Chapter 83

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Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The anger toward the agency, which ‘still hasn’t provided anything like a fandom name, colors, or even an official lightstick,’ spread like an escalator.

‘At this point, it was a situation where they’ve endured as much as they could.’

Honestly, it wouldn’t have been strange if it had exploded earlier, but since the song came out so well and they were riding the momentum, it seemed they couldn’t bring it to public attention for fear of affecting their performance.

Anyway, thanks to that, a red light seemed to have turned on in the company’s planning department.

TeSTAR’s company-related schedule, which was originally scheduled for tonight, was canceled.

“Congratulations!”

Instead, a modest first-place party was held at the dorm. It was a small-scale affair with a few boxes of chicken ordered using the authorized corporate card.

The unexpected element was the presence of alcohol.

“Since it’s to commemorate our first place, I thought a bit of beer would be okay. Let’s just drink enough not to get drunk and then clear it away.”

“Yes!”

Ryu Chungwoo, who had obtained permission, spoke refreshingly and gulped down his beer all at once. He had the impression of someone who could handle his liquor well, so it wasn’t surprising.

Of course, the two minors were given carbonated drinks.

Perhaps feeling like they were being excluded, Seon Ahyun rarely initiated a conversation with them.

“L-Let’s definitely drink together next year…!”

Cha Yujin replied with a paper cup in his mouth. He seemed preoccupied with the soda he hadn’t seen in a while due to managing his diet.

“I can’t drink…”

“…H-Huh?”

“He’s a Korean-American, so drinking is only possible from the age of 21.”

Big Sejin grinned and cut in while opening a beer.

“Hahaha, what does it matter? We’re going to drink in Korea anyway!”

“…!”

Both Kim Raebin and Cha Yujin had expressions of great realization.

‘They’re having a good time.’

I held a beer in one hand and operated my smartphone with the other. It was to check the situation.

‘How on earth did we win first place?’

This was because it had been an impossible situation when I had checked a few days before.

After that, the ranking tallying period for this week had ended anyway, so I hadn’t looked into it.

“…”

And a short while later, I realized the situation.

‘Three factors overlapped.’

The first was the variety show’s pre-release. Here, the influx into the music video and the digital track became a small catalyst, causing the chart rankings to rise steadily.

The second was… the fan signing event.

Due to applications for additional fan signing events, album sales were still quite high.

‘…The cut-off went up even more.’

Seeing the fan signing cut-off, which had suddenly become 180 copies, I broke out in a cold sweat.

I decided to think about this later. I didn’t even have a sense of what I should do then to be worth the price…

…Anyway, as these two factors coincidentally meshed and created synergy, it seemed the fans noticed the situation first and poured in their votes. VTIC’s music show activities had ended, so their voting momentum had decreased slightly.

Furthermore, a decisive third factor came in. ‘Popular Music,’ which aired on Sunday, had recently reorganized its ranking tallying system.

In that process, the tallying date, which was originally Monday, was pushed back to Wednesday, and all the increased digital music scores were reflected.

In terms of album sales, TeSTAR’s fan signing special was fully reflected, while VTIC’s scores were pushed back only for the tallying period, widening the score gap further.

‘It’s heavenly luck.’

That’s how we narrowly beat VTIC.

To what extent? The scores only differed by 7 points.

“…”

I unconsciously gulped down my beer. I couldn’t believe we had pulled it off like this.

Of course, I had worked damn hard. So, perhaps a compensation mentality kicked in, but since that had happened, it was very thrilling.

Moreover, a small experiment was also successful.

“…Are you going to drink more?”

“Yes.”

I received another can of beer from Big Sejin and called up my status window.

“Kyahahaha!!”

Laughter filled the surroundings. They seemed to be watching the encore video with subtitles on the TV screen.

In contrast to the guys who were embarrassed but laughing and enjoying themselves, the cold and neat status window pop-up caught my eye.

[Successful 1st Place!]
You have succeeded in reaching 1st place through the terrestrial music broadcast !
!Time Limit: Met (Great Success)
!Status Abnormality: ‘Death if not 1st Place’ removed!
: Confirmation of Truth ☜ Click!

