The instant the telephone rang, even Koharu Hosokawa almost thought she was hearing things.
An eerie ringing seemed to echo right beside her ears.
She immediately reached for the next page, desperate to see what happened next.
What would happen to Tomoko and her friend?
Were they going to die?
Where would the story go from here?
Questions like these filled Koharu’s mind, but then—
“That’s it?”
Koharu stared blankly at the manuscript.
The telephone had rung, and Tomoko had gotten up to answer it.
That was the final page of the Ring manuscript.
It had stopped at exactly the worst possible moment!
A cliffhanger!
Koharu had never expected that.
For a moment, she even had the urge to call Tsukasa Higashino immediately and demand, “What is wrong with you?!”
She had become completely immersed in Ring.
That desperate urge to see the continuation reminded her of when she was a child, carefully saving her allowance just to buy the next issue of a manga magazine.
This was good.
No…this was genuinely excellent.
Koharu gave Ring a high score in her mind without the slightest hesitation.
The artist’s drawing ability was superb, vivid enough to make every character feel alive, but his control over pacing and suspense was every bit as impressive as his artwork.
Of course, what impressed Koharu most was still the manga’s astonishing sense of immersion.
It felt as though everything happening inside the panels was happening to her personally.
“What kind of unknown newcomer is this?
Higashino…?”
The submission listed only the surname Higashino, without a given name.
Beneath it was a telephone number, presumably the author’s contact information.
Koharu casually flipped Ring back to its first page.
There was practically no chance a manuscript like this would fail the serialization meeting, but she still intended to review it carefully one more time and think everything through.
She returned to the first page and looked at the cover again.
It was still the same battered television sitting in the corner of a dark, cold, damp Japanese-style room.
Static flickered across the screen.
Flicker.
Jump.
Then the image shifted—
For some inexplicable reason, Koharu suddenly thought she saw something inside the television.
A damp old well, covered in creeping vines.
Hm?
Koharu rubbed her eyes, opened her mouth slightly, and looked again.
That definitely wasn’t there before…
A moment later, static flashed across the television again.
Then the image froze.
At the edge of the ancient well lay a slender, bluish-white arm.
Slowly—very slowly—the arm twisted its way out from inside the well.
It felt like an instant.
And at the same time, it felt unbearably long.
Then came the sound of a hand settling onto someone’s shoulder.
A chill swept through Koharu’s entire body.
She instinctively glanced at her own shoulder.
Nothing was there.
She turned back toward the manuscript.
The image on the page began changing again.
First, the hand emerged from the well.
Then a foot hooked over the rim.
Staggering…
Something was climbing out of the well!
Koharu’s eyes widened as she tried to see exactly what it was.
But in the next instant, television static burst across the image, blurring everything.
Her vision trembled.
And finally, she saw what had crawled out of the well.
It was a woman in a deathly white dress.
Her hair was long enough to cover her eyes completely.
Her arms were unnaturally thin.
Her bare feet stepped over rotten leaves, crushing them underfoot—and the wet crunch seemed to come from directly behind Koharu.
What the hell?!
Breathing rapidly, Koharu clutched the manuscript and whipped around.
There was nothing behind her.
It was still the same editorial office.
She slowly turned back, a growing sense of unease creeping through her.
How was reading a manga making her hear and see things that weren’t there?
Was she simply exhausted?
But while Koharu was still trying to make sense of it, the manuscript changed again!
The woman inside the page began swaying closer.
Closer.
Yes—she was getting closer.
But closer to what?
Watching the woman inside the television approach faster and faster, her limbs twisting unnaturally with every movement, a question suddenly surfaced in Koharu’s mind.
Where exactly was this woman trying to go?
And then—
The woman in the image reached out.
A deathly pale hand, its fingernails torn away, landed on Koharu’s shoulder with a soft slap.
Koharu stared at the long, twisted hand resting on her shoulder.
She blinked in disbelief, the corner of her mouth twitching as though her mind refused to accept what her eyes were seeing.
Slowly, she raised her head and looked at the woman.
She was still there.
Koharu could even feel the vicious, hate-filled gaze hidden beneath that curtain of black hair…a stare so poisonous it made her scalp go numb.
Gulp—
The sound of her swallowing was painfully loud.
Koharu jerked her head backward.
Her office chair rolled away as she slammed the manuscript onto the desk!
BANG!!!
Everything around her twisted back into its original shape.
