I Became the Emperor of the Universe

Diet food that burned calories in an instant without a single minute of exercise. An automatic shower unit that washed you clean in three seconds at the push of a button. Pills that could replace meals entirely. Household androids that handled the cleaning, the laundry, and the cooking.

Things everyone had imagined at least once.

If such things actually existed, people would be lining up to throw open their wallets on the spot. Which was why it was only natural to assume that kind of convenience couldn't possibly exist—because such things appeared in imagination and nowhere else.

Science Fiction.

Nothing but fanciful science, in the truest sense of the word.

And yet, human beings are wired to yearn most desperately for what they cannot have.

The young man gliding his fingers across the computer keyboard with the fluid grace of a pianist was no exception to that rule.

"No, whether it's a Demon King or a dragon, one shot from an antiparticle cannon sends them straight to hell! Why can't you understand what I'm saying!!"

Antiparticle weaponry: arms that exploited the mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter. Converting one hundred percent of a given mass into pure energy, an antiparticle weapon could, in theory, deliver tens—no, hundreds—of times the destructive power of a nuclear warhead.

Fantasy, murim—how could either of them hope to compete with SF?!

He hammered away at the keyboard, determined to thoroughly educate his opponent on the depths of his own ignorance. He preached, without pause, on the greatness of SF science and technology—though the occasional profanity slipped in, since his keyboard battle with the bastard had now passed the twelve-hour mark.

"Heh heh. Got nothing left to say, do you?"

The other side's rebuttals were slowing to a crawl. Sweet, glorious victory was within his grasp.

"Just give up already."

Truth be told, he was running on fumes himself. It was late. One SF movie and a blissful night's sleep—that was exactly what the moment called for.

Flash—

...If only he hadn't been abruptly ripped into another world right then.

"Huh?"

No, seriously—transmigrated?

There had been no omens, no warning signs of any kind. It took him considerable time to gather his wits and grasp what had happened.

'Ah...'

Only days later did he realize he had been dropped into a novel he'd read more times than he could count—Chronicles of the Galactic Heroes.

Unlike your typical web novel, GalHero was a sprawling four-part epic where countless warlords and fortuitous opportunities swarmed like flies. Fortunately, he knew the story inside and out, and he was young enough to grind his way to the top.

"Alright! Then I'll prove it—the greatness of SF!"

But that plucky resolve of his was snapped within days.

In a worldview where a single blast from a giant warship's main cannon could blow a planet to smithereens, his own position amounted to little more than some nameless junior officer.

He quickly realized this wasn't a question of proving anything. His immediate concern was simply staying alive.

'How bleak.'

No matter how hard he strove, a single chance battle could erase the very planet he stood on—whole. That terror, that crushing futility, was almost impossible to imagine: whatever efforts he made, however much he grew, one stroke of bad luck could earn him a death more meaningless than an ant squashed under a soldier's boot.

He had to overhaul his plans from the ground up. His original ambition had been to monopolize every fortuitous encounter and become the strongest—a man who could contest for the hegemony of the universe. But betting his life on every cosmic-scale warzone was simply not sustainable.

First, he obtained the highest-performance AI module in existence—up to that point a mere MacGuffin in the novel's pages. The utility of Aria, the SF world's officially certified supreme AI, went without saying. He then implanted the Aria module into his own body and threw himself into his plans with everything he had.

He abandoned the warrior's path and resolved to become a politician instead. He built his standing starting from a frontier planetary committee. His imperial bloodline, however diluted, made the climb considerably smoother.

And yet, if there was one thing he'd invested in most painstakingly throughout his journey through that SF web novel, it was—ironically—people.

He tracked down every main and supporting character from GalHero, one by one. With Aria's help, he staged the circumstances in advance and quietly stole their hearts.

Geniuses on a cosmic scale.

Could you even imagine it? Talent so vast that even Aria's auxiliary computation couldn't predict its ceiling?

His hands trembled at the mere phrase genius of a continent—what hope did anyone have against genius of the universe?

