Chapter 148
The rift was sturdy.
But now that I thought about it, something seemed strange.
- How the fuck is it sturdy, you bitch
Shouldn't it have a shape before you can call it hard or soft?
Even the rifts that simply looked like portals clearly had a frame.
This could be confirmed on rainy or snowy days.
“Snow is piling up?”
There were clearly upper and lower portions to the rifts, apart from the portal opening leading outside.
Besides, this had already been proven by the chemical weapons earlier.
Rifts were living organisms too.
“Then it should get the New World treatment, right?”
Rifts were one-way.
You could enter them, but you couldn't come back out.
“Then I'll only put half of myself in.”
But what if you were only halfway inside?
This was something I'd already confirmed with the holy sword.
Unless you went completely into the rift, you could come back out as much as you wanted.
“If I apply cement from inside, will it carry over outside?”
Then we could apply it from the outside to the inside.
[Title: Fuck, no, where are you going]
(GIF of the Gallery Doctor half inside a rift)
(GIF of the part-timers drenched in shock and horror)
He was saying the cement wasn't going on properly or something, then suddenly shoved his body in, for fuck's sake.
There wasn't even time to stop him, seriously.
No, am I actually seeing this right?
[Upvotes 8211] [Downvotes 0]
- ?
- ???
- (Elf pottery emote clutching its head)
The Gallery Doctor put his upper body straight into the rift and began plastering it.
Excellentdoc: This place is amazing. Many ugly assholes are welcoming me
Excellentdoc: (GIF with a black background)
Unfortunately, it seemed the outside of the rift couldn't be captured in photos by the gallery.
All the GIFs sent in by people saying it was amazing had been rendered completely black.
About ten minutes later, the Gallery Doctor returned.
More precisely, only the part of his upper body that had crossed over returned, drenched in blood.
“Eeeek!”
- Wow, fuck, that's the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life
- What the fuck, what kind of magical beast is that?
- Elf-kyaaaagh!!!
A few of the part-timers who had gathered out of curiosity screamed at the sight and collapsed.
Head Mod*: You okay?
Excellentdoc: So many troublemakers interrupted my plastering
Excellentdoc: So I gave them a taste of my excellent gallery spicy bullets
There had been interference from the magical beasts outside, but fortunately, he seemed to have succeeded in persuading them.
“Did we get it!”
But the rift was perfectly fine.
Even after the plastering was finished, there was no dramatic change.
- What are you doing?
- Rifts appear underwater too, you know
- Is Head Mod an idiot?
ㄴ Head Mod*) ?
ㄴ Why does he keep coming up with methods we never think of? Is he actually a genius?
ㄴ LMAO, fuck, he's twisting his whole body
ㄴ Difficulty of avoiding a permaban: 9999
Naturally, the gallery reacted hotly, but it wasn't over yet.
“We don't know yet...”
Cement normally takes a long time to set.
One hour, two hours, up to a day or two.
After leaving it alone for a week, the cement slowly began to harden.
Then, when it had completely solidified.
- Grrrrrrk!
The rift covered in cement suddenly made a strange sound, then dried up, shriveled, and crumpled.
- No way, it works
- What, it's a total pushover
- ?
The rift had one huge weakness.
“Big bro, wiggle your toes.”
It only had high physical defense.
*
Rifts were pathetic.
Even putting it nicely, they were pathetic.
Put badly, they were reverse-betting bastards whose only stat was physical defense.
They seemed invincible when you didn't know their weakness, but once it was exposed, they were incredibly easy to deal with.
“Try eating some cement after it hardens.”
There were also companion products like poisonous gas, arsenic, lead, and Scheele's Green paint.
Or you could simply light a campfire and place a fan so that it blew air toward the rift.
- Grrrrrrk
Every time, the rift shriveled up and dried out without even managing to put up much of a reaction.
- What, it dies just from lighting a fire?
- The bastard whose only trick was acting tough... turns out it was a fucking pushover...
“This is getting solved much more easily than I expected.”
Of course, because the rifts that had been a problem for so long were being resolved so easily, a strange unease remained.
But I set that unease aside for the moment, opened the gallery, and went to the featured posts.
“Everyone's probably talking a lot about the rifts, right?”
The gallery was always fighting and brawling.
Still, I logged in hoping that maybe this time the atmosphere would be friendly.
- Elf ← What's really different about them from cats?
- Top 3 genuinely most disgusting races
- How can one race be hated by almost every species? LMAO
- Elves >>>>> Humans
- Stupid idiots...jpg
- They started it themselves, yet they're calling us disgusting ^^
- Humans are the ugliest of all the races lol
“As if.”
Of course, that was nonsense.
I let out a hollow laugh as I looked at the gallery, which was overflowing with profanity and hatred.
Of course, a reasonable amount of hatred was fine.
“Insults and taking swings at fixed-handle users? Bring it on.”
It wasn't for nothing that people said the gallery's driving forces were instinct and dopamine.
As long as they stayed within reasonable limits, it didn't matter.
But this featured post was a little different.
It wasn't simply a fight between specific targets, but an all-out group battle caused by pitting factions against each other.
- Pointy-ears would lose instantly in a face-off lol
- They're a one-trick race with the World Tree, but the World Tree is gone now, right?
ㄴ A race that doesn't exist lol
ㄴ Yeah, a race that never existed ^^
ㄴ (Picture of an elf digging through the ground with its ears)
ㄴ (Picture of a human and an orc kissing each other)
ㄴ Fuck, wanna throw down?
“Hmm.”
