Chapter 1
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 1
“Do you even consider yourself human, PD-nim?”
I remained indifferent, even with an idol sobbing right in front of me.
“Why?”
“If you had even a shred of a conscience, you could never have edited it like that!”
I scanned the woman screaming in desperation. This was a survival show for trainees who had spent years practicing but failed to debut. She had placed fourth—not a bad result at all.
More importantly, I was the one who had secured that rank for her.
To be precise, I did it through editing.
A genius of editing, a talent bestowed by the devil, a thirty-three-year-old young prodigy PD. Those were the modifiers that followed me, Seo Ho-yun.
I quite liked them.
Mostly because they meant money followed me, too.
“You got fourth place, didn’t you?”
“What does that matter? Everything important is already gone! The public is cursing me out, calling me crazy. I’ve lost contact with friends I trained with for ten years. If I step out onto the street, people throw eggs at me!”
“Well, at least you’ll live a long life.”
“What?!”
“They say you live longer the more people curse at you.”
I pulled out a cigarette and placed it between my lips. Click, click. The lighter sparked, and the tip caught fire. I took a deep drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke. The idol looked at me, her expression one of pure disbelief.
“You know you’re not exactly great at singing, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“In the beginning, you said you’d do anything to get famous. I liked that passion, so I edited the footage to give you a boost. I gave you a concept: the rude but genius dancer, the annoying celebrity you just can’t stop watching. I gave you so much screen time that people started whispering you were my niece. We don’t even look alike.”
As I repeated the comments I’d seen online, her face turned a mottled red and purple.
“You said you wanted to succeed, and I helped you.”
It was the simple truth. Without me, she wouldn't have made fourth place. I gave her a perfectly objective assessment, but her jaw trembled with rage.
“Did I ever ask for that?”
“At first, didn't you say that was all you needed?”
“…….”
“If things get tough, just look at your bank balance. That should make you feel a bit happier.”
Whenever the Bureau Chief pours booze over my head and acts like a lunatic, making the world feel meaningless, I look at my bank balance. Then I pat my chest.
Yeah, life isn’t that complicated. Money solves everything.
She grit her teeth and lowered her head. I glanced at my phone. It was time to go.
“If that’s all you have to say, I’m leaving. I’m busy.”
“…PD-nim.”
The moment I turned around and took a step, she called out to me. Then, like someone possessed, her eyes rolled back as she spat out a curse.
“I’ll pray that you fail miserably. A day will surely come when you regret this. A day where our positions are swapped and you’ll finally understand me. When that time comes, it won’t matter how much you beg and cry.”
“My, how terrifying.”
I chuckled. My luck had been rotten all day, but I hadn't expected something this entertaining to happen.
Leaving the cursing woman behind, I quickened my pace. I had to get back to the production office to finish editing.
I intended to dismiss it as nothing more than a funny incident.
Until the system window appeared.
* * *
Ding!
Ding!
Di-ding!
[Notoriety Points +100]
[Notoriety Points +350]
[Notoriety Points +500]
[Notoriety Points have accumulated. You have met the conditions to start the game.]
[Loading….]
“Ugh, what now?”
The noisy chiming was irritating. Even for a dream, this was too much. I’d only slept four hours in the last three days, surviving on energy drinks just to finish editing. It was probably just my alarm.
Just as I was about to force my eyes open in annoyance—
[Seo Ho-yun, congratulations! You have been selected as a player for ‘Unknown Idol Tycoon.’ Congratulations on becoming 10 years younger!]
[Seo Ho-yun: Unknown idol from a small agency.
Age: 23
Characteristics: Completed military service, has zero talent for dancing.
Was once a genius PD, but no one remembers him.
(※ Excluding specific individuals)]
[If you fail to clear the game, logging out will be permanently impossible.]
It was like being struck by a bolt from the blue. When I opened my eyes and sat up, a system window was floating in the air. I stared at it, let out a hollow laugh, and turned my head away.
“Let’s just sleep.”
I tossed my phone aside and crawled back under the covers. I must be seeing things because I’d worked too hard on the editing.
“What a bizarre dream….”
I really must have overexerted myself yesterday. However, the system window floating against the ceiling did not disappear. The faint blue light of the window glowing in the dark room brought a wave of unreality crashing down on me.
Ding!
“…….”
Ding!
“……What a persistent dream.”
I couldn't even force myself back to sleep with the system window chiming continuously. As I sat up, trembling, the window came into sharp focus.
[Quest Arrived:
‘Reality Check Time!’
Accept reality.
You are no longer a genius PD; you are a player in ‘Unknown Idol Tycoon.’
You have become an unknown idol.
Accept reality: 0/1
Success: ‘Failing Idol’ Title
Failure: Permanent inability to log out]
Permanently unable to log out? The ominous nature of that title made me scramble out of bed. What kind of dream was I having?
I wiped my face and stood up. This dream was certainly lasting a long time. I stumbled toward the bathroom, thinking I should at least wash my face to wake up. After splashing my face with cold water, I turned my gaze to the mirror.
