Chapter 11
011 – Monkey Gallery (3)
「Monkey Gallery」
An internet community popped up.
Monkey Photos (1) Anon (992.201)
What species of monkey is this? (3) Anon (321.31)
It seemed to be a community where people talked about monkeys, quite literally.
The posts didn’t seem very frequent, though. There were long gaps between them.
A month, sometimes even several months.
That made sense, since monkeys weren’t exactly popular animals.
If this were a dog or cat gallery, posts would’ve been uploaded one after another.
But monkeys…
Well, it wasn’t like they were mainstream.
I recalled what ‘Oseonjok Exterminator,’ who’d given me the link to the 「Monkey’s Paw Site」, had said.
━「The 「Monkey’s Paw Site」. It’s a Q…QR code that lets you access it. It’s a re…reward you get for being a sub-moderator of the Monkey Gallery for a whole year.」
It seemed becoming a magician changed your constitution, or something.
I could vividly remember every detail of his trembling voice and his eyes.
I definitely felt like my memory had improved.
‘He definitely said it was the Monkey Gallery. Is this the right one?’
Oseonjok Exterminator.
Was it true that he’d been a sub-moderator in this community?
For the record, ‘sub-moderator’ is short for ‘blue badge.’
It’s slang for community moderators.
Depending on their rank, they had an orange or blue badge next to their username.
If you compared it to a restaurant kitchen, the orange badge, or ‘orange mod,’ would be the head chef.
The blue badge, or ‘blue mod,’ would be something like the sous-chef.
These moderators with armbands blocked trolls and deleted spam posts that didn’t fit the community.
‘Oseonjok Exterminator’ must’ve been one of those moderators, doing the same kind of work.
But I wasn’t sure if this ‘Monkey Gallery’ he’d worked for was really the one here.
Maybe there was something else to it.
I was frowning at the thought when—
Ssssss─.
The letters in the posts spread out before my eyes began moving like ants.
It felt as if every pore in my body had suddenly opened, and my head went blank.
The letters, wriggling like living creatures, rearranged themselves into new sentences.
They looked like this.
「Anon (321.321)」
Fuck, how many digits is this verification code? (3)
I have to jump through every fucking hoop just to write one post
└They added a 12-digit code because of those monster-aliens spamming the place, lmao
└Looking at how wild the anomalies are, that rumor about the Nguyen witch dying must be true lol
└└It’s not Nguyen, it’s Thai, you dumbass
「Sillim-dong Magic Claw」
Hate the verification code? If you don’t like it, make a fixed handleㅎㅎ (2)
Of course, you lot who are average ‘juice magicians’ probably can’t even see the ‘make a fixed handle’ buttonㅎㅎ
└You know the Foundation monitors you if you make a fixed handle, right? I’m deliberately not making one
└Ah, just juice! Making excuses is so damn pathetic!
「Our Neighborhood Shaman King」
I just made a new suit of armor out of aluminum foil. What do you think? (97)
(A photo of a coat covered in aluminum foil)
└lol It must be fucking hot to wear in summer
└If you wear something like that, aren’t you basically announcing, ‘I’m a magician’?!
└Monkeys’ll just think you’re some crazy-ass bum lol
└Our Neighborhood Shaman King: No, but I’m telling you, this thing is insanely effective. It keeps most anomalies away
「Anon (44.44)」
I can see a ghost. Please help me (3)
「God Who Rules the Korean Peninsula」
That post above is troll spam from monster infiltrators, so don’t click it (5)
It’ll be deleted soon
└This sub-mod is doing a good job for once lol
└IP address 44,44, my ass lol
└What kind of asshole anomaly can get past twelve anomaly-blocking codes?
└Curious? If you’re curious, click it yourself ㄱㄱ
└Looks like the three who commented already fell for it lol
“O-oh…!”
Thump─thumpthumpthumpthump─.
My heart was pounding harder than at any other point today.
A secret revealed after pulling aside a thin curtain.
‘The Monkey Gallery’ really existed!
Were all the people posting here like me?
