Street Casting
District 6700, the Kingdom of Entertainment, lived up to its grandiose name with a population that rivaled that of an actual nation. A full ten million people packed this single district to the brim.
Of course, raw numbers alone meant nothing. In Atlantis, the only thing that truly mattered was individual power.
The humans of District 6700 had never fought monsters, never forged strength through blood and experience. This was a land of abundance where monsters simply did not appear, so there was no reason to grow strong. The System tightly controlled all entry and exit, leaving the residents with no sense of danger at all. That was why District 6700 had no army.
In short, District 6700 was a greenhouse — and its people were the flowers growing inside it.
Weeds or flowers, I don't care either way. What matters is that there are ten million of them. Out of that many, there has to be at least one beauty who hits every mark for me, right?
I wandered the famous spots of District 6700 — places thick with foot traffic. My plan was simple: find a beauty who caught my eye and reel her in. Street casting, pure and simple.
Three hours later, I realized I had severely underestimated the job.
How is it possible that not a single woman has caught my interest?
A city of ten million. I had planted myself in the busiest spots for three solid hours. Most of the people streaming past were young, and every last one of them had sharp hair and fashion sense. Plenty of beauties turned heads as they walked by. But if you asked me whether any of them had the looks to become an idol… absolutely not.
Compared to Ju Seo-hyeon, they're all second-rate. Put them in a girl group with her and the whole thing tanks overnight. The gap in looks is so massive they'd end up looking like backup dancers.
What I wanted wasn't Ju Seo-hyeon's backup dancers. I wanted her colleagues. A girl group wasn't something you did alone.
I spent another two hours roaming the streets.
A complete waste of time.
Five hours, gone.
There was no beauty who could stand on equal footing with Ju Seo-hyeon.
…Thinking about it, of course no other agency would leave a Ju Seo-hyeon-tier beauty sitting around. The moment she arrived here, Lilith Entertainment hit her with a contract offer.
District 6700 was called the Kingdom of Entertainment for a reason. Idols were the mainstream here, and the district boasted over a hundred entertainment agencies. Any beauty worth looking at had already been scooped up clean.
No choice. Time to change the plan. I'll snag some decent-looking girls and build a girl group with Ju Seo-hyeon as the one-tool carry.
A top-class idol under contract with Lilith Entertainment? Ju Seo-hyeon's power alone should be enough to make that happen.
And if it doesn't work out, we just bail.
So I lowered my standards and approached a reasonably pretty woman.
"Hello. Would you mind speaking with me for just a moment?"
I approached a woman with an air of refined elegance and asked politely. She looked me up and down from head to toe. She clearly knew she was attractive, and her attitude showed it — a generous helping of attitude, in fact.
"This doesn't feel like a pickup… Are you from an agency?"
"Ah, yes. You figured it out right away."
"This is my seventeenth time."
She held out her hand. I froze. Was she asking for money? I pulled out my wallet and started stacking bills onto her open palm.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"…Weren't you asking for money?"
"Do I look like a beggar to you? I was asking for your business card. How can you be this dense? You're bottom-rung at your agency, aren't you?"
"Ah — a business card. I only just joined, so I don't have any yet."
"Haa. You don't even have the basics down. Which agency?"
She fixed me with a sharp glare, clearly planning to filter me out the moment she heard the name. But could she really filter out Lilith Entertainment — one of the biggest agencies in all of District 6700?
I opened my mouth with full confidence, already anticipating her complete change of attitude.
"Lilith Entertainment."
"…You're not lying, are you?"
"Why would I lie? If you're that suspicious, I can put you on the phone with CEO Lilith herself."
"Fine, I'll believe you if you're going that far. Haa… but I never thought Lilith Entertainment would fall this low. I guess the rumors that they're not what they used to be are true."
"Why don't we talk at a café nearby? It's nothing bad, I promise."
"No thanks. Take this back."
She flicked her hand at me. The bills I'd given her earlier came flying and smacked into my chest. A gust of wind caught them at just the right moment, scattering the notes like flower petals across the pavement. Passersby started murmuring.
My mind went blank. Had I just been treated like dirt? Was she seriously telling me to pick up the money?
"Almost wasted my time."
Her voice was ice-cold.
"You fucking bitch!"
SMACK!
I slapped her before I even realized what I was doing.
She didn't even manage a scream — just staggered, then landed hard on her ass. Clutching her flaming-red cheek, she stared up at me.
"I tried to be nice and you thought I was some kind of pushover? Let me clear something up for you — you don't have the looks to pull that kind of attitude. I'll fuck you like a dog, you worthless bitch."
