Platform 0
Not an arrest?
"Who would dare arrest Lady Hachiko?"
Yoon Seoha's voice beyond the door was unwavering, absolute. On the intercom screen she knelt on one knee in the dusty hallway, head bowed. The expensive tailored suit pants grinding into the floor meant nothing to her.
I stood frozen in front of the shoe cabinet, staring blankly at the screen. The strength drained from the hand that had been clutching the hem of my oversized hoodie.
They hadn't come to arrest me? The National Intelligence Service? Me?
"…You're not joking right now, are you?"
"Would the National Intelligence Service ever joke with Lady Hachiko, the savior of supernatural disasters?"
Still kneeling, Yoon Seoha drew a secure terminal from her jacket and set it on the hallway floor out of arm's reach. A physical demonstration that she was unarmed and meant me no harm.
"I believe there must be a profound reason why Lady Hachiko has chosen to reside in this old villa and deliver messages to humanity while wearing the form of a young woman. We deeply respect that intention."
"Uh, look…"
"Your identity will be protected at the highest national classification. The government of the Republic of Korea solemnly guarantees Lady Hachiko's complete personal safety."
I was speechless. The misunderstanding ran deeper than the Mariana Trench.
My actual inner self was a twenty-seven-year-old unemployed shut-in about to get kicked out because I couldn't scrape together three hundred fifty thousand won for rent. Yet this woman was treating me like a reclusive absolute being who had descended into a human body.
Should I correct the misunderstanding? Tell her the truth—that I was just some NEET who made up ghost stories out of pure speculation in my room, and I had no idea why any of it became real?
Would honesty end this? No. If she believed that, things would get infinitely worse.
It would mean the nationwide urban legend that stole faces and made hundreds vanish had started with my rage-bait broadcast. I could already picture the cold flip in Yoon Seoha's eyes as she rose from her knees.
Demotion from savior to mass-murdering terrorist. Straight to an NIS underground cell. Strapped to a lab bed in some nameless research facility, dissected until death to figure out why red socks and mint scent worked.
"I didn't mean to" would be worthless.
Even accidental killing was still a crime. This was a nationwide supernatural disaster.
The only reason the NIS wasn't touching me right now was one thing: they believed I knew how to solve the calamities.
The second that illusion shattered, I was finished.
Don't say anything.
This wasn't a lie. It was just… temporarily withholding the truth. At least until I figured out why I had this power.
I finished the desperate self-justification. Still, I couldn't find the courage to fling the door wide open.
Leaving the security chain latched, I unlocked the door and carefully pushed it open.
Click.
The door stopped against the chain. The gap was barely ten centimeters. Cold hallway air seeped through.
Yoon Seoha's gaze slowly lifted toward my small frame buried in the hoodie. A few strands of silver hair I had hidden under the hood slipped free past the collar.
"You're really… not going to take me away? No dissection either?"
"Not a single strand of Lady Hachiko's hair may be touched by anyone. I swear it."
Reverence flickered in Yoon Seoha's eyes. The being who had toppled a disaster that even S-Class Hunter Cha Serin couldn't touch at the Mapo-gu site—using only a few words and the scent of mint.
That being now stood before her as a small, delicate adult woman drowning in a black hoodie. I fidgeted with my sleeve cuffs and asked carefully,
"Then… could we just pretend none of this happened? There's nothing dangerous left."
"Pardon…?"
"Nothing else is going to happen. All the disasters are over. From now on everything will be peaceful."
I prayed desperately inside. Please. Let this statement become reality too.
If everything I spoke aloud automatically became real, then declaring that nothing would happen should end it. No more people vanishing. No more reason for the NIS to come looking.
I could go back to being an ordinary unemployed guy fretting about rent.
The hallway air stayed cold. The smell of half-dried laundry still hung inside the room. No sudden clarity of mind. No conviction that the world had become peaceful.
The words I had just spoken simply scattered emptily into the air.
…Hmm… why didn't it work?
