Webcomic / Karina's Last Days

Pictured (from left): Karina Leopold and Milian Pastellio

Karina is one of four children of the Count Leopold family. Each of the children are celebrated for their good looks and accomplishments—except for Karina herself. She's been cast aside by her parents in favor of their other children, expected to be the "good" child that supports them, regardless of what she wants. However, that isn't because she isn't talented herself. She's an incredible artist, able to bring her drawings and paintings to life. Her miraculous creations bring her comfort and peace in her lonely, bleak world where no one living seems to care for her and her own desires.

Unfortunately, her gift comes with a hefty price; she is diagnosed with an uncurable disease that will kill her in less than a year. Not wanting to spend her remaining days with an uncaring family, Karina makes her way up north to her fiancé, Duke Milian Pastellio, and strikes a deal with him: she'll annul their engagement if he allows her to stay at his estate for the rest of her remaining time left. Unbeknownst to either her or Lord Milian, this deal is the start of a new beginning for both of them, even as their days together grow smaller...

Karina's Last Days began as a web novel by Jaeunhyung, originally titled "Limited Time of the Terminally-Ill Extra", which was then adapted into a manhwa by Chova, with art by Kimpeul. The English translation is available on Tapas Media.

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''Karina's Last Days contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Karina's parents favored their other children over Karina, who they expected to be quiet, obedient, and supportive of her siblings at all times. They frequently yelled at her and hit her when they believed she had done something wrong or wasn't following their expectations for her, essentially parentifying Karina. Karina herself believed that she is a bad child for wanting to do things for herself, even though it should be normal to want attention from your parents or to be selfish every once in a while. Their abuse is the reason Karina left her home for the north, and aside from a brief trip back to deliver a farewell letter to her father, she never returns.
• Aloof Big Sister: Karina acts cold to her other siblings (except Abelia somewhat) but since they're the reason why she's treated so badly by her parents, can you blame her?
• Always Someone Better: Karina's siblings are this to Karina, as they are more talented than her and always get what they want from their parents, while Karina is expected to give up her time, energy, and possessions for her siblings.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Abelia and Feldon act like this towards Karina. Both of them treat her more like a nanny or a governess than a sister, much to Karina's frustration.
• Art Initiates Life: Karina's "miracle" allows her to bring any creature she paints to life. They can only stick around for a few minutes at most, but are completely obedient to Karina and care for her more than even her own family. Her creations can permanently stick around if they consume the life-force of a fellow being, like the Herta did.
• Berserk Button: Anything to do with Karina’s family can easily set Milian off. Given how extremely neglectful they’ve treated her, it’s understandable.
• Bittersweet Ending: Considering that this is a story about a girl dying of an uncurable disease. Karina and Milian are able to spend a couple more years together than expected, even getting married and having a child. Karina is also able to stick it to her family by becoming a famous artist without the Leopold name attached. However, she dies when her daughter is five years old, but her memory lives on through her art and in Milian and his daughter's hearts.
• Blessed with Suck: Karina has the ability to make any anthropomorphic creature she draws or paints come to life, from animals to mythical creatures, for a couple of minutes. However, the miracles she creates also worsens her art disease, as she will die if she continues to make art, unlike milder cases where artists lose the use of their limbs or bodily functions. She can even bring drawn humans to life, but the act is a taboo and exacerbates her disease.
• Break the Cutie: Poor Karina had her heart broken by her family's repeated neglect of her emotional and physical needs, long before her body began to break down.
  • Abelia also has a breakdown after Karina secretly visited her room while she slept from Ferriel's song, realizing her older sister is truly never returning home.
• Cain and Abel and Seth: Karina is sandwiched between her successful older brother and the mischievous twins, and expected to be the supportive, understanding sister, much to her frustration.
• Child Prodigy: Each of the four Leopold children are accomplished in their own way. The oldest son, Enphric, is a skilled scholar and swordsman; the youngest son Feldon has great social skills (though he is a troublemaker at times); and their youngest daughter Abelia is beautiful and skilled at embroidery (though also quite sickly). From the outside, Karina doesn't seem to be special compared to her siblings, but she's actually a natural artist, with the ability to bring her paintings and drawings to life (though she becomes sicker than Abelia because of the art disease).
