Chapter 428: Mystery of the Layered Paintings

“S-so, did that make you feel better?” Amara questioned, still a little red due to her still feeling shy.

“Haha, yes I am, seriously! I wanted to do that to that prick for some time now. But don’t you feel bad for him since you are probably close to him?” Raising an eyebrow in question, Virus said.

Feeling somewhat doubtful of Virus’ words, shaking her head, Amara denied it. “Ah, not really, we’re not that close anyway, and what exactly should I feel bad about? It’s not like John and I were couples or anything.”

“Well, okay then.” As a grin crept over his mouth, Virus added internally, ‘though he won’t be seeing it that way.’

On the other side, suddenly realizing something, Amara’s face went a little pale as she started stuttering, “Uh! P-please don’t misunderstand, Aizen! T-there is really nothing going on between us, I swear!”

“Haha, don’t worry I know, I believe you. Also, thank you very much for accepting my proposal, it was very fun.”

“Alright, it’s time for me to go back to 4 Times Square now, Amara. You can either come with me or stay here since it’s late at night already.”

“I’ll come with you.” There was no delay nor hesitation as Amara answered.

“No problem, I’ve got plenty of empty rooms there for you to stay at tonight anyway, you can go back to your own company tomorrow.” Nodding, Virus accepted. 

…

The next morning, after Amara had left already, Virus was currently sitting on the couch, staring at Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.

The painting before him depicted Christ in an anachronistic blue Renaissance dress, making the sign of the cross with his right hand, while holding a non-refracting, transparent crystal orb in his left hand, signaling his role as Salvator Mundi or Savior of the World and representing the ‘celestial sphere’ of the heavens. 

{A/N: I’ll attach the picture of the painting here.}

However, what attracted Virus’ attention was none of that, it was in fact what his sense of awareness that could leave and spread around him was recreating within his mind.

Layers upon layers of paints had been added creating various legendary paintings by today’s standards, alas, all of them except the one on the surface was to be hidden forever from the eyes of the world.

However, what was garnering Virus’ sense of awareness was not what each of the paintings was depicting per se but rather the addition and accumulation of all paintings put together which created a 3D image inside him. Virus believed that to be some kind of mystery probably trying to relay a message or some other secret.

There were various small lines all around the 3D image, but none of it made much sense to Virus.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he analyzed the magical colors of mystery, he could not make heads or tails of it.

‘It looks like total gibberish.’ He culminated in frustration after what had felt like an eternity of time by how fast Virus’ calculation ability had been working. ‘If I can’t solve this, then no one can.’

‘Which means this is either meant to be unsolvable or I might be looking at it the wrong way.’ As Virus reached this conclusion, he added further, ‘and assuming the latter, it could either be because it’s not complete or that it’s missing something essential.’

‘Let’s look at this in a different way for now.’ Reaching this judgment, Virus began to study what was in front of him, the image of Christ.

‘According to the data over the internet, the painting is perfect in all aspects except the orb in the left hand of Jesus and that is indeed true, that’s just not how an orb works.’ It was at this time of the day when footsteps were heard beside Virus as it was followed by a familiar voice of the golden beauty, “Good morning Ai!”

“…”

Receiving no response in return, the golden beauty opened her mouth again, “What are you doing, master? What are you so lost in?”

Hearing that, Virus started to murmur unwittingly without taking his eyes off of the painting, “Apparently Leonardo da Vinci failed to paint the distortion that occurs when looking through a solid and clear crystal orb at objects that are not touching the orb itself,” stopping briefly, he went ahead, “so, the dress of Christ should’ve been at least in a magnified inverted or reverse images. But Leonardo da Vinci painted it as if it were a hollow glass bubble that does not refract or distort the light passing through it.”

“What?” Putting her forefinger on her lips, the golden beauty felt greatly confused as to what Virus was talking about.

“Oh, you’re here, my Lil Belle, are you finished with your seclusion training already?” Finally gaining an awareness of the fact that the golden beauty was there, Virus inquired.

Shaking her head, however, the golden beauty denied, “Not really, I’m just out to eat something, then I’ll go back inside.” 

“I see, then you prepare the breakfast today, we’ll eat it together.” 

“Aye, master! Wait for a bit!” Feeling extremely jovial and cheerful today for some reason, the golden beauty accepted with a cute salute before rushing to the kitchen.

In the meantime, Virus continued muttering to himself, “but that’s extremely unlikely since apparently, Leonardo da Vinci was doing optic studies that delved into ‘how the eyes focus’… and that was around the same time he painted Salvator Mundi as well. That means Leonardo was well aware and absolutely would not make such a mistake,” going quiet for a second, he completed the rest of his sentence, “at least not accidentally.”

“So if he did it on purpose, why would he do it?” As this great question appeared in his head, he started connecting the dots as he arrived at a final conjecture, ‘The mystery of the layered paintings and an error made on purpose!’

As gears had already started turning inside him, Virus promptly recreated a flawless crystal orb and made some adjustments to it before putting the 3D image behind it in a perfect way.

“!!!” What he saw next, however, instantly dumbfounded Virus to no ends!