Chapter 1 - Debut or Die, I

Isn’t it a common trope that when you open your eyes and see an unfamiliar ceiling, you’ve ended up in a different world?

But that wasn’t the case. I woke up in some moldy motel room.

“Ugh—”

It felt like my head was splitting apart. I grabbed my forehead and got up. The musty sheets fell to the floor.

So—let’s see, after confirming that I failed the test again, I think I fell asleep while drinking alone.

Does this mean that I somehow made it from my apartment to this motel?

“I’m going crazy…”

I cursed at myself and went into the bathroom. I thought I should take a leak and check out my appearance as well. I expected to see the same guy who had been studying for the civil service exam and gotten drunk the night before.

And I fell to my knees when I looked in the mirror.

“Ugh!—Fuck.”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and swore reflexively.

I brushed my hair with trembling hands. Then I looked in the mirror again.

I could still see an unfamiliar face in the mirror.

There was a thin, pretty young boy.

…I took deep breaths to keep myself from panicking. I had already quit, yet I desperately wished I could smoke again.

“…Whoo.”

It was then that I realized that even the voice was unfamiliar.

I felt like I was going to bite right through my tongue.

What the hell’s going on here?

Struggling to grasp the situation, I used the unfamiliar body to search the motel room.

I found what looked like a suicide note and an empty medicine bottle. Whoever had occupied this room must have tried to kill himself by taking sleeping pills.

I skimmed through the suicide note. It said that he was an orphan who had dropped out of school and decided to take his own life because he felt depressed and hopeless.

Reading it left me feeling a little melancholy. Even after switching bodies, I had somehow become an orphan again.

I also found a wallet lying on a cheap dressing table. Inside were some bills and this body’s ID card.

“This guy was born in the 2000s…”

At least I was younger now. I studied the photo on my ID card. The boy in the photo looked healthier than the person I’d seen in the mirror, but he still had a gloomy air about him.

Despite his gloomy impression, he was young and fairly attractive. Based on the photo, I thought he looked younger than twenty-three.

“…”

But I didn’t have time to think about that.

I struggled to examine my situation objectively.

After a few deep breaths, I managed to compose myself and grasp the situation. I needed to find my original body first and then figure out what to do next. After all, there was every possibility that Park Moondae had ended up in my body.

I took my wallet and opened the motel door.

And I froze.

Looking out the window in front of me, I saw that it was snowing.

…But it had definitely been July when I’d gotten drunk the night before.

“Oh my.”

I gulped. Then I rushed back inside the motel room and lifted the calendar on the desk.

—The calendar was from three years ago.

My head spun.

It didn’t take that long to calm down again. After all, switching bodies with someone was more shocking to me than traveling back in time.

I sat on the bed and sighed. I couldn’t even remember any winning lottery numbers, so why did something like this happen to me?

Suddenly, I became aware of the absurd idea that had popped into my head.

…What if this wasn’t actually the past, but a completely different world?

It was a crazy idea, but it seemed convincing because I was overwhelmed by the crazy situation.

Things like this happened all the time in the webtoons and web novels I’d read. What was it called again?

I must have looked ridiculous, muttering to myself in a daze.

“Status window…?”

Of course, nothing happened.

Damn it.

I hit the bed with my hand in shame.

There’s no way, you idiot—.

It’s open?

I toppled out of bed.

“Ugh!”

Even as I groaned from the pain in my back, I thought to myself.

This wasn’t what I expected to see when I asked for a status window.

“…”

By opening the status window, I could calm myself down as much as I wanted.

It’s definitely a situation that ignores the laws of physics. But I can feel that this is not a joke.

I left the motel and made my way to a nearby internet cafe. I wanted to find out what other differences there were between this world and the one I’d come from.

To make sure, I asked to use the phone at the counter and called my original number, but I was told that the number didn’t exist.

I couldn’t log in to the university account, and the SNS account created for the assignment also disappeared.

In other words, all evidence pointed to the fact that I had never existed in this world.

Honestly, I wasn’t all that disappointed about it.

My parents had already died in an accident when I was in middle school, and by the time I entered college, all of my relatives had lost contact with me.

I didn’t have many friends to begin with, and I had grown distant from the few I did have while spending years preparing for the civil service exam.

Thinking about all the years I’d wasted preparing for the civil service exam, I felt that this was a chance to finally leave that life behind.

“The Ham Ramyeon you ordered.”

“Ah, thank you.”

I calmly evaluated myself and received a tray. And I looked at the search engine while slurping ramyeon in my mouth.

Well, it was 3 years ago that I set up a “full-scale study” for quite some time.

