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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: The Lucky Roulette
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The daily routine proceeded much like yesterday. The morning was dedicated to vocal lessons for each class.
In Class F, which was overflowing with more tone-deaf trainees than clumsy dancers, Hye-sung’s singing wasn’t half bad. Thanks to that, she got through the vocal lesson without any major scoldings.
After diligently practicing the areas the trainer had pointed out for improvement, she even received a special reward titled [Successfully Grasped the Subject!].
[You have obediently completed the task for the first time after receiving expert feedback. Your Vocal stat has increased by ☆! Current Vocal ★★]
‘I would’ve obediently accepted the dance teacher’s feedback too… Why isn’t my Dance stat going up?’
It wasn't that she hadn't accepted the feedback during dance class; it was that her body refused to listen, making it impossible to execute the corrected moves.
‘Anyway, two stars means…’
It might not be enough to be a singer, but it seemed she had finally surpassed the standard of ‘average.’
After lunch, they filmed their self-appeal videos.
Since everyone had likely prepared the content for their appeal videos since the audition application stage, it seemed to go smoothly for all.
“Hye-sung, what did you do? Yeon-woo said she gave a short intro and then spent the rest of the time with a close-up focused on eye contact. Her company told her to.”
‘That’s why she caught some flak for being lazy, though there were more positive reactions.’
“I just earnestly begged for their support, saying I’d work hard…”
‘It doesn’t matter if a video like this gets buried. I’m more worried about my disastrous class evaluation getting aired…’
The afternoon followed the same schedule: dance class, then self-practice.
This time, it was Jade instead of Kang Min-guk, so she expected to get chewed out even more. However, after noticing a slight improvement in Hye-sung’s skills, Jade let her mistakes slide without much of a reprimand.
“It looks like you’ve all roughly learned the choreography up to the first verse, but can you guys actually perfect this by the day after tomorrow?”
Despairingly, the re-evaluation was just around the corner, so it seemed everyone would have to pull an all-nighter.
‘It’s impossible to perfect this in just five days.’
In truth, it wasn’t even five days. They had started on the evening of the first day, so it was more like four days and a few hours. The evaluation criteria was to show how well you could memorize and perform a song and choreography you’d never seen before in that short amount of time.
Hye-sung continued to practice as if she was truly planning to stay up all night.
After dinner, Kang Min-guk made a surprise inspection, and although it wasn’t as bad as yesterday, Hye-sung got chewed out again.
‘I’ll master this if it’s the last thing I do, just because of that guy.’
She felt tears of frustration welling up but held them back and repeated the moves she had missed.
‘Oh, right. I should try the Lucky Roulette!’
Worried that a physical object like the brooch might pop out again, Hye-sung pretended to go to the bathroom and quietly slipped out of the practice room.
“No one will come here, right?”
Hye-sung looked around a secluded area of the building before summoning her status window.
[Lucky Roulette Ticket (1 use). Would you like to use it?]
[Yes / No]
“Yes.”
[Spin, spin, the lucky wheel START! Here it goes~ here it goes~]
[Congratulations! You've won a 'Lucky Roulette Ticket (1 use)'!]
“What?”
She used a Lucky Roulette ticket to win another Lucky Roulette ticket.
“Again.”
[Congratulations! You've won a 'Lucky Roulette Ticket (1 use)'!]
“Again?”
It felt like scratching a thousand-won instant lottery ticket, winning a thousand won, and using it to buy another thousand-won ticket.
“Spin it again.”
[Congratulations! You've won a 'Lucky Roulette Ticket (1 use)'!]
“…I’m not trapped in a loop, am I? Again!”
[Congratulations! You've won a 'Lucky Roulette Ticket (1 use)'!]
At this point, she was starting to get angry.
“Four-leaf Clover, what are you doing? Activate! Again.”
Hye-sung grit her teeth and spun the roulette.
[Congratulations! You've won a 'Lucky Roulette Ticket (2 uses)'!]
“…You’ve really got to be kidding me.”
Hye-sung took a deep breath to calm her anger and spun the roulette again.
“Spin it twice in a row.”
[Lucky Four-leaf Clover (Normal) has been activated!]
[Congratulations! You've won a 'Martial Master's Elixir (Normal)'!]
[Congratulations! You've won the 'Hidden Trait: '!]
“Possession…?”
Putting aside whether it was good or bad, she doubted her eyes. Was this really a fitting trait for the status window of someone aiming to be an idol?
“The elixir is what I couldn’t afford earlier because I was short on points. As for Possession…”
The Four-leaf Clover must have activated at the perfect moment right before the roulette spun, boosting her luck.
“It has ‘Hidden’ in the name, so it must be good, right?”
Hye-sung was still not over the nightmare of .
“Let me see the details.”
[Martial Master's Elixir (Normal)]
[Description: Increases vitality and stamina recovery speed by 1.5x and boosts concentration by 20%. Duration: 12 hours. Single use.]
[Hidden Trait ]
[Possession a.k.a. Channeling! Allows you to imbue your own stats with those of a designated target. The synchronization rate varies depending on the compatibility and stat difference between the user and the target.]
[Hidden Traits are gradeless traits that can only be obtained from the roulette with a 0.381% chance. They can be used at the user's will. has a 180-day cooldown.]
“Isn’t this… freaking amazing?”
Hye-sung’s eyes widened as she gulped, looking just like a thief who had discovered a treasure.
“And here I was, worried I’d have to perform some kind of shamanistic ritual. Finally, something useful.”
However, the cooldown was 180 days. Once used, she wouldn’t be able to use it again until the program was over.
“I should save this for a competition. Should I take the elixir now, then?”
Hye-sung hesitated for a moment.
