13 At The Museum

"In any case, let's talked about a more serious topic. Did you learn anything from him?"

Shyla's father asked. His face was stoic and emotionless, which made his previous show of emotions a total lie. There was no gentleness and love in his eyes. Rather, the current state of his eyes made him looked like a cold and calculating man. If it weren't for the love that he had shown to her wife a couple of minutes ago, they would have immediately concluded that he was a tyrant.

Understanding what he meant by his question, Shyla gave him an answer based on the conversation that she had with Nigel earlier today.

"He doesn't seem to know why Rena is approaching him. I tried prying him open a couple of times, but his emotion did not fluctuate at all."

"…I see. Good job. Continue on watching him."

"Understood."

Upon finishing her reply, his cold and stern face faded almost instantly. It was replaced with his previous kind and gentle appearance. He reached out his hand towards her and grabbed her towards him. He hugged her tenderly, as she enjoyed the warmth of his father. Her mother, seeing that her daughter and husband were getting along, joined their hugging session. She forcefully entered their hug and placed her hand behind the two. It was a normal family for Shyla, it seems.

"Why don't you invite him here some other time? Don't you think that a great idea, dear?"

"Yes, you are correct. Invite him over here for dinner so that we may know more about our possible future son-in-law."

"What do you mean son-in-law!!"

Hearing the outrageous demand that her parents were asking of her, she stomped her feet as she did a fast ran towards her bedroom. Her bedroom was not as grandiose as Rena, but it has its own rights. Contrary to her outward cold and stoic behavior, her room was filled with nothing more than cute and fluffy stuff. Her bed was as big as the bed that Rena has, however it was filled with stuffed toys ranging from a penguin to a toy of a very weird looking monster. Her bed was colored in pink, while her mattresses were in tainted with peach. Her room's wallpaper was abstract lines color in yellow, with a touch of heart on various parts of it. Only her desk was the anomaly in her room. It was like in a separate world, detached from the cutesy and loveable decorations that have pervaded her room.

Upon entering her room, she slumped down her bed in an exhausted manner. Her spirit and energy tank was emptied to the bones, it was a no brainer why she was this tired. While she did enjoy her time with Nigel, even if she tried to portray otherwise, it was the first time that she did it in the entire span of her current like. She was not used to doing these "normal" activities.

She slept like a log and woke up late the next morning. Luckily for her, she does not have any class in the morning. This also means to her that she can sleep for much longer. The mansion's maids take care of everything inside her room, from her laundry till her bed sheets. They were also the ones who clean it every day, making them familiar with the young miss' behavior. However, this was the first time that they saw their young miss be this exhausted, even forgetting to change into her pink and bunny-designed sleeping pajamas.

After they had changed her clothes to a proper sleeping wear, they took her used clothes to the washing area for laundry.

…

"Hey, I'm here."

"Hello! I hope I didn't make you wait."

"No, I didn't wait that long. I just got here myself."

Nigel and Rena met in front of Perchard Museum. As its name suggests, this museum was made to house all of the relics and ancient artifacts that Dr. Perchard found during his active days. It housed all of his discoveries, from the statue found buried in the site of the Indus river valley to the supposed geographical landmarks that were supposed to lead to Atlantis, the city buried under the sea.

The museum itself is a historical relic, in a sense. Aside from being an accomplished archeologist and historian, Dr. Perchard also had a degree in architecture. He was the designer of the museum, both the exterior and interior of it. According to his parts interviews, he designed the museum using the Charakamanata buildings as inspirations. This made the architecture of the building unique and distinct compared to the buildings in the city, making it an easy-to-spot landmark.

It had a non-Euclidean architecture, with random spiral pointing towards the sky that comes in shape and sizes. Sometimes the door will be coming from the underground, with the staircase that seems to go further down only to lead you to the topmost level of the building. It had a funky stairs design, which leads to very random places which made it hard to navigate at times. Luckily, the museum does provide a small handout with the map of the place. The entry and exit points of the stairs were also label to where they go, as well as the intersections made from the merging of different pathways.

The art show was being held in the second floor of the museum, also dub as the room of glass. As it namesake describes, it was a room filled with different kinds of glasses. There were several glasses of contoured shape, a plain old reflection glass, and a couple more eccentric see-through glass. The floor and ceiling itself are both reflection glasses, which made the entire room look big but wonky. There were already cases of people becoming disoriented by staying on the floor, which made it essential to station medical units in and out the whole floor.

Rena and Nigel went inside the floor, as they were greeted by the numerous people walking in and out of it. They were quite shocked by this scene, as both of them did not expect such a huge amount of people to visit the art display show.

