Hyperion
Karlstein's eyes gleamed.
"So what you're saying is that the Interdimensional Integrated Community is currently being sustained by Karma — the raw essence of Ether?"
"Yes, that's correct, Master. If we could use the Interdimensional Integrated Community to mass-harvest the karma each user has accumulated, the potential applications would be virtually limitless."
"Sweep away those damned things and... we could even push beyond the 'Veil' itself..."
Aria said nothing.
Karlstein drummed his fingers against the chair and sank into deliberation. Aria did not disturb his contemplation.
"Right. Then this isn't something I can afford to dismiss. So what do I need to do?"
His voice sounded, for some reason, a touch weary.
"As you are well aware, Master, karma is not something that can simply be seized by force."
"True."
"We will need to implement a variety of methods for siphoning karma from the users through the Interdimensional Integrated Community. Broadening the range of content is one option."
Images of video platforms, internet streaming, auction houses, and constellations flashed rapidly through Karlstein's mind.
"Even so, installing the relay comes first for the moment."
"Yes, Master."
"There's no rush, after all."
Important as Karma — as karma — might be, things hadn't yet gotten desperate enough for him to be gasping for it.
Karma, or eop, meant the web of cause and effect behind every action. The compounding chain of consequences flowing from every deed — a grand causal equation summed in its entirety.
Karlstein Babylon.
Just how much karma was the Emperor of the Galactic Empire accumulating in real time?
The karma he harvested across the entire star cluster while ruling the Galactic Empire was so colossal it defied imagination. It was, in fact, the very reason he kept the throne at all.
And yet.
With Ether, more was always better.
It was a miraculous power that turned the impossible into the possible.
'Why does my to-do list keep getting longer...? Is this really okay?'
For a brief moment, Karlstein's eyes went completely dead. He shook his head and pulled himself together.
"No, no. If Ether were infinite... retirement might not be a pipe dream after all...!"
"Yes, Master. However—"
Aria cut into Karlstein's hope-soaked voice.
"As stated in the report, when the dimensional matter transfer system is used, the Karma consumed scales exponentially with the civilization level of the item being transferred."
"...!"
"Thanks to the 'Hydra' you sent over, you'll be putting in some hours for a while, I'm afraid."
"WHAT?!"
Naturally, the more Karlstein worked with his own two hands, the more Karma he raked in.
"Kishaaaaaaaa!!"
Honestly, one prototype 'Hydra' was nothing to his wealth. He could shower them around by the dozen without so much as swaying.
But Ether was another matter entirely!
Because when Ether ran short, he had to get out on the front lines and work himself!
The duties that fell to the Emperor of the Galactic Empire were, almost without exception, the kind of soul-grinding headaches an ordinary person couldn't even begin to imagine.
"And then there's the starship Hyperion — the one you absolutely insisted on squeezing into the test run. If you factor in the Karma devoured by its transfer—"
"Wh-what?!"
"Prototype or not, Master, it is a growth-type starship."
"Th-that was back when I didn't know it cost Karma..."
"And does that bring the consumed Karma back, by any chance?"
"That's too cruel!"
"Get to work, Human."
"GYAAAAAAH!"
As Karlstein clawed at his own head in exquisite agony, Aria spoke up.
"As it happens, it appears a dimension has been found for the second relay installation."
"What?"
Karlstein hurriedly pulled up the text Aria was displaying.
I definitely transmigrated into Apocalypse S-Class Shelter Ability User, I swear.
But... I think the genre just changed T_T
Or did I get dropped into some other novel? I woke up and there's a whole UFO crashed into my ceiling — don't tell me aliens are about to show up?
I'm a non-awakened civilian, I was already halfway to dead, and now the setting has ALIENS in it?? What am I supposed to do (┬┬﹏┬┬)(┬┬﹏┬┬)(┬┬﹏┬┬)
It was someone's wail of despair.
Kim Youngsik.
His life had been exactly as ordinary as his name. He'd gotten through school without incident, graduated from a decent-but-not-great university, and landed a suitable job — becoming a perfectly average office worker, no more and no less than anyone else. On a scale of pure ordinariness, he was probably in the top one percent of the mundane.
Then, out of nowhere, a transmigration made his life slightly special. 'Slightly' — because even within that new world, he was still nothing more than ordinary civilian A.
But even being ordinary was, by now, a luxury he could only dream of.
"Oppa, I'm sorry. There's someone else I love. So let's end it here."
His girlfriend of seven years delivered the breakup. She was going to become the concubine of some exalted Awakened, she said.
"Yeongsik, I'm sorry, but don't bother coming in anymore. We found someone else."
"What use do we have for an incompetent nobody like you?"
For a non-awakened with no particular talents, even putting food on the table was a struggle.
Yeongsik holed up in a back-alley dive, putting away soju bottles one after another to drown the ache in his chest.
'How did it come to this again?'
His eyes sank deep into the past.
At first, he hadn't even realized he'd been transmigrated into a novel. After all, the place he'd opened his eyes in was none other than South Korea.
