Surviving Among the Anomalies - Chapter 26

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

◈ Surviving Among the Anomalies ◈

Chapter 26: The World Beyond the Right Eye - The Human Brain Does Not Know the Concept of Negation, Earth’s Destruction

──────

Hyeong Si-yeol was an internet streamer.

“Brothers! Ladies! Hello again today! BJ Timo King is here to greet you with a bang!”

He had streamed for two years. His average viewer count hovered around ten, and his monthly donations ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 won.

“Ah! We had that game won! What’s our jungler even doing!? Jungle gap!”

He streamed games. There were already more than enough boring streamers who played team-based competitive games while blaming everyone else, so his popularity was miserable.

“All right, that’s it for today’s stream! Tiba tiba!”

As usual, he ended his stream that day and let out a quiet sigh.

“I’m hungry.”

He opened the refrigerator, but there was not a thing to eat, so he eventually opened a food-delivery app.

“A man’s gotta have spicy pork rice.”

Regretfully, he would have to use mobile carrier billing this month.

[Mobile carrier billing complete.]

[August carrier billing: 485,560 won]

[Carrier-billing charges will be added to next month’s phone bill.]

After eating, he checked his bank balance just in case.

[46,450 won]

He washed up and lay down on his bed.

[Chimpanzee playing with an AK-47 and firing it.jpg]

└[LOL, look at the humans freaking out and running away.]

└[Does that thing even know what a gun is when it fires it?]

└[How would a chimp know? LOL. It probably just pulled the trigger by accident. It’ll probably shoot itself and die one day.]

└[This is a fake video promoting a movie, but it’s still funny even knowing that LOL.]

“Hehe.”

While browsing funny posts on a community site on his smartphone, he found a meaningful post.

[The human brain does not understand negation. Just as thinking, “Don’t imagine an elephant!” makes you imagine an elephant, trying to forget something makes you focus on it instead. So, rather than thinking, “Don’t slack off starting tomorrow!” think positively: “Let’s enjoy working from tomorrow onward!” Escape unemployment ^^]

“Let’s enjoy working from tomorrow onward.”

He quietly turned off his phone and closed his eyes.

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll happily work part-time at Coupang and do some construction work. I’ll earn next month’s rent in advance, along with my maintenance fees, insurance payments, and phone bill.”

He quietly thought positive thoughts for his future self.

“And I’ll have fun playing games and streaming in my spare time. If I enjoy streaming, I’ll succeed.”

He pictured himself as a successful internet streamer.

“...Fuck.”

There was no way that would happen. He had already done this for two years, yet he had not even earned a million won. Viewers came in and called him boring, and almost no one visited. Still, where else could he find people who would at least call him boring? When even those people did not come in, no one typed in chat at all.

“Should I give up?”

By the time his pillow had grown damp, Hyeong Si-yeol squeezed his eyes shut and made up his mind.

‘Yeah, I should give up now...’

“Hello?”

At that moment, someone came to visit.

“Eek!?”

“Hahahaha! Why are you so surprised? Don’t worry! Don’t be scared! I’m not a bad person!”

Startled by the visitor that had entered not his room but his mind, Hyeong Si-yeol rolled off the bed.

“W-Who are you!?”

“Who am I? You don’t need to know!”

The being did not transmit a voice, but its will. Still, to Hyeong Si-yeol, it somehow felt like an elementary school student.

“I’m joking. Nice to meet you, human.”

It had the air of a preschool child, lively yet overflowing with excessive energy.

“I’m the Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation!”

＊＊＊

“Why did I choose you? It’s nothing special! I just randomly picked one person from Earth.”

“I-Is that so?”

“More importantly, as the Avatar chosen by me, you’ll live a life like a hero from now on!”

Hyeong Si-yeol’s life changed completely after meeting the Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation.

“M-My body!?”

“Hehe, what do you think? I wasn’t lying, right? Once five days pass after I descend, lower-dimensional humans become superhuman.”

He had met the Constellation and gained a superhuman body. He could run without ever getting tired, cover one hundred meters in a second, and fly through the sky. He had gained abilities that were, quite literally, like Superman’s.

“M-Me, a hero!? A superhero!?”

“What do you think? You like it, right? This world is full of rotten evil! We’ll save the world from them!”

