Don't Wave Back

For thirty-one years, a yellow lantern has swung in the window of the cliffside mansion above Amagiri Bay. The town has one rule: don't wave back.

Then dare-streamer Kai Minase goes live from the sea window room and vanishes in front of 48,212 viewers, to the sound of a woman's scream.

Tsubaki "Tsuki" Morioka is an unlicensed Level 1 Appraiser with the most mocked skill at Amagiri High. Her F-Rank status boxes show only what everyone believes, and they rewrite themselves only when she catches a contradiction.

Facing eviction from their third-floor broom closet, the Occult Research Club has until Friday to deliver one "verifiable result." Itsuki is an Arcanist with a tablet "grimoire" and more catchphrases than mana, Yuzu is a Trickster with a multi-tool and a pink d20, Daigo is a terrified six-foot-three Guardian whose shield is a stolen manhole cover, and Ren is a Shrine Keeper with three healing charges a day and her own reason for climbing the cliff.

Past the police barricade and a noodle vendor who warns them never to look up, they find rigged catwalks, live wire-creatures, and a secret someone in Amagiri has spent three decades keeping quiet. Upstairs in the fog, the Lantern Bride is still waiting at the glass.

To get her friends off the headland alive, Tsuki will have to prove the whole town wrong, one glitching blue box at a time.