Chapter 5

Chapter 5. The Book That Records Mysteries (3)

I opened the gallery.

The Mystery currently hiding inside my house was called Confirmation Bias.

Even its name sounded anything but ordinary.

Confirmation bias was a term referring to the tendency of people to see only what they wanted to see.

And yet, a Mystery itself had been given the name Confirmation Bias.

I couldn't even begin to guess what kind of ability it had.

Thinking about it alone probably wouldn't lead me to any convincing answer, either.

This was exactly when collective intelligence came in handy.

The Regression-Possession-Reincarnation Community, filled with suspiciously capable people, was perfect for the current situation.

And since the whole community was already burning with discussion about my world, there couldn't have been a better place.

I immediately made a post.

[Scq632 - About Confirmation Bias]

[Author: ㅇㅇ]

I roughly chose a title and posted everything I knew about Confirmation Bias.

Maybe a lot of people had been waiting for my post, because it reached the popular posts almost instantly.

It hadn't even been a minute, but there were already well over a hundred comments.

└Confirmation Bias? Judging from the name, isn't it a phenomenon-type Scq?

└Wait, number 632? Wasn't Scq632 something else?

└That's knowledge from your world's setting lol. Obviously the Gallery Owner's world would be different.

└What Gallery Owner? How is this guy the Gallery Owner?

└Five pages of the gallery are nothing but posts about him. At this point, he's basically the Gallery Owner lol.

└A human-shaped shadow... Judging from the name, it sounds phenomenon-type, but if he actually saw a shadow, that's a little ambiguous.

└Couldn't the shadow itself be part of the phenomenon?

└Oh, this actually sounds right. Maybe because the Gallery Owner thought the intruder was human, Confirmation Bias made him see a human-shaped shadow?

└That seriously makes sense. You're a genius. Bet you're a possessor.

└I'm not some damn shut-in loser;;

└How did the image of possessors get this bad? Sonna bakana... There are plenty of normal possessors too!

└You're probably not one of them, though.

└Fuck... I was just standing here and still got hit;;

Wow.

Was this the power of collective intelligence?

I was honestly impressed.

The reason I had seen a human-shaped shadow was because I had assumed the intruder was human due to confirmation bias.

It was a theory with a decent possibility of being true.

If so, did Mystery No. 632 have an ability that changed its appearance depending on human psychology?

If that was really the case, then the name Confirmation Bias made perfect sense.

Feeling impressed, I moved on from the comments and started checking the posts themselves.

Most of the newly uploaded posts were filled with discussions about Confirmation Bias.

I began reading the theory posts with the highest number of recommendations one by one.

[I've figured out what Confirmation Bias is.]

[Author: IAmAUnicorn]

[It has already been five years since yours truly possessed Sherlock Holmes.

At last, I realized the day had come to show off my deductive skills in the gallery as well.

In my opinion, Confirmation Bias is...]

(A very horrifying picture)

[The Gallery Owner probably knows better, since he happily clicked this post because of his confirmation bias that it would be helpful. Hehe.

Gallery Owner.

Do you understand how terrifying both the gallery and confirmation bias are now?

Don't click random posts from now on.

I just gave you preventive treatment in advance.]

└That's not what confirmation bias means;;

└He said he possessed Sherlock. He never said he became as smart as Sherlock lololol.

└Doesn't change the fact that the owner of the brain is still an unemployed shut-in living in his room lololol.

└Ah, fuck, I was eating. This is disgusting;;; I'm gonna go kill myself;

└Are you a regressor?

└I'm a possessor?

└??? Then if you kill yourself, won't you just die?

└My species is a ghost, so I can possess anything. It's fine. I was getting tired of this body anyway.

└If there's a psychopath in the gallery, betting on a possessor is right ninety-nine times out of a hundred;;

└What did the body's original owner ever do to deserve this, you bastard?

└The guy who turned me into a ghost is the body's owner.

└Ah, then fair enough... hehe; lol; sorry...

└I refuse to suffer alone lololol. I'm pressing recommend 300 times lololol.

└You're a possessor, aren't you?

└Possessor = psychopath, regressor = depression. That's just the law, yep.

└Recommend if you're sick of bastards forcing stereotypes on people lololol.

└Downvotes incoming like crazy lololol.

I silently savored the bitterness of betrayal and pressed Block Author.

The moment I did, several highly recommended posts disappeared from the board.

[Recommendations 892 / Downvotes 413]

No wonder the number of downvotes had looked suspicious.

I tried desperately to erase the horrifying image I had just seen from my mind.

The book, which had been looking at the board together with me, was also trembling in midair.

I stroked it to calm it down, and it began snuggling into me.

I played with it a little.

It really felt like I'd gotten a pet.

A cute pet like a dog or cat that couldn't speak.

After petting the book a few times, I was about to return to the gallery when the book suddenly bit down on my hand and held on.

