Debut or Die
Debut or Die - Chapter 83

The anger against the ‘agency that has yet to give away a single thing, including a fandom name, color, and official lightstick’ spread like an escalator.

‘I am not patient enough to suppress this.’

To be honest, it wouldn’t have been strange if it exploded earlier, but the song came out so well and was in the process of gaining momentum, so it seemed they didn’t discuss it publicly because they were afraid it would affect the performance.

Anyway, it seemed the company’s planning department had received a red light thanks to that.

Testar’s company-related schedule, originally scheduled for tonight, was canceled.

“Congratulations!”

Instead, there was a small first-place party in the dorm. It was on a small scale as we just ordered some chicken with the company card that they had allowed us to use.

The surprise element was the presence of alcohol.

“Since we’re celebrating first place, I think beer would be okay. Let’s drink moderately then clean it all up.”

“Yes!”

Ryu Chungwoo, who had received permission, spoke coolly and drank the beer at once. I wasn’t surprised because he looked like he was strong at drinking.

Of course, the two minors were given soda.

It felt like they were being alienated somehow, but Seon Ahyeon talked to the two of them, which was rare.

“L-Let’s drink together next year!”

Cha Eugene answered with a paper cup in his mouth. It seemed he was distracted by the carbonated drinks he hadn’t seen for a while.

“I can’t drink…”

“…U-Uh?”

“He’s a Korean-American, so he’s allowed to drink from the age of 21.”

Keun Sejin who was opening a beer interjected with a grin.

“Hahaha, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to drink it in Korea anyway!”

“…!”

Both Kim Raebin and Cha Eugene looked very enlightened.

‘You guys are having fun.’

I held a beer in one hand and operated my smartphone in the other. It was to confirm the situation.

‘How the hell did we win first place?’

It was an impossible situation when I checked a few days ago.

I hadn’t looked into it since then because this week’s ranking period was over.

“…”

And after a while. I realized the situation.

‘There are three factors overlapping.’

Here, the influx of music videos and music songs became a small catalyst, and the chart rankings gradually rose.

The second was… The fan signing event.

Album sales were still quite high due to the application for the additional fan signing event.

‘…The copies have gone up.’

Seeing that it had reached 180 copies for the fan signing, I broke out in a cold sweat.

Let’s think about this later. I had no idea what to do to now make it a fair price…

…Anyway, with these two factors interlocking and creating synergy, fans seemed to have noticed the situation first and drove the vote. VTIC’s music activities had ended, so there was a slight decrease in their voting.

In addition, a decisive third factor had entered here. ‘Popular Music’ on Sunday had recently reorganized its ranking system.

In the process, the ranking date, which was originally on Monday, was pushed back until Wednesday, reflecting all of the rising music scores.

In terms of album sales, all of Testar’s special fan signing events were reflected, and the gap with VTIC’s score widened only because the counting period was pushed back.

‘It’s luck.’

That’s why we beat VTIC by a narrow margin.

To a certain extent, the score was only seven points apart.

“…”

I unknowingly gulped down my beer. I couldn’t believe we had accomplished it like this.

Of course, I had suffered terribly. So I was very excited that this had happened, maybe it even triggered my need to have compensation.

Besides, a small experiment was also successful.

“…Are you going to drink more?”

“Yes.”

I took another can of beer from Lee Sejin and called out the status window.

“Kyahahahaha!!”

The surroundings were filled with laughter.

It seemed they were playing the captioned encore video on the TV screen.

In contrast to the guys who were embarrassed, laughing, and enjoying themselves, a cold and neat status window pop-up caught my eye.

[Successfully won first place!]

You won first place on the music show <Popular Music>!

!Time limit: Fulfilled (great success)

!Status abnormality: ‘Win first place or die’ removed!

: Check the truth ☜ Click!

‘Check the truth’ was given as a reward for the removal of the status abnormality.

If I didn’t take it, the status abnormality was not removed.

