Translator: MarcTempest
Editor: NicoleTempest
Chapter 103 I Didn’t Even Get to Rest?
I scrolled down to the bottom of the screen with a feeling of disbelief.
[Recommended deadline for quest completion: D-90]
I knew it. There must be some extra reward for completing the quest earlier than the recommended deadline. If that was the case, I wanted to get as much as I could.
But how was I supposed to solve the problem of Floss in three months? Floss’s contract was due to expire in half a year, around April next year.
‘The problem would be over if they disbanded quickly.’
But there were many variables. They could extend their contract or keep going with fewer members.
I couldn’t just wait for Floss to disband with the recommended deadline of three months looming over me.
There was no mention of any penalty for failing to complete the quest within the recommended deadline. But I had a feeling that something bad would happen.
‘What is the penalty for exceeding the recommended deadline?’
[The quest window may add or delete content over time.]
So they wouldn’t tell me now. I had to think carefully about what to do.
I put down my phone and looked at Pposili, who was looking up at me from under the bed.
Wait a minute. Didn’t we remove all the observation cameras? I checked the camera installed in our room and saw that it was completely dead.
“Heck, woof!”
Pposili must have done something on his own. I was glad that nothing related to Pposili was broadcasted. It would have been a hassle otherwise.
The director must be furious. Good for him. I felt like I had unintentionally avenged myself.
“But what are you going to do when I have to go out?”
Even if he was a lovable furball that most of humanity would like, the stage was the stage.
A no-name group that had just gained some popularity couldn’t bring a pet along.
Pposili barked again as if to tell me not to worry and jumped into the air.
Then he disappeared in an instant.
“…?”
As Pposili vanished from reality, a picture of a puppy appeared at the bottom of the status window.
“Wow…”
As soon as I exclaimed, the picture of the puppy disappeared from the status window and the furball reappeared in front of me.
“Wow…”
“Woof!”
Pposili stuck out his tongue as if to ask for praise. I gladly offered him my hand so he could lick it. Slurp, his warm and moist tongue touched my palm.
“Ugh…”
I wasn’t very familiar with dogs, so it was a sensation that I couldn’t get used to. But I soon got used to it and it became bearable.
“From now on, I have to go practice for tomorrow’s live performance, so you stay at home.”
Pposili seemed to understand, but he didn’t like it. He whined,
“Kweeung…”
“You’ll be attached to the status window anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
Pposili scratched my leg with his paw and sighed, “Hew.” A dog sighing. It was absurd, but practice was the priority right now.
“I’ll be back.”
I came back after more than six hours of practice, feeling like my whole body was torn apart. I should have saved up some energy since last night.
But instead of saving, I wandered around outside until past midnight, so there was no way I had any stamina left.
I was tired, but I couldn’t mess up the first broadcast stage tomorrow.
It was time to check if everything was perfectly prepared, so the backup dancers also joined us.
So many people were involved to make the five of us shine brighter.
We had to be flawless, as the pressure was high.
“Let’s do it one more time!”
We had to modify the basic choreography to fit the stage we would use at Music Safe, so if we got distracted for a moment, we would make mistakes.
“Seon-woo, please focus a bit more!”
Seon-woo kept making errors, scratching the choreographer’s patience.
If the rest of the members made mistakes too, he would probably scold us and tell us to just do the original version.
We had to dance with all our strength to finish the hard practice.
When we got back, Pposili was already in the house, with perfect timing.
‘He was under the status window just a while ago. How amazing…’
I was amazed to see Pposili sticking to Aeongi, as if he had spent time playing with the cat.
Seongwon quickly grabbed Aeongi and went into his room as soon as the door opened.
He was jealous of a dog… How ridiculous.
Anyway, that wasn’t important right now. I had to wash up and sleep as soon as possible, since I would be busy from dawn tomorrow.
I took a quick bath, like roasting beans on a fire, and lay down on the bed. Pposili looked up at me from under the bed.
His round eyes seemed to beg me to lift him up to the bed.
“Do you want me to lift you up?”
“Woof!”
Pposili barked as if he got the answer right.
“Should I order some stairs? Pposili, do you want to sleep with me on the bed…?”
Seon-woo suggested, as if he was worried about Pposili. Pposili’s ears perked up and he ran to Seon-woo’s bed, wagging his long tail like a fox.
“Or do you want to sleep with me?”
“Woof!”
Pposili licked Seon-woo’s face as a reply. If he disturbed his sleep and he made a mistake on the main stage tomorrow, it would be a disaster.
I stopped him firmly.
“Seon-woo, don’t bother him and come over here.”
Pposili came to me, wagging his tail. He seemed to admit defeat. I lifted him up to the bed and he curled up his body happily and started to fall asleep.
“You too, sleep soon.”
“Okay!”
Right before I fell asleep, I thought of the chart. I picked up my phone that I had placed on the wireless charger and checked the ranking. It had changed.
￣￣￣￣￣
[Real-time 200]
7th Drink me – Climax
￣￣￣￣￣
‘It went down.’
I expected it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. But they say that appearing on a broadcast has the effect of boosting the real-time ranking.
There was no need to feel sad already, as if all I had left to do was go down.
