The Gallery
What… what the hell is this.
Staring at the window floating in empty air, I lost my words for a moment.
I'd half done it as a joke, but looking at how properly the whole thing had actually applied left my head throbbing.
Ah… that bastard's already attaching shitposts.
These are supposed to be… the sages who achieved Uwhadeungseon?
Then a notification chime rang out, and a new post went up.
Outside of Hajun-gay, we have no hope
I read your memories and tried to find the most comfortable way to communicate — hoping we can actually talk like this
After checking the dizzying state of the board and the comment section, I worked the site and put up a post of my own.
Blood Sect Leader, could we talk privately for a moment?
What a goddamn circus.
I ignored the flood of comment notifications that kept coming after that, and before long the Blood Sect Leader spoke to me out loud.
"Hajun-gay. You called?"
"…Is this for real?"
"This is something you started, Hajun-gay."
He went on.
"Our speech patterns and the form of our posts all reference your memories. So that you and we might speak even a little more comfortably."
I suddenly regretted my entire life of gallery-posting with violent intensity.
Only a few minutes ago they had clearly been perfectly normal martial artists — and now they had all turned into concept-obsessed gallery freaks.
"Even so, calling me 'gay' every time we talk is a bit…"
"Understood. Still, is this not far more comfortable for conversation than before?"
"It's gotten so comfortable it's a problem."
I meant that sincerely.
Just earlier, the mere title of "greatest under heaven" had made me a little nervous — and now the whole thing had become nothing more than a cozy internet forum.
"If the speech bothers you, do not worry overmuch. When we actually converse, we will not use that kind of undignified language."
The Blood Sect Leader did something for a moment, and just as he said, the gallery's register flipped in an instant.
Some kind of auto-recognition filter, maybe.
Looking at it this way, the gallery speak almost seemed better.
"Also, their pride runs so high that I grew concerned — and so I have been thinking of granting you greater authority still."
"What kind?"
"The seat of Juddak."
Juddak.
Gallery admin privileges, then.
"If you so desire, I shall grant you absolute power to freely ban any person of the Uwhadeungseon Gallery, or freely delete their posts. Would that make this even a little more trustworthy?"
"When you say ban, exactly…"
"It means you may sever our side's communication with you as you please."
That was genuinely appetizing.
Even in a short exchange, their words had been packed full of certainty — certainty in the lives they had lived, certainty in their martial arts.
Absolute masters who had each ruled their age.
There was no way people like that would ever yield to each other.
As if to prove it, the comment section on the post I had put up earlier was already exploding.
But as I scrolled through the posts, whatever faint awe or pressure I had felt earlier was gone completely. All that remained was comfort — and self-loathing.
"…Why is everyone so obsessed with me?"
"From the moment this art first began until the day your voice first reached us, we drifted for some seven hundred years. Of course it would be so."
The Blood Sect Leader spoke of an unimaginably long stretch of time as if it were nothing.
"We think of this as a once-in-a-lifetime chance that will never come again. So, fated one — do not take it poorly."
"How could I take it poorly."
Looking back, had anyone ever wanted me this badly after I fell into the Jianghu?
A once-in-a-lifetime chance.
If these really were martial artists who had achieved Uwhadeungseon, it was also a chance to learn the greatest martial arts of all time for free.
But a faint unease bloomed in my chest.
"But is martial arts something you can learn that easily?"
"That is a problem for the gallery users to handle among themselves. Why not try learning right away, as a test?"
With the direction set, I wrote a post at once.
So how do I learn martial arts now?
Somehow the gallery's reaction felt off.
That was when a guest ID appeared.
What do you think it means that they never had a single disciple until the day they died
It means they're socially maladjusted pure-virgin freaks
And yet every last one of them has barely ever gone a day without being called a once-in-a-century genius, plus they were all born into good families, ate spiritual medicines from childhood, lucked into fortuitous encounters, and grew up getting bone-washing marrow-cleansing
That's on you to deal with lmao
Is there anywhere to stay?
Can't I just grab some hidden spiritual medicines or whatever and hole up in a corner to train?
What mattered most to me right now was not martial arts.
Of course I needed martial arts to run — but it was not something you learned overnight, was it.
More important than that was a safe place to stay.
I could not spend every night flinching awake in shallow sleep while dodging pursuers, and obviously a person had to eat to live.
Still — every last one of them had been the greatest of their age. Surely they had not left nothing behind?
This gallery… was it really going to be okay…