Chapter 74
One survivor, hundreds dead.
Monsters poured out of the crack.
Ten villages were massacred, and the news spread through the Gallery only through the post of a survivor who had barely lived thanks to the bear trap from before.
- Why does it look like that?
- Were there monsters like that?
ㄴ Yeah, there were. Seeing it again after so long, it really does look like a damn beggar.
ㄴ What's that thing called?
ㄴ Wendigo.
A deer's face, a body split like an animal carcass, and a stature over two meters tall.
After the Great War, the monsters that emerged from the cracks were mutant beasts with forms no one had ever seen before.
Abnormally fast, with hands of horrifying length.
There was a reason people were dying before the information could even spread through the Gallery.
And it was around the time the wendigo reached the eleventh village.
- Kkigig?
There were no people.
There was no smoke rising from the chimneys, nor any scent of humans.
Only an empty village, looking like a set, welcomed the wendigo.
One of them entered an empty house to check inside.
The interior was so dark that nothing could be seen, but the sharp smell of oil clearly stung its nose.
- Kkigigig
The wendigo gave a creepy laugh.
Playing cat and mouse with humans was excellent entertainment, after all.
It was just about to search the dark interior, expecting to find faces twisted with fear, when—
“Hmm, hmm.”
Something was sitting in a kitchen chair at the dining table.
But whatever was inside wasn't human.
It was dressed in a black fireproof suit and wore a skull-like respirator.
“Shall I turn on the light?”
Just as the wendigo tilted its head, unable to understand human speech,
the man calmly pulled the trigger with one finger.
- Fwoosh!
Flames began pouring from the end of the flamethrower.
*
[Title: How to Eat a Wendigo as Easily as Cake]
First, pull the trigger.
Second, the wendigo dies.
(Charred wendigo meme)
(Worker giving a thumbs-up meme)
- W-what is this?
- Wendigo (what remained)
- The troublesome wendigo has become a good little boy~
- (Elf clutching their head with both hands meme)
The mutant beast that had frozen the entire north finally emerged from the crack.
And it was taken down in two days.
“This is way easier than I expected.”
I was the one who sent the flamethrower to deal with the wendigo.
I tried it because fire was supposed to be its weakness, but I never expected it to work this easily.
- No, Head Mod, explain yourself.
- Head Mod, explain how you knew!
- What, did some controversy involving Head Mod just break out?
- Explain yourself! (I don't know what this is about)
- Abdicate!
ㄴ Don't say mean things like that ㄴㄴ
Thanks to that, the Gallery users began demanding an explanation from me.
And understandably so—the wendigo was a mutant beast that had never appeared since the Great War.
Nothing was known about its weakness, and even the name was one I had given it.
But there wasn't really anything to explain.
[Encyclopedia of Fantasy Monsters] - p. 10
A guidebook compiling monster settings from all kinds of games and novels!
Only ten thousand won!
You, too, can become an expert on fantasy!
They sold it in the Marketplace.
“Wait, why did this actually work?”
I had happened to find the book in the System Books category.
It was a bestiary that organized all sorts of information, much like a game setting guide.
That's where I saw that fire was its weakness.
Of course, just in case, I also supplied a couple of extra grenades, but why did it actually work?
- Head Mod*) Fuck, I don't know either;
ㄴ If you don't know, who does?
ㄴ LOL, he did it himself and says he doesn't know.
ㄴ (Aaaah, I'm sorry! knight meme)
Considering how much they had been shivering in the cold, things ended far more anticlimactically than expected.
Still, just as I was thinking that a good outcome was a good outcome, I received a trade request for the first time in a while.
[‘Fire Punch’ has entered the chat room.]
Fire Punch: Ooh, Comrade Head Mod.
Head Mod*: I'm not your comrade, but yeah. What's up?
Fire Punch: We bravely defeated the trash from the crack and proudly seized proof of our achievement, so we came to show it to Comrade Head Mod.
Head Mod*: One-line summary, please.
Fire Punch: (Mysterious something meme)
Fire Punch: Got an item, so take it lol
(Fire Punch has delivered ‘Ice Essence’!)
“Ice Essence?”
What the hell is that, you otaku?
Before I could say it, a delivery box appeared in the corner of the room.
When I opened the package and looked inside, there was an ice crystal about the size of a small tennis ball.
“Oh...”
Whatever it was, it radiated an aura screaming that it was really fucking amazing.
I used the system to display a detailed description.
[Ice Essence]
An ice crystal that has existed since ancient times, containing the highest-grade mana accumulated over the ages.
A dessert that dragons go crazy for.
Anyway, it's amazing. Incredibly amazing.
“Dragons? There are dragons here too?”
The system might not know something, but it doesn't display information for no reason.
That meant there really was a dragon somewhere in this world.
I had thought the occasional dragon rumors in the Gallery were just the usual trolling, but they weren't?
But my surprise didn't last long.
“There's a virgin succubus and a beautiful demon, so why not a dragon...? If anything, that's pretty ordinary.”
When I thought of the examples that had come before, it was strange that dragons were only appearing now.
I took the Ice Essence into the storage room.
The storage room was packed with so many things that it was impossible to manage, even though I had long since divided everything up by drawer.
There were bracelets made from elf hair, balls made from rabbit fur, and all sorts of other items.
I shoved the Ice Essence deep into some place among them.
“I'll find a use for it someday.”
I wasn't sure why they would hunt something down and then give it to me, though.
Head Mod*: No idea what it is, but I'll put it to good use. Thx.