The office was still the office.
The world was still exactly as it had been.
Koharu gasped for breath, her face almost bluish from how badly the terror had constricted her breathing.
With trembling eyes, she cautiously looked back at the first-page cover.
Everything had returned to normal.
The three-dimensional nightmare had flattened back into an ordinary drawing.
But the cover itself had completely changed.
A black background.
A television filled with static in the corner of a cold, gloomy Japanese-style room.
And a woman in a deathly white dress crawling out through the television screen.
Beside her was the title of the manga—Ring.
Koharu didn’t know whether it was merely her imagination, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the woman crawling out of the television on the cover was staring directly at her.
No matter how Koharu shifted to the side or tried to move out of her line of sight, the woman in the manga seemed to keep watching her.
Absolutely terrifying.
“Hosokawa, what’s wrong?
Is this Ring manga really that terrible?”
The male editor beside her couldn’t resist leaning over for a look.
His name was Tomohito Oshima.
He was known for being exceptionally brave, and he took his work seriously.
Earlier, after joking with Koharu about the Ring author and his ridiculous boasting, Oshima had lowered his head and returned to work.
Then he heard Koharu slam the manuscript onto her desk.
Judging from her reaction, this Ring manga must have been unbelievably awful.
Her face had even turned blue with anger.
Still—
“Even if it’s terrible, don’t slam the manuscript around. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
Every original manuscript represents a manga artist’s hard work.
No matter how bad it is, there’s no reason to treat it like that.”
Putting on the air of an experienced senior, Tomohito Oshima reached over and took the Ring manuscript from her.
Now he was curious too.
Koharu might have joined Urashima Publishing only last month, but she had still passed the company’s selection process.
Her judgment couldn’t be that bad.
Just how terrible did a manga have to be to make an Urashima editor this furious?
Surely it couldn’t be that bad.
His interest piqued, Oshima decided to read the manuscript himself while giving his inexperienced junior a little lesson about professional conduct.
She needed to learn not to lose her temper so easily.
What kind of editor slammed a manuscript down the moment something annoyed her?
“That’s not it, Oshima-senpai.
There’s something wrong with this manga.”
Seeing that Oshima genuinely intended to read the disturbingly strange manuscript, Koharu hurriedly reached out to take it back.
Oshima simply shifted aside and dodged her hand.
He looked amused.
“Of course I know there’s something wrong with it.”
Wasn’t that obvious?
If there were nothing wrong with the manuscript, why would Koharu have gotten so angry that she slammed it onto the desk?
“I’m just curious about how bad it could possibly be.
Your face has practically turned blue, Hosokawa.
What happened?
Did someone draw a comedy manga and accidentally submit it to a horror publisher?”
As he spoke, Oshima flipped to the first page.
His gaze casually swept across the cover.
Then it stopped.
His eyes seemed unable to move away.
“…”
Koharu said nothing.
She simply stood there and watched him.
A few seconds passed.
Koharu sharply noticed cold sweat beginning to bead across Oshima’s face.
A few seconds later, his arms and legs started trembling, and his breathing became noticeably faster.
Another two or three seconds passed.
Oshima suddenly lifted his head with naked fear in his eyes and looked around the office in confusion, as though he needed to confirm where he was.
Then he lowered his head again.
And kept reading.
Tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble…
It was like the beginning of an earthquake.
At first, he only shook once or twice.
Then his entire body began trembling uncontrollably.
Finally, Oshima’s face turned ashen.
Wearing the expression of someone who had just witnessed something horrifying, he slammed the Ring manuscript onto the desk!
BANG!
He hit the desk so hard that even Koharu flinched.
Afterward, Oshima’s lips had gone pale with fear, and he looked almost ready to cry.
He turned toward Koharu and forced out a stiff expression.
“There’s…
nothing particularly scary about it.
Hosokawa, you’re making far too much of a fuss.”
The moment he finished speaking, he spun around with almost frightening speed and shouted toward the male editor sitting near the large television, who occasionally looked up from his work to watch the news.
“Could you please turn off the television?!”
His voice came out strained and shrill, like a goose being strangled.
Even the editor-in-chief, who had been calmly drinking tea, jolted in his chair as though someone had stabbed him in the backside with a needle.
What in the world was happening now?
Every editor in the room looked up curiously.
Their eyesight was perfectly fine.
So they immediately spotted the manuscript Oshima had thrown onto the desk.
Ring.