The Burden That Had Been Piling Up

"You're telling us *now*? There's no way that's possible!"

It sounded as though the voices belonged to two Cloud Painters and a member of the Planning Division who had come to them.

"We're truly sorry for acting so selfishly…! But all of us have been in an overworked state since morning, trying to repair the earlier mistakes, and the effects are still continuing now… Any further revision is impossible…!"

"Could you at least bring it closer somehow…? To seventy percent…"

When Vihal alighted, the three angels whose voices they were came in through the entrance below the clock.

"D-Did something happen?"

Having happened to be there, and his eyes meeting those of the two Cloud Painters, Vihal asked the question first of all.

A number of angels who had finished more than ten minutes early were gathering too, one after another, to see what was going on.

"Because of those fools' mistake…! The sky I handled was supposed to be seventy percent!"

"And storm-designated at that. There's no way anyone can paint that in ten minutes or so…! I came because I'm after him in the rotation, but…"

"With ten minutes left, a seventy-percent storm sky is impossible…!"

The angel who cried it out with tears standing in his pale blue eyes was a senior Cloud Painter, one who had joined the work a year before Vihal.

"The board said ten percent, so I painted exactly ten!

Then I went to the rest room, thinking there were only a few minutes left before clock-out, and that's when the Planning Division people came after me…!"

Watching the angel shout, Vihal remembered.

*That's right—he's one Edwin helps quite often…*

"They said, *why aren't you painting seventy percent cloud?* …I've made too many mistakes going over time before, and if I make one big failure now, I may not be allowed to stay in this division anymore…!"

"Then let's go—at once! I'll help too…!!"

Before he knew it, Vihal shouted as well. There was no time to stand here wasting minutes.

"We'll help too! Hurry!"

A few of the angels standing around offered their help, and with brushes and buckets still in the midst of being put away, they all hurried to the room in question.

The door flew open with a bang—and inside was a dusk-lit room, with a sky of ten percent cloud so beautifully painted that it burned itself into the eye.

"The percentage is seventy, yes? And storm specification too, no mistake?"

The angel from the Planning Division who had come with them answered at once.

"That's right…!"

Even he looked pained as he said it, as though he knew perfectly well that this was impossible.

"The whole sky? Or are there any other detailed instructions?"

"The darker the southwest, the better!"

He answered Vihal's question immediately.

"Then get to work! Bring it as close to seventy as you can!"

The angels who had come with them rushed to set down their buckets and pull their brushes from their backs—but Vihal alone was staring at the specified direction.

Even if everyone worked together, the ordinary method would never make it in time. They had to fill seventy percent of the sky with cloud.

There had to be some way—thinking that, Vihal suddenly caught hold of something from his own work that day.

"Everyone! If you can imitate my method, try it!"

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