Otherworld Constellation Gallery Chapter 1

Otherworld Constellation Gallery

Chapter 1

July 31, 1999. The streets were in ruins. Charred signs rolled around on the ground, and broken glass shards reflected light on the asphalt. People fleeing, screaming voices, explosions going off somewhere.

“It’s finally here! The end of the world!”

A man shouted in the middle of the street. As if that was a signal, people began jumping from the tops of buildings.

“Ahhh, fuck! What kind of crazy shit is this?!”

I hastily turned my head. The sound of something being crushed behind my head made every hair on my body stand on end.

In the direction I turned, there were people kneeling on the road praying, parents hugging their children and sobbing. A massive apocalyptic madness was sweeping through the city. I was standing right in the middle of it.

“Fuck…. There’s no such thing as the end of the world, you idiots….”

The last thing I remember is 2030. I was just a day away from joining the military. But when I opened my eyes, I was here. Woke up in the body of an unknown man.

I’ve been stubbornly enduring and adapting to this shitty past for 3 months, and now they say the world is ending. At first, I ignored it thinking, yeah, keep talking. But from a month ago, society started to change.

Stores with locked doors, abandoned cars, apocalypse prediction posters fluttering everywhere. People started praying on building rooftops, in the middle of streets, at temples, churches, all sorts of places. And today, the doomsday they’ve been talking about, things are going too far.

‘Even if I’m the only one who knows the future, am I the only one who doesn’t believe it?’

Did Korea really go through this in 1999? 

That’s when it happened. 

The murmuring crowd suddenly all looked up at once. Something huge was falling from the sky.

“It’s here! God’s judgment!”

People reached out as if seeking salvation. But it was just a passenger plane crashing down.

‘Crazy bastards.’

Did 1999 humans really live with this kind of mindset?

 There’s not a single sane person. I’m already looking forward to their reality-checked faces tomorrow, whatever state they’ll be in.

After seeing these horrific scenes beyond imagination, I just wanted to go back home. There was no point in staying any longer, and I felt like I might get swept up in this crazy atmosphere too. I was about to turn around with an incredulous sigh.

DING!

[New system activated.]

“…What?”

I flinched momentarily. 

I rubbed my eyes and looked again. A translucent window appeared before my eyes.

‘…Ah, right, right. Nothing to be surprised about anymore.’

It’s already absurd enough that I’ve returned to 1999, a time before I was even born, and on top of that, I’m occupying the body of someone I don’t even know. At this point, an unknown system window appearing before my eyes wasn’t anything significant.

‘I must really be crazy.’

Yes, somehow. I begged and pleaded not to go to the military, and it seems God, that fucking bastard, really gave me schizophrenia.

 I quickened my pace while muttering self-deprecating monologues.

It doesn’t matter anyway. If the world is crazy and full of crazy people, then going crazy myself would be mentally beneficial.

The way back home was quieter than expected. Unlike the main streets, once I entered the alleyways, the voices of doomsday believers could barely be heard.

This is the rented room I found after seeing the resident registration card when I first opened my eyes. Fortunately, it was a room for a single person, and judging by the traces scattered around, the original owner seemed to have been quite irresponsible.

‘Still, it’s fortunate. If I didn’t have at least this rented room, who knows where I would’ve had to crash.’

I threw myself onto the bed. …No, more importantly. I recalled the hologram window I saw earlier.

‘What was that thing, anyway?’

Why did something like that appear before my eyes? Now I’m even having hallucinations.

“It really feels like the end is coming.”

That’s when it happened, as I was giggling while talking to myself.

DING!

As if it recognized that I called for it, or maybe my brain had really gone mad, the translucent window appeared again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

📜 You are the Ignorant One. 

While all of humanity embraced the faith of destruction, you alone refused to believe it.
The only being to deny the fate of the world, something considered ‘inevitable.’
And so, a unique power is granted to you.

◆ [Monopoly of Information]

• You have been granted access to the Constellation Gallery.
• You are the only human who can view this gallery.
• Through it, you can gather clues unknown to others.

◆ [Constellation Gallery: Precautions]

• The constellations are unaware of your presence.
• The constellations do not always speak the truth.
• Be careful not to reveal that you are the only human in the gallery. 

📜 “Ignorance is the most perfect freedom.” 

Will you gain freedom, or will you gain information? 

The choice is yours. 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“…What is this now?”

I doubted my eyes for a moment. Constellation Gallery? Is this the gallery I know?

No, more importantly, why is something like this popping up? Perhaps in this other world, my brain, with nothing better to do, has created hallucinations on its own.

‘…Well, this kind of madness isn’t so bad.’

I started to take a light interest as I touched the hologram window. Let’s take a look. Oh, it works even without touching it. Now it feels like I’m back in 2030.

What unfolded was a very familiar UI. It was eerily similar to that site from my previous life.

‘My imagination is really poor.’

Seeing that it appears exactly as I could imagine, it seems this really is a hallucination created by my mind. Still, this familiar aesthetic is more comfortable to enjoy.

