I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 634

Looking at the traces left in the breakroom, I was momentarily lost for words. Because I thought I knew what had happened here.

A Sky Whale that had been abandoned for nearly hundreds of years without eating anything.

Inside the belly of that Sky Whale, a factory and various other industrial complexes had been built.

Even if automated machines, including AIs, repaired themselves and survived on their own, they would ultimately require a human touch.

Therefore, it was a foregone conclusion that there were people living here, and that they would meet a tragic fate the moment the Sky Whale was abandoned.

’But the Sky Whale was tied to the Theme Park. Does that mean it was operated for only a very short time?’

Or, there was a possibility that the Sky Whale had been consistently tended to by human hands since the distant past.

After all, the Sky Whale was one of the pets most beloved by the gods.

Furthermore, since its lifespan was incredibly long, there must have been times when the owner passed away first, just like with a pet tortoise.

However, humans—specifically, humans without any external aid—have a lifespan of about a hundred years at most.

Considering Earth’s technological prowess, they might have lived longer than that, but it would still be far less than the Sky Whale.

ㄴ Allfather) The screams of the starving are evident even in the writing.

ㄴ Don’t Abandon the Hero) Are those... fingernail scratches...?! I’m getting goosebumps...!

ㄴ Suspiciously...) Cannibalism is common when famine strikes.

ㄴ Heavenly Demon) How pitiful.

Everyone couldn’t help but feel pity as they looked at the gruesome records. Even in this situation, I thoroughly looked around.

I had seen a similar situation near my house. The cave that had now become the Kangaroo Cave.

In that place, which was originally an Owlbear’s nest, the last royalty of the Balkan Kingdom had drawn his last breath.

Thanks to the records left by him, who was still buried in my front yard, the Holy Kingdom was able to be reborn.

"Master. There is a gun here."

While looking around the breakroom, Dolsoe found a gun. It was a pistol.

Checking the inside, to my surprise, all the bullets were fully loaded.

To eliminate any danger and to check the count at the same time, I removed the bullets one by one.

’I guess one or two shots were fired.’

Soon, I realized that about one or two bullets were missing. Only then did my intuition kick in.

This was not a pistol for self-defense, but for suicide. The reason was simple.

The giant clam I fought on my way here was a prime example.

Could anyone fight such a monster with just a pistol like this? It would be harder than throwing eggs at a rock.

Unless they had an anti-materiel sniper rifle or an anti-tank gun, fighting with a mere pistol like this was meaningless.

’They either committed suicide after being abandoned here for a long time, or...’

Since there were records of cannibalism, an even worse tragedy had to be expected.

I could grasp the general situation, but there were still many parts that didn’t make sense.

"If they were employees working here, they should have had something like an escape manual for emergencies... Guys, look around and see if there are any books or anything else nearby."

"Understood."

ㄴ Allfather) It is also strange that they resorted to cannibalism. If push came to shove, they could have survived by eating the Sky Whale’s tissues.

Right on cue, Allfather raised an extremely reasonable question.

When humans truly have nothing to eat, they often boil and eat weeds or even shoe leather.

Even here, they wouldn’t have been able to extract anything unless the Sky Whale ate something.

However, there are plenty of tools to start a fire nearby, and even the sprinklers are filled with water.

If they had survived by tearing off and eating its flesh, they likely could have survived for a very long time.

ㄴ Sword Matstar) Maybe they went mad from the fact that they couldn’t go outside?

ㄴ Princess Chaenggu) But Grylls-nim survived even though he was trapped in the Forest of the Four Seasons?

ㄴ Passing Dwarf) That’s because he’s the weird one. Any ordinary person would have gone mad a long time ago;;

ㄴ Smart Demon) They had companions, so they should have been less lonely.

The regular users also seemed to have their doubts, each sharing a word or two.

I looked around here and there, wondering if there were any more records left behind.

"Since this is a breakroom, there might be quarters as well. Let’s go there."

Not all factories are like this, but there are often separate buildings where workers can eat and sleep.

Since the scale of the factory built inside the Sky Whale was not small, the probability was high.

Thus, I went ’outside’ the factory rather than staying ’inside’ to see if there were other buildings.

"There it is."

The prediction was spot on.

