My life had never been anything particularly special.
I simply drifted along as my heart led me, all the way through high school, studied just enough, and got into a decent university.
After graduating, I worked part-time, never even dreamed of a major corporation, and entered a small-to-medium-sized company.
Yes, that was the path I had walked until now.
But… where was this place?
I had definitely enjoyed my last Sunday to the fullest and collapsed into bed, exhausted. Yet the place I was in now was neither my bed, nor my home, nor my company.
An unpleasant place filled with the droning hum of machinery.
“Is this… a submersible?”
An interior where pure white metal panels gleamed.
A long, streamlined space—it felt as though I were trapped inside a small submersible.
The door was sealed tight with a hatch, and no matter how much force I put into it, it would not turn.
Anxiety began to creep up on me.
But if I just stood still in fear, I wouldn’t accomplish anything.
So I decided to grasp the situation first.
After briefly looking around, I saw a chest of drawers, some unidentified machinery, and a faintly glowing cube-shaped object.
The space was fairly large, enough for two people to live in without difficulty, and the cube in the center gave off the impression that it was quite important.
I glanced sidelong at the cube emitting a faint green light.
It looked expensive, but it was displayed behind glass, so it seemed difficult to take out.
I passed over the cube and started rummaging through the drawers first.
When I opened them, they were filled with water and food.
“Emergency rations?”
Guess I shouldn’t expect them to taste good.
Thinking that, I closed the drawers.
After the drawers came the machinery.
It looked like a modern kiosk, and when I tapped its black screen—
—Beep.
With a short sound, white light came on across the screen.
The screen was lined with countless pictures and letters.
Looking closely, they were machines that seemed related to survival, such as base expansion tools and water purifiers.
And then there were machines I couldn’t identify, like a mana collector and a mental combat training device.
There were also required materials listed, some minerals and plants I knew, and others I did not.
Most of them, in fact, were things I did not know.
As I looked through them like that, quite a bit of time passed.
My anxiety made me want to get out now, so I moved elsewhere.
I wondered if this might be some malicious prank, like a hidden camera, so I headed toward a window where I could see outside.
If there were people out there, I intended to ask for help.
A faint light was leaking in as well, so I thought it must be sunlight.
As I approached, that light became clearer and clearer.
And the moment I brought my eye to the window—
“…Huh?”
The words slipped out naturally, born of incomprehension.
Though my eyes had clearly seen it, my mind denied the truth.
Darkness—an endless abyss-like darkness—was the first thing to seize my gaze.
After that, the beings emitting light entered my sight.
There was indeed a source of light.
However, it was not a star, nor a screen, nor even bacteria.
Wooooong.
I had the illusion that the strange engine noise had grown louder.
Outside was close to a darkness where not a single point of light could be seen, and because of that, it was all the more visible.
A green force field dividing the darkness from an ancient city.
Its appearance would not have been out of place if called an underwater city.
It was like looking upon the legendary city of Atlantis.
Its breadth, impossible to even dare estimate, and its towers rising high were truly overwhelming.
The place I was in had that force field as well.
A force field that kept the darkness from coming near me.
But seeing the darkness made a question arise.
Then where was the sun?
The sun that was always present in the sky.
The moon and clusters of stars that revealed themselves when the sun hid its face.
No matter what, there was never an emptiness in the sky.
And so that question wrapped around me, and I tried to look upward.
I lowered my posture. When my chin came near the floor, I began to see above.
The place above, where the sun, the moon, and the stars should have been.
Above, countless dots reflecting the light of the force field were embedded close together, shining green.
Ah, it seemed the sky was fine after all.
The stars were embroidered there like tha—
Crack.
An unpleasant noise entered my ears as I was looking up.
It sounded like something being forcibly torn away—no, like something being gnawed.
My head turned toward the place the sound came from.
Naturally, my retinas took it in.
That thing, clinging to the force field like a leech.
I saw it, trying to devour the overwhelming force field.
That thing. That thing.
A creature I could only describe as “that thing” because I had no words for it.
It looked as though long strips of flesh had been stretched out and woven together, its face seared by fire and carved into shape, every predator’s tooth gathered and embedded into its mouth.
At a glance, it looked like a dragon, and also like a snake, as it gnawed at the force field.
Pushed back by the force field, its teeth fell out in clattering showers.
Thud. Thud-thud. Thud. Thud-thud.
It paid no mind to its own teeth and continued gnawing at the force field without pause.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Not long after new teeth grew in, they were snapped off by the pressure of the force field.
Just as its teeth were about to fall to the ground once more—
The sky collapsed.
Kukukung—!!!!
