Chapter 79

It wasn’t obvious enough to stand out, but constantly moving only between ranks 1–5 out of the 25 rows could be considered some kind of preferential treatment.

If someone complained, the broadcasting company would probably put up a notice in a font smaller than a fingernail and make some excuse about it being due to the algorithm....

“Rough. Really rough.”

I had hoped for a miracle where the PD of this world would get scolded by his ancestors in a dream one day and turn over a new leaf, but signs of corruption were already beginning to appear.

I poked Gowon’s face, which was endlessly wandering around at the very bottom of the page, with the mouse pointer.

“You really don’t have anything easy, do you?”

‘Looks like I have no choice but to pave another path of flames for you....’

“Ah, Hanje.”

“Hm?”

“Um, ...there’s something else I’m curious about.”

“What is it?”

“...Anyway, I’m helping Gowon through the quest right now, right? Then does Gowon also have to pay the price for my help later?”

Yunjin rolled his head around and rested the opposite cheek against the table.

“Who knows? It depends on how the standard of fairness gets applied.”

“......?”

“Karma, consequences... things like that. They look unfair when you examine them up close, but all those unfair things gather together and eventually create a larger balance.”

“What does that even mean? Explain it simply.”

“You helping your junior is, from your perspective, repaying the favor you received in the past. But what do you think the other rookie singers thought when they saw you and your junior?”

“.......”

It was already a topic that had reached my ears countless times.

That Baek Hanje was showing favoritism toward Gowon.

“So your junior might have to pay the price too, or maybe he’s just receiving the reward for having lived a good life until now....”

“.......”

“That’s just how the world works. The youngest and I are simply people who experienced it a little more directly.”

“...That kid lived hard as the family’s breadwinner, so maybe he’ll get a pass.”

And I hoped that would be the case....

If the world had a conscience, that was.

***

From now on, you will form teams with your fellow trainees and create a competition stage together. The performance will be evaluated by the five judges and the Chart Makers who have come as audience members, through their sharp judgment!The flower of an audition program, the team competition, had begun.

The friendship and cooperation between boys, and the beautiful stage completed at the end of it all! ...followed by countless conflicts, political maneuvering, evil editing, and vote manipulation....

I wanted to be on the same team with Gowon for the first competition if possible.

Starting with this one, team competitions would continue all the way until the final stage.

So in this first mission, I needed to take care of that socially awkward guy, teach him what teamwork was, and show him what adult society was like.

“Baek Hanje trainee. Um... what song do you want to do?”

“I’ll handle the arrangement either way, so I don’t really care.”

“Could we be on the same team?”

“If there’s a connection between us.”

“Baek Hanje trainee’s social skills are... no, your own world is very firmly established....”

Someone next to me seemed to say something else, but I let it go in one ear and out the other, so I didn’t remember.

Here, <Debut Chart! 100> has a special rule of its own. In this era, an ‘idol’ refers to a complete entertainer. Therefore, teams that arrange the mission song themselves or create a new choreography will receive additional points!First Competition Evaluation Criteria

On-site audience vote (80%)

Judge score (10%)

Creative index (10%)

The evaluation of each team’s stage follows the criteria shown on screen, and separately from that, individual trainee rankings will be determined through online votes after the competition is broadcast.

Then, we will now reveal the process for selecting the first competition team members!With the MC standing on the podium, a spotlight shone on the door behind him.

Passing through the door behind me, you will find a total of nine rooms. Each room’s door is painted a different color. Each trainee may choose only one door and enter.<Both the number of team members and the members themselves are completely random!>

Some rooms may receive the choices of too many trainees, while other rooms may become filled with highly skilled trainees. The trainees who enter the same room will inevitably form a team together!The area became noisy at the MC’s words.

Random was good. Sure, random was fine....

‘But did they really have to make teams this random?!’

Even at school, when choosing seats, they at least considered friendships and placed people somewhat nearby. Of course, whether Gowon considered me someone close to him was uncertain...!

My plan to subtly end up with Gowon during the team selection process had already started falling apart from the beginning.

The lower-ranked trainees will be given the first opportunity to choose rooms. Then, trainees ranked 91st through 100th, please proceed!The ten people standing at the very bottom of the pyramid formation headed outside the set.

