Chapter 71

[Verse 2]

“You’ll all be assigned to the independent-trainee group. We have high expectations for this group, so your turn will come somewhere in the middle.”

Even while my vision crackled like a broken old television, I could tell that was complete bullshit.

The highlights of any broadcast were the opening and the ending. The middle was, at best, filler wedged between them.

“Filming will probably run late into the night... I guess that covers the explanation?”

—para, para, paradox

The lyrics rang out again, cutting through the halfhearted briefing.

I get it, it’s a masterpiece, so please stop already....

It had occupied the top of the charts from February through early summer, so barring some massive upset, it would probably win Song of the Year.

Which meant I would be forced to hear it endlessly until the beginning of next year anyway. There was no need to shove it down my throat this aggressively.

—Turn back time, overturn space, Paradox

“Oh, right. You have to send in the backing track for your audition song yourselves. Then I’ll see you on the day. Don’t be late.”

“E-Excuse me! Are those really all the precautions...?!”

Unlike the staff member’s indifferent explanation, the question sounded painfully desperate.

“Ah... what else is there? Well, instead of acting all fresh and innocent because you’re independent trainees, it’s more popular when you come out like hidden masters from outside the industry. People find unexpected reversals charming, right? So prepare something as cool as possible and do your best?”

But the answer sounded equally careless, as though it had been invented on the spot.

—para, para, paradox

I had no idea why kept blaring in the middle of all this.

Me standing here listening to an orientation for audition-program contestants seemed like the greatest paradox of all.

—My Paradox, which will save you when you are lost

At that moment, my vision suddenly brightened.

“Anyone else have a question?”

“......?”

When I came to my senses, I was standing in one corner of a cramped meeting room.

To either side of me, boys who looked to be in their late teens or early twenties stood lined up in a row.

Standing among kids who had barely lost their baby fuzz made me feel like an older student who had returned from military service and still had no idea where he did or did not belong.

...Where the hell am I?

As I looked around, a sheet of paper taped to the wall caught my eye.

<Debut Chart! 100> Contestant Meeting Room E

...?

They were making a sequel even though the producer had been arrested?

“No more questions, right?”

The owner of the voice I had kept hearing was a staff member with an exhausted face. Sitting with his chin propped on one hand, he pointed with the pen he had been using to scratch his head at the stack of papers in front of him.

“If not, fill out the confidentiality agreements now... Hm? Oh, hold on. You there, trainee in the black hoodie.”

“......”

“Yes, the tall one.”

“Ah... yes.”

What?

It was an “Ah, yes” steeped in a familiar reluctance. I whipped my head around in that direction.

Standing there was....

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Oh, and you’re still that tall.... Hm. Your name?”

“...Gowon.”

“Gowon....”

The staff member muttered under his breath while tapping at his phone screen.

The other boys looked as though they were hoping he would ask them something too, but the staff member did not spare them so much as a glance.

And I fell into confusion.

The person answering was definitely Gowon.

Eighteen? ...Not twenty?

There were certainly differences between him and the Gowon I knew.

He had no styling whatsoever, and his body was excessively thin. More than anything, his face looked young.

What the hell was this?

Quest window.

Kzzzt—

My vision flickered several times like an afterimage, then finally produced a translucent window.

Part 3

Become the year’s most outstanding rookie.

Stage 3 Objective: Win Rookie of the Year

(Temporarily Suspended)

Part 4

Correct the Error in Time

Stage 4 Objective: Establish plausibility for the gap left empty in the past

Part 4 Additional Penalty — Yunjin’s Erasure

......?

No matter how long I stared, I could not understand it.

The Part 3 Rookie of the Year quest had disappeared, replaced by a new quest....

What was this? Erasure? Did it mean what I thought it meant?

Q. Establish Plausibility in the Past

Move to the ■■■ dimension to correct a contradiction in time

Requirement — Produce the same result as the present. Gather plausibility for an impossible event in the past

Current Plausibility: 0%

Another window appeared immediately afterward.

What the hell is this now?

Its wording was bizarre, and the screen rippled as though covered in an oily film, making the text difficult to read.

By the time I finally managed to understand it, I remembered what I had been thinking immediately before being thrown into this absurd situation.

It was logically impossible for Gowon to have won first place on .

The moment that suspicion occurred to me, I had suddenly been hurled from my studio into this situation.

An eighteen-year-old Gowon, and .

...Don’t tell me I’m in the past right now.

As though the trials inflicted by that grotesque quest window were not enough, had I now been dragged into a time paradox too?!

And if I pieced that together with the vaguely delivered order to “increase plausibility in order to correct the contradiction in time,” I could roughly understand what it wanted.

If I, having gone into the past, helped Gowon, then “Gowon, who had no foundation whatsoever,” winning first place would no longer be as nonsensical as it was now.