A vibration that shook my entire body struck me.
That thing had been crushed by the sky.
No, that was not the sky.
It was a tentacle covered in thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of millions of eyes.
The tentacle, like a modern skyscraper, turned that thing into minced meat, then rose upward.
Above, it was still shining.
“H-Hurk. Ugh.”
I could not breathe properly.
What is that? Why am I here? Where is this? Are those eyes looking at me?
Everything felt suspect, and it was hard to endure.
If only all of this were a nightmare lasting only an instant.
I moved away from the window and sat down at the center, the farthest point from every wall, leaning against the pillar that held the faintly glowing cube.
I wrapped my hands around my head and breathed as quietly, as faintly as I possibly could.
Fear, unmistakable fear, enveloped me.
A pressure that made it impossible to move even a single finger squeezed me tight.
This was like the pressure of the deep sea.
An irresistible force that humans could neither defy nor change.
Trying to quiet the sound of my heart, which beat especially loudly, praying desperately not to be discovered—
I closed my eyes.
And then, I saw light.
I wondered if it might be that tentacle, but it was text.
[PN001 - Reception failed.]
[PN002 - Reception failed.]
[PN003 - Reception failed.]
¨¨¨
¨¨
¨
[PN022 - Reception failed.]
[PN023 - Reception successful.]
A cluster of light like a log suddenly appeared at the edge of my vision.
While my mind still failed to keep up with what was happening—
[Granting maximum authority to target.]
[¨¨¨ successful. Final stage, initiating data erasure.]
The messages did not continue and vanished from the cluster in my vision.
But my sight was showing me another cluster of light.
[Truth-Seeking Gallery]
—Ah, what’s the mod doing? Why are they late?
—Aaaah!! Hurry up and delete the pic!!!!
—Iaijutsu is the strongest sword art, and there is no room for objection…
—Woof woof! Grrrr!! Bark bark!!
—How’s an elf’s body?
—If I try collecting pics again, I’m a dog, a dog lololol
“…A gallery?”
In a place where everything was alien, something familiar had appeared.
Feeling vaguely uneasy, I wanted to get rid of the gallery shimmering before my eyes immediately.
It’s dangerous, my reason shouted at me.
But to do that, I was too afraid of the “sky.” I wanted to talk to anyone.
In this place where the only light was the force field, I did not need to be alone.
I needed conversation with another person.
Afraid that the “sky” might notice me, I let out a shallow breath and focused on the gallery.
New posts were still appearing actively in the gallery.
A massive bulletin board where posts continued to increase with every passing moment.
In that place overflowing with information, I entered the post with the most recommendations.
—Reasons the Gallery Is OP as Hell
First off, you can use it anywhere.
Whether you’re in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of the ocean, you can use it.
And the user’s information is hidden to a bizarre degree, so curse magic or swordsman’s intuition and stuff don’t pick it up.
You could write 5,700 characters insulting the emperor here and still not get caught.
Also, there are lots of elf pics. Yeah.
ㄴ So you were an elf-simp, huh, you bastard
ㄴ What elves? Beastfolk are the truth
ㄴㄴ Who the hell likes fur?
ㄴ Insulting the emperor is legit so damn good, the emperor’s such trash it pisses me off lololol
ㄴ Can be used anywhere <-- this is the real cheat. If you share IDs with each other, you can talk from anywhere
“…This place is a little different too.”
It was a gallery, but it was definitely different from the galleries where I came from.
It seemed this was another world after all.
Well, since it had appeared directly in front of my eyes, it was something I had expected to some extent, so that was fine.
And… people at their core did not seem all that different.
They only said strange things, and anything useful amounted to a rat’s tail.
Still, with this kind of collective intelligence, there might be someone who could identify my situation.
I immediately made myself a nickname, then slowly approached the window.
Honestly, my body was trembling from fear, but the force field was far stronger than I had expected, and even that tentacle had not pierced through it easily.
Forcing my legs, which were about to give out, to keep moving, I approached the window and pressed the photo capture button.
Click.
A sound rang directly inside my head, and I immediately wrote a post.
Recalling the posts I used to make asking questions about old games, I wrote it, and soon, it was uploaded to the gallery.
—Aurora: Where am I?
I definitely fell asleep at home, but now I’m here…
(Photo of an old city covered by a green force field)
Where the hell is this? Seriously, even a rough answer is fine, just tell me
A few seconds after I uploaded the post, the first comment appeared.
ㄴ Truth Scholar: The deep sea? Is this perhaps the deep sea? No matter how I look at it, that force field is from the lost era’s…
The deep sea, apparently. And in a fantasy world, at that.