The First Dimensional Rift
"What about Ji Seoeun?" I'd gotten enough on Seong Jiyeong for now, so I shifted the conversation to Ji Seoeun. She was the real wild card—an absolute unknown. Even I couldn't recall a single thing about this trainee from my previous timeline. We'd never exchanged so much as a single word. While Tasha and Seong Jiyeong would at least ask trainers questions when they got stuck, Ji Seoeun never opened her mouth. Her idea of communication was just pressing her lips shut and nodding or shaking her head. What was I supposed to do with that? And the moment practice ended, she'd vanish without a trace, making it impossible to even try approaching her. Did she have a jar of honey hidden at home or something? Either way, she seemed just as closed-off as the rest of them.
"Seoeun? Hmm, not much on her... Oh, right. I heard she's a specialized high school dropout. Not sure how reliable it is since she barely talks, but that's the rumor."
"Specialized high school? She must've been a good student. So why become a trainee...?"
"Street casting. One of our staff apparently scouted her while she was working at a convenience store."
"Street casting? They still do that these days?"
"Didn't seem like they had high expectations. They didn't even know she was a superhuman at first. Started as just, 'Wow, she'd make a great actress,' so they chatted her up. Then they found out she was a superhuman and, well, one thing led to another."
"Actress? Yeah, with a face like that..."
I'd asked because I genuinely needed information, but the answer was more interesting than I'd expected. An actress, huh. It made perfect sense. Her registered ability, Expression Direction, would pair perfectly with acting. Cha Entertainment was primarily an idol agency, but they weren't without actors, and they planned to expand in that direction. Right now, the only one was Kim Ji-yoo, the visual member from Purple Swan. She'd already proven her acting chops and was being groomed for lead roles, even appearing in public network miniseries. No one would look down on her.
In that light, it was easy to understand why a casting manager would see Ji Seoeun's obvious actress aura and want to develop her as an acting hopeful. If Ji Seoeun had wanted to enter the industry, she probably would've aimed for acting rather than idol work.
"But didn't you say she's been a trainee for six months? If she wants to be an actress, why bother practicing dance and singing?"
"That's true."
"Maybe she's planning to build some recognition as an idol first, then pivot to acting? It's not unheard of..."
It didn't sit right with me, but it wasn't exactly rare. If that was her plan, it explained why she avoided getting close to the other members. Still, the timing felt off. Pivoting from idol to actress meant she was aiming for debut in the first place, but joining as a trainee this late in the game was strange. If things hadn't worked out and she missed the debut team, all those months of practice would've been wasted. If acting was her real dream, why go the idol route at all? She should've just practiced acting from the start.
"Now that I think about it, both Seong Jiyeong and Tasha became trainees around the same time. Especially Seong Jiyeong..."
The more I considered it, the weirder Seong Jiyeong's situation seemed. If S Investment had bought shares in Cha Entertainment specifically to debut her, they'd picked the wrong target. Acquiring shares in a company with a more flexible schedule would've made her debut much smoother. And despite the CEO warning that joining the debut team was impossible, they still bought in and shoved her into the trainee program. Something was off.
Maybe they believed the CEO would make special arrangements? But businessmen weren't usually that naive. Tasha's case was equally strange. She'd also been brought in through a casting manager. If her goal was to become an idol, she should've avoided Cha Entertainment at that particular moment. Of course, the casting manager who scooped up trainees like a squirrel hoarding acorns for winter was also part of the problem. But blindly following along to a company that was about to pick its debut team wasn't exactly normal behavior either.
"It doesn't seem like they're drawing some grand scheme. This is all just..."
In the end, they'd all somehow made it into the debut team, so the results were good. But the more I learned, the more I realized these girls were far stranger than I'd imagined. I couldn't figure out what any of them had been thinking when they joined the company.
"Don't worry too much~ The company seems to have its own plans."
"What plans?"
"Looks like they're going to forcibly move everyone into the debut team dorms soon. They aren't just going to sit back and watch."
"Oh, really?"
It had already been a month since the debut team was formed, but the members still hadn't moved into the dorms. It was a ridiculous situation. In the first timeline, the moment the debut team was announced, the girls had stormed the dorm, kicked me out, and taken over. When I'd asked the staff about the difference, they said that normally, unless a debut date was set, they didn't force trainees to live in the dorms. Group living was inherently troublesome, so there was no point cramming in trainees whose debut wasn't even scheduled yet.
Which meant that in the first timeline, the debut team had chosen to move in early. And the reason was probably that they wanted to kick me out as soon as possible. To think they'd willingly endure the inconvenience of dorm life just to get rid of me. Just how much had they hated Na Yeri?
