A few days later, a man that was wearing a backpack came along. He was similar to the rock throwing man from chapter 2. His features were slightly different but it’d be a pain to describe them so a comparison to the rock throwing man was good enough… who I also did not describe whatsoever. Descriptions like that weren’t necessary anyways.

The point was that he came along and did something. At first, he was just washing his face by the river and restocking on water. Then, he spotted the easel sitting around and came over out of curiosity. He examined it while ignoring the rock below his feet. The first thing he did was to lift the edge of the painting, revealing more paper that could’ve been used to make more art. Except, it was all ruined by the water soaking through; it was worthless. If it wasn’t for the rain soaking it, this person might’ve taken the extra pages for himself, either for money or his own usage.

Most likely money. Finding the paper to be useless, he started breaking the easel. He wasn’t doing it out of rage; he was just collecting the wood. Soon enough, the easel was disassembled, the painting and paper were sprawled on the ground, and most of the wood that made up the easel was taken away. One piece that was left behind had fallen into the water during the disassembly. A piece of netting that was riding down the river got caught at the end of this piece of wood.

Later on, when night fell, a plume of smoke was rising from the top of the hill. The man had made camp for the night with the easel as his firewood. The opportunity was gone. Both the easel and paper was ruined. How amusing would it be if the artist came back now? Right after the extra chance was completely ruined.