“But isn’t vigilantism illegal?”

“Hmph! Do you think the law can solve everything? There are too many weak people in the world who need help right now to wait for the law! Let’s save them from the world!”

An ordinary person would have spent days agonizing over whether to accept the Constellation or become a hero. Yet Hyeong Si-yeol, who had lived off people’s attention as an internet streamer, gladly agreed after becoming superhuman.

“Why not! Let’s do it!”

“That’s the Avatar I chose! Now, let’s go!”

At first, he started small by taking down organized crime.

“Fuck! What the hell is this guy!?”

“The knife isn’t cutting him!”

Then he expanded his scope and wiped out criminals in South America.

“O que é esse cara!”

“É um monstro!”

He fought Japanese yakuza and Chinese triads as well.

“Huh? Who are these people? Why can’t I... tell their faces apart? And are they really villains?”

“Yes, they’re evil bastards who even buy and sell human lives for money! I can’t believe they existed in this dimension!”

Then there were enemies that did not seem human at all.

“Argh! What the hell are they!? Die, die!”

“You can do it! You can do it! Go, go!”

His power had grown stronger over time, and he had been confident he could defeat anyone. Yet they were far too powerful.

“Damn it! That guy is here!? Avatar! Run away!”

The Constellation ordered him to flee, so he had no choice but to run. It would have been nice if he could have gone back to fighting ordinary human criminals, but special enemies came looking for him once again.

“Target found. It appears to have already been corrupted by the Constellation. Proceeding with Plan B.”

A nuclear weapon exploded.

He had been walking along a mountain path in Korea when the mountain before him suddenly vanished with a mushroom cloud.

“...What is this?”

Yet it did not appear in the news, and nobody spoke of the mushroom cloud.

“He is the one who will destroy Earth. We will eliminate him first.”

“For humanity.”

They used unimaginable weapons, from laser guns one might see in science-fiction films to beam sabers and psychic powers that distorted perception. They did everything they could to kill Hyeong Si-yeol.

“Huff, huff. I-It’s finally over!”

Fortunately, he was the final victor. The battle lasted more than a month, and without the power that kept growing stronger over time, he would have died again and again.

“How many times did those lunatics rewind time?”

“They didn’t just rewind time. Those bastards used spatial overlap and multiple universes, and even kept higher-dimensional beings on leashes. I can’t believe I saw people like this in a lower dimension.”

They were probably bad people. While fighting them, he raided several of their bases to uproot them. There, he saw them commit terrible acts, feeding people to strange monsters and handing them over to special beings as though they were laboratory mice.

“The Foundation... I never knew villains from a secret society like this existed.”

“Anyway, good work! Let’s rest for a while!”

“I think we should.”

While he rested, the Constellation fumed.

“Ugh! Because of those Foundation bastards, all the heroic things you’ve done have been forgotten! Those jerks hid everything you did!”

“Haha, what does it matter? I’ll just think of it as being a secret hero like Spider-Man.”

“No! Heroes have to be praised by people! I want people to worship, like, and love both you and me!”

“...”

Suddenly, Hyeong Si-yeol wanted that too. As an internet streamer, he wanted to be praised by people and make a name for himself as a hero.

“Constellation? Do you know about internet streaming?”

＊＊＊

‘That was already two months ago.’

At his first autograph session, Hyeong Si-yeol found himself reminiscing about the past. He had completely grown accustomed to the Constellation’s power. As he streamed online and received people’s attention through that power, he reacted to the Constellation’s voice in his head.

“Hey, what are you doing? A fan came. You need to sign something for them.”

‘Ah, yes!’

After replying in his mind, he smiled brightly, ready to give an autograph.

“?”

Yet there was nobody there.

‘Constellation? There’s no one here.’

“...”

The Constellation replied belatedly.

“What? Someone was definitely there. Was I wrong? Also, it feels like someone has been watching us from across space and time for a while now.”

‘Constellation?’

“Didn’t a human named Lee Seung-hoon come by just now?”

‘Ah, no? Nobody came.’

“Is that so? Hmm... I guess so.”

He waited a little longer, but unfortunately, no fans came.

“Hey, what is this! You said I could make lots of fans through internet streaming! People keep calling you a liar!?”

