Of course, according to Duanmu Huai, this is courting death.

"Of course, I’m not asking everyone to actually tell a hundred ghost stories."

Mr. Ueno let out a hearty laugh.

"It’s simple, each person only needs to tell one ghost story. Consider it a gift for the museum’s opening, how about it?"

"Well... that’s not a problem."

If we really had to tell a hundred ghost stories, nobody could endure it, not even Duanmu Huai. But since it’s just one story per person, that’s fine.

Everyone soon sat down, including Composer Maekura, Professor Sato, Producer Kuwata, Chief Ooyama, Duanmu Huai, Banai, Chitanda, Teacher Gan Xia, and Mr. Ueno’s three students, plus Mr. Ueno himself, making twelve people in total.

They sat in a circle, Sakura Kahi brought twelve candles, placed one lit candle in front of each person, and then turned off the lights.

"Click."

The light disappeared, Chitanda shuddered instantly, looking around uneasily. No doubt, being in this mask-filled room without lights was indeed very creepy, especially under the candlelight, you could vaguely see the masks hanging on the walls, the firelight reflecting in them, making it seem as if each mask had glowing eyes staring at everyone.

"Well then, let’s start with me."

Sakura Kahi, serving as the host now, began telling the first tale. She didn’t choose the restaurant’s dining table story this time but instead recounted an urban legend about the sound of marbles upstairs. It told of a woman living in an apartment who could hear marbles rolling upstairs every night, causing her insomnia and irritation. She planned to negotiate with the upstairs neighbor, hoping they would manage their child not to play marbles every night. As she entered the upstairs neighbor’s house, the woman disappeared, and when the police investigated later, they found the upstairs was a vacant apartment. The woman was found dead on the floor, her eyes missing—could the nightly marble sound actually be the sound of her eyes rolling?

Sakura Kahi seemed particularly fond of these urban legends rooted in modern society, and she narrated them vividly, causing everyone to break into a cold sweat. After telling the first ghost story, Sakura Kahi blew out the first candle.

Well, for the Hundred Tales, it was a good start.

The second to appear was Spicy Girl Ueda, who, unlike Sakura, clearly dressed very fashionably but told tales of ancient ghost stories. This time, Ueda shared a story from the Kamakura Era about a wandering samurai who abandoned his wife for a wealthy noblewoman to climb the social ladder, only to be strangled to death by his wife’s long black hair.

Ueda’s storytelling was decent, though she liked to mix in era drama-like phrases, which made it more comical than scary, easing everyone’s tension from the first ghost story.

The third storyteller, Fat Otaku Gongben, seemed unwilling to waste time and straightforwardly recounted the Insect Village story he had previously told Duanmu Huai and the others, stammering as he spoke. No matter how many times it’s heard, the story remains rather repulsive.

Next, it was the others’ turn, but the tales started to become offbeat. After all, nobody was really clear on what qualified as a ghost story. As a result, they shared various inexplicable stories.

For instance, Chief Ooyama recounted a place with frequent car accidents, where drivers claimed to see a child running into their path at the last moment, causing them to swerve and crash. However, surveillance never captured any children; the footage showed cars suddenly losing control and crashing into the guardrails.

Chief Ooyama mentioned that the issue seemed unresolved, but he heard it from a friend in the traffic department.

Composer Maekura seemed uncomfortable with these stories, defaulting to a childhood urban legend about the Snow Woman, a tale familiar to many, of the Snow Woman falling in love with a human, disguising herself as a human, marrying, and having children. When the man carelessly broke his promise and told her about encountering the Snow Woman, the disguised Snow Woman believed he broke the promise, froze him into ice, and returned to the mountains.

Everyone discussed this, noting variations of the Snow Woman story’s ending. Some versions had her freeze the man into an ice sculpture and take him to the mountains, while others had the Snow Woman love him too much to harm him, taking her children back to the snowy mountains instead. Overall, though Maekura’s ghost story wasn’t well-told, it did get the atmosphere lively.

In contrast, Literature Professor Sato’s ghost story was quite interesting. He claimed there were atmospheric creatures lurking in the clouds, enormous in size. When hungry, they’d extend tentacles resembling cloud formations to grab animals and people as food. Even some airplanes disappearing was attributed to attacks by these atmospheric creatures.

Though considered pseudoscience, Professor Sato’s detailed storytelling intrigued everyone, almost making them believe in such creatures’ existence, which was quite fascinating.