014. Exorcism Streaming

Shinjuku — the Tokyo district at the heart of Japan's twenty-three wards, home to the largest foot traffic in the nation.

And at the very center of that center, in an ultra-high-rise tower penthouse where a single month's rent ran north of five hundred thousand yen, a man and a woman were holding a secret meeting.

A young woman who looked barely into her twenties, and a middle-aged man in his fifties.

At a glance, the pairing looked like a paid-dating arrangement, but the atmosphere between the two people seated across from each other could not have been further from it.

"Let's verify the contents, shall we?"

The middle-aged man — Kishimoto Daichi, a politician belonging to Japan's current ruling party — slid a duralumin case across the table to the woman.

Click.

Inside the case, crisp ten-thousand-yen bills were packed tight. That volume meant at least ten million yen — well over a hundred million won.

But the true payload of the duralumin case was not the money. It was the personal file of a certain individual, along with a sealed ampoule holding strands of his hair and a sample of his blood, obtained through back channels.

"Is this the man?"

"Yes. He's someone whose approval rating has been climbing at an alarming rate in my district. I never imagined such cheap populism and empty promises about people's livelihoods would actually go down that easily."

And these idiot masses, as always... Daichi clicked his tongue inwardly.

Watching him, the woman smirked to herself. In her eyes, the Daichi sitting across from her was no more and no less a fool than the rest. And not just Daichi — to her, nearly everyone in this world who could not see the truth of things was a fool, every last one of them.

No, 'fool' is too kind. 'Primitive' would suit them better.

So the woman mused, toying with her neatly trimmed bangs.

Meanwhile, Daichi went on cursing his rival, muttering one petty excuse after another about why the man must never be elected.

Of course, the woman had no interest whatsoever in such pathetic excuses, and let it all flow in one ear and out the other.

"Very well. I'll accept the commission."

"Thank you! I'm in your hands, Sugawara-san!"

After Daichi bowed and left, Sugawara Ryuko idly nudged the money-filled duralumin case with her foot and knocked it off the table.

"How boring."

Sugawara Ryuko was one of Japan's most celebrated sorcerers — a Noroiya, a curse-worker who dealt in curses and nothing else.

Born with talent that stood out even among the great sorcery houses, her life had been a smooth, unbroken highway. Smooth to the point of tedium — her days had been nothing but an endless procession of the predictable.

And she was one of those top-tier spiritualists whose military value rivaled a nuclear submarine — the very comparison Baek Gong-ju had once made. Rumor had it that in Japanese political circles, whoever won Sugawara Ryuko as an ally would rule the country.

Then, as Ryuko gazed absently down at the Shinjuku nightscape, a thread of blood trickled from her nose.

"Hm?"

She wiped the blood away with her hand and frowned.

A curse rebound?

Frowning, she began sorting through her recent commissions for anything that might have failed.

The Fujimoto envoy job? I heard a fairly famous Chinese sorcerer was guarding them. Or was it the Mitsuki Heavy Industries account? A world-class firm — I heard they'd recently hired a batch of Western sorcerers?

Even as she bled, Ryuko remained calm. Having made curse-work her livelihood, she was, naturally, fully prepared for the possibility of a rebound. She would have to investigate later exactly which curse had failed, but no major problem should—

WHOOSH!

"Wha—!?"

In that instant, blood began pouring from Ryuko's nose like a fountain.

"W-wait, what, what is this—!?"

The nosebleed showed no sign of stopping, gushing forth like a faucet twisted to its limit.

The rebound countermeasures aren't holding!

Even as dizziness washed over her from the sudden massive blood loss, Ryuko's mind raced.

The force of the rebound means it was at least a killing-grade curse. But I haven't taken a death curse commission recently?

Which meant the backlash was from an old job — something from quite some time ago. The shape of the returning curse, the force of the rebound — and running quickly through every curse she'd cast that had neither expired nor dissolved on its own, Ryuko arrived at the answer: the returning curse was the false accusation curse she'd been commissioned for long ago in Korea. She snatched up the phone and called somewhere in a hurry.

"Move all the substitution talismans, numbers 21 through 39, into room seven — now! Then seal the room with shimenawa soaked in ginger juice!"

About two minutes after the call, the bleeding finally stopped.

"...To think Korea actually had a practitioner capable of exorcising my lingering curses..."

Ryuko began recalling the Korean spiritualists who might conceivably break one of her curses.

The first name that surfaced was Baek Gong-ju.

Baek Gong-ju was the greatest living authority of Korean Musok and a grandmaster of talisman sorcery. It would surprise no one if she could exorcise Ryuko's curse.

