Chapter 41: Brachium Shock (2)

Deep Sea Fish Hunting Specialty Broadcast – 41

EP.41 Brachium Shock (2)

Thud- Thud-

Yuna watched Parang’s broadcast screen with bated breath.

She recalled what Parang had told her last night.

‘I plan to keep this broadcast a bit more tranquil.’

What part of this was tranquil?

Did Parang truly not know the difference between suffocating silence and tranquility?

In truth, it didn’t matter to her what kind of atmosphere Parang’s broadcasts had.

She had already become a die-hard fan.

And from the perspective of a die-hard fan, she could definitely say that this broadcast was distinctly different from the previous ones.

A bizarre monster whose nature was unimaginable, a cold and heavy atmosphere that weighed down.

Yuna watched the broadcast intently, unaware of the sweat forming in her clenched fist.

“■■ ■”

It was then that a voice was heard from the screen.

The screen suddenly turned.

In front of her was the eye of that monster called Brachium.

A giant, serene deep blue eye.

The sea. The universe. Infinity. The world.

The moment it appeared on the screen, a window popped up in front of Yuna’s eyes.

[Skill, ‘Waterproof Sanity’ is activated.]

[Strongly resisting mental attack.]

[Status effect ‘Open Eyes’ has been mitigated to ‘Headache’.]

‘What?!’

Yuna jumped up in surprise.

Open Eyes? She had never encountered such a status effect in her life.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through Yuna’s head.

It felt as though something immense had entered her mind, but an invisible wave had swept it away, leaving only a mild headache.

‘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 (Mitigated) 02:54]

“Huff, huff….”

Yuna panted heavily.

She quickly started to think.

She had strongly resisted the unknown status effect called Open Eyes.

As a result, she ended up with the lowest-grade mental status effect, a headache.

‘Unbelievable.’

Given the resistance mechanism of mental barrier-type skills, if the skill can fully block the resisted status effect, the user won’t be affected by the status effect at all.

In other words, if one resists ‘Charm’ at an average level, they won’t end up with ‘Mild Charm’ but will simply ignore the charm altogether.

That means…

The result of ‘strongly resisting’ the status effect called ‘Open Eyes’ was not ignoring the status effect but having a headache.

So, what on earth is the original status effect ‘Open Eyes’?

And what about the viewers who couldn’t resist it?

Goosebumps rose on Yuna’s arms.

She quickly checked Parang’s broadcast screen.

[This broadcast has ended.]

The last messages in the chat.

─Open your eyes.

─Open your eyes.

─Open your eyes.

─Open your eyes.

─Open your eyes.

─Open your eyes.

Next, she checked the community.

[Open your eyes.] [66]

[Open your eyes.] [66]

[Open your eyes.] [66]

…

All written by different people.

This eerie feeling was the first since her initial encounter with Yu Parang.

Her whole body felt chilled, and her limbs tingled.

Despite this, her curiosity remained, so Yuna tried to click on one of the numerous posts in the community,

[Connection failed. The connection is unstable.]

Of all times, the internet had to be unstable now, causing her to fail.

Yuna, feeling weak, slid down from her chair.

Bzzz-!!

Her phone rang as she sat on the floor, panting.

It was a call from Yu Parang.

Click.

“H-hello.”

A frantic voice came from the other side.

“Yuna! Are you okay?!”

“I-I’m fine. I resisted with a skill. I just have a slight headache.”

“Phew….”

A sigh of relief.

“Do you know how much time is left on that headache status effect?”

“Just 2 minutes and 30 seconds left now.”

Yuna’s voice was calm, but she was trembling.

“2 minutes and 30 seconds. Got it. Thank you.”

“N-no problem. But what on earth is this…?”

“I’ll explain later! Are you at home right now?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Stay inside if possible. I’m underwater right now, so it’s hard to assess the situation….”

“…Understood.”

Beep- beep-

In the silence of her home, only the signal tone echoed.

#

Meanwhile, somewhere on Earth.

In an enormous situation room, numerous people in suits were bustling about.

“Broadcast forcibly terminated!”

“Blocked internet access for all viewers of Yu Parang’s broadcast!”

“Aagh!! My head!! My head!!! Aaaaargh!!!!”

“You and you! Drag that guy out and detain him!!”

“Erase all records from social media, communities, and messengers.”

“Contact from Hunter Yu Parang! The remaining duration of the status effect is 2 minutes and 30 seconds!”

“Report that the situation is roughly under control!”

These are the personnel who gather here to monitor the broadcast whenever Parang goes live.

It’s to handle situations exactly like this.

The purpose is to prepare for the chaos that might ensue if a ‘broadcast accident’ occurs during Parang’s live stream.

One might wonder, ‘Do we really need to go this far? Can’t we just edit and upload a recorded video?’

To put it simply, managing live broadcasts is better than that approach.

There are several reasons for this.

Primarily, the world here exercises severe censorship over video media.

Although it claims to be a democracy, it essentially operates under a dictatorship bolstered by force.

Despite showing incredibly competent governance in areas like public safety, welfare, and quality of life improvements, public opinion isn’t entirely favorable.

There’s a divide between those who think ‘as long as life is good, it’s fine’ and those who argue ‘even so, a global dictatorship is too much’.

To maintain power, the regime imposes strict regulations on all video media except live broadcasts.

Why don’t they impose sanctions on live broadcasts?

Firstly, it’s hard to regulate. Imagine controlling every individual streaming live broadcasts worldwide.