“Come on, wait just a little longer. This is all part of the hidden-powerhouse strategy. I pretend to be weak, then suddenly reveal my power and surprise everyone.”

“Hmph! I don’t like being hated! If this keeps up, I’m just leaving, okay? Even now, I can feel people hating you! I keep sensing that people think you’re showing off! And they’re starting to hate me a little too!”

“Haha, all the people in the world will soon praise not only me, but you too, Constellation.”

As Hyeong Si-yeol tried to come up with a new method because he could not withstand the Constellation’s nagging, a major YouTuber contacted him.

“Of course! I’ll appear on the show!”

They had invited him to uncover the truth behind whatever it was that looked like either magic or a magic trick. A few days later, more than twenty thousand viewers watched the broadcast he appeared on.

“Yes! I’m BJ Constellation, no, Hyeong Si-yeol.”

That day, Hyeong Si-yeol displayed the power of an Avatar on the broadcast.

[W-What!? Is this real!? It wasn’t CG!?]

The world was turned upside down.

＊＊＊

“BJ Constellation! Please give me an autograph!”

Hyeong Si-yeol’s life changed once more after appearing on broadcasts and revealing godlike power.

“Haha! Of course I will!”

People were fond of the superhuman who seemed to have stepped straight out of a comic book. It was not simply because he was strong. Beyond his strength, he could heal people and even use a Supernatural Ability to instantly save those at death’s door.

[BJ Constellation, Just How Far Do His Abilities Go?]

[BJ Constellation Solves Global Warming!]

[BJ Constellation Resolves the Drug Cartel Problem in One Day!]

[BJ Constellation Resolves the Middle East Conflict in Two Days!]

He was the Avatar of Heaven. No matter how evil a villain was, they threw down their weapons and surrendered when he stepped in personally. Even corporations deferred to him, even when doing so hurt their profits.

“He is the second coming of Jesus.”

“He is proof that God exists, a messiah who descended for the peace of the world.”

“He is the savior who will advance humanity.”

In people’s eyes, Hyeong Si-yeol was a human with the power of God.

In people’s eyes, Hyeong Si-yeol was a real superhuman who could only exist in fantasies.

In people’s eyes, Hyeong Si-yeol was the Superman Americans adored.

In people’s eyes, Hyeong Si-yeol was proof that God existed.

‘Haha, everyone in the world knows me!’

As time passed, he gained the ability to use the Constellation’s power completely. Only then did he understand why the Constellation had wanted to become a hero.

‘Ah, this is what it feels like. To become a hero and be praised by people.’

People’s emotions flowed into him. Longing, worship, love, respect, every kind of positive emotion stirred his brain like dopamine.

‘I can sense that some people hate me, too.’

Those emotions were unpleasant and made him feel low, but there were overwhelmingly more positive emotions, so it was not a serious problem.

“I wish I could live like this forever.”

But the farewell came suddenly.

“Mom! I only just finished raising my Avatar! I did all my homework!”

“Constellation?”

“Waaah! Sob!”

The Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation wailed.

“C-Constellation!?”

The Constellation disappeared.

“!?”

At that moment, Hyeong Si-yeol felt overflowing energy surge through him. His body had changed after being with the Constellation for so long, and even after the Constellation left, it retained a speck of that power.

‘I-I can’t control it!’

He possessed the power, but it was far too much for a human to control.

“Huff, huff.”

He breathed roughly. The overflowing power was like water in a glass, barely held from spilling over by surface tension.

‘It feels like the power to do anything could burst out at any moment!’

Ah! The reason I had been able to control this power until now was because the Constellation had been here!

The power of a god, strong enough to erase a supernova with a thought, was inside my body now!

‘Let’s not think strange thoughts. It feels like anything I think will come true!’

Without realizing it, he looked down at the ground. At Earth beneath his feet, a planet like dust that would crumble like a cookie if he exerted even a little strength.

‘Ah.’

His brain reflexively formed a negative thought.

“Ah.”

The Avatar cried out too.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The ground beneath his feet.

The seven billion people.

The third planet in the solar system.

Everything in the world, including himself, vanished.

Earth was destroyed.

＊＊＊

“Would it be all right to conduct an interview?”