Naturally, there was no way to know the situation here.

There would probably be some level of mind games among the ten people entering at the same time, but that much was necessary for the entertainment value of the program.

‘And this is enough.’

As a result of the previous signal song competition, Gowon had impressively climbed into the upper ranks of Grade A, reaching 10th place.

His remarkable growth was one thing, but revealing his face had played a huge role.

‘Anyway, when ranks 1–10 leave, I’ll just follow Gowon into whichever room he enters.’

Now, trainees ranked 31st through 40th will depart for random team selection!They really emphasized how random it was despite planning to manipulate the rankings anyway. Were they feeling guilty?

Now, it is finally the last order! The highest-ranked trainees will depart in smaller groups!What?

First, trainees ranked 7th through 10th, please proceed!Why!

Next, trainees ranked 4th through 6th will depart. Ah, the trainees are having quite a difficult time making their decisions.Actually, I could guess the reason. If the top-ranked trainees gathered together, they would become an overwhelmingly dominant powerhouse group.

‘They’re only fair when it matters, so why the hell are they pulling this nonsense here....’

Gowon glanced back at me earlier, then left without giving even the slightest hint about where he was going.

I urgently locked eyes with Yunjin in the distance.

Then I widened my eyes, clearly expressing that he should tell me where Gowon had gone.

Yunjin looked troubled, then tapped the back of his hand several times.

The back of his hand? What... ah.

‘You damn bastard of a brother!!!’

There was a large scar on Yunjin’s right hand. It was a mark left behind from an accident during the tour where his skin had been deeply torn.

At the time, while everyone around him was horrified, Yunjin had just laughed foolishly and said it was fortunate that nobody else had been hurt....

‘Damn it, how many ways are there to indicate red, and you tell me that?!’

When I glared at him viciously with my teeth clenched, he shrank back while mouthing, ‘You asked me to tell you...’

We were definitely having a talk outside later.

Finally, trainees ranked 1st through 3rd, please proceed!My turn had finally arrived.

As I came down from the top, the 99 empty spots caught my eye.

“.......”

Even though this was a copied world, I couldn’t completely shake the feeling that by taking first place, I had stolen someone else’s desperate opportunity.

So let’s solve this quickly and return to reality. I fit better as the senior who lays down the path of flames.

‘So the red room is here.’

Nine doors lined up along the hallway.

The seven colors of the rainbow, plus black and white.

While pretending to think carefully, 2nd place opened the black door at the far end and entered.

I figured I had pretended to think long enough, so I opened the red room’s door.

First, I needed to understand the team’s atmosphere....

“WAAAAAH!”

“First place! The center has an arrangement genius! Waaaah!”

“Welcome! Hurry and come in. You can’t leave now!!!”

“.......”

I understood the atmosphere.

Just as I had planned, Gowon was in this team. He was standing behind the noisy trainees, only casually glancing this way.

“Wow. I really wanted to be with you!”

“Me too! Your original songs were so good that I’ve already been waiting for the day they’re released!”

At least everyone seemed friendly, so I probably didn’t have to worry about conflict.

...But, um... seriously, they all looked so... young.

‘Don’t tell me there isn’t even a single adult on this team?’

Still, rather than having everyone be minors, it would be better to have at least one person who could keep the team together and take responsibility when discussing the stage with the production staff.

While I was lost in thought, the door opened again.

It seemed that 3rd place, who had been hesitating until the very end, had chosen this room.

“Hello!”

...Wait.

‘I’ve seen that face somewhere.’

“I’m Kim Eumyul. Please take care of me!”

Everyone seemed stunned, apparently not expecting another door to open behind me, and reacted a beat late.

“Wow, it’s 3rd place!”

“Our team has 1st and 3rd place now? That’s insane!”

“Gowon is also 10th place!”

So that guy... was the one who had fought with Gowon in Singapore, right?

“I-I’ll really work hard. Thank you for welcoming me...!”

While shyly greeting everyone, his skillful scanning of everyone in the room was as impressive as ever.

But then the guy whose name I couldn’t tell whether it was Music or Melody suddenly ran over and stood beside me.