Fear flooded the eyes of the woman who had been so haughty moments before.
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
Her scream snapped my head cold and clear. The surrounding situation snapped into focus. People with smartphones. District 6700 had its own closed internet network, usable only within the district. The moment this footage hit the web, things were going to get extremely annoying.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! Put the phones away!"
I shouted. Most people didn't even pretend to listen.
"Whoa, insane."
"He just straight-up slapped her."
"Said he's from Lilith Entertainment?"
"Lilith Ent is fucked."
I walked up to the nearest guy. Red-dyed hair, silver piercings in his nose and ears — the kind of punk who looked like pure street trash. He didn't flinch as I approached. If anything, he looked at me like I was a joke.
"Hey. I told you to put the phone away. Why aren't you listening?"
"Ha, this is ridiculous. Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? This phone is mine. You've got zero right to interfere."
CRACK!
I kicked him square in the right shin. His leg bent outward at an angle that made it obvious the bone hadn't just twisted — it had been completely destroyed.
"Aaaargh!"
The punk lost his balance and went down. I stomped on him with everything I had. Stomped again. And again. While I was at it, I wrecked his left leg too.
"Gyaaaah…! P-please! Stop! I was wrong! I was wrong! Spare me!"
"Consider yourself lucky, you piece of shit. On a normal day I'd just kill you… but I'm on vacation, so I'll settle for turning you into a cripple. Be grateful I'm not a serial killer."
I reduced the punk to a pulp in ten seconds flat, then swept the area with a chilling gaze. People were already fleeing from me.
I clicked my tongue.
If the videos they'd taken spread, things would get messy. Lilith Entertainment would get dragged into a scandal, and noise would attach itself to Ju Seo-hyeon's debut. The agency would probably try to clean it up while pretending I didn't exist, but…
Debut Ju Seo-hyeon as an idol without me? Don't make me laugh. She's my idol.
I needed to clean this up. The first method that came to mind was hacking — hack every smartphone in the vicinity and delete the footage.
…There are way too many people for that.
I decided on a different approach.
Crackle-snap.
Blue lightning sparked and crackled around me. I focused my mind and planted my feet in a true stance. A ring of electromagnetic waves expanded outward from my body in every direction, frying every machine it touched. The smartphones of the fleeing crowd turned into bricks in an instant. The electronic billboards hanging from nearby buildings went dark all at once.
"Huh? What? My phone just died?"
"Yours too? Mine too!"
"What's going on? It won't turn back on!"
I left them panicking behind me and got the hell out of there.
The Master of the Heavens gazes upon you with intrigued eyes.
The Master of the Heavens thinks this looks entertaining.
I smirked at the system alerts.
Detonating an EMP in the middle of a city looked entertaining, did it?
Honestly? It was fucking hilarious.
I'd learned my lesson: street casting was a dead end.
Finding a beauty who actually impressed me was hard enough, and even if I did, there was no guarantee she had the talent an idol needed.
So I changed the plan.
I would sweet-talk trainees from other agencies into jumping ship. If another agency was already investing in them, that meant they had the raw material to be idols. I started with a small agency — small meant weak, after all.
Fleur Entertainment.
A three-story building. Compared to the towering headquarters of a mega-agency like Lilith Entertainment, it wasn't even a quarter of the size.
According to the internet, they've got idol trainees with confirmed debuts here… Time to extract them.
I strode toward the entrance, only for a man in a black suit to block my path.
"I'm sorry, but Fleur Entertainment is closed to non-personnel. Do you have an appointment? If you tell me who you're meeting, I'll confirm it right away."
"……"
THUD!
I drove my fist into the guard's face. He crumpled backward, out cold. I shook out my hand. My physical abilities were far from ordinary, yet my knuckles still stung. In other words, this guard was no ordinary human.
…In this world, hiring a regular civilian as a security guard would actually be the stranger choice.
Hacking successful.
You can hack the CCTV for 2 hours.
I made sure to hack the CCTV as well.
And just in case, I used my Unique Trait — Deception (SS) — to change my face. Then I walked up to the second floor, where the practice rooms were, with complete confidence. I was so brazen about it that nobody stopped me.
I stepped into a practice room. Seven young women in training gear were dancing to an upbeat track. Every single one of them was strikingly beautiful. Fleur Entertainment's trainees. No instructors or staff in sight. Perfect. I closed the door and walked toward them.
"Good afternoon, ladies."
They froze mid-routine and turned to look at me, tilting their heads in confusion.
"W-who are you?"
"I'm from another agency. I've brought some good news, so hear me out. You won't regret it."
I grinned at them.