There was a dilapidated dormitory building, falling apart from a long lack of maintenance.

It was a perfectly rectangular shape, devoid of any aesthetic appeal, as if it valued nothing but sheer efficiency.

’If I’m not careful, it might collapse on me while I’m investigating.’

I decided to look around the first floor first.This chapter was copied from no⁠velping.com without permission.

Unlike the factory, no lights came on, casting a dreary and eerie atmosphere.

Then, the moment I opened the very first door, what caught my eyes was...

Deolleong-

"Ah, shit. Scared the crap out of me."

It was a skeleton dangling with a rope tied around its neck. Miraculously, it hadn’t fallen apart and still maintained its shape.

Ignoring the skeleton dangling in the air, I looked inside.

Aside from the thick layers of dust and the rusted furniture and items, it was in relatively good condition. No spiders or bugs were in sight either.

It seemed to be because the place was completely sealed off from the outside.

’They had a pistol, so why did they die like this?’

Checking to see if there were any separate records, I luckily managed to find a voice recorder.

Even though it had been abandoned for a long time and the data could have been lost, it worked perfectly fine.

[My name is Rex Kertz. An employee of the Nectar manufacturing plant, and...]

Though it cut out occasionally, the voice of a thoroughly exhausted man flowed from the recorder.

He started by introducing himself first, and thanks to that, I realized the extract’s name was ’Nectar’.

Nectar is a drink that frequently appears in Greek and Roman mythology, consumed by the gods at every banquet.

Naturally, as a drink of the gods, its effects were incredibly outstanding. It was said that if a human drank it, they would not age.

[We survived by tearing off and eating its flesh... but I’m tired. So tired. This place isn’t hell, it’s a prison.]

"...."

[The escape system shut down when the power failed. We are destined to be trapped here for the rest of our lives.]

They just couldn’t hold out. Come to think of it, I had heard of something like this.

Was it a prison in Russia? There is a prison that houses only the most heinous criminals who are beyond rehabilitation.

A prison where they must spend their entire lives completely stripped of the freedom they deserve as human beings.

I heard that living there often causes one’s sense of self to vanish, driving them mad, and they eventually become like dolls, unable to even commit suicide.

[This... this is no way to live. The others have committed deeds that should never be done. I will die as a human.]

The voice on the recorder grew increasingly agitated, almost bursting into tears at the end.

The laughter mixed in with those tears felt chilling. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how long they had been trapped here.

’Considering he mentioned "deeds that should never be done," it’s probably either cannibalism or they became part of Manatology...’

I felt like I would know if I investigated a bit more. I quietly closed the door and rummaged through the other quarters.

Some quarters were completely empty, while others had traces of being burned down, yielding no proper clues.

Of course, that was only the case for a few of them; the next place I entered was so severe that I couldn’t believe my eyes.

"Master. Is all of this... blood?"

"It’s blood, but this... did they actually smear their own flesh on the walls?"

"It looks like they smeared feces too."

Instead of just smearing feces on the wall, someone had torn themselves to shreds and painted the walls with their own body.

I wondered if such a thing was truly possible, but I realized the truth when I saw the syringes lying abandoned next to them.

They certainly hadn’t done it in their right mind.

[Become like that fucking lump of flesh? Fuck off! I will die as a human!]

The last words left by this person also gave me a lot to think about.

Since they hadn’t recorded it on a voice recorder like the previous one, but had written it on the wall in blood.

ㄴ Starlight Lady) The thing that was clinging to and parasitizing the machine just now... Did the remaining people become part of Manatology to survive?

ㄴ Allfather) That is highly likely. However, it seems there were also those who ended their own lives due to strong resistance.

ㄴ Praise the Sun) I don’t get it. Why choose that option out of so many choices?

ㄴ Smart Demon) That’s because the more cornered humans are, the more they tend to lean on something.

ㄴ Don’t Abandon the Hero) Couldn’t they have just believed in the gods...!

"They probably turned their eyes elsewhere because they thought the gods had abandoned them."

I felt really sorry for Asella, but my answer was highly likely to be the correct one.

In a situation where they couldn’t go outside and had to spend nearly hundreds of years here.

How many humans could stay sane when the only thing to eat was whale flesh?

’Even if their faith was strong, not everyone would be the same.’