But Baek Gong-ju recently joined the Paranormal Administration Bureau. She'd hardly have the leisure to go hunting down an old curse sleeping in a house no living soul visits.

Next she summoned up another top-tier practitioner — and quickly shook her head.

That one may be a giant of the underworld, but he's far removed from sorcery. Exorcism? He couldn't care less.

And there, Ryuko ran out of candidates.

Well, how many people in a spiritual wasteland like Korea could even break my curses? Or... is that old news now?

Korea had been famous since antiquity as a land where spiritual phenomena stayed calm and stable.

But recently, that spiritual balance had collapsed with shocking speed, and the number of anomaly incidents was climbing by geometric multiples.

And turmoil, as ever, is what births heroes. In a Korea whose spiritual balance was falling apart, there was nothing close to zero chance that an unknown master had popped into existence out of nowhere.

"How interesting."

Sugawara Ryuko smiled.

A heart that hadn't beaten fast in years — not once — was pounding like a drum.

Drawing in a hot, ragged breath, Ryuko placed another call.

"Book me a flight to Korea. And spare me the lecture — yes, I know Korea's become a spiritual high-crime zone."

Ignoring the voice on the other end trying to talk her out of the trip, Ryuko forced the Korea itinerary through.

Whoever you are... you'd better not disappoint me.

And so, the trip to Korea by one of Japan's finest spiritualists was decided.

"Hellooo! Momotomo viewers, it's me, Tsukumo Momo!"

The moment Tsukumo Momo — who had vanished mid-broadcast days earlier — switched her stream back on, her fans came flooding in.

"I know you were all so worried, and I'm sorry... That's exactly why I turned the stream on today — to tell you all what happened, and why I disappeared so suddenly."

At Tsukumo Momo's words, the chat window began scrolling so fast it was hard to even read.

"You're right! The reason I suddenly vanished is that I was ensnared by the ghost of the abandoned house!"

In an instant, the chat window was plastered over with question marks. But Tsukumo Momo paid it no mind and carried on.

"Well — not a ghost, exactly. I was told that a curse left behind by whoever killed the mansion's owner was still lingering there, and that it mechanically attacked anyone who matched its conditions."

"Yes! By the person who saved me, right as I was about to die under that curse's grip!"

At the rapturous tone in Tsukumo Momo's voice, the viewers' reactions grew even more feverish.

When the question she'd been waiting for finally arrived, Tsukumo Momo revealed the name with a smile.

"It was Kim Do-sa. Kim Do-sa saved me from dying to that curse. And starting tomorrow, that very Kim Do-sa makes his internet streaming debut! If you're a Momotomo, then of course you have to tune in to the stream of Kim Do-sa, the man who saved Momo's life, right?"

As the shameless promotion rolled on, the viewers' reactions finally detonated.

Watching the wildly varied messages pour into the chat window, Tsukumo Momo simply smiled.

For better or worse, Kim Do-sa's name recognition was about to skyrocket in one stroke.

And this phenomenon wasn't confined to Tsukumo Momo's channel alone. Over on ClapClap's and Chaser's channels, the exact same promotional broadcast was playing out in full.

And watching all of it unfold, Kim Yi-yeon thought to himself:

"...So this is how antis get made, huh."

Channel Kim Dosa. It hadn't even begun its first proper broadcast, and already it was driving fans and antis alike out of their minds.

And then, the next day.

Channel Kim Dosa's very first stream — the focus of enormous attention thanks to the flagrant fan-service promotion — went live.

The moment the stream began, the chat-filter bots went to work overtime.

Most of the hostile crowd were Momotomo viewers — fans nursing resentment and jealousy over Tsukumo Momo's brazen endorsement.

"I see a lot of Momotomo folks in chat today. Yes, thanks to you streamers being something else, I'm Kim Do-sa, who's received a very generous influx of new viewers."

But with Kim Yi-yeon's first words, the hostile atmosphere shifted entirely.

Nailed it.

A voice charged with Do-ryeok didn't merely carry the power to drive out evil — it carried a peculiar, inborn gravity.

And in streaming, where the voice is the streamer, that was an absolute weapon.

Then, as if to fill the sudden silence left by the dying hate chat, friendly messages began arriving.

"Hold on, I haven't even started anything yet, and you're sending this much already..."

When he'd watched Tsukumo Momo receive donations, his thought had been a simple "must be nice, printing money." Receiving them himself, the feeling was completely different.

How could he describe it?

Setting aside the amounts, there was the visceral realization that all these people were acknowledging him.

Shiver, shiver.

Goosebumps prickled up the back of his neck.

Faced with the attention and validation of so many people for the first time in his life, he'd felt an involuntary thrill run through him.

So THIS is how attention-seekers get born!

