Stranded (Part 2)

I was completely, utterly screwed.

No other phrase in any language could possibly summarize my present predicament so well.

"Haha..."

Stranded across dimensions? What kind of unhinged bullshit was this?

I stared at the blinking message window until my eyes stung, desperately hoping it would change, but the cruel text remained frozen before me, not a single syllable shifting.

"...Don't tell me I'm actually lost in the void?"

Minutes trickled past. No secondary window popped up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to correct the mistake, and no cheerful banner appeared shouting Surprise!

In other words, this nightmare was raw, unadulterated reality.

My thoughts had ground to a halt under the sudden onslaught of an emergency, but that paralysis didn't last long. I pulled myself together and began methodically taking stock of my circumstances.

"First off... this body is an avatar. Right."

According to the Avatar Projection Magic manual I had read until my eyes bled over the past seven days, the consciousness thinking right here was merely an avatar. Strictly speaking, it was just a remote clone. That meant even if this projection spent an entire lifetime stranded here, my original body back on Earth wouldn't suffer so much as a scratch. In a twisted sense, that was a silver lining.

The problem is that I can't feel the difference at all.

That was the true catch. The avatar projection spell was far too flawless; from where I stood, "I" was virtually indistinguishable from the "me" back in my original body. My thoughts, emotions, and sensations were identical. Which meant I couldn't simply shrug, think, Well, I'm just an avatar, my real self is fine, so I'll just sit here and rot, and call it a day. Whether I was an avatar or not, my instinct for self-preservation was screaming loud and clear.

To cut through all the circumlocution: I wanted to get the hell out of here. Somehow. Any way I could.

"Then my first objective is escaping this dump..."

To do that, I needed to figure out what kind of place I had landed in. I scanned the horizon, but there wasn't a trace of another person or living creature anywhere. There wasn't even the hum of a machine or the mechanical whir of an automated system. I took my time pushing my sensory perception to its absolute limit, but the result was a flat zero.

After an agonizing stretch of time, the only things I managed to deduce were that this planet was roughly the size of Earth, and that my abilities still functioned normally even while projected as an avatar.

"There definitely is life here—or at least, there used to be..."

Bizarre, streamlined metallic structures stretched all the way to the horizon. There was no way in hell they had formed naturally. Different realms might hold wildly different definitions of "natural," but I could swear on my life that these were artificial. And the proof lay in the very message that had marooned me.

From this notification, I could infer that my current coordinates sat in the Dimensional Depth 300s. And the 300s weren't cosmologically distant from my home realm's Depth 100s. Factoring in what I'd read in the Demon Lord Gallery's archive—that adjacent dimensional depths shared nearly identical physical laws and elemental compositions—I could reasonably conclude this realm wasn't drastically different from my original world.

It was a solid deduction arrived at through sound logic, but it brought me little comfort.

"Great, so it was built by someone. What good does knowing that do me...?"

Without a single sign of life or activity within a ten-thousand-kilometer radius, the information was completely useless. For a while, I vented my frustration by rapping my knuckles against the sleek gray metal. But as I knocked on the vaguely futuristic surface, an itch of familiarity tickled the back of my mind.

Wait. Hadn't I seen something like this on the gallery before?

Surely—

"Ah!"

After digging through my memory, a registered user popped into my head: EMPEROR.

Right, that space demon lord who roleplays like Darth Vader. His armaments were made of this exact same material.

Both his imperial war machines and these structures shared that unmistakable, matte-gray metallic luster. The only difference was that his ships weren't shaped into smooth, aerodynamic curves like this place.

If so, then could this place be...

A colony world belonging to a space empire?

A forgotten frontier world of a galaxy-spanning civilization. Once I framed it that way, the puzzle pieces fell into place with frightening ease. The sprawling metal infrastructure, an entire planet left vacant, the towering technological monuments—it matched the classic trope of an abandoned world straight out of a science fiction novel.

"Guess digging through all those old sci-fi paperbacks in the library paid off."

I took a brief moment to congratulate myself on binging Earth's pop culture to prepare for the Pandemonium conference, but the smugness quickly evaporated. Realizing the truth changed nothing about my immediate survival.

