I Thought I Was the Protagonist of This Novel, But I Was Actually the Final Boss Crushing Girls' Hearts
My dance stat was 99.
But even armed with a stat that monstrous, there was no way a complete amateur like me could deliver a performance packed with refined detail in just one month.
So the song I chose instead was 24 Hours Isn't Enough.
The choreography for 24 Hours Isn't Enough wasn't particularly difficult. With a dance stat of 99, a single month was more than enough to cover it.
As long as the expressiveness was there, I could achieve maximum destructive power with minimum effort — which made it a perfect fit for me.
And besides…
It was such a distinctive track that I figured it would showcase my character and lock in proper screen time.
"Haa… That concludes my performance."
"……"
"……"
When I finished and looked out at the panel, the judges were staring blankly, struggling to string words together.
It wasn't exactly a shocking reaction. Jiwoo-ssaem, who'd taught me dance over the past month, had worn that same expression more than once.
"Uh… well… that is…"
Breaking the long silence, the vocal trainer was the first to pick up her mic.
"…Yerin-yang. You're saying your training period was only one month?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"Th-that's impossible…"
"Hold on a moment."
When the vocal trainer, forgetting they were on air, started to contradict me, the dance trainer cut her off.
"…I could tell. That Yerin-yang hadn't been dancing for very long."
"What?! How can you say that after watching that performance…?"
"To be precise, it's not that she danced poorly — it's that there was absolutely no sense of a seasoned performer about her."
No sense of a seasoned performer.
That was something Jiwoo-ssaem had drilled into me over and over. When I first heard it, I thought it meant my dancing still had a long way to go.
But that wasn't it.
"Just as vocals have kuse — bad habits — dancing has them too. But… Yerin-yang's dancing has none of that. You could say she hasn't developed any pretentious flair… If I had to put it into words…"
Jiwoo-ssaem had put it this way after watching me dance:
"…Your dancing is too clean."
Clean. Smooth.
"The detail, the emotion, the lines of your body… everything looks so clean… I'm almost jealous…"
Because the dancing was so clean, the emotion came through unfiltered. So vivid it felt like you were dancing right alongside her.
The dance trainer said as much, gazing at me in a daze, then lit up with intensity in her eyes.
"…Since she only recently started learning, she probably couldn't pull off difficult techniques yet. I'm curious what kind of stage she'll put on once she's properly trained. I absolutely want to teach her."
The dance trainer looked so taken with me she seemed ready to start drooling.
The other judges' comments were much the same.
"I watched with my mouth hanging open. Wow… the immersion was incredible…"
"She has a definite center presence. There's something overwhelming that draws the whole stage to her."
"Maybe because the practice period was short, there was a real freshness to it too."
If you'd only heard these comments without seeing the stage, you might wonder if the judges had been paid off — the praise was that excessive.
I was the one left flustered by it.
Is it really that good…?
I'd figured that to place well on My Idol Academia, I absolutely had to make a strong first impression. So I'd thrown everything into preparing for this first stage.
But…
These reviews are even better than I expected…
Getting too much praise early on works against you on later stages. So I hoped the compliments would stop around here.
The silver lining was that only Han Siwoo's evaluation remained. Throughout the filming, he'd maintained a cold expression and delivered scathing critiques. He'd dampen this storm of praise to some degree.
"…Then I'll give the final evaluation."
Han Siwoo picked up the mic with his usual… no, an even colder blank expression than usual.
"Yerin-yang, you said your practice period was one month. For a stage of this quality after only one month of practice…"
And then, just as I'd hoped, a scathing critique…
"It can only be called genius-level talent."
…Huh?
"It's true that Yerin-yang's dancing and singing feel a bit lacking in technical flourish. That can be solved with consistent practice."
This was Han Siwoo, who'd dashed countless trainees into pits of despair with ice-cold evaluations. But right now…
"It was a stage that makes me curious how much further Yerin-yang will grow. I'll always be cheering for her and watching closely."
Far from throwing cold water, he was dumping a can of gasoline onto a roaring fire.
"Alright, the judges will briefly confer, then we'll assign Ha Yerin trainee her grade."
They said they'd discuss it, but given the atmosphere, anyone could guess my grade. The judges barely pretended to confer before picking up the mic again.
"Hyeongje Entertainment trainee Ha Yerin's grade is A."
Hyeongje Entertainment, Ha Yerin, A.
I was the first glorious recipient of an A grade in the My Idol Academia grade evaluations.
That was when it happened.
…Something ridiculous had appeared again.
I was just trying to become an idol, and suddenly my trait is Heavenly Demon…? Wasn't that completely out of left field?
I'd read a few martial arts novels in my previous life. The Heavenly Demon was the kind of endgame boss who crushed the protagonist with overwhelming martial prowess and radiated final-boss energy from every pore.
So why was I the Heavenly Demon…
That was when it hit me.
Ah.
I turned around and met the eyes of the other contestants, and only then did I understand why I'd been given this trait.
The first thing that caught my eye was Seo Yujin in the second-place seat. She'd been staring at the stage with a dazed expression, and the moment our eyes met…
"Ugh…!"
She glared at me with a look of pure frustration. She was remarkably consistent, that one. And now her expression even struck me as cute — compared to the emotions in the other contestants' eyes, that is.
The various feelings in the other contestants' gazes as they looked at me. Envy, jealousy, excitement, respect, admiration, anger, shame, interest, surprise.
And the most prominent among them was…
Helplessness.
Most of the contestants here had spent years as trainees and still received low grades like E, D, or F on average. And I'd gotten an A after only one month of practice… how must they be feeling?
Especially the expression of the trainee who'd practiced for ten years and gotten a C — that was something else. A hollow emptiness, as if asking what she'd been doing all this time, mixed with self-loathing. Her face, where all of it blended together, was utterly devastating.
…I had broken her spirit.
…I'm sorry.
Strictly speaking it wasn't my fault, but I apologized to her in my heart. Without the status window, I never could have put on a stage of this caliber. I'd poured blood, sweat, and tears into the past month… but that effort was a drop in the ocean compared to ten years. Somehow I felt like I'd devalued her efforts… and that made me feel guilty.
"That concludes the grade evaluation for Hyeongje Entertainment trainee Ha Yerin. Please return to your seat."
"…Yes, thank you."
As I walked back to my seat, gazes thick with complicated emotions followed me. They pressed a subtle weight onto my heart, but… I steeled myself.
If I was going to debut, I'd have to keep crushing their spirits going forward. One of them had to fall for me to take a spot.
Get a grip.
I had a lot riding on this too, for what it was worth. There was no room to spare sympathy for others.
"Unni—! You were seriously amazing! The absolute best!"
Unlike the other contestants who were either wary of me or intimidated, Park Yujeong in the 100th-place seat next to me treated me with the same eyes as from the start.
"…Really? Thanks."
"Unni, did you really only train for a month? Wow… crazy. You must be a real genius."
There was a touch of flattery in Park Yujeong's words. It's natural for someone eye-catching to attract a subordinate who plays to their moods. Park Yujeong seemed to be volunteering for that role.
Still… I wasn't about to push her away. Having one friendly face around was nice.
And…
She seems like a genuinely good kid.
Park Yujeong didn't strike me as a bad person either.
"Kidship Entertainment trainee Lee Hyejeong's grade is…"
Ah, for the record, the grade evaluations were still proceeding smoothly through all this. Or rather, they were almost wrapping up. As the evaluations moved into the later stages, more skilled or distinctive contestants appeared.
Of course…
"…B."
A grades weren't handed out easily.
"That unni sang so well, but she still got a B."
"I know, right…"
The person who'd just been evaluated was a skilled contestant who'd made it to 7th place on the audition program K-Star a few years back. But her still-insufficient dance skills and other factors held her back, landing her a B.
Other skilled contestants similarly received a B after being dinged on one thing or another. In the end, I was still the only one who'd received an A grade.
Park Yujeong grinned brightly and whispered in my ear.
"What if you're the only one who gets an A, Unni?"
I quietly shook my head at her words.
"No. There's still one person who's basically a lock."
"A lock? Who… ah…"
Park Yujeong started to ask who, then stopped. Because there was still one asymmetric powerhouse left up there.
And that asymmetric powerhouse…
"Alright, just one person remaining. Next…"
Was placed last, as if she were the protagonist.
"JJ Entertainment trainee Yu Seol, please come forward."
Murmurs rippled through the room. When her name was called, the stage buzzed with interest and attention similar to when my name had been called.
Yet she herself didn't seem burdened by those gazes at all, smiling as she descended from the first-place seat.
This might sound like overstatement, but even the way she came down the stairs from the first-place seat one by one carried a certain dignity.
And why wouldn't it.
Yu Seol.
She was… destined for such massive success that even I, who'd had no interest in idols, knew of her.
In my previous life, the winner of My Idol Academia was Yu Seol.
I'd even heard she won by an overwhelming margin. Curious about what kind of stage she'd put on… my eyes couldn't help but be drawn to her.
But then…
…Huh?
Having fully stepped onto the stage, she suddenly turned around and looked at me. At first I thought she wasn't looking at me. But her eyes were aimed precisely at the 99th-place seat where I sat, and she even met my gaze.
Grin.
…She's smiling?
The moment our eyes met, she broke into a childlike smile, as if she were truly delighted.
And that moment… was captured perfectly by the cameras outside the stage.
At the time, I had no idea what this situation meant… or why she was smiling at me.