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**Haunted Terminal Edition.**

This isn’t a serious episode like “Blood Night” or the “Nemesis Incident” where you’re fighting against a real enemy; it’s more like a mundane, everyday kind of episode. More like a summer ghost story special.

The story wasn’t too complicated.

One day, a client, who was being threatened by an unknown someone, shows up at the office.

The threat was this: A message filled with ominous curses arrived without a sender’s information, and shortly after, it started coming true.

Caught in a mysterious situation where no one knows who, how, or why it’s being sent, Raven accepts the request and uses David’s powers to track down the message’s sender.

Surprisingly, the sender they find turns out to be someone who doesn’t exist in reality.

In the end, Raven realizes that the true cause of all this was that the terminal itself was threatening the client.

However, no matter what they did—removing the chip, turning it off, or even smashing it in half—the terminal always came back, showing a stubbornness by sending more cursed messages.

Eventually, the terminal traps the client and the fixer crew in the office and slowly begins to threaten their lives by closing in…

Raven cleverly manages to drop the terminal into a gap in the disappearing stairs.

The terminal falls endlessly towards the ground, and thus the Haunted Terminal episode comes to an end.

“It definitely gives off that vibe of a standalone horror episode typical in a long-running boys’ manga. It feels more focused on fun rather than coherence.”

Well, to put it simply, it was one of those run-of-the-mill fleeting episodes. Yet, some readers seemed to feel a small sense of discomfort from the content.

What they argued was that even if it’s a summer ghost special, the actions committed by just a single terminal were way too excessive.

Like trapping the group in an endlessly repeating office or bringing those suspicious messages to life.

No matter how you spin it with comedic offsets, this is a power that crosses the bounds of logic within the world.

Thus, readers with questions later asked the author about this part.

In response, the author casually revealed the background setup during a Q&A session.

“Oh, you see, that haunted terminal is actually a kind of object similar to a Tesseract. It might have exited early on, but… if an enemy had gotten their hands on it, it could have caused some serious trouble, right?”

From a coherence standpoint, it wasn’t that problematic.

The invader’s items have always been evaluated as overpowered items that could destroy the world, and if that terminal was one of them, it would certainly put the fixer crew in a tight spot.

Of course, considering the timeline when this revelation was made, it was a bit out of the blue, but looking back, I found this information incredibly valuable.

Since I couldn’t eliminate the inexplicable error, it was cheaper than an ordinary terminal.

Even without a chip, it connects to the internet by itself, and if damaged, it’s fine too.

And to top it off, being related to invader items means it’s likely compatible from my perspective?

So, it wasn’t surprising that I was pumped about the idea of getting that terminal.

After all, I could hardly think of a more cost-effective product out there.

Well, considering that the invaders weren’t actively searching for it and it was circulating on the black market,

I didn’t expect much from reality manipulation. I just hoped it would do its job as a terminal, and that would be enough.

[Friend! Friend!]

[….]

Returning home in my usual Fox mask form, I quickly powered up the terminal.

Immediately, the Tesseract began bouncing around excitedly.

Of course, since the Tesseract was hanging around my neck, my head naturally bowed forward.

Bam! I accidentally bumped my forehead against the closet door and quickly grabbed the Tesseract with my telekinesis.

It’s not that I was excited because it felt familiar.

Just calm down a bit. At this rate, Raven will find out.

I rubbed my slightly sore forehead through the mask and brought the terminal, Echo, close to my forehead.

You can hear me, right?

If you keep ignoring what I say, I might end up using you as Tesseract’s toy. Maybe I’ll turn you into food?

[Hii, Hiik! N-not that! Please have mercy!]

[Ah! You spoke!]

Echo trembled, shaking the screen nervously.

Looking down at Echo, I solidified my earlier speculation.

‘…So it wasn’t the Tesseract that was off; it was me. Why can I hear their voices?’

I tried not to show it, but it was truly bewildering.

The original material never described Tesseract or Echo as being able to speak.

Considering that even the invaders merely used them as parts of tools without speaking, it seemed this must somehow relate to me.

Could it be related to my inability to speak? Or am I a psychic who remembers a past life?

Questions I couldn’t easily answer deepened my confusion.

*Sigh, I don’t get it. Let’s just set this aside for now. I’ll figure it out eventually.*

I absentmindedly scratched my neck, watching the Tesseract and Echo converse.

From just listening, it felt like the Tesseract was a kid under ten, while Echo was like a cool career woman.

