Chapter 3: The Start of Normalization

After clearing the tutorial, I left the motel to go to the office, the next quest location, and found an unfamiliar monk gasping for breath at the entrance.

Curious, I approached and spoke to him, and this time, information about him appeared next to his face.

[Name: Gu Hyeryeong]
[Job: Exorcist]
[Affiliation: Daehan Buddhism Baekyeon Order, Yeonhwa Sect]
[Description: A promising new exorcist raised by the Baekyeon Order.]
[Status: Fear, Awe, Tension]

Wasn’t it supposed to only show information about anomalies and items?

Perhaps the monk in front of me is a named NPC, which is why the description window is appearing.

‘It’s good to build connections with named NPCs.’ I might even be able to recruit him as a companion.

[TL: NPC is Non-Player Character]

“Ah… Forgive my rudeness upon our first meeting. I am Hyeryeong of the Yeonhwa Sect, affiliated with the Daehan Buddhism Baekyeon Order.”

“Uh, yes. My name is Lee Dohyun. I’m a Fixer.” After awkwardly introducing myself, the monk suddenly took a business card from his pocket and handed it to me.

“Meeting in a place like this is also fate. If you have some free time someday, would you be able to contact me at this number? I would like to treat you to tea or a meal later.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Please, I hope you will contact me. I will be waiting, Fixer.”

The monk handed me the business card, bowed his head, and quickly left.

Seeing that he’s an exorcist, it seems he came to save the lingering spirit and the Bride of the White Face at the motel and ran into me.

‘That person… his favorability…’ The monk’s favorability score I saw just before he left was a bit strange.

[Favorability: 0% → 70%]
[He regards you as a benefactor.]
[He considers today’s meeting as fate.]

His favorability shot up in an instant. I just exchanged a few words with him, and I’ve already won over a monk. “This is crazy.” Don’t tell me this seduces everyone regardless of gender? I never thought a man’s favorability would go up.

[Meet Monk Hyeryeong when the sun rises.]

On top of that, a quest related to the exorcist monk I just met has appeared. This must be the start of a chain quest.

‘Have I become some kind of walking fate vending machine?’

Perhaps that’s how I appear in other people’s eyes. If I can beat up anomalies with my bare hands, then being a fate vending machine is fitting.

…………….

I followed the quest guide line visible at my feet towards the brightest area and soon arrived in front of a commercial building with an office.

It was a 5-story commercial building, and except for the coffee shop on the 1st floor, the building felt rather empty.

[Quest Resolved!]
-You have arrived at the office.
-Rewards will be given.

As I arrived in front of the office entrance, a quest completion message popped up, and a key, a mobile phone, and a wallet fell from the air. The key was obviously the office key, and it seems the wallet and mobile phone were also given as rewards.

I picked up the items that had fallen in the hallway and went inside the office. The sign hanging in front of the office said ‘Fixer’s Office’.

“What a mess.” As I went inside, a cluttered office came into view, looking like it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.

Empty cans of energy drinks were rolling around, and the desk was a mess of various documents and paper trash. Also, all sorts of peculiar items were left neglected in the dust, not properly organized.

I could see various prayer beads and exotic masks, and a box contained a stone of unknown meaning. Judging by the cup ramen containers, disposable trash, and a blanket on the sofa, it seems someone lived and ate here.

‘Don’t tell me, the office is also the house?’

It seems so. There are traces everywhere of the office being used as a home. The microwave was stained with food, and the fridge, which had leftover lunch boxes, was full of beer.

[Clean the office.]

As I was looking around the office, a newly appeared quest made me sigh. Having to clean the office at this late hour.

‘No. I don’t necessarily have to do it myself.’ Come to think of it, that’s right. I have free labor I can make work for me now.

“Hey, come out.” I brought out the Bride of the White Face who was inside the ring. This is when you use a tamed anomaly.

“D-did you call…? But where is this…”

“This is where we’ll be living from now on. It’s too dirty, so clean it all up while I rest.”

“Me…? Really…?”

“Then who else would clean it.”

“Wow. Housework… I-I’m so happy, husband.”

When I told her to clean the office, the Bride of the White Face shed tears of joy and wiped her eyes as if moved. No, is cleaning something to be this happy about?

“Of course… Housework is the pinnacle of wifely duties… Today, I have finally become a housewife…”

“Really?”

The Bride of the White Face is a collective of virgin ghosts who couldn’t get married. Because of that, she seemed deeply satisfied with the fact that she had become a housewife.