With his validation drive fully charged for the first time ever and his energy at a fever pitch, he ran the broadcast.

It was his first stream, but nothing went wrong.

Because three veteran internet broadcasters had drilled him relentlessly in preparation for this exact day.

"Yes, I'm Kim Do-sa — you'll be seeing a lot of me from now on. How old am I? As you can see, a twenty-something young man, fresh out of the military. Height? 181 centimeters — the single most ideal male height that women prefer, yes..."

First, light talk to loosen the mood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and imprint who Kim Do-sa was.

Then, once the viewers had registered him as an actual person, the real content began.

The momentous first content of Channel Kim Dosa was, of all things, "horror stories."

Then and now, it was material that always ate well on YouTube — and precisely because of that, a great many streamers already worked the same vein.

But he possessed a weapon that set him apart from all of them.

And that weapon was...

"From the submitted stories, I pick one that's happening right now, go there in person, and resolve it. In other words — Exorcism Streaming."

Amid a fairly decent reception, he began reading down the horror stories submitted in advance (the three veteran streamers had promoted the call for stories on their own channels and collected them for him).

It was simple story-reading — but with Do-ryeok laced into the voice, the delivery existed on an entirely different plane.

Then, just as the story-reading segment was drawing to a close, an odd message appeared in the chat.

"I've told you all how many times now — I'm a man who delivers value for the money."

He opened the email account used for story submissions and checked — there was one message, sent from an ID identical to the donor's.

"Then let's read it, shall we?"

"Whoa there — I nearly read that out loud. You mustn't send things like this to a streamer, carelessly."

"Now, now, let's settle down, everyone. We're all here to have fun — why so toxic? And to our story sender."

— Yes.

"Under normal circumstances, no. But you, my friend, are very lucky today."

— Yes?

"This was content I'd planned to unveil later, but I'll be unveiling it ahead of schedule. Following hot on the heels of horror stories, Kim Do-sa's second content segment—"

Thud.

I placed a san-tong on the desk with a rattling clatter — the very san-tong from the expression "to shatter someone's san-tong," Korean slang for news that knocks you flat.

"This is the Viewer Fortune-Reading Corner."

As the san-tong itself made clear, the method of divination I would be using was the Zhouyi.

Since most Korean fortune-telling houses relied on Saju-Palja — the Four Pillars of Destiny — the Zhouyi made for a far more unique reading.

The problem was...

...that it is a ludicrously difficult and arcane art.

I'd set the san-tong down with all the confidence in the world, but divination through the Zhouyi was still a struggle — even after studying like a madman while the three streamers prepared the broadcast for me.

For this sorcery genius Kim Yi-yeon to be tripped up like this... Zhouyi, I hereby acknowledge you as a worthy opponent.

And so, I decided to trim down the scope of what I'd studied.

"That said, my divination is a little special. It omits past and future entirely, and reads only the present."

"That's the talk of someone who knows one thing and not two. Think about it. The state of your body right now. How your family and friends actually see you. How the interviewers at that company rated you. Whether your insufferable boss is going to chew you out today or not. Whether your luck, at this very moment, is running good or bad. Isn't there a mountain of things you're dying to know about in the present tense?"

You didn't need to know something as grand as the future; simply knowing your present state with precision changed a great deal.

In that spirit, this Gwijangyeok was a Zhouyi-derived art specializing in reading one's present condition and the state of the board — the world — arrayed around oneself.

Originally, this Gwijangyeok was a divination of the ancient Shang dynasty, lost to history and vanished from the world... but—

There it was, posted plain as day on Dongbin's Dao Study Room.

What on earth is that site...

"Then let us begin the reading. That's all right with you, story sender?"

— Yes. Please.

I lifted the san-tong and shook the counting sticks within.

And according to Dongbin's Dao Study Room, the drawing of those counting sticks was the single most important step.

I gathered my focus and silently repeated the birthdate and name the sender had provided.

Per the Study Room, a person's date of birth and name bear a kind of spiritual barcode etched into them. A spiritually powerful practitioner who could read that barcode could read the thoughts of a person far away — even influence them.

That said, a birthdate and name alone made direct interference difficult. Casting a curse that acted directly on its target — like the curse arts — required a piece of the person's body, such as hair.

But divination wasn't a direct interference; it merely read a state.

Reading someone face to face would still be more accurate, but...

I can do this... I can!

The sense extending out from between my brows stretched away toward somewhere impossibly distant.

Built on the birthdate and name, I had made contact with the story sender's spiritual barcode.

In that instant, the counting sticks within the san-tong aligned themselves.

And then—

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

The counting sticks didn't tumble out of the san-tong — they shot out like bullets and buried themselves in the desk.