"Are all of them here to watch the show?"

"I don't believe so. It's just a regular art show, right?"

"Well, yeah. At least, that's base from what I heard."

"How about we go near them to see what all of them are here for."

"Sure! I am also curious as to what would have caused these people to visit this darn floor."

As they decided their course of action, both of them went near the crowd. As they wear getting nearer, they noticed that this crowd were all looking at the same direction. Both of them also looked at the direction that the crowd was looking at. What they discovered is that the whole crowd was actually looking at a young lady who was busy painting, with her gentle brush stroke slowly painted the canvas in front of her.

Both of them had no idea who this young lady was, and why everyone seems to be paying attention to her. Knowing that will reach nothing if they only discussed it among themselves, Nigel asked a nearby bystander.

"Hey, brother. Who is that girl? Why do all of you seem to be looking at her intensely?"

"Wait, you here without knowing who she is?"

"Well, we heard that there was currently an art show being held here. That's why we came."

"Ah, but did you not hear the incoming guest for the show?"

"No… sorry, I only know about the show. Why, is she that guess?"

"Yup, she is the guess. Not only that, but she is a famous person! Well, her works are. It was the first time history that she ever revealed herself to the world!"

"So there was such a thing… so who is she?"

"Hahaha! Don't be startled once I mention who she is, okay? She is none other than Master Zirque!"

The moment the person told Nigel of the name of the mysterious painter girl, his mind froze like a pond in winter time! 'She is Master Zirque! THE Master Zirque!?' Nigel though and shocked from this new information.

Even Rena who was standing next to hear was as astounded as him. There is nobody in this huge city who doesn't know who Master Zirque is! No, it wouldn't be an understatement to apply that sentence to the whole world too!

Master Zirque! He or she was a mysterious painter whose paintings sold for hundreds and millions of US dollars! She was that ultra-popular painter! However, she wasn't famous because her paintings were good, which they are but it wasn't the main factor that made her famous. It was, in fact, because her paintings have something that no other paintings have.

All of her paintings were a picture of an event! But not just any event, all of them were paintings of event that had yet to happen! That's right! Master Zirque was known to create prediction paintings. So far, she had no paintings that had turned out wrong. All of them had happened a month after her she finished her painting. There was even something as big as a tragedy of an earthquake that destroyed a city somewhere in the southern continent. This made everyone dubbed her as "Modern Nostradamus".

However, no one knew about her real identity. It was because she worked in secrecy. Her real identity had always been a huge topic over the web forums on the internet. The internet detectives and self-assured puzzle masters had always been in the hunt of her real identity in the past few years.

"But wait a minute, if she really is her then why reveal herself now? And why on this art show? And is she even the real deal?"

"Well, she is the real deal. She was verified to be Master Zirque by the Stroke House Company after all. They are her only contact to the outside world. Which means to say, they are the only ones who could really determine if she was, in fact, the real deal amongst all the fake that had spread across the internet."

"I see. Thank you very much from telling us about it."

"No problem dude. Better continue your date with that young lady over there. She seems to be sulking since earlier. Bye now."

Hearing the last remarks of the kind stranger who told him what was all the commotion about, he turned himself towards the sulking Rena. Unsure why she was sulking, he innocently asked her.

"What's with the long face, miss beauty?"

"Hmp! Nothing!"

"Wow, Miss Lady. That's very out of character of you. C'mon now, I'm not a mind reader so if you don't tell me what made you upset, I will never what I should do the next time to avoid upsetting you."

Nigel spouted a line that would have made him worshipped by all men in the world. Hearing the sound, cold logic from Nigel, Rena got more upset of him. But in the end, she gave up and told him her feelings.

"I invited you here for a date, yet you spent the first few minutes asking another girl's identity. Hmp!"

"Oh, so that's why you are upset. I'm sorry, okay? Besides, didn't you also want to know why?"

"I was only interested in what caused the huge gather of the crowd here. You on other hand went and look for the identity of the girl. Tell me, was she your type?"

"Sheesh, I was just asking. Besides, you aren't my girlfriend so why would that matter if I asked another girl's name."

She blushed while stuttering 'Gi-gi-girlfriend!' after hearing his reply. This made her embarrassed and went on her docile mode, not wanting to look at Nigel for now. Nigel made a wry smile, seeing her like this acting like a cute and scared rabbit.

'Master Zirque' stopped her painting and stood up from her stool, which attracted the eyes of the crowd inside the floor. She put down her paintbrush and began to head towards Nigel's direction.