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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: The Kkondae System
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My mood plummeted back to the depths of hell.
To think that after traveling nine years back in time, I’d willingly boarded the overtime express train all over again. It was miserable.
In exchange for my energy, happiness, and sense of accomplishment, I gained a basic step and 20 experience points.
“What a fulfilling day, fuck.”
I started to question my life.
Still, instead of giving up on everything, I started tidying up. I had to be out of the practice room before midnight, when the security guard went home.
I couldn’t have someone working overtime because of me. The guilt would probably kill me.
Turning off all the lights in the practice room, the already dead-silent company building felt even more desolate. The familiar air of late-night work settled around me.
Just as I was starting to feel down, I sensed a presence in the lobby. Soon, a tall shadow fell across the hallway.
The shadow belonged to Choi Jeho.
He was just standing at the desk, but Choi Jeho looked incredibly ominous.
It wasn't that I was only seeing his negative side because I disliked him. Really.
As Choi Jeho walked toward me, our eyes met, and he took out his earphones. I asked him, my voice full of suspicion.
“You’re still here?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t tell me you were waiting for me?”
“Yeah.”
Choi Jeho answered every question with a single, annoyed syllable.
“Why did you wait?”
“You think a guy who’s never been to the company before can find his way back to the dorms?”
“Are you actually being considerate?”
“Jeong Seongbin offered to stay, but it’s too late for the younger guys to be out.”
He was basically saying he didn’t stay because he wanted to, but what did it matter?
Our future leader was only eighteen. If he had any conscience, Choi Jeho should have been the one to stay late, not a minor.
Still, knowing Choi Jeho’s loner personality, I gave him a couple of pats on the back and a forced smile, a silent compliment for his consideration.
Choi Jeho looked deeply displeased.
* * *
When we got back to the dorms, Lee Cheonghyun, who slept on the top bunk above me, was still awake, waiting for us.
“Why are you still up?”
“I was waiting for you!”
I pointed at Choi Jeho, but Lee Cheonghyun confidently pointed at me.
Does the idol world have some kind of twisted hazing ritual for newbies?
Something like being forced to buy thirty cups of coffee alone. Or washing everyone’s shoes.
I gave him a look that said, *I didn’t take you for that kind of person…*, and Lee Cheonghyun grew flustered.
“Why are you looking at me so fiercely?”
“Oh, I just thought you were about to haze me.”
The kind of vicious things you could make someone do at this hour would be to buy lunch boxes from every convenience store brand or get takeout bone-and-potato soup from a 24-hour restaurant and deliver it before it gets cold.
For someone who’d been sent on a cigarette run from Gangnam to Gangbuk, this was nothing.
Steeling myself, I started recalling what restaurants I’d seen on the way here when Lee Cheonghyun spoke.
“Who would ever haze someone like that!”
“You won’t?”
“Of course not! Why would you say something so scary?”
I was already running a simulation of asking the restaurant owner for some extra radish kimchi. But if not, then never mind.
While Choi Jeho, who had long since lost interest in us, went to wash up, Lee Cheonghyun sat on the floor next to my bed. I joined him, and we both ended up on the floor.
“Giyeon has inflammation in his ankle. I saw him wearing a brace earlier.”
It seemed Lee Cheonghyun had been waiting for me to talk about Kang Giyeon’s ankle.
He’d been the one to make the biggest fuss when Kang Giyeon said he was in pain, but he seemed to have calmed down now.
“He’ll have to rest from practice for a while, then.”
“I don’t know. He’s ridiculously stubborn.”
He can be. I nodded in agreement with Lee Cheonghyun.
“How did you know?”
“What? About Giyeon’s ankle?”
“Yeah. None of us had any idea.”
“Just… I didn’t notice it up close either. I only saw it from a distance.”
If I were to say…
*‘I’m from the future, and I learned about Kang Giyeon’s weak ankle while being forced by my department head to stan an assistant manager, which is how I knew I wasn’t wrong.’*
…it’s not like he would believe me. And I didn’t feel like explaining it at length.
Whether he actually believed my half-hearted answer or not, Lee Cheonghyun’s eyes went wide.
“You must have really sharp eyes. It’s not easy to catch something like that at a glance.”
Usually, when someone who doesn’t know anything gets something right by chance, you’d just call it beginner’s luck, right?
This kid must be the type to think highly of others.
“I guess I got lucky. You’d probably see it right away if you rewatched the video.”
“Actually, Seongbin and I watched the video when we got back to the dorms, and it wasn’t noticeable at all. Your observation skills are insane.”
It wasn’t keen observation, but years of accumulated big data, but I kept my mouth shut.
I wouldn’t mind being recognized for improving my skills through practice, but I’d rather not stand out for strange reasons.
Taking advantage of the moment Choi Jeho returned from his shower, I stood up, saying I needed to wash up too.
Lee Cheonghyun looked disappointed but obediently returned to his spot. He was quick to read the room.
After finishing my shower and lying down in bed, it finally sank in that the day was over.
*I’d like to figure out a few things about this system when I have the chance. Would that be too difficult?*
There was nothing more troublesome than an unexpected issue popping up while you were just trying to work.
Just as I was thinking about how to minimize such mishaps, the system actually appeared before my eyes. It seems it shows up if you just pray for it hard enough.
