Chapter 1157: The Warmest Season, Winter (29)

Celebrities made their living by being seen by others.

For that reason, rewatching the variety shows, dramas, and films they had appeared in was absolutely essential.

“But I think watching stuff I’m in is boring.”

Jiho said.

“Even with Shin-I, everyone else told me it was fun, but I kept spotting all the mistakes I made while acting and looking for continuity errors.”

“Well, that is why we watch it, so I guess that’s only natural.”

“It’s so painful to sit through.”

Naturally, we did not monitor our appearances so we could look back on fond memories or laugh and enjoy ourselves.

Of course, we still kept the mood lively and had fun watching together, but we never forgot the real purpose of monitoring.

-I could’ve made that part even funnier!

-Next time, let’s come up with a skit before we go in, Biju.

-Let’s do that.

Junghyun spoke solemnly.

“A true variety entertainer is someone who can make people laugh simply by existing.”

“Exactly.”

Vowing to become entertainers who could always deliver huge laughs, we set out the late-night food.

Fried chicken, pizza, jokbal, bossam, tteokbokki, and more.

Ri Hyuk rubbed his slim stomach.

“Thinking about it again, our practice volume really is insane. We eat this much late-night food and still end up losing weight.”

“Eat plenty, Ri Hyuk. If we don’t, we really will lose weight.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

As we each started loading food onto paper plates, NBS was playing on the lounge television.

Biju elegantly wound a strip of flat glass noodle around his chopsticks.

“Doesn’t the NBS channel feel kind of different now?”

“In what way?”

“Back then? No, I guess it’s weird to call it back then, but when Newniverse first aired, it felt like a tiny neighborhood grocery store. Now it feels like a huge supermarket.”

“I think I know what you mean.”

As recently as June of this year, NBS had still given off the air of a small-scale channel, but at some point, it had begun to resemble a solid mid-sized broadcasting station.

Massage chair commercials and insurance ads had disappeared, replaced by more major, commercial advertising.

Polished channel promos played between programs.

[Whatever you desire.]

Several dramas appeared, including footage of senior Seo Noeul hunting a ghost tiger in the Shin-I spinoff.

[Whatever you imagine.]

Scenes of us frantically running a restaurant blended together with clips from the variety shows NBS had launched.

[Always striving to be the best, NBS!]

There was even a sleek new logo.

Anyone unfamiliar with the network might have assumed it was a channel run by a major corporation like K-Net or GTV.

“It really has grown.”

It was the result of several factors coming together perfectly.

First, we had surpassed a twenty-percent viewer rating with Newniverse, drawing in a wide variety of advertisers, while the company had established the production studio Studio LM and was supplying the channel with quality content.

Director Jo Gyuhwan, in particular, had an outstanding eye for choosing successful projects, and thanks to his performance, NBS dramas were seeing an overall rise in ratings.

-How Did Newcomer NBS Become a Trusted Powerhouse of Drama and Variety?

Above all, producing quality dramas and variety shows required financial backing, and that problem had been solved almost too easily.

Ri Hyuk said,

“Money will probably start pouring into Studio LM soon. They renegotiated the profit-sharing contract for Sound of the Sun.”

There were the profits from the fastest film in Korean history to reach ten million admissions.

And there were still the earnings from North America and Japan to come.

We had heard that CEO Park Gyuho was happily spending money left and right.

“Oh.”

Jiho, who had been competing with Junghyun to see who could stretch the cheese on a pepperoni pizza farther, asked Ri Hyuk,

“Buh how’d you know thah?”

“What?”

“That the money’s coming in.”

“I checked the accounting data on the internal network.”

“……”

We all laughed at the sight of Ri Hyuk narrowing his eyes with a sly smile, his gaze flashing.

No need to worry about our settlements, then.

What a terrifyingly ruthless kid.

As we said things like that, the caption for NewBlack’s Travel Diary 3 faded in at the top of the television screen.

While the age-rating notice advised good children to watch with their parents, the others and I took deep breaths.

We were monitoring the episode, but today was also a nerve-racking day for another reason.

“The tally period ends today, right?”

“Yes.”

“Haaaaa… I hope the episode came out well.”

We rubbed our hands together and exhaled anxiously.

There was an important reason we needed today’s broadcast to do well.

At the same time.

Variety show fanatics with nowhere left to go were once again gathering in one place.

[NewBlack’s Travel Diary 3 - Alaska Edition]

They were variety show fanatics who had been left adrift after Newniverse ended.

