Dimensional Archive

I stared up at the words from where I lay sprawled on the floor, dazed. The first thought that hit me was simple.

Am I going crazy?

I half-crawled, half-dragged myself to my phone. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't even unlock it on the first try. After several clumsy fumbles, I finally got the search bar open and started typing.

schizophrenia early symptoms

hallucinations floating text

seeing system windows

visual ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hallucinations mental illness

mental illness test

window floating in midair

Results flooded the screen.

Schizophrenia. Visual hallucinations. Delusions. Stress-related symptoms. Dissociation. Depersonalization.

I skimmed them, then looked back at the window hanging in front of me.

It's way too clear for that.

It didn't feel like something following my head when I turned — it felt overlaid right on top of my actual field of vision.

"...I'm too healthy to be going insane."

The second I said it out loud, I realized how completely baseless that sounded.

Healthy people weren't immune to mental illness either.

But I really had thought that. I worked pretty consistently, ate well, slept well, even exercised once in a while. I'd figured I at least wasn't broken enough for blue windows to start popping up in midair...

The problem was that one was floating right there.

I looked back at the window.

I reached out to press it, then stopped.

Wait — with this kind of thing, you don't press it with your hands, right? You just think about pressing it?

The instant the thought formed, the window advanced.

"Whoa."

Goosebumps crawled up my arms.

The next screen was shorter and simpler.

I swallowed hard.

Confirm.

This time I deliberately willed it, and the screen changed at once.

It looked like a game character creation screen. But the display was so cold and dry that it felt weirdly unsettling.

I hesitated a moment, then nudged the height value up just a little.

In that instant, a tingling sensation flooded my entire body.

"What— what the hell!"

It felt like a fine current running from the soles of my feet all the way to the crown of my head. Like my spine was stretching, just slightly, from the inside. It wasn't pain, exactly — just strange and alien.

I swallowed and made a small adjustment to my shoulders.

I felt my collarbones, back, and shoulder joints shift outward by fractions, then settle into place.

When I ran a hand over my shoulder, I could feel the new frame.

"...Is this real?"

My heart started racing again.

That was when one of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the buttons lower down caught my eye.

I stared at that sentence for a long time.

The ideal form I desire, huh...

Suspicious wording. Insanely tempting wording.

I reached toward the button like I was under a spell, then stopped.

This system responded to thoughts faster than hands.

The moment that registered—

"Uh... shit."

Something inside me started moving in earnest.

It felt like countless tiny hands crawling under my skin all at once. Muscle fibers pulled taut in microscopic increments. Bones slowly shifted their angles. Joints reseated themselves along more natural lines.

My back straightened. My neck aligned. My shoulders broadened into something clean and open.

Every inefficient part of my body was being trimmed away and rearranged into the best shape I'd ever imagined for myself.

Even my jaw, cheekbones, and the area around my eyes were being refined from the inside — the sensation was crystal clear.

I staggered up, yanked my shirt off, and went to the mirror.

I stopped.

The person standing in the glass was me. But he was far better than the me I remembered.

Even his posture was different. The shoulders had widened naturally, the neckline cleaned up, the upper-body frame broader and larger than before. The waist was tight with no excess, and the lines of chest and abdomen held their definition without any effort.

I stepped closer to the mirror.

I could see the face.

The skin texture had changed. The slight puffiness around the eyes was gone. The jawline was sharper. The overall proportions had somehow become more refined. It wasn't a different face the way plastic surgery would make it — just a better version of mine.

Holy shit, who the hell are you?

My dazed gaze drifted slowly downward.

The moment I checked below the waist, my brain short-circuited.

"......Huh?"

My lower half had changed completely too.

Not a little. The presence alone was different. Just standing there felt awkward, like something completely absurd was attached to me.

I froze solid.

"Oh my god."

It was the kind of change you'd only ever see in a dream — but the sensation was far too vivid for that.

Still blank-faced, I dropped my pants.

The length looked like almost twenty centimeters. The girth looked like double what it used to be.

Heh...

I reached out, half-convinced this couldn't be real.

Thud.

The moment my fingertips made contact, my breath caught in my throat.

Oh, Lord.

Heavy heat and a formidable shape filled my hand. There was no way this was a hallucination.

It took me several seconds to let go.

"Whoa..."

I could tell it had improved. But that was exactly what made it terrifying.

It had changed perfectly — in the direction I'd wanted, beyond even the desires I'd dared to imagine.

The me in the mirror was a stranger, and yet unnervingly satisfying. That was the creepiest part of all.

It took a long time before I could get my mouth working again.

"Good god... what even is this?"

