What Do You Mean There Are Other Transmigrators In My Harem Fantasy?

We made several more stops where Ather got us out to paint me in various different places and poses.

Every single one of her paintings of me was beautiful beyond comparison but she had deemed every single one a failure.

My girls took every single painting of me she made though she did paint several other paintings without me in them presumably for practice or her own interests and those were exceptionally beautiful as well.

For those paintings in particular, she did not call them failures and simply stored them away after she was done.

By the time night fell, we had to set up camp by the side of the road.

Because we kept stopping for her to paint, we barely covered any distance from the city and the city could still be seen in the distance.

Not that we had a problem with this anyway since we were expecting this from the start.

My girls did their usual routine in setting up our camp while I approached Ather who was seated near her own tent which she materialised out of thin air.

Even now, she was still painting and by the looks of it, she seemed to be painting a picture of the campsite and even though it wasn’t done yet, I could already tell it was going to look good.

The glow from the fire was perfectly being replicated on the canvas and it almost felt like you could feel the warmth coming from the fire on the painting itself.

“Ather,” I called out.

Her paintbrush didn’t stop but she gave me a nod in her normal expressionless face, “Miss Aster. Can I help you?”

“Yes, I would like to talk if you don’t mind. Though I can come back later since you’re busy with this right now.”

“No, it’s fine. I can multitask. What do you need?”

I thought about how I should phrase my question but I decided to just ask her directly since I don’t really feel like beating around the bush.

“Are you an Off-Worlder?”

“Yes.”

…

…

I blinked at her, “Eh? Just like that?”

“What do you mean?” She asked, still painting.

“I mean… Is it alright for you to admit that?”

“To others? Probably not. But to Miss Aster? I would admit it because you are the one that’s asking me, Miss Aster. Anyone else, I would most likely have completely ignored since they won’t be worth my time to answer.”

“Ok… Erm… You don’t have any questions for me then? Like… Why do I know about the existence of Off-Worlders or something?”

She dipped her paintbrush in the bowl of water before dipping it on the paint on her palette to continue painting, “If Miss Aster is willing to share that information, then I would gladly like to know. If this would cause a strain in our current relationship which would result in me being unable to paint you, then I do not wish to know.”

I blinked at her again, “You’d rather just preserve this than to know?”

“Of course. Do you know how long I had spent trying to find my muse? Even when I was in my original World, I could not find it and I thought that I might find one when I came here. Yet I still could not find it until you came along. I am not risking anything that would jeopardise this.”

Hmm… I guess I can relate in a way since I would also look for inspiration for my stories which was what I’m doing right now anyway by travelling around this World and experiencing as many things as I could.

I wasn’t going to let someone take that away from me either and if some stupid Off-Worlder even thinks about destroying this World or doing something to change it before I can properly experience it, I’ll definitely kill them.

Well… Since she already said that much… I guess I might as well come clean as well.

“I’m also an Off-Worlder, Ather.”

“I see… That would explain…” This time, she paused her painting to turn to look at me directly. “How did you do it?”

I tilted my head, “Do it? Err… I don’t understand?”

She placed her paintbrush and palette aside before turning back to me, “You created this body yourself, didn’t you? Designed it and everything before you let yourself get sent to this World?”

I scratched my cheek, “Erm… Not really? I wasn’t really presented with a choice since I picked the Reincarnation route. I spent more time on choosing the boons and banes to be honest.”

Her face shifted slightly from the expressionless look, “You… Didn’t design your body?”

“Err… No? I mean… I was going to be reborn again so my looks are mainly because of my parents, right? Or actually, just a parent in my case.”

“Your parent? Does that mean… Your parent is just as beautiful as you are?”

I scratched my cheek, “I think Mother is more beautiful than I am though…”

She tilted her head, “Is that true? Do you have a picture of her, perhaps?”

“Ah… Her identity is supposed to be a secret here so… Sorry…”

“Hmm… I understand… To think that I spent all that time designing my looks… And yet I still failed to achieve what I wanted,” She sighed, picking up her paintbrush and palette again.

I gave her a look, “You designed yourself to look like this?”

“Yes. Laugh if you want because I have also laughed at my naivety when I saw myself in the mirror for the first time. Since I couldn’t find my muse in our original World, I thought I could just design myself to be my own muse. I spent so long trying to make myself look perfect, but when I was done and I looked at myself again, I saw so many imperfections in myself that I didn’t see when I was designing my body. It was a failure.”

“Umm… I think you’re beautiful though?”

“Thank you, Miss Aster. But there is no need to console me, I know my own imperfections. I have, after all, seen myself before.”

“Ather… I’m pretty sure that other people also think that you are beautiful too. Haven’t you had anyone else tell you that you are beautiful?”

“What does that matter if I myself do not think so? They are all just empty praises and the fact that I cannot even use myself as my own muse is proof of that.”

“But I do believe you’re beautiful though?”

“Once again, thank you, Miss Aster. But really, there is no need for you to console me.”

Wow, this girl really doesn’t believe she is beautiful huh? Does she not have any self awareness or something?

I guess maybe because she’s an artist, her ideal form of beauty lies in something that exists on a canvas and not something three dimensional? Then again, she does think I fit her ideal for some reason so I don’t know…

Which brings me to the other problem…

“Why do you think the paintings you made with me in them were not good enough?” I asked.

“Because my skills are still not enough to perfectly capture you, Miss Aster. No matter… This is just me needing to practice my skills in order to be able to capture it. And I will not stop until I can get the perfect painting of you.”

Erm… Ok?

She took a moment to dip her paintbrush on another colour before continuing, “The good thing is that I am definitely learning a lot more than I had back in our original World where my creativity was limited.”

“Right. You were an artist in our old World too?”

She nodded, “But a failed one you could say. I was a literal nobody back in our World and no one cared about my paintings.”

“Eh?”

She let out a sigh, “You already know right? Even if you drew the most beautiful art in existence, it will be forgotten in less than a day. And with how the digital world had taken over, people would only spend seconds appreciating a piece of art that you have spent days and even weeks on. And if you expect to be able to cloth and feed yourself on your art alone… You’re going to have a bad time unless you are the top one percent.”

I grimaced before nodding, “I can understand that.”

Her paintbrush paused again before she tilted her head at me once again with that emotionless look, “Are you an artist too?”

I shook my head, “No, I’m just also in the creative industry. I was an author, you see.”

“Author? I see… In that case, you have my condolences.”

“Ah… No, I’m sorry… I was err… Actually rather successful in that market… It’s just that I had to go through the failure part in the beginning as well so I understood how bad it could be for people in the creative field.”

“Hmm… Congratulations then, Miss Aster.”

She then placed her paintbrush into the bowl of water before leaning back, an action that I have come to learn that meant she was done with the painting.

I shifted my gaze to the canvas and…

Wow… It was truly beautiful…

Seriously… This girl has insane talent… But I still don’t understand why she thinks her paintings of me were deemed as failures?

I mean… My girls certainly don’t and they were happily hoarding those paintings too…

Hmm… Then again, there are books that I deemed as failures yet there are people who like them too…

I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.