Leveling Up Alone

Fortunately, the whole ordeal wrapped up in under a day when the Council finally waved the white flag.

That it settled down so quickly was thanks in no small part to the dwarves.

"...Reliable fellows, truly."

With order restored to the board, the usual blend of despair-ridden and strangely tranquil posts began trickling in once again. I continued my endless routine of browsing the gallery, losing all track of how many days and nights had slipped by.

Naturally, my administrative points accumulated over time, and through the repetitive cycle of purchasing goods and reselling them, Mana Dumplings began piling up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

"Well, they'll come in handy sooner or later."

The bunker's storage room was vast, with empty floor space to spare. Leaving those Mana Dumplings stacked high in a dark corner while I buried my face in the forum, however, proved to be where the trouble started. The pile didn't remain polite; it breached its corner, snowballing outward until it threatened to swallow the entire room.

Rumble, clatter.

"...Isn't this getting slightly out of hand?"

The mountain of dumplings literally devoured half the warehouse. At this rate, I wouldn't fall in battle against some eldritch demon beast; I'd end up crushed to death beneath an avalanche of glowing blue spheres.

"Then again, I can't just throw them in the trash."

Mana Dumplings were the legitimate currency of this post-apocalyptic realm. Tossing them out was completely unthinkable, yet the logistics of getting rid of them was rapidly turning into a major headache. Right around that moment, a specific thread caught my attention.

"Not like this random guy has a brilliant solution either," I muttered.

He was probably just asking out of idle curiosity, seeing as I'd been hoovering up endless quantities of dumplings whenever I supplied canned tuna and modern rations to the survivors. But then, an answer landed that made me do a double take.

From the confused rhythm of our exchange, I realized something was fundamentally amiss. Immediately pulling up the gallery's search engine, I broadened the query across both post titles and body text, typing in the full phrase: Mana Dumpling.

"Wait, that's all?"

Most of the results were transparent clickbait or low-effort shitposts with obnoxious titles like Secret Method to Farm Mana Dumplings Fast. Recognizing the universal truth of internet slang, I tweaked my keywords to match how netizens actually talk.

Eat MD.

I knew it. Whenever dealing with forum degenerates, you had to shorten every word to its bare acronym.

"Ah. Guess levels don't exist in this world?"

The moment I brought up the concept of numerical levels in a setting that clearly ran on mana, they looked at me like a lunatic. Still, unearthing such vital information from their collective bickering was a tremendous gain.

Approaching the mountain of dumplings that took up half the bunker, I plucked one off the pile and held it up to the light.

"So... people actually swallow these things?"

It bore a striking resemblance to an unbaked lump of muddy modeling clay. One look was enough to make my stomach turn—whatever region my bunker happened to sit on, its dumplings were an unmitigated disaster. Clammy, squishy, and downright repulsive, it practically screamed at my survival instincts not to put it anywhere near my mouth.

Worse, I had no clue how its effects would manifest. The forum users had thrown around the grandiose term 'enlightenment', but that was so terribly abstract that for all I knew, nothing would happen at all.

Even so, steeling my nerves, I closed my eyes, jammed the dumpling past my lips, and bit down.

Squish.

"Ugh, this texture is genuinely insane."

Repulsive barely began to cover it. It felt less like food and more like chewing on soggy, rotted banana peels that had spent a week fermenting in a puddle. And to add insult to injury, why on earth did it taste like stale mint chocolate?

"Well... at least it's filling..."

Did the rule of medicine apply here—the worse it tasted, the higher its nutritional density? If nothing else, my hollow stomach was abruptly satiated. Still, I swore on my life I would never voluntarily chew one of these again.

"Huh?"

My drowsy mind snapped wide awake at the sight of the shimmering text floating in my vision. Level up? Didn't the forum users just insist that levels didn't exist?

Evidently, the rules were different for me. As the orange-tagged Head Moderator, I possessed an actual leveling system. And the moment that level increased, an entirely new perk materialized right before my eyes.

"Point Acquisition Rate Level 2?"

As if possessed, I immediately pulled up the forum feed. Every single day, countless grotesque images and weaponized shock posts—what we affectionately referred to as Tactical Nukes—flooded the Otherworld Destruction Gallery. Right now, that toxic deluge was the most beautiful sight in the world.

"Well, look at that. Prime moderation fodder right here."

A macro shot of a dead goblin? To an administrator who had stared down every horrifying tactical nuke modern Earth trolls could manufacture, this was child's play. My mouse hovered over the user's handle, and I clicked the small red ban icon without hesitation.

"Jackpot!"

The system rewarded all sorts of administrative actions: banning trolls, mediating—or intentionally fanning the flames of—flamewars, pinning popular threads to the Hall of Fame, and more. Among these, detonating tactical nuke uploaders yielded the fattest payout. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It used to be 30 points per ban, but it had truly doubled to 60!

"This single ban translates to sixty glorious cans of tuna, lmao."

Downing just one foul-tasting Mana Dumpling had multiplied my point income by two. Having practically drained my reserves to mass-produce weapons and relief goods for the dwarves recently, this windfall couldn't have arrived at a better time.

"At this rate, I might actually be able to buy it!"

My thoughts immediately went to a particular listing I'd been drooling over for days. Nestled deep inside the System Shop's Furniture category was a king-sized, ultra-deluxe luxury bed priced at an eye-watering 10,000 points.

A proper bed was a non-negotiable prerequisite for marathon forum browsing. The more nights I spent tossing and turning on the frigid, unyielding concrete of the bunker warehouse, the more agonizingly I yearned for a plush mattress. And as luck would have it, the board was currently throwing a massive money-printing festival with shock memes pouring in faster than ever.

"Line up and take your medicine, boys."

Mana Dumpling in one hand, mouse in the other. I plunged headfirst into an unhinged, round-the-clock moderation rampage.

Up until recently, the Otherworld Destruction Gallery had been an untamed lawless wasteland. Without any Assistant Moderators or an active Head Mod patrolling the threads, every single day had played out like an endless Purge. But even that anarchic wasteland was no match for an unemployed modern netizen moderating 24/7 on pure adrenaline.

At first, universal bewilderment swept through the userbase. Many assumed the gallery had suffered a catastrophic system bug, but after an hour of this relentless scorched-earth purge, reality began to sink in.

As I deleted posts without pausing for a single breath, the point counter ticked upward like a runaway slot machine.

I had reached a number I had never witnessed since tumbling into this wasteland.

Five thousand points. That translated to an astonishing five thousand cans of tuna. If converted into bottled spring water, the sheer volume of liters would have easily flooded the entire bunker floor up to my waist.

"I farmed this much in just a couple of hours?"

Just one more push like this, and that dream bed would be standing proudly in the corner of my warehouse. Burning 10,000 hard-earned points on a single piece of furniture might seem extravagant, but it was anything but a loss.

"A good night's rest directly translates to more efficient forum browsing."

Making a mental note to eventually ensnare some reliable, unpaid slave of an Assistant Moderator to shoulder the burden, I was just about to crack my knuckles and dive back into the trenches when—

"Oho?"

My fingers froze above the keyboard. A slow, knowing grin crept across my face.

Perhaps... I wouldn't need to waste a single precious system point buying that luxury bed after all.