Atogaki ー Afterword

Japanese Edition: サマーヒャクモノガタリ (Summer Hyakumonogatari)
English Edition: Summer Hyakumonogatari
The 248th Hyper-Imagination Contest: Summer 〇〇

Thank you very much for reading this work.
Although the titles are written differently, they are pronounced the same.

This round’s theme was “Summer 〇〇,” essentially asking, “What comes to mind when you think of summer?”
When we think of summer—camping, festivals, firework displays, the beach, pools—many people have surely experienced these.
For a writer as well, such topics may be easier to build stories from through personal experience.

As for me, following my own principle of “aiming for a one-and-only kind of setting,” I arrived at choosing “Hyakumonogatari.”

Now, as for the content: if I consider what Yuka aims to achieve by performing Hyakumonogatari, it would of course be “to meet the supernatural being that appears at the end.”

However, telling one hundred stories during a livestream would be far too long, and the Viewers would inevitably grow tired midway through.
I wondered whether there was any way to complete all one hundred within the stream without forcing anything—and that is how I arrived at that method..

Now then, here are brief explanations for each story.

— Abandoned Hospital
There was no particular original source I had in mind, though it may resemble the kind of supernatural experiences told about events set in hospitals late at night.
As for why Sayuri could not escape: just as ghosts can physically touch one another, there are cases where a ghost can be affected by certain spiritual forces.

— Elementary School
The motif is the Japanese school paranormal tale “Hanako-san at the Toilet.”
She is widely known in Japan, and Hanako-san is depicted with unique characteristics in many works.
The Hanako in this story is one such version—her body has grown, but she continues to cherish and wear the clothes from back then.

— Test of Courage
I decided to have Yuka undergo a test of courage, but I felt she would breeze through most supernatural happenings and simply enjoy them, so I needed to increase the difficulty.
That is how I arrived at “a Tengu’s Test of Courage.”

— Kokkuri-san
This one uses the well-known “Kokkuri-san” in Japan as its motif.
As it is a type of spirit-summoning ritual, it is said that the one answering questions is a ghost.
Naturally, certain rules exist, and breaking them can result in some kind of spiritual phenomenon striking the participants.
In this case, they were possessed by animal spirits.

That concludes the explanations.
Among the episodes I drafted and then scrapped were:
— A debate about whether it still counts as solo camping if Sayuri is present
— A story in which Yuka fails at making curry
Both were removed because, despite their length, they did not lead toward Hyakumonogatari in any meaningful way.

The timeline of this Hyakumonogatari takes place after the latest episode of the main story, Epi.13.
The stories here are based on their personal experiences—Sayuri’s comes from before she arrived at the abandoned house, and Yuka’s takes place a little further ahead than the main narrative.

Incidentally, this story’s setting is the forest surrounding the abandoned house featured in the main series Two in the Abandoned House.

Once again, thank you very much for reading.

December 5, 2025　Tochika