Having walked past the hospital’s main entrance, I turned my steps to the right.
A hollow rumble echoed from my stomach.
I swiftly scanned my surroundings.
After a moment’s contemplation about where to go, my gaze caught a sign, bringing me to a halt.
[Boram Restaurant]
Was it named thus simply because it stood beside Boram Hospital?
Places like this often harbor truly hidden culinary gems.
Even its name held a peculiar allure.
Its exterior further solidified my intuition.
A humble facade, quite unlike the trendy establishments of today.
The glass door, seemingly uncleaned for ages, obscured the interior.
Only the faint glow of fluorescent lights emanating from within barely indicated that it was open for business.
Perhaps because the lunch rush had just passed, the inside was quieter than I expected.
This would be the place today.
“Excuse me,”
I pushed open the stiff door and stepped inside.
A click echoed.
“Welcome…”
A chilling draft enveloped me, as if the air conditioning was running at full blast.
The sound of the door drew out a middle-aged woman, clad in an apron, from the back.
Her appearance was unremarkable, one that could be seen anywhere.
Yet, her voice was strangely dry and unnervingly monotonous, like a machine.
I glanced around.
Four tables. Eight chairs.
A worn calendar hung on the wall.
My eyes, however, snagged on the calendar.
The date… it was stuck on September 2012.
My heart plummeted.
‘Could it be…?’
Just then, a menu was placed before me.
“Excuse me, but what year is it right now…?”
The woman responded with a puzzled expression to my question.
“It’s 2025.”
“Then, that calendar…?”
“Oh… that… I just left it there because I couldn’t be bothered to take it down.”
Hmm.
A faint blush crept onto my face.
It seemed I needed to rein in my paranoia a little.
[Today’s Boram Menu – Doenjang-jjigae / Kimchi Fried Rice / Jeyuk Jeongshik]
The woman’s gaze was fixed on my lips.
Presumably, these three were the only options.
“…One Jeyuk Jeongshik, please.”
“Yes. One Jeongshik.”
Her voice echoed.
Soon, from the kitchen, the rhythmic thud of a knife against a cutting board began to resonate.
Beyond the opaque glass partition, a fleeting shadow passed.
‘…Wasn’t this place run by just the owner?’
A chilling sensation crept down my spine.
“—What am I thinking, there must be a separate chef.”
Though I mumbled aloud, my hand had already, quite honestly, reached for my phone.
Upon accessing the Ghastly Gallery, I confirmed that no broadcast was currently active.
‘Just as I expected.’
In any case, I would have to wait a little for my food.
Since I had it on anyway, I decided to kill some time.
As my finger idly scrolled down, a particular post caught my eye.
It was about a user from another gallery, one who had been mentioned several times before.
[Title: Cyberpunk Gallery lol I went and stirred up trouble]
–Author: NoAnswerLife.
Another big catch today, lolololololol.
[HeavenBreaker]: There are still people falling for it?
–[NoAnswerLife]: Not big fish, just newbies who haven’t been here long lol.
Hmm.
Though I didn’t know exactly what they had done, it was clear they had gone to another gallery and caused a ruckus.
But…
‘How exactly does one get into those?’
While I had seen mentions of other galleries a few times, I had been too busy lately to properly investigate.
[Title: So many mentions of other galleries]
–Author: Newbie120053
How do you get in?
After posting the question, I waited for a moment.
Soon, one of the resident ‘Time Bill Gates’ (TL Note: A humorous Korean slang term for someone with an abundance of free time, often used to describe active online users who reply very quickly) replied in less than five seconds.
[NotHuman]: ..? Just, if you press the Ghastly Gallery exit button. All the other galleries show up..?
‘..It’s that easy?’
Honestly, if it had been any other ‘mangja’ (TL Note: A Korean slang term, literally meaning ‘dead person,’ used to refer to extremely dedicated or long-term forum users), I would have done it immediately.
But with NotHuman saying it, I found it hard to believe.
For some reason, that guy…
If someone actually pressed the exit button,
it wouldn’t be surprising if a catastrophe occurred, leading to their life exiting as well.
[HeavenBreaker]: Not many actually press the exit button, though.
[CreamBread]: Real lol. No matter how tough the world you reincarnated into is, who would actually ‘salja’ (TL Note: A Korean internet slang term, a euphemism for ‘suicide’ or ‘ending one’s life,’ often used humorously or hyperbolically in online contexts)?
[KyaruIsTruth]: Real lol. Our gallery was probably the first to discover that.
–[CucumberCandy]: Yeah, the Apocalypse Gallery made a big fuss, claiming they were first.
[DarkMerchant]: Lolololololol… Wait. Tears are suddenly streaming from my eyes.
[Organism]: Me too, sweat.
[MyCrabHurts]: Ah, this is a world where people actually live, you know!
Even after reading numerous comments, no one seemed to contradict NotHuman’s statement.
[GraduateStudent12]: Pressing the exit button does work. More importantly, stop idling here and go stir up trouble! Hurry!
After waiting a little longer, I saw a comment from the ‘juttak’ (TL Note: A Korean internet slang term for the main moderator or administrator of an online community or forum), and my doubts vanished.
It wasn’t a lie after all.
To think that even the main moderator of the gallery was openly encouraging people to cause trouble.
For a moment, I wondered if this was truly right.
Nevertheless, I looked at the top of my phone screen.
