The Haunted Terminal episode.

    Unlike the Blood Night Incident or the Nemesis Case, which were serious arcs involving direct confrontations with enemies, this was more of a slice-of-life episode. A spooky summer special, if you will.

    The plot wasn’t particularly complex:

    One day, a client, terrorized by an unknown entity, visits the office.

    The threats came in the form of cursed messages without a sender.

    After receiving these ominous messages, the contents would mysteriously come true shortly afterward.

    In this puzzling situation—where neither the sender nor their motives were clear—Raven accepted the case. Using David’s abilities, he traced the source of the messages.

    Shockingly, the sender turned out to be someone who didn’t exist in reality.

    Eventually, Raven realized the true culprit was the terminal itself, threatening its owner.

    Even after removing its chip, shutting it down, or smashing it to pieces, the terminal persistently restored itself and resumed sending cursed messages.

    It escalated further when the terminal trapped the client and the office team in a spatial loop, shrinking the space around them to threaten their lives.

    In the end, Raven used his wits to toss the terminal into a crack in a vanishing staircase.

    Falling into the void between dimensions, the terminal disappeared, concluding the episode.

    It had the hallmark of a long-running shonen manga’s one-off horror episode—light on logic, heavy on entertainment.

    While most readers took it as a standalone spooky tale, a few felt something was off.

    Their argument was that, even for a haunted device, the terminal’s feats were ridiculously overpowered.

    Trapping people in a looping space or turning cursed text into reality was far beyond the world’s established limits, even with comedic license.

    When readers later questioned the author in a Q&A, they explained:

    Oh, that haunted terminal was actually a kind of object, similar to the Tesseract. It may have exited early in the series, but if an enemy had obtained it, it could’ve caused significant trouble.

    It made sense in hindsight.

    The invaders’ items were known to be world-ending, over-spec technology, and if the terminal was one of them, it was reasonable for the protagonists to struggle.

    Even though the backstory was revealed long after the episode aired, it was invaluable information for me.

    Here I was, holding a terminal with inexplicable errors, available at a bargain price because it was considered faulty.

    A terminal that connected to the internet without a chip, repaired itself if broken, and—being an invader-related item—was compatible with my abilities.

    No wonder I was so giddy about buying it.

    It’s rare to find such a cost-effective piece of equipment, even in the black market.

    As long as it served as a functional terminal, I didn’t expect it to manipulate reality or anything fancy.

    ***

    [ “Friend! Friend!” ]

    Back home, back in my fox mask and tucked into my closet, I powered on the terminal.

    The Tesseract immediately wiggled with excitement, hanging from my neck as always. Its movement pulled my head forward, causing me to bonk my forehead against the closet door. rA??O???Ε§

    “Ow!”

    I grabbed the Tesseract telekinetically, holding it still.

    I get it. It’s exciting, but calm down. You’ll blow my cover with Raven if you keep this up.

    Rubbing my forehead through my mask, I picked up the terminal—now visibly apprehensive—and pressed it to my forehead.

    You’re listening, aren’t you?

    If you ignore me again, I’ll let the Tesseract play with you. Or worse, I’ll feed you to it.

    [ “Eek! N-no, please! Mercy!” ]

    Raven ignored my act, snatched Echo off the floor, and checked the call history.

    “Thought so. How did you even prank call me without knowing my number?”

    “....”

    “Here, just save my number. Call if you need anything.”

    He handed Echo back to me after adding his number.

    So much for my prank. Busted in under a minute.

    I made a mental note to ask Echo to leave no trace if I ever pulled another prank call.

    As Raven saved my number into the device, I hurriedly stopped him.

    “Eh? What’s the problem?”

    “...!”

    Watch this.

    I poked Echo and made it call Raven again.

    As before, the call connected, but the number displayed on his phone was completely different.

    Raven’s eyebrows twitched as he stared at the screen, unable to believe it.

    “How did... the number change? What even is this thing?”

    He tried calling me back, but the first attempt said the number didn’t exist, and the second connected to someone completely unrelated.

    “This is insane.”

    He rubbed his neck, staring at the ceiling like he had a headache.

    From my perspective, the explanation was simple.

    Echo’s abilities were closer to reality manipulation than conventional functionality. Numbers assigned by networks didn’t matter to it.

    I could call others, but they couldn’t call me back—a one-way connection.

    Inconvenient? Sure. But manageable.

    Echo, can you make me an untraceable email address?

    [ “W-what? Now?” ]

    Yes, please. Do it.

    [ “Echo! Work!” ]

    [ “Y-yes! Right away!” ]

    With the Tesseract cracking the whip, Echo quickly got to work, generating an email address in no time.

    I didn’t know what service it used, but the address was impressively simple.

    Turning the screen toward Raven, I showed him the email.

    Contact me here if you need to.

    “...You’re not even trying to hide anymore, huh?”

    “...?”

    “Never mind. I’ll save it.”

    I nodded energetically as Raven saved the address, his confusion evident.

    Tomorrow, I’m telling Alice and David about this!

    Even though today wasn’t over, I was already excited for what tomorrow would bring.