Who Are You People, and Where Are You From? (1)

"What if, indeed."

"Are they really gone, though.."

Worried that something might be waiting for even the slightest lapse in my guard, I kept checking the Gallery, but no trace of anything showed up anywhere.

"The stuff?"

"A fire, huh..? The problem is the smoke would drift straight back into the cavern and fill it up."

Could I manage that with oxygen tanks.. maybe?

Considering the sheer size of the forest — and the lush greenery I'd glimpsed down that hole even while the flare was still falling — there was no telling how many oxygen tanks I'd need to stockpile.

And the truly terrifying thing about that kind of smoke is that it comes riding in on waves of searing heat.

By the time the cavern filled with smoke, I might already be suffering burns. Or the trapped, unventilated heat could keep building until the whole place turned into one giant air fryer.

Conclusion: yeah, probably not happening.

"Pointy-ears?"

"There sure are a lot of strange anomalies around here."

Come to think of it, I didn't actually know a single thing about who any of the Backrooms Gallery users really were.

Curious, I put up a post.

"So Ukiki really is an elf in the Forest Backrooms."

"A mermaid? Seriously, there's every kind of amazing race out there."

But wait — if it's the ocean, isn't that just... home?

"GreatPirate: Ocean Backrooms, mermaid."

Comments from the other users came rolling in too.

"From another dimension.. so dragons can travel between dimensions and all that, huh?"

Come to think of it, the Judak had said they'd made a teleportation error and gotten trapped somewhere between dimensions — or between worlds, whatever it was.

And even so, the ability to create this Gallery was pretty impressive, wasn't it?

"Seriously, is everyone here some kind of elite?"

"Wait, was I seriously some kind of high-tier human too??"

"Insane.."

This person is genuinely, certifiably insane. How was this ever a promising angel?

But wait — they were deliberately cast into a Backroom. Didn't that mean Backroom passages could be opened from the outside?

Which meant,

"Then why don't the people who can use dimensional magic just escape..? No wait — have they already escaped?"

I put up a post right away.

"So the Judak, who built this Gallery even while that dimensional magic was being interfered with, is just.. what, exactly.."

So everyone had fallen into a different broken dimension — a Backroom with its own unique anomaly — but because those spaces all fell under the same category called "Backrooms," connecting them was easy. Something like that?

"Tch.. well, whatever. Point is, a freebie escape via dimensional magic is off the table."

Then again, if it were possible, someone would've done it ages ago.

Just then, a flurry of new posts caught the attention of me and the other users.

"Whoa.. a Bakery Backrooms? So every kind of bread just shows up? Meanwhile I'm stuck in a cave.."

But within moments, everyone had gone quiet.

After that, the newbie never posted again.

"..."

A short while later, another user's post appeared.