‘Confirmation of Truth’ was given as a reward for removing the status abnormality.

Since I hadn’t received that, the status abnormality was not removed.

In other words, if I didn’t receive the reward, the pop-up content was not applied.

‘I was worried about it anyway.’

The sooner I removed a status abnormality, the shorter the interval for a new status abnormality would be to appear.

Then, the risk of sudden death would remain the same while the difficulty level increased crazily.

So, it was better to drag out time as much as possible within the deadline.

Considering the previous case and such, I had pondered that method from time to time, and it was just a relief that the simplest guess worked.

‘I feel much more at ease.’

The biggest reason was that I could observe the situation without being chased for about the next 300 days.

Next, it was because the suspicion that this status window was not some… intelligent being with fluid malice, but a system, gained strength.

‘If there was malice, it would have already threatened me to receive it through a pop-up or made me receive it forcibly.’

Judging from the fact that such a thing didn’t happen, there was a high probability that this status abnormality also had an end. Since games usually have endings.

‘Well, it’s just a hopeful guess.’

Since one problem had been resolved and alcohol was involved, I seemed to interpret the situation positively.

Anyway, then that I had put the pop-up on hold, I just needed to slowly examine the status window and the situation. I took another long draught of the beer in my hand.

“M-Moondae-ya.”

“Yeah.”

“Drinking t-too fast… I don’t think it’ll be good…”

“Ah. Right.”

Was emptying one can at a time too much? I clicked my tongue, put the beer away, and grabbed some chicken.

“I s-saw that you like chicken.”

“Me? Ah, that fan signing event.”

“Y-Yeah!”

Seon Ahyun smiled and nodded.

“E-Eat a lot!”

“I will.”

“Eat a lot… A lot!”

“…”

‘I think he’s a bit drunk.’

Seeing him get drunk before even finishing one can, he didn’t seem to know his alcohol tolerance. Had he not tried drinking?

I handed Seon Ahyun a carbonated drink. And I ate the chicken while thinking of the fansite master (homma) I met at the first fan signing event.

‘She’s good at color correction.’

Since she was someone who uploaded many things during , I felt a bit of debt. Next time I saw her, I decided I should allocate more time to her camera.

“Ooh!”

“Hey, what do you should we do about this? We look really stupid. Pffft.”

The other guys had already played the main broadcast clip of on the TV screen following the encore video.

[Hieeeek!]

A close-up of Cha Yujin screaming upon seeing the mask of the decapitated bird was being shown.

“Uhahaha!!”

Even he himself burst into laughter while shedding tears.

‘It really is funny.’

They edited it well so as not to cause controversy over sadism. Moreover, they kept the heartwarming feeling by highlighting the last beef scene.

[You must have been surprised, so eat a lot before you go]
[On this day, TeSTAR]
[Ate 5kg of Korean beef…☆]
[It was worth using the production budget ?From the entire production crew]

The members were shocked.

“Heh.”

“5, 5kg…”

“No wonder my weight increased a bit the next day…”

“It’s okay. It all dropped because of the schedule.”

“That’s right.”

Some worried members muttered such things in the midst of it.

“Still, I didn’t know we would eat up to 5kg.”

“The amount must have been quite large.”

“…It should be fine.”

They wrote it as if they were taking a loss, but where was a broadcast that actually took a loss?

I snatched the remote from Big Sejin and brought up a related video.

[TeSTAR’s 5kg Korean Beef Mukbang | Unedited Version | ep.2]

“They would have already made back the price of the meat from that.”

“…!”

The view count was already over a million. The members nodded with impressed expressions.

“How about we try a mukbang? I think we can try everything we usually wanted to eat.”

“Let’s send Moondae as the center!”

“C-Center!”

Who had given Seon Ahyun beer again?

Fortunately, this topic passed quickly.

“I want to keep watching!”

“Ah, right! Let’s play it again from the time Moondae barged in earlier!”

It was because the excited guys played the video again while chatting.

‘Looking at it now, I think everyone is a bit drunk.’

Even the two minors were drunk on the atmosphere.

Well… they looked happy, so I decided to leave them be. It was the dorm anyway, so it didn’t matter if they got drunk.

