Welcome, First Time Being an Anomaly? (3)

It was at the very bottom of the gallery, right?

I dragged the scrollbar down, down, down — and before long, the shop button slid into view.

I'd never had any reason to scroll this far, so I hadn't realized there were this many options tucked away down here. I considered poking at the Profile button — first time I'd seen that one — but I'd come here for the shop, so the shop came first.

Honestly, though. What was even supposed to be worth looking at in a gallery shop...?

Clang—

Ugh. Cheap as hell.

There was genuinely nothing to look at. If you're going to call something a shop, shouldn't there be sparkle? Flash? Banners screaming 72-HOUR MEGA SALE! and LIMITED ITEMS NOW AVAILABLE! and 10% OFF YOUR FIRST PURCHASE! — the kind of catchphrases that actually grab a visitor by the eyeballs?

Instead, this thing was advertising the equivalent of Chopsticks sterilized!Anomaly cards accepted!Wet wipes provided!

I'd put ten of my points on the anomaly who first designed this shop window being an engineer down to their marrow.

Sigh. Not like I had a choice. I needed a body before I could do anything at all.

Grumbling to myself, I selected Body Adjustment.

Have you ever seen that post online?

Take 250 and divide it among height, weight, and length.

The comments had split into every camp imaginable. The orthodox crowd locked height at 175 and distributed the rest. Someone built a body so suspiciously optimized for hypnosis it was almost a cry for help. The most original take flipped length into the negatives and became a tall tomboy.

The reason this occurred to me now was that the shop's body creation window was almost a carbon copy of that exact balance game.

Holy shit, why is this so expensive.

Just making a body cost ten points to start with, and adjusting the stats on top of that ran a minimum of two points every time you so much as nudged your height. My dream of slapping together a body and then dumping everything into some broken, god-tier ability shattered into a thousand pieces.

If I confirmed it as-is, I'd be Unlucky ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Zombie Extra #1.

And what was that? The better the body, the more Essence it burned through? That explained why I hadn't seen more anomalies walking around in human bodies, even with the gallery's active user count. It was just a waste.

Anyway. If I kept going like this, a comfortable life was off ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the table. There was only so much mileage I could get out of jumping out and scaring whoever happened to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠walk by.

I wracked my non-existent brain — and the two posts I'd seen on the gallery earlier floated back up.

Ninety percent of the help-wanted posts on the gallery were not to be trusted, sure. But the mods hadn't taken these down, which meant they at least weren't spam or scams... right?

I needed to work a part-time job and start earning points and Essence. I hemmed and hawed over which of the two to try, then arrived at a conclusion.

Even if I'd done a runner a week in last time — a convenience store I'd actually worked at was still the safer bet.

Decision made, I opened the Happy Convenience Store hiring post.

...Huh.

Should I have not read the comments, or was I lucky that I did?

Note to self: under no circumstances was I ever doing a runner.

That aside — DM? Since when was there a DM function?

I didn't remember seeing anything like that, but I did remember a few locked features when I'd been hunting for the shop earlier. I ducked into the shop's Other Unlocks tab to check.

To earn points I needed to unlock the messenger, and to unlock the messenger I needed to earn points?

I was pretty sure I'd seen this exact situation in some interview that required prior experience.

Then again, if the point system was a minimum proof-of-personhood to keep ads, trolls, and tactical-nuke spam out of the messenger, it was actually a pretty decent call.

I spent the five points and unlocked the messenger.

I tried sending a DM on the hiring post from earlier, but the system threw up an error window and blocked me.

If I was going to be hanging around the gallery long-term, registering a proper nickname was the right move anyway. And if I was going to work somewhere, people needed to know who was who.

But now I had a problem.

I was the kind of person who could burn a full hour just deciding on a game username. I took names seriously. And now this hurdle had dropped out of the sky.

About thirty minutes later, having redlined my air-cerebrum and air-frontal-lobe, I finally settled on a registered nickname.

IdleAnomaly.

Surprisingly, it hadn't been taken — a rare nick, in its own way. Or maybe nobody particularly wanted to advertise that particular shortcoming as their username.

I had my reasons, though. Someday, once I'd earned enough points, I was going to live the gallery addict's ultimate dream:

I ignored everyone who'd ever told me my username sense in games was garbage. No need to carry around the words of jealous little haters.

The anti-bot check was a pretty novel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠replacement for a captcha, too.

I'd been peeking at it from the corner of my eye, half-expecting some terrifying photo or jump-scare image to pop up — but the checkbox circle just spun in a circle, ticked itself, and let me through.

Does this thing even work?

Well, it succeeded, so whatever. Good enough. I'd already sent HappinessEvangelist an Applying for the part-time position, which meant it was finally time to adjust my body.

For someone with five thousand hours in a game that could turn a person into a beastman through nothing but conversation in VR, this should be a cakewalk.

Confirm.

The moment I locked it in, my body let out a long shwaaa — and details began forming across the black mass, like a magical-girl transformation sequence playing in slow motion.

I was still thinking something like so what do I even do with the leftover one point when a ding sounded and the body was finished.

I bolted to the bathroom. Looking back at me from the mirror: an ordinarily smooth body, an extraordinarily smooth face, and not a stitch of clothing.

...Huh?

I guess I should be grateful I didn't get TS'd into a girl's body.

I swear on my life I do not have a hobby of collecting women's clothes, and with a face like this I couldn't exactly go out shopping for any anyway. Like that info post had said, there was nobody around right now, so the drain on my power was slow — but the second I stepped outside like this, I'd burn through everything I had and wink out of existence.

Counting my blessings, I pulled a faintly sour-smelling set of clothes from the dresser and started putting them on — and then a very bad thought slid through my head.

"Dismiss. Materialize."

Thankfully, just like the tip had said, switching between soul-state and a physical body didn't cost any extra power.

The problem was everything else.

The instant I dismissed the body, the clothes I'd been wearing sloughed off in a heap. The instant I materialized again, the mirror showed me my naked self once more.

Ah.

Emergency. Super emergency.

If I went outside like this, I was going to get preserved in the gallery as a witness report: Anom-addicts, I saw some lunatic exhibitionist bastard today.

On top of that, I'd already gotten a message from that Store Manager anomaly — or whatever he was — telling me to start work tomorrow. I needed this solved, fast.

Hoping against hope that they sold clothes, I frantically opened the shop's Item Shop tab.

Clothes. Clothes. Any clothes.

All I had left was a single point.

"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!"

Of course. A shop like this was legally required to have a gacha.

One coin left. I was ending this in a single pull.

"GAZUA!!!"

Tuk. Clatter-clatter-clatter...

Ding!

The dying keepsake of some K-salaryman who'd passed on with a grudge after a lifetime of overtime and overwork... is what it was not. Just a cheap, mass-produced, off-the-rack suit stamped out by a factory machine.

"YEE-HAAAW!!!!!"

A suit! An actual suit! The kind of suit you wear to clock in at a convenience st...ore...?

Wait??

Barely a week before I died, someone had posted asking for outfit recommendations for a convenience store job interview. I distinctly remembered leaving a comment telling them to wear a suit.

It had been summer.