Destined to Perish Novel Gallery

A flood of system messages began to ring in my ears.

I became the admin?

The moment I became an Archmage, those bizarre messages started echoing around me — and just like that, I had become the administrator of the Destined to Perish Novel Gallery. Destined Perish Gallery for short.

Led by that one anonymous user, the news that a new administrator had taken office set off an explosion of interest. It was only natural.

After transmigrating and poking around at everything I could, I'd learned that the only internet community available to novel transmigrators was Destined Perish Gallery. A community of Koreans that let you communicate bidirectionally from anywhere.

Word that the admin of a hub that important had changed was more than enough to grab everyone's attention.

The anonymous users were getting more and more curious about my personal details. Not that I needed to worry. Every post I'd written had been under the anonymous nickname Anon.

Except things didn't quite go the way I expected.

When I checked the guy's post, he'd uploaded a partial list of my threads and comments. I'd written them under an anonymous nickname, but the problem was that once I became admin, I could be identified.

I pulled up one of my dumb throwaway posts and found the word "Admin" stamped next to the name, complete with an orange badge. A string of curses slipped out of my mouth. At this rate, even posting as Anon would broadcast that it was me.

I have to stop my personal info from getting doxxed, no matter what.

The name I'd been using since transmigrating into the novel was McDeras — and roughly speaking, the only Archmage in existence inside the novel The Talentless Mage Dreams of Becoming an Archmage was about as much of a personal profile as I had. The reason I was so determined to hide that information was simple.

I wasn't afraid of anyone coming at me with force. I could swear on anything that under the premise of a one-on-one fight, there wasn't a single person in this world I could lose to even if I wanted to. But you never know with the world. Someone might try to kill me through political means, or form a group and find some way to screw me over.

...Also I've just dumped an ungodly amount of trash posts on this board.

Truthfully, everything I'd said above was partly an excuse. I simply didn't want anyone finding out how many absolute garbage posts I'd been shitting out. For what it was worth, I held a fairly revered position in the novel I'd transmigrated into.

No matter how many of these I delete, there's no end to them. I'm so fucking screwed.

If someone asked why I'd been dumping shameless trash onto the internet even under anonymity, I did have a defense. I'd transmigrated into a novel full of complete strangers and scrambled like a dog — literally like a dog — to monopolize every opportunity and every hidden piece, nearly dying over and over in the process. On top of that, every single person who held one of those opportunities had a vicious personality and was absurdly strong, so buttering them up was mandatory, which meant burying my real personality even deeper.

After I learned massacre magic, killing people by the score became routine.

I'd been through every kind of hell imaginable, and eventually the dark, twisted interior I'd been packing away exploded all over Destined Perish Gallery.

Normally I would have hit back with a classic "not my problem," but orcs existed in this world too, and the orc tribes were on the powerful side, so I kept my mouth shut. For all I knew it could turn into a war.

Of course, looking at their race alone, I might not have been all that afraid. But if humans and orcs went to war, the other demi-human races would join in as well. I had no desire to start another world-war-scale conflict.

Fortunately, the hunt for my identity quickly sank into a labyrinth.

I watched the identity-hunt spiral into a maze and let out a sigh of relief.

I'd written over twenty thousand posts and left more than a few personal details ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in them, but I'd left out the critical parts, and everything was so thoroughly mixed with fiction and pure bait that piecing together my real identity was close to impossible.

Truth 10%. Bait 50%. Lies 30%. Nonsense 10%.

If you ran the stats on my posts, the numbers would probably come out something like that. Either way, my personal info was vanishing into a permanent labyrinth.

After all, I'd just figured out how to use my administrator privileges.

In other words, a bulk privacy function. The fact that a few clicks could do something like this made me gasp the way a primitive human might have the first time they discovered fire.

Power really is nice.

But of course, some bastard had already screenshot my entire post history in the meantime.

I opened the thread and found a complete lunatic who had saved hundreds of screenshots of every post I'd ever written. Leaving it alone wouldn't have been enough for anyone to actually figure out who I was, but I didn't want to leave even a scrap of material for speculation, so I took a small measure.

The taste of power was convenient and sweet.

I followed it up by uploading a post of my own.

Something I'd learned after transmigrating: verification was simple. You just told the administrator the name of the novel you'd transmigrated into and the name you were using in that world. Entering false information was impossible. I didn't know how it worked, but if you put in anything fake, the system itself rejected the verification.

Which meant that to call anyone out, you had to expose at least a minimum of personal information to me, the admin.

Even though people had transmigrated into completely different novels, they were reluctant to reveal their in-novel identities. There was always the chance that someone else from the same novel might be reading.

Since I'd restricted callouts to verified accounts only, there probably wouldn't be anyone left screenshotting my posts and spreading them around. How many people would actually dox themselves just to call someone out? And if anyone did, I'd just ban them.

That takes care of the first response.

There was considerable pushback — tyrant this, tyrant that — but I decided to ignore it without banning anyone. Banning users who strongly objected to gallery rules was something only amateurs did. Do that and you got a full-blown riot. I just threw out a justification and waited.

After about three hours, opinions started to split.

Voices defending me, the administrator, began to appear.

It was mockery dressed up as defense, but that was fine. I wasn't going to ban this user either. This one had actually gotten verified. And besides, mockery was something I'd endured countless times already. The fact that the board's mood had shifted from rage to ridicule was itself proof that the anger over my unilateral rule change was fading.

Knock knock knock.

Just then, a knock came from outside the door.

"Come in."

I answered in a solemn tone, and a heavily armed man stepped carefully inside and asked,

"Archmage McDeras. I've been trying to reach you through the magic orb for some time with no response, so I came looking for you. Is something the matter?"

"I was researching improvements to massacre magic. We never know when war might break out again, so we have to be prepared."

"I—I'm sorry."

The man bowed his head and apologized. I waved a hand to say it was fine, but he kept groveling and apologizing over and over.

"I'm truly sorry. I'll make sure that for the time being, no summoning signals through the magic orb will reach the Archmage's office, so as not to disturb your research."

Research, my ass.

I was thoroughly sick of massacre magic. Would I even have reason to use it again?

The moment the man left, I propped my legs up on the desk again and opened the community.

The simmering public sentiment was gradually settling down, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

The community admin was a shitposter who'd started rewriting the rules the second he took office. Even if there was no alternative community, when the guy with the armband pulled this kind of crap, the place was doomed to rot. I decided it was time to offer a carrot instead of the stick.

Conveniently, the admin functions have something for this.

I summoned the man who'd come into the room earlier.

"How many mages are in the Magic Tower right now?"

"Excluding those dispatched outside, roughly three hundred are currently conducting research."

"When I call for them shortly, bring them all."

"Understood. I'll make sure they're ready to come the moment you give the word."

I waved him out with a flick of my hand, and the man stepped outside once more.

Hmm... three hundred should be enough.

Becoming the admin of Destined Perish Gallery and immediately getting looked down on had put me in a foul mood. But that was fine. If I used the authority of an Archmage rather than an administrator, there were quite a few things I could do.

I uploaded a post to Destined Perish Gallery.

It was time to show them what an Archmage was capable of.