The Black Woman and mint scent had worked. But "become peaceful" didn't.
Could I only create curses that hurt people? Good wishes failed, and only terrifying stories like urban legends became real?
Then I'm actually cursed.
My fingertips went ice-cold. Every time I opened my mouth, someone else might get hurt. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut for the rest of my life.
That was when it happened.
WEE-OOO! WEE-OOO!
The secure NIS terminal she had placed on the floor blared a shrill alarm, red emergency light flashing.
I flinched and shrank behind the ten-centimeter gap, hands trembling as they clenched the hoodie hem.
Yoon Seoha's eyes sharpened instantly. She snatched up the terminal and checked the screen. Chaotic shouts and keyboard clatter from the Response & Analysis Room poured through the speaker all at once.
"Team Leader! Emergency situation! An entire southbound train on Metropolitan Subway Line 4 has completely vanished from the control network!"
"Vanished? Signal error?"
"Negative! Immediately after entering the underground tunnel section, both the mana reaction on the rails and the location signal disappeared simultaneously! The train number itself has been erased from the real-time control map!"
The terminal screen displayed the metropolitan subway control map. A red dot that had been moving along the tracks flickered in the middle of a tunnel and winked out without a trace.
The surrounding signals continued operating normally, yet the section where the train should have been was completely empty. Yoon Seoha's face went cold and hard.
"Mana reaction extinguished…"
The adjutant's urgent report continued.
"This is not a standard dungeon break or monster attack. Analysis indicates the space itself has warped and detached from reality."
"The bigger problem is the passengers' phones! The train has vanished from the control network, yet some passengers' posts and messages are still being transmitted outside!"
Community captures appeared one after another on the terminal screen.
That terrifying machine didn't just find my location, right? It's not reading my heart rate or detecting lies… is it?
I barely dared to breathe behind the door gap, staring at Yoon Seoha's terminal.
"Is that the full designation?"
"Yes. The same phrase has been confirmed across multiple passengers' map apps and the train's information displays."
Yoon Seoha asked in a low voice,
"What exactly does it say?"
Silence fell for a moment on the other end of the terminal.
"'Current station: Platform 0.'"
Platform 0.
The instant those words left the speaker, a jaw-dropping shock slammed into my skull.
Platform 0?
There was no such station on the metropolitan subway. Wait—no.
Right before ending last night's broadcast, the final line I had tossed out in front of thirty-seven viewers slammed into my memory.
'In the next broadcast… I'll tell you about Platform 0, a station that doesn't exist in reality.'
"Crazy… this has to be a lie…"
A thin, trembling scream leaked past my lips.
It wasn't enough that the Black Woman urban legend had become real. Even the next-episode teaser I had casually thrown out at the end of the stream had detonated into an actual disaster. I hadn't even created the content for Platform 0 yet.
I had only spoken the name. Just a title.
And an entire train had vanished from reality.
Yoon Seoha rapidly operated the terminal. A short recording clip extracted from the deleted original first broadcast began to play.
"In the next broadcast… I'll tell you about Platform 0, a station that doesn't exist in reality."
That clear, playful voice—completely unaware of what it was doing—layered over footage of the black tunnel that had swallowed hundreds of passengers. The eerie contrast made even the hallway air feel colder.
Yoon Seoha's pupils trembled with shock and absolute certainty. She lowered the terminal and looked straight at me through the gap in the door.
Her eyes, now convinced she had received a revelation, shone with solid light. My red eyes, caught in that gaze, quivered with pure terror.
On Yoon Seoha's face rose a deep faith that went beyond mere respect—the look of a priest who had personally witnessed a divine oracle.
She had already been forewarned of the second disaster last night, and she had known everything all along. Yoon Seoha bowed her head even deeper toward the cold hallway floor.
"Lady Hachiko. I failed to fully grasp your profound intent."
"Ah—no, wait a second! That's not—"
"The second disaster you prophesied has begun."