To cut to the chase, the damn system gave me crap.
[Song: Hello, world!
Attempting to learn!
Song learning failed!]
[Tip! The success rate of learning is influenced by the difficulty of the song and your Intelligence stat. If your Intelligence and Wisdom are significantly low compared to the difficulty of the song, attempting to learn it will be impossible.]
If I had known Intelligence and Wisdom would be used like this, I wouldn’t have gone all-in on Strength and Agility.
Surely, there must be some use for them in the game, and it’s my own stupidity for not thinking and investing in the stats blindly.
I briefly gazed at my character status window, which showed all my stats invested in Strength and Agility.
Thankfully, even in this awful game, I was allowed to attempt to learn a song every time I listened to it from beginning to end.
But the probability of success was so low that I finally succeeded when the pale morning light began to illuminate the dark sky.
[Song learning successful!]
“Finally, freaking finally!”
And then, I had to spend another 3 hours filtering it.
Damn.
This is why you don’t have 10 for Intelligence and Wisdom.
It’s not me who’s stupid; it’s the character.
So, what if it’s like that.
[Song: Hello, world!
Added to the song list.]
As expected, I could vividly recall the overall melody and lyrics of the song I just listened to.
These possession buffs were really something.
Honestly, it’s strange if I couldn’t memorize it after listening to it so many times…
Let’s move on.
[First song registration achievement reward has been given.
Keep up the good work!]
There’s an achievement system as well.
As a reward, I gained some experience points and money, leveling up to level 3.
I decided to postpone distributing my stats since I needed to be more cautious about it and checked my song list.
[Song List:
– Hello, world!: 23.17%]
It’s pitiful that this was the only thing there.
However, something even more pitiful showed up.
[You stayed up all night with your frail body.
Fatigue +10
Current Fatigue: 70]
[Your fatigue is approaching the limit. If fatigue reaches 100, your HP will decrease instead.]
That’s my HP, right there.
It was clear that my fatigue would soon hit 100, and seeing that my HP was already down to almost half, I panicked and invested all my stats into Stamina.
Back when I was a healer in raids, I’d coolly ignored our trembling DPS players begging to be saved, but now, even having half of my HP made me anxious.
Another notification popped up.
[You’ve boldly spent your first night in another world.
Willpower +1]
[Tip! Depending on the player’s actions, additional stats can be generated. This game supports free play.]
Willpower? Willpower was good.
I will definitely grab the CEO by the collar.
The schedule on my calendar app indicated that it was about time to head to the first recording location, but my condition was pretty bad.
Should I stand among the beautiful trainees like a weed and look so haggard?
In many ways, I was bound to stand out.
I went outside the unmanned café and headed to the public restroom I had seen earlier.
I washed my face vigorously with the refreshingly cold water.
It was my first time properly checking my face in a mirror rather than my phone’s camera, and the feeling was quite complicated.
It wasn’t the shock of my face being ugly like before.
No matter how realistic it may seem, this was just a game, and this was my “character’s” face, after all.
Like many users, I prioritized my character’s appearance.
I didn’t enjoy playing if my character wasn’t pretty or handsome.
So, I usually spent a whole day customizing my character in detail or spending tons of money on flashy limited avatars in certain games, leaving my bank account depleted.
One day, my character would become good-looking again, right?
With the determination to become good-looking again, I took the bus to the recording studio.
Even on the shaky bus, I kept listening to the song with my worn-out earphones from my pocket.
But it wasn’t just memorizing the song.
“Learning” only helped me understand the objective information, such as lyrics and tunes.
So, if I sang the song with a low understanding percentage, it would sound like a robot singing rather than a human.
That’s how this awful game was.
At least, fortunately, my understanding of the song gradually increased as I kept listening to it.
It seemed to increase faster when I hummed it myself rather than just listening.
[Hello, world!: 55.27%]
After getting off the bus, I walked to the studio without any trouble.
As I approached the studio, I noticed many shady mid-sized cars gathered early in the morning, which turned out to be the right place.
I walked sluggishly toward the area where the trainees, who had arrived before me, were being filmed.
All of them were carrying a big bag as if they were going on a trip while I had nothing.
And, true to the nature of the game, characters’ names floated above their heads.
[Jing Xiao]
[Ok Doyun]
The one on the left must be a foreigner, probably of Chinese descent.
They both looked good, just like you’d expect from a 3D idol game.
As I was feeling bitter while thinking of my originally more handsome face, a staff member noticed me and gestured for me to wait there.
Humming Hello, world! very softly, just enough for me to hear, I waited for a moment.
The trainees in front of me disappeared inside, and the staff called me over.
As I walked toward them, the camera started filming me.
When you think of idols, you think of their greeting.
I tried a proper, polite bow.