“…What is this?”
The dark circles that never vanished due to excessive overtime, the skin that had started to look haggard—all of it had changed.
My skin was smooth. No, that wasn't the only problem. My face…
It was the Seo Ho-yun from ten years ago.
This was pure horror.
I touched my face tentatively, then recoiled in terror. No matter how vivid a dream could be, it couldn't be this real.
How many people could actually shout, ‘Sweet, I’m young again!’ in a situation like this? I fled the bathroom and ran out of the room.
“What’s up, Hyung?”
“Seo… Seo Ho-jin.”
“You startled me. Have you finally lost it?”
My younger brother, Seo Ho-jin, was casually drinking water as he answered. Then he saw my face and spat the water out.
“Pfft! Cough, hack… Hy-Hyung, did you get plastic surgery?”
“What?”
“What’s wrong with your face? No, can plastic surgery even do this in one day? Has Korean medicine advanced that much? You look exactly like you did ten years ago….”
Ho-jin strode over, grabbed my face, and turned it side to side.
Ho-jin was the same. Normally, I would have thrown a fit about him daring to grab his older brother’s face, but I couldn't.
[Seo Ho-jin]
[Seo Ho-yun’s younger brother. University student.
※ This individual remembers you.]
Seeing the system window floating next to Ho-jin, I pushed him aside.
“Move.”
I hurriedly grabbed my wallet. There, I found my resident registration card. The first digit of the birth year had changed.
“What is this?”
[We tell you once again, congratulations! Seo Ho-yun, you have become a player for ‘Unknown Idol Tycoon.’]
“Hyung?”
Ho-jin muttered blankly, as if he were the one dreaming. With hands shaking as if I were on drugs, I picked up my phone and searched my name. A single page appeared.
[Ho-u Ho-u / Real Name: Seo Ho-yun
Idol under Daepasung Entertainment
Debuted in 20XX]
No matter how I looked at it, it was my face. Even though it should have said I was a PD at QBS!
When I searched the news, the articles that used to appear—
‘Seo Ho-yun’s Devil’s Editing: Is This Right?’
‘Petition for Broadcasting Sanctions Against Seo Ho-yun’
‘PD Seo Ho-yun’s Program Breaks Viewership Records Again’
—those articles that both praised and criticized me were gone.
All that remained were posts related to a failed idol’s profile.
[How How! Ho-u Ho-u, the new idol from Daepasung Entertainment. Please look forward to him!]
“This is insane…….”
“Hyung!”
I clutched my head with both hands as a splitting headache took hold.
The genius PD, the talent bestowed by the devil, the master of editing—Seo Ho-yun? I’d become an unknown idol?
* * *
“I’m sorry, Hyung.”
After grabbing a pale-faced Ho-jin and talking it through, the results were as follows:
1. This is not a dream. (I asked Ho-jin to hit me to wake me up, but it just hurt.)
2. I have been transmigrated into the game Ho-jin had been playing recently. (A mobile game called ‘Unknown Idol Tycoon.’ Apparently, it’s a game about raising idols.)
3. I have become twenty-three years old, while everyone else remains the same. (Ho-jin is still twenty-three.)
And… the most important final point.
“You’re an idol, Hyung… The kind of idol I’m thinking of? The kind that gets their MR removed as a baseline and gets torn to shreds for not knowing a single general knowledge quiz? The kind that has to smile brightly whether it’s raining or snowing?”
“Seo Ho-jin… stop being so weirdly detailed and shut up before you piss me off….”
“Keeping my mouth shut.”
I had become an idol. And a complete nobody at that. The kind where searching on a portal site only yields a single page of results.
How did this happen? I pressed my hand to my forehead as it throbbed. The system window was still hovering beside me.
[Quest Complete!
‘Reality Check Time!’
Accept reality.
You are no longer a genius PD. You have become an idol.
Accept reality: 1/1]
[Success.]
[You have obtained the title ‘Failing Idol’!]
Seeing the ‘Failing Idol’ title spinning above my head made me want to vomit.
Why? Why me of all people? And where exactly am I?
“Then what about the files I was working on until yesterday?”
[They have vanished!]
I’d pressed Ctrl+S and even made backups, and they just vanished?
“This is crazy… crazy… CRAZY!!”
As I clutched my head and muttered like a madman, Ho-jin’s eyes darted around.
“Is that really the most important thing right now?”
“Shut up.”
I recalled the first system window I’d seen.
Notoriety Points. The people who cursed me the more controversial my programs became. And finally, the idol who had spat a curse at me.
—I’ll pray that you fail miserably.
Hey, I’ve failed….
—A day will come when our positions are swapped and you’ll finally understand me.
I understand now. Can’t I just take it back?
—When that time comes, it won’t matter how much you beg and cry.
Ah, so it’s no use….
“Hyung, get a grip!”
“My save files….”
I buried my head in my hands and groaned. The conclusion was clear.
It seemed I had indeed become an idol.