“What's wrong?”

Had it still not recovered from the mental damage caused by that picture?

When I gave it a questioning look, the book sent me a message telling me to follow it.

I was puzzled, but I stood up from the sofa and followed the book.

It led me into the bedroom.

This was where I had first met the book.

It was also where I had first encountered the Mystery known as Confirmation Bias.

I looked around.

There didn't seem to be anything particularly unusual.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Flutter.

The book flapped around me, circling through the air.

I had no idea why it had been acting like this for a while now.

The intention I felt from it was strangely vague compared to before.

It was difficult to understand exactly what the book was trying to say.

Even when I focused and tried to read its intentions, all I received were blurry thoughts, as if someone had poured water over a painting.

There was only one thing I could understand.

The book was trying to tell me something.

I followed the flying book with my eyes.

After circling me several times, it finally stopped directly above my shadow.

Seeing that, I felt as if I finally understood.

I focused with everything I had, putting together the situation and every clue I'd been given.

“...Ah.”

I looked down at my shadow.

A strangely shaped shadow stretched beneath my feet.

Two legs.

Three arms.

And two heads joined together.

It looked as though two separate shadows had been overlapped.

The moment I saw it, I felt like I knew the answer.

Until just a moment ago, the telepathy between the book and me had been clear.

So when had it started becoming faint?

The answer was simple.

Right after I'd entered the bedroom.

Then why had the telepathy weakened?

That answer was simple too.

Confirmation Bias, which was still hiding inside the bedroom—and was now hiding while overlapping with my shadow—must have activated something.

“Then what exactly did it do, and how?”

Confirmation Bias.

It referred to the tendency to believe only what you wanted to believe and reject things you didn't want to accept.

Thinking carefully about it, I realized that over the past two days, I had fallen into confirmation bias far too often.

An unnaturally large number of times, in fact.

Several moments came to mind.

Before I learned what Confirmation Bias really was, when I had simply thought an attacker had broken into my house, I had believed that the attacker was human.

I think I'd been almost certain of it.

Even though the strange sounds from that time should have made it far more likely that the intruder was a Mystery.

Also, deep down, I had been strangely certain that Confirmation Bias hadn't run away and was still hiding inside my bedroom.

Even though I had absolutely no evidence to support that belief.

That was why I had slept on the sofa instead of in my bedroom last night.

And finally...

I had assumed that communicating smoothly with the book would probably be difficult.

That, too, was a kind of belief.

Even though I had already been communicating with it without any problems for an entire day.

A fleeting thought I had held for only a moment had been amplified until it firmly rooted itself inside my mind.

And as a result, all my beliefs became reality.

Even beliefs that weren't originally true became true.

Amplifying a weak belief into absolute certainty.

Then turning that certainty into reality.

Could that be the ability of Mystery No. 632, Confirmation Bias?

I immediately closed my eyes and began hypnotizing myself.

Confirmation Bias wasn't an untouchable shadow.

It was a person.

Confirmation Bias was a person.

Not some phenomenon.

A person with real mass.

A living creature.

That ridiculous belief grew inside my head at an unreal speed.

Before long, I was completely convinced that Confirmation Bias was a person.

Believing that a human being was standing behind me, I opened my eyes.

Then I turned my head.

At the end of my gaze stood a young girl wearing an expression of pure shock.

Because I already believed it as absolute fact, I wasn't surprised at all.

To me, it felt as natural as the sun rising from the west.

I held out my hand toward Confirmation Bias.

She slowly reached out with a trembling hand and took mine.

We shook hands.

This, too, was only natural.

After all, Confirmation Bias was an existence that would never harbor any intention of harming me.

If anything, Confirmation Bias probably had a favorable impression of me.

To her, who had lived her entire life as a Mystery, a human like me must have been fascinating.

She was a little quiet, but that was natural too.

Confirmation Bias had always been shy by nature, after all.

“...This is scary.”

Even while thinking like that, somewhere deep inside, I instinctively knew that my thoughts had become twisted.

This felt seriously disgusting.

I knew my thinking had been distorted.

But being unable to recognize exactly how it had been distorted was an unbelievably unpleasant feeling.

Even if this distortion happened to benefit me, that didn't change how disgusting it felt.

“Bias.”

I called out to Confirmation Bias.

She walked over with small, quick steps and stopped in front of me.

She was a cute young girl with medium-short black hair.

There were many things I wanted to ask her.

But the biggest question was this.

“How was I able to reject one of my own beliefs? Even though I was already caught in Confirmation Bias?”

How had I managed to realize that the belief planted by Confirmation Bias was artificial?

Once someone truly believed something, it became extremely difficult to judge that belief objectively.

Normally, I shouldn't even have noticed anything strange.

And yet I had managed to observe my own beliefs objectively.

Using that, I had reasoned things out and eventually understood Confirmation Bias's ability.

That was the part I couldn't understand.

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