The text that appeared this time was the same one I’d seen before.
+
[SYSTEM] Handover Progress
▷ Task Period Notification: 20XX, February 1X (Synchronization complete, cannot be changed)
▷ Manual Confirmed
▷ Process Confirmed
+
But this time, two of the items were crossed out. It seemed to indicate they were completed.
*The manual must be referring to the ‘Life Reuse Manual.’*
Just thinking about that manual made me angry, so I decided to put it aside.
That left only the process confirmation.
I tried hard to imagine confirming the process, and just like that, text related to the process appeared. The brain-sync speed was pretty impressive.
+
[SYSTEM] The ‘Process’ will be applied to the ‘Subordinate.’
▷ The ‘Subordinate’ will be assigned ‘Tasks’ or ‘KPIs’ irregularly.
▷ ‘Welfare Points’ will be awarded based on the ‘Subordinate’s’ task performance.
▷ Awarded ‘Welfare Points’ can be added to ‘Proficiency.’
▷ As the handover progresses after the process is applied, the difficulty of ‘Tasks’ will increase. (Penalties will be incurred for task failure.)
[SYSTEM] The ‘Subordinate’s’ job class is set to ‘Producing Member.’
+
Fuck, if you were going to make me do producing, couldn’t you have just made me a new hire in the planning department instead of a group member?
The part about incurring penalties was just as infuriating.
If I can’t debut, I can’t save my sister, and I’ll have to go back to my old job. What more of a penalty could there be?
I should have known to keep my distance from this damn Kkondae system the moment it started talking like Department Head Nam.
I was tempted to look for an option to change it, like changing the voice on a GPS, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to look at this system thing anymore.
Still, I liked that I could use points to raise my stats instead of buying ice cream.
I felt a little guilty, as if I were cheating to get results others achieved through blood, sweat, and tears, but with my family’s life and a lifetime contract on the line, I had to use any dirty trick I could.
*At least the condition isn’t to be active with them for seven years.*
The condition for completing the assignment was clearly to debut.
In other words, it might mean that it doesn’t matter if I leave the group right after we debut.
I could just take out a loan to pay the penalty fee and spend the rest of my life paying it back.
It would be better for the team, too, if an incompetent guy like me left early on.
Strictly speaking, this is fraudulent employment, so I should at least contribute enough to make up for the damages caused by a member’s early departure.
Feeling a pang of guilt, I opened my pathetic holographic resume.
+
Performance Evaluation (100)
— Vocal Proficiency: 4/20
— Dance Proficiency: 1/20
— Self-PR: 12/20
— Punctuality Management: 18/20
— Organizational Adaptability: 10/20
Accumulated Experience: 40
Accumulated Points: 0
+
There they were, the precious 40 experience points I’d earned through indomitable dance practice and overtime.
Wait a minute.
So you’re telling me… even after dancing like a rabbit at a tiger’s birthday party and voluntarily working overtime, I couldn’t even raise my proficiency by one point.
This wasn’t a dirty trick; it was the ultimate life-compression study program.
I guess I was looking for a conscience in all the wrong places. How naive of me, not even realizing my own life was the most fucked up of all.
Anyway, my immediate task was clear: diligently gather experience to earn points.
At the time, gathering another 60 experience points felt like an impossibly distant goal.
However, the very next day, I would manage to fill up all my experience points and receive my points in an instant.
* * *
The incident began with a new task notification that flashed into existence that morning, practically screaming for my attention.
+
[SYSTEM] A ‘New Task’ has been assigned.
▷ Attend first dance class
▷ Reward: Experience (20)
+
This system, after being caught giving out only 20 experience points at a time, didn’t even bother hiding the reward amount anymore.
Because this was the first time the company had created an idol group, they were still in the process of developing a training program for the trainees.
Perhaps that was why, instead of having in-house trainers, UA had a vocal coach and a dance instructor who visited once a week.
Today was the day the dance instructor came.
It was also the day I would, for the first time in my life, present something resembling a dance in front of an expert.
In front of the dance teacher, whom I’d seen a few times on Spark’s reality show, I moved as clamorously as I could.
In the end, all I did was prove I was an empty vessel that made a lot of noise.
The faces of the prospective Spark members were grim, without a hint of a smile.
It seemed they were fed up with my hopeless performance, especially after helping me so much the night before.
This is why you guys never smile. It’s because of you that even when I send the edited photos, I have to hear Department Head Nam say every day, ‘My boy wants the corners of his mouth lifted a little. It’s no big deal, you can do it quickly, right?’ Just thinking about it pisses me off again.
Watching me stagger about in a trance, the instructor hesitated before speaking.
“Iwol…”
“Yes.”
I stood with my hands clasped demurely.
I could feel the instructor struggling to choose his words.
This pause, this tension.
Everything was perfectly set up for me to get wrecked.
An instructor who tries to refine their language in a situation like this is a truly virtuous person.
“You’re going to have to practice a lot.”
“Understood.”
“And not just a lot. You have to practice an incredible amount, and more diligently than anyone else.”
“Yes, I’ll work hard.”
I could say I’d work hard with more sincerity than anyone. My sister’s life and my future were on the line, after all.
Sensing the desperation welling up from my heart, the instructor said no more. I was nothing but grateful.
The problem was that the system, that bastard, decided to pop up and open its mouth.