“Hello!”
“Hi. Your voice sounds cheerful, but you look really tired. Did you sleep well last night?”
Noona was so sweet. Almost heart-fluttering.
But in reality, everything in this world was like 3D or 2D, so my heart didn’t flutter.
All this was happening inside a monitor.
I had no intention of immersing myself too much in the game and forgetting that people or scenery were all just data made up of 0s and 1s.
“Yes. I must look a bit tired because I walked here from the front.”
The staff chuckled as if going along with my explanation.
She’s laughing at my pathetic attempt at acting cute from a not-so-good-looking guy…
This must be the player’s correction.
“Why don’t you have any luggage?”
At that, I remembered that the quest reward list had a carrier.
“I had a little issue on my way here, so a friend of mine agreed to bring it before the shoot ends.”
The system should handle that much, right? It should, right?
The staff seemed to accept my hastily made-up story with a nod.
“How are you feeling right now?”
“I’m really nervous.”
Because of my anger towards this game.
The staff nodded as if understanding, thinking that my not speaking much was because I was really nervous.
“Please say a few words before you go in.”
“I came here alone, so I feel a bit lonely… I’d like to get along well with the other friends here.”
It’s a given that NPCs treat player characters well.
Sometimes there were some who rebelled, but usually, they ended up either getting killed by, retreating from, or being moved by the player.
The staff burst into roaring laughter, unsure what was so funny, and nodded as if it were done.
“It’s cold out here, so go in quickly. Since you don’t have any luggage right now, you can head straight over there.”
“Thank you!”
“Why are you so happy?”
“Because I’m happy!”
Ah, I could finally go inside where the heater was blowing warm air!
A system window popped up as I gleefully entered the large studio.
[A “Student ID” has been granted as a reward for your first studio entrance.]
I took the student ID that suddenly appeared in my pocket and walked to the desk in front of the staff checking entrances.
“Hello. I’m On Raon, an individual trainee.”
“Please show me your ID or student ID… Oh, it’s correct. The photo and your face look a bit different, though?”
It’s because my attractiveness stat got reset to 10.
“Come on, who in the world looks exactly the same as their ID photo!”
“Don’t ID photos usually look worse than the real person? This one looks much better, though?”
That hurt. I knew I looked worse.
The staff laughed, saying it was a joke, and I forced a smile as well, gathering my empty soul in the cyber world.
Well, my affection for you is already negative.
I’ve memorized your name: Choi Eunjong.
“Raon… Here you are. You’ve been checked in. Please hand over your phone. We’ll return it when the shoot is over.”
I turned off my phone as instructed, handed it in, and even had my body searched with a metal detector.
I already had a hunch of how tough the days ahead would be.
“Wait in the inner waiting room and follow the staff’s instructions. Oh, hang your coat on that visible hanger before going in. If you’ve seen the previous season, you should roughly know how it goes… Do you have any questions?”
“Yes, I do.”
As I seriously confirmed, the staff looked at me as if surprised.
“Will you provide meals during the shoot?”
At my earnest question, she burst into laughter.
Was it funny? Do you find my sincerity funny?
I, who almost froze to death the moment I entered the game, who drank only one cup of chocolate latte in the morning and had my stomach sticking to my back, and still had to shoot with no breaks in the morning, was I funny?
The staff’s warm words calmed down the anger that was hard to control.
“We don’t have meals, but snacks will be provided occasionally.”
“Thank you so much.”
This program was my lifesaver.
Sincerely.
Although it seemed the cause of everything, I decided not to argue like a man.
“Why do you like such a thing so much?”
“It’s the age to eat well, isn’t it?”
“Oh my.”
I entered the waiting room with the staff’s farewell and wishing me well as if I reminded her of her child.
I returned my student ID to my coat pocket in case I lost it.
There were already about fifty trainees in the waiting room.
I wonder if there’s a difference in polygons in the characters, as there weren’t as many good-looking guys as the ones I saw earlier.
There were also many trainees with ordinary visuals, making me wonder why they came to an idol program.
When I think of the trainees I’ve seen at my previous agency, it’s not that surprising.
I filled my stomach with water, mixing hot and cold water in a paper cup at the water purifier in a 1:1 ratio, and drank it several times.
My stomach felt full.
“Kyaa.”
It’s sweet.
There’s no separate honey taste.
When I did this, I naturally thought of alcohol, but according to the student ID I briefly looked at, I was 18, so I had at least two years of prohibition.
I could only hope to get out of here within two years.
Rubbing my stomach filled with water, I found a relatively empty spot and sat down.
The heater’s warm air was so inviting that I became drowsy.
As I was dozing off, my fatigue decreasing just a bit, the staff came and started attaching microphones to us one by one.
“You’ll be entering in 10 minutes.”
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