Outer Q is an entertainment web magazine that publishes any story as long as it is interesting. Its newest writer, Wanzawa, struggles to find material until he recalls an urban legend from his childhood about a dewy-eyed beast that once terrified local children. Investigating this forgotten tale thrusts him into a series of bizarre and increasingly dangerous incidents.

The story is set within the editorial department of Outer Q, a small web magazine populated by eccentric personalities. As a rookie writer, Wanzawa is eager to prove himself but soon discovers that chasing obscure stories exposes him to real darkness. The initial arc follows his investigation of a playground cipher known as the Roshiju Spell, a meaningless string of characters children once obsessed over decoding. His research reveals that a childhood friend who claimed remembering the spell until age twenty would lead to death by the Roshiju has since died, pulling Wanzawa into a mystery involving hidden abuse and a cryptic message left behind in an old computer.

The manga unfolds as a linked short story collection. In one arc, Wanzawa assists a food writer named Shizuku Moriya, who struggles with an eating disorder and takes an assignment reviewing a peculiar hamburger shop. Her successful article is published posthumously after her death in a traffic accident, and she continues to visit the restaurant as a ghost, unaware that Wanzawa completed her work. Another story features the comeback live performance of an underground idol named Ashura Mochida, who retired after being attacked by a stalker. During the concert, the stalker rushes the stage and is killed by a fan, but the truth is more calculated: the stalker had already died attacking the idol earlier, and the fans orchestrated the staged death to conceal the original crime.

A recurring thread involves the Aozume City fireworks festival accident, a deadly pedestrian bridge collapse that Wanzawa survived as a child. He becomes enraged when a horror writer known as Kaidan Prince publishes an article treating the traumatic event as an entertaining ghost story, leading Wanzawa to confront him over the exploitation of real tragedy. This accident connects to a later storyline about a reclusive artist named Hayama, who creates outsider art in a peculiar house filled with sculptures. Wanzawa becomes captivated by Hayama's work and publishes a feature dubbing the property Paradise Mansion. The article draws crowds, but the house balcony collapses under the weight of visitors, causing dozens of injuries. The accident is revealed to be sabotage orchestrated by Wanzawa's own senior colleague, Ide. Ide sought revenge for a misunderstanding dating back to the fireworks festival: Wanzawa had mistakenly believed a delinquent was attacking trapped children and spread that story, which led to the delinquent being hounded and dying by suicide. Ide had been close to that person and engineered the collapse of Paradise Mansion as a mirror of the bridge collapse from years ago. The series concludes with Wanzawa confronting this bitter truth and the weight that words and reporting carry.