[Title: One who contracted with a God] Claiming good ones early is also a skill, agree?

ㄴYou idiot, are you crazy to make a contract so early?

ㄴUnless you’re really crazy, you don’t make incarnation contracts early on.

ㄴYeah, if you make a wrong contract, you won’t die, but if your growth stagnates, you’re really fucked lol.

ㄴ You idiots, do you think I don’t know that? I was just checking if there were any newbies lol.

ㄴYou didn’t know, idiot.

ㄴPoster) Fuck off!!

[Title: Wow, fuck lol many people are dying even before this dimension’s event starts lol] Thanks to those fucking spoiler bastards.

ㄴFiltering out the weak is good lol.

ㄴWho’s the constellation that spread the doomsday theory? That’s really shitty.

ㄴFor real, they made it super boring.

ㄴSeeing humans panic is fun, but it’s boring when they all prepare in advance or panic too early.

ㄴIt’ll be even more chaotic when the event actually starts, so it’s fine.

ㄴEarly event areas are boring anyway.

ㄴIt’s even more boring when everyone dies as soon as it starts.

ㄴYou gotta give the humans time to level up lol.

 ㄴTrue later even guns won’t work.

[Title: What if a contracted human doesn’t level up?] Is there no solution other than raising a new one? But what if they don’t die, isn’t that worse?

ㄴIf you get such an incarnation, consider yourself screwed.

 ㄴThen just watch the idiot. HAHAHA.

ㄴIf you neglect them, they’ll either die or level up slowly, yeah. If they die, choose carefully before contracting again.

ㄴBut by then, there won’t be many gods available for contracts.

I scrolled through the posts with an absurd feeling.

 What the hell are these nonsense posts?

 I could see terms that would typically appear in gaming communities, but the context was completely odd. And increasingly bizarre content caught my eye.

[Title: Where are the early areas in Korea?] I hope it breaks out in Seoul. Pick Seoul as an early area, you bastard, that’s where the useful ones are concentrated So they can grow faster

ㄴThey always choose the outskirts.

ㄴIdiots, if Seoul is early, it’s level imbalance will make things boring.

ㄴThere’s also America, why would Seoul cause level imbalance? 

ㄴIdiot, America also gets rural areas picked.

ㄴEarly areas) Confirmed: Incheon Songdo, Gwangju Chungjangno, Daejeon Eunhaeng-dong, Daegu Dongseongno. 

ㄴHumans living in Demon Realm Incheon will probably be the most useful.

ㄴHigh potential but also very low potential, be careful.

ㄴBut don’t you know how to find early areas? Or why are you specifically looking for Korean early areas? Are you a newbie? 

ㄴKorea has many game addicts, it’s a honey pot. Are you a newbie? 

ㄴDon’t mention that Korea is a honey pot.

ㄴFor real, why share such info that makes contract competition fiercer?.

ㄴIt’s just low-quality info anyway, what does it matter?

 ㄴKicking away the ladder after climbing up.

[Title: 30 minutes left until the event] Hey bastards, are you ready?

ㄴStandby in Somalia.

ㄴSomalia is really a honey pot in the early stage.

ㄴLol gunshot kings, but they’re too weak later on.

 ㄴThey’re one-trick ponies with guns.

 ㄴAlmost never seen any of them grow when bullets stop working later.

ㄴJust contract with Koreans, they have the highest low potential.

ㄴFor real?

ㄴIdiot, they have high high potential, but their low potential is underground.

[Title: Upvote if you’re excited to see humans panicking and dying soon] Me first.

ㄴTrue lol.

ㄴEveryone can die except my incarnation.

ㄴAlways like this, but later they all flood the tip boards asking for information, which is hilarious.

ㄴThere’s none of that 30 minutes later. 

ㄴTrue lol, just popcorn time.

[Title: 30 minutes left, sharing precautions] Don’t cry after hastily making contracts just because you easily killed a few monsters early on, be careful lol I’m warning you

ㄴThis bastard is trying to get contracts for himself.

ㄴEvil bastard.

ㄴIdiot, humans who can maintain mental stability and fight from the beginning have SSSS-rank potential, contracting with them is normal.

ㄴHey idiots, stop sharing information.

ㄴThe kind replies to this bait post are annoying lol. 

ㄴYou share all this information and then whine when your believers get stolen? Idiots.

I hurriedly checked the time. What’s this about 30 minutes left? What are contracts? And early areas? But, wait… Incheon Songdo as an early area?

“…That’s here?”

[Title: Question) Constellation with irritating ass] Sorry for attention-seeking How can humans kill monsters without contracts? During that early event, Can they just beat them up?

ㄴ?

 ㄴ? 

ㄴ? 

ㄴ?

…Oh, fuck, wait. Is this not the right atmosphere here? I’m screwed.

[TL/N: The Author omitted punctuations in the gallery comments , The translator added them to make reading easier]