“Actually... I followed you after seeing Baek Hanje trainee enter here! I really wanted to perform on the same stage as you.”

“Ah, is that so?”

“Yes. Our images don’t overlap, and I think we’d complement each other really well, don’t you? I’m a vocalist, and Baek Hanje trainee is a rapper!”

“I’m a rapper?”

“That’s what you did during the judges’ evaluation. Of course, I know you sing well too, but if you’re originally a rapper, then on stage you’d usually focus on rap....”

“I changed positions.”

“......?”

“I’m a vocalist now.”

It sounded like nonsense, not like baseball or anything.

But from now on, I wouldn’t need to create a comedic character strategy.

Kim Eumyul looked like his calculations had gone wrong.

“...Ahaha, you’re really funny.”

He quickly recovered the atmosphere, but it was still obvious what he was thinking.

Ah. So this was why I had tried to keep Gowon beside me in reality.

If he wanted to push the cute image, having a person with a dark aura standing next to him would create a stronger contrast.

Team selection is complete. Until the next sequence, please freely talk with your teammates.Following the MC’s instructions, we sat together amicably and checked each other’s faces. At that moment, I lamented the lacking creativity of the quest window.

“My name is Nam Jeongho. I’m eighteen years old.”

The Newton junior greeted us with a nervous expression.

I had heard that because perfectly copying reality would be too difficult, the system had compromised somewhat, but this was taking things a bit too far.

“Hello! Jo! Seongwoo! I’m sixteen years old!”

The way the junior who introduced himself as “Big! Tree” spoke applied to his name introduction as well.

“I’m Kim Eumyul, and I’m eighteen years old. Waaah, nice to meet you.”

This one had yet to give up on his plan, creating the image of a cute older brother who was affectionate even toward his younger teammates beside me.

“I’m Gowon, eighteen years old.”

What kind of gathering was this supposed to be.... 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

‘Did they just bring together everyone I know and adjust their ages appropriately?’

Even if they were dummy data, was this really the best they could do?

Aside from the parts that couldn’t be changed no matter how much I complained, there was another problem with this team that bothered me.

The members gathered in the current Red Team were... sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years old.

It wasn’t simply that there were no adults. Compared to other teams, the average age was dramatically lower. A line of bright-eyed kids more suited for a school field than a broadcasting studio practice room rolled their eyes around.

How did the lineup end up like this?

Looking at them through the eyes of a twenty-six-year-old, I felt like I had been appointed as their homeroom teacher.

Yeah, a squirrel-class field trip gathering sounds nice....

“Um, would it be okay if our team leader was the arranger, Hanje? He has a reliable impression too! Doesn’t he look like a leader?”

The guy whose name was Music or Melody suddenly nominated me. It seemed he was still trying to use my opposite image to create chemistry. Once I had hypnotized myself into thinking of them as a squirrel class, even that started looking cute.

“Then we’ll put Baek Hanje trainee as a candidate first. Does anyone else want to recommend someone or volunteer?”

This was something the Newton leader junior said. He must have naturally been the type of person who took care of others and led coordination within a group.

“I also recommend Baek Hanje trainee as leader.”

Then Gowon casually dropped a single sentence.

“He teaches well.”

“.......”

Somehow, it sounded like there was a hidden barb in it.

Trainees of Debut Chart, have you finished your ice breaking? Now, we will announce each team’s mission song!The MC’s voice temporarily interrupted the leader discussion. The squirrel-class friends widened their eyes.

The mission songs are...! Songs that contain each team’s color in the lyrics!The screen changed, showing the nine team colors one after another.

Along with them, the assigned song titles appeared.

Our team’s assigned song was....

RED | Be Yours — “D-Day”

“Gasp, it’s a famous song! I know this one!”

“Let’s enjoy it until this night ends! Yoo-hoo! This one, right?”

A song from about ten years ago appeared.

The song itself wasn’t particularly famous, but the chorus was familiar because it was often used in variety shows, and it was also a song that was easy to dance to....

But.

“Let’s do our best!”

‘...We’re screwed.’

While the squirrel-class friends were excited, only my expression continued to rot into gloom.