“I’m glad you’re happy. Clean it up nicely.”

“Yes, husband… Leave everything to me… and get some rest…”

The Bride of the White Face, who had even put on an apron from who knows where.

Seeing her confident look, I decided to trust her with cleaning the office and sat on the sofa to take a closer look at the wallet and mobile phone I got as rewards.

‘The ID card is the same as my original one.’

My identification information hasn’t changed. My name, age, and resident registration number were exactly the same as in reality.

However, a few things were different. The Lee Dohyun of this world was an orphan with no parents and hadn’t gone to college. Most of the identification information was the same, but the backstory was a bit different.

‘There aren’t many numbers saved on the phone either.’

I looked through the album and checked all the hidden folders for anything unusual, but there were no problems. Except for one thing.

‘What the hell is Wall of Doom Gallery.’

The mobile phone given as a reward had an app of a kind I had never seen before installed on it. It was a community app for game participants called [Wall of Doom Gallery].

Of course, in this world, a game called World of Doom doesn’t exist. I just searched for it. Nothing came up for World of Doom in the integrated search.

It’s a name used only in this app. So if an app with such a meta-referential name exists only on my phone, it makes me suspect that this is a community where people who have been transmigrated like me are gathered.

Hoping to get more detailed information about the current situation from the gallery, I immediately launched the app.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

{Notifications}

[The refluxer is a f*cking pain in the ass again.]
[Throbbing Throbbing Ghost Story…(108)]
[Throbbing Throbbing Ghost Story…(666)]
[What the hell are the mods doing!!!!]
[Throbbing Throbbing Ghost Story…(444)]
[I cried listening to the baby’s heart extraction ASMR..(2)]
[Why doesn’t this fcking game have multiplayer? (1)]
[At Seongsu Olle-gil Seongsu Plaza #104…(108)]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

What the hell is this? This abyss. The titles are all so messed up that I’m afraid to click on them.

What on earth is that throbbing throbbing?

What does it mean?

Why is the number of views so high and the number of comments so ridiculously large?

“Sh*t, the gallery’s been taken over.” It seems the gallery has already become a playground for anomalies.

For some reason, the mods who were managing the gallery were all gone, and the community was not being managed at all, being spammed with all sorts of refluxers, gore images that cause mental contamination, and meaningless words.

It would be hard to stay sane in a place like this. Anomalies that mess with your brain just by looking at them are appearing in large numbers, eating away at the users’ minds. I should get out of here quickly too.

I don’t know what will happen if I accidentally click on the wrong post. Or should I just delete the app altogether?

As I was pondering this, a notification window popped up in front of my eyes.

_____________________________________________________________________________

[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
[You have been appointed as the manager of the Wall of Doom Gallery.]

[Will you accept?]

-YES
-NO

_____________________________________________________________________________

F*cking hell!

What is this all of a sudden? Become the mod of this insane anonymous gallery? Am I supposed to become a free-service eraser who protects the gallery 24/7 without pay and deletes old lady pictures?

‘Ah, no. This isn’t a sub-manager, but just a manager…’

So they’re asking me to be the head mod now. I guess I can just appoint a sub-manager and manage the gallery a bit.

‘Looking at the state of the gallery, I’m probably the only one who can maintain their sanity in the Wall of Doom Gallery.’

My Sanity stat alone broke 200, so unless an Outer God comes and takes over the gallery with 108 sock puppet accounts, I’m practically immune to the mental attacks of most anomalies. In fact, since I’m immune to the ‘granny’ mental attack, in a way, I could be seen as the most suitable person for the job.

‘But it doesn’t seem like I’ll get anything in return for shouldering the weight of a mod.’

If there’s no proper reward, I don’t see the need to volunteer. I have my own problems to deal with, why would I do free service?

[Become the manager of the Wall of Doom Gallery.]

Since there was no return, I was about to refuse, but a quest popped up, so I decided to press YES. It’s not like I’m sentenced to a life term as the head mod, I can just play around for a bit and then abandon it and run, so I pressed YES thinking that…

______________________________________________________________________________

{Status Window}

[Quest Completed!]
-You have become the manager of the Wall of Doom Gallery.
-Rewards will be given.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The quest was completed and rewards were given. This time, it wasn’t a material kind of reward. “So this is the perspective of an anonymous gallery’s head mod.”

Absolute authority over the Wall of Doom Gallery. The names of the anonymous gallery users, which were all written as ㅇㅇ, began to appear.