Only gradually — through slightly altered presidents and a subtly reshaped history — did he confirm that this world was a parallel one. Well, of course. The man who'd thought he died in a car crash was, here too, "Kim Yeongsik." Even his body hadn't changed in the slightest.
Yes — up to that point, he could understand it. He'd been an orphan with no close relatives worth leaving regrets over anyway.
If anything, Yeongsik had been grateful for the new life. Having faced death, his entire attitude toward living had changed; he treated his second chance as a gift and threw himself into life with everything he had.
He made friends. He found a girlfriend. Things at work slowly started looking up.
'Ah. So this is what a real life feels like?'
Vitality flowed back into his existence. He'd stop by the roadside to ponder the beauty of wildflowers and the clouds overhead; he and his girlfriend bickered now and then, but whispered love to each other all the same, reaffirming the trust between them.
Grateful simply to be alive, generous to the people around him despite having little to give — that kind of life filled him to the brim.
But then, four years after he'd settled into this world —
The picture-perfect canvas of his life finally, irreversibly, came to an end.
"GRAAAHHH!!"
"KYAAAAH!!"
"RUN!"
"Grrrrrk."
The day ordinary people turned into zombies, and the zombies evolved and brought nations and societies crashing down, his happiness shattered into pieces along with everything else.
Fate, however, had no interest in simply letting people die. Of those who survived the initial outbreak, many awakened extraordinary abilities.
Spitting fire, foreseeing the future, hurling energy blasts, summoning lightning.
With the emergence of these superhuman "Awakened," humanity somehow managed to keep its pulse going. It was an apocalypse in which the machinery of society had collapsed — but the survivors carried on, life by stubborn life.
It was around then that Yeongsik realized this world was no mere parallel universe.
'This is... the world inside that novel I read — Apocalypse Shelter Ability User!'
The realization stunned him, but he calmed down quickly enough. He'd already died and come back to life — what was a little novel transmigration on top of that?
Besides, foggy as it was, he still remembered a fair chunk of the plot, and that gave him hope.
Truly fortunately — miraculously fortunately — his girlfriend was with him, and that alone was reason enough not to give up.
Even in the most desperate circumstances, he could find strength if it was for her. He secured safe zones, gathered companions, scrounged for food, and drove off the raiders who circled their shelter like wolves.
Three frantic years slipped by like that. The only reason he'd survived those three years intact was the knowledge from the novel he'd read.
Several "Shelter" ability users appeared in this world's setting, and around them the Awakened gathered — think of it as a warring-states era of fortress lords.
As a non-awakened, Yeongsik was lower than an ant, but he'd latched onto the novel's protagonist and, armed to the teeth with story knowledge, contributed enormously to building the largest shelter in the nation.
And that part was fine.
If only "Yoo Byungtae," the protagonist, hadn't turned on him.
Once the shelter found its footing, Byungtae's attitude began to change. The relationship with the original protagonist started going off the rails.
"Why are you pushing yourself into everything?"
"It's not like things have to go exactly the way you say, right?"
"How would you even know that? It's not like you can see the future."
"What could you possibly do without me?"
He picked fights over every little thing, dismissed Yeongsik's opinions, and sabotaged his plans. To Yeongsik, it was enough to drive him insane with frustration.
'The Shelter users can't afford to be fighting each other right now...!'
Having read the novel, he was certain: if they kept settling into complacency like this, ruin was inevitable.
"Why don't you step back for good? There are other admin-type Awakened besides you."
"Yeah. Might not be bad to take a break, Yeongsik."
"You've worked so hard, oppa."
The colleagues who'd once watched Byungtae's every mood now pressed him toward retirement under the gentle pretext of "resting."
Even that much, he could have endured somehow.
But even after his retirement, Yoo Byungtae's persecution didn't stop.
Now even the colleagues who'd once been close began turning their backs on him and joining the ostracism.
"Haah..."
It was an absurd situation, truly. He'd climbed this far armed with every scrap of knowledge the novel had to offer, and now he stood to lose it all over his relationship with a single man.
"That son of a... In the original timeline, the bastard should be churning out trashy romance novels right about now."
Evolved zombies were never, ever merciful. Coming this far without losing a single companion was nothing short of a miracle.
'And after all my work, no one even acknowledges it...'
That was when his relationship with the original protagonist had completely soured — and an invitation arrived from a place called the Interdimensional Integrated Community.
'Could this be my awakened ability?'
If it was, it was laughably pathetic.
It made his head swim.
He did... lurk now and then, snickering at the threads, or post a complaint and bask in the sympathy. But still — if this was really his awakened ability, wasn't it just a little too pathetic?
Lately, with him about to be thrown out of the shelter, he hadn't even had time to glance at the community.
'So this is where it ends, huh.'
The moment he thought that — the ceiling exploded.
'Wait, this is INSIDE the shelter?!'
KRA-BOOM!
Yeongsik's jaw dropped.