Welcome, First Time Being an Anomaly? (1)

I died.

The young man Lee Sang-hyun was dead.

You know the kind of thing. You've seen it in books. You're certain you've stood up — and yet what sits in front of your eyes is your own collapsed body. The lights were off, so I couldn't see clearly, but an ordinary living person wouldn't be staring at the back of their own head in a chair.

"So... what the hell do I do about this..."

It would be a long time before the world found out I was dead. I was an unemployed young man with not a single acquaintance who'd think to check in.

And there's nobody who'd even pay for it. Who's going to clean the room and collect the body?

I was turning that over when something like a notification arrived in my head — not that I probably had a brain anymore. The moment I focused my will on wanting to check it, a translucent white window unfolded in front of my eyes.

...What the hell is this.

The Anomaly Minor Gallery?

I die and they immediately file me under Anomaly?

I'd seen this beat in web novels, sure. This deceased, glamorous watashi has become the region's EX-rank anomaly beautiful girl and shall now assist humanity, desu wa~

But when I looked myself over, there was no beautiful-girl body waiting for me. There wasn't even my old body. I was some kind of ghost, and I didn't look like I was going to qualify as an Anomaly either.

A ghost? An Anomaly? Same difference, maybe?

The whole thing sat wrong, and I was about to hit decline when a thought cut across my mind.

What if I had to spend the rest of forever like this — millions of years, tens of millions of years, as nothing but a ghost?

They say a person's strongest motive is boredom. There's an old story about a lazy employee who was given absolutely nothing to do all day, and the next morning came in begging to be assigned anything at all.

The second that landed, I yanked my decision back and chose Y. I didn't have fingers, but will alone was enough to make the selection.

I already died once. Not like I can't die again.

The screen that opened in front of me was 99% identical to the one I'd been looking at for nearly ten years.

There's a saying for this. Shut up. Lurk. Three days. If you're new to a gallery, you read the notices before you even think about posting.

Alright. Let's start with the most recent one.

Just look at how trustworthy that title is. Gallery post titles have never given a damn about spacing, after all. That's what makes it thrilling! It fills you with longing!

Without a shred of doubt, I opened the first post.

"Ah, fuck."

A tips post would've been in the Notices tab, now that I thought about it. And there was no reason a veteran write-up meant to actually help newbies would be sitting at the top of the catalog either. The shock of dying must have been worse than I realized. My instincts had kicked the bucket too.

In the galleries I used to haunt, the unpaid janitors in blue hats would have wiped a post like this in under ten seconds. This one had been sitting there for over a minute. Maybe that was just how irredeemable Anomalies were — an animal corpse didn't even register as a tactical nuke to them.

Maybe it's because I'm an emotional regular person, but stuff like this makes me flinch. I might even tear up? Meanwhile I personally block uncensored gore videos and smile to myself. Hoho.

I'd taken considerable damage to my mental fortitude, but I gathered up what was left of my shaking composure and opened the Notices tab.

"Mmm. Yes. This is that clean, unadorned flavor."

This was the Notices tab I knew. No garbage. Just the posts you actually needed. I was about to start with the one at the top when the post beneath it caught my eye.

If it says to read it first, there's probably a reason, right?

I skipped the combined notice and opened the one that told me to read it first.

It had been a very long time since I'd seriously sat down and spent time on anything longer than three lines. But the instinct to boil anything over three lines back down to three lines — was that just an incurable gallery-addict's nature?

So if I three-line this, it's this, right?

Okay. Crunched the numbers.

I can't win.

I didn't even know what abilities I had, and when I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠followed genre convention and tried thinking Status Window!Status! — nothing happened.

Am I going to die a second time without being able to do a damn thing?

Now that I was actually dead, the days I'd spent living like a total loser felt like a waste, and I wanted to do this anomaly-life properly. Not the human who just dumped shitposts on galleries — an Anomaly who ate well and worked hard... wait. The gallery?!

There was a gallery. How had I forgotten that?

What is a gallery? A forum of collective intelligence. A place with a suspiciously high concentration of overeducated people. A paradise of Gall'd Cups. This was exactly what it was for.

I pulled the gallery window back up and started writing a post.

Augh, you Anomalies, I don't need your reactions. I need tips. Tips.

I kept refreshing on the off chance something useful would land, and a new comment appeared.

Was this... a helping hand??

I fired off a reply on the spot.

A moment later, a comment landed that sounded like the writer couldn't quite believe what they were dealing with.

I died in my twenties. How am I an "elder." Correcting it, though, would just look pathetic, so I let it go.

Anyway, what's a Poltergeist?

Thanks to one decent Anomaly, I seemed to have something like a way forward. I couldn't exactly throw the person a burger for their trouble, so I figured I'd at least save the nick as a favored handle — and then I saw it, and nearly jumped.

How is the username VirginFor50Years?

If I'd lived to fifty, that fixed nickname would have been mine. I offered a quiet little condolence and a thank-you in my head, then decided to try this Poltergeist thing.

So if I just do it like I'm lifting a cup, it should— huh?

A flash.

Hadn't they said moving an object took a lot of power? I lifted the cup, and there was no strain, no drain, no anything. It just hung there in the air like it had decided to float.

So my anomaly-life gacha wasn't an S-rank pull, but maybe I at least got an A?

Having confirmed I actually had an ability, I needed a plan for the officers who'd show up once someone reported it and came to collect the body.

Sorry to do this to people just trying to do their jobs. But I've got to eat too.

After a marathon strategy session lasting a full 6.9 hours, I had a perfect plan to scare the cops.

And the police showed up exactly two weeks after I died.

Goddamn it.