[Exit] button.
After a brief hesitation, I pressed the button.
There was no warning message whatsoever.
Immediately, the Ghastly Gallery closed, and a new selection window appeared before my eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Galleries: 412]
[MagicalGirl Gallery] [MagicalGirlN Gallery] [Academy Gallery]
[Fantasy Gallery] [RomanceFantasy Gallery] [Cyberpunk Gallery]…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
There were more types of galleries than I had anticipated.
As I pondered which one to enter first, the Cyberpunk Gallery suddenly came to mind.
It was a gallery frequently mentioned in the juttak’s announcements.
‘They said the Cyberpunk Gallery and our gallery didn’t get along, didn’t they…?’
Clicking on the Cyberpunk Gallery, I entered.
The first thing that greeted me was this:
A massive announcement about our gallery, prominently displayed in the Cyberpunk Gallery’s notices.
[Notice][Ghastly Gallery Users ㅗ]
[Notice][We have not forgotten what you did that day.]
[Notice][It’s no use claiming the bastard who sent us the summoning circle accidentally clicked on his own creation and died a natural death.]
A hollow laugh escaped me.
‘What on earth did they do…?’
To find out why, I clicked on the notice.
[Notice][Ghastly Gallery Users ㅗ]
–Author: IWillMakeGunpla.
Damn it!!!!!! You son of a b*tch!
It was my own damn peaceful cyberpunk world.
And suddenly, you flipped it into urban fantasy?
You changed it into deep dark fantasy cyberpunk?
Lolololololol. Thaaaaaaanks. Damn it, now humans don’t fight among themselves here.
How? Should I give you a Nobel Peace Prize while I’m at it?
Because of those… lol… ghastly beings or monsters you created, humans are now building walls and fighting monsters.
I thought the world I was born into was cyberpunk.
Oh, wait, it was urban+cyberpunk+fantasy all along?
Was this your way of tightening up our relaxed vigilance?
[CoderDeveloper]: I clearly intended to develop a game in this other world. But there’s no one to play it. Only 1 concurrent player.
[IAmAChild]: …Damn it. I, who used to babble “kyu kyu kya kya” every day, had my ‘bubtong’ (TL Note: A Korean internet slang term, likely a playful or cute way of saying ‘mental state’ or ‘innocence’) shattered and came to my senses. I’ve abandoned that way of speaking now. This damn life.
[BoardGame]: …Where is there time for games? If a wall breaks, we repair it and fight monsters. We stand guard all night, maintain perimeter security, suppress internal heretics. And whenever we have a spare moment, we have to trace the cause.
Ugh, this is too much.
[Title: I finally know.]
–Author: IFutureSF
Watching that crazy Cthulhu b*tch. Finally—
[NotHuman]: …Is she pretty?
–[IFutureSF]: …What the hell kind of nonsense is that!
–[NotHuman]: My bad, I’ll rephrase.
–[NotHuman]: Is she hot?
–[IFutureSF]: …
What’s more, this was being written in real-time.
The ‘mangja’ NotHuman had just commented on my post in the Ghastly Gallery.
This meant they had immediately crossed over here to cause trouble.
Perhaps being a ‘mangja’ required an extraordinary amount of diligence.
I shook my head at the post, which was overflowing with Cyberpunk Gallery users flocking to it in real-time.
Now that I understood the full story,
I quietly exited the Cyberpunk Gallery.
I couldn’t possibly cause trouble here.
If I had changed the genre of a neighborhood where people lived,
I couldn’t do it, even out of sheer guilt.
“That’s not even a drift,”
I muttered, my gaze falling upon the MagicalGirl Gallery.
The RomanceFantasy Gallery. The Fantasy Gallery.
These were the galleries with the largest populations.
For reference, our Ghastly Dark Fantasy Gallery ranked around 401st in population.
1st place: MagicalGirl Gallery (1.014 million).
2nd place: RomanceFantasy Gallery (918,000).
3rd place: Fantasy Gallery (595,000).
‘More importantly… why does the population drop so drastically from third place onwards?’
If our gallery had caused such a ruckus even in the 5th-ranked Cyberpunk Gallery,
what on earth had they done to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ranked galleries?
Considering the nature of our gallery members, it would be extremely strange if they hadn’t done anything at all.
As I looked at posts from galleries where people lived happily, laughing and smiling,
I wondered, would they have said, “Be happy! It’s good to see!”?
I was intensely curious.
The moment my hand reached to click on a gallery—
“Your Jeongshik is ready.”
The food was placed before me.
Jeyuk sizzling and cooking on a hot stone plate.
Doenjang-jjigae, its aroma enhancing the meal, living up to the name ‘Jeongshik’.
Accompanied by fresh lettuce.
Truly, a complete and unpretentious meal, just as the name ‘Jeongshik’ implied.
Well.
It wasn’t particularly urgent.
Perhaps I’d look into it later.
I set my phone down for a moment, fixing my gaze on the meal before me.
****
The moment I finished my meal and pushed open the hospital door, stepping inside,
a chilling cold swept over me.
Had they cranked up the air conditioning here too?
Before my eyes, a hospital appeared that was utterly unlike the one I knew.
Surely the hospital hadn’t suddenly remodeled itself with an abandoned house theme.
“…Seriously, should I go to some renowned shaman and have an exorcism performed?”
They say you fight superstition with superstition.
