Chapter 7

Chapter 7. The Book That Records Mysteries (5)

[Got a Kid Overnight]

[Author: ㅇㅇ]

[(A photo of Confirmation Bias smiling while making a V-sign with her fingers)

(A gif of Confirmation Bias happily playing around with the book.jpg)

(A gif of Confirmation Bias tapping the Veil with her fingers.jpg)

What do you think of our kid?]

└Kill the Gallery Master... That was the only thought in my head from the very beginning.

└Fuck, if the kid is that pretty, just how beautiful is the mother supposed to be? I’m so damn jealous.

└Author) No mother.

└?... Why are you insulting my parents... ㅠ I mean, I’m a possessor, so technically I really don’t have them here...

└I knew the Gallery Master was like that, but damn, that was harsh;

└Dropping a parent insult out of nowhere... Was the Gallery Master actually a possessor instead of a reincarnator? ㄷㄷ

└Author) No, I mean the kid doesn’t have a mother;

└? Then did the Gallery Master give birth to her by himself?

└She’s so fucking cute, the way she acts adorable is so fucking cute, I wanna poke her cheeks, confess to her, date her, why don’t I have a cute book like that?

└I was about to curse you out halfway through, but you were talking about the book...;;

└Welcome to the Domestic Abnormal Fetish Gallery.

└Furries? Who the hell is into that these days? Books are way hotter. Yep.

└Furry fetishists... mere ordinary men who happened to exist before book fetishists were born.

└Wow lol there are actually lots of people like me? Books are seriously so damn cute and sexy, right? I thought I was abnormal, but turns out this is a normal fetish. Thank god lolol.

└I don’t think this guy is joking... ㄷㄷ

└You, get out.

└While I’m suffering through an infinite-regression tragedy, the Gallery Master is out here living in a harem novel; life is sad.

└Ha?rem

└Harem (contains zero human members)

└What do you mean zero humans? I’m human.

└?

└ㄷㄷ......

└At this point, we seriously need to rename this place the Abnormal Fetish Gallery.

My first post was simply meant to show off Confirmation Bias, my new housemate.

But for some reason, the comments were filled with people talking about the book.

There were still plenty of comments about Confirmation Bias, but not nearly as many as I had expected.

I guess that just showed how popular the book was.

I brushed it off and wrote the next post just as I had planned.

This time, it was about the Mysteries the Gallery users had been waiting for.

At the same time, it was also a question asking them for advice.

[REAL-TIME MYSTERIES APPEARED;; I THINK I’M GONNA DIE PLEASE SAVE ME]

[Author: ㅇㅇ]

[I need the collective intelligence of the Gallery so I don’t end up in the same kind of situation again.

Give me some advice on what I should do from now on.

(Photos of various news articles about Mysteries)

(Photos of the BadaWiki article about Mysteries)

(Photos containing information about Mysteries)

(Photos showing the government’s response to the current situation)

(Photos of the inside of my house)

This is the situation right now.

What do you think would be the best thing for me to do?

My goal is to live safely, healthily, happily, and for a very long time.]

└Fuck, you seriously scared the shit out of me;;

└Dude, you don’t even need clickbait. We always read your posts anyway lolol.

└I was about to peacefully enjoy the Gallery Master’s book photos, then saw the title and rushed in, only to find out it was bait. Fuck.

└As expected of the Regression-Possession-Reincarnation Gallery Master... That psychopathy is on the level of a Version 1.0 possessor;

The reaction was stronger than I had expected.

I decided I shouldn’t use clickbait like this again.

That thought changed slightly when the view count passed four digits in less than a minute.

Maybe I could use it one more time if something really urgent happened later.

[Upvotes 291 / Downvotes 647]

That idea died immediately.

I looked away from the rapidly increasing number of downvotes and scrolled through the comments.

Perhaps because their answers could determine the direction of my future actions, the Gallery users were surprisingly serious.

└For safety, staying holed up at home is probably enough, but then the problem is your health.

└Why health?

└Look at the photos of his house. He’s got nothing but combat rations.

└Yeah. Combat rations are made for calories, not balanced nutrition. If he eats nothing but that, he could end up malnourished.

└But if he goes out to get food nearby, he could run into a Mystery... This is difficult;

└But why is nobody considering happiness?

└He has the Gallery. Why would we need to worry about happiness? lolol.

└I personally trained alone for 1,500 years, and the Gallery kept me from getting depression. This is 100% true.

Reading the comments gave me a rough understanding of my situation.

“Nutrition, huh.”

I searched every corner of the house.

There were still a few ingredients and side dishes left, along with things like eggs and vegetables.

But they were all foods that would spoil in less than a week.

Fortunately, I had some supplements.

The problem was that I only had about a month’s worth.

I had originally ordered them in bulk in preparation for war, but the apocalypse happened while they were still being delivered, so I never received them.

