Chapter 459
Chapter 459
The moment I sank 10 billion won into the company, the system spat something out.
[5 Hint Tickets.]
And "hints" were defined as information helpful to the company... I see.
‘Then for now, it has no choice but to spit out information helpful to TeSTAR’s activities.’
Right now, the rise and fall of this company depended entirely on the success of TeSTAR’s next comeback.
I was intrigued.
“Hmm.”
I naturally took a seat and clicked on the Hint Tickets.
The hologram shifted, and a gray mechanical illustration appeared. It was a familiar shape.
A roulette machine.
[※ Would you like to use a Hint Ticket?]
‘Sure.’
It reminded me of when I used to draw traits.
I watched the spinning roulette with a slight sense of nostalgia.
[Nostalgia...?]
Yeah. Since I didn't die, it became a fond memory.
[......]
You’re the one who implemented the roulette through the status window in the first place; why are you acting so horrified?
Anyway, the roulette machine, a mix of iron and brass slots with occasional silver ones, spun round and round until...
[Usage Complete]
“...!”
Exquisitely, it stopped on a silver slot.
That meant it was the highest grade I could get right now.
‘C-rank.’
Let’s see... the trait ‘That sounds right (C)’ was that rank. I’d used it quite effectively even after debuting.
So, let’s see just how useful this information is...
[Escape from the Subsidiary (C)]
- It is said that a series of mass resignations has recently occurred at T1 Ent’s subsidiaries due to a certain incident.
“......”
I was the one who did that.
‘Who are you trying to scam?’
Since when did refreshing my memory on things I already knew count as a hint?
How is this "information" in any sense of the word?
Don't tell me it's pulling the "I never said I'd only give you information you didn't know" card.
‘You absolute swindler...’
You took 10 billion won and spat out this garbage?
[P-Please calm down! Hyung, your blood pressure!]
“Whew.”
I took a deep breath.
‘Let’s stay calm.’
These Hint Tickets were just a bonus anyway. I’d raised my ‘Company Dominance’ to use the system functions, and it just gave me these tickets as a reward.
‘Let’s just pretend they didn't exist and use them up.’
I kept spinning the roulette.
[Minor Embezzlement (E)]
[The Practice Room is Dangerous (D)]
[Shooting Hobby (D)]
Hints were indeed dropping.
The E-rank embezzlement was in the millions of won. It was actually quite useful since I could just report it to the audit office. The D-rank practice room hint was about a loose floorboard, which was decent enough for injury prevention.
It was the kind of thing that could be found through a routine inspection, so I was a bit disgruntled, but I could tolerate it.
However, I absolutely could not tolerate the last one.
[Shooting Hobby (D)]
- The leader of Stars Orbit’s representative group, TeSTAR, has a hobby of shooting. If you meet him at a shooting range near the company, you might be able to build a friendship?
I was the one who introduced that hobby to Ryu Cheong-woo, you bastard.
[Hyung, Hyung! Another deep breath!]
“Sigh...”
I pressed my fingers against my brow.
I soon realized the cause of this discrepancy.
‘I’ve grown too much.’
The problem was that TeSTAR was already a five-star group.
If I were truly the CEO of a brand-new startup, this might have been somewhat useful, but from the perspective of a top-tier idol who had already seen and done it all, D-rank information was meaningless.
‘Is it impossible to upgrade the roulette?’
[Help: The roulette machine for Hint Tickets will be upgraded according to the Company Grade.]
Only after that help message appeared did I nod.
Right. This was just the initial stage. Once the company grade went up, I’d be able to pull better hints.
‘Let’s just consider this a trial run.’
Without any lingering attachment, I threw the last remaining Hint Ticket into the roulette.
[Huh? The ticket...]
What?
[No! I thought you’d save it and use it once the roulette machine was upgraded...]
You really don't get it.
‘If I upgrade the roulette machine, it’ll probably tell me to buy more expensive tickets specifically for it.’
[......]
That’s just how pay-to-win games work.
[I’m... truly sorry for taking inspiration from mobile games......]
It’s fine as long as it’s intuitive.
Anyway, I was watching the roulette with a bored, low-expectation gaze when... suddenly, a golden four-leaf clover pattern appeared above the machine.
[Lucky chance!]
“...?”
A flashy fanfare erupted, and every slot on the roulette turned gold.
Then, slowly, the roulette came to a stop.
[Wonder Hall’s Rookie (B)]
“...!!”
It was a B-rank.
And... the agency Wonder Hall?
‘That’s a major label.’
I immediately opened the description.
