The Mint Weakness
National Intelligence Service Supernatural Disaster Response & Analysis Room
The text burned into the smartphone screen was no hallucination.
[Source: HACHIKO Channel Tip Video]
At the very end of the Republic of Korea government’s official emergency disaster text, my broadcast nickname was printed in stark, unmistakable letters. The wild speculation I had spat out on the spot while being strangled by three hundred fifty thousand won in monthly rent had become a national official safety protocol that made every citizen’s phone vibrate.
“No… why is this turning real…?”
A thin, clear voice drifted through the one-room apartment. When I grabbed the silver hair cascading over my shoulders, soft strands slipped between my fingers.
I had switched the channel to private and even deleted the original video, but it was useless. Millions of reuploaded copies had already flooded the internet, and the news kept reporting that the Black Woman was still being sighted in sunless underground walkways and dark apartment corridors.
Was an urban legend something that was easy to create but impossible to erase? If so, shutting down my channel and hiding would change nothing.
People who didn’t know the safety rules would keep answering questions or opening doors, and every time that happened someone else might disappear.
“This is a catastrophe I made… If I don’t fix it, people will keep dying.”
The police or the NIS could smash through my door at any moment. If I went live now and my face or the layout of my room got exposed, it would be over.
My face no longer matched my ID, and my body was identical to the avatar I had been using until yesterday. Even if they arrested me, I would have no explanation.
Even so, I couldn’t just stay curled up in the corner of the bed. If it hadn’t been for that one red sock, I would have vanished too.
If people had died because of the rules I created, then at the very least I had to create rules that would let them live. I pulled a black oversized hoodie from the laundry pile under the bed and put it on.
I tugged the half-peeled red sock back up over my right foot. Then I yanked the hood deep over my head, burying the silver hair and red eyes in shadow.
I powered on the computer and switched the channel I had set to private back to public. When I rested the mouse pointer over the [Start Live Broadcast] button, my fingertips trembled.
If I press this, there’s really no going back.
I pressed it anyway.
The moment the stream went live, people who had been waiting poured in like a flood tide. The numbers rocketed within seconds and smashed past one hundred thousand concurrent viewers.
Chat scrolled so fast my eyes couldn’t keep up. Every time a line about someone’s family vanishing flashed across the screen, my throat tightened.
I pulled the hood even deeper and drew the microphone closer.
“…Everyone, listen carefully. I can’t stay on long.”
When my voice rode the speakers outward, the chat speed slowed a little. Countless people beyond the screen were waiting for the next word.
“I couldn’t finish the explanation last night. To be precise, the Black Woman isn’t perfect. She has a weakness.”
My mouth went bone-dry. There was no guarantee that what I was about to say would become reality either.
Still, I attached conditions so it would sound as much like the rules of a story as possible.
“The Black Woman hates strong mint scents to an extreme degree. Keep things with a powerful scent nearby—toothpaste, mint spray, peppermint candy, mint gum. If she’s exposed to enough mint fragrance, she can’t maintain her form and can’t even approach.”
It was pure speculation pulled from the memory of wondering last night whether I should smear toothpaste into the door crack. I drew a breath and added the final condition.
“Once the Black Woman’s form completely dissolves under the mint scent, the stolen faces return to their original owners. The missing people can come back, so don’t give up. Never answer her questions, never open the door, and prepare mint scents.”
The instant I finished speaking I hit the [End Broadcast] button. The stream had lasted one minute and forty seconds.
I switched off the monitor and collapsed into the chair. Cold sweat soaked the inside of the hoodie.
“Please… let this work too.”
I had no idea whether a ridiculous method like mint scent would actually succeed. If it didn’t, not only would I fail to save anyone—I would become a Supernatural Disaster terrorist who had scammed the entire nation.
All I could do was pray that my words would rewrite reality once more.
NIS basement level three, Supernatural Disaster Response & Analysis Room. More than a dozen large monitors were looping the one-minute-forty-second emergency broadcast HACHIKO had just ended.
While agents in suits cross-checked tip-offs against field footage, Analysis Team Leader Yoon Seoha stared at the small figure whose face was hidden beneath a black hood.
“Team Leader. We’ve requested TubeLive preserve the access logs and provide the data, but there’s still no reply.”
“Wait for the reply, but prioritize field verification of the new safety rule over location tracking.”
“Mint scent… are we really supposed to trust what that broadcaster says?”