I decided to proceed with the overdue monitoring on my smartphone.

– Thank you so much for feeding our kids a lot of Korean beef…!
– Cha Yujin watches horror movies well but is so weak against real-life fear, so cute ㅠㅠ Oojujoo, is our kitty afraid of birds?
– It was as funny as the pre-release videoㅋㅋㅋ Successfully promoted it to a muggle friend who didn’t watch Ajusaㅋㅋㅋㅋ
– Regarding the fact that the photo of Ahyun taken by Moondae is better than mine… Yosol 1 loss, Moondae 1 win ㅠ (Edited photo)

“…”

The last one… looking at the profile, it was an account where the person who took pictures of Seon Ahyun posted casual talk.

And I remembered taking the attached photo of Seon Ahyun a few days before. I didn’t expect to find it on the internet, though.

Just then, related content was appearing on the TV screen where the beef mukbang had ended.

[Thump!]
[※Cookie Video※]

First, a short cut of TeSTAR holding cameras and taking pictures here and there passed by.

[The result of this action]

Disastrous photos poured out, including a bird that looked like a mysterious creature because it was all shaky, a cut where only a lonely running foot came out as if it had tumbled to the ground, an unexpected photo of the sky, and a photo of the water’s edge that wasn’t horizontal.

And a subtitle appeared.

[Unrecognizable…]

“Ahahaha!”

“I used it for the first time!”

“What a waste of film.”

While the parties involved each added a word, a new subtitle appeared on the screen.

[Exceptions exist]

A black bird kicking off the water surface and flying up, a blue bird swinging a branch, and several reservoir landscapes passed by.

They were neat cuts that contrasted with the photos that came out right before.

And the last thing that appeared was Seon Ahyun smiling brightly under the sunlight.

That was the original of the edited photo that Seon Ahyun’s homma had posted earlier.

“Huh?”

“…It must be Park Moondae.”

Like the indifferent words of Lee Sejin, a subtitle immediately appeared.

[These are all photos from one camera.]
[↓The person who took them]

A video of Park Moondae taking pictures of Seon Ahyun was cross-cut and shown.

And the voice of a staff member, self-mosaicked with the subtitle ‘Camera Director,’ was inserted.

[How did he take such good pictures…?]
[This guy really took good pictures? (Flustered)]

On the screen, the sight of the staff members looking into the camera with exclamations of ‘Oh~’ passed by.

[Park Moondae: Mysterious Golden Hand (According to the Camera Director)]
[※Certified in ]

An effect of a stamp being pressed appeared over the subtitle. And the video ended.

“…”

I didn’t expect they would even turn this into content.

And next to me, Big Sejin started pretending to be disappointed on purpose.

“Ha… I’m so hurt by this? Is Moondae discriminating against friends? Isn’t it that he’s taking care of only Ahyun too much? If you have a friend who treats you this well besides Ahyun next to you, isn’t it right to prove your friendship by taking pictures often and uploading them?”

“…”

“The more Moondae stays still, won’t the disappointed me talk more and more? Wouldn’t it be easier for Moondae to give up quickly and promise to upload photos…?”

“I’ll take them and upload them tomorrow, so stop it.”

“Okay.”

A drunk guy didn’t know how to give up. He might have talked to me again, so I quickly pretended to look at my smartphone.

The edited photo of Seon Ahyun that I had brought up earlier still remained on the screen.

‘Anyway, it came out well as expected.’

To be honest, it was a photo that should have fetched a better price than the market rate if sold.

I had forgotten about it after returning the camera and couldn’t check it properly, but I hadn’t expected to see it like this.

‘Well, it’s good to be recognized.’

There was nothing wrong with being good at taking pictures. I continued checking SNS with a relaxed mind.

And I saw a popular post by a Park Moondae fan.

– I thought the photos Moondae posted on SNS were unusual, but he really takes good pictures. But why does his skill get cut in half for selfies.. ㅠㅠ

“…”

Because I hadn’t taken many…?

Come to think of it, it seemed like taking pictures of others only did good for others. I decided I should study how to take good pictures of myself.