Were they magicians who could see things other people couldn’t, just like me?
My fingertips and toes tingled as if electricity were coursing through them from excitement.
The thought that I could learn more about what I didn’t know made every hair on my head stand on end.
There were so many things I wanted to ask them.
The thing I wanted to ask most of all was probably…
I glanced at Bori-bori.
Bori-bori was curled up in a corner, watching me.
The 30,000-won cushion I’d bought earlier that afternoon seemed to suit Bori-bori, who was perched comfortably on it.
The demon Bori-bori.
Wouldn’t someone in this ‘Monkey Gallery’ know who that little guy was?
So I clicked the button to write a post.
But─.
Verification code: Jde55123aasdzxc1213
When writing a post in the gallery, sometimes you had to enter something called a CAPTCHA code.
I didn’t know much about it, but it was a system to prevent spam posts from bots and the like.
Usually, they seemed to be two or three digits.
But the verification code in front of me had at least fifteen.
I entered it one character at a time, then… Enter.
Tap.
And in an instant—all the lights in my house went out.
Whoooom─.
“What the hell? Why all of a sudden?”
# # #
The power came back on about ten seconds after I hit Enter.
I hurriedly turned my computer back on, and thankfully, my post had uploaded without any problems.
====
Is this where the magicians hang out? (0) 「Anon (3.0)」
Can we exchange information and stuff?
====
All right, what happens now?
I hope people leave some comments.
Maybe I should’ve stuffed the title or post with something to grab people’s attention.
I was thinking that when a comment appeared.
└3.0? What the fuck kind of IP is this lol What anomaly are you?
└First time I’ve seen a single-digit IP lol
└Look at these guys feeding the anomaly lol It’ll show up in your dreams tonight, have fun
Anomaly?
Did they mean something like Ms. Ming, the Thai ghost, or ‘Wagijagi,’ the thing in the building’s basement?
Apparently, strange things like that sometimes posted here, too.
And I guessed they might identify those anomalies by their IP addresses.
My ‘3.0’ IP seemed a little strange to them.
Soon, another comment appeared.
└God Who Rules the Korean Peninsula: If you’re an anomaly, get lost; if you’re a transfer student, read the announcement first
Oh, the announcement.
As I searched through more posts, I saw one titled ‘Monkey Gallery Announcement.’
The announcement was simple.
====
1.Never reveal your real name.
2.Don’t post anything that could identify you.
3.No making friends or forming cliques
====
The first three items seemed fairly sensible.
But starting with number four, the rules became hard to understand.
====
4.Write no more than 3 posts a day, including comments.
5.Completely ignore whatever the sixth announcement says.
6.Close the gallery right now and look in the mirror
7.Whenever possible, access the gallery only on your phone.
====
The rules ended there, with seven in total.
Some of them were downright bizarre, which felt strange, but that suspiciousness made them seem all the more real.
It was like how the really delicious restaurants were often old places that looked shabby and poorly maintained.
There were comments on the announcement, too.
└But why are we supposed to write no more than three posts a day, including comments?
Yeah, I was kind of curious about that, too.
There was another reply under that comment.
And it was a very familiar username.
└Oseonjok Exterminator: Ever heard of the monkey banana experiment?
Was this the man who’d given me the link to the 「Monkey’s Paw Site」?
He’d left this comment.
The monkey banana experiment.
1. Put five monkeys in a room, hang a banana from the ceiling, and set up a ladder.
2. When the monkeys climb the ladder to get the banana, drench them all with water.
3. Replace one of the monkeys.
4. When the replacement monkey tries to climb the ladder for the banana, the original monkeys who got drenched grab it and beat the living daylights out of it.
5. Replace another monkey.
6. When the new monkey touches the ladder, even the monkey who’d just been replaced and never been drenched joins in and beats it.
They don’t know why they’re beating it or why it isn’t allowed to climb.
7. Eventually, every monkey in the room has been replaced.
Now there isn’t a single monkey in the room that’s ever been drenched.
But none of them climbs the ladder.
If one tries, they just stop it and punch it without knowing why.