[Wonder Hall’s Rookie (B)]
- 202X. A new male idol group is finally scheduled to debut at Wonder Hall this summer.
A large-scale project with an investment of 20 billion won over three years, this new team’s unconventional planning is garnering high expectations within the company.
Wonder Hall. The agency of T-Holic, the national idols who preceded VTIC... and they were debuting a new boy group.
I stroked my chin.
‘This... is useful.’
T-Holic was a male idol group with a very public-friendly direction. TeSTAR was practically the only group that had inherited that lineage of public appeal.
Even now, weren't they a veteran idol group living well while running their own variety shows?
So... if this rookie group followed a similar path to T-Holic, they could become competitors for TeSTAR’s public-friendly position.
‘This rookie group is worth checking out.’
I reached a conclusion. And I revised my impression of the Hint Tickets.
High-grade ones would be quite useful.
My biggest weakness was a lack of insider information from industry officials, and I could supplement that through these ‘Hint Tickets.’
‘I can even use this as a base to exchange information and gradually expand my network.’
I was quite pleased.
[Wow! I’m so glad...!]
Yeah.
After exchanging a few more words with Keun-dal, who seemed more relieved than I was, I closed the roulette window.
With that, everything I had to handle alone while chatting with Keun-dal was finished.
Next was... the album production function, which had finally been unlocked.
“Alright, we’re starting now.”
“Mm-hmm, okay!”
“This is fascinating and exciting!”
I gathered the members in the living room. The dorm’s living room was empty since we’d already packed our things, but the table was still there.
I placed a notebook on top of it.
What was I going to do with this?
‘I’m going to share the status window.’
TeSTAR’s album production was something that had to be done as a group. Since they already knew the situation, I felt I should share it with them to some extent.
But if they couldn't see the status window...
‘I just have to visualize it.’
I began to copy the ‘Album Production’ hologram onto the paper exactly as it appeared.
Scratch, scratch.
“......”
Kim Rae-bin raised his hand.
“Hyung, is that... perhaps a barbed wire fence?”
“It’s a card.”
“......”
What?
“Pwahahaha!! Pwahah—ack! I won’t laugh! I won’t laugh, Moon-dae-nim! Whoa! Moon-dae-moon-dae, you’re good at PPTs, so let’s just put it on the TV screen! How about that?”
“Yes, Moon-dae. That would be better.”
“...Fine.”
So, after the medium was switched to a laptop, the work began to proceed much more smoothly.
“This is the list our company currently possesses, and the details page... looks like this.”
“Ooh.”
“Rae-bin has five stars!”
“Kim Rae-bin is a genius!”
“I do not know by what criteria the stars are assigned, but I consider it an undeserved honor and will continue to strive... Gasp, am I weak at composing trot?”
“...Isn't that obvious?”
“R-Rae-bin likes trot, though...”
“Ah.”
Right. Well, we went through that process.
“Park Moon-dae, did you... really invest 10 billion won?”
“Yes.”
“...!”
“Whew! We’re making a 10-billion-won album!”
“Oh man, Yu-jin is going to spend all of Moon-dae’s money~”
“If it goes well, Moon-dae-hyung will make a lot of money!”
Cha Yu-jin learned the 'war-type meta' of winning to pay back the debt... and through that, the final page filled with selected cards looked like this:
[Album]
[Manpower: A]
- Kim Rae-bin (★★★★★), Kim Seo-won (★★★★), Park Jae-seok (★★★★), Park Won-ju (★★★)...
[Capital: S]
- ₩5,000,000,000
[Period: B]
- 60 Days
(Manpower Bonus + 150%)
(Capital Bonus + 200%)
* Start Production ← Click!
“I’m clicking it.”
“Yes~”
The moment I clicked the button, various effects began to scroll past like credits.
[Concept: Undecided]
[External Manpower: Undecided]
[Production Company: Undecided]
......
[Predictive Album Production in Progress!]
Hmm, a prediction.
I recorded the hologram into the notepad again, and the members nodded.
“Ah, so... it’s predicting what kind of album will come out if we continue like this.”
“And since we haven't finalized the concept yet, many parts are listed as undecided.”
“Hmph, still, this is usually something that costs a lot of money! It’s impressive.”
Soon, the hologram flashed again.
[Prediction Result Complete!]
Well, let’s see how it turned out...
“...??”
Wait.
[Expected Album Grade: A~B]
B?
Not only were S-rank or EX-rank out of the question, but it was saying a B-rank could come out?
Our album?
‘What kind of nonsense is this?’
