A Surprise Common Sense Quiz
"Do I look like someone about to fall in with a cult?"
"That question right there is a bit of a problem."
"Are you calling me a heretic?"
"Honestly? It does sound kind of weird."
"In what way?"
"You said you wanted to defeat the Demon King."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Jungseo shot back, utterly dumbfounded by Rembrary's brazen retort.
"You believe demons actually exist?"
"Of course. Do you believe they don't?"
"Uh, where would things like that even exist."
"Such ignorance..."
Rembrary, for his part, looked even more baffled than Jungseo did.
Jungseo snapped.
"Fine, say they exist. But who on earth talks with God?"
"I do."
"..."
"Quite often, in fact."
Accurately speaking, he used to talk with God often.
But since arriving in this other world, God had not answered him a single time. His Divine Power remained exactly as it was, so the connection was clearly still there — and yet the God who had once answered one call in ten back in his original world now answered him with stubborn silence.
Rembrary let out a sigh, his heart a tangle of complicated feelings.
Watching him, Jungseo concluded that the man really did seem a little unhinged. Frankly speaking, it wasn't a matter of worrying he might fall in with a cult — Woo Yeon-woo simply read as a cult member already.
"Now that I think about it, you don't even need to be careful."
"?"
"If you talk with those cult people, they'll be the ones creeping out and running away."
At Jungseo's flat verdict, Rembrary felt undeservedly wronged.
"So — do demon-slayers exist in this world, or do they not?"
"If demons don't exist, how would there be people who slay them?"
After a full day of free time came to an end, Friday arrived, and the members dragged themselves out of bed before dawn for another music broadcast appearance.
"This week is the last of our promotions for this album."
Jongwoo said brightly to the members, who were still nodding off.
"So let's nail the finale, all right? Make people hungry for the next album. Got it?"
That was when they entered the broadcasting station.
As they passed through security and headed down toward their waiting room, far more people than usual greeted them first — managers, staff, perhaps even fellow idols; whoever they were, the difference in numbers was impossible not to notice.
Rembrary smiled benevolently and received each greeting one by one, until Jongwoo glared daggers at him and he finally started returning them properly. Only after they reached the waiting room and Jongwoo explained did Rembrary understand why the greetings had multiplied.
"You and Sunwoo Sil got a massive response in Round 2 of the competition."
"Is that so?"
"In Round 1 you won on YouTube views alone. This time your digital streams are solid and your YouTube views are blowing up. Barring a miracle, you and Sunwoo Sil have first place locked."
Jongwoo grinned, then glanced at Cathy, sighed, and kept going.
"And barring a miracle, Cathy and Yuli have last place locked."
"Hyung, that's so mean. How could you say that about someone?"
Cathy, who had recovered a little of his senses by now, protested with a choked voice, but Jongwoo glared at him so fiercely that Cathy deflated on the spot.
"You could have ten mouths and you'd still need to keep every one of them shut, you brat."
"Okay..."
"Anyway, people see you all differently now. Sure, you debuted first — but you're not some nameless senior about to vanish overnight anymore. You're a senior with a face people recognize and a name they know."
Taein grumbled under his breath, "This industry really is petty as hell."
Before they blew up, people had brushed off their greetings wherever they went; the moment they started making waves on a program, those same people came over to greet them first. With vivid memories of being blatantly ignored through their long stretch of obscurity, the members felt good about it and bitter at the same time. Maybe they were all thinking the same thing, because everyone's expressions turned strangely complicated.
"Straighten up those faces. A good thing is a good thing, that's all."
Jongwoo soothed the members with a smile. He felt much the same way himself, but he was the manager — he couldn't very well be the one snarling 'petty bastards!' ahead of the pack.
Then, all at once, Jongwoo found something odd.
The other members he could understand — old wounds from being looked down on would do that to anyone. But there was Woo Yeon-woo, who barely had a shred of memory to speak of, wearing exactly the same grave expression.
Worse, even while the rookies came into the waiting room to pay their respects, Woo Yeon-woo just sat there in solemn silence, brooding alone.
Exasperated, Jongwoo waited until the rookies left, then laid into him.
"Hey! Hey, Yeon-woo. How is a guy who hasn't even gotten a single hit on his forehead already coming down with star sickness?"
Rembrary, who had been deep in thought, startled and looked up.
"What did you say?"
"I said, what are you going to do if you catch star sickness this early?"
"Ah — ah. Forgive me. I shall strive for a swift recovery."
Rembrary, who hadn't even registered who had come and gone from the waiting room, hadn't understood a word of Jongwoo's scolding — but he apologized first anyway. It was a habit born of arriving in this world with far too much he didn't know: unless the information was immediately necessary, he would simply play along with whatever was said and look up the meaning later.
"What?"
Jongwoo gaped at the absurd apology, but Rembrary had already closed his mouth again and turned his thoughts to the day before.
Woo Yeon-woo's mother had said he was being threatened by someone. His father had said that right around the time he lost his memory, he had been shot — though he seemed to be recovering well now, the culprit was still at large, and with no grudges to speak of, there wasn't a single suspect.
Hye-gyeol insisted Woo Yeon-woo had been trying to stop someone, yet dodged the subject the moment he sobered up. When Hye-gyeol had tried to say something while drunk, either Jungseo or Cathy had spilled a cup of water over him. Jungseo kept advising caution, saying that Woo Yeon-woo and Hye-gyeol had researched demons and God together, all alone.
And the soul presumed to be the 'real Woo Yeon-woo' was stuck fast to the end of his shadow, together with an evil spirit.
Were all of these things separate pieces, or joined into one?
"Come on now, time to check your outfits. Camera rehearsal to get to. Up, up."
After finishing a stage that had by now grown somewhat familiar, Jongwoo began bustling back and forth between the PD and the staff, declaring that he intended to get a head start on promoting the next album.
With their one and only manager tied up, the members had no choice but to wait in the waiting room — because Jongwoo had marched out after issuing a warning with Cathy squarely in mind.
"Nobody leaves this room until I'm back. Jungseo, make sure they don't sneak out. Bathroom trips only."
Rembrary thought grown men could hardly be expected to heed such an order, but the members, surprisingly, took the instruction seriously. Jungseo barely had to hold anyone back at all.
Then, about thirty minutes in, Taein got permission and slipped out briefly for the bathroom. He returned five minutes or so later; ten minutes after that, Hye-gyeol went out and came back.
Rembrary, reading the room, eventually asked Jungseo as well.
"I too would like to visit the bathroom."
"Yeah, go ahead."
With Jungseo's blessing, Rembrary hurried off to the bathroom at the end of the corridor. Today's recording was long finished, yet the hallway was still packed with people.
He used the bathroom, washed his hands, and stepped quickly back out. On the way to the waiting room, keeping Jongwoo's advice firmly in mind, he worked hard at exchanging greetings left and right.
That was when he passed the section where the stairs from the floor above came down.
Two people carrying the same kind of small camera Eun-seon always hauled around, along with a man and a woman dressed in matching couple outfits, were coming down the stairs when they suddenly shouted, with theatrical exaggeration:
"It's Woo Yeon-woo!"
The tone was in a completely different register from the people who had tossed off a light greeting and moved on.
'Do I know them?'
Puzzled but greeting them anyway, Rembrary watched the woman in the matching outfit step closer, chattering toward her camera.
"No, seriously, I'm a die-hard Sing Survival viewer! I told them if they ever did an ambush segment, it would be with you, Yeon-woo!"
Perhaps it was thanks to his few days of broadcast life.
The moment Rembrary registered the woman's lines and the camera, he understood: these people were not acquaintances of the 'real Woo Yeon-woo.' They were also, clearly, filming for another program entirely.
And that was, if anything, more of a problem.
Caught off guard by the unexpected situation, Rembrary found himself at a loss.
'He said bathroom trips only.'
But it would feel wrong to just walk away from people who had come up acting like they knew him. Jongwoo was precisely the sort to fly into a rage if he so much as fumbled the timing of returning a greeting.
So while he stood there uncertain, the man in the matching outfit launched into praise of Woo Yeon-woo's looks.
"Wow, but seriously — a face genius. An actual face genius. His face is literally the size of my fist."
Then, completely out of nowhere, the woman bellowed:
"Then today's surprise celebrity is Woo Yeon-woo!"
'Surprise celebrity?'
"Here comes the quiz!"
'Quiz?'
What on earth was happening. Mid-praise, and suddenly a quiz?
Rembrary could not make sense of the situation at all — and meanwhile one of the cameras was filming his face point-blank. He wanted to ask what was going on, but the man had stopped his litany of compliments and begun producing sound effects instead.
"Dun! Dun! Dun!"
'Are these people insane?' — and while he was still thinking it, the woman cut in. By now the matching couple had pressed their mouths together and were humming in unison, "dum-dum-dum-dum."
Then, at the very same moment, they cried—
"Ta-dah!"
—and turned to Rembrary with a question.
"Celebrity Real Common Sense Test, question one! Starting from the very easiest!"
"What is the name of our country?"
Flustered, Rembrary's mind went white for an instant. But then a country's name he had seen on the internet surfaced in his memory, and he barely managed to answer.
"Hell Joseon."
"!"
Was that not the answer?
Suddenly the woman let out a strangled, breathless burst of laughter. Before he could even ask whether he'd gotten it wrong, the man bellowed again:
"Test question two!"
"What is the relationship between the figure on the 50,000-won bill and the figure on the 5,000-won bill?"
Rembrary, who had never once seen either a 50,000-won bill or a 5,000-won bill, could not answer — and the woman snickered.
"Ooh, that's a dangerous one."
"Then — Celebrity Real Conscience Test, question one! If you find an injured person, do you call 911? Yes, or no?"
Fortunately, this question was easy.
"No."
Yet even with the instant answer, this time the woman didn't laugh — she flinched. The man hesitated too, shooting quick glances back and forth with her. But he soon forced a bright smile and pressed on.
"Conscience Test, question two! If one person is sacrificed, everyone else lives! Do you sacrifice one person, or do you not? Which is it?"
Rembrary answered, recalling how he had stepped forward alone to hold back the Demon King.
"I would."
This time, the woman flinched again.
For a moment, the atmosphere turned excruciatingly awkward.
But the chill didn't last. Soon the man and woman were laughing as boisterously as they had when they first met.
"I thought so back when he did that Sloth impression — Woo Yeon-woo's got a surprisingly good sense of humor."
"He's great with a punchline!"
Was it over, then?
One thing was certain: they didn't seem likely to fire off any more strange questions disguised as a quiz.
Relieved that the absurd situation that had ambushed him out of nowhere had finally ended, Rembrary smiled gently.
The man stared at him for a moment as if surprised — then thrust a thumb toward the camera.
"Wow, but seriously, everyone — Woo Yeon-woo is genuinely, no exaggeration, top five of the most handsome people I have ever seen in my life."
Was praise aimed at the camera praise meant for him, or merely the man's own opinion being aired? Should he likewise address the camera with a thank-you, or simply pretend not to have heard?
Rembrary tumbled into confusion, staring at the camera the man was addressing. If he said thanks, the man wasn't even looking in his direction; but ignoring it altogether felt somehow off.
Thanks to this dilemma, Rembrary failed to respond in time, and a second silence descended.
In truth, what the man had been hoping for was a show of humility. To break this new silence, the woman laughed a hahahaha that came out strained, and tried again.
"So how have you been doing lately, Yeon-woo? Could you give the viewers a quick update on how things are going?"
"I have caught star sickness. My manager hyung recommends treatment."
"......"
Even the strained smile drained off the woman's face.
The third silence was incomparably longer than the ones before it.
Fortunately, the woman gathered herself once more and did her damnedest to salvage something from Rembrary's words.
"Yes — we all wish you a speedy recovery. Well then, Yeon-woo! Any words for the viewers of Common Sense and Morals? Give us a greeting!"
Thanks to her phrasing, she had effectively confirmed Rembrary's star sickness on record — but the woman, scrambling to rescue the atmosphere, didn't have the spare attention to notice.
Rembrary smiled warmly and made a gesture of blessing toward the camera.
"May the blessing of God be upon you."