Terrestrial Broadcast Debut [4]

The Hundred Tales — a ghost-story ritual known in its land of origin, Japan, as Hyakumonogatari.

The name might sound unfamiliar, but the premise itself was simple, and familiar to Koreans as well. Late at night, participants gather in a room where one hundred candles have been lit. Taking turns, each tells a terrifying tale and, with every story, snuffs out one more candle. And when all one hundred tales have been told and all one hundred candles have gone dark, something so dreadful it defies imagination is said to occur.

That was the structure of the Hundred Tales. It wasn't a perfect match, but Korea had its fair share of similar ghost stories — "we lit candles and told scary stories at night, and a ghost showed up!" — the whole genre of thing. And precisely because the ritual's structure was so simple, the solution came to me almost instantly.

"Listen carefully, both of you. From now on, when the storytellers come out and tell their tales, you argue by any means necessary that it isn't scary — that it doesn't count as a ghost story!"

The whole point of the Hundred Tales was stacking up one hundred genuinely frightening stories. In other words, if the tale the opponent told wasn't scary, it simply didn't get counted.

"Yes, yes!"

"Understood."

"U-um, I have no idea what's going on right now, but all I have to do is insist it's not scary, right? B-but if I do that, won't I end up like the cameraman from earlier...?"

Jinwoo of Thirteen asked with a face drained of all color.

"Judging whether a tale qualifies as a ghost story doesn't violate the rules of the Hundred Tales, so you should be fine."

As an example, I slammed my fist down on the panel desk with a bang.

BANG!

"The occult faction objects!"

Then, with one hand thrust out in a dramatic 'point!', I jabed a finger at the science faction.

...I'd wanted to do that at least once in my life.

"Setting aside whether the story was rigged, this tale is hopelessly stale! Honestly, it's far too clumsy to even call it a ghost story! No setup, no payoff, no twist — how is THIS supposed to qualify as a ghost story!?"

"Bullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshitbullshit!"

"You'redeadYou'redeadYou'redeadYou'redeadYou'redead!"

"Science faction! You think shaking your heads and spitting blood while parroting the same words over and over is going to scare me? I've SEEN things. You think a cheap trick like that would frighten me? If you want to argue back, then logically and coherently, make the case that the storyteller's tale qualifies as a ghost story!"

"U-ugh...!"

"Hnngh...!"

Vector and Soda, both possessed by the anomaly, flinched at my ironclad logic.

There was no backlash from the Narrative Coercion. Which meant that debating whether a tale counted as a ghost story did not violate the Hundred Tales' narrative.

'Yes! If I just keep pushing the line that every single tale is boring—'

"Ghk—krk, m-my mouth—ahem! A rebuttal from the occult faction has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠arrived! Th-then, we will now proceed to the voting to determine whether the tale in question passes!"

"What!?"

Drrrrrrring!

"With 85 to 15, a majority felt fear at this tale, so it shall be recognized as a ghost story! A-agh, p-please...! My mouth...!"

Main host Yoo Joon-seok's mouth was moving entirely against his will.

"Kyaaaaaaah! M-Mr. Yoo Joon-seok's mouth...!"

Perhaps from the backlash of being forced to speak by the anomaly, Yoo Joon-seok's cheeks and lips were shredded to ribbons, blood streaming down his chin.

But there was a far bigger problem than that...

'Voting!? Don't tell me the livestream is still running!?'

I hastily pulled out my phone to check.

And... good lord...

The livestream was still running.

Worse, the woman in the red dress was captured on screen in perfect clarity.

'How!?'

Anomalies and the supernatural were never supposed to show up on camera.

And yet right now, on my smartphone screen, the woman in the red dress was being broadcast live without a single flicker of static, blur, or distortion.

Two possibilities surfaced in my mind.

The first: every single viewer had been judged a participant of the Hundred Tales anomaly. All fifty thousand people watching Paranormal Society had been designated participants, and the Narrative Coercion was forcibly keeping the broadcast on the air.

And the second: this broadcast had some kind of connection to Cosmos. In all my limited experience, the only place that had ever managed to record anomaly footage cleanly was Cosmos. If they were involved, this too made sense.

But which answer was right didn't actually matter at the moment.

The problem was that fifty thousand people had been swept up in the Hundred Tales anomaly.

'What is the Paranormal Administration Bureau even doing!? Block the broadcast right now— damn it, blocking it causes problems of its own.'

Going by the cameraman and the viewers' chat, a participant dropping out mid-ritual also violated the Narrative Coercion and triggered a penalty.

Which meant all fifty thousand of them could simultaneously vomit blood and drop dead.

Then—

Seeeerik.

"That's a ghost story, isn't it?"

The woman in the red dress asked me.

"...I didn't find it scary, though. Can't we just rule that it doesn't count?"

"No."

POP!

The woman in red burst like a water balloon, and a geyser of blood drenched the studio set crimson.

'A substitute for snuffing out the candle?'

Admittedly, this made more of an impact than simply blowing out a candle.

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

"KYAAAAAAAH!"

The sudden bloodbath was about to send everyone into a panic.

But flailing around here wouldn't change a thing.

"QUIET!"

At my lion's roar, infused with Do-ryeok, the entire studio and the viewership fell silent in an instant.

"Don't make a fuss. It's only the thirteenth tale."

I made eye contact with each and every person on the set, one by one. Then, staring straight into the camera filming me, I addressed the viewers on the other side of the screen.

"From this moment on, do not turn off your screens. If you do, you die."

"Do you all want to live?"

A snort escaped me at the comments from what were clearly my own fans.

Why are these kids so fearless, honestly?

But right now, that brand of optimism was a godsend. Because the true horror of the Hundred Tales hadn't even begun yet.