These sites are not very familiar to me because it was the time when I canceled my smartphone and cut off the internet.

But I didn’t feel out of place.

It feels exactly like 3 years ago. Things that were popular at that time stand out. Games, movies, songs—Idol.

Idols.

“Hmm.”

When I finished eating, I put the chopsticks in the ramyeon bowl, and I crossed my arms.

No matter how I looked at it, the status window seemed specifically designed for idols.

I don’t know why I came into this body, but is it related to the contents of the status window?

Did the original owner of this body, ‘Park Moondae,’ have a dying wish to become an idol trainee?

— Or is it because of my college days?

I don’t know at all. But I should use what is available.

“Status window.”

As I mumbled softly, almost only with the sound of my breath, another translucent status window popped up in my sight.

My vocal is a grade C, and visual is also a grade C. The rest of the categories were blank, possibly because I hadn’t tried them yet.

The idea suddenly came to my mind, but I decided to put it off for now. There was no way I wanted to show off my dancing and talent right now in this situation.

Then, should I check the status window for other content?

I remembered the karaoke sign I saw while entering the PC room.

“Oh.”

First of all, speaking of the confirmation results, grade C doesn’t seem to be a low grade.

I could sing very well. First of all, the tone was good, and the volume of the voice was good. Since the vocalizations were also clear, I would say that it feels like the basics are good. It seemed that I might actually be talented.

Even more surprising was the window that suddenly popped up.

“Mission?”

I was just asking myself, but another window popped up.

……

I tried scrolling down, but the list seemed endless—it was clearly meant to encourage grinding. The completion requirements became increasingly unreasonable as I scrolled. Besides, half of them are blank, so it’s impossible to check.

The list immediately sapped my motivation, so I closed the window.

Still, since I earned a point, should I use it like in a game?

I called out the status window.

‘Remaining points: 1’ was newly displayed at the bottom.

“Transfer one point to Vocal.”

Then the contents of the status window changed.

Vocal becomes a C+ right away.

Is this really reflected?

I immediately chose the song I sang earlier again. And I sang it the same way.

“Wow, that was pretty good.”

I could definitely hear the difference. My singing sounded smoother and more balanced. It was as if my muscles had automatically formed a memory and instinctively knew how to sing that way.

My gaze fell to the “Characteristics” category on the status window.

“Infinite potential…”

Normally, people are naturally gifted in some areas and have to work hard to develop their skills in others. Sometimes, you can only improve so much, even with hard work. In other words, there is usually a limit to one’s potential and growth.

Judging by the status window, I could improve ridiculously quickly relative to the effort I put in, with no limit to how much my abilities could grow.

I’d also confirmed that applying a skill point to an ability actually improved it.

I thought, stroking my chin.

Idols—.

Is that what I’m supposed to use this new body to become?

At that moment, a pop-up appeared on the status window.

“…!!”

“What?”

It sounded completely ridiculous, but a sense of foreboding washed over me.

It’s already crazy that I’m in someone else’s body, but there’s no guarantee that nothing more strange will happen.

The strange pop-up vanished as soon as I finished reading it.

And, sure enough, a strange entry was added to the status window.

Is this real?

“Fuck—”

I spat out, cursing and covering my forehead. A cold sweat broke out.

I had already confirmed the existence of the status window. So it was impossible to ignore the possibility that even this shitty phrase would come true.

Why the hell was something like this popping up? Was it because I thought about idols?

I laughed in disbelief. Yet at the same time, another thought occurred to me.

‘…Could I be getting punished for taking pictures of idols and selling them?’

Yeah, idols.

To be frank, it was a field I was familiar with for personal reasons.

When I was in college, I earned a decent living by taking pictures of idols and selling them to their fans. In the process, I did some things that only someone desperate for money would do.

I’d seen all sorts of things and heard all kinds of rumors.

Besides, the environment makes people; I’d taken so many photos of idols that I eventually became deeply immersed in the idol industry. I’d even voluntarily researched various aspects of the field, so I was pretty well-versed in everything idol-related.

I wiped the cold sweat away from my face. Then I crossed my arms and looked at the status window.

I didn’t know what the hell was going on. It all seemed ridiculous, and I was pissed off.

But since I didn’t intend to die, I needed to get it together.

My previous life was already a thing of the past. Why not take this opportunity to start a new life, especially under such favorable circumstances?

Besides, if I wanted to find out how I ended up in this body, I’d have to make use of this bizarre status window and find the answer myself.

“Hmm.”

With that, I’d finished rationalizing my situation. I chuckled to myself, feeling a little like I’d lost my mind.

Thinking about it, hadn’t there been an idol survival audition show that went viral around this time?