Moreover, imposing regulations could seriously plummet public morale.

Live broadcasts already scratch an itch that the regulated media cannot satisfy, which is why it has become the world’s number one hobby, even surpassing professional sports.

If that were regulated, global protests could indeed erupt.

Then, organizations like Silo and the Hunter Association could leverage the ‘overthrow dictatorship’ narrative to attack the world government.

In essence, while recorded media is heavily censored, live broadcasts are not.

Among the censorship criteria for videos is ‘content that can cause excessive fear or disgust, leading to social unrest.’

This regulation has been in place since before the Ascension, so it wasn’t specifically targeted at Parang, but it can be applied to her videos depending on interpretation.

In fact, the edited versions of Parang’s broadcasts uploaded to T-Tube are significantly toned down.

Therefore, it’s only natural that the deterrent effect is drastically lower compared to live broadcasts.

Secondly, from Silo’s perspective, they somewhat hoped for an accident to occur during a live broadcast.

While it might not be Parang’s intention, a major accident would significantly reduce the number of people diving underwater.

Initially, before meeting Parang, Silo had planned to secure and widely distribute videos of people dying in the deep sea.

Parang’s appearance put that plan on indefinite hold, as circumventing censorship would require significant sacrifices.

Nevertheless, if an incident discourages people from diving, it benefits Silo.

‘Then why create a situation room to control the situation? Why not let the incident spread widely?’

If you thought that, you’d be mistaken.

A single incident won’t stop people worldwide from diving. Thus, Silo needs a sustainable approach. Multiple incidents need to occur.

However, if Silo takes no action on accidents happening on their platform repeatedly, what then?

Once or twice, they can say, ‘We were also surprised.’ But by the fourth, fifth, or sixth time, the association and government will start attacking them under the pretext of ‘inciting social unrest.’

So, Silo’s control actions serve as a way to create justification and build trust.

Additionally, Silo needed to approach issues arising from the sea somewhat conservatively.

They had to test how much control they could exert over incidents occurring in the sea.

This time, they aimed for the ideal goal of ‘nothing happened!’ in their control attempt.

Of course, that’s an ideal goal. With a mental attack targeting all viewers of an internet broadcast watched by an unspecified large number of people, it’s unlikely to be fully achievable.

The theoretical goal is just that, the practical goal is more like ‘there was a brief commotion.’

In any case, the point is that Silo used this incident to verify whether they could control the deep sea.

Ultimately, their goal is to take full control of the sea, ousting the irrational world government, investigating the death of the Slayers, and eliminating any hidden threats.

It would be a real problem if an irreversible issue arose while they were investigating the sea.

That’s why they were so fixated on Parang. Silo believed that with her and Oceanos, they could handle any incident that might occur.

And since it’s an experiment, the more occurrences, the better, so they hoped for more incidents during Parang’s broadcasts.

Of course, Silo had no way to induce incidents under the sea, so they could only hope for one to happen.

Naturally, Parang’s viewer count would take a massive hit.

Who would want to watch a broadcast where they could get a status effect?

But this is also a problem that Silo could solve.

A corporation capable of going toe-to-toe with the world government surely can manage a broadcast.

There are countless ways to do it.

Anyway, for these reasons, Silo created and operates this situation room.

Everyone in the situation room carried powerful anti-psychotic artifacts, allowing them to respond calmly even in sudden situations.

“I love you!!! Dance with me!!! Sing a song for me!!!”

Of course, there were a few exceptions. Those who hadn’t repaired their artifacts or had weak mental fortitude.

Ideally, they would give everyone a Waterproof Sanity and have them monitor underwater, but Silo’s supply of Parang’s blood was limited.

Nevertheless, Silo was still Silo, and despite the sudden situation, they managed to respond in their own way.

So, what measures did they take to create the ‘nothing happened!’ state?

First, internet shutdown.

They shut down all major portal sites, SNS, messengers, and other servers under the pretext of ‘connection issues’ or ‘server maintenance.’

For about three minutes, they made it so that the internet didn’t exist in the world.

There would undoubtedly be troublesome issues later, but there was no more certain way to prevent the spread of the incident.

The pre-prepared action protocol listed ‘internet shutdown’ as the top priority.

They had the capability and the obligation to do so.

Even in a world where technology allowed the internet to function 11 km underwater, people were surprisingly accepting of the ‘connection issue’ excuse.

Next was internet clearing.

They deleted all records left by those affected by the Brachium. Of course, including the problematic scene where Brachium opened its eyes.

Next was analyzing the symptoms of the victims.

“Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

By a twist of fate, one person inside the situation room was afflicted with the ‘Open Eyes’ status effect.

Upon hurriedly checking, it turned out they weren’t wearing an anti-psychotic artifact.

The reason would be questioned later, but for now, they were temporarily isolated in the locker room for observation.

The observation revealed that the person alternated between staring at the ceiling and the floor, muttering ‘Open your eyes.’

Seeing the phenomenon in the chat and community, they handed the person a pen, and they tried to continuously write ‘Open your eyes’ on the wall.

For Silo, this wasn’t a bad situation. If the person had immediately tried to hang themselves or gouge out someone else’s eyes, it would have been a significant problem.

And then, time passed.

“Three minutes have passed. Situation resolved. Status effect lifted.”

With trembling voices, everyone sighed in relief.

Thus, thanks to Silo’s swift response, the approximately three-minute ‘Brachium Shock’ came to an end.