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Milian gets… a little furious whenever he sees Ferriel being too friendly with Karina. One time it brought out the savage wolf in him just for seeing them in a happy mood.
• Demon Slaying: Part of Milian's duties as the Duke of Zentar is to fight the demonic beasts that roam the north during winter. It becomes more personal once it's discovered a demon's core, or Haron, could be a cure for Karina's art disease.
• Foreshadowing: When Ferriel lists out the taboos of the miracle of creation, Karina flinches when he mentions that an artist can never make a human being, as it "challenges God's authority over creation" and worsens an artist's art disease. Turns out Karina drew kind versions of her parents when she was very young after a particularly bad day. It was only for a few minutes, but that was the point where her illness grew worse.
• Freudian Excuse: Karina's parents have four children to take care of, including one who is always sick and one who is a troublemaker. The stress of juggling their noble duties with parenting all four of their kids means that one of the children was going to be neglected, and it ended up being Karina...
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: ...not that that excuses them for emotionally and physically abusing her, however. She even tells her father this word-for-word in the letter she leaves behind after sneaking into her former home, bringing up how her parents never visited her room except to scold her once, or even tried to get to know her interests.
  • Ferriel also notes that people who can create miracles (and later get art disease) tend to have bad relationships with their families, though whether it's coincidental or an implied consequence of their miracles is ambiguous.
• Grim Up North: The Zentar Duchy of the north can be beautiful during the summer, but it becomes unbearably frigid during the winter, making food scarce if not prepared ahead of time. Demonic monsters also ravage the north during the winters; part of Milian's duties as the duke are to fight the monsters and prevent them from attacking civilians.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Karina's motivation when she was young was to be doted and cared for by her parents, like her other siblings were. She slowly gives up on this dream as she gets older, and then completely stops after she is comforted by Milian after she explains her family situation to him.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • The Leopold siblings are this towards Karina, the younger siblings especially. Whenever they asked Karina for something, she would do it for them, even if that meant she couldn't eat a snack for herself or go out for tea parties and make friends. Abelia admits that she would sometimes act even more sicker to keep Karina by her side because she was envious that she could go out to have fun while she couldn’t due to her condition. They ended up taking for granted that Karina would always be there for them, which is why they are hit hard when Karina leaves for good.
  • Her parents are also this as well, not making time to admire Karina's artwork or let her do something for herself like have a birthday party on her actual birthday, instead of pushed back in favor of celebrating her eldest brother’s graduation while scheduling a different activity for Karina which she never asked for. The parents are constantly shaming Karina’s complaints by pointing out her little sister’s sickly conditions, but by that point Karina has found out about her art disease.
• Karmic Death: Nocturne eventually dies under Milian's hands for sabotaging his attempt to get the Haron stone for Karina, stealing it to attempt to use it for Abelia. Milian has Nocturne killed via Cold-Blooded Torture, with his death masked as a being killed by a brutal attack from bandits.
• Living Drawing: Karina's miracle can bring her drawings and paintings to life, though only for a couple of minutes. The Herta is able to become permanent by taking the life-force off a fellow Herta.
• Mad Artist: Blurs between this and Eccentric Artist. The art disease can drive an artist crazy the farther along the disease is, hearing a voice that tells them to make art when under emotional distress. It can result in some fantastic art, but it also destroys the artist's body for good (or their lives).
• My God, What Have I Done?: It takes a long time, but Karina's family does eventually regret what they did to Karina. They never get to apologize or make up for what they've done to her before she dies, however, cursing them with regret and sorrow for the rest of their lives.
• Nice Guy: Milian is this, despite his initial rough, aloof exterior.
• Never My Fault: Karina’s family, bar none. Her father is the worst offender of this, but the rest of the family aren't much better. The parents have the audacity to question why Karina couldn’t just tell them her displeasures, but flashbacks show they would also threaten to disown her whenever she told them off over their openly neglectful behavior.
