How a Veteran of the Urban Legend Gallery Survives – Chapter 3

After running out of the subway station, I finally caught my breath after running for a while. The sound of flesh tearing still echoed in my ears, and the metallic smell lingered heavily in my nose. I couldn’t tell if it was real or just a lingering memory. My legs were still trembling, and my palms were drenched in cold sweat.

I swallowed dryly and looked around. An ordinary street. Ordinary people. The everyday scene unfolded as if what had just happened was all a dream. But I knew. I could no longer return to my old routine.

I stood there, staring blankly at the message on my smartphone. Even as people bumped into me and curses flew past my ears, I couldn’t move. The words on the screen held my gaze.

Dalant.

The moment I saw that word, it felt like something clicked in my head. It was like fitting the last piece of an old puzzle or solving a complex riddle. A clear realization dawned on me.

“Wait, this…?”

The memory flashed vividly. The cold air of the dormitory at night. Reading that horror story series under the blanket, relying on the light from my smartphone. The ‘Catastrophe Foundation.’

The Catastrophe Foundation was a fictional series about a secret organization that researched and contained supernatural phenomena and objects. Dalant was an energy unit that appeared in that series.

According to the Foundation’s research, Dalant was a type of energy source that existed in everything that defied the laws of reality. It was present in haunted houses, cursed dolls, places where time was twisted… Dalant was everywhere.

Records showed that billions of Dalant could completely overturn the world’s laws, while thousands of Dalant could barely make one or two impossible things possible. Some used it to turn back time, while others reconstructed reality. There were even records of it being used to resurrect the dead.

But as far as I knew, the Foundation could only obtain refined Dalant by chance, and it was impossible to extract directly from horror stories. So how was I able to extract it?

The 10,000 Dalant I received was quite a lot for escaping two low-level phenomena: the ‘Monkey Dream’ and the ‘Subway Sleep Gas’ horror stories.

[You have safely escaped the ‘Monkey Dream’ horror story.]

[You have safely escaped the ‘Subway Sleep Gas’ horror story.]

[You escaped the horror story the fastest.]

[You have been awarded 6,000 Dalant as a basic reward.]

+ 6,000D

[You have been awarded an additional 4,000 Dalant.]

+ 4,000D

My hands trembled. My fingers gripping the smartphone turned white from the force. Was this phenomenon I was experiencing real? Or was I still dreaming on the subway?

But everything around me was too vivid. The sound of people’s footsteps filling the streets, car horns, the noise from a distant construction site. This was definitely reality. All the horror stories I had seen in the Horror Story Gallery had become reality.

And in that reality, my smartphone was displaying a bizarre message straight out of a novel.

With trembling fingers, I pressed the message. A new application window popped up on the screen.

[Dalant Shop]

-『Reset Button』: 10,000,000,000D

-『Deus’s Machine Device』: 1,000,000D

-『Sephiroth’s Altar』: 800,000D

-『Creation』: 750,000D

-『Void Talisman』: 500,000D

-『Horror Fusion Ampoule』: 400,000D

-『Goblin’s Hat』: 200,000D

My eyes widened as I looked at the list. These were all tool-type horror stories I had read about in the Catastrophe Foundation series.

What caught my eye the most was the Reset Button at the top. It was something I had never seen in the countless Catastrophe Foundation documents I had read before.

“What is this that it costs 10 billion?”

Unable to contain my curiosity, I pressed the description.

『Reset Button』

-Grade: EX

-Price: 10,000,000,000D

-Description: Pressing this button will undo the synchronization between the Horror Story Gallery and reality.

A chill ran through my body. The implications of this short sentence were enormous. If this was real, it meant that with this one button, I could return everything to normal.

But 10 billion Dalant… The 10,000 Dalant I just received was nowhere near enough.

Cold sweat dripped down. I thought about what I could do in this situation. First, I needed to confirm if this system really worked.

As a test, I looked around for the cheapest items. Among them, the ‘Ruminative Thought Enhancement Serum’ caught my eye.

『Ruminative Thought Enhancement Serum』

-Grade: E

-Price: 5,000D

-Description: A serum injected intravenously. Upon use, the user’s subconscious memories become much clearer. Side effects include mild headaches and an increased risk of PTSD.

The risk of PTSD was a bit concerning, but I desperately needed this serum right now. After all, even I couldn’t remember every horror story posted on the Horror Story Gallery perfectly.

The serum cost 5,000 Dalant. With the 10,000 Dalant I currently had, it was an affordable price.

I hesitated for a moment. In this situation, enhancing my memory would definitely help. I could recall the vast amount of information I had read in the Horror Story Gallery more clearly.

But PTSD? The experience I just had on the subway would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

“But… survival comes first.”

I mustered my courage and pressed the purchase button.

Instantly, a strange phenomenon occurred in the air in front of me. The air seemed to tear, and a syringe filled with a blue serum appeared. It was a tangible object. Not an illusion, but a real, touchable thing.

“Crazy…”

A sigh escaped my lips. This was no longer something that could be dismissed as a coincidence or a mistake. All the Catastrophe Foundation documents I had seen in the Horror Story Gallery had become reality.

I looked around. Holding a suspicious-looking syringe on a crowded street was too dangerous. I moved to a quiet bench in a nearby park.

I rolled up my sleeve and found a vein. I spotted a blue vein bulging like a thread and brought the needle to it.

Cold sweat dripped.

“One, two…”

I took a deep breath and stabbed the needle before counting to three.

A sharp pain and the sensation of cold liquid flowing into my vein. Injecting this mysterious drug…

As I watched the blue serum gradually empty, I realized I was truly doing something insane.

At first, I felt no change. Then, suddenly, my temples began to throb. A dull pain, like a hangover after heavy drinking, washed over me.

And then, the memories started flooding in.

The Catastrophe Foundation documents I first read in the military. The classifications and characteristics of Dalant by grade. The countless horror stories I had read all night in the Horror Story Gallery. Everything came back as vividly as if I had just read it.

But the memories from the subway also resurfaced.

“Ugh…”

The metallic smell. The sound of flesh tearing. The mechanical movements of the dwarfs. I felt nauseous. The memories were too vivid. It felt like I was back there.

Cold sweat dripped. My hands trembled. My chest tightened.

Was this the side effect?

But I had gained something too. The information in my memories was now organized like a library catalog. I could recall the necessary information much faster and more accurately.

‘With this… my chances of survival have increased.’

There was one more thing I needed to check. With trembling hands, I accessed the Horror Story Gallery.

But the screen was empty.

All the horror stories and posts I had seen were gone. As if they had never existed, everything was wiped clean without a trace.

Comments, likes, views—all gone.

‘Horror Story Gallery synchronization in progress… 100%’

The message I saw just before passing out came to mind.

The sleep gas horror story and the monkey dream horror story I had just experienced, the Reset Button and the Ruminative Thought Enhancement Serum I saw in the shop earlier.

My hypothesis became a certainty.

All the horror stories in the Horror Story Gallery had become reality.

They weren’t just stories anymore; they had manifested as actual phenomena in reality.

The only things left in the gallery were the ‘Write’ and ‘Comment’ functions.

With trembling hands, I wrote a new post.

─Title) Anyone survived a horror story?

After posting that single line, I held my breath and watched the screen.

If my hypothesis was correct and the horror stories had become reality… then by now, everyone would be struggling to survive the horror phenomena.

In such a situation, it was unlikely that anyone would reply to my post. It would probably just be my lone cry.

But then.

-Ding!

Immediately, the sound of a comment notification from my smartphone made my heart sink.

Someone had replied to my post.