There were only a few spectators at most.
Hundreds of fighters were the only ones in the ring.
Starting with quasi-family insults, all sorts of hateful images and tactical nukes were flying around.
“This is getting a little extreme, isn't it?”
Arguments and bickering were welcome, but factionalism wasn't.
Especially when political or interspecies disputes grew, the gallery became a dead gallery.
“That can't happen.”
You can go hungry.
You can even go without water.
But you have to keep doing gallery stuff.
I hurriedly wrote an announcement post.
[Notice: It's me]
Posted by: Head Mod*
(Elf emote: Hug me)
(Human emote: I hugged you)
(GIF of a human and an elf hugging each other)
This gallery is dedicated to harmony among all races.
Please stop the meaningless hatred and attempts to stir up conflict.
[Upvotes 1421] [Downvotes 9999+]
- Ah, fuck, this isn't right!!!!!
- No, you fucker
- Please change the elf to an orc instead, fuck
ㄴ (GIF of a naked orc and human having a conversation)
ㄴ You fucking bastard
- Why... why would you do this...?
- Elf-kyaaaagh!
- (Crumpled cat-elf emote)
Fortunately, the factionalism that had seemed like it would never end was temporarily quelled by my announcement GIF.
“Well, it was normal for the two races to hate each other.”
But every now and then, it escalated into a serious emotional fight like this.
Still, nothing good came from fighting.
Racial discord was surely what the magical beasts wanted most, so this was when the presence of the Head Mod was needed.
“It's obvious.”
It takes two hands to clap.
One race had definitely started this.
And there was only one race here that was highly self-loving and enjoyed exploiting others.
“I don't even need to look. It's the elves.”
They had been unofficially ranked number one among the races hated by every species, from before the Great War to the present.
The only race to break the fantasy-medieval cliché of humans being the most hated race: elves.
I figured they must have been bragging about themselves and gleefully needling the humans as usual.
- Head Mod*) Go apologize to the elves
ㄴ What?
ㄴ We didn't do anything!!!
ㄴ Head Mod*) You want me to get angry?
ㄴ (Elf emote lying on the floor and sobbing)
ㄴ Why... why...!
Naturally, at first they denied it.
The elves swarmed my chat, grabbing me by the collar and refusing to let go.
But even that was familiar.
- Head Mod*) Should I investigate this?
ㄴ Head Mod*) But if it's elves, I'll ban alcohol throughout Elad for a day
ㄴ Eeeek
ㄴ Eek
So I pulled out a slightly bigger card.
An alcohol ban.
Even pulling out this card usually meant it was time for the elves to admit their wrongdoing and hunch their shoulders.
But their reaction was different from usual.
- Really... really, it wasn't an elf who started it!!!
- Head Mod only hates us, eek!
- Head Mod only likes humans... You're playing favorites...
“Hmm?”
Even with soju on the line, they insisted to the very end that they were being wronged.
There was even a saying that if you wanted to see the truth from an elf, you should put soju on the line.
“But the elves didn't start it?”
There was no way the elves could be like this.
So I searched through the gallery myself.
First, I opened about ten gallery windows.
Starting around when the rift topic was dying down, I checked everything through the point when I discovered the featured post.
I checked every post and featured post.
That's when one title caught my eye.
[Title: Elves, Please Read This Carefully!]
(GIF of the World Tree hitting elves)
(GIF of throwing a Chamisul bottle onto the floor and smashing it)
(GIF of slowly tearing a leaf lengthwise)
lol
[Upvotes 4] [Downvotes 103]
- What are you doing!!!
- H-how could you do this...
- You demonic human bastard, apologize right now!!!!!
“No, it really was them.”
It was right when everyone was discussing the rifts.
Completely out of nowhere, someone had launched an indiscriminate attack on the elves first.
Most of the GIFs showed soju bottles being thrown onto the floor or kicked.
“This can't be an elf.”
Those were actions elves could never take.
It didn't seem like one of those so-called elf spies—an elf pretending to be human.
But you did occasionally see trolls like this.
The problem was that this post wasn't the end.
[Title: I'm the human who just wrote that post. I apologize to the elves...]
(GIF of making somaek with Chamisul)
(GIF of dipping mint chocolate into Chamisul and eating it)
You only ate plants and went crazy, huh
I'll make your blood boil lol
Beg and grovel lol. Then maybe I'll let you off?
I've been bored lately, so I'll teach you some discipline
[Upvotes 1] [Downvotes 193]
- Eeeeek!!!
- Kyaaagh!
- Where do you live!!!
- Looks tasty...
ㄴ ?
As if that post were merely the starting point, they continued trolling the elves.
“No, but how do they know so much?”
The problem was that they knew too much.
They understood exactly what pushed the elves' buttons and kept posting it.
That was a level of skill impossible for an ordinary troll.
“And their way of speaking is a little strange.”
Besides, they didn't seem quite human, either.
But thanks to that, they drew a lot of aggro.
- LMAO, true
- Every single thing they say is spot-on
- We support you, martyr
Just then, passing human gallery users joined in, making the whole thing bigger, and the elves responded.
Eventually, they had accumulated enough resentment that words could no longer resolve it.
“If I try to force a solution, I might actually make this blow up even more.”
I could impose sanctions on the gallery right away.
But that would obviously only make the hatred toward the other race grow in reality and in their hearts.
It was just when I was wondering how to solve this.
[43% remaining until the next level 12.]
[Unlockable Systems]
1. IRL Fight Gallery
2. ???
“Oh.”
A good solution had appeared right before my eyes.