[Do you have a girlfriend? Ah~ you don’t~ Everyone says that.]

[Who do you usually drink with during breaks? You drink with male idols and stuff, right?]

They disliked programs where middle-aged men subtly harassed younger guests.

[Wow. This. Is. So. Nice.]

[Come here and take a picture, hyung.]

And variety shows where celebrities traveled together but somehow gave the impression that only they were close with one another were not especially appealing either.

I want a real variety show.

I miss the days when they aired variety shows every Saturday.

But that did not mean they wanted to watch those exact old shows again.

Times had changed, so they wanted something with observational elements mixed in while still being properly variety-driven—

In any case, they were variety show fanatics with very particular tastes.

To people like them, NewBlack’s Travel Diary 3 was rain after a long drought.

-I’m so damn excited today lolololololol

-This is gonna be insanely fun

-The preview seriously got me hyped lol I thought it’d be like a hands-on work experience thing, but they’re building a civilization???

-Lololol I’m excited

-The only happiness this country allows… New Travel Diary

-“New Travel Diary” sounds like an incredibly happy phrase, but the catch is that the people involved are absolutely not happy

One of the reasons viewers were excited was that today’s episode looked as though it would be especially funny.

Their time traveling around Alaska had offered plenty of small laughs, but the survival section seemed packed with moments that would be hilarious.

“Mom, do you want to watch today? They said it’ll be fun.”

“Really? I thought last week was fine too.”

“They’re building a village.”

“?”

As variety show fanatics and general viewers sat in front of their televisions, waiting for the commercials to end.

The Souffles were also waiting with devoted hearts, though their eyes had narrowed.

Ah, this feels complicated…

Normally, they would have been purely delighted, but today made that difficult.

The preview had shown Moonlight, their newly emerging rivals.

Honestly…

They simply did not want to get involved.

The general stance among Souffles was that they did not want to curse them out or fight. They just wanted both sides to go their separate ways without getting tangled together.

But now that things had turned out like this, it had become a little exhausting.

-After today’s episode, there’s definitely gonna be a whole festival of absolute bullshit

-We’re already on round n of the bullshit

-You’re not the only ones who don’t want to get involved, we don’t eitherㅡㅡ

-(wide-eyed madman comic panel.jpg) Guys I’m sooo excited, how many creative varieties of bullshit will we hear today?

-They’re saying NewBlack deliberately barged in while MNLIGHT was filming lolololol Guys, our boys are more successful

Moonlight fans were already spreading slander online in English, claiming that NewBlack had interfered with Moonlight’s filming.

The Souffles narrowed their eyes and reached a conclusion.

They must be sick with jealousy.

When NewBlack had volunteered in Alaska, Moonlight had already boarded their plane and left before the earthquake.

They had been at the same filming location, yet only one side had received major headlines under a name like Christmas in October.

The general mood among Moonlight’s fans seemed to be one of irritation and envy over that.

On top of that, there was the popularity of the carol and Sound of the Sun, which was currently a hit in North America.

…Well, I’d probably be annoyed too.

The results really were that good.

As the Souffles nodded along with a tolerant, Yes, yes, we understand, NewBlack’s Travel Diary 3 finally began.

[…Huh?]

The recap started.

NewBlack, who had been enjoying their trip, entered the survival camp and stared wide-eyed.

They had come face-to-face with Moonlight, who were drinking cocoa.

[How are you here?]

[Why are you here?]

As the two groups spoke in English around the campfire, a caption appeared over a black screen.

『 Just what is going on here..? 』

An explanation followed.

Moonlight and NewBlack had both made reservations for the same time.

And because of the nature of the survival camp, the two groups were not supposed to encounter each other anyway.

Apparently, the area was so vast that their base camps had been divided.

Ah.

The Souffles relaxed.

Aw~

The general viewers felt disappointed.

The preview had shown the two groups meeting, so they had assumed they would do something together, but apparently not.

“Is that Colin? He’s cute.”

“Really?”

“You don’t think so, Mom? Is he not your type?”

“It’s less that and more that the boy looks a little shifty inside. He is better-looking than your father, though…”

“……Why am I suddenly involved?”

While conversations like that played out in living rooms, the voice of a famous survival expert known to the entire Korean public came from the television.

Alex Corbin, whom Koreans knew from survival-expert memes.

[Hohoho! The most essential virtue in the wild is vigilance! If you can find me within five minutes, I’ll award you bonus points.]