The reason was simple: I possessed zero abilities that allowed me to survive in the vacuum of space, let alone navigate between stars. Expecting a human being to pull off interstellar transit with their bare body was absurd. Of course, most demon lords defied common sense by default, but I wasn't built like that.

In the end, only one course of action remained. I had to wait for the gallery's connection to restore itself, idling away the hours on this eerie, silent world.

I killed time by strolling past the planetary metal installations as if touring an avant-garde art museum. How long had it been? Roughly enough time for the sun to rise and set three times before the notification I had been praying for finally flashed in my vision. Of course, on this bizarre planet, day and night cycled every single hour, meaning only two or three hours had actually elapsed.

"Finally!"

I couldn't care less about acquiring a new IP, so I hit No without hesitation. A prompt reading Assigning temporary handle using existing dimensional IP flickered across my sight, and immediately afterward, the all-too-familiar community interface expanded before me.

You never realize what you have until it's gone. Seeing that forum dashboard again stirred an unexpected swell of emotion... How should I put it? It felt a lot like affection born out of sheer spite. To think being locked out for just a few hours could make me this pathetic. I really had turned into a hopeless forum addict.

Letting out a half-hearted sigh, I skimmed the active thread list, only to blink in bewilderment.

Something was completely off.

"Why is it so quiet?"

It was terrifyingly serious and overwhelmingly peaceful. It wasn't because some explosive drama had drawn everyone's attention elsewhere, nor had Odin dropped an administrative decree. Having spent the last two months watching these degenerates turn a single spark into dozens of raging flamewars, this scholarly tranquility felt unnatural to the point of uncanny.

After skimming through several threads, the reason became clear: the Pandemonium conference was currently in session, keeping the majority of regular users tied up. While it was technically possible to post and browse during the proceedings, aside from a handful of veteran degenerates, everyone was too occupied to shitpost.

On top of that, devils hailing from Hell were currently on leave and using the downtime to surf the board, fostering this polite, scholarly atmosphere. It sounded unbelievable that Hell's devils were quieter and more reasonable than ordinary demon lords, but it was an undeniable fact. One of their most famous creeds went: Keep your head cool, your heart blazing, your hands slow, and your tongue swift. It was a motto that proved devils were infinitely more gentlemanly and intellectual than demon lords whose fists flew faster than their words.

"I can actually ask for help right now."

With the board in this state, my thread wouldn't get buried under a deluge of spam. Confident that someone would take me seriously, I hammered out a post.

Under normal circumstances, my thread would have been shoved off to the next page within seconds by the sheer volume of posts, but today was different. The terminally online demon lords who supplied ninety percent of the board's firepower were trapped in Pandemonium. Thanks to the moderate post rate, my plea for rescue lingered comfortably on the front page, quickly racking up replies. After all, I was still the forum's prized novelty: a brand-new ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠newbie.

My eyes caught on that last comment, and I froze.

Look at where I was stranded? Even a veteran ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't go there?

Okay, but what the hell was the 300 series? I grind my teeth in mounting frustration at how everyone seemed to be in on an inside joke that omitted only me. But before I could snap, a familiar handle caught my eye in the comments.

Even this veteran exposition-dumper betrayed my expectations. Vanishing with a casual promise to fetch a moderator without answering my question left me burning with impatience. To make matters worse, none of the other anonymous commenters seemed to know anything about the 300s either; they were simply dogpiling under BlackWings's comment, begging for an explanation just like I was.

The person who ultimately rescued me from this aneurysm-inducing suspense was the last user I expected.

It was White Skeleton, who had ostensibly left to call Odin.

The Dimensional Empire? I had definitely heard that name somewhere before.

Having read every word, the fist I had been rhythmically hammering against the metal structure slowly ground to a halt.

"..."

Just in case, I lowered my gaze to inspect the metal plate beneath my knuckles. There was a tiny, faint dent pressed into the pristine surface.

It matched the exact contour of my fist.

"...They wouldn't hold a grudge over something this small, right?"

A civilization as grand as a "Dimensional Empire" surely wouldn't be that petty.