Tap-tap
Yuna watched Parang’s broadcast with bated breath.
She recalled what she had said last night.
‘This broadcast will be a bit calm.’
What part of it was calm?
Could Parang really not tell the difference between suffocating silence and calmness?
Honestly, it didn’t matter what kind of atmosphere Parang created for her.
She had become a die-hard fan, through and through.
From her perspective as a fan, this broadcast was certainly different from the previous ones.
A bizarre Monster Fish of unknown identity and a cold, heavy atmosphere settled around.
Yuna didn’t even realize her clenched fists were sweating as she focused on the broadcast.
“■■ ■”
That’s when she heard the voice from the screen.
The screen jerked around.
What appeared before her was the eye of that Bracium Monster Fish…
A massive, tranquil, deep blue iris.
Ocean. Universe. Infinity. World.
The moment it caught on screen, a window appeared before Yuna’s eyes.
[ Skill, ‘Waterproof Sanity’ is activated. ]
[ Strong resistance to mental attacks. ]
[ Status effect ‘Awakening’ has been alleviated to ‘Headache.’ ]
‘What?!’
Yuna jumped up in shock.
Awakening? A status effect she had never encountered even once in her life.
In an instant, her head throbbed painfully!
Something enormous had entered her mind, but it felt like invisible waves swept it away, leaving only a slight headache behind.
‘Status window!’
[ Status window: Shin Yuna ]
[ Personal Skill: Hammering Start! (A) ]
[ Skill List ]
[ Waterproof Sanity (S), Indomitable Blacksmith (S), Last Touch (S) …(More) ]
[ Current Status ]
[ Headache (Alleviated) 02:54 ]
“Phew, phew….”
Yuna gasped for breath.
And quickly started to think.
She had strongly resisted the elusive status effect called Awakening.
As a result, she had ended up with a low-level mental status effect: a headache.
‘Oh my.’
According to the resistance mechanism of mental barrier skills, if the resisted status effect can be fully blocked by the skill, one does not get the status effect at all.
So, if she resisted ‘Charm’ at a normal level, she wouldn’t get hit with a ‘Weak Charm,’ but rather completely ignore the Charm itself.
Which means.
The result of resisting the status effect ‘Awakening’ turned out not to be ignoring the status effect but rather a headache.
So what in the world is the original status effect ‘Awakening’?
And what state are the viewers, who could not resist it, in right now?
Goosebumps crawled up Yuna’s arms.
She quickly looked at Parang’s broadcast screen.
[ This broadcast has ended. ]
The last visible chat list.
– Wake up.
– Wake up.
– Wake up.
– Wake up.
– Wake up.
– Wake up.
This time in the community.
[ Wake up. ] [66]
[ Wake up. ] [66]
[ Wake up. ] [66]
…
All posts written by different people.
This chilling feeling was the first since her first encounter with Yu Parang.
Her whole body tingled, and her limbs felt numb.
Yet, her curiosity remained intact, so Yuna tried to enter one of the numerous posts in the community, but,
[ Connection failed. The connection is unstable. ]
It was just her luck that the internet decided to be unstable at a time like this.
Deflated, Yuna slumped down from her chair.
Wuuung-!!
Her phone rang as she sat on the floor, catching her breath.
It was Yu Parang’s call.
Clamp.
“Y-hello?”
A panicked voice came from the other side.
“Yuna! Are you okay?!”
“I-I’m okay. I resisted with a skill. Just a slight headache is left.”
“Phew….”
A sigh of relief.
“By any chance, how much time is left on that headache status?”
“There’s still 2 minutes and 30 seconds left.”
Yuna spoke calmly, but her voice was trembling.
“2 minutes and 30 seconds? Got it. Thank you.”
“Ah, no. Not at all. But what in the world is going on….”
“I’ll explain later! You’re at home right now, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
“If possible, stay inside. I’m also underwater, so it’s hard to assess the situation….”
“Okay, I understand.”
Beep-beep-
In the silent house, only the dial tone echoed.
#
Meanwhile, somewhere on Earth.
In an enormity sprawling command center, countless people dressed in suits were bustling about.
“We have forcibly terminated the broadcast!”
“All internet connections for Yu Parang’s viewers have been blocked!”
“Ahhh!! My head!! My head!!! Graaahhh!!!”
“You! You! Take that one and escort him!!”
“Clear out social media, community, messenger, all records.”
“Contact from Hunter Yu Parang! The remaining duration of the status effect is 2 minutes and 30 seconds!”
“Let them know we’ve roughly sorted the situation!”
They gathered to monitor broadcasts every time Parang went live.
This was to prepare for any potential chaos that could arise from a ‘broadcast accident.’
One might think, ‘Do we really need to go this far? Can’t we just edit the recording and upload it?’
To get straight to the point, managing a live broadcast is much better than that.
There are several reasons for this.
Fundamentally, this world has very strict censorship regarding video media.
Although it claims to be democratic, it operates as a dictatorship backed by military force.
Even though it demonstrates inhumane competence in maintaining public order, welfare, and improving living conditions, public opinion isn’t great.
It’s a situation where one side is saying, ‘As long as we can survive, it’s fine’ and the other is saying, ‘Isn’t a global dictatorship a bit much?’
Thus, to maintain their regime, they impose very tight regulations on video media other than live broadcasts.
Why don’t they impose sanctions on live broadcasts?
Simply put, it’s hard to regulate. How can they control all the streamers worldwide who are live broadcasting?
And the moment they do regulate, the public sentiment really risks declining.
