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

Since she wasn’t painting me this time but the aftermath of our battle, I don’t really have anything to do but watch her paint.

Not that I hate it, mind you, it was actually quite soothing to watch her and I particularly find the sight of a blank canvas transforming into a work of art to be quite a sight.

She also doesn’t seem to mind as well and because she asked all of us not to touch anything until she was done painting, we couldn’t loot the dead bodies either so my girls were just hanging around the area as well.

Even though she was painting something that could be said to be quite morbid, she somehow managed to make it look serene and tranquil that made a weird sort of feeling well up inside me.

By that, I mean like the feeling I had was a contrasting mix where it felt sad and calming but also inspired a little bit of fear of death at the same time.

Well, I guess the only word I could use to describe this was once again, ‘beautiful’.

When she was done, she leaned back and unlike the previous times where she had painted the other paintings without me inside them, she did not react immediately.

All the other paintings that she had painted she only needed a second before she nodded and stored it away. But this time she stared at it which was what she would do when she painted me.

Before I could ask what was wrong, she turned to me with that usual emotionless look of hers and asked, “Forgive me, Miss Aster… But may I trouble you to not stay near me for my next painting?”

Ah… Whoops… Did my presence cause her painting to look worse? My bad…

I nodded and left her side.

Initially I had wanted to ask her about her wings and the guns but… Err… I got distracted by her painting so I forgot…

Oh well… I’ll ask her later.

In the meantime, I hung around with my girls, which meant that I was stuck in the midst of them where I was giving Delmare and Emilia lap pillows while seated on Odeta’s lap and letting Lisa play with my tail with Katsuki combing my hair.

It took Ather another half an hour before she pushed herself back from her canvas.

I stayed where I was since I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to approach her yet.

Unexpectedly, she turned back and gestured towards us to beckon us over wordlessly.

I looked at the girls and all of them shrugged so we just made our way towards her without complaint.

She brought out another easel and placed the two paintings she just made side by side before stepping away from them.

“Which one do you think looks the best?” She asked, gesturing towards the two paintings.

I squinted at them and I realised that she had painted the exact same scene in almost exact same colours and perspective as though they had been copied and pasted, something that should have been impossible to do normally.

But the longer I stared at them, one of them started to stand out to me for some reason even though I could discern no visible difference between the two of them.

One of them gave me more intense feelings of the tranquility and sereneness that I had felt earlier as compared to the other one, so if she were to ask me which one was better between the two…

I pointed at the one that gave me the most intense feeling, which also prompted the girls to pick their own painting as well which also happened to be the same one as what I picked.

Ather didn’t seem surprised by our choice and turned back to regard her painting for a moment before turning back to me.

“Miss Aster, if you don’t mind, could you do a pose for my next painting?”

“Eh? Err… Sure?”

I’m not sure why she had to ask me so formally since I’ve already done this for her quite a number of times already…

But I could feel that she was more serious than before so I didn’t question it and just let the artist guide me to where she wanted me to stand and posed for her.

This time she wanted me to look like the person who was responsible for the corpses around us so I was standing in the field with my sword in hand and my back facing towards her.

I held that pose for a significantly shorter time before she called out to me, “You can relax now, Miss Aster.”

Eh? Really? It’s only been like five minutes?

I guess she must have used her Chronomancy or something…

I relaxed and remembered that she asked me not to stay near her when she was painting just now so I was about to move away when she beckoned me to come over instead.

“Please sit here, Miss Aster. I would request that you watch me paint this time.”

Huh? Wait… I think I know what she’s doing…

The two paintings from earlier, one was painted with me behind her and the other was without… Does she believe that having me watch her would make her paint better?

Hmm… I guess some people work better when their source of inspiration is near them? Like how I would be able to write better when I immerse myself in the place that inspired me to write a particular story to start with I suppose?

I decided to just trust her and took a seat behind her and I realised why she did not need me to hold my pose for the same amount of time as before.

For this particular painting, she had only drawn an outline for my pose and did not paint any details or colours yet.

She even waited until I was watching her before she continued to paint, her paintbrush starting to fill the white canvas with colour.

“You have something to ask me, don’t you?” Ather suddenly spoke up while she was still painting.

“Was it that obvious?” I asked, scratching my face in embarrassment.

“No. I just know that when I reveal my wings and my skills, people usually ask me about them. I was already expecting you to ask me about them earlier but you didn’t.”

“Ah… Err… I got distracted watching you paint so I forgot to ask… But yes, I did want to ask about your wings and those… Guns. They’re guns right?”

She nodded, taking a moment to dip her paint in a different colour, “They are. I will just give you the short version then… I am a Comissar.”

I blinked at her, “A Comissar? Oh! The ones who are supposed to be servants of the gods?!”

She nodded, “That’s right. For me in particular, I chose to be a servant of Ralaie.”

“Right, they are supposed to be the patron of the Rejmars right? The god of craft and the mountains or something?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm… Why Ralaie though? I thought that for you, someone like Immana would be more in tune with you since they are the god of creativity or something?”

“I thought of that too, but the boons Goddess Ralaie offered were much better for what I wanted to achieve.”

“Are you talking about their blessings?”

“Correct. In particular, the [Boon of Hard Worker]. As long as I focus on my painting, my physical needs can be lowered and I can spend more time painting instead of worrying about useless things like socialising, eating, drinking and sleeping.”

Oh wow… So she’s the type of person who sees those things as burdens huh?

I will admit, back in our old World, I sometimes would think like that too, except when I’m eating sweets of course, nothing beats that.

“You’re… Talking to me though?” I pointed out.

“You are different. You are my muse. To entertain and please my muse is a necessity and that triumphs over my own physical needs. If I lose my muse, I will lose my art. And that is something that I cannot allow.”

Right… Something tells me that in our old World, she’s one of those types who would just continue to work without taking a break and probably would eventually work herself to death one day…

“What about the guns?”

“A gift from Goddess Ralaie. Apparently she really liked my devotion to my art and I impressed her or something when I told her my wish of travelling around to paint everything I found interesting. She then granted me the skill to create weapons using my imagination to defend myself and for me, I usually just imagine guns from our World.”

“Isn’t that pretty overpowered?”

“The guns I can create are limited to my mana unfortunately. And they only exist for as long as I still have mana and they do drain quite a lot of it when I’m using them. That battle earlier already sucked three quarters of my mana even though it was for such a short time.”

Before I could ask her more about it, she suddenly moved back.

Oh she’s done?

I turned to look at the canvas and sure enough, in just that time we were talking, she had finished painting it.

I didn’t even get to say anything before she turned to me with wide eyes, “Miss Aster… Who are you?”

Eh?