It was time to check the 24-hour chart.
￣￣￣￣￣
[TOP 200]
21st Drink me – Climax
￣￣￣￣￣
It had gone up since I checked it in the morning.
‘Wow…’
As time passed a little after the release, the gap between real-time and 24-hour had narrowed.
To be honest, I didn’t feel it. I knew in my head that this was a tremendous achievement for a rookie.
‘I’ve lived as an ordinary person for more than 40 years.’
I was an ordinary person who knew that famous singers would naturally top the charts as soon as they released new songs.
‘Floss entered the 24-hour first place the next day after they debuted.’
I bravely compared us to the project group that was writing the record-breaking hit record.
I hoped we could make it to the single digits in the TOP 200. I closed my eyes with a sigh.
* * *
Beep-beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep-beep!
As I opened my eyes to the loud alarm sound, Pposili was busily running across my face.
“Ugh, what is it?”
As soon as I opened my eyes, my face was covered with some fur and I gasped. Pposili licked my face as if he had just woken up.
“Ahh… I’m awake.”
As I gradually adapted to the thousand-year-old, I felt uncomfortable in more than one or two things, but the most fatal thing was that my sleepiness increased.
‘I’m sleepy…’
My body was refreshed, but why was it so hard to get up?
I got up with a yawn and wiped off the saliva that was smeared on my face. Seonwoo was lying on the bed.
“Wake up and get ready.”
I shook Seon-woo’s shoulder to wake him up and went out to the living room. The sun was just faintly rising.
I had to stop by the shop for a simple dry because I couldn’t go to work with a new hair.
“Hurry up and get ready.”
Thanks to Pposili waking me up in the morning, I was able to finish preparing earlier than the other guys.
I packed the salad lunch box that I had made like a pack salad the day before and got in the minivan. The sky was bright.
“Everyone, get your mind together today.”
It was the first time that five of us were moving together for a music show appearance. And this time, the manager was also properly accompanying us.
It wouldn’t be a big deal. Floss’s activity period was already over.
We just had to go and record and wait for the ranking announcement. Phew, I took a short breath and stretched and started the day.
The start time of Climax’s rehearsal was 9 a.m. We were the best among the groups that were performing at the rehearsal.
Other groups were almost filming right before the main stage, but I couldn’t figure out what they were basing on.
Thanks to that, it was a day of waiting. Well…. Anyway, the recording went well and I was glad.
‘I was too complacent.’
It was a big mistake to think that it wouldn’t be that hard after seeing what Seon-woo did.
I had received feedback that my eye contact was awkward during the rehearsal, but the recorded monitoring was even worse.
“Wow, really… Did you even try to find the camera?”
Yi-jun asked me with a teasing tone, hiding his twitching lips.
Just laugh at me. I saw myself on the screen, looking at the wrong camera with a nervous expression.
“I did…”
“Well, it doesn’t look like it at all.”
Yi-jun was so excited that he kept nagging me, until Seong-won got annoyed and intervened.
“Shut up, will you? You’re not the only one in the waiting room.”
“What, are you using it alone?”
“Both of you, stop it.”
As the tension rose again, this time Kyunghwa stepped in. He then asked me as if they were them and I was me.
“Why are you suddenly like this? You used to be good at finding the camera.”
It seemed that Cheon Ise was the most familiar with camera walking among the five of us, since he had been the center for most of the time.
In fact, when I looked at the few remaining music show stages, his eye contact was quite skillful, except for his rookie days.
“I’m suddenly confused.”
“What’s there to be confused about? The lights are all on.”
But that’s the thing, I couldn’t see them when I was on stage.
When we performed on Today’s Hometown, there were only two cameras and the main camera was clearly visible, so I didn’t have to worry about it.
And I didn’t need to care about eye contact with the camera either, since I just looked at the expressions of the elders in the audience.
The busking live a few days ago was the same.
I just had to dance and look ahead, but then they suddenly told me to look at the camera, and it was so confusing.
“Next time… I’ll try harder.”
Everyone was fine, but I was the only one who messed up, and my face was burning.
Nine hours after we arrived at the broadcasting station, the live show finally started.
Thanks to the group that included the current MC, we were given a short live interview time, which was a grateful opportunity to appeal ourselves.
I was worried that someone might make a mistake, but.
The time was so short that there was no chance to make a mistake.
“It’s our turn now.”
As soon as we finished the brief interview and entered the waiting room, our segment was starting.
The order of appearance on the music show was basically based on seniority, but Climax was placed relatively early.
“Oh, it’s started.”
Along with Yi-jun’s exclamation, the logo of Climax’s digital single Drink me flashed across the TV monitor in the waiting room.
In the darkness, the light flickered a few times, and the metallic letters melted and filled a small bottle.
Clank.
In the dark space, the bottle fell on a white table, and someone approached the table and grabbed it.
And above it, the letters Drink me carved with a knife appeared, and the music video edit was played.
From Yi-jun, Seong-won, Kyunghwa, me, and finally Seon-woo, we showed our faces one by one, and then the screen went black again.
Pop-.
When the screen lit up again, the camera was looking down at us from the air.
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