“No, I’m not that tired right now, and I should save anything useful as much as possible.”
You never knew when some useless junk would pop up and ruin things.
“What are you doing over there?”
“Hiek!”
Just as Hye-sung was about to head back to the practice room, someone spoke from right behind her. She turned to see a turquoise uniform. It was a Beginner-class trainee.
“You were all alone, but you kept muttering to yourself, so I was wondering what was up.”
*Who said you could speak so casually to me? You’re still wet behind the ears.* The trainee’s attitude irked Hye-sung.
“Just talking to myself. Well, see you.”
She deliberately cut her words short and tried to walk past the trainee, but a hand grabbed her shoulder.
“Ah, sorry. You just looked younger than me, so…”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one. You?”
*I lived to be twenty-seven, kiddo.* Hye-sung barely managed to swallow the words that rose to her throat.
“…Nineteen.”
“Then I am older! I’m your Eonni!”
The Beginner-class trainee acted friendly, pulling Hye-sung into an embrace. Despite Hye-sung being 165cm tall, by no means short, the significant height difference made her look like a much younger sister being held.
‘Why are kids these days so tall… Ah, she’s that girl. The one from the model agency.’
Now, exhausted from practice, she looked disheveled with her tied-up hair coming undone, so Hye-sung hadn’t recognized her at first. But she was the trainee who had made a rather flashy entrance during the agency introductions.
Her name was Seong-bin. She was a trainee with a charmingly tall frame at 174cm, distinct features, and a particularly captivating, wide smile.
During her entrance, Seong-bin and her fellow agency trainees had worn matching white suits. She had swept back her long, silver hair, creating a buzz as people commented that she looked like something out of Greek mythology.
Unfortunately, her skills didn't even come close to matching her charisma.
‘She’s even worse than Im Ye-in.’
Seong-bin’s status window, which had appeared right after the class evaluation, showed her vocal stat was in the negatives. At the time, Hye-sung had clutched her chest in relief, thinking, “So negatives are possible. Thank god that’s not me.”
Over its five seasons, Syunopeu had developed a few superstitions. One of them was that a trainee with a single-character surname and a single-character given name was guaranteed to debut.
As if there was a quota, there was only ever one such trainee per season, so the superstition had solidified into a prophecy. However, Seong-bin had been the first to break that rule and fail to debut.
Conspiracy theorists suggested that Namgung Seol, who had a two-character surname but a single-character given name, might have had an influence.
Of course, that was before the world changed, and there was no telling how things would turn out now. But looking at Seong-bin’s negative vocal stat, Hye-sung figured this time wouldn’t be any different.
“Right. You can speak casually. I’m busy, so I’ll be going now, Seong-bin Eonni.”
Using her signature vacant, dead-fish eyes to subtly signal ‘I don’t have time to play with you,’ she tried to shake Seong-bin off and leave, but the hand on her shoulder didn’t budge.
“What, you knew my name?”
Seong-bin said, her voice strangely excited.
*She’s so annoying. I’m really busy.* Hye-sung sighed quietly to herself.
“Your entrance was memorable.”
‘How could I forget someone who struck such a pose only to get a negative in vocals?’
“Ah, what the heck. That’s embarrassing. You were memorable during the class evaluation too. That dance, I mean. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. That’s why I decided to talk to you.”
*Is she dissing me? Is she trying to say she’s never seen such a bizarre dance in her life?* It was hard to tell if the girl was employing the roundabout speech of a noble lady from a romance fantasy novel.
“…I see.”
“Why the long face? It’s true! That’s why I remembered your name and face and thought I should talk to you if I ran into you.”
Seong-bin seemed a little flustered.
“Did I say anything?”
“You’re not mad, are you?”
“I got an F because of that dance.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Anyway, while you may be in the ‘esteemed’ Beginner class, I’m in F, so I have a lot to practice. I’ll be going now.”
With that, Hye-sung scurried back to the practice room.
“I thought you expressed the song better than Strawberry Killer! Really!”
Seong-bin’s shout echoed behind her.
* * *
Back in the practice room, Hye-sung fell into deep thought about how to use her remaining time efficiently.
‘Looking at the general atmosphere in the class, it seems like the ones who’ll move up and the ones who are stuck in F have been sorted out.’
For now, there didn’t seem to be any trainees ready to move up to Ace. About five trainees looked like they could make it to Middle or Basic. Na Yeon-woo was one of them.
Im Ye-in would escape F, but unless she did something about her vocals, Beginner seemed to be her limit.
Hye-sung herself was in an ambiguous state, hard to classify into any particular class yet.
‘I registered the song for my Chance this morning, and the proficiency is already at 21%.’
It had been less than six hours since she registered the song and started practicing. With her Vocal stat now at two stars, the proficiency seemed to be rising more easily.
On the other hand, her Dance stat was still at 0.5 stars, so even after practicing for nearly 20 hours since yesterday afternoon, her proficiency was only at 12%.
‘I need to get it to at least 50% to avoid getting cursed out by the trainers. Anything less than that will stand out, even if they try to hide me on stage.’
The schedule was extremely tight. After practicing all day tomorrow, the day after would be the re-evaluation and the signal song center selection. The day after that was the recording for the first performance, which would be released on M Space.
‘Who made this schedule so packed!’
Hye-sung plopped down on the floor and tore at her hair in frustration.
Her legs had given out, so she was taking a short break, but a crushing pressure made her feel like she couldn’t rest for even a moment.
‘I have less than 30 hours of practice time left.’
She had already pushed herself yesterday; she couldn’t afford to not sleep at all.
‘Should I take the elixir I got earlier today? It feels like a waste…’
She had to make a decision.