The Hundred Tales' real terror begins when all one hundred tales have been told.

Its ending generally took one of two forms. The first was the simple one: the person who told the hundredth tale dies.

'But that one's probably off the table here.'

The moment the teller of tales became a ghost rather than a human, the odds of that ending dropped to zero.

Which meant the ending unfolding before me was, naturally, the second one.

The Hundred Tales' second ending: when the hundred tales are complete, a yokai called ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Aoaandon — the Blue Lantern — appears.

The Aoaandon is an oni in the form of a long-haired woman.

Descriptions vary depending on the legend, but the Aoaandon that appears alongside the hundredth tale is said to kill the participants or drag them down to hell.

If the Aoaandon manifested here in this studio, it wouldn't be much of a problem. The Narrative Coercion would be an annoyance, but at the end of the day I could fight it and win.

The problem was if the Aoaandon did not appear only here.

'All fifty thousand viewers have been designated participants of the Hundred Tales... in the worst case, when the ritual ends, an Aoaandon could come calling for every last one of them...'

If that happened, there was genuinely no answer. No matter what the Paranormal Administration Bureau tried, fifty thousand was a lot — far, far too many.

'How the hell am I supposed to handle this?'

My hands and feet went cold at the fact that fifty thousand lives rested in my palms.

Fifty thousand... that was the population of a small city. Even if half of them died — no, even a quarter of a quarter — it would be an unprecedented catastrophe for this country.

"Whew...!"

A deep breath reeled in the hopelessness threatening to swallow me whole.

'Let's not work ourselves into a panic acting like I'm someone's chosen savior...'

Come to think of it, when had I ever wrung my hands in anguish over someone else's life? Back then or now, the person I value most is me.

And so...

'Do what I always do! What I ALWAYS do!'

My name is Kim Do-sa — sorcery genius, Taoist, and YouTuber.

Which meant there was exactly one thing to do right now.

"Alright, everyone wants to live, right? Then right this instant, go to the Kim Do-sa YouTube channel, hit subscribe, smash that like button, turn on notifications, and rewatch my latest upload twenty times!"

"See? My fans catch on fast. Very good, I applaud you. I'll only explain this once, so listen carefully: from now on, absolutely do not turn off your screen — turn it off and you die. And one question. Did any of you just vote?"

Just as I thought — the criterion for judging a tale as a ghost story wasn't the direct vote at all.

Most likely...

"The system registers it as a ghost story the instant any of you feel the tale is scary. So from now on, keep your hearts as calm and gentle as possible! Pull up cat videos or puppy videos in a side window — anything, so long as you don't feel fear!"

"That's it, Dobungs — you keep that fighting spirit up."

This should buy me at least a little time.

But it was, at best, a stopgap.

Thud. Thud.

Then the fourteenth storyteller walked into the studio.

"Ugh...!"

"Huurk!"

If the woman in red had been a fair fight in the looks department, this one was on another level entirely — the storyteller's condition was dire.

A man whose neck had stretched out some fifty centimeters stood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the storyteller's seat in an unsteady, lurching gait, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

'So we're opening with pure visual horror, are we?'

I could see the viewers being terrified out of their wits by the gruesome sight alone.

Meanwhile, the long-necked man began telling his tale, chewing on his own unnaturally stretched tongue. Blood dripped in thin streams as his molars ground through the flesh spilling from his mouth, but he seemed to feel no pain at all as the story poured out of him.

'Should I just go ahead and attack the ghost playing storyteller?'

Not a good option. As long as that ghost was following the Hundred Tales' narrative, a direct attack carried a high chance of triggering the Narrative Coercion.

But...

'What if it was before they told their story?'

Both the woman in red and this long-necked man hadn't popped out of nowhere — they had walked into the studio on their own two feet. Which meant...

'There's a gathering of ghosts somewhere in the broadcasting station, waiting their turn to tell their tales?'

In that case, what if I put them to rest before they ever took the stage? Attacking them before they came out and told their story had a high probability of not violating the Narrative Coercion.

'A move worth trying.'

The question was how to get out of this studio...

I replayed the moment the cameraman had vomited blood. He hadn't started retching the instant he bolted.

'The cameraman ran, everyone's attention converged on him... and the woman in red turned to look at him too...'

In other words — as long as it wasn't perceived as fleeing, the Narrative Coercion didn't trigger?

...Then I had a play for that, too.

Slide.

"Oops, there goes my smartphone."

I deliberately dropped my phone beneath the panel desk.

"Chulho-beop."

And from beneath the desk, I called forth Wang Lingguan.

I manifested him with his presence suppressed even further than during the Yoo Min-seo test — just enough to maintain communication and nothing more.

Then I spoke up, carefully.

Let me say this again: a guardian deity, unlike a wizard's familiar or a shaman's servant spirit, is not my subordinate. If I wanted to make an unreasonable request, I needed to secure his consent in advance.

"Um... Mr. Wang Lingguan?"

—······?

"Would you perhaps... not be interested in appearing on television?"

—······!

"If you're willing... would you consider standing in for me here?"

Comparing the Heavenly Gang Shapeshifting Art with the Earthly Fiend Shapeshifting Art, the latter was overwhelmingly superior. The Earthly Fiend Art could assume any conceivable form, while the Heavenly Gang Art could never stray far from a human silhouette.

And yet I had chosen the Heavenly Gang Art for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one reason: unlike the Earthly Fiend Art, which let only the caster transform, the Heavenly Gang Art could transform others as well!

"Mr. Wang Lingguan... I have faith in your talent for broadcasting! In my stead, I beg you — play 'me' here on this set!"

—!?

Wang Lingguan's tiger face contorted into the expression of a cat ambushed by a cucumber.