Welcome to the Gossip Gallery

The world I live in is a gallery-omnipotent society.

It would be no exaggeration to say that every nation and faction in existence—not just the empire I currently call home—has a gallery of its own. A world where you can pull up a gallery and talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. The kind of place you'd only ever dream about.

"What the fuck kind of gallery is this garbage supposed to be?"

But I have a whole lot of complaints about that world.

The reason was simple: most galleries had been so thoroughly seized by the ruling class that they'd lost every last scrap of their original purpose.

"How the hell do you call something a gallery when it doesn't even guarantee floating users or anonymity?!"

No floating-user activity allowed. Identity verification mandatory for every active fixed nickname. And a whole pile of other rules so brutally rigid you couldn't call the place a gallery with a straight face.

As someone who actually knew what a real gallery was supposed to be, I was about ready to explode.

You dare take the gallery I gifted you and twist it into this?

Because the person who unleashed the gallery system on this world in the first place was none other than my past self.

These days I was living as the ordinary second son of a count's household, but in my previous life I'd been a transmigrator—and the Hero. The kind of gallery addict who'd take a goddess's special privilege, earned as a reward for saving the world, and spend the whole damn thing building a gallery-omnipotent society.

I warned them so many times. Anonymity, at the very least, had to be guaranteed.

But ages later, when I opened my eyes again in the body of a distant descendant, all I could do was despair at what the galleries had become.

The riotously funny galleries where everyone used to laugh and mess around were a story from the distant past. Waiting to greet me instead were galleries that had mutated into tools of rule for the people in power.

"Haaah…"

At first I still tried to adapt somehow and just live with the changed world. But unlike my past life, this version of me was painfully frail, so I had no choice but to stay cooped up in my room all day. Sure, the maids fussed over me like I was actually worth something as a count's second son, but bored was still bored.

I can't keep living like this.

And more than anything, a full month had already passed since my past-life memories came back, and the rage boiling in my chest still refused to settle.

How was I supposed to vent this fury? How was I supposed to get revenge on the bastards who'd ruined the only thing that could remind me of home—the galleries?

After turning it over and over in my head, one day I stumbled onto a critical discovery.

Holy shit. This still works.

The supreme administrator account I'd used in my past life was, miraculously, still alive. Most of its permissions had been stripped away over the long years, but the most basic ones remained.

"Hmm…"

Create a new gallery, and grant armband privileges. Was there a way to take those two and push them as far as they'd go—far enough to bring the current gallery regime crashing down?

"You're all fucking dead."

After the briefest moment of thought, I found my answer and broke into a bright smile.

I was going to smash the world that had desecrated the sacred galleries. And the action I chose to achieve that grand purpose was simple: unleash a Gossip Gallery on this other world.

Make the galleries great again.

Carrying that mission, I picked the Cheerful Empire Village Gallery as the first target to make the Gossip Gallery go viral. The reason was simple. The Cheerful Empire Village Gallery covered everything related to the Magnia Empire, a vast unified nation. By nature it held the largest floating-user base, which meant the fallout from dropping a Gossip Gallery on it would be the biggest possible.

But things weren't smooth sailing from the start.

Maybe it was because they'd spent their whole lives under the empire's thumb. Plenty of floating users found their way over from the linked gallery, but none of them trusted the Gossip Gallery yet.

No choice, then.

After stewing on it, I finally decided I'd have to lead by example if I wanted the Gossip Gallery to actually catch on.

The method: use my fixed nickname solo to prove I was the admin, and at the same time commit every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠taboo the existing galleries forbade.

The second I pulled off the double crown of imperial insult and blasphemy—the ultimate forbidden combo—the empire's citizens, who'd been watching from the sidelines, realized something.

Whatever my identity and purpose might be, I was at least not on the side of the ruling class that had been monopolizing the galleries.

And as a result, the Empire Village Gossip Gallery pulled off the absurd feat of climbing to number one on the real-time hot galleries list in a matter of days.

Behold. The moment the empire's citizens realized absolute anonymity was guaranteed, they started pouring out every ounce of resentment at once. The scale of it was so staggering you could honestly call it a nationwide festival.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

But there was one person who couldn't enjoy that grand festival alone, and could only sigh…

That person was none other than me—the founder of the Gossip Gallery.

I really didn't think this through…

To my eyes, the true identities of every anonymous poster were laid bare. The reason was that the account I was using was a unified administrator account spanning the entire gallery system. Thanks to that, no matter which post I looked at, the author's registration info automatically displayed right next to it. Even in an anonymous gallery.

If I'm going to keep running the Gossip Gallery, I have no choice but to use this account…

The price of forgetting that obvious fact and creating the Gossip Gallery anyway was brutally steep.

No matter how hard I tried not to notice, my eyes kept snagging on the contrast—posts shamelessly blasting twisted desires, paired with the exalted identities behind them.

Even the various flavors of absurd exposé posts starting to roll in couldn't just be laughed off—not when the identities behind them were what they were.

"AAAAAAARGH!!!"

Because I could see the red pill.

And so was born a sanctuary for every shit-stirrer on the planet—one that only I was forbidden from enjoying.