A caption appeared telling viewers to search along with them.

-I have no idea..

-Guess I’ll just die, then

-I don’t think I’d survive in the wild lololololol

The answer, circled in red, appeared soon afterward, but even after it was revealed, his camouflage was so thorough that people still wondered whether that was really him.

But less than thirty seconds later, Alex Corbin was discovered.

[He’s over there.]

It was thanks to Ri Hyuk, who was wearing infrared goggles.

-Lololololololololol

-This is seriously insane lololololololol

-Why does he even carry something like that around?

-Look at how stunned the instructor is

-Actual madness lolololol

As Alex Corbin’s face flushed red and blue, the NewBlack members put some distance between themselves and him.

A truly delightful opening.

With that, the full-scale survival shoot began.

“Oh dear, they’re really going to suffer.”

“Seriously.”

As the barren environment around the survival camp came into view, even viewers who knew NewBlack found themselves thinking that this would be difficult.

[In Korea, we call this Bae San Im Su.]

[Bae San Im Su…!]

Using the concept of water in front and mountains behind, which every Korean knew, NewBlack quickly found a campsite and successfully secured food as well.

[Mussels!]

“What? There are mussels.”

“Are those really mussels?”

Soon, they had mussel soup at camp, along with safe drinking water.

While the instructor blinked, the NewBlack members quickly began gathering ingredients.

Berries, fish, and more.

At that moment, a famous Korean history lecturer appeared at the bottom of the screen, offering commentary while watching footage from NewBlack’s Travel Diary.

It looked like a scene from a documentary.

[The defining characteristics of Paleolithic society were hunting and gathering. During this period, rather than living in permanent settlements, people moved from place to place in search of what they needed…]

At that exact moment.

On-screen, the NewBlack members raised their hands.

[Instructor.]

[Yes?]

[Do we receive bonus points if we don’t use the survival supplies you provided?]

[…Yes. You do.]

At those words, Wooju’s hands immediately began moving.

Ri Hyuk crouched beside him and whispered something, Junghyun brought over dirt, and Wooju began kneading it with his gloved hands.

-?

-What are they doing

-Um..?

-????

At first, everyone watched with puzzled expressions.

But as Wooju rapidly built up the clay, their faces filled with surprise.

-I’ve seen that before lololololol

-Oh, that’s the thing, the iron-bar pottery

-You mean comb-pattern pottery..

That was right.

It was comb-pattern pottery.

As NewBlack made pottery as though creating something from nothing, the lecturer, who had been explaining the characteristics of the Paleolithic era, stopped speaking.

-The lecturer’s eyes are shaking lolololol

-They just warped forward hundreds of thousands of years

-This is modern humanity: the hopeful version

-Why are idols making comb-pattern pottery lololololololol

-???: Hohoho, we did all this on History Exploration Team

-History Exploration Team… what were you, exactly…?

-But seriously, they did pretty much everything on HET, starting from lighting fires

The flustered Korean history lecturer continued.

[Yes, and one of the characteristics of the Neolithic era was the production of pottery like that…]

NewBlack then began using all their accumulated knowledge and experience to enjoy a prosperous survival lifestyle.

Junghyun made a fire.

Biju used his cooking knowledge to brew a fine tea with leaves from the surrounding area.

Ri Hyuk put his scientific knowledge to use.

And Wooju took on the role of leader.

“You really do feel more secure when Wooju is in charge over there.”

“He’s good at it.”

On the surface, it looked as though Wooju had handed decision-making authority to Ri Hyuk, but in reality, he was controlling everything from behind the scenes like the true power.

Their teamwork was so polished that they moved in perfect coordination without even needing to speak.

The Souffles felt proud.

Moments like this really show what kind of team they are.

The scene made it obvious how much trust they had in one another and how firmly they worked together under their leader’s direction.

And Jiho, meanwhile.

[What is he doing over there…?]

[He says he’s standing guard.]

He was alone in the forest with a bow, posing like the protagonist of The Hunger Games.

[No one’s going to come, though.]

…Junghyun had barely said that when the bushes rustled, and Jiho raised his bow warily.

[Who goes there?]

The ones who emerged were none other than Moonlight.

“…!”

“!!”

The viewers stared in surprise.

“Why do those kids look so filthy?”

“No, what did they even do?”

Unlike NewBlack, Moonlight looked grimy and exhausted, with heavy dark circles under their eyes.