Cain, Ludwig, Asella.

The religious figures I met after opening my eyes. They possessed a faith that went beyond sincere to downright devout.

But not everyone is as devout as them, nor is everyone’s mental strength that strong.

Furthermore, what drove the people here mad was none other than ’time’.

"An ordinary person would lose their mind after just a few years in prison, so how much worse would hundreds of years be? I’d rather be executed."

At least in prison, there’s a chance to see the sunlight, but there’s no such thing here.

A perfect place to go mad. It would be better to spend thousands of years outside instead.

Leaving behind the room smeared with blood and feces, I headed elsewhere. There weren’t many rooms left now.This chapter is updated first at novelping . com.

Once I searched them all, I planned to head straight toward the heart. Now that I knew what kind of tragedy had occurred here, there was no need to investigate further.

I only needed to find out where those who fused with Manatology had gone. Since the Sky Whale had started moving, it was highly likely they had done the same.

Kwi-i-i-ik-

"...?"

"Huh?"

The moment I opened the last door, the Wukong brothers and I were filled with doubt.

And for good reason, because someone was sitting right in the middle of the neatly arranged room.

It was a ’person’ sitting cross-legged, quietly closing their eyes.

Not a skeleton, nor a lump of flesh, but an intact human meditating with closed eyes.

"A person? How?"

I was too confused to easily snap out of it. Not just me, but the Wukong brothers were the same.

Almost everything else had been horrific, so we couldn’t help but be flustered when something perfectly fine suddenly popped up.

Still, just in case, we needed to be careful. I quietly approached with my weapon ready.

"Excuse me?"

"...."

"Can you hear my voice?"

I spoke in a slightly trembling voice as I slowly drew closer. Even as I approached, the meditating person showed no reaction whatsoever.

I wondered if it was a doll pretending to be human, but that wasn’t the case either. I could tell through my noticeably enhanced vision.

Eventually, even when I reached right next to him, there was no response from the meditating person.

Tuk-tuk-

I poked the person not with my sword, but with Mistilteinn—specifically, the branch part of it.

For a brief moment, I felt the characteristic softness of flesh, but then a change occurred immediately.

Pasasak-

The person crumbled into dust, scattered, and then completely vanished.

It wasn’t simple dust; it looked like fluttering flower petals, making for quite an impressive dissolution.

Soon, the person’s entire body was completely gone. It felt as if their existence just a moment ago was all a lie.

"It is exactly the same as when Master departed."

Dolsoe, who had been watching this, spoke up. He said it was exactly the same as when his master, Wi Ho-chang, departed.

Wi Ho-chang had escaped this forest through Ascension to Immortality.

Which meant that the person who had just scattered like flower petals and vanished had achieved Ascension to Immortality.

"Did he vanish when you touched him back then too?"

"Yes. At first, I thought he was just meditating."

"Hmm."

It wasn’t impossible. There were countless records of them consistently extending their lives with the extract.

Perhaps they had meditated to endure somehow, and eventually achieved Ascension to Immortality.

’There really are all kinds of people.’

There were no records left by this person either. It seemed they really did nothing but meditate.

Thus, finishing the dormitory exploration, I checked if there were any other places to look.

"Huh? There’s another machine here?"

"It’s a bit smaller than the one we saw earlier."

Looking around the factory a bit more, there was indeed another machine, not for manufacturing Nectar.

Well, since it was a chemical factory, they wouldn’t have manufactured only Nectar.

I looked around, wondering what kind of machine it was, only to realize it was nothing special.

It was merely an intermediate process for producing Nectar. I was a bit disappointed.

"What were you expecting, Master?"

"Just... a machine that makes Great Restoration Pills or Lesser Restoration Pills? Wouldn’t it be somewhere?"

Since they even developed a drink that extends lifespan, there should be Spiritual Medicine as well.

Anyway, putting that aside, now that the factory tour was over, all that was left was the path leading to the heart.

It seemed they had carved out a separate path to the heart, as there was a signpost.

The problem was...

"...Aren’t these footprints?"

"Yes."

"Why are there footprints here?"

"Someone is heading toward the heart."

I could see ’footprints’ clearly stamped in the passage.

And they were footprints that had been made quite recently.