It must mean I was supposed to turn Gowon into a winner whose victory felt entirely inevitable.

Then how was Gowon’s original victory achieved?

The answer was not difficult to reach.

Did I not already know the path by which miraculous improvement and achievements could be attained?

For me, it had been the “quest.”

Some mysterious force of that kind must have been involved in Gowon’s victory as well. Responding to his desperation.

But now that the unnaturalness of it has been discovered, a problem has occurred....

Fine. Let me organize the situation again.

Given that Young Ace’s Hanzel was attending a preliminary meeting for , I had probably been invited as either a judge or a vocal instructor.

In that situation... am I allowed to help him directly the way I did at K-Dom?

I was even in a position where I could manipulate the judging if I wanted.

No.

If I contacted Kwon Taeyoung right now, before the program even aired, recruited Gowon, and had him debut as a solo artist under K-Dom, would that not establish the plausibility leading up to his debut anyway?

I had no intention of remaining in this shitty situation for long, so I searched for my phone to contact him immediately.

That was when it happened.

“Excuse me.”

Someone tapped my arm.

It was a student in a school uniform standing right beside me.

“What song are you doing for the first-round evaluation?”

“Me?”

Did judges have to sing too?

Well, now that I thought about it, I vaguely remembered seeing segments on audition programs where the mentors gave demonstration performances.

“And what position are you? Are you a rapper? You definitely look like one.”

“...What?”

I was not so egotistical that I would grab a stranger and demand, “Don’t you know who I am?”

But a kid who had come to an audition because he wanted to become an idol did not know Young Ace? He was looking at me from point-blank range and still could not recognize Hanzel?

“Are you a foreigner?”

The moment I asked the question with complete sincerity, I instinctively clutched my throat.

My voice sounded strange.

Why was my throat behaving however it pleased? The tone did not match my usual voice at all.

Rather than sounding like I had a cold, it was more like I had accidentally inhaled helium....

“Uh, ah, no. Is my pronunciation strange? I’m Korean. I just thought we looked about the same age, so I was going to ask whether you wanted to exchange social-media handles....”

“Kid, I appreciate the compliment, but that flattery is a little excessive.”

Hearing that from someone in a school uniform only made me pity how difficult his future working life would be.

About the same age, my ass. I looked nearly ten years older than him.

But the other boy stared at me as though he were looking at a lunatic and replied, “What?”

“......?”

“......? Ah, haha... right....”

Then he quietly turned his head and began talking to the person on his other side.

As the contestants began awkwardly striking up conversations one by one, I did not feel even a speck of interest or attention directed at me.

E-Even so, I’m still Young Ace.

And if this was when had aired two years ago, it had not even been long since we reached No. 1 on Billboard.

Kids these days are so self-directed, so unaffected by outside stimulation, and living such admirable lives....

I deeply reflected on my own excessive self-consciousness.

Just then, one person strode forward and carelessly scrawled his signature on the confidentiality agreement.

“I can leave now, right?”

The person who drew everyone’s attention was eighteen-year-old Gowon.

“Yes. You can stay and talk for a while, or you can leave.”

“Goodbye.”

Gowon left without the slightest hesitation.

Even at eighteen, Gowon was absurdly tall. With his unkempt hair hanging thickly around his face and his body gaunt to the point of emaciation, he looked far gloomier than he had at twenty.

He did not look in my direction even once before opening the door and leaving.

Hey, you can’t just leave like that!

I hurried toward the door after him.

...Or at least, I tried to.

“Where are you going?”

The staff member stopped me.

“It seemed like the explanation was over, so I was going to leave.”

“You have to sign the confidentiality agreement before you go.”

“Me too?”

Why would I need to do that here? The judges would gather later and meet with the production staff anyway. They could get it from me then.

“Every trainee has to sign it.”

What?

“Trainee...?”

Me?

Why?

When I merely stared at him with a stupid expression, unable to understand, the staff member frowned.

“Are you a part-timer who came into the wrong room? You do have the kind of face people might get confused by.... God, how are these people doing their jobs? What’s your name?”

“I... haha.... Baek Hanje.”

“Baek Hanje, Baek Hanje....”

“...My stage name is Hanzel.”

I could not bring myself to tack on the pathetic explanation that I meant Hanzel from Young Ace.

But then.

“Ah, unless you wrote that down when you applied, you have to use your legal name. They’ve already started making the name tags.”

“......?”

Showing no sign whatsoever that he knew me, the staff member indifferently scrolled through the tablet screen.

Standing there dumbfounded, I slowly began to understand the situation.

No way. I had not come here as Young Ace’s Hanzel, serving as a judge....

“You’re right here on the list. Trainee. Baek Hanje.”