In other words, if I didn’t take the reward, the content of the pop-up wouldn’t be applied.

‘I was agonizing over this.’

The earlier I removed the state abnormality, the period for the new status abnormality to appear was getting shorter.

Then, the sudden death crisis remained the same, and only the difficulty level rose like crazy.

So it was better to wait as long as possible within the time limit.

Considering the last case, I thought about the way to do it from time to time, but I was just glad that the simplest guess worked.

‘I feel much more at ease.’

The biggest reason was that I could look at the situation for the next 300 days without being chased.

Next, about this status window… The speculation that it was a system, not an intelligent with fluid malice, was strengthened.

‘If it had any malicious intent, it would have threatened me to take the reward through a pop-up or made me take it by force.’

Considering that it didn’t happen, there was a high probability that there would be an end to the status abnormality. Games usually had an ending.

‘Well, it’s just wishful thinking.’

It seemed that once I solved a problem and got drunk, I was able to interpret the situation positively.

Anyway, now that the pop-up had been put on hold, I could take my time checking the status window and the situation. I gulped down the beer in my hand again.

“M-Moondae.”

“Yeah.”

“Y-You’re drinking too fast… I-I don’t think it’s good for you…”

“Ah, you’re right.”

Was it too much to empty one can at a time? I clicked my tongue, cleaned up the beer, and then grabbed the chicken.

“Y-You like chicken, I heard it.”

“You did? Ah, that fan signing event.”

“H-Hn!”

Seon Ahyeon smiled and nodded.

“E-Eat a lot!”

“I will.”

“Eat a lot… A lot!”

“…”

‘I think he’s a bit drunk.’

He hadn’t even finished a single can, but seeing that he was drunk, it seemed he didn’t know how much he could drink. Had he never tried drinking before?

I gave Seon Ahyeon a soda. Then, I ate the chicken while remembering the homma I met at the first fan signing event.

‘She’s good at color correction.’

She posted a lot of things during <Idol Inc> so I felt indebted to her.

The next time I saw her, I should allocate more time to her camera.

“Oooh!”

“Hey, what should we do? We look really stupid. Hiccup.”

The other guys played a clip of <Man who only needs to say it once>’s main broadcast on the TV screen following the encore video.

[Heee!]

Just in time, Cha Eugene, who was screaming at the bird’s head split open, was being zoomed in.

“Uahahaha!!”

Even I burst into laughter so hard that I teared up.

‘It’s really funny.’

It is so well-edited that there was no harassment controversy. In addition, the last beef scene was well done, so it was heartwarming.

[You must have been surprised, so eat a lot]

[Today’s Testar]

[They eat 5kg of Korean beef…☆]

[It was worth spending all the staff’s production cost]

The members were astonished.

“Oh my gosh.”

“5, 5kg…”

“No wonder I gained some weight the next day…”

“It’s all right. It’s all gone because of the schedule.”

“That’s right.”

In the midst of this, the guys who were worried murmured these words.

“Still, I didn’t know I ate up to 5kg.”

“That amount would have been quite huge.”

“…It’ll be fine.”

They made it sound as if they were losing money, but there was no such thing as a show that lost money.

I took the remote control from Keun Sejin and went to a related video.

[Testar’s Korean Beef 5kg Mukbang Unedited <Man who only needs to say it once> ep.2]

“We must have already paid for all the meat there.”

“…!”

The view count already exceeded a million. The members nodded in admiration.

“How about doing a mukbang show? I think I can try everything I’ve always wanted to eat.”

“Let’s send Moondae to the center!”

“C-Center!”

Who gave Seon Ahyeon another beer?

Fortunately, this topic passed quickly.

“I want to keep watching!”

“Ah, that’s right! Let’s play it again from the time we rushed into Moondae!”

Because the excited guys giggled and replayed the video.

‘Now that I look at it, I think everyone is a bit drunk.’

Even the two minors got drunk in the atmosphere.

Well… They looked happy, so let’s leave it alone.