Knowing the truth made it even more absurd. So while not forcing dorm life was Cha Entertainment's official policy, the fact that they were now planning to implement group training immediately suggested the company wasn't willing to let this situation slide. It made sense. They'd already scrapped Plan A because they worried about teamwork issues. They weren't the type to just watch if the members started clashing from the very beginning. If they were going to do that, they would've stuck with Plan A from the start.
"But how the hell do you know all this... Ha, never mind."
Yu Hana's information network was honestly more terrifying—she knew about the group training before it was even officially announced. But there was no point dwelling on it now. There was a much more pressing issue at hand.
The dorm would no longer be my personal sanctuary. Which meant it was time for me to start making moves. Once the other members moved in, my freedom of action would be severely restricted.
It was around two years after I'd possessed this body. I'd grown somewhat accustomed to the new company, and the debut team selection was drawing near. My position in the company was quite solid, and I was one of the trainees with a high chance of debuting. That day, as usual, I'd trained diligently until late and was on my way home.
Dragging my exhausted body back, I witnessed something bizarre. The air seemed to warp. Strange sparks kept flickering and shimmering. I remember standing there for a long time, staring because I had no idea what I was looking at.
After some time, strange creatures began tearing through the rippling space and pouring out. The bizarre phenomenon I'd witnessed was what people called a dimensional rift. Out of nowhere, a dimensional rift. Could you believe it?
Honestly, I'd let my guard down. I should've remembered that in an unfinished K-webnovel, anything could happen. But still. This was supposed to be an entertainment industry story. Sure, superhumans existed, but the core was idol stuff. Who could've predicted a dimensional rift? It was the kind of random plot development that only happened if the author had a stroke and didn't care about continuity.
The author could just abandon the story, but life doesn't have an "abandoned" button. An unidentified lifeform tearing through a dimensional rift. And me, the first witness to its creation. From that moment, my life began flowing in a direction I could never have predicted.
"Ha. Just thinking about it pisses me off."
It was a small spark of curiosity that nearly cost me my life. Suddenly the space tore open and strange creatures poured out, putting me in mortal danger. But somehow, I survived. My superpower—one I'd never even been aware of until that moment—activated dramatically and tore the creatures to complete shreds.
That's how I finally learned what my ability was. If it hadn't awakened in time, I would've been killed by those things. But this wasn't some blessed "everything works out in the end" situation. Because of that incident, I became a person of intense interest to the Superhuman Bureau.
The Bureau's management system was extremely extreme. Superhumans with harmless abilities were left completely alone, but if they discovered someone with high lethality, they managed them with almost obsessive thoroughness. The ability I'd awakened was Attraction and Repulsion. It wasn't just versatile—it was optimized for tearing things apart. Plus, my circumstances clearly required supervision.
First witness of a dimensional rift. First person to eliminate an unidentified lifeform. Possessor of a high-lethality superpower. Someone who had hidden their ability and registered it falsely. At this point, even if the Bureau was incompetent, not putting me under special management would've been strange.
Of course, I felt a bit wronged about the ability part, but I couldn't complain to anyone. It was obvious I'd deceived the Bureau. Especially reporting a lethal-type ability as non-lethal was a serious matter. The only reason I wasn't caught red-handed was because there were cases where people awakened powers without immediately understanding them. If not for that, I would've been detained first and asked questions later.
Moreover, the scene of me shredding those creatures had spread rapidly through video footage. Amazingly, someone had filmed it in the middle of all that chaos. Fortunately, the situation was so urgent that my face wasn't captured, but for the Bureau, it was a complete disaster. The Bureau was still a government agency, and government agencies were sensitive to public sentiment. If it got out that they didn't even know what ability the superhuman ripping apart monsters in the video possessed, their position would become very awkward.
This was also why the Bureau had treated me more firmly than usual. After all, when their rice bowl was on the line, civil servants showed more perfection than any other organization. I had no choice but to accept their management without any room to resist.
The dimensional rift that I'd thought was a one-time event continued to appear afterward. They multiplied like bamboo shoots after rain, spreading from Korea to China, Japan, and Russia, until eventually they began appearing all over the world. The government, deciding the situation was serious, ordered the Bureau to begin forced conscription. As both a person under intensive Bureau management and the first discoverer of a dimensional rift, I was included.
Unfortunately, the fact that I was an idol trainee on the verge of debut team selection did nothing to prevent my conscription. Once drafted, I was assigned as a reserve member of the Special Task Force due to my excellent physical abilities and outstanding superpower.