  • Both parents are in denial that they neglect and abuse Karina. One time they berated Karina for making Abelia sicker by letting her eat street food and dismissed the fact that it was Abelia that asked Karina to get the street food for her while she was out. Her parents accuses her of blaming Abelia to avoid responsibility but they’re called out for visiting Karina’s room for the first time in years just so they can blame her over a minor offense while acting in denial over their neglect.
    • One time they shamed Karina for letting go of Abelia’s hand, but Karina points out that Abelia wouldn’t budge until she broke free to see a toy at a stall she wanted. They shame her for not taking responsibility.
  • Her dad didn’t even notice that he had all self portraits of his family, except Karina’s but it was in a group family picture. Nor did he remember that she didn’t attend a family picnic until he sees her painting of said picnic. He and his wife have the gall to question where everything went wrong.
  • Her poor excuse of a father is appalled over Karina’s Calling the Old Man Out letter that she left on his desk when she snuck back to her house with Ferriel and yells out that she should have voiced her displeasures instead of having it written out for him. Then he reads that Karina brings up that a lot of the times that both him and her mother would often threaten Karina into kicking her to the curb whenever she called them out on their bullshit favoritism and neglect. One servant admits that he overheard Karina sounding really sick from outside her room. His boss asks the servant why he wasn’t informed but is pointed out that he was told of this, but at the time he dismisses it under the excuse of his busy schedule and believed Karina is old enough to care for herself. The bastard tells the servant that he should have told him anyway.
  • Abelia turns into a subversion of this, however, after overhearing her father's rant about Karina's letter. Realizing that she didn't dream about Karina returning to the house to say goodbye, Abelia ends up sobbing in her room, lamenting that her sister is gone forever.
  • Karina’s eldest brother is shocked over her disappearance and wondered what could have drove her into running away. He didn’t even take into consideration that he purposely scheduled his graduation celebration on the same day as Karina’s birthday, which was the final straw for Karina with dealing with him and the rest of the family’s extreme neglect.
• Parental Favoritism: Karina's parents love all their children equally...except for Karina, who they use as an emotional punching bag for all the stress they've accumulated looking after their youngest daughter and dealing with their sons.
• Parental Neglect: Karina's parents aren't too interested in their eldest daughter, believing she exists to support everyone else in the family. As a result, Karina is expected to act mature and docile for her age, and must act in the interests of her siblings above herself. If she doesn't, she's either verbally or physically abused by her parents.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Karina and Milian were originally engaged by her parents. Milian didn't like the arrangement, as he believed Karina was too fragile to handle the cold and dangerous north. After Karina comes to live with him, he realizes that she's quite tenacious and slowly warms up to her, making it harder for Karina as her disease slowly kills her. They eventually marry and have a child, though Karina finally dies for good when her daughter is five years old.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Milian is this. Most people in the north know him for his curt, blunt, and indifferent persona, but he actually has a warm, open, and levelheaded personality that he shows only to Karina, once they open up to each other.
• There Is No Cure: The art disease has no known cure. Most artists who have it either keep making art and lose either an important part of their body (or lose their lives in Karina's case), or stop creating their art. It doesn't help that the art disease is implied to trample on the artist's mental health and make them want to keep creating art. Harons (the stones found in demons) can hold off the symptoms for a while, but it doesn't completely cure the disease.
• The Un-Favourite: Karina is overshadowed by her siblings and is considered to be the extra child by her parents. Her leaving causes the entire family to realize how badly they treated her, but by the time they all come to this conclusion, it's too late to make amends.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Milian and Ferriel are this. They constantly butt heads and insult one another, but they do care about each other deep, deep down.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Due to her strong passion in painting to cope with dealing with her family’s neglect, she’s diagnosed with the fatal art disease, and doesn’t know when she’ll succumb. She decides to use her remaining time left alive to run away from home and become a great artist without her family's shadow hanging over her.