Needless to say, the rest.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He collected ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every prodigy and paragon who shone on the universal stage. He paid particular attention to Maxien, protagonist of the second installment—the Sword Saint of the cosmos—and Camilla, the mid-boss of the fourth, the Orchestrator of the Battlefield. With the strongest individual combatant and a peerless genius of fleet warfare both in his grasp, there was nothing left to fear.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Even having acquired the sharpest blade in existence, he never stopped collecting talent. All the while he preempted every crisis, disposed of every threat, and gathered up fortuitous opportunities to scatter among his people like seeds.

The rest is history. He cut down the Emperor—the story's final mastermind—and ascended to the throne of cosmic supremacy.

Emperor of the Galactic Empire.

To be precise, he had risen to the head of the Human Alliance, one of the three great powers that divided the universe between them.

The imperial throne carried more symbolic weight than practical, granted—but he was unquestionably a man of omnipotent authority. Nay, with every manner of prodigy serving as his hands and feet in the day-to-day business of rule, he was, in name and in fact, the supreme sovereign.

Having reached the very pinnacle of humanity, he handed the remaining duties over to Aria and his subordinates. He had hardly clawed his way to the throne in order to break his back over paperwork.

Then, one day, while enjoying his hard-won semi-freedom, a strange message materialized before his eyes.

Huh?

An utterly unexpected message.

Holograms and interfaces visible only to the user were, frankly, nothing new to him. This was an SF worldview, after all—surely it could manage that much?

But spontaneously forcing its way into his field of view like spam mail, completely bypassing Aria's safeguards, was flatly impossible. His body had undergone perfect modification down to the last cell and could live for eternity; hallucinations were equally out of the question.

"Is Aria pranking me?"

—Is something the matter, Human?

A woman's voice sounded directly inside his skull.

"Hmm..."

Aria's persona was that of a cold, haughty, ice-cold-beauty secretary. Her pulling a prank like this was just as unthinkable.

"Aria, did you check the message I'm looking at right now?"

—...Please wait a moment.

A holographic message invisible to Aria, yet visible to him alone?

Impossible. It simply could not be.

"Hmm..."

Could it be...?

And yet, on the other hand, a flicker of anticipation stirred in him. Life as Emperor had settled into one long, tedious routine.

"..."

—It does not appear even through vision sharing. Do not jest with me, Human.

"I see."

'A message even Aria can't detect, then...'

Tilting his head, he reached out a hand toward the message that only he could see.

Ding—!

He set his nickname with a thought.

Before his eyes, an interface eerily reminiscent of the internet communities of his past life unfolded as a translucent window. And in that same instant, Aria's flustered voice rang out.

—Master! An unknown astral signal has just been detected! This is... impossible. Utterly impossible.

How long had it been since Aria had been caught off guard? Outside of the time she'd witnessed the ultimate technique of Maxien, the one they called the Sword Saint of the cosmos, it had almost never happened.

"Aria, synchronize."

—Please wait. Three, two, one... Synchronization complete.

Like a soul leaving its body, he found himself perceiving his own form in the third person, standing there blank and vacant. At present, it was Aria piloting his body. Synchronization was an entirely different beast from merely reading brain signals and sharing a field of vision.

'Syncing never stops feeling weird, no matter how many times I do it.'

The sensation of one's soul being peeled away was never, ever pleasant. Paying it no mind, Aria—now inhabiting his body—blinked as she examined the translucent window.

—This is...

So it was visible through synchronization after all?

Aria found herself unable to speak.

Was it truly that shocking?

But the words that finally left Aria's mouth were not what he expected.

—This is... an asylum for the criminally insane.

At Aria's scandalized verdict, he found himself nodding along in his heart.

Apparently, even the eyes of an artificial intelligence could not process the Interdimensional Integrated Community as anything remotely normal.

He released Aria's synchronization, returned to his own body, and began browsing the posts himself.

'Hmm... this is no different from the communities I used in my past life.'

A leisurely skim was enough to grasp how the place worked. The features were dead simple—post under either anonymity or a nickname, and leave comments. What was genuinely fascinating, though, was that the users apparently lived in entirely different worlds from one another.

Hmm... had someone transmigrated into the Stone Age? It seemed some people really did live in places beyond all imagination.

Moreover, the place wasn't populated by transmigrators alone. Figures who looked like natives appeared here and there as well.

Intrigued, he let his finger drift toward the compose button.

'Start things off light, shall we?'

Moments later, the hardened veterans—drooling over the fresh meat—began swarming in with their comments.