41
Chapter 41
Tap- Tap-
Yuna watched Parang's broadcast Screen with bated breath.
She recalled the words she had said last night.
'I think I'll go for a calmer vibe this stream.'
Just what part of this was calm?
Did Parang really not know the difference between suffocating Silence and calmness?
Honestly, it didn't really matter to her what kind of atmosphere Parang's broadcast had.
She was already a hardcore fan among hardcore fans.
And from her perspective as a hardcore fan, Parang's broadcast this time was definitely different from previous ones.
A bizarre Monster Fish whose true identity couldn't even be imagined, and a cold, heavy atmosphere that sank low.
Yuna watched the broadcast with intense focus, unaware of the sweat gathering in her tightly clenched fists.
"■■ ■"
It was then that a voice could be heard from the Screen.
The Screen quickly spun around.
Right in front of her was the eye of that Monster Fish called Brachium...
A massive, quiet, deep blue pupil.
The ocean. The Universe. Infinity. The World.
The moment it was captured on the Screen, a window popped up in front of Yuna's eyes.
[ Skill, 'Waterproof Sanity' is activating. ]
[ Resisting Mental Attack strongly. ]
[ Status Effect 'Open Eyes' has been mitigated to 'Headache'. ]
'What?!'
Yuna jumped up from her seat in surprise.
Open Eyes, it was a Status Effect she had never seen in her life.
In that moment, Yuna's Head throbbed with a sharp pain!
It felt as if something massive had entered her mind, but an invisible wave had swept it away, leaving only a slight Headache.
'Status Window!'
[ Status Window: Shin Yuna ]
[ Personal Skill: Start Hammering! (A) ]
[ Skill List ]
[ Waterproof Sanity (S), Indomitable Blacksmith (S), Last Touch (S) ...(See more) ]
[ Current Status ]
[ Headache (Mitigated) 02:54 ]
"Huu, huu...."
Yuna panted heavily.
And her Head spun quickly as she thought.
She had put up strong Resistance against an unknown Status Effect called Open Eyes.
As a result, she contracted a Headache, the lowest tier of mental Status Effect.
'Oh my god.'
Given the Resistance mechanism of a Mental Barrier type Skill, if the Skill could sufficiently block the Status Effect being resisted, one wouldn't get the Status Effect at all.
Therefore, if one put up Resistance to 'Charm' at a normal level, they wouldn't be afflicted by something like 'Weak Charm', but would simply ignore the Charm altogether.
That meant...
The result of having 'strong Resistance' against the Status Effect called 'Open Eyes' was not a completely ignored Status Effect, but a Headache.
Then what on earth was the original Status Effect, 'Open Eyes'?
And what state were the Viewers in now, having failed to resist it?
Goosebumps broke out all over Yuna's arms.
She quickly looked at Parang's broadcast Screen.
[ This broadcast has ended. ]
The last visible chat messages.
- Open your eyes.
- Open your eyes.
- Open your eyes.
- Open your eyes.
- Open your eyes.
- Open your eyes.
Next was the community.
[ Open your eyes. ] [66]
[ Open your eyes. ] [66]
[ Open your eyes. ] [66]
...
Posts all written by different people.
This chilling feeling was the first of its kind since her initial meeting with Yoo Parang.
A feeling of her entire body shivering and her limbs going numb.
Even amidst all this, her curiosity remained intact, so Yuna tried to click on one of the numerous posts in the community, but,
[ Connection failed. The connection is unstable. ]
She failed thanks to her unstable internet acting up at a time like this.
Drained of her strength, Yuna slumped down from her chair.
Buzz-!!
Her Cellphone rang as she sat panting on the Floor.
It was a call from Yoo Parang.
Click.
"H-hello."
An urgent voice could be heard from the other end of the line.
"Yuna! Are you okay?!"
"I-I'm fine. I resisted it with a Skill. I just have a slight Headache left."
"Phew...."
A sigh full of relief.
"By any chance, how much duration is left on that Headache Status Effect?"
"There's 2 minutes and 30 seconds left now."