They were the complete opposite of the fresh, pale-skinned NewBlack.

It did not take long for everyone to realize.

Ah. NewBlack were the strange ones.

Common sense said Moonlight’s condition was normal.

What could young men in their early twenties realistically do after being dropped into the wilderness?

Koreans had simply grown far too accustomed to NewBlack.

Just as they came to that realization.

Grrrrrowl-

The Moonlight members stared at NewBlack with the pitiful eyes of abandoned puppies.

Ordinarily, the Souffles might have shouted, You scoundrels! Get away from my favorite right now! But this time, they smiled like true Koreans.

-You still have to feed them..

-Yeah, they need to eat

-Have a meal before you go

Food was a serious matter.

NewBlack watched Moonlight devour grilled fish with expressions full of pity.

Then, when they finished eating and promised to repay the favor someday.

[Perfect. Help us with the work before you go.]

They immediately became servants.

-Lolololololololololololol

-The confusion is hilarious

-We’ll repay your kindness someday..! / Great, repay it now

-But honestly, that’s fair because when are they gonna repay it lololol They probably won’t even meet again

The Moonlight members worked with venomous expressions.

When they left, they acted as though they would never come back, but it did not take long before they returned.

[Could we have some food…]

The Koreans burst out laughing.

“They’re ridiculous too.”

“Working for NewBlack must’ve been easier.”

“That’s why people need to suffer a little. It’s the only way they learn how warm home is.”

Perhaps Koreans were simply softhearted.

At first, they had narrowed their eyes and thought, Those are the ones who claimed they were NewBlack’s rivals?

But now, they laughed.

Moonlight did not feel nearly as villainous as they had imagined.

They just seemed mischievous and frivolous.

“Oh dear, but…”

One viewer with construction-site experience spoke up.

“They’re doing a sloppy job.”

“They don’t want to do it.”

Even without any relevant experience, it was obvious that the Moonlight members were cutting corners.

They were trying their hardest to look busy, but their attitude resembled children doing chores they hated.

The editing did not even emphasize it, yet it was still obvious.

When they finally finished the work, Wooju gave them a bright smile.

[Congratulations. This is the house you’ll be staying in.]

Everyone burst out laughing at the Moonlight members’ expressions.

-Lolololololololol

-The hut is literally leaning lolololol

-We did shoddy construction… but then it turned out to be our house

-It ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) looks like the first pig’s house in The Three Little Pigs

And so, Moonlight unexpectedly began living together with NewBlack, and the episode entered its second half.

Then came a scene that shocked everyone.

[You’re saying there’s gold?]

[My family has run a pawnshop in New York for three generations, so I know this stuff.]

There really was gold in the place where NewBlack and Moonlight raced toward one another.

“Oh my!”

“Oh my goodness!”

Korean viewers grew excited at the sight of the first gold discovery in the history of travel variety shows.

Then, just as everyone’s eyes widened when the gold appeared on-screen, the program cut to commercials.

-Whah

-Is that real gold???

-That’s crazy, it really looks like gold

-They found gold ㄴㅇㄱ

The preview had seemed like bait, but it really was gold.

After the commercial break.

A preview for the next episode played immediately.

[Everyone! It’s gold!]

NewBlack used the gold to make even the production staff work for them.

[…What do you mean it isn’t gold?]

[It’s pyrite.]

NewBlack’s faces turned pale as they learned it was not gold.

The preview for the next episode had everyone clutching their stomachs with laughter.

The next day.

While [pyrite] sat freshly at number one on the real-time search rankings.

-NewBlack’s Travel Diary 3 Leaves Viewers in Stitches with Fake Gold Discovery: “What Is Pyrite?”

-New Travel Diary 3 Delivers Big Laughs with Surprise Moonlight Collaboration

-New-Concept Travel Reality Show New Travel Diary 3 Breaks Its Own Ratings Record

As variety show clips that had given countless people a good laugh circulated online, one group of people was moving busily.

They were employees of a polling organization preparing the data that would be released the following month.

“Okay, everyone knows the tally period ends today, right? Let’s wrap things up properly.”

“Yes.”

The researchers immediately began calling random numbers.

Smiling, they introduced themselves to those who answered.

“Hello. This is the Gallup Korea Research Institute.”

The biggest reason NewBlack had cared about the latest episode of Travel Diary.

“…Who would you say is this year’s top variety entertainer?”

Similar answers came back immediately.

One of the things NewBlack had been waiting for most was finally approaching.