The art style, the gentle strokes that curved and crafted her image to perfection, the feelings... Alice did not know anything about art but just stared at how beautifully she had been drawn and the story that followed it, the amazing story that he captured out of his own imagination... She could feel something from them.

Sincerity and admiration.

Thus, she felt appreciation beyond measure.

Before all this happened, before she got dragged into the red gate’s mess, taken as a prisoner, and then entered a dungeon to save the world which was definitely not on the list of things she saw herself doing anytime in life- Her bucket list needed to be rewritten, she supposed - she was a nobody.

Beautiful? Pretty? She hadn’t heard those words said to her before. No one had looked at her little scrawny figure or her frowny cold face and said, ’Hey, you’re really pretty.’ Not that she needed to hear it, but... Hearing it did make her feel great.

It made her heart warm, thump, and leap. It made her happy.

It started something in her. Something soft. Maybe it was the feminine side that she hoped would never dictate her life, hated, in fact, as it was what kept those bastard’s eyes on her back at the den.

They saw her as nothing but a dog that they could put their paws on when the time was right and that made her want to vomit on multiple occasions.

It was nauseating.

But now, someone else was looking at her, and what they saw wasn’t what they could gain from her existence, they saw pure beauty and stamped it.

They captured that beauty in their own language, making her out to be like a diamond. She couldn’t thank him enough when it felt so satisfying that she could leap off her seat and announce to the whole world that she was the most beautiful in the world.

Maybe it would make her out to be a narcissist but who cared? She was loving herself and that was all that mattered.

’Does this mean I care for my physical appearance now?’ Alice thought to herself and swiped her hair behind her ear with a slow gentle movement.

"I told you, it’s not my art that makes it beautiful. It’s the light of the person I set my mind to draw that makes it..." A gentle breeze blew, causing her hair to dance in the air softly and gently, and he smiled. "... beautiful."

"Is that so?" Alice asked and laughed. "Then I’ll take your word for it, Mr Artist."

Her laugh was gentle.

Nicholas stared at her gentle laugh and the warm light around her face, and his heart pounded even more.

He even got scared that she would hear it. He clutched his white top, throwing his face down to hide his flush, and bit his lips.

This was a dream, right? Because if it wasn’t then... He could only wonder how he got to be so blessed.

So, he treasured this moment.

Maybe with this, he could express how grateful he was that she appeared in his life, even if she had nothing to do with him up till that moment.

"Um, Alice, I..."

"Alice," Leo called and they both looked down to find him at the foot of the benches staring at them. "...what are you doing up there?"

Nicholas shied away, turning his head aside as if trying to hide from a potential assault.

Alice did not notice it on time, but if she did, she would’ve been able to see and recognize the kind of fear that danced on his face after seeing Leo.

It wasn’t for any particular reason. Leo had never done anything to Nicholas and they had never personally met either. But Leo was handsome, tall, and very popular as it seemed.

And how was that a problem? How did that make him shiver in fear as though someone was about to sever his head? It was the memories he had of a tall, handsome guy talking to the girl they were interested in.

Before Nicholas became an Awakened, he was just a regular student with dark eye bags and bangs covering most of his face.

He was gloomy and kept to himself, much like the present but he loved to draw.

He would often sit under the tree at the back of the school, staring at pretty things and sketching them down. At that time, he simply drew because he liked it and not because of any motives, being driven by a fire or any of that sort.

The girls in his class saw his drawing book one day and started gathering around him, telling him how he was so good and most of them even requested a drawing of themselves, if he could do it.

Nicholas was never confident, being inclined and an introvert but it looked like if he disagreed, they would start bullying him, so he took it on.

He drew very well and then the popular girl in class also wanted a drawing of herself. How could he say no?

She was beautiful with long hair and long legs, attracting both the good and bad boys.

He always wanted to avoid attention but things seemed to have gone too far that they were beyond repair.

And that was how he invited trouble.

He drew her portrait quite beautifully, too, and so she bragged to her boyfriend how capable Nicholas was.

All the girls started paying attention to him, even if he never wanted it. And that started pissing off the boys in class.

The popular girl’s boyfriend personally dragged Nicholas by the collar during lunch break while no one was in class and took him to the bathroom stalls. And then...

Well, it was torture there off. Nicholas never asked to be close to any of those girls. He just wanted to draw in peace.

He slowly started losing his motivation to hold a pen from there on out, and only when his heart was moved did he pick up a pen to sketch. As for stories... He wrote a bunch of them, trying to cheer himself up and giving himself a life to talk about in his tales.

He was sad and hurting, but there was no one to turn to. He could not tell the teachers because he was scared. The popular boy seemed to be connected to a few guys in the awakeneds class, so if he made an enemy of him, it was definitely over for him.

He lived in fear. And then, one day, while the boys took him out, ready to start their afternoon lessons of ’Who can make the gloomy ghost puke faster?’, it happened.

Nicholas’s eyes glowed for a second, and his mind told him to draw. He wanted to draw even in the dire situation of getting punched in the guts over and over.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com