Fire Punch: Then, Comrade Head Mod, may we take that to mean we've proven ourselves?
Head Mod*: Proven what?
“What proof?”
I thought for a moment, then remembered how grotesque the wendigo looked.
Were they asking me to acknowledge them for volunteering to hunt that thing down?
Head Mod*: Okay, okay. I acknowledge it.
So I replied without thinking much about it.
Fire Punch: !
Fire Punch: Thank you, Comrade Head Mod! The Phron Republic shall be immortal!
[Fire Punch has left the chat room.]
I threw myself onto the bed and looked through the Gallery with a much more relaxed mind.
“It feels like I've dealt with all the problems that need immediate attention.”
The mutant beast threatening Phron had been defeated, and the cold had eased to some extent.
Besides, I had gathered up the trolls disrupting the Gallery and given them a proper warning...
That meant nowhere among all the races was currently facing a major monster invasion.
“I should read through the Popular Posts.”
And so, a brief moment of leisure arrived.
I wondered if there were any Popular Posts I had somehow missed, and went back into the Popular Posts section.
I was about to start reading carefully from the last page when—
“Ah, wait. Something feels ominous.”
I couldn't help feeling a strange, ominous sensation crawling up my spine.
It was an instinct I had developed while serving as the moderator of Otherworld Destruction Gallery.
Usually, whenever I got this feeling, something had definitely happened in the Gallery.
But in a way, it was only natural.
With the monster invasion temporarily halted and people's basic needs being met through the Marketplace,
there was only one thing left to happen in the Middle Ages.
[Popular Post: Ah lol, Did a Witch Show Up?]
(Mob hunting witches meme)
(Bound girl sobbing and crying for someone to save her meme)
(Mob raising torches and pitchforks while conducting a religious inquisition meme)
LOL, since one showed up, I might as well post this.
Come on~ Let's get Witch Hunt Season #512421 started~
- Is it already witch-hunt season?
- Can't pass up a witch.
- (Witch? Die. bishop meme)
“Oh, fuck.”
Right. The long-standing medieval tradition.
It was time for the witch hunt to begin.
*
The masses had suffered for a long time.
They were ruled by a handful of powerful people, while monsters crawling in from the ‘outside’ tore chunks from their flesh.
There was no escape to the left or the right.
Because of that, the masses chose one method.
- Ah lol, shall we rise up?
- Feeling an urge for a ‘popular uprising’?
- I held it in 99 times, and the 100th was the last straw.
They rose up immediately.
They brutally killed those in power to vent all the resentment that had built up from everything they had suffered.
And it wasn't only those in power—criminals also became targets.
People were tied tightly to pillars with ropes, then burned to death in the flames.
“Die!”
“You piece of shit! You deserve to die like that!”
People felt catharsis as they watched the condemned meet their end, gaining a little comfort from it.
But as it kept happening again and again, they became addicted.
[Title: Can't We Get a Criminal Who Did Something Bad?]
(Frog scratching its belly meme)
I'm itching to execute someone.
- Seriously, when are we opening the event?
- It's about time the season started...
After the Great War, almost all the nobles had died.
Among the nobles who survived, those who had abused their power had all died during the Crown Prince's Exile Incident.
In other words, there was no one suitable left to punish.
Surprisingly, the Church was the one that grew anxious about it.
- Uh, fuck, this is bad.
- Doesn't that make us next?
- It's about time we opened an event for the commoners...
The Church had enjoyed playing a mafia game while riding on the commoners' support.
But the mafia had all been killed by the bullets known as the Great War and the Adrian Crown Prince Incident.
Then it would naturally be the Church's turn to answer for the luxuries it had been quietly indulging in.
[Title: Upvote if the Church Pisses You Off lol]
Every time, they practically extort donations from us
without actually doing anything for us,
and then you see how fat they've gotten while they gorge themselves—upvote lol
(Farmer frog smiling and giving a thumbs-up meme)
Starting with me lol
[Recommendations1411] [Dislikes418]
- Upvote lol
- Huh? This is totally...
- Is this looking like an event?
- What was it... It's event time, event time!
An atmosphere of hostility toward the Church slowly began to form.
Amid that strange current, the Church had a thought.
If there were no mafia in the mafia game, couldn't they just shoot the citizens?
[Title: She's a Witch! Capture the Witch and Burn Her!]
(Village maiden crying and begging to be spared meme)
(Girl being tied to a pillar with ropes meme)
How dare she stir up impure thoughts in the innocent young men of the village and make them commit rape!
An evil monster must have possessed her!
Burn the witch!
Event Details: Execution, burning at the stake, witches, fireworks...etc
Date: October 2, 10:00
Location: The burning ground in front of the cathedral
We look forward to your interest.
[Recommendations5121] [Dislikes3412]
- Wow~ They've still got it lol
- Damn, I knew I could count on them!!
- (Kill all the trolls... meme)
- But how can they be sure she's a witch?
ㄴ If the Church points at her, doesn't that make her a witch?
ㄴ I hear they determine it with divine power.
ㄴ Hmm, I guess?
- Humans are seriously disgusting.
- The propaganda is bad enough, but the people falling for it are worse.
- (Elf vomiting a rainbow meme)
The witch hunt had begun as a kind of festival.
People had grown accustomed to witch hunts they had seen since birth, without even knowing what was wrong with them.
The moment I saw the newly uploaded Popular Post,
- Head Mod*) Want to get smacked?
ㄴ Huh?
ㄴ Head Mod*) Want to get smacked? Want to get smacked?
I finally lost my temper.