Yet strangely, Echo seemed completely intimidated in front of Tesseract.

[What’s your name?]

[I’m, uh, Echo!]

[Echo… got it! Remembered!]

[Uh, can I ask your name too?]

[I’m Tesseract! Nice to meet you!]

[Yes, yes! Tesseract-san! I’m looking forward to working with you too!]

It seemed a clear hierarchy had already formed between them.

I had no idea what the basis for that was, but…

Seeing that Tesseract liked me and was keeping Echo in check, I felt somewhat relieved about the terminal not doing anything weird.

Ah, maybe I should try using its features once.

I sat up straight on the closet blanket, and pressed the terminal to my forehead.

Then I asked Echo to call Raven for me.

Of course, I hadn’t exchanged numbers with Raven yet.

But Echo was good at handling things alone, so I figured it would connect us just fine.

[I-I will connect you to the terminal nearby!]

As soon as Echo finished speaking, numbers popped up on the screen, and the call was connected to somewhere.

Before long, I heard a familiar male voice coming from the speaker as it was accepted.

“Hello, Crawley Fixer Office. How can I assist you?”

“….”

The man turned out to be Raven.

It seemed he thought it was work-related since a mystery number was calling him.

*Hehe, I couldn’t help but let out a silent laugh as I collapsed into a fit of giggles right there.*

Then I quickly hung up and rolled around on the blanket like a little beetle.

I hadn’t intended it this way, but it felt like I was playing a prank call on a friend; I just couldn’t contain my joy.

Raven has no idea, right? I didn’t say anything, nor does he know the number.

As I was pondering that inside the closet, the closet door suddenly swung open.

Raven, looking a bit perturbed, peered down at me and said one thing.

“That call was from you, wasn’t it? Intern.”

“…!”

Wait, how did he know?

I quickly straightened up and feigned innocence, tilting my head in confusion.

But Raven, indifferent to my act, snatched Echo off the floor and furrowed his brows as he looked at the call history.

“Yep. I knew it, you rascal. How did you manage to prank call without even giving me your number?”

“….”

“Here, save my number. If you need anything, call me.”

The rest of the numbers I’ll leave to you.

Raven said that and handed Echo back to me without a fight.

Who would have thought I’d get caught after making a prank call in just a minute?

Next time I pull a prank call, I’ll have to tell Echo not to leave a record.

As I thought that and pressed Echo with my hand, I saw Raven tapping the terminal as if he wanted to save my number.

Seeing that, I hurriedly tried to stop him. There’s no point in saving that number, after all.

“Huh? Why?”

“…!”

“Look closely at this.”

I poked at Echo with my finger and called Raven’s number from the contact list.

Just like that, the call connected naturally, and the number appeared on the screen.

Raven froze when he saw it, eyebrows twitching in disbelief.

“What? How did the number change in between… no, who on earth are you…?”

It was something that didn’t make sense logically.

I hadn’t touched anything but made the same call, yet the number had changed in between?

Raven immediately rejected the call and dialed my number,

but the first time it showed a nonexistent number. The second time, it was just some random person answering.

What is going on here?

He clutched the back of his neck in frustration, gazing up at the ceiling.

‘There’s no way a number could exist without a verification chip.’

But from my point of view, this was only a natural result.

A number is just a combination of digits assigned by the managing side.

There’s no way Echo, who uses a reality-manipulating method to connect, would have such a number assigned to it.

In other words, it means:

I can send messages to someone, but the reverse isn’t possible.

If you look at it this way, you could consider Echo a tin can, but… if that’s the case, just change the method.

“Echo. Can you make me an email address that won’t be traced?”

[Yes, huh?]

“Please, I need it.”

[Echo! Work!]

[Yes, I will do my best!]

I discreetly turned to Raven and gently asked Echo.

Echo seemed a bit startled by the sudden request,

but maybe it was because Tesseract gave it a little nudge; it got to work right away.

Not long after, a new email address was successfully created.

I wasn’t sure what site it was from, but the name was remarkably brief.

I subtly revealed the address on the screen to Raven.

You can reach me here if you need to contact me! That’s essentially what it meant.

“Geez, you’re not even trying to hide it anymore.”

“…?”

“Nothing. Just talking to myself. So I’ll save this for now?”

“…!”

Nodding eagerly, I signaled in response.

Hehe, I can’t wait to tell Alice and David about this tomorrow!

It was still early, and yet I was already excited for the next day.