Yoon Seoha pulled up the first broadcast and the survival cases side by side. 2:44 a.m., three knocks, the questions, the red socks.
The conditions that had looked absurd had already been repeatedly verified in the field.
“We’re not believing without grounds. Among every case we’ve secured, the only one who explained the situation in advance and even presented a valid survival method is HACHIKO.”
Her gaze lingered on the deleted first VOD record.
“We still don’t know why the first video was deleted. But right now she’s come back again to try to save people. That intention, at least, we can confirm on site.”
She couldn’t rule out the possibility that even the ridiculous mint-scent rule was a test to see how far humanity would follow her words. With a hardened expression, Yoon Seoha picked up the dedicated communicator microphone.
“Emergency directive to all national disaster response teams and field-deployed hunter units. Secure and immediately distribute materials that can produce strong mint scents—mint spray, toothpaste, peppermint extract, and the like. Maintain the existing rules of silence and door-opening prohibition as well.”
Mapo-gu, Seoul. A massive underground shopping mall where sunlight was completely blocked. Wet strands of hair stretched from the gaps of closed store shutters and emergency doors, covering walls and ceiling.
Every time a sound like black water dripping continued, the on-site control line edged a little farther back.
“Ghk…! Magical attacks aren’t working!”
South Korea’s S-Class Hunter Cha Serin swung a dagger wreathed in dark magical energy. The shockwave burst with enough force to split the corridor, yet the severed hair turned into black water streams before it even hit the floor and tangled together again.
The second slash crumpled an entire shutter. Even so, not a single scratch remained on the hair.
Magical power capable of destroying buildings was no different from swinging a blade at empty air in front of the rules set by an urban legend. Every time the S-Class mana that filled her body made contact, it lost its strength and crumpled like paper, the sensation traveling back up her arms.
It felt as if the very conviction that she was strong was being denied by this alien disaster. From the center of the hair mass, the Black Woman whose features had been erased lifted her head.
“You’re in there, aren’t you?”
When the voice swept through the corridor, the squad members clamped their hands over their ears. Behind Cha Serin, dozens of citizens who had answered that question or opened a closed door lay collapsed, wrapped in hair cocoons.
Their faces were faintly erasing, and every time the rescue team cut the cocoons, thicker hair filled the wounds.
“I can’t even break a single rule like this…”
Cha Serin gritted her teeth and stepped forward again. But the harder she pushed with force, the deeper the hair constricted the citizens.
Neither the S-Class rank nor years of combat experience were of any help in saving people right now. Then Yoon Seoha’s voice burst from the radio.
“Hunter Cha Serin, use mint scent immediately. HACHIKO has released an additional safety rule.”
“What? Mint?”
Her eyes fell on the supply crates the NIS transport team had just rushed inside the control line. The boxes were packed with oral-care mint sprays and cans of high-concentration peppermint oil.
It was an absurd strategy guide. But the red socks had been absurd too.
Cha Serin grabbed three cans of high-concentration mint spray at once and sprayed them toward the black hair.
Hissss!
A fierce, sharp fragrance blanketed the underground corridor.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
The black hair that had been fine against a magical dagger sizzled and melted the moment it touched the mint mist. The faceless Black Woman twisted her body.
The stench of black water was driven back, and her form crumbled from the edges, scattering into empty air.
“It… it actually works?”
Cha Serin and her squad sprayed the remaining cans. When the last strand of black hair dissolved under the mint scent, the ominous aura crushing the underground mall vanished as well.
The cocoons on the walls went limp and unraveled. The citizens trapped inside coughed and opened their eyes, and the erased features began returning to their original forms.
The control headquarters put the recording of HACHIKO’s emergency broadcast up on the shopping mall information monitors. On the screen sat a small figure whose face was hidden by a black hood.
Cha Serin stared at that screen for a long time. The disaster she had risked her life and still failed to break, that broadcaster had toppled with just a few words and the ridiculous method of mint scent.
She hadn’t flaunted overwhelming power, nor demanded any price. She had simply told them not to despair and shown them the way to live.
Unlike her own appearance, a mess of blood and black filth, the small existence on the screen sat quietly without a single stain. Cha Serin slowly dropped to one knee on the floor where black remnants had scattered.
She placed her blood-soaked glove over her heart and bowed her head deeply toward the HACHIKO on the screen.
“I’ve found her. The one who came down to save us.”