Oseonjok Exterminator: That’s why we’re the ‘Monkey Gallery.’ We’re just like the monkeys in that experiment. The rules are weird, but if they say not to do something, then we shouldn’t do it.
“Oh, that makes perfect sense.”
Oseonjok Exterminator.
He’d seemed like a pretty strange guy when I met him in person.
But online, he was this articulate.
Anyway, I’d more or less finished reading the announcement.
But now that I looked, there were some pretty interesting posts in the ‘Best Posts’ section.
「Making holy water even a total noob can manage (999+)」
「How to make armor against major anomalies and magicians out of aluminum foil (787)」
「How transfer students can raise their magician rank *Must read* (999+)」
They looked useful just from the titles.
Holy water seemed to be the kind of water used in movies to drive away demons.
I wasn’t sure about the aluminum foil… but the word ‘armor’ definitely caught my interest.
And the title ‘How transfer students can raise their magician rank’ was intriguing all on its own.
I guessed raising your rank meant improving your level.
‘This is exactly the kind of information I wanted!’
Making holy water. Making armor.
Those two sounded like they’d require supplies, so I decided to check them out later.
For now, I clicked on the post about raising a magician’s rank.
====
Author: 「Get Caught Up in a Ghost Story」
Title: How transfer students can raise their magician rank *Must read* (999+)
We transfer-student magicians are way behind Originals from the start.
Those silver-spoon bastards aren’t just a few steps ahead of us.
So what are we supposed to do? Since we got a late start, we have to run faster.
We have to deliberately stick our heads into anomalies and the uncanny, force our eyes wide open, and keep heating and priming our pineal glands.
If you want to raise your magician rank, deliberately click on posts where anomalies are trolling, lol.
And if you see a post on Carrot Market or anywhere online asking for help getting rid of an anomaly, click on every single one.
I used this method to go from Dusk-class to Hohwan-class in just one year.
└Oseonjok Exterminator: This is 100% true. Getting involved with anomalies on purpose is the most effective way
└But if we screw up, won’t we die or get contaminated by an anomaly?
└If you’re too chicken to risk that, just stick to being a juice magician, you cowardㅗ
└You can easily earn 100 to 200 million won a year as a Hohwan-class magician. How could you pass that up?ㅋㅋ?
====
If you want to reach a higher level as a magician, deliberately get involved with anomalies.
It seemed reasonable.
It was a perfect tip for me, too.
‘The basement of Dori Building.’
I thought of the space where strange phenomena occurred in my neighborhood.
The only reason I’d been able to escape that place was the magic circle.
You could call it a bug exploit.
It was hardly fair and square.
I wanted to get stronger, learn more, become a more complete and excellent magician, then challenge that place and test myself against it─.
That was what I felt like doing.
You could call it a rematch.
If I completely conquered that place, wouldn’t it raise my standing by a notch?
Like earning another Michelin star.
“Let’s make holy water and aluminum foil armor today, for sure.”
Even if I’d only been a kitchen hand, I’d still worked as a lowly cook at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
I had aluminum foil all over the house.
“As for the holy water…”
I glanced at Bori-bori.
“Bori-bori, would it be okay if I tried making some holy water?”
At a glance, an imp like Bori-bori and holy water seemed like a terrible match, didn’t they?
Whether Bori-bori didn’t understand me or just didn’t care, they only swished their tail.
I could take that as a yes.
But reading all these posts had made me curious about something.
‘Why do they call themselves magicians instead of wizards?’
Magicians.
Aren’t those the people who pull doves out of hats and figure out which card someone picked?
So I wrote a post.
====
But why call them magicians instead of wizards? 「Anon (3.0)」
Aren’t magicians the ones who do card tricks and dove tricks?
If you can make stuff like holy water, shouldn’t you be a wizard??
└Is this guy asking because he doesn’t know, or does he really not know?
└There’s no such thing as a wizard in this world lol
└└This anomaly is trolling, but look at all the monkeys taking the bait lol
====
There’s no such thing as a wizard?
What did that mean?