I didn't know for sure, but even our first album must have been at least an A-.
I immediately clicked to look through the details.
“......”
Sure enough, there were debuffs.
[※ Promotion ↓↓]
[※ Physical Quality ↓]
[Help: There is a lack of external manpower to contact! Let’s expand your network.]
It’s difficult to contact external manpower?
“......”
That’s strange.
This was an area that had never been a problem before.
‘And if this appeared even though we brought the same working-level staff with us...’
It meant someone was interfering with our contacts.
And that someone would be someone more powerful than a successful individual celebrity.
‘...A corporation.’
“Did the results come out?”
“How is it?”
“......”
I crossed my arms.
“It seems... T1 didn't just cut ties with us.”
“...What?”
“I think we’ve been blacklisted. It looks like people are avoiding working with us.”
“...!”
The list of things I needed to investigate immediately grew.
That evening.
Ryu Cheong-woo spoke with a grim expression as he put down his smartphone.
“It’s true that we can't appear on MusicBOMB.”
I expected we wouldn't be able to appear on Tnet music shows for about half a year. What came next was more important.
“...They say there’s no response at all from T1-affiliated variety shows either.”
“Sigh.”
As I thought.
We weren't just a kite whose string had been cut; we were a kite being sent straight to the recycling bin.
‘How many variety shows do their subsidiaries have, and they’re blocking all of them?’
To be honest, I thought we’d at least be able to appear on variety shows from T1-affiliated broadcasting stations.
‘It was more than that.’
I slowly began to understand their logic.
To draw demand for the new survival program Tnet was about to launch, it was better to crush the TeSTAR, Mirinae, and Spacer lines that currently held all the demand in that sector.
But then those guys went and launched a new company with a loud fanfare and articles? And the public reaction was good?
‘The flashy rebranding touched a nerve with T1.’
The problem was that the public sentiment was even better than I had anticipated.
Wasn't it also a perfect way for them to vent their frustration after the ordeal they suffered from political pressure?
It was clear that T1 had signaled to industry insiders, "Orbit? We want to crush these guys."
For a while, people in the industry would be walking on eggshells.
‘Directors, photographers, entertainment reporters... It’s rare to find a prominent person who hasn't worked with T1 at least once.’
And if they intended to have opportunities to work with T1 in the future, they would try to be careful during this period.
“Then... everyone will find it difficult to work with us for a while...”
“They have no choice but to watch T1’s reaction. For the time being.”
“......”
Ah, damn it.
I ran a hand through my hair.
The meeting was briefly suspended, and I stepped out onto the balcony to dig through the status window.
I haven't smoked in forever, but I found myself craving a cigarette.
Still, my brain kept turning.
‘...Do I have to rely on LeTi’s connections?’
Even if we filled the music video director and album art positions that way...
‘No, that won't work.’
If we rely on them entirely, this company might end up being relegated to nothing more than a sub-label of LeTi.
‘I went through all this shit specifically to avoid that.’
We couldn't just jump onto that line completely.
Suppressing a sigh, I habitually scrolled through the hologram again, hoping to find some kind of information.
‘Information.’
How great would it have been if I’d gotten some useful information for a situation like this from the Hint Tickets?
‘Instead of giving me this kind of C-rank information that I already know.’
I sighed and scrolled through the status window.
[Escape from the Subsidiary (C)]
The text slid past.
“......”
But... wait a second.
‘It’s strange, no matter how much I think about it.’
Why is this C-rank?
Isn't the rank too high for a vague hint that only tells me employees resigned from a subsidiary?
Even excluding the fact that I already knew about it.
I read the text carefully once more.
“...!”
Then I realized. There was an expression I had overlooked because the content was so familiar.
‘The subsidiary mentioned here... isn't just one place.’
It said ‘subsidiaries.’ Plural.
And one more thing.
There was a decisive difference.
‘T1 Stars wasn't a subsidiary anymore at that point.’
Our former agency had been cut off by T1 and made independent before the label employees resigned en masse.
So... this wasn't a story about our company.
‘There’s another company.’
T1 subsidiaries where employees resigned en masse.
I immediately began searching.
Focusing on articles and social media, I looked for news about T1 Ent’s subsidiaries.
Even if they weren't broadcasting stations or entertainment agencies, there were movies, music, home shopping, and studios.
And...
‘Games.’
Found it.
Ruin Factory.
The very team that had produced Section 127 had resigned in its entirety and made a fresh start.
“......”
I had a gut feeling.
‘This is it.’
Found them. External Manpower #1.