I collected the fallen sticks and checked the hexagram.

My studies were still lacking, so I had to consult my phone every time — but Gwijangyeok, reading nothing but the present and omitting past and future, produced its verdict quickly.

Only... the result of the reading was a little strange.

The reading that emerged was the picture of a hostage, held captive by some kidnapper-murderer.

Had the hexagram come out wrong?

No...

I trust my own readings.

In which case...

the strange one here is the "story sender."

With that thought, I reread the sender's submission — and certain parts struck me as deeply off.

The prose was far too stiff and formal to have been written by a young woman.

And above all, she'd sent her birthdate and name without being asked — which was suspicious. If someone had genuinely been through what she described, then as one of the chat messages had said, the normal reaction would be to suspect a stalker.

And would a woman who might have a stalker attached to her so carelessly broadcast her identity to the world?

"Hm. Well, a hexagram has come out. And it's quite an abstruse one, I must say..."

Feigning an interpreter's frown over the counting sticks, I contacted Ha-ram.

Name: Park Sung-ah. Born September 25, 19XX. Do you think you could find out where this person lives?

Trusting Ha-ram's dependable reply, I kept stalling for time.

And so, roughly thirty minutes into the stall...

"I'm sorry — story sender, what did you just say?"

"If you were going to say that, you shouldn't have used an innocent person for your alibi trick in the first place."

Just as I'd thought. The story sender was not Park Sung-ah.

It was a stalker who had broken into Park Sung-ah's home.

Every one of the unsettling omens Park Sung-ah had described had been the stalker's doing. And today, the stalker had forced his way into her home and subdued her. Then — so that the timeline of her abduction would be muddled once the police investigation began — he had sent in the story pretending to be her.

The problem was that he had picked the wrong opponent.

"Kill her, and you will regret it."

"How do you suppose I knew you were fake?"

"Or did I?"

"Judging by your silence, the police are already at your door. If you're getting arrested either way, then don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠take it out on an innocent person — have a fortune read before you go. Why don't you?"

"It's more entertaining that way, no?"

"Let's see here, now..."

I rolled the san-tong and drew the counting sticks.

"Du-seong, the hexagram says this: if you kill Park Sung-ah there, you die."

"No, you die. Because I'll kill you."

"Know this — a curse is far easier than a divination."

"Touch so much as a fingertip of Park Sung-ah in there, and you'll be dead in a holding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cell before you ever see the inside of a prison. You'll choke to death gnawing off every finger and toe on your own body."

Honestly, it was a bluff.

A bluff born of the hope that the police would arrest Kim Du-seong while he hesitated...

For a long while after that, no messages from Kim Du-seong appeared in the chat.

I was anxiously scanning the chat window as it flooded in at a maddening pace when—

Vvvvvvrrring.

A call came in from Ha-ram.

"Phew~!"

Apparently the bluff had worked.

I let out a long breath of relief and relayed the news to the viewers.

Naturally, their reaction was explosive.

Ha-ram mentioned something about the police possibly asking me for a witness interview later, but it barely registered in my ears.

And so, once I'd caught my breath, it suddenly occurred to me to check the viewer count.

"What the...?"

The viewer count had inflated to nearly five times its starting number, and was eyeing the ten-thousand mark.

Word of the stalker case had evidently spread, and the influx of viewers had surged.

And it wasn't only the viewer count that grew.

The donations began pouring in like mad too — almost on par with what Tsukumo Momo's abandoned-house expedition had pulled in.

As dopamine flooded through me and my fingertips trembled faintly, I spoke in the most nonchalant voice I could manage.

"Thank you, Waku, for the 100,000-butter donation. Thank you, SSAASS1911, for the 150,000-butter donation. And FLLL — thank you for your 50,000."

I offered a personal word of thanks to every single donor, one by one.

"Yes — thank you to everyone who came out today. Thankfully, the culprit is in custody and the victim survived unharmed, so please don't worry, everyone."

When I checked the time, it was already past two in the morning.

Exhausted from all the nerve-racking tension, and with every submitted story finally read, I decided it was about time to wrap up the stream.

What a wild, eventful first broadcast it had been.

"Then, everyone — this has been Channel Kim Dosa. Don't forget to like and subscrib—"

The very moment I tried to close out my first stream with a line I'd heard a hundred times on YouTube—

"As I made clear during the abandoned-house collab as well — I, Kim Do-sa, am a man who always delivers value for the money."

One donation: one million won.

Tired or not, reading this one out was simply my duty!

Stacked on top of the email Kim Du-seong had sent for his alibi trick, a new message was waiting.

But...

"...Well, well. Look at this?"

It was the moment Channel Kim Dosa's first house-visit story was decided.