You could say the timing was terrible.

└The longer you wait, the more likely other survivors are to take all the food, so maybe going out right now is better?

└That’s what I think too. Whether you starve to death or get killed by a Mystery, dead is dead anyway.

└Are you a possessor? You have zero empathy.

└Stop labeling me like that, fuck.

└The possessor’s getting mad ㄷㄷ

└But seriously, I think going out now is probably the right decision. Yep.

└In the end... all humans... die anyway... so is there really... any meaning... in struggling...?

└Mr. Regressor, please be quiet.

└Possessors and regressors are all gathering here now.

└The grand unification of regression, possession, and reincarnation lolol.

The overall opinion was that going outside was better than staying at home.

The reason was simple.

As time passed, food and medicine would gradually be looted by other survivors.

After reading through the post, I fell into thought.

If only I could read the later pages of the book, so many things would be different.

The Veil wriggling around my hand suddenly felt unfamiliar.

The longer I lived with the Veil attached to me, the greater my anxiety became.

The Veil was a Mystery that had nearly killed me.

If my will had been even slightly weaker, I might still be trapped inside that bathroom, wandering through the darkness.

Since it was that kind of Mystery, I couldn’t believe that the Veil, now in the form of a glove, had no abilities whatsoever.

If its ability turned out to be harmful to me, I would need to take some kind of action.

And to determine that, the book’s help was practically essential.

I closed the Gallery and quietly stared at the book.

Confirmation Bias had gone to sleep a little while ago, so the only ones left in the living room were me and the book.

The book had been happily watching the Gallery.

When the Gallery disappeared, it fluttered its pages and turned toward me.

“Book.”

I started carefully.

“Can I still not see the later pages?”

A feeling of rejection reached me.

Well, it had only been one day since we first met.

It would be difficult to build that much affection in such a short time.

Difficult, yes.

But it wasn’t as if nothing had happened during that one day.

We had browsed the Gallery together.

We had met Confirmation Bias.

With the book’s help, I had used Confirmation Bias’s ability to neutralize her.

And then Confirmation Bias had become both a companion and a housemate.

It wasn’t as though an overwhelming number of things had happened.

But it wasn’t a small amount either.

As proof of that, I already felt quite close to the book.

That was why I refused to give up and asked again.

“I might have to go outside. To get food.”

I stared at the book floating silently in the air.

If it had been a person, I could have tried reading its expression.

Of course, a book didn’t have a face.

But it did have emotions.

After only a single day of communicating with it, I could already tell just how emotional a being the book was.

After all, what kind of purely rational being would ask someone it had just met to raise it?

I decided to rely on those emotions.

I adjusted my expression and allowed the anxiety I had kept hidden inside to show on my face.

At the same time, I let my fear and determination appear as well.

It wasn’t simply an act.

I was only bringing out emotions I had kept buried.

That meant my expression should have looked genuine.

I could feel the book’s emotions wavering.

Perhaps because it had just been cheerfully enjoying the Gallery, the sudden emotional contrast reached me even more strongly.

“I need your ability. I don’t know what kind of Mysteries are outside, so at the very least, I need information about the Veil.”

Suppose the Veil had the ability to block my vision and was hiding that ability because it resented me.

Inside the house, even if it used such an ability, the damage wouldn’t be that serious.

I could probably handle it.

But outside was different.

Imagine zombies rushing at me and Mysteries chasing me, only for my vision to suddenly disappear.

Imagine losing my senses the same way I had inside the bathroom.

That would be no different from guaranteed death.

I needed information, if only to prepare for something like that.

Only then could I decide whether I should go outside or not.

“Can you let me read the next page?”

The book remained completely still in the air.

It didn’t release any smoke.

It didn’t flutter its pages.

It simply stayed there as time slowly passed.

Then, after about ten minutes, the book opened wide.

Countless blank pages with no writing on them fluttered rapidly past before the beginning of the book finally appeared.

And from there—

One page turned.

[1. Scq999 - Regression, Possession, Reincarnation]

[Regression, Possession, Reincarnation is an Scq that activates after death and cannot be contained...]

...Unfamiliar information written in familiar letters flashed past.

Before I could even finish reading it, the second page appeared.

[2. Scq001 - The World Containing Mysteries]

[The World Containing Mysteries is the world in which all Mysteries were born and can be considered the prototype of Scq007 - Planet Euclion...]

With a soft rustling sound, the third page passed.

[3. Scq602 - Zombie Virus]

[The Zombie Virus is transmitted through bodily fluids and possesses extremely high infectiousness while also being difficult to cure. The treatment method is...]

Then the fourth page turned.

And finally, the fifth page I had been waiting for appeared.

[Scq102 - Veil]

The fifth page.

A page containing detailed information about the Veil without anything left out.

The book had taken the hand I reached out to it.