【Japanese Horror】The Digital Priestess — Episode 25: To Be Optimized | Haunted Kaidan Tales
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Episode 25 – “To Be Optimized” (Full Text)
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The Digital Priestess — Episode 25: To Be Optimized
“…I’m going to disappear…?”
Kenichi muttered in a trembling voice.
The screen no longer showed the shrine maiden—
only a single line of text:
“To restore everything, your existence must be optimized.”
Optimized.
That word echoed like a command through his mind.
(Optimized…? Does that mean… erased?)
There was no answer.
But deep down, he already knew.
This app had “adjusted” people and memories.
Tanaka. His mother.
And someone else he could no longer remember.
So this “optimization” surely meant—
(I’ll be the next to vanish…)
A cold bead of sweat slid down his temple.
Terror gripped him.
Would he die?
Or something worse—become someone who never existed?
A world where no one, not even his family or friends, remembered him.
A world where he’d never been born.
(What does it mean by ‘everything will be restored’?)
The screen flickered.
Then a notification appeared:
“With your disappearance, everything will return to its original state.”
“Stop it…! Don’t decide that for me!!”
Kenichi shouted.
But the screen remained cold and silent.
Then—
“Presenting your options.”
Two buttons floated up from the darkness of the screen.
Restore everything
Postpone your decision
Kenichi’s heart jumped.
(You want me to choose… this?)
If he chose, it would be over.
He’d disappear from the world.
But if he didn’t, his mother would never come back.
Nor would the others.
(This is insane…!)
His hands trembled.
He could barely grip the phone.
A storm of thoughts tore through his mind.
(If I vanish… will everything be fixed? If I become the sacrifice…)
His shaking fingertip hovered over the screen—
And then—
slip.
The phone slipped from his fingers.
“—Ah!”
With a loud clack, it hit the floor.
The screen went dark.
Panicking, Kenichi picked it up—
but it was already locked.
No notification.
No choices.
Just silence.
He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.
(I didn’t choose…)
Maybe that was his last chance.
But now, even that was unclear.
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New episode drops on Saturday, July 12.
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About & Follow
The Digital Priestess is an original Japanese horror story about a mysterious app that starts off as a weather forecast — but soon, things go very wrong.
What would you choose?
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