Chapter 14
Leaving the stunned Yeon family men behind, Se-rang rose from her seat without hesitation.
No matter how much I talk, I’ll only wear out my own mouth. I’ll prove it properly through <Cast the Future> instead.
I, Kang Iwon, the person you tried to scout even while ruining countless others, Chairman Yeon Kangho.
“Yeon Se-rang!” Just then, surprisingly, a man blocked Se-rang’s way as she tried to leave the house. “What exactly was that just now?”
Of course, it was Baek Do-gyeong.
Ugh, I’m sick of this.
“What do you think it was? Your eyes work fine, so why are you asking me?”
“The reason I overlooked you making a fuss about playing producer until now was because I thought it was a brief amusement. I thought if I played along moderately, you would come to your senses and back out on your own. It did not mean you could jump into the successor war like this.”
“So?”
“What?”
“So what do you want me to do? Are you telling me to take responsibility because you made assumptions by yourself, or what?”
“Yeon Se-rang!”
“How brave of you, raising your voice at me in my grandfather’s house. Looks like you’ve grown some nerve.”
At those words, Baek Do-gyeong immediately closed his mouth.
He may not be afraid of me, but it looks like he’s afraid of Chairman Yeon.
“Move.” Se-rang sneered at him with all she had and shoved him aside as he blocked her path.
Why does he keep blocking someone else’s way like this? How annoying.
However, Baek Do-gyeong followed Yeon Se-rang outside and blocked her path once again.
“What exactly are you thinking? Do you sincerely believe there is a chance you could become the successor?”
“Why? Now that the upward escalator meant to lead you to heaven has suddenly become a downward escalator plunging into hell, are you a little pissed off?”
“…!”
I almost went to the afterlife thanks to you, you know. Se-rang glared at him. Now that you’re in that position, do you understand a little?
“Let me ask you one thing.” Perhaps only now had Baek Do-gyeong fully grasped reality. He caught his breath and returned to his usual cold expression. “May I take this as a breach of the contract between us?”
“Think whatever you want.”
“Yeon Se-rang.”
“You can’t break your engagement with me anyway. Am I wrong?”
“Yeon Se-rang!”
“Because if you even break that, the last remaining possibility will really disappear.”
No matter how much Do-gyeong shouted and looked at her with murderous eyes, Se-rang was not afraid at all.
After all, Baek Do-gyeong could not get off the escalator called Yeon Se-rang.
“Instead, I’ll make you one proposal. Since you keep talking about contracts, you must really love that damn contract. Fine. Let’s do it. A contract.”
“!”
“But.” Se-rang continued without even giving Baek Do-gyeong’s eyes time to light up. “Not a contract where you’re the one in power. A contract where I’m the one in power.”
“Director.”
The next day, Se-rang arrived at work faster than anyone else. To handle all the urgent matters immediately.
“Contact each entertainment company. Tell them to submit their trainee lists again by the end of today.”
“Yes, I’ll contact them right away. I’ll tell them to choose as quickly as possible—”
“No. I’ll be the one choosing, so tell them to submit every trainee they have.”
“!”
Secretary Cha’s hand, which had been lifting her phone, stopped.
“Tell them that if they leave out even one trainee this time, they’d better be ready to lose their heads. Well, I suppose they’ll know even if I don’t warn them.”
“There will be quite a large number of trainees. If you watch all of their evaluation stages, it will take time….”
“I’ll only watch one evaluation stage per person, and I’ll listen to only one line each.”
“…!”
“If a trainee doesn’t have enough talent to convince me within one line, they won’t make it to the win anyway.” Se-rang spoke coldly. “What I’m looking for is an idol who can win. Of course, I’m going to have them all appear. I’m planning this as an unprecedented large-scale audition program.”
Let’s show them how terrifying a major company’s brute-force resources can be.
I was once the CEO of a small-to-medium company myself, so I know exactly how terrifying that is.
I never thought I’d be the one using it.
“…You intend to raise them yourself.” Secretary Cha said, now standing right in front of Se-rang.