And then, in that moment, blue text quietly rose into the center of my vision beyond the mirror.

The me in the mirror was still me.

Me — but clearly different from the me of a few minutes ago.

An inverted-triangle upper body. A face that was unmistakably better-looking at a glance. And, every time my eyes drifted down, a presence that shattered every previous assumption about what an alpha male could look like.

"......"

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again.

It was still there.

Below it, a new window popped out like spam text.

I stared at it blankly, then let out a short, incredulous laugh.

"Mental Protection?"

A little late for that, I thought.

Is that why I'm still sane?

The second the thought crossed my mind, the confirm button pressed itself.

"Ah, shit!"

I jumped. My heart lurched once, hard.

The popup vanished, and the main screen that had been waiting behind it slowly unfolded.

It wasn't overly flashy. It didn't sparkle like a game UI. If anything, it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so dry and plain it was almost unpleasant.

I stopped on the second line.

Reality: Earth-0300.

"...What?"

I blinked and looked again. The words hadn't changed.

The reality I'd been living in this whole time wasn't just "reality" — inside some window somewhere, it was number 0300.

A chill ran down my spine the moment that sank in.

And below it, the timer ticked down calmly, second by second.

My room was still quiet.

The hum of the fridge. The distant sound of a car somewhere outside the window. The world was fine. And yet that thing was floating in my field of vision.

I picked up my phone, then put it back down.

What am I going to search for when there's a status window hanging in midair?

I bit my lower lip lightly and turned my eyes back to the window.

If I'm already this crazy, I might as well go all the way.

The moment I thought that, something in my head seemed to settle into place a little.

"Let's start with the structure."

I selected [Abilities].

Almost on reflex, I selected [Passive]. Inside, the familiar-yet-strange text from earlier was lined up in order.

I read each line slowly.

Biological Adaptation. Aging Suppression. Mental Protection.

All three sounded plausible. So plausible they almost felt like a cheap game.

A few minutes ago I'd been googling schizophrenia the second a floating window appeared. Now I was calmly reading passive skill descriptions.

It was scary. But I hadn't completely fallen apart.

One thing mattered above all else.

I was still thinking clearly!

I checked the Active tab too, but there was nothing much to see.

One short sentence. That was all.

I tried Reproduction as well. Nothing.

Optimization, having already been used once just now, only showed a single brief line at the bottom of the screen.

I went straight back and selected [Records].

I went rigid.

Down to the second. The order was exact.

First access. User recognition. Baseline reality registration. Privilege grant.

This was closer to a log than a hallucination. More precisely — it was the recording device of something that had already registered me as a user.

Goosebumps erupted across my whole body.

There had been no permission asked. The Dimensional Archive had already recognized me, stamped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a number on the reality I lived in, and thoroughly renovated my body into something very, very nice. And it had logged every last bit of it like that was the most natural thing in the world.

I drew a slow breath in, then let it out.

"Hoooooo..."

Even so, the rules were starting to show themselves, bit by bit. Like it or not, this was far more sophisticated than some runaway hallucination.

I shifted my gaze to the last tab.

[Dimension]

I hesitated for a moment.

It was the kind of word that felt like something real was going to open behind it.

I swallowed dryly.

"Ah... no way."

And I pressed it. The screen changed.

I almost reflexively selected [Dimension List].

Nine dimensions appeared in a very simple layout. No descriptions. No helpful guidance. Just names.

I scanned the list slowly from top to bottom.

Glass Beach. Flesh Book Corridor. Atlantis. Black Universe Ranch.

None of those sound remotely normal just from the names.

And somewhere in the lower middle, my eyes stopped.

Earth-0382.

My reality was Earth-0300, but the list had Earth-0382 on it.

Meaning they're not the same Earth...

That fact was strangely chilling.

It meant that the reality I'd been living in was, inside this system, just one world among many.

And above that —

Astrania-1337.

For some reason that name caught my eye.

But before anything else, what locked my attention was the very top entry.

Human Ranch-4614.

I stared at those characters for a long time.

Ranch. Not "people" — human.

The name alone made my stomach turn.

In that moment, a very short sentence appeared at the bottom of the list.

I shut my mouth. My fingertips went cold again.

"Shit... what the hell is this."

My room was still quiet.

The me in the mirror stood there with an improved face, and my discarded clothes were crumpled on the bed.

The world was utterly ordinary — and inside my vision, a word like "Human Ranch" was floating.

I stood in front of the dimension list for a long time, unable to move.

It didn't seem like a normal world. And yet, strangely, I had the feeling that the first thing I needed to press was that one.

Very slowly — truly, carefully — I fixed my gaze on the name at the very top.

Human Ranch-4614.