After all, the live broadcasts touch on something that’s been suffocated by the regulations. That’s why live broadcasting has become the world’s number one hobby, surpassing even professional sports.
If they regulate it, it could trigger massive protests worldwide.
Then Silo and the Hunter Association could use the superb justification of ‘overthrowing the dictatorship’ to go after the global government.
In short, video media is heavily censored, whereas live broadcasts are not.
Furthermore, one of the censorship criteria for videos includes ‘videos that may provoke excessive fear or disgust and cause social chaos.’
This rule was established even before their ascension, so it wasn’t specifically targeting Parang, but depending on the interpretation, it can certainly apply to her videos.
In reality, the edited versions of Parang’s broadcasts on Tytube are considerably sanitized.
Thus, it’s only natural that the ability to prevent dives is dramatically lower compared to live broadcasts.
Secondly, from Silo’s perspective, they were somewhat hoping for an accident to happen during a live broadcast.
No one knows what Parang might feel, but once a serious accident occurs, the number of people diving would significantly decrease.
Before meeting Parang, they had originally planned to widely release footage of people dying in the deep sea.
Since the need for heavy losses to circumvent censorship arose, Silo was holding off on that plan.
Regardless, if they can stir up incidents like this to prevent people from diving, it’d benefit Silo as well.
‘Then why bother creating a command center like this to control the situation? Why not just let the incident spread big?’
If one thought that, they were mistaken.
Just because one accident occurs doesn’t mean everyone will stop diving. Thus, Silo also needed to come up with sustainable solutions. Multiple incidents need to occur.
However, if Silo does nothing in response to an accident that happens on their platform? For how long can they keep that up?
While they can brush off the first one or two with ‘We were surprised too,’ after the fourth, fifth, or sixth time, the Association and government would immediately start to bite them under the pretext of ‘causing social chaos.’
Thus, Silo’s controlling acts serve as a means of making an excuse and gaining trust.
Moreover, Silo also needed to approach issues arising from the sea somewhat conservatively.
They needed to test how much control they could exert over incidents occurring underwater.
So this time, they aimed for the goal of ‘Nothing happened!’ in their attempts at control.
Though, that was an ideal goal. It wasn’t realistic to expect no issues when a mental attack was launched against all viewers in a widely viewed internet broadcast.
The theoretical target might be set for that, but the practical goal was more like ‘Just a little ruckus occurred.’
In the end, Silo has utilized this incident to check whether they can control the deep sea.
Ultimately, the goal is to fully take over the ocean and, by doing so, investigate the deaths of the Slayers and eliminate hidden threats while sidelining the ever-maddening world government.
It’d be really troublesome if they’d run into an irretrievable issue while eating into the ocean and conducting their investigations.
This is also why they are so obsessed with Parang. Silo believes that with her and Oceanos, they can solve any incident that arises.
And since it’s an experiment, they preferred doing it multiple times, making it all the more desirable for incidents to occur during Parang’s broadcasts.
Naturally, incidents occurring underwater are something Silo had no way to induce, so they could only secretly wish for ‘Just one incident to occur.’
Surely, Parang’s viewer count would drop dramatically.
Who would want to watch a broadcast where people become affected by status effects?
However, this is a problem that Silo could resolve.
Can a giant corporation that could take on the world government really not manage a single broadcast?
There are countless ways to go about it.
Anyway, that is why Silo has established and operated this command center.
Since everyone in the command post is equipped with powerful anti-mental artifacts, they could start responding calmly to unexpected situations.
“Love you!!! Dance with me!!!! Sing a song just for me!!!”
Of course, not everyone felt that way. Some hadn’t serviced their artifacts or were naturally mentally weak.
As much as they wished they could equip everyone with a Waterproof Sanity and monitor them underwater, Silo’s supply of Parang’s blood was limited.
Nonetheless, still being Silo, they managed to take some measures despite the sudden situation.
Thus, what measures did they take to create the ‘Nothing happened!’ state?
First, they blocked the internet.
They shut down servers for major portal sites, social media, messengers, etc., all under the pretext of ‘connection issues’ or ‘server maintenance.’
For about three minutes, they rendered the internet nonexistent in the world.
Surely, there would be trouble later, but there’s no better way to firmly block the spread of the incident.
Blocking the internet was designated as Priority One in their pre-established action plan.
They not only had the capability to do this but also the obligation to follow through.
Even in a world where technology exists to operate the internet 11km underwater, people seem to have a tendency to readily accept the excuse of ‘connection issues.’
Next came internet clearing.
They deleted all records left by the victims of the Bracium. Of course, including that certain scene where the Bracium opened its eyes.
Then came the analysis of the victim’s symptoms.
“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”
As coincidence would have it, someone within the command post came down with the ‘Awakening’ status effect.
Upon further checking, it seemed they weren’t wearing a mental artifact.
The reason for this would be investigated later, but for now, they isolated and monitored them in the break room.
Observations confirmed they were mindlessly alternating their gaze between the ceiling and floor while muttering ‘Wake up.’
When handed a pen after seeing the phenomena in the chat room and community, they attempted to continuously write ‘Wake up’ on the wall.
For Silo, this was a favorable scenario. Had they immediately tried to hang themselves or gouged out someone else’s eyes, it would have been quite a headache.
And then time passed.
“3 minutes elapsed. Situation ended. Status effect解除 confirmed.”
With trembling voices, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Thus, with Silo’s swift response, the ‘Bracium Shock’ lasted about 3 minutes before it finally came to an end.