We were at the dorm anyway, so it didn’t get matter if they got drunk.

I decided to proceed with the monitoring I had been pushing back with my smartphone.

– Thank you for feeding our kids so much Korean beef… Thank you so much…!

– Cha Eugene watches horror movies well, but it’s so cute that he’s weak against it in real lifeㅠㅠ Coo Are you scared of staff bird?

– It’s as funny as the preview videoㅋㅋㅋ It’s a successful sale to Muggles who haven’t seen Idol Incㅋㅋㅋㅋ

– Regarding the fact that Ahyeon’s picture taken by Moondae is better than mine… Yosol 1 loss, Moondae 1 winㅠ (revised photo)

“…”

The last one… Looking at the profile, this was the account where the person who took pictures of Seon Ahyeon posted small talk.

And I remembered taking the photo of Seon Ahyeon which was attached to the post a few days ago. I didn’t expect to find it on the Internet.

Just as the meat mukbang ended, related content came out on the TV screen.

[Boom!]

[※Post-credit scene※]

First, a short cut of Testar taking pictures here and there with a camera passed by.

[The result of this action]

Messy photos came pouring out, including a photo of a bird that looked like a strange creature because it was all shaken, feets running and stumbling to the ground, and a picture of the sky and the shore that wasn’t horizontal.

And a caption came up.

[It’s unrecognizable…]

“Ahahaha!”

“It was my first time trying it!”

“What a waste of film.”

As the parties added a word at a time, a new caption appeared on the screen.

[With exception]

A black bird leaping off the surface of the water, a blue bird swinging on a tree branch, and several scenes of the reservoir passed by.

These were neat cuts that contrasted with the previous photos.

And the last thing that came up was Seon Ahyeon smiling brightly under the sun.

This was the original of the revised photo that Seon Ahyeon’s homma posted earlier.

“Huh?”

“…It must be Park Moondae’s.”

Just as Lee Sejin said so, a caption immediately appeared.

[It’s all from the same camera.]

[↓The person who took the pictures]

The video of Park Moondae taking a picture of Seon Ahyeon was crossed out.

And the voice of a self-mosaicked staff was inserted with the caption ‘Camera Director’.

[How did he get such a good shot…?]

[This fellow is really good at taking pictures? (Flustered)]

The images of the staff looking into the camera with exclamations of ‘Oh~’ passed by on the screen.

[Park Moondae: Mysterious golden hands (According to the camera director)]

[※Confirmed by <Man who only needs to say it once>]

The caption had a stamped-on effect. And the video was over.

“…”

I didn’t know that this could be used as content.

And from next to me, Keun Sejin deliberately started pretending to be heartbroken.

“Sigh… This is really saddening. Moondae is discriminating against friends. Could it be that you only care about Ahyeon? If you have a friend besides Ahyeon who treats you so well, isn’t it right to prove your friendship with them by taking their photos and uploading them often?”

“…”

“The more Moondae stays still, the more heartbroken I am, the more I talk. Moondae, you don’t like giving up quickly and making a promise to upload pictures…”

“I’ll take a picture and upload it tomorrow, so stop it.”

“Alringht.”

Drunken men didn’t know how to give up. He might talk to me again, so let’s pretend to look at my smartphone.

On the screen, Seon Ahyeon’s revised photo that was posted earlier was still there.

‘Anyway, it came out well as expected.’

To be honest, if this picture was sold, it worth higher than the market price.

I forgot to return the camera, so I couldn’t check it properly, but I didn’t expect to see it like this.

‘Well, it’s nice to be recognized.’

There was nothing wrong with taking good pictures. I continued to check SNS with a relaxed mind.

And I saw a popular post by a fan of Park Moondae.

– I thought the pictures posted on SNS were unusual, but he’s really good at taking pictures, so why is his selfie skill so bad…ㅠㅠ

“…”

I haven’t taken a lot of pictures…?

Come to think of it, when I took pictures of others, only good pictures came out. I needed to research how to take a good picture of me.