Kitakami's Curse: There Really Is an Ogre!

Hearing Mingyou apologize, Iono finally remembered she was still streaming and hurriedly checked her channel.

"Oh no, oh no... My viewers must've all left! How did I let myself get scared into fainting?"

She was frantic, but when she saw her stream's numbers, she froze. "Seventh-highest peak viewership? How? I was literally unconscious..."

"Looks like it scared quite a few people, and word spread. It really is the kind of thing that gets creepier the more you think about it. It doesn't rely on jump scares, and the more you experience, the deeper the Weirdcore gets under your skin..."

Her assistant spoke from the side. They had watched the stream outside, of course. Then she looked at Mingyou. "It's a really fresh take on a Haunted House. I'm impressed you thought of it, let alone put it all together."

"Haha..."

Mingyou laughed awkwardly. He had never gone in to experience it himself; he only knew what was inside.

Dusknoir had lived for centuries and knew plenty about scaring people. Simply jumping out to startle someone was the crudest trick there was.

The truly sophisticated approach was that creeping, familiar kind of horror: make things people knew feel both recognizable and strange, until thinking about them sent chills down their spines.

They hadn't actually recreated Iono's childhood home. In that setting, though, she would inevitably find something familiar, and little by little, everything around her would start to feel familiar too.

That was how the Haunted House broke down a person's defenses step by step, crushed their spirit, and prepared a meal... Their energy tasted best at that point.

Of course, Mingyou didn't allow the Haunted House staff to hurt anyone. They only scared people; they didn't eat them.

Iono nodded happily. "Hehe, my views are back at last, thanks to