ooooooooooh!” the judges shouted, and the sound of clapping filled the venue.

Wrapped in that applause, Soltage turned an excited face toward Orfred.

“Orfred-sama! We did it! We fulfilled our duty! We discovered talent! Talent that will carve its name into the history of art forevermore! Tonight is truly a splendid night!”

“Yes, it is.”

Orfred nodded.

And so the grand prize winner was decided, but there was one problem.

—That grand prize-winning work had no contact information attached to it.

That night, the Bladra Art Class was in the utmost chaos with preparations for the Bladra Grand Art Prize.

The female staff member, who had originally been cleaning up the art classroom and then had been dragged off to help after abandoning Ilvis’s painting, was no exception.

So they had all simply been far too busy, and she had completely forgotten about Ilvis’s painting.

The time she remembered it was the next morning, when she woke up at home.

(…Ah, I need to clean that up…)

After getting ready in the morning, the female staff member went to work.

When she headed to the place where she had left the painting, the painting had mysteriously disappeared.

(Huh? …Did someone clean it up for me?)

That would have been fine in its own way.

Unfortunately, that was not what had happened.

“They say the grand prize winner’s been decided!”

Urged along by a coworker, the female staff member went to see the grand prize-winning work—and froze.

(Aiiieeeeee!? The grand prize!? Why the grand prize!?)

Her mind completely exploded.

The work being displayed as the grand prize winner was, no matter how one looked at it, the painting of “the brutally murdered corpse of an octopus pasted onto a grotesquely painted willow tree” that she had tried to throw away.

The coworker beside her laughed.

“So that’s the grand prize, huh… I don’t get it.”

“R-right…”

Feeling deeply troubled, the female staff member consulted her superior.

Her superior replied with a deathly pale face.

“If what you are saying is true, then, well, that would mean redoing the judging process, but—”

“…I do not think that is realistically possible. The judges are all distinguished figures in the busy art world, after all.”

The arrangements for the grand prize judging had been in progress for months already. Doing it again would require a fair number of days.

And the Bladra Grand Prize schedule did not end with merely deciding the winning work. Everything had been meticulously planned right through to the auction of the prize-winning piece. There was no way they had time to redo it.

On top of that—there was Orfred.

If that strict taskmaster Orfred learned of this fact, he would surely fly into a rage. She did not even want to imagine what the result would be.

After thinking for a while, her superior said this.

“W-well… um, it did go through a fair and proper judging process, and there was no misconduct in the judging itself, so I suppose it is fine…”

At the very least, since Soltage had awarded it the grand prize, it had presumably been recognized as having value worthy of that. If so, then that work truly did have that much value.

Even though the female staff member could not understand it at all.

“…I suppose so.”

And so, all the various issues concerning that work were treated as though they had “never happened.”