Yuna spoke calmly, but her voice was trembling slightly.
"2 minutes and 30 seconds. I understand. Thank you."
"A-ah, no. You're welcome. More importantly, what on earth is...."
"I'll explain later! You're inside your house right now, right?"
"Y-yes."
"Please stay inside if possible. I'm underwater right now too, so it's hard to grasp the situation...."
"...I understand."
Beep- Beep-
In the quiet house, only the ringing tone echoed.
#
Meanwhile, somewhere on Earth.
Inside an enormously massive Situation Room, countless people in suits were bustling about.
"Forced broadcast termination complete!"
"All internet access for Yoo Parang's broadcast Viewers has been blocked!"
"Aaargh!! My Head!! My Head!!! Gyaaaaaa!!!!"
"You and you! Drag that guy out and escort him away!!"
"Wipe all records from social media, communities, and messengers."
"We have a message from Hunter Yoo Parang! The remaining duration of the Status Effect is 2 minutes and 30 seconds!"
"Tell her the situation is mostly under control!"
These were the personnel who had to gather here and monitor the broadcast whenever Parang turned it on.
This was to deal with situations exactly like the current one.
It was to prepare for the chaos that would ensue if a 'broadcast accident' were to occur during Parang's stream.
One might wonder, 'Do they really have to go this far? Couldn't they just edit the recorded video and upload it?'
To put it simply, doing it this way—managing the live broadcast—was better than doing that.
There were a few reasons for this.
Basically, censorship of video media was extremely strict in this World.
Even though they claimed to be a democracy, it was ultimately a dictatorship backed by military force.
Despite showing superhuman competence in areas like maintaining public order, welfare, and improving living standards, public opinion wasn't entirely favorable.
It was a situation where the 'as long as life is good' faction and the 'a global dictatorship is a bit much' faction were at odds.
Therefore, in order to maintain the regime, they were imposing incredibly strict regulations on video media, excluding live broadcasts.
Why didn't they regulate live broadcasts?
For one, it was hard to regulate. With so many people streaming all over the World, how could they control every single one of them throughout their entire live broadcast?
Moreover, the moment they regulated it, there was a risk of public sentiment falling into an absolute abyss.
Live broadcasts were already scratching an itch that couldn't be satisfied due to existing regulations. That was also why it had become the World's number one hobby, even surpassing professional sports.
But if they were to regulate that too, protests could genuinely erupt on a global scale.
Then, Cylo and the Hunter Association could attack the World Government with the ultimate justification of 'overthrowing the dictatorship'.
The point was that videos were heavily censored, while live broadcasts were not.
And among the criteria for video censorship was 'videos that can cause social chaos by provoking excessive fear or disgust'.
This was a regulation that had been in place even before the Ascension, so it wasn't specifically targeting Parang, but depending on the interpretation, it could easily be applied to her videos.
In reality, the edited versions of Parang's broadcasts uploaded to T-Tube were significantly toned down.
Thus, it was only natural that the deterrent effect against diving was disastrously lower compared to the live broadcasts.
Secondly, from Cylo's perspective, they were also secretly hoping for an accident to happen during a live broadcast.
Regardless of what Parang thought, once a major accident occurred, the number of people going underwater would drop drastically.
In the first place, until they met Parang, Cylo had been planning to secure a video of someone dying in the Deep Sea and spread it massively.
Bypassing the censorship required a significant sacrifice, so while they were contemplating it, Parang appeared, putting that plan on indefinite hold.
Anyway, if an incident erupted like this and caused people to stop diving, it would be beneficial for Cylo too.
'Then why bother making a Situation Room like this to control the situation? Just let the incident spread far and wide.'
If one thought that way, it was a miscalculation.
A single accident wouldn't stop people around the World from diving. Therefore, Cylo also needed to devise a sustainable plan. It meant that incidents needed to happen multiple times.
But what if Cylo took no action regarding an accident that occurred on their own platform? And continuously at that?
They could let it slide once or twice with a 'we were also surprised', but by the fourth, fifth, and sixth times, the Association and the Government would immediately start tearing into them under the pretext of 'promoting social chaos'.
Therefore, Cylo's act of controlling the situation was a way of building both justification and trust.
Furthermore, Cylo also needed to take a slightly conservative approach regarding problems erupting in the ocean.
They had to test just how much control they could exert over incidents occurring at sea.
So this time, they attempted to control the situation with the goal of 'Nothing happened!'.
Of course, that was an idealistic goal. A Mental Attack was triggered toward all Viewers during an internet broadcast watched by an unspecified multitude; there was no way that would work out perfectly.
That was just the theoretical target; the practical goal was more along the lines of 'There was a brief commotion.'
Anyway. The point was that Cylo utilized this incident to verify if they could control the Deep Sea.
Ultimately, their objective was to bypass the insane World Government, make the ocean completely their own territory, investigate the deaths of the Slayers, and eliminate the hidden threats there.
It would be a real problem if an irreversible issue erupted while they were actually in the middle of taking over and investigating the ocean.
That was also why they were obsessed with Parang. Cylo believed that she and Oceanus could resolve any incident that might occur.
And since it was an experiment, a high number of trials was preferable, so the more these situations erupted during Parang's broadcasts, the better.
Of course, Cylo had no way to induce incidents under the sea, so their limit was just inwardly hoping, 'Please let just one incident happen'.
Naturally, the number of Parang's Viewers would be drastically slashed.
A broadcast where you catch a Status Effect while watching. Who would want to watch such a thing?
However, this was also a problem that Cylo could solve.
Could a massive corporation capable of going toe-to-toe with the World Government really fail to promote a single broadcast?
There were countless methods.
Well, anyway, for those reasons, Cylo built and was operating this Situation Room.
Because all personnel in the Situation Room worked while carrying powerful Anti-Mental Artifacts, they were able to calmly begin their response even in this sudden emergency.
"I love you!!! Dance with me!!! Sing a song for me!!!"
Of course, there were a few who weren't. Those who hadn't repaired their Artifacts, or those whose mentality was normally weak.
If they had their way, they would give everyone Waterproof Sanity and have them monitor from underwater, but the blood of Parang that Cylo possessed was limited.
However, despite that, Cylo was still Cylo; even in this sudden situation, they were able to respond in their own way.
So, what were the measures they took to create the 'Nothing happened!' state?
First, an internet blackout.
They shut down the servers of major portals, SNS, messengers, and so on under the pretexts of 'connection failure' or 'server maintenance'.
For about 3 minutes, they made it so that the internet did not exist in the World.
It would definitely cause headaches later, but there was no method as surefire as this to prevent the incident from spreading.
An 'internet blackout' was also listed as the first priority in their pre-made code of conduct.
They had the capability to do so, and also the duty to do it.
Even in a World where technology existed to make the internet work 11km under the sea, people had a tendency to accept the excuse of 'connection failure' all too well.
Next was internet clearing.
They deleted all the records left by those affected by Brachium. Of course, that included the problematic scene where Brachium opened its eyes.
Next was analyzing the symptoms of the victims.
"Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes."
Whether it was a trick of fate, one person inside the Situation Room contracted the 'Open Eyes' Status Effect.
They hurriedly checked and found that he seemingly hadn't worn his Anti-Mental Artifact.
They decided to interrogate him about why later; for now, they temporarily isolated him inside the Locker Room and placed him under observation.
As a result of the observation, they confirmed he was blankly alternating his gaze between the ceiling and the Floor, muttering, 'Open your eyes.'
Seeing the phenomenon that appeared in the Chat Window and community, they handed him a pen, and he showed signs of trying to continuously write 'Open your eyes' on the wall.
It was not a bad situation for Cylo. If he had immediately tried to hang himself to commit suicide, or tried to gouge out someone else's eye Hole, it would have been quite a headache.
And then. Time passed.
"3 minutes have passed. The situation has ended. Confirming the Status Effect has been dispelled."
Along with a trembling voice, everyone let out a sigh of relief.
Like this, thanks to Cylo Corporation's swift response, the 3-minute-long 'Brachium Shock' came to a close for now.