“Yes. I’m going to raise the only idol group under Imperial headquarters, and the most successful idol group in all of Imperial.”
There was only one thing that made me better than the three male successor candidates.
Producing ability.
Hearing it like that, someone might say, “Huh? You’re going against those terrifying bastards with just that?”
But the entertainment business, you see, cannot succeed if you don’t know how to raise stars.
The entertainment business begins with stars and ends with stars, doesn’t it?
“So this is not a short-term fight. You truly intend to join this war in earnest.”
“If I weren’t going to see it through to the end, I wouldn’t have gone this far.”
I had already died once and come back anyway.
Now I had nothing to lose.
No matter what trainee it was, I would make them succeed.
And as soon as recording began, Se-rang regretted making that resolution.
“…….”
Except him.
Please.
I think anyone but him would be fine.
Oh baby baby
I’m your cute boyfriend
You’re my lovely girl~! friend~!
“…….”
God, please.
He couldn’t sing, he couldn’t dance, and even his song choice was god-awful.
That insanely shining face and physique that looked carved one painstaking stroke at a time were going to waste. Was this what they called a balance patch?
I did say they could send anyone as long as they didn’t have scandals, but isn’t he too much?
When I saw him on video, he wasn’t this bad. Did they even manipulate the video with AR? Isn’t this fraud? They couldn’t hide the dancing, so they just stood him still and had him sing! These wicked bastards…!
What insane entertainment company sent such a trainee with no basics to a terrestrial audition broadcast?
What kind of courage did he have to come here? Did no one give him a hint?
What kind of scammer bastard did this?
“Hello, I’m Seo Dowon from Imperial Entertainment!”
…So it was you, Baek Do-gyeong?
Seo Dowon.
Se-rang searched her memory for that name, but nothing in particular came to mind. That probably meant Seo Dowon had not made it big even five years later.
Despite that visual.
Good heavens. To think he failed to rise even with a face that any major entertainment company would immediately put as the visual center.
That must mean his lack of talent was truly serious. Se-rang sighed and examined Dowon again carefully.
In truth, when Se-rang picked idol trainees, she looked at skill, but of course she looked at visuals too.
However, an idol’s visuals were not simply about pretty features, flawless skin, or model-like proportions.
What was truly important was “charm.” Not just stopping at the thought, “They’re pretty,” the moment you saw them, but having the charm that made you think, “I want to see them one more time!”
Skill? That could be honed.
Features? With some camera polish and the kind of management all celebrities received, they could be made convincing.
(Translator’s Note: “Camera polish” (카메라마사지) — Korean entertainment slang for the process by which people become more camera-ready and visually polished through styling, makeup, angles, practice, and exposure.)
But charm was an area even Se-rang could never touch. That was something a person had to be born with.
However, the area called “charm” was extremely broad. Someone could simply be so pretty that it became charm in itself, or someone could be charming because they were cute, or because they had a fun and cheerful personality.
And picking out whether that charm would work on the public or not was the producer’s ability.
And that was also the ability Se-rang was most confident in.
“Yes…, thank you for that.” Just then, Eden, one of the judges beside her, picked up his microphone.
Since Se-rang said nothing, he seemed to have judged the atmosphere and decided to give his evaluation first.
“No, actually, I can’t say I listened well. I did look well, though.” As expected of a rapper who rose through skill alone, Eden began pouring out harsh criticism from the start. “How long has your trainee period been, Trainee Seo Dowon?”
“Ah! I, I have been… training for eight months!”
Eight months.
That was a fairly short period. Se-rang nodded. But eight months was still enough time to build the basics.
In other words, it was not so short that it could excuse his current skill.
“Really? Eight months?”
“Yes…!” Dowon nodded with an extremely nervous face. Perhaps that sight looked quite pitiful to the other trainees too, because sighs mixed with pity kept flowing from behind him.
“Then what did you do for eight months?”
“!”
“Looks like you just played around? At this level?”
At Eden’s vicious remark, Seo Dowon’s complexion quickly turned pale.
It was an expected reaction, so Se-